Currency & Captivity, My Interactive Fiction Game: Rough Draft
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on an interactive fiction game. When I read the game assignments and looked through the possibilities for types of games to make, the interactive fiction games really excited me. I love creative writing, by which I mean I love writing fictional stories. (There’s a reason I’m not an English major concentrating in Creative Writing…lol.) I haven’t written anything truly creative (by my standards) in a long time, so the idea of writing a story and putting it in a “choose your own adventure” type format sounded really fun and appealing.
I used Ink to create my game. At first, the scripting language seemed a bit intimidating to me because of how complex it could become, but after reading through the instructions on the website and watching a couple YouTube videos, I found it quite easy. It definitely takes work to connect all the storylines and scenes, but it’s been really fascinating to do!
As soon as I decided I wanted to use this format, I immediately began brainstorming. I used Notion (a useful application for writing and organizing information) to give myself a place to dump all my thoughts. I even took notes from my writing board on Pinterest, in which I’ve saved tons of writing prompts and tips.
The premise of the game is that the player is a student at a magical university in a world very similar to earth—the main difference is the presence of magic (think the magical atmosphere of Hogwarts or Diagon Alley, but everywhere). The game begins in a magical thrift shop, and the player chooses an item. This will set them on one of three main paths. There is an overarching problem they need to solve to reach their goal successfully.
I’m not done with the game yet, largely because I need to fill in some scenes for my storylines. I know the successful ending of the story, but I’m still working out exactly how the player will get there.
Throughout the story, there are “Disconnected Scenes,” which are scenes I’ve written or planned out but need other scenes beforehand. For example, I’ve planned a sequence of scenes A, B, and C. I’ve written A and C, but still need B. In that case, C would be a disconnected scene. Additionally, I have some sentences written in brackets; these indicate the basic actions taken, but I want to flesh them out more so that it feels more like a story and not just flat sentences.
Quick heads up—there will be a lot of reading in the game; it’s called interactive fiction for a reason, after all! My goal is for the player to truly experience the world I’ve been creating and to feel like they have agency in the way the game advances. These feelings may not be as clear for players at the stage my game is in currently, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to fill in gaps and expand scenes to provide a more extensive and richer experience.
My favorite scenes to write so far have been the interactions with Brad. I don’t want to spoil the game, so I’ll simply say that those parts were fun to work with, especially the kitchen scenes.
I really hope you enjoy playing it! I’ll post an update once the game is complete.
Here is the link to my game:
