Extra Bones' Cryptic Quest
Back in July, Extra Bones was invited to undertake a two week residency at InSitu - a small venue in New Cross, SE London, in the abandoned entrance and cloakroom of the Paradise Bar. For the past 10 years or so, the space has languished in a state of disrepair; used only to store the Royal Albert's barrels and to provide a sparse roof over the heads of roosting pigeons, but for a period over the summer it became home to a series of short exhibitions and projects . Inspired by Andrew Kerr's Hillside drawings for Good Press Gallery's Modern Masters show, we decided to use the space to make an evolving installation/programme of events based around ideas of adventure and exploration -- real, fictional or somewhere in between. The hope was to provide an open, participatory space in which people could do or make things together, and to enjoy the camaraderie of a noble and purposeful quest.
Having made some physical games for previous Extra Bones projects, I decided to attempt to make a computer game for this one. Aside from some unfinished Flash experiments, I hadn't made game before, but reading Anna Anthropy's Twine tutorial some time ago, it seemed a plausible option, and a Choose Your Own Adventure game felt like a good choice for the kind of narrative-focused project that we were putting together. I started to think about the kind of ways I might be able to use Twine - just coming up with thoughts about puzzles or dynamics that lent themselves to interactive text, then I began reading tutorials to see if it was all possible.
Within the installation, the game was intended to weave together the different threads of the residency, using the mythology and folklore of a fantastical shape-shifting island that Andrew had created as its setting. I had a ready-made cast of characters and locations, as well as a structure off which to hang some of the Twine experiments I had been working on. The game was to be available inside the space to be played any time - in between performances and workshops - and without any great commitment. Nothing too game-y; more of a story with game elements. The space itself was a mix of museum stores and Explorers Club trophy room -- artefacts 'retrieved' from the Changeling Island -- and the hope was that people could wander in, take a look at all of the relics or be involved in a workshop, and then set off and visit the Island in the game, enjoy the story, and to seek whatever treasures and secrets it had to hide. One was to reinforce the other.
So we built this peculiar cave of wonders. We covered the holes in the ceiling with a tarp, dumped a fetid, misty swamp inside the old ticket booth and filled the place with pseudo-museological objects -- geology, art, tools, jars of coloured liquids... The game was projected onto a wall behind the old cloakroom desk, underneath the billowing tarp that shielded the pigeons. We borrowed a PC and a big old trackball mouse, which mounted on a carved wooden hand. I wish I'd kept track, but over the course of the fortnight there were a good few people who completed the game.
Now, some months later, I have made a slightly adapted version which can be played online (some of the original version had some site-specific elements to it). It doesn't take too long to play, and I think it uses the stuff of Twine and text in a few interesting ways. Although it may lose something out of the context of the installation, I think it's a nice little story and I think it achieves the message that I hoped it would. Thanks to Andrew for the drawings in the game, and Lucy for the photos above. Also to Porpentine and Leon Arnott for their incredible Twine resources, and the various members of the Twine community whose macros I plundered, without which I wouldn't have been able to make the game. More information about the wider Cryptic Quest project are available here and here. Play the game here. It works best in Chrome because I don't know how to get certain CSS elements working in other browsers. If anyone plays it, I'd be glad to hear what you think.
