I’ve started planning a Twine game about a graveyard keeper that can interact with ghosts. It’s going to have images and some choices that affect the outcome of each chapter. These chapters would be standalone. Do you think a randomized chapter order could work? The first and last chapter would be the same each playthrough. I’ve seen this kind of structure in some kid games like Forestia, and I enjoyed it there. However, as this game is going to be a more serious and story-oriented, I wonder if it’s appropriate. I even had the idea to only include some of the chapters in each playthrough, but maybe that would be frustrating.
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The best way to tell is to get testers to see what they say, but as long as you get some idea why the chapters are in a random order (or if they are all clearly flashbacks) - then you should be fine.
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Yeah, the frame narrative is going to be about the graveyard keeper recounting the experiences to his grandchild. Playtesters would certainly help once I’ve written the first version.
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I’d find that frustrating.
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I would also find it frustrating. Don’t do that. People who want to get the full experience will play through multiple times, and they will get annoyed when they get the same scene three runs in a row.
I think it would work out well, though I’m not sure whether it matters if the order is randomized. I get that it’s flashbacks and storytelling, but it doesn’t need to be randomized and I can’t see what impact this has on the story. Maybe have an overarching “story” (table of contents), with tangents related to it? Something like this:
He tells you about flowers abandoned for those they had lost. He recounts endless nights, sitting with his lantern, just him and the voices and the ghosts and the darkness…
>FLOWERS ABANDONED
Your mother says that he isn’t smart, but he is smart. He can’t read, but he still has knowledge—knowledge of lives past that history doesn’t bother remembering. But he remembers. He remembers Maggie with her bouquet of orange and white—you know magnolias are my favorite, he always told her, they remind me of you —with her daughter, then later alone. He remembers Robert, in full dress uniform, arms full of poppies as he sings with the larks. He remembers the carnations, the roses, the lilies, the white, the red, the yellow, the black, he remembers. And when the flowers blow into the wind, forgotten by those who will never forget, he chases them, plucks them from the air, buries them into the dirt. They will not be lost.
…I had too much fun writing this.
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Agree with hidnook: perhaps is better leaving to player the choice of chapter (that is, “random access”) than throwing him/her/they into random (that is, by chance) chapter)
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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Thank you! That’s actually a great idea. And I really love your prose, it’s so poignant.
I started writing this story and it has changed a lot. It’s about the player character dying and trying to make peace with loved ones. The grandfather is a side character that helps with reaching out to those who live. I’m also considering including other ghosts that the PC helps cross over, but that would increase complexity.
The choices I’ve written so far are mostly flavor, but perhaps this is going to be a pretty linear story. One choice I came up with is quite interesting, I think. It seems unimportant at first but changes how a certain NPC deals with grief. I’m having trouble deciding how to indicate the importance of the choice, as I kinda want it to come as a surprise.
What you’re describing is kind of what a QBN does. See BEE by Emily Short which is like a novel where every chapter is a short story that may or may not show up as you cycle through (though since the game gives one chapter a month in a four-year(?) timeline, usually people probably end up seeing them all.) The infrequent choices do build stats toward what chapters can be offered later and the ultimate ending.
Completely random chapters might infuriate completionists, but you could put in some gating - for example if the Gravedigger is friendly toward a ghost, a chapter about them becomes available - or if the Gravedigger finds a hidden grave, only then might they encounter the chapter about its particular inhabitant.
Random is fine, but interactive/reactive is better.
Bee offers the player a choice of a random selection of 2-3 chapters that apply to current world state, so it’s not like the player is always forced to re-read something in every case if they get a bad RNG roll.
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