P2 Reflection
The Mystery of a Mystery IF
Conceptually, I was really excited about this interactive fiction (IF) project, for the many possibilities of expression and communication. At the same time, it felt daunting to create an entire story from scratch, especially when I have little experience in creative writing.
In the end, my main challenge centered around the scope.
At the beginning of the process, I allowed myself far too long to brainstorm a variety of ideas without any direction. I even dug into my past journals to find potential seeds of a premise for a dystopia. Nothing felt right. I was stuck searching for the perfect idea.
At one point, I needed to start fleshing out the content, so I chose an idea that I found intriguing: other people define who you are. I had no idea how, but I ran with it.
To tell the story, I decided to use a mystery. Both the protagonist and player will start with a blank slate. As the player uncovers the rules and truths of this world, they also need to decide their relationship with it. This genre permitted me to work on the beginning of the story without defining the rules of the dystopia, resulting in painful consequences later.
As I plunged into Twine, I became caught up with the various interactive effects the software afforded. This desire to make everything look aesthetically pleasing is one of my weaknesses, a big distractor from the main task at hand.
Playtests of the beginning of my IF revealed that these visual and interactive elements I added in Twine successfully achieved a sense of mystery and intrigue about the story. People wanted to learn more. Me too! Unfortunately, I did not yet have the answers to the mystery.
The use of mystery led to another challenge related to player choices. How do I maintain a sense of mystery while still giving players useful information to understand the world? How do I balance choices that give players information and those that advance the plot?
I tried to build two types of choices: one around what information about the world is revealed and another on what actions advance the character in the current world. I think these types emerged because I had two goals for the character: to find out about their past and to do something about the current world.
It was difficult to strike a balance between the two; the lack of context and information take away from the flow of the narrative and render choices less meaningful.
Through playing and reviewing other IFs, I realized that an IF does not need to have choices throughout the story. In the beginning, it is more important to ensure players understand what is going on in the world in order to build the context for more meaningful choices later in the story.
After finally figuring out the premise, I should have revealed more information upfront in the story, as opposed to having the player explore and find out on their own. To scope down the complexity, focus on only one of the choices: those that advance the character in the current world.
Because I spent too long wrangling with the idea and the premise, I was not able to iterate on my IF and test other storytelling strategies.
In the future, write a draft of the entire story in a text editor first before incorporating the interactive elements. Focus on the content: develop a concrete premise and define a measurable outcome. Do not get sidetracked by technology before you have a plan for the entire story.
Paint the IF as a piece of art. Sketch the story and fill in and enhance parts as necessary. Work on it as a whole rather than linearly from start to finish.
Despite the frustrations that I had in creating my first IF, I am even more excited about this medium after the course. I look forward to my next IF project (and improving upon my first)!
