I have an idea for a game: It's the usual "a princess is kidnapped by a dragon and a brave knight is on a quest to rescue her" story. But you (the player) plays as the princess, who is somehow helping the knight on his quest.

The issue is that since the player is playing as a trapped character, I want to make the player feel trapped, but I don't know how to do that.

My original idea is that the princess telepathically communicates with the knight and tells him what to do. But this doesn't work, the gameplay is identical to the player playing as the knight. How can I make the gameplay feel like the player is playing as the princess (and thus feel trapped) instead of the knight?

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[–] Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Funny enough, I just finished playing through Paper Mario 64, and you've basically described Peach's chapters. She's able to pass on messages by way of using another character as a messenger.

The way the game is structured is there's a mini Peach chapter in between each main chapter, but I think it would have been intriguing if you never actually got to see Mario's side of the story and only heard about his adventures from the guards, diary entries, etc. Cool idea for a puzzle game!