The Other Cards

One design aspect I addressed early on was that if players do not re-visit graves, the graves at the end would become progressively easier to guess just based of the remainder of cards. The last guess would simply be the one you haven't visited. 

The easy answer was to add cards that would not be guessed, and could provided extra storytelling, provide elements that helped guess or rule out other cards, etc. There are 24 puzzles, and 35 cards, creating a good ratio. I tried to give these cards a good amount of interest and effort, to make them indistinguishable so they could not be ruled out automatically. These cards are:

2, 4, 7, 9, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24, 27, 32.

2 - Thanks for nothing, Buck: A dismayed wife, burying her husband without too much feeling/regret. This one is a callback to some of the joke graves that one sees when playing RPG's. I know I've played games where there are graveyards, and some tongue in cheek inscriptions are put in (just Google joke Halloween tombstones for things like U.R. Next, Paul Tergeist, or Manny Festation), jokes are made ( Is it me or is it cold in here?), or even that the credits for the developers are found there (I feel like Divinity did this, and Diablo iii has a rift type where all the zombies are named after the developers).

4 -  Jacob Stern- Star of David:  The star has obvious uses throughout the game, but this one was about using the text to display all "directional" language, making it strange to read, and to make players think of the directions. Stern itself is a direction.

"He left knowing rightly , He above would be looking down. "

7 - The Brick Mover: This one had two purposes, story-wise. One is to portray that a man had regret in his occupation. In the end it had little meaning. This one is for me. Second, I wanted to introduce the idea about plots having an cost, and that the one next to those you love may or may not be available or affordable. I hadn't thought of this in the past, and wanted to pass it along.

9 - The Wind Chimes : The name of the game. What percent of graves are visited? When it tapers off and the family forgets or the connection is lost, do the graves just become spectacle and objects of visual interest and consideration to the other visitors? Objects of purely historical value? This one is the bench-style grave, allowing visitors to stay for a while. It harkens to the nights spent on the porch with loved ones, and the wind chimes transport you back.

16 -  John Doe: I wanted to include the obligatory Rest in Peace Message. John Doe graves sometimes also include their estimated age, but the discovered/interment dates were an incredible contrast to the birth/death dates.

17 - The Sphere: This is one of two full-length cards. One interesting thing about headstones is in some shapes, the terracing/stacked forms are referred to as heads , shoulders, and bodies from top to bottom. I can't find the same info graph I saw, so I hope I'm not making this up. I always appreciated Japanese graveyards and the Shinto shrines, and there is a sizable Asian population where I am located.

19 - The Blank Headstone: I wanted this one to raise questions. Is it blank because it is available? Unmarked? Are you looking at the back of it? As with #17, it serves its purpose of not ruling out adjacent cards in the reveal of card 18.

23 - My Best Friend: This is a Four-for-one card. It is the only non-human. I know animals are not always allowed to be buried in human graveyards; I think it comes down to local laws. I think I read that many times, animal urns are able to be at the surface of a human grave. This one is dedicated to my best friend (another subtle nod to my wife). Nina is the name of one of our dogs, but the photo is actually a watercolor I did of our other dog, Thor, that I scanned in and shrunk way down. Yes, he has very long legs.

24 - The Worn Letters: This might be my favorite card. It reads two ways. All letters taken in to account, it is an epitaph from one of the countless common epitaph lists I read. Reading just the more legible letters gives a creepy message. " Eat on a shadow cross - The path to He" As a player of spooky games, I am extremely proud of this one. And who is Mark F Bach? Well, if you know, you know. A little easter egg!

27 - Yeah, F*** you Gerald: This is what my wife said when she read between the lines (actually the first word of each line, in order). Kind words from a wife when read in full, but also reads "This Man Deserves A Shallow Grave". First she was editing and asked, "Should all of these in the first line be capitalized? I said that is the way it is in poetry. Love it.

32 - He really loved the beach: Samual Kerry-Spanner, a reference to Samuel Porter Bridges, of Death Stranding fame. I was playing this when I started making the game. The second easter egg!