Inspirations:

This game was made as an artefact for my final year research project on exploring the impact of player-avatar relationships on branched narrative decisions.

The artefact itself takes inspiration from narrative games where choices have major impacts such as:

• Dispatch

• Baldur's Gate 3

• Doki Doki Literature Club 

The game involves a world where the choices made towards characters can cause their behaviour to change around the player. Navigating this phenomenon, the player meets the cast and can befriend or antagonize them. 

What went well:

The implementation of the handling of the game level shifts worked as designed and can demonstrate an active reflection of the affection bar and by association, the weight a player's decisions have on the narrative. 

Challenges:

Challenges occurred with the initial use of tooling to handling the game scripting. Compatibility issues meant that the script files I had worked on were unable to be loaded correctly into the game engine.

In response, I adjusted my scope and made a shorter scene allowing me to work the script within the game engine itself. This helped to maintain progress on the game development.

Lessons:

While it was unfortunate that the tooling method was unsuccessful, the current implementation demonstrates a good vertical slice of the game. To transition to a publishable prototype, I plan to expand the current storyline before expanding the cast and reworking the metrics that impact the affection stat. 

This will open oppurtunities to alter starting relationships between the cast as well as further explore the character's and the world.