Premise
In a future that could be our own, the human race has made the philosophical “Experience Machine” a reality–a devise you can put your body in to live any life whatsoever. In this machine, you can choose to be and do every and anything you want, endlessly. But there’s a problem. This feeling keeps plaguing you–a numbness. Despite the ability to do anything and everything whenever and however you want, you can’t help but feel like it’s all fake, all artificial, and that you need something more.
Somehow able to force yourself to disconnect from the machine, you find your body in a bleak, bland facility. You’ve lived so many lives in the machine that you don’t know who this body was before the machine–if there was something before then. Attempting to connect with reality and get out of the machine, you find yourself unable to move. Your brain is only trained to communicate directly with a computer, not with your body. You must use cunning and perseverance to escape this facility. But when that comes all to easily, you have to wonder if you’ve actually escaped or if you’re still in a machine, bending to your will.
As you exit the experience machine time and time again, you uncover layers of the mystery of how you got here and how you can escape for real. But realizing you’ll never know for sure if you are living in your real body or a simulation, perhaps whether you’re in “reality” ceases to make a difference. Is there any way to escape the numbness?
Map
Project Plan
10/18: Flesh out the world, start to create some puzzles and hints that will help the player progress on each iteration of the play
10/20: Play test more fleshed out version of the prototype with lo-fi prototype
10/22: Finish refined, text-based prototype
10/23: Play test refined prototype
10/25: Reassess if this should be a parser fiction or a choice-based game. If parser fiction, create an MVP of the parser fiction
10/27: Playtest MVP.
10/28: Incorperate feedback and build out the branches of the story. Refine puzzles.
10/30: Final play test.
10/31: Make final revisions, complete writeup.
11/1: Revise writeup and submit.
