The Written Wyrd
Walking the path on an island inhabited by spirits, you find a trail of letters between two lovers-to-never-be—will you walk the path their path or let the past lie?
Artist statement (do not open unless you are Christal Rose or Austen!!!!)
This game is tangentially related combination of these obsessions (because I had too many to pick from): lesbian characters, my OCs, romance, purple prose, and worldbuilding. The story is set within a world I already have, featuring nameless characters that may or may not have existed since what they represent in-world matters more than who they really were. I picked these obsessions because I had the general idea for the game I wanted to write, but wasn't able to get it out until now. This game is primarily about an outsider looking in on the romance between these two sapphic characters because I'm obsessed with my OCs and I'm cursing you all to read about my little dolls and the playhouse I built for them. The main thing I focused on while writing was peppering in I went into making this game with the intent for it to be an active epistolary story where the letters tell events that are happening right now, but as I wrote, it turned out that a retrospective perspective worked better with the structure I chose--which was Nat Mesnard's map-based concept, the third from their article about Branching Infinity. This structure appealed to me because a) maps, and b) I felt it allowed the story a sense of movement despite being letters written in retrospect so that you could, in a sense, still move through the world. I figured out through the development process that it's kinda hard to write specifically to a structure; I find I tend to gesture vaguely at the form and hope for the best. By Greg Costikyan's (I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games) definition, I created an interactive experience where the player doesn't struggle with the game itself as much as they do (I hope lol) with the choice to advance or continue following a story that was there before them and that will remain long after they are gone. I guess I just hope that the player reads my intention to make them "feel unwanted" like the inevitable end is something they're intruding on/unearthing.Download
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