When The Sun Went Down
Play here http://stanford.edu/~mgwill/WhenTheSunWentDown/
I always thought of myself as an “idea person”… until I tried to write an Interactive Fiction.
When I was assigned the task of writing a dystopian Interactive Fiction, I was not happy. Anyone who knows me has probably heard me say “words are not my thing.” Though I wouldn’t say coding is either, and I am in my final year studying Computer Science at Stanford. I have come to realize that I enjoy coding, because of what I can create. When I thought of this assignment as asking me to write a story, I was terrified. Ask me to be creative — well that’s just being myself. It was after I got over this hump that my story began to take shape.
When The Sun Went Down is (the start of) a story exploring a world without the sun. Humans were able to survive the darkness, but lost their most human capabilities of connection, creativity, and inner balance. You are a Keeper. You are part of The Balance, whose mission is to bring back the sun by reminding mankind of its light, love, and faith. Not only does the sun fuel us physically and emotionally, it does so day after day. The sun sets to hide the vices of man, and rises to illuminate the virtues. When we are out of balance, the sun is out of balance.
So how did I get here. Here is the story behind my story.
First, I asked my little sister for help.
She is a real life Matilda. Buried in books bigger than her head since age 6, she has written multiple stories of her own. She is an amazing writer and my number one “words person”. When I told her I had to write an interactive fiction, she immediately hit me with an idea.
“You should write about the Seven Deadly Sins. You know like make them little creatures and stuff.”
What.
Okay, I admit. I am a religious person (shoutout to all my Catholics yasss), so that’s probably where she got the idea. Still, she made a clear point. Write about something you’re passionate about. Be you.
My faith is very important to me and honestly something I get hyped talking about. Her idea resonated with me. Plus she is my all-knowing, words-genius old-wise litter sister. Always trust the Buba.
So I dove into my sins y’all. And it got deep real quick. After confirming exactly what the Seven Deadly Sins were, I started idea mapping around each of them — what form they take in my life, what they feed on, what they are driven by. Then I mapped out their counterparts, what they are defeated by, what they are balanced by. I also started seeing common threads among the sins… but that’s for another time.
Sidenote: Maybe this is because my sister suggested they be “little creatures”, but the Seven Deadly Sins really are like characters in stories. They each have goals, motivations, and conflicts… like I said, it got deep real quick.
The Seven Deadly Sins never became actual “creatures” in my story (which is unfortunate because I was so excited for an actual sloth). I realized that writing about something too personal can be difficult in the form of interactive fiction, whose goal is to immerse the reader in the story. I can’t possibly have knowledge about the sins/vices/weaknesses of my readers, so any idea I come up with to “characterize” them is destined to be one-sided. It didn’t feel right, so I went back to the notepad.
Brain dump until there’s nothing left.
The first time I put pencil to paper for the “space” of the story, I drew three intersecting circles. I think I was inspired by two things… my Computer Graphics class where we were learning about light and The Holy Trinity (I warned ya I get hype).
This is where I became fixated with color. I brainstormed around red, blue, and green. They each seemed to have their own innate personalities… and they had strange cross overs with the Seven Deadly Sins. Almost on their own, my ideas began melding into one. I think this is the power of ideating with no limits, no criticisms, no time pressure, no erasing. Just letting your imagination go can create some crazy stuff.
As I thought about color and light, another idea sprung forth. A simple, terrifying question came to me. What if the sun went down and didn’t come back up?
I wrote down anything that came to mind, then I took my favorites and zoomed in even more. No color, no days, no warmth. What would happen without these things? This was the breakthrough for my story. The power of unrestrained imagination. Asking radical, ridiculous questions. At this point I had sufficient material, so I put away the notepad and went for it.
Do the thing.
I built When The Sun Went Down with Twine, an open-source tool for telling interactive stories. I think this is an incredibly usable tool and I loved the hybrid experience of coding, being creative, and writing.
Here are some final shots of the game.
And the real thing can be found here! http://stanford.edu/~mgwill/WhenTheSunWentDown/
Tools and Tidbits
You will notice the game eventually sends you in an endless loop checking on your missions from sphere to sphere. I had so many ideas I wanted to carry out, but alas, there is limited time. Gotta call it somewhere.
Ultimately, you would have located various “seekers” and guided them to know the sun. The balance of risers (the virtues) and setters (the sins) in each sphere would bring back the sun. At the climax of the story, you would meet the sun yourself and convince it that the world is balanced and ready for it to return.
The “seekers” you are searching for throughout the game are based on the Enneagram Personality Types, which I think are beautifully written and super insightful! I would’ve loved to incorporate more of this into the game.
Lastly, the foreign letters in the game are written in Amharic, the main language spoken in Ethiopia. I am studying Amharic this year, so I stuck a bit in the story. For reference:
ሚዛኑ “meezanu” means the balance (in the title of the game)
ሃሌ ሉያ “hallelujah” means praise God
ሰላም “selam” means peace
ፍቅር “fik’kir” means love
ደስታ “desta” means joy
Interactive fiction, I slightly resent you but you have made me stronger.
Menlo Park coffeeshops, thank you for letting me use your wifi all day when I only ordered hot water.
Sun, thank you for inspiring me.
