Game-In-Progress: Eden

Posted on September 14th, 2013

I’m working on a new Twine game now. It’s the first that’ll be really game-like instead of a “life experience in a game type format” sort of thing. As such, creating it is a different–and interesting–process.

With The Choice and What’s in a Name, the story came first and came effortlessly. After all, I was pretty much offering up little snapshots from my own life. This time, though the initial idea started with a character, gameplay mechanics and overall themes are becoming clear to me before the story proper. So, I’ve more-or-less been building the story around those themes and mechanics. It’s working out the same way (albeit a touch more slowly ;p) with my BIG project, Fragments of Mira. I have some characters and some basic ideas for them, but it seems like the heart of everything is how to best use the gameplay itself to advance the narrative. Much of the story will grow from there.

I think Eden is good practice for non-Twine projects in general. For one thing, although it will be simple in terms of programming, the planning is a smaller-scale version of what I’d put into something more involved. And it’s really gotten me thinking about how games work and my particular style when it comes to creating them.

Eden will probably be ready in 2-3 weeks. More details will be forthcoming… or not. Maybe I’d rather surprise you. ;p