With my previous game “Mindscape” I decided to pull it out and replay it so I can better pier evaluate it. After I had originally finished the demo of the game and turned it in I left it alone and moved onto another game project idea. This concept still means a lot to me personally and I enjoyed how I was able to make it in the Twine engine. I wish I had been able to add more to it though and really express other ideas I had for the game.
I wish I had been able to add more for the player to interact with. One of my player experience goals was to add more weight onto the timer system I was able to include in my game so to make the choices the player was given more important because of the ticking away of time. This would add more weight to the exploration factor I was also unable to really flesh out in my demo.
My original idea was to include an upwards of twelve doors, the five on the first level and seven on the second. There would only be five doors in total that would actually allow you to progress through the game and win. With the demo, I wanted to include the three types of doors that the player could encounter; empty, secret, and memory. This was to also act as a sort of tutorial floor, the second floor is more serious and time is way more important because of the number of doors available.
Because this game was trying to look at the mental health of teenagers/young adults the memories that they would encounter in this game were going to be centered around the stress that can be caused by parents. I feel like I was able to express this through the one memory you can encounter which was around body image and how parents can affect your personal views on yourself. The secret door, which on this floor contained a friendship bracelet, is meant to symbolize other positive factors that help with your mental health, in this case a best friend. And the empty doors, as well as the constant voice you hear throughout the game, are meant to represent your own hopelessness and self-doubt as you are trying to navigate through your mind.
I also wish I could have made the adding of depression and self-esteem and the decreasing of time more apparent to the player. I wanted to include sound effects but unfortunately the story format I choice did not allow that easily. If I could make this again in Twine I would use a different format. I was also unable to figure out how to make an end to the game, which would include you running out of time, being overcome by depression, or gaining enough self-esteem to wake up. I resulted in just adding in conditions that would make certain text appear when you reached the end of my game based on how much you had of each variable.
I want to finish the game, but maybe in an engine other than Twine. I would love if the game was in the first person and there was more of a ticking timer going at all times rather then just based on the actions you took. There are also other elements that I came up with during brainstorming that I would have liked to include, but were out of the scope that the Twine engine allowed. An example would be random encounters within the hallway with characters that would increase your depression or self-esteem based on your interaction. I was unable to do that with Twine because of the complexity I would have had to go to in such a short amount of time.
