Summary

In "It Must Be Fed" you play as an executioner tasked with sacrificing people to the god named *. You must sacrifice one person per day. The story takes place through short dialogue snippets provided by the people being sacrificed, the executioner's family, and various members of the cult of *.

Controls

There is a tutorial in the game for keyboard controls. You can also use a gamepad. Here are the controls for an xbox controller:

space = a button

q/e = l1/r1

r = x button

WASD = left analog stick

Inspiration

When I saw the theme, I knew I wanted to make something about ethical choices involving the weighing of lives. In particular, I wanted to make a game that presented the player with a choice between the lives of strangers and the lives of their loved ones. Ultimately, the strangers are going to die, there is nothing the player can do about that. So, is it morally permissible for the executioner to kill the strangers, given that not doing so will result in the deaths of his family?

I intend to use the game when I teach students about theories of consequentialism next semester.

Plug

If you're interested in philosophy in video games, check out the Philosophy Game Jam I'm hosting in January. https://itch.io/jam/philosophy-game-jam