Dead Fish Tell No Tales is a four player board party game made at Global Game Jam 2025 in two days, for the theme “Bubbles”.

As such, we decided to interpret the theme as « Speech Bubbles », and make a game revolving around interactions between players.

In this game, Inspector Splenden is stuck on an investigation: it’s hard to understand clues without witnesses. Unless he can talk directly to the victim? Flip and Flop, mischievous clams, run a fortune-telling salon. Their specialty? Talking to spirits. But while one is infallible, the other’s answers are rather approximate…

Each player is assigned a different role : either the inspector, the ghost, or one of the two mediums.

• Absurd and quirky stories.
• Booklets, one for each player, containing different informations about the incident that led to the ghost’s death.
• Multiple roles :
  • Inspector : Aims to find the cause of the victim’s death, thanks to the mediums and clues in his booklet.
  • Real Medium : Must translate the ghost’s words to help the investigator solve the case.
  • Fake Medium : Needs to prevent other players from solving the case, by leading them down the wrongs paths.
  • Ghost : Has to help the inspector find the cause death. Can only speak using the phrases, words, and onomatopoeias from the booklet.

Prototyping

Documentation

• Game Concept
• Rules & booklets

Game Designers

• Kay RODRIGUES
• Baptiste RAYNAUD
• Lionel MENDES
• Océane RAVIER
• Tyler GUERIN