Interactive Notebook – STUGA2

[I don’t have a name yet, sorry] is going to be my personal project for STUGA2.

A first-person walking 3D simulator based on my old writing notebooks!

Goal

My focus in this project is to find a consistent process to translate my texts into “game language”. The possibility of opening Unity instead of my notebook to bring my ideas and thoughts into interactive narratives rather than words is what I want to develop.

The challenge for me is to reduce as much as possible additional mediums (like text, sound, visual design, etc.) to communicate with the player. The interactions should tell the story or at least suggest it. Of course, I know that completely removing other media from videogames is impossible, but again, the goal is to reduce them as much as possible.

Narrative

As I said, the narrative of the project is based on my old (and new) writing notebooks, where I usually write thoughts, reflections, strange dreams and so on. The idea is to choose some of the texts, or parts of them, and use them to construct the narrative of the game. Given the nature of the texts, the language of the game will be based on sensations, feelings, symbols and connections rather than a linear and explicit narrative. These elements are supposed to be acquired by interacting with the environment (that’s the plan, if I know what I’m doing).

Game loop

The game is set in an empty house, except for a computer. The player can type any word on the computer and, if the word is in the list, a room will be added to the house. These temporary rooms are environmental puzzles to be solved. The interactions needed to solve the puzzles will constitute the narration. Once the puzzles are solved, the room will be removed and an object related to the prompt will be permanently added to the main room. This will give the player some sort of symbolic progression in the file rouge of the story.

Conclusions

Wish me luck.