Into the Abyss: A DarkER Story
Intro & Intention:
Everyone loves detective stories, but not everyone understands what a tragedy means to the victim’s family. In this interactive fiction game, I would let players play the role of a mother who lost her daughter in a murder a year ago and investigates the crime by talking to people her daughter knew.
Having found the interactive fiction the most challenging project, I decided to finish it by fleshing out the story and adding interesting mechanisms. I also added sound effects and visual design.
The game is here! http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/u4pyzpnevue-cdgixzseaq/into-the-abyss
Premise:
The story starts with the mother’s memories and unfolds as she begins her investigation. Here, I used scratch notes to show the characters, locations, plot, and journey in the story.
Process:
After several playtests with classmates and friends, I realized there were several major problems I need to solve.
As some people thought the story was confusing and were unsure about what they were supposed to learn from it, I realized I need to improve the story so that it is clear and engaging. I booked five appointments at Hume Center and got lots of valuable feedback. I revised the language (grammar, word choice & tone) to make it sound more like a mother talking, and I decided to stick to a dark story, which might be very different from many interactive fictions. I also made sure the length is enough to unfold the whole story but not too long that it becomes boring.
Moreover, I decided to assign a unique personality to each character so that it is easier for players to remember their roles and empathize with them. I decided to prioritize finding all clues to letting players make lots of choices because it creates a tension that is important to the story. I also added some sound effects, changed the layout, tried different revealing tricks, and edited the CSS stylesheet.
