Silencer Preview – Anime Expo NYC 2024

The Lords were live at the Anime NYC Convention show floor. During the convention, Lord Sonic got a closer look at Silencer by Diane Wang and her team.

What is ‘Silencer’?

The developer described the game as the following on its official Steam Page;

Silencer is a bureaucratic simulation game about censorship and misinformation in journalism and politics. As a low-level news censor employed by the authoritarian government, Ogalia, the player will interpret censorship protocols, read news articles, and decide if an article should be taken down.

Demo Impressions

The demo playable at the Anime Expo NYC introduced me to the initial mechanics of Silencer. Looking at news articles, being a mixture of standard news articles, memes, and promotional material, you are tasked with approving or denying them for publication.

Your job as a News Censor, approving and denying articles is not unlike games like Papers Please, with that being cited by the developer as a major inspiration, alongside her history as a former screenwriter, and knowledge on news censorship, among others.

Through making decisions, you get emails from publications you approve and deny, with several things happening. One example could be being thanked by a publication, or your outlet outright telling you to type out an apology letter to a publication you wrongly censored.

Silencer offers guidance by giving you a list of publications approved by the state government, which the player can access at any time via the handbook section during gameplay. Another interesting touch is that you can get items like tea, which the developer has deeper plans for.

When the ten-or-so-minute demo ended, I walked away impressed with the ideas on display.

Developer Commentary

I had a long discussion with the lead developer, Diane Wang, explaining a lot about her background in the gaming industry, her inspirations when making Silencer, and overall plans for the final release.

Noticing how text-heavy the demo was, Diane told me about her background as a screenwriter in the film industry and even her struggles with dyslexia. She learned about a special font engine during the development of Silencer, using that tool to help her write the various news articles featured in the game.

With game accessibility being something bought up with I originally went to the booth, Diane made it a point during our discussion how important that is for players. One of the ways she wants to approach this is by having voice acting in the game that can read the articles for players who have a hard time reading.

In addition, the ideas she told me about future builds are quite exciting. A currency system that was present in the demo will be built upon a shop where you can use earned currency for items like tea. Speaking of tea, she mentioned that the item will have deeper implementation in the final release, being used to help the player greatly if they continue censoring the wrong articles.

When asked about Silencer’s engine, Diane told me it ran on Unity, a common engine used throughout the games present at the Anime Expo. And when asked about platforms, PC and Mac are the target ones with Switch and Mobile being options depending on if Diane and her team can get a publisher.

The idea of a mobile (iPad, iPhone) port made me ask how that would be implemented, with how text-heavy the game is on PC. She told me that a ‘Stamp’ system is being considered for future builds and will also come to the PC version. Other interactive moments outside Silencer’s core gameplay loop of approving/censoring were also mentioned.

Team Working on ‘Silencer’

I was given a full list of people working on the project, alongside Diane herself as the lead developer and writer for the game. Composing the game’s music is Aaron Schondoff, with the art team being consisted of a team of three (Samira Herber, Sia Yang, Evie Wang). Diane also mentioned that she and the entire team workshop ideas for the various news articles and posts players approve/censor.

Closing Thoughts

After talking with Diane and playing the demo, I walked away excited to play the finished product when it gets released. Being my first interview with a developer, Diane and the people at the Silencer booth were very kind to me in answering my questions.

The earnest, passionate team is working on an indie project that has the potential to be a cult hit when it releases on PC in the future, so stay tuned for future updates on this exciting title. You can wishlist the game on Steam and play the latest public demo build on the games itch.io page!

Stay tuned for Anime Expo NYC coverage at Lords of Gaming!