Industry Practice - Session 1: Interactive Fiction Games

 Industry Practice - Session 1: Interactive Fiction Games

In this lesson we were to choose three interactive fiction games, play them whilst taking screenshots, and think about the games art styles, mechanics and how the story is told.

the first game I chose was VVVVV by tanaw: https://tanaw.itch.io/vvvvv

VVVVV is a game that has a very soft art style, with a heavy reliance on a monochromatic colour scheme. This makes it very comfy to look at and easy on the eyes. despite that, the game is listed under the horror tag, the only part of the games art so far that takes on a darker tone is the use of a colder, less inviting colour.

Overall I very much like the colouring and art style of this game, it really stands out, as it works together to create a gloomy and mysterious atmosphere, whilst still being easy on the eyes and providing enough visual clarity for the player to be able to make out what is happening. I think this a great inspiration going forward before we start any real collaborative work in this unit.

The next game I picked was Astra's Garden: https://nomnomnami.itch.io/astras-garden. This was because not only did the art style seem cute, but it said it dealt with heavy topics, and I wanted to see how to deal with these topics in relation to the mental health related brief we were given, so I wanted to check it out.

One thing I didn't expect from this game was the gameplay. In this game, you spend most of your time outside of dialogue managing flowers, and watering them. This creates quite a cosy atmosphere, with the combination of the music, and the no-rush approach to the mechanics of the game. This is something to consider: matching the pace of gameplay to the themes and story of the game.

Another interesting thing about the gameplay is the way it adds the story events and customer interactions into it. Whilst planting flowers, sometimes a customer will pop up, and if clicked on will give extra money, with some characters you click on starting dialogue between Astra and the customer. This makes going through the game more fun and engaging.

We are introduced to new characters that appear multiple times through these scenes. Its a natural way of having the player engage with other characters without it being forced. Another thing is that there are character profiles unlocked every time we interact with a character for the first time.

Going back to the story, we are introduced to a character called Vinegar, who is dying of a condition called "Undeath". This abrupt change of direction in the story stands out a lot and really draws a lot of attention to the subject matter, which is a great way to make more serious story events stand out.

The character interactions in the story are great. With Astra being a character that starts off not wanting to make friends whilst working in the medicine business, but just like us, slowly warming up to characters the more we go through the game, as well as their troubles. This game showcases a variety of ways to make the player engaged, and to make them care about the characters and the things they are going through.

The final game I looked at was THERE AREN'T REALLY WORDS: https://rosekiid.itch.io/there-arent-really-words, which describes itself as being "A bitsy about receiving the worst news possible, and doing the dishes."

The first thing I noticed was the page design, which seems quite flashy, with the flashing colours and the pixelated font, It made me more intrigued to what the game could be about.

Immediately, I really like how this game doesn't have any UI, apart from the text boxes that don't take up much real estate on the screen, I feel like using this in a game that involves serious topics is a great move since it allows the player to feel more connected with the game itself.

As we go through the game, we start by scrubbing dishes. we have to find them around inside the building, and clean them. If we go to the roof, we can find a table with cigarettes in an ashtray. If we interact with it, our character describes it, and if we interact with it again, our character exclaims that they are trying to quit and that we shouldn't tempt them. This requiring multiple interactions suggests that there is something that the character is hiding about themselves, in this instance their addiction, which is a clever way to use the interactive nature of games.

After we finish washing a mug that is found in the living room, we see our phone flashing. Going up to it we pick up from our friend Lucas, who outright says that our friend David had killed himself. Our character doesn't have words for it, and hangs up.

Our character immediately resorts back to smoking, which we can infer from the interaction earlier is just a coping mechanism to handle what they were just told. The way the game handles this is expertly done, since we would only know they were trying to quit earlier if we interacted multiple times with the table on the roof. This level of details in the interactions is something we should strive to include when we begin our collaborative work on the visual novel next week.

When we go to get our lighter, the screen begins to glitch out as we walk down the hallway, with the glitches then turning into messages, supposedly our characters thoughts, with things such as "no." and "I didn't even say goodbye." the way this game handles our character struggling to process their thoughts and feelings is well done and intentional, which goes back to the title of the game. The glitches begin to get worse, with the hallway being much longer than when we originally started the game. The glitches within the game represent all the things in our characters head, and they are intentionally made that way in this art style so they are confusing and hard to process.

After several stages of glitches and hallucinations, we end up in the living room. When we actually get the lighter and go back to the roof, the game ends with our character not having any words, and smoking. This game in its short time is very impactful, and has many elements I think are great for bringing awareness to mental health issues.