What Singleton Knew

First: a single screen is enough. Lords of Midnight had four panels — view, you-are-here, who-is-with-you, what-can-you-do. That was the whole game. We are trying very hard not to add a fifth.

Second: characters that can die in the wrong order. The fact that Luxor or Morkin could fall in the first night of play, with no warning and no reload, is what made every later choice mean something. 1204 needs that knife edge. Theodore Laskaris is not safe. None of them are.

Third: landscape as antagonist. The Bithynian uplands in winter should kill you slowly. Not as a debuff stack; as a sentence in the chronicle that gets longer and quieter until the entry stops.

The thing I am still trying to escape is the lone-hero frame. 1204 was a collective trauma, not a quest. I want the player commanding a court, not a champion. We'll see.