Twine Game Prototype
Aims
- To compose an immersive/descriptive script, that would influence players to imagine the world and characters, independently from player to player
- To develop some degree of player agency, providing players the opportunity to navigate freely, preventing linearity
- To build a game that reacts to a player’s actions, e.g. certain actions reveal new dialogues previously inaccessible to the player
Development Process
- Build characters and script: includes personalities, relations and their purpose in the game
- Think of the end game, accusing one from a roster of multiple suspects. This limits scope when developing scenes
- String pathways together – includes alternating pathways after player’s are given a choice. Blocking out previously visited scenes where applicable
- Build clues and evidence system – difficulty to generate an inventory using Twine’s built-in coding engine
Feedback
- Play testers wished for less linear dialogue paths during conversations
- Testers believed that including music and sounds to the game would benefit player immersion
- Most play testers enjoyed the game dialogue and were captivated by the storyline, discussing between themselves to ensure they accused the right suspect
Reflection
This prototype met my intentions for player immersion and agency. When spectating during playtests, players tend to pick different paths to one another. The script was humorous and easy to follow, during conversations players would immediately have their own opinions on each suspect and react to what they had to say.
For future updates, giving players multiple text prompts when replying to NPCs allows for greater control, and less like they are reading a book. Solving the inventory issues will add an extra element to the game, where players are able to recap their discoveries as the game can be quite lengthy.
The game title “Crime Scene” acted as a suffice indicator to what players can expect. This game was always intended to be solely text-based so that player imagination illustrates the narrative, so personally, the inclusion of music or sounds is not necessary.