Fool Aboard

SYNOPSIS

A faceless steward steals passengers' lives on an airship's voyage, one piece at a time.

London, 1926. The maiden voyage of the Albion line's newest airship. Every berth is sold.

You wake up in the cargo hold in a steward's uniform with a small brass bell in your ear. Nobody remembers your face. Nobody looks at the stewards.

Twice before, a passenger has come home from a voyage a stranger: the right face, but someone else behind it. The papers call it the Gangway Ghost.

Now it's your turn. Pick a passenger and take what they're known for, one piece at a time: a ring, a jacket, a toast at dinner. Keep going until they're nobody, and you are them.

But somebody aboard is listening for a bell.

HOW TO PLAY

- Choose a life from the portraits in the corridor.

- Click to talk, look and choose. Hold to take something that isn't yours.

- Keep an eye on the suspicion meter. Get caught and it's over.

- Each ending is a tarot card. Collect them in The Deck.

- Everything you learn about the passengers goes into the Passenger Manifest.

- Best played with sound on. Mouse only (plus Space for one moment, when you need it).

Two lives are open for the jam: the Duke and the Inspector. Captain Holt's and Vivienne's lives come later.

HOW I USED DREAMLAYER

DreamLayer generated the art for Fool Aboard: the passengers' portraits, the rooms of the airship, the props and the opening cutscene. I then touched up some of the images in ChatGPT, since the jam encourages mixing tools.

The whole game is about a face slowly disappearing, so each passenger starts from one reference portrait that I approved. Every later stage was built from that same reference, so the Duke stays the Duke while he loses his ring, then his jacket, then his colour, until nobody is left in the frame. The rooms work the same way: when a passenger is dragged off to the brig, the lounge stays the same and only that person is gone.

CREDITS

- Design, writing & art direction by me

- Art: generated in DreamLayer, touched up in ChatGPT

- Code: TypeScript + Phaser 3, written by me with the help of Claude Code

- Music: Chopin, Nocturne in B major, Op. 32 No. 1, performed by Olga Gurevich (Musopen, public domain)

- Sound effects: made in code

- Fonts: Cinzel and Cormorant Garamond (SIL Open Font License)

Made for the DreamLayer Game Jam, 2026.