50 words
BYOG 2026 : 72-Hour Game Jam · Solo Project
50 WORDS was created for BYOG 2026, a 72-hour game jam, and developed as a solo project within the jam's time constraint.
The game is a psychological interrogation built around a simple constraint: the player has only 50 words to question a suspect.
A murder has occurred at Marlow Clock Tower. Tobias Crane, its caretaker, claims he knows nothing about it. Question him, uncover inconsistencies, and use what you learn across multiple interrogations to reconstruct what really happened.
Every question has a cost.
The player must decide which information is worth spending their limited words on. When the interrogation ends, discovered evidence and contradictions persist, allowing the player to approach the next attempt with more knowledge.
The result is a loop of questioning, failure, remembering, and trying again.
Running out of words does not mean starting over.
Evidence discovered in one interrogation becomes knowledge for the next. New questions become available as the player establishes connections between Tobias's answers, the tower, and the events of the night.
The player gradually builds a case rather than simply progressing through a linear conversation.
Tobias's story begins to fall apart through small inconsistencies.
He knows details he should not know. His alibi conflicts with the clock. His answers reveal information he claims he never witnessed.
The player must identify these contradictions and use them to push the interrogation further.
The investigation eventually turns inward.
The person who went upstairs with Ines and left through the east door was not Tobias.
It was the investigator.
The interrogation was never about discovering who was responsible. It was about recovering a memory the player had forgotten.
The game is designed around repetition rather than traditional progression.
Each failed interrogation gives the player more context for the next attempt. The questions themselves become the puzzle: deciding what to ask, what to remember, and when to confront Tobias.
The final reveal reframes the entire loop, turning the player's repeated interrogations into part of the story.
