My tiny playable prototype was set in a world where people who are unhoused and unemployed are deemed non-laborers and are relocated to non-laboring planets. The universe is thus split into laboring planets and non-laboring planets. My main character was someone who was relocated for the first time, except their individual space vehicle was accidentally sent to a laboring planet. On laboring planets, all laborers have a labor clearance that allows them to “stop moving”. If a non-laborer who is not in possession of a labor clearance is on a laboring planet (something that should never happen) and they are not moving, a hole forms around them and they are relocated.
During playtesting, the choices my player had were very micro-level (get out of a car, look around, inspect inside the car) and did not move the story at all. While this level of detail was engaging, they felt like they didn’t get to experience much of the story. I began to think that parser fiction would be a more fitting format for these choices rather than the choice fiction mode I’d used. My next idea will probably be a different story altogether in the form of a parser fiction game.
