Review: The Magic Door
This one is the single most successful interactive story Alexa Skill, so there’s a lot to learn about how to make a great #VoiceFirst game in general! Let’s investigate what makes this door so magical.
The Magic Door sets a benchmark for how successful an interactive story for a #VoiceFirst device can possible be:
- It is currently on position #2 of the Games subcategory of the US Skill store’s featured ranking
- The only other Alexa Skill games with more reviews are quiz games (and the wonderful ‘Yes Sire’, which I’ll review for you soon)
- It has a facebook page with more than 4.7k followers
Where should we start in analyzing why this voice game is so wildly successful?
Wait! What is ‘The Magic Door’ actually about?
This sounds strange, but… I don’t actually know! In contrast to Select a Story and the Mr Robot: The Daily Five/Nine, there is no clear goal that you have to achieve, aside from finding a wizard.
Instead, you explore the magic land of the magic door, and over time, you learn about its people and places. The game’s realm has several regions to explore like the dark forest, the seaside, the mountains and the palace, with each place having its own atmosphere and storylines.
The different areas are connected by inventory items that you need to find in order to unlock certain paths — For example, you need to find an item at the Gnome’s treehouse by the seaside before you can take the pine needle path to the mountains.
Sounds like it lacks a strong plot. How else does it engage its players?
There are several aspects of the storytelling technique that make this game so engaging:
- High rate of interaction
In contrast to many other interactive games, especially those using pre-recorded audio, the scenes are relatively short (about 30 seconds, I’d guess), giving the player a lot of decisions to make - High density of audio effects
There is probably no scene in the game without at least one audio effect, from footsteps on forest floor to an elaborate chorus of ghosts singing ‘Happy birthday’. Also, all the non-player characters have distinct (recorded audio) voices, making this game essentially an audio drama. - There’s no way to lose
Everything you need to do to complete a storyline is to fully explore its respective region. This may sound lame, but it actually sacrifices the challenge aspect for the absence of potential frustration of having to restart the game. - Open prompts
The default way to present a choice to the player is to ask ‘Do you want to do X or Y?’, which is efficient, but reduces the immersion a bit. In most cases, The Magic Door’s choices are given in the way ‘This room contains an X, a Y and a Z. What do you want to do?’. To me, this feels more natural — However, it comes at the risk of confusing the player if they aren’t paying full attention. This risk is mitigated by explicitly listing the options in the reprompt. - Alexa as your companion
In this game, Alexa performs the role of your travel companion, telling the story from her perspective. Sometimes this is skillfully used in the story, for example when you and Alexa get separated by a closing door.
Interestingly, Alexa’s limited third-person point of view reveals a trade-off that a producer of an interactive story obviously needs to make about their protagonist: Either they create a character with a given background, feelings, thoughts and motivations, or they leave the character open for the player to project themselves onto it:
- Developing plausible and deep characters is a core discipline of literature writing, and writing #VoiceFirst games in the tradition of interactive story books makes this the default choice.
The advantage is that you can use strong traditional storytelling techniques, like getting your well-introduced character into a conflict that they need to resolve during the game. - Making the protagonist’s character a blank canvas for the player to fill is more in the tradition of role-play (computer) games. This comes at the cost of giving the player more room to explore and settle in their character, but can build a stronger sense of identification with and ownership of the character.
‘The Magic Door’ stands out as one of the few games using the ‘blank canvas’ approach. The reason this works so well is that the player can ‘re-use’ their character after each subplot, and builds up an inventory and a knowledge of their way around the land of the magic door, opposed to their conflict being resolved and their purpose being fulfilled after one successfully traversed storyline.
Is this also a reason why people come back to this game?
Certainly — Even though this storystelling technique blends together with other retention factors:
- Players identify with their character
Because the lack of information about the character and the narration from Alexa’s point of view ‘forces’ players to do so. - Players get a reward for their investment in the game
After a while players know their way around, find out about what’s going on in the land of the magic door, find items to unlock storylines in different regions, and get mysterious letters. These achievements may sound abstract and insubstantial, but they are an essential part of the hook cycle for habit-forming products. - Exploring the land of the magic door
The game has several regions and storylines, which gives you material for hours to explore and experience. On top of that, the game is continuously maintained and expanded, and you can subscribe for push notifications about the release of new regions.
Impressive! What’s the conclusion, then?
My central question for this review was ‘Why is this voice game so successful, when other interactive story Skills have such a more compelling story?’.
The answer, as we explored, is that ‘The Magic Door’ sacrificed a deep protagonist and its potential for a dramatic story for a setting that allows for extensive exploration and a steadily growing identification with the intentionally undeveloped protagonist.
With which points do you agree or disagree? What have I forgot to mention? What was helpful to you? I care to make these articles as helpful to you as possible, so any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
