Storytelling and Gaming Final Mega-Blog + Evaluation + Tutorial Bibliography
As of writing this Blog my text-based choose your own adventure game 'Undead Dungeon' is completed and can be played here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EOk_w3P52ABwewKugPM0ehnF0LYiLPyv?usp=sharing
Just be sure to download them first or they will not open in Google Drive. The HTML file is the Game. Double click it after downloading and you're all good. If you want to examine the Code, Download the .TWEE file and open it in in twinery.org by importing it in the Library.
Firstly, below is the plan I used for each choice in the Game. Initially the story may seem fairly light on plot but I wanted to more so make a traditional text-based dungeon crawler experience more than anything which I think I succeeded, though admittedly a main character with a personality and a supporting cast would have been a more interesting read and would be my focus if I were to make another project on Twine.
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1OY8kQE4iESdbn_iC2p3YzbaHhmvbt3s2le4ROmwIH8g/edit?usp=sharing
The story of the game itself rather than just the set pieces is worth mentioning too, just for context. you play as Varnius Dalegar, the greatest thief in all the land. One night whilst Graverobbing you are kidnapped by skeletons in the crypt and have to escape, the story follows the actions you take which will determine how much treasure and what ending you get as there are two main ways to escape. Either by fighting your way to the entrance of the crypt or escaping through a forgotten waterway and into a forgotten section of a sewer. Though there are only two endings, the game keeps track of the blessings and curses you pick up along the way too as well as how many times you died, as such there are certain options only unlocked if you collect certain treasures and trinkets like the Silver Sword or the Captain's Key which can lead to vastly different experiences. there is also a replayability factor of familiarizing oneself with all the different choices to get the most treasures with the least deaths and as such, eve as the creator who has been making this game over the past 4 months I myself haven't found all the possible combinations of treasures and what the highest amount is.
On a more technical level beyond the premise, the coding boils down to tracking if/ else statements and conditions and having counters on treasure, deaths and other such factors tp determine if for example certain lines will show based on your actions such as when the story will reference a clue you find in the penultimate encounter with the Kraken after escaping and finding where they entered from which will ONLY show if you read the clue. Coding-wise I probably could have done more but as I have said before what I have learned has served me very well but a combat system would have been nice rather than having every combat encounter be the same, just picking the most logical answer based on clues in the text. But as previously stated, I am no coder. Yet. It should also be stated if I learned how to include images and sounds, maybe a bit more colour, I would have done that too but I think you need to have a website to host your .HTML and assets to do that, which I potentially could have done with the university as the host but I think the game leant quite well into the retro aesthetic that the final product had.
Another aspect of development worth noting is probably the original scope of the game and what it turned into. The middle section of the story is where both routes converge again until the 'Dragon Spine' section which decides the final encounter with the player either jumping into the reservoir or fighting the Skeleton Lord Gallatreus. I had intended that if the player went through the Church combat encounter rather than the executioner chamber that they would end-up in an underground monastery area with fields of subterranean plants and a scene with skeleton monks making cheese but this section was ultimately scrapped about midway through development as I wouldn't have had enough time to fit it in with puzzles and encounters and give the game multiple endings simultaneously. Fore me the mid-section of the Game in the Atrium and the Silver-Shield Vault are two of the Highlights as they contain some really sophisticated and complex sections in terms of code such as the various riddle statues and the penalty for if the ghosts in the Urn room catch the player with the family treasure which again, I think is a real highlight and that level of detail was only achievable by removing an entire alternate segment and merging them into one.
I think ultimately I'm very happy with how Undead Dungeon turned out I like how I managed to have a sense of seriousness but also and absurd campiness like the predecessors mentioned in the first Blog Post for this project. Though time consuming, writing the over the top death scenes and slapstick with the skeletons and the various notes from previous visitors in this millennia old crypt where everything was a death trap was the most fun part.
There is also Varnius himself too who was written with the silent protagonist in mind, only having 2 lines of dialogue in the game, both of which can easily be missed depending on the Player's choices. As a trope in Videogames the Silent Protagonist has been a long favourite from the very beginning up until today such as in Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, DOOM, Half-Life, Call of Duty, Kirby, Half-Life, Pokemon, GTA, Crash etc. Which proves the concept can very much work, especially as my intention with Varnius' silence to be so the player can project themselves onto him which is why his appearance is left up to the imagination too with all that's known about him really being that he's a swashbuckling, thieving rogue, which is how he ended up in the Dungeon to begin with, as such the story isn't really about him learning the error of his ways or having a character arc and I suppose is more really there to be a projection of a sort of power-fantasy as this roguish trickster who can overcome anything.
Ultimately if I were to do this project again, although really enjoying the final product, I would add a combat system and plan segments more than winging it so I'm not left stuck trying to figure out scenarios when I still need to add content.
Bibliography
Brian Tittl (2019) Twine 2 - adding variables and control flow, YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/fbjAY9_0rik?si=ywlPyHm-fZWRfJYN (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
Brian Tittl (2019) Twine tutorial 2 - variables and if statements, YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/1YuuZxKh18Y?si=3SHRkn2Qg1dkMSyA (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
cwalljasper and Lily (2017) Adding a score counter on Harlowe 1.2.2, Twine Forum. Available at: https://twinery.org/forum/discussion/8791/adding-a-score-counter-on-harlowe-1-2-2 (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
Design Doc (2017) Designing narrative choice - add branching paths to game stories without a AAA budget ~ Design Doc, YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/Gdt5zCdXoSc?si=HCe14mMF2l0wzit0 (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
Mighty Coconut (2019) Interactive storytelling - intro to Twine, YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/ZnARX2ToqYc?si=mffhL_UQlooFVA4U (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
MisterB and NieKitty (2017) How do I keep count of something?, Twine Forum. Available at: https://twinery.org/forum/discussion/8832/how-do-i-keep-count-of-something (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
Wizards of the Coast (2014) D&D 5e dungeon master’s guide, Internet Archive. Available at: https://archive.org/details/dungeon-masters-guide/Dungeon%20Master%27s%20Guide/page/n1/mode/2up pp. Cover, 38–41. (Accessed: 01 May 2024).
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