Designing this game was more challenging than I thought. Maybe this was because I haven’t written any form of fiction in over ten years, or because I just really struggled initially with creating a compelling story. At the same time, actually delving into the affordances of interactive fiction, and the world that I was creating was extremely rewarding.
I think the sort of fun that my game afforded was geared more around the initial mystery surrounding my character: they seem to be flawed but it’s never really clear what it is exactly that they have done. The mechanics of slowly revealing each line individually throughout my entire story really teases both this mysterious setup that I had created, but also at the pace of someone’s thoughts while stuck at sea with nothing to do. Following some initial feedback (and Christina’s lectures), I also tried to be intentional in creating situations that propose very hard choices for the play to take. For example, there’s a point in my story that the main character must choose between eating or feeding their dog a biscuit. No matter what they choose, there will be negative consequences. And, these consequences will be referenced later on, to show the player that there is actual weight to their input within this story.
While I was proud of my outcome, it was still very uncomfortable to watch some people play my game. It was comforting to hear Christina constantly say that this feeling is actually a good thing, because it just felt very awkward to talk about my half-baked ideas with other people. Over time, this feeling passed though, and I really embraced how much other people’s input truly shaped my story. I also feel that Twine played a huge role in my interactive fiction design. By physically being able to see the structure of my story, I was able to map it over three distinct parts and then create them accordingly. Some moments (such as flicking a light making my text flicker as well and the background changing color) weren’t necessarily practical, but they were designed with the intention of making the viewer more curious and immersed in the world I was creating. I honestly learned a lot about worldbuilding and structuring my story before developing it. Writing something and getting so attached to it at this point of my academic journey was definitely a highlight of this class so far!
