Documenting my Prototype:
Throughout my interactive fiction (which unfortunately remains untitled until I can escape this creative rut), players adopt the identity of a man haunted by guilt and fractured by memory, forced to relive his past under the fluorescent white lights of an interrogation room. The players’ recollections of his past become canon and ultimately decide his fate as investigators race to uncover details surrounding his missing friend.
Playtester Demographics:
My playtester was Julia Kao-Sowa, a 22 year-old female graduate student. Julia has limited (but non-zero experience) with playing interactive fiction, most of which comes from Choose Your Own Adventure books in elementary school; she’s titularly familiar with interactive fiction video games such as Doki Doki Literature Club, To The Moon and Undertale, but has never played them herself. She considers herself a fan of the genre, from what she knows of it.
Image: Julia playtesting my prototype.
Player Observations:
- Story was interesting! Really likes the writing and descriptors — it’s intriguing.
- Not sure how much impact choices actually have (Note: Need to decide if it’s stylistic or unintentional?)
- Is there deeper symbolism / meaning to the game and the breakdown of John
- Clock descriptor is funny
- Make more choices that feel like they matter
- Thinks it will be really cool when coded up / put into software! Will make it more playable for testing all the routes.
- Wants visuals (Note: not sure how feasible this is going to be)
- Feels vibe-wise similar to psychological horror film synopses she’s read on Wikipedia – (Note: good thing!)
- Need a wrapped up ending!
Responses / Fixes:
In response to Julia’s comments above, here are my comments on the current fixes:
- I want some choices to have an actual impact. Other choices are purely functional — designed for players to feel more connection and empathy for John and Ash. Player choices building the reality of this story, of who Ash really is, and how everything unfolds. Choices structured in this manner, though not the most impactful in terms of ending, are arguable more personal this way. Though it may not narratively change much, it provides the illusion of deeper connection with this character.
- I do want to make the endings different! However, I need to determine what I want all of my end states to be. There are too many possible options — I have to keep reminding myself: a chapter, not a novel.
- State tracking would be cool to implement, but I’m unsure of where it would fit / if I’m intentionally overcomplicating my narrative.
- My game will be transferred over into software soon! Stay tuned.
- Visuals are in talk with my brother (an animator), but I need to wait to hear back if he has bandwidth to help draw stuff for this project! If not, maybe he’ll have time for Project 4 (👀)
Conclusion:
- I need to solidify what I want my endings to be, and what I want them to achieve. However, more importantly, I need to clarify what I want players to take away from this experience — it is merely a slow descent into delusion (depending on your choices), a commentary on guilt and loss? I’m really pleased with the current emotional tone my narrative evokes — it aligns really well with the psychological absurdism I’ve been aiming for. Stylistically, my current North Star is the ending of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!
