Before making my game
Before making an interactive fiction game, I assumed all IF games were similar to Episode—story-driven experiences with branching choices and dialogue trees. Through this project, I learned that IF games can take many forms—linear, branching, exploratory—and that developers can use different design choices to immerse players in a world or evoke specific emotions such as empathy.
During the project
My game, Trial 47, places the player in the role of a lab-grown rabbit transferred from a farm to a clinical testing facility. The story is told through fragmented sensations rather than language—muffled voices, sterile air, shifting temperatures, and the faint heartbeats of other rabbits. I focused on a narrative-driven experience centered on sensory detail and emotional immersion from the rabbit’s perspective. During prototyping, I iterated on descriptions and player choices to make them feel realistic. Initially, I included an ending where the rabbit could save its friends and escape, but I later removed it—it felt implausible given the limited agency of a real lab rabbit. Instead of dramatic actions, I emphasized subtle gestures like sniffing objects, examining lab notes, or comforting other rabbits, highlighting the quiet resilience of the character.
Creating my own IF game taught me the difficulty of aligning narrative with the player’s GMC (Goal, Motivation, and Conflict). It’s crucial to communicate the protagonist’s intentions and struggles, both internal and external, while finding subtle yet engaging ways to reveal them (for example, through sensory detail or the environment rather than explicit exposition).
What I would do next time
If I had more time, I would expand how the rabbit (player) communicates and interacts with others beyond small physical gestures like nudging or burrowing. I initially removed all English dialogue between rabbits to maintain realism, but after exploring other animal-perspective narratives, I realized I could have created a unique “language” system grounded in how rabbits might perceive the world. For instance, Warrior Cats introduces a unique vocabulary—cars become “monsters”—which deepens immersion without breaking plausibility. A similar approach could have added more emotional depth to Trial 47.
