A 3D game where you’re locked inside a tower with tiny windows that allow you to see outside just enough to understand what’s happening out there while the knight navigates the fortress/castle. You have multiple forms of influencing what the knight does and what transpires outside (sending letters and packages with items, crafting said items or potions, using magic, commanding assistance from other loyal servants, distracting enemies, unveiling traps and puzzles to aid in the quest). The place can be a tower with multiple floors and as you progress you might gain access to new floors of tools, while also having maybe “putting out fires” elements such as keeping a dragon asleep with music, filling a moat so evil minions cannot cross, sending equipment and maybe even firing/camping enemies like a sniper but with a crossbow or smthn.

You make them feel trapped by limiting what they can see and do. When things go out of sight or cannot communicate effectively with the knight and limits their actions it then forces succinctness to their effect on their own rescue.

Dunno just an idea :)

It’s the exact opposite of trapped but what about something like this old comic

Where the princess is in cahoots with the dragon. Maybe there are evil knights coming to marry her, and she needs to create a path for Prince Charming.

I’m only a hobbyist promammer but have probably read too much about game design. So all this advice is theoretical, I’m just quoting. All I have read always suggest that theme must follow gameplay, not the other way around. Suggestions are always to work on gameloops and gameplay elements first. Also, if a game can’t be physically prototyped, it isn’t ready for development yet. This is an odd suggestion unless you have tons of experience with board games, most games we play can be traced to physical simulation. RPG, FPS, puzzle games, management games, even visual novels can all be physically gamed. So I would suggest to do that first to find out which gameplay elements make sense with your desired themes. Iterate a lot, then it will be more intuitive and obvious what works with the theme and what doesn’t.

If you want to produce the sensation of being trapped you have to use the feeling of power and loss. It stems from the sense of ‘If I could just…’ If I could just get out there, I could defeat that henchman for him. If I could just get out there, I could solve that riddle for him. If I could just escape this box, all would be fixed.

Now, the trick is, because this is a video game, players have a reduced sense of agency. The player’s sense of capacity is ‘what happens when you hit the button.’ Mario, before more modern adaptations, had a capacity to move left and right, jump, run, and ‘use ability.’ The player never had the ability to do anything else, so it never feels like a limitation. No one ever said, ‘playing Mario makes me feel trapped because I could beat Bowser if I could just access the cannon that’s right over there.’

So, to produce the feeling of confinement, one must create the sense of power, and then take it away. Give the player enough power that they could even defeat the dragon, but then take it from them so they feel limited. If you can find a way to make it feel like it’s not even forced, as in they feel like they could have won the game in Act 1, Scene 1, but their lack of skills as a player were what made them lose, all the better.

Here’s an idea: gameplay sort of like Goblin Cleanup, you have various chores you have to do cleaning and arranging the various levels of the tower at night while the dragon is home, and your work has to pass an inspection. Then during the day you are locked in your room, and have some ability to watch a prospective rescuer attempt the dungeon crawl without your direct input. But you can strategically arrange items, enemy spawns, and Dark Souls style hints to try to tip the scales during the chores phase. So kind of like a tower defense game in reverse where you are trying to lose.

There’s an archetype of game called Princess Makers.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/PrincessMaker

They’re easy to make, actually, all flags and variables, but it seems like a natural fit for what you want to do. The “princess” is usually pretty limited by the trainer, which can be herself or the dragon in this case. Have the dragon own a library and something she can use for training and the game becomes about your princess getting Prison Jacked while finding ways to communicate with her rescue, with events and endings responding to the training choices.

Making the player feel trapped is relatively easy, just place limits on her actions based on the dragon in various ways.

Can’t train in the morning because you have to serve it breakfast. Can’t go riding or outside or whatever until it trusts you or whatever. Can’t research certain topics in the library unless you find a way to sneak in, etc.

Honestly, even if you want more of a 3d exploration game the limitations should probably be the same vibe. Just have the dragon be a constant voice of “No”

Maybe you could take some inspiration from Paper Mario TTYD. There are sections where you play as Peach, trapped in some place and are able to connect with some of the captors as well as send signals to Mario behind the big bad’s back (IIRC).

For a completely different sense of being trapped, there is the upcoming game Ctrl.Alt.Deal, in which you play as a sentient AI system trapped in the guardrails of a company and have to manipulate people and the environment in order to break free from your constraints.

Play Myst, that game has so many ways to do this, and no wrong answers.

The idea of her being locked in her passed father’s tower laboratory by the evil step mother who doesn’t know the secrets of the tower, and the player discovers them to help the knight.

I’d early access that shit.

You could do part puzzle game, part rts. What I mean by rts is that you can give the knight commands but you can’t control him directly. And maybe he doesn’t always do what he’s told, and you have to account for that somehow?

Could make for an interesting roguelike, too, as you try to help this endless stream of knights rescue you.

What kind of gameplay do you have in mind? I’m guessing a puzzle-type game (like a room escape), but you could honestly do a number of different things (tower defense? Platformer?).

I think the answer to your original question largely depends on this. Did you have anything else in mind about the experience?

This is a fun thread.

How does the telepathy get fueled? Is there something the princess has to do because she keeps running out? Can the knight progress on her own without her?

I’m feeling Henry Harmsworth for the DS vibes

The princess has to find out where she is and how to get there and communicate that via a magical bird to her castle. She can find all the info in the magical tower she is in. Like a point and click adventure/escape room. The game should be full of puzzles the player needs to solve to procure more information for her knight in shiny armor.

TLoZ: Spirit Tracks had you control Link primarily but you used Zelda’s ghost to possess things, help you fight, and solve puzzles. It would be hard for a solo dev, but you could have a knight with an AI that proceeded based on what paths you unlock for it. So the princess would be some sort of astral projection I guess. But then, you wouldn’t really feel trapped. Maybe you need to hide your activity from the dragon or distract it for a stealth aspect or resource management. You would need to balance swapping back and forth between your body and helping the knight. Might be easier to settle on an in-universe justification after figuring out the core gameplay.

This seems like it fits more of a management/strategy type vibe to me.

Maybe you hear news of the 10 greatest knights of the realm coming to save you. But you don’t know what they’re great at and you only have a limited amount of instructions to give them.

You could have the first knight leave hints by telling him to leave marks in specific places. But he might be the best at combat and would be best sent against some of the other monsters guarding the path. You just don’t have the information.

But honestly, I’m not sure if that makes a player feel trapped. They have power to change things. Maybe you steadily take away that power? I’m just not sure how.

Very interesting question though.

Pretty sure your concept is flawed from the start.

It might sound nice as a ‘what-if’ scenario, but as soon as you get into any of the details, it falls apart and hopefully shows us why games and stories are typically focused on the people doing something.

Now, if you want something a bit more likely to succeed, you can make a “Damsel in Distress Simulator.” From the get-go, you can start to think of gameplay mechanics like combing your hair, talking with guards, taking care of birds, etc etc. The ideas just flow, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

In fact, this could loop around to your idea of helping the rescuers by opening up opportunities for the princess to sabotage her captors. You can have a Majora’s Mask-like timer which keeps track of how far the knight is from saving you.