The Shrouded Isle explores a different kind of evil - one more based in cruel decisions that affect and harm people. Placing players in the role of a high priest, it's up to them to choose sacrifices, suss out sinners, and keep a vicious god contented, doing so through merciless, cold choices.

With a new update bringing new personality traits to sinners, new events to trip up potential high priests, and new purification rituals, we spoke with Jongwoo Kim, Designer and the Programmer for The Shrouded Isle, to learn a bit more about maintaining power at the expense of others, and conveying that, as well as the experience of running a cult, through gameplay.

What drew you to explore the idea of running a cult in a game"

Jongwoo Kim, Designer and the Programmer for The Shrouded Isle - The Shrouded Isle began as a game jam project for Ludum Dare 33, the theme of which was "You are the monster". Instead of making a game about a physical or literal monster, we wanted it to be about a moral or administrative monster - someone who makes callous decisions for reasons far beyond the people who are affected. The player is not the dark god Chernobog himself, but merely his high priest, committing unspeakable deeds in his name.
What thoughts went into designing gameplay around running a cult" What elements did you want to include, and how did you want to turn them into play mechanics"

Very early on, we decided to centre the game around a dark ri...