Following the narrative I’m writing in my novel workshop class, my game lies in a world of superheroes, where people have supernatural powers due to life-threatening situations or those powers being inherent. This world isn’t exactly just black and white, especially when people with these powers are most of the time are observed with extreme scrutiny by the government – even if they are on the “good” side, wanting to help others with their powers through whatever motive they have. Because these superhumans hold so much power and, as a result, hold much potential to become a dangerous individual, a Villain, they are viewed with disdain and most of all fear. With progressive government officials holding power and a new wave of superhumans wanting change, the global Organization of Heroes, Aegis, was established. However, not everyone was pleased. In the shadows, a group of individuals who wanted a more radical change with their newly found powers gradually grew in power and soon came out as a powerful group of Villains. Of course, there were other sorts of devious individuals that rode this wave, although not with the same intentions, but for their own desires – most seeing themselves as a superior breed of human.

So far I had written an opening chapter of Belisama, an ex-villain, hero working under the Aegis branch in Old York and wanted to tie in Reina’s story before she met Bel. This was the initial thought I had before further planning on what narrative game I was bringing to my IF project. In such a distinct world with rules that don’t concede with ours, anything is bound to happen. Reina, for example, is not human, but a homunculus, a man-made human. After being given a new life and identity when the organization that was running immoral experiments in secrecy was caught and arrested, with Dr. Marth’s instructions, the only person that she trusted, Reina escaped to a furtive location in Old York and spent her days deteriorating in a rundown apartment while doing her best to care for a smaller life, a Pomeranian named Muffins. At first, I wanted to create a loop at the beginning of the game in which the player had to get out of in order to proceed to the next part, which was meeting Belisama. But after finishing the World Bible and additional playtesting, I decided to treat the game more as an introduction to the characters, giving hints to the world and to Reina’s character.

The main part of my goal wasn’t successful then, but I had found inspiration brainstorming about Reina and, in turn, more about the world these characters reside in. I found my writing successful in being humorous, although a bit dark, so it was good writing practice for the kind of vibe I wanted the story and the world to be. And I think I had done well in the smaller things like choosing a visual for the background and a soundtrack that would set the mood of the narrative. As for the branches and choices, I had done a pretty good job setting up hints for the world by displaying ordinary cereal advertisements that featured a particular hero and even the news from the television.

However, with many good things come with its own share of bad things. Because the game was viewed more as an introduction, the characters don’t feel as fleshed out as they would’ve been and; therefore, the game fell a bit flat as there was no big connection or motive to the characters that the player could’ve connected with. Although I liked my writing, it was too much text in a game and the question of “Would the player even read this?” comes forth. Not going through with the loop variable was a mistake, but that was because I didn’t have enough time left to work with what kind of story that would build, so instead I stuck to branching choices and endings. On the topic of these branching choices and endings, I shouldn’t have made them cut short so quickly and then send the player back to the beginning because of the sense of loss that brings. There were also tense issues where I didn’t stick to one tense which even confused myself at times. Writing in the third person for the narrative game was also an apparent difficulty as I was building the narrative.

If I were to build this game again, I’d most definitely work on not having chunks of text crowding the screen and maybe even start with changing the tense to the first person to see how that goes. In addition, I would also like to stretch out the branches more and making the ending have more impact. And although this game was more of an introduction, perhaps I’d merge the two next time, the other half being the encounter with Belisama. I spoke a lot of the negatives for this project, but really that signified how much I could improve on for future games I create or even a remake. It’s important to playtest your game in order to understand how they feel when playing it. Where endings cut off oddly or when there are huge walls of text – it’s all part of the process of creating a game.