Reflection
Before making my IF game, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect (this was my first one!). I expected that the bulk of it would be an experiment in branching storytelling, mostly about writing and connecting passages. But as I started building, I realized that designing an IF game was much more than arranging choices; it was about designing emotions, and creating moments where players could feel curiosity, hesitation, or even regret through the act of choosing.
My game centered on parent-child connection, sense of belonging, and self-actualization, and I wanted the choices to mirror the inner conflicts of my protagonists. I will say given the time constraint and how it is my first time designing an IF game, going forward, I would definitely like to pay more attention to the mechanic aspect of designing emotions. My current game only has one ending, and most of the choices are linear as it only leads to one ending. So that’s something I’d like to keep working on. But nonetheless, one design decision that I liked was playing around with point of views and perspectives in my game. I incorporated a number of point of views, from Annie’s in second person, third person from other characters, then first person for her internal monologues, and finally switching to second person for for the players to take on the role of Piko post-Epilogue when he continues his adventures and fight in Actara. It was really insightful to see how this simple mechanic worked to shift the player’s emotional experience, or added to the dimensions of their emotional experience as they experienced the narrative from multiple perspectives.
But the process itself of designing an IF game felt more like a mix of storytelling and problem-solving. I found myself thinking not only as a writer but also as a designer, constantly. I think it was really the first time I thought about interface design: How does pacing shape engagement? How can I arrange the texts in the space given to make the narrative more compelling? ow should I carefully plan out the rhythm of the narrative— when to give players control, and when to hold them in a moment.
Watching others play was both nerve-wracking and insightful. Some players picked options I thought no one would choose, and yet their reasoning made complete sense at the end of the interviews. Seeing how they interpreted my story reminded me that interactive fiction is a really a shared act of creation, and with any stories, there are countless interpretations and the meaning doesn’t live just in what I wrote, but also in how players moved through it.
After this project, I’ve started to see IF more as a design reflection that simply just as a storytelling form– it helps create space for people to see their own thought patterns and emotions unfold through play. So going forward, I can imagine using this approach in children’s learning or emotional development, where I will work towards crafting stories that teach not by telling, but by letting players feel their way through the choices they make.
