Door and Key

Creating a narrative game with a personal story.

What are meaningful choices for the player? We explored the elements of doors and keys in gameplay and connected them with the narrative.

Let us make a narrative game using items, inventory, and various endings with Twine.

Choice is an essential element in a game. From thinking about which game to play to setting my character and playing the game towards the goal, every moment is determined by the “player’s choice.”

In this way, “choice” is regarded as a very natural element in the game, but with more focus on “choice,” “meaningful results” can be created with a “meaningful choice.” The choice can be a meaningful choice depending on who it is for, what moment it is, or what memory it is.

<Coming Out Simulator 2014> is an autobiographical game by developer Nicky Case, and tells the story of the time he came out in 2010. The game mechanic given is to choose an answer. In a situation where Nicky Case comes out to his family, the player becomes Nicky Case and experiences the process of coming out by choosing which answer he gives to his family. The process of playing the game is simple, but the emotions the player feels through play are complex.

In <1979 Revolution: Black Friday>, the player selects a specific moment from the events in play and takes a picture of it with a camera. In the midst of a revolution, the player becomes a photojournalist and takes pictures of the surroundings, and is given a historical background for the situation. The player becomes more deeply involved in the revolution by taking a picture, and the more involved in the revolution, the more the player must “choose” between his/her own survival and moral ethics. This process of choice allows us to experience the complicated side of the revolution, telling us about the true revolution.

These choices are not only used as a means of progressing the game, but an opportunity for the player to think beyond the player’s choices.

We need to think about games that make people think about their choices.

In games where choice itself occupies the main mechanics of the game, we can see the developers have done some serious consideration on the meaning of “choice.” <This War of Mine> deals with various choices. From choosing the necessary items to making ethical choices that affect the mental state of the player, the game progresses through “choices.” <VESPER.5> has a very limited mechanic that allows it to move only one step per day. Players, who can only take one step a day, become cautious with each step, because once they choose the wrong way, it takes countless days to get them back. In this way, the player becomes aware of the “importance of choice” through playing the game.

With aforementioned games, it has been proven that “choice” can become a key mechanic for experimenting with games that contain new meanings. Then, what kind of structure will a game that emphasizes choice have?

In the case of a game in which choice is the main factor in the game, each clue has a divergent structure as the meaning of play varies greatly depending on the player’s choice. This is possible as the structure of the game is different from the linear and sequential structure of existing traditional texts such as books. The structure of the game is similar to the principle of hypertext, in which one information unit, or a node, is connected by a link to acquire information selectively and non-linearly. The player acquires information selectively and progresses through the story.

Twine is a game development tool that emphasizes the visual structure of text. The advantage is that you can easily create games with simple code without any knowledge of programming languages. Twine allows you to create games where text becomes the most important element of play, with the hypertext feature where the player’s choice of text leads to the next text.

Twine has the advantage that after entering each code, it visualizes how the entered codes interact with each other and how the coding process works. As shown in the figure below, you can make a game while checking the process of making a game on a map with boxes and arrows, which facilitates hypertext way of thinking.

After thinking about “choice” in the game, we experimented with the game using Twine, a tool that can best express the mechanism of choice.