Since my first year of college, I wanted to go into filmmaking. It was always such a difficult medium for me to master as a single person. Working on sound design, cinematography, and set design on top of creating a script and finding actors made it a very difficult medium to pursue single-handedly. This project in interactive fiction has opened my eyes to the capabilities of story-telling through video games. Just like a set or body language in a movie can convey themes in nuanced ways, different mechanics in a game can accomplish the same thing. Sometimes it’s even more powerful because players’ only interactions with that subject matter will be interacting with it the way you want them to.
I made my interactive fiction game fun through its narrative and challenge. I gave players the opportunity to make difficult decisions surrounding subject matter they would likely care about if they are in college, care about Greek life, or want to explore different dynamics of masculinity. I wanted players to also feel a bit of dread navigating a space designed to allow behavior unrestrained by rules. Secrecy in pledging, in-house activity separate from broader campus, and a flawed Title IX process all make it hard for victims to speak up against the house. The objective of the game captures this helplessness and furthers this theme by forcing the player to balance making immoral decisions to influence the fraternity’s culture the way they want. I also added resources to one of the pages in my game for players to read more about the obstacles posed by the Title IX process in case they were unfamiliar with it.
I felt uncomfortable watching other people play it at first. I wondered if they thought that the brainless dialogue was a manifestation of my own poor articulation or if it added to the personalities of these characters. Later, I found it encouraging that players found it interesting and that they enjoyed some of the mechanics I added to make it more interactive like my quick time events.
Moving forward, I would like to flesh out this game by making the characters more defined and adding more nuance through additional story. I know that the way to make some of these one-dimensional characters more appealing is making them likable in some way. Whether that be witty dialogue or a touching back story.
Moving forward, I would love to use interactive fiction as a medium to express some of my thoughts and opinions. I think it is an excellent form and requires good writing just like any other story-telling medium.
