Postmortem: Writing Compelling Interactive Fiction
House of Loki » Devlog
This project was my first real attempt at writing a purely text-based interactive game. I am fortunate enough to have writing peers who are excellent critiques, so I wanted to share some of the lessons learned that came out of this project. The full postmortem that breaks down my process is available on medium with the rest of my design essays: https://lnkd.in/gY7KgCJ7
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Introducing choices early creates immediate engagement and sets up the precedent that the game is listening. It’s better to pay this off sooner rather than later, or you betray that trust with the player.Make sure there is context for choices. Without context, there are no stakes or emotional investment, which is no choice at all.
Be clever about where you branch a story and keep it minimal. Don’t branch early, because you will have a monster on your hands.
Use micro-decisions where you can to create a sense of player ownership without having to branch. Micro-decisions don’t create new branches but DO create new text. (More on the postmortem, but TLDR: micro-decisions are choices that don’t create a new branch but change an element of the story. Like adding titles to characters, or changing the description of how they walk if injured, etc).
1 choice is not really a choice, but might be thematically appropriate or necessary to progress. 2 choices can create dramatic tension. 3 is the ideal median. 4 let’s you lock choices off. 5+ is excessive but can be fun and makes for good micro-decisions.
It's better for the player to be aware that their decisions lock branches off, than not knowing and assuming the game is linear. This is why Telltale has prompts like "X remembered that."
The inverse of that is labeling/highlighting unique choices based on how players have played or built their character. Eg. Baldur's Gate: "[Bard] You came from the same school and recognize the tune." This creates a selection bias - people think it's the better choice because it's "unique".
Leverage cumulative player micro-decisions to a climactic branch for the most organic and memorable experience. If you do it well, players will be surprised that the game took all their micro-decisions into account and paid it off in a dramatic way.
For more, you can join the lively discussion on reddit: https://lnkd.in/grHmuAY7
House of Loki
A story about the children of Loki and the perils of prophecy.
| Status | Released |
| Author | Keikube |
| Genre | Interactive Fiction |
| Tags | Dark Fantasy, Female Protagonist, Folklore, Indie, mythology, Narrative, Norse, Short, Text based, Twine |
More posts
- What Does It All Mean? A Literary BreakdownJan 12, 2023
- Release StatsDec 18, 2022
- 1.01 Minor Bug FixesDec 16, 2022
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