I’ve thought of most of my previous projects as “writing experiments.” Provizora Parko is the first project I’ve thought of primarily as a “game”–that is, in terms of the conventions, vocabulary, player behaviors and expectations of video games, not literature. If I were to position it on Astrid Ensslin’s L-L (literary-ludic) spectrum, it would be squarely on the side of literary computer games, and not ludic digital literature.
What worked
- Writing transcripts of several hypothetical playthroughs in order to home in on mechanics, structure, and themes (h/t Emily Short)
- Taking a more systematic approach to creating project documentation (inspired by this forum thread), including
- “Mood board” and references in slide show format
- Technical document with the following sections:
- Specifications: Twine version, story format, macro versions
- List of variables, how they function within the game, and in which passages they are set and modified
- List of names of major passages (that is, passages presenting consequential choices, main landing pages for the respective areas within the park, etc.)
- Color scheme: RGB, CMYK, and hex codes, selected using Sanzo Wada’s Dictionary of Color Combinations
- Diary of completed tasks, including code I might re-use in future projects (using code blocks extension)
- Versions: list of adjustments made to each subsequent version of the game
- Temporarily printing names and values of variables on major passages for testing and debugging purposes (this was VERY useful)
- Versioning: Rather than continuously revising a single file, I saved new versions of the game whenever I made significant changes. This was helpful because Provizora Parko has way more variables and macros than I’m used to. Accordingly, there were many more opportunities for me to unwittingly break things. I still don’t have a good handle on what constitutes a “major” or “minor” change, especially in the context of such a small game, but overall, I felt confident that if I broke something, I wouldn’t need to start over from scratch; I could just rebuild step-by-step from the previous version.
- Beta testing: always invaluable!
- Regular backups to Dropbox and an external HD stored in a different location
What didn’t work
- Temporarily printing passage names on every passage. This was very helpful during beta testing, because testers could tell me exactly where they found problems, and I could find and address them right away. But it was a huge pain to delete all of the names post-beta testing–and Provizora Parko is a small game! I don’t think this would be feasible for a larger game. That said, I’m sure there is a css or javascript solution that will enable me to toggle the printing of passage names on and off globally.
- Trying to create a passage numbering scheme that would embed branch numbers and paths within passage numbers. In practice, this ended up being confusing and very unsystematic. Every time I consolidated or added passages during the editing process, it threw all of the numbering off, but by that time, it would have been too difficult to renumber passages and links.
- Tracking tasks in Trello using a simplified Getting Things Done workflow. Failure was due to a variety of things: inconsistent “collection” process on my end, too many tiny tasks that I could immediately do without tracking, but needed to remember nevertheless, and lack of integration with my diary of completed tasks. That said, Trello/GTD work so well for me in my regular job, that I may give this another go.
Rules I made for myself
(I don’t think these came across very effectively in the final game, but I’m not sure I would do anything differently next time around!)
- The experience should be as rich as players want it to be. They should be able to “win” whether they look at everything or almost nothing.
- The writing should focus and direct players’ attention. In this case, I wanted some of the game’s most significant “vibes” to be the shifting of the light and weather over the course of the day, and the eeriness of the absent birds, so those descriptions are longer and more detailed. They are also pretty literal–that is, they lack the strangeness of most of the other scenes and elements.
- By the same token, “weirdness” should not be distracting. For instance, I initially wrote fanciful descriptions of the bird masks in the airport. But then I realized that what’s most significant in that scene is not how the masks are decorated, but that the masks look like birds. So rather than a mask that is covered in iridescent green scales, with huge, bulbous teardrops made of cut sapphires, what comes down on the luggage carousel is simply “a mask with the face of a crow.” Just like at a normal airport ;).
Plants and animals in the game
Finally, here are some of the flora and fauna–including many specific species–I had in mind while I was writing. NOTE: Classifications like “invasive” are in the context of Hawaiʻi.
| Species | Location in Provizora Parko |
|---|---|
| Anole (Anolis carolinensis) | Corridor–the wrathful spirit (afternoon) |
| Banana poka (Passiflora tarminiana), invasive | Corridor (mid-morning); Corridor–the substitute (afternoon) |
| Banyan (Ficus benghalensis) | Corridor (mid-morning, noon, afternoon); Corridor-the one who passes between worlds (mid-morning) |
| Common mynah (Acridotheres tristis) | Entrance plaza (sunset) |
| False staghorn fern, uluhe (Dicranopteris linearis), indigenous | Corridor–the wrathful spirit (sunset) |
| Hawaiian crow, ʻalalalā (Corvus hawaiiensis), endemic, extinct in the wild | Aerie (ending) |
| Hawaiian honeycreepers, e.g., ʻakialoa (extinct), ʻamakihi (vulnerable), ʻiʻiwi (vulnerable), mamo (extinct), nukupuʻu (extinct), endemic | Gift shop (illustrations on T-shirts) |
| Macaw | Amphitheatre |
| Miconia (Miconia calvescens), invasive | Corridor–the gluttonous priest (afternoon); Corridor–the one who passes between worlds (sunset) |
| Midge | Lagoon |
| Minnow | Lagoon |
| Mongoose (Herpestes javanicus), invasive | Corridor–the wrathful spirit (sunset) |
| Night-blooming cereus (Selenicereus undatus) | Entrance plaza (sunset) |
| Rainbow eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta) | The Aerie |
| Rainbow shower tree (Cassia x nealiae ‘Wilhelmina Tenny’) | Entrance plaza (mid-morning, sunset) |
| Red-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus cafer), invasive | Entrance plaza (mid-morning) |
| Sedge | Lagoon |
| Strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum), invasive | Corridor (afternoon) |
| Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) | Corridor sugar sculptures |
| Tadpole | Lagoon |
| Tuberose (Agave amica) | Entrance plaza (sunset) |
| Zebra dove (Geopelia striata) | Entrance plaza (afternoon) |
Thank you for reading and playing (and don’t forget to check out Yakult’s gift shop playlist). I’m having a blast hanging out on the ludic end of the L-L swimming pool. I think I’ll stay here a bit longer!
La Vie en Meow 