Cannibal Lottery is a horror visual novel about a colony of humans who must rely on the support of a cannibalistic group of aliens to survive. Every month there are one or two lotteries to decide who the aliens will get to eat, depending if anyone has died that month. They need two bodies a month to survive.
To make the disturbing content slightly more palatable there is an insane mascot, Masa Murda, who makes light of the situation both as a character of the game and as someone who gives players the puzzles they must solve. She also runs humorous 'after scenes' whenever players get a bad ending, offering tips on how to try again.
You play as Faleena Dancy, the governor of the colony. The cannibals appointed you to the governor post after they ate the former governor, your husband. Your job is to both govern the colony and run the lotteries each month. Unlike your husband, who failed because he tried to always put the needs of the humans first, you're successful because of your pragmatic attitude.
Your best friend is one of the cannibals, a female named Dal-Tor. Because you've formed such a close bond with her both your coworkers and people distrust you. You've been accused of being a cannibal sympathizer. This may seem odd considering they ate your husband, however, a story arc in the games explains why you came to have this attitude and the history behind it.
The game focuses on your role as the administrator of the cannibal lotteries. Lotteries sometimes come with difficult circumstances. There are 15 chapters in the game where you must decide how the lottery results will be decided. For example: when a young single father is chosen you would normally switch to an elderly parent (a policy that's an outrage of the older members of the colony and an elderly member of your staff) but this lottery winner has no suitable family member to switch to. Do you go ahead and kill this father, leaving his children without a parent, or do you lie and say someone else is the lottery winner?
The cannibals have a sacrificial replacement policy where they can kill you if you violate the terms of their agreement with your people. You must balance that risk with making the right decision. At the same time, your people seem on the verge of a revolt due to your being perceived as a cannibal sympathizer. If they revolt the cannibals will likely decimate them--or possibly do something even worse.
The last thing you must worry about is the fact that if the cannibals are starved they lose their minds and go berserk, eating people alive. A 'rampage' happened once in the past, killing dozens of people. You must be sure the cannibals are always fed.
The scientist Veddim Vaddam who is working on a cure for the cannibals particular carnivorous condition. He's promised a cure for years without any results, but you can devote resources to him if you think he'll finally get it done.
You will have 3-5 main choices to make per chapter. Each choice will advance different stats that will influence the course you take through the game. The main goal is to make it through all 15 chapters without being eaten, having a revolt, having a rampage, losing your position as governor, losing your baby (you have a 1 year old) or going insane.
Okay, if you've managed to read all that, and if you're a fan of horror games or willing to give a unique horror game a chance, please give your opinion. Is there anything that would prevent you from checking out this game? What do you like? What don't you like? We've tweaked the game several times to improve it, and would like to improve it further. You guys are our target audience. How can we make this a game you'll love?
We are creating the demo game now and plan to launch a Kickstarter next month. The game will be released on Steam sometime before November 2019.
This will be Y Press Games third Steam game and first horror game. Let's make it a good one!
