Domina: How Blood Makes a Monster
Dramatic games love to force the player into situations that make them either uncomfortable or question their morality for any myriad of reasons. Sometimes it is to show the gravity of the situation or world the player inhabits, or to better display the cost certain actions have upon others. The trouble is, many players despise these choices, as they often come across as unjustified and bringing the entire experience down with its bleakness. Domina is the answer to this very problem. Domina can be best described as a “gladiator management game,” though that description alone is unable to capture the hidden genius in how the game has players make decisions. The first trick is found in the setting, the last days of the once-great Roman Empire, appropriately bleak and relatively universal. However, a dark setting is not all that helps Domina sell its cruel decisions, the elements of the game itself often allow the player to consider less heroic actions. Money, water, food, wine, reputation, gladiators, ludus staff, tournaments, and more are all vying for the player’s attention, with so much on one’s plate it is easy to see why less moral actions may be justified. The last component-the prestige-is the actual decisions themselves and their accompanying repercussions that follow. When presented with an action that is morally grey, but with high yield, if a player agrees to it a horrifying realization is made. Nothing bad happens to them. This lack of punishment often warps the player into a devil, through their own volition, only made more justifiable as every other character in the game is just as bad as the player if not worse. Domina lets the player create a cycle of immorality, scraping by day by day just for everything to come crashing down. memento mori, memento mori.