8 | EXCHANGE
8 | EXCHANGE
by: Peter Johnston
This is a Back Garden entry.
Progress:
- I reached the end of the “Vrnnt” route in around 5 minutes, then reached the end of the “Tink” route in about 3 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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I think this kind of near-future sci fi setting is a good vehicle for the premise and themes of a story like this. Billionaires attempting to leverage their wealth to stave off mortality at the expense of everyone else is something already happening in real life, but the consciousness-transfer technology allows the story to explore that theme further. It is a well-worn sci fi trope, for sure, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t tell an interesting story with it.
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My favorite aspect of the demo was getting information about the setting and how the world has changed. Even though the characters know all about the world they live in, the reader doesn’t, so we have to rely on incidentally learning key information. For instance, Aloysius mentions that he at some point “shorted plasma” (implying that this stock prediction was a source of his wealth), which could refer to either blood plasma or some kind of plasma-based power source (other than the sun, I mean). Either way, it made me curious to know more about the world and I would’ve loved even more of those kinds of intriguing details.
Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations:
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The blurb for the demo mentions that the game “goes back and forth between the perspectives” which I don’t feel is clearly mechanically demonstrated here. In this setup, you pick one of the two routes at the beginning, and then stick with that perspective until the end when the characters meet face-to-face. As such, it doesn’t seem like the choices that you make within a route have any effect on the other route. For instance, I picked the “Vrnnt” route (corresponding to Aloyusius Menfer) first, and generally picked the most polite/least abrasive dialogue options. When I then played the “Tink” route (corresponding to Dr. Marquez), it ended as thought I had chosen the more aggressive option. Similarly, when I played them in reverse order to check again, it gives the impression that Dr. Marquez has chosen to take the deal, when in reality, I did not pick that. Reaching the final scene, it plays out differently based on who you are playing as, with the non-player character taking the initiative to speak first.
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I think what I’m getting at with this is that mechanically, what seems to be happening is that you play through the game from one perspective, and the person you are not controlling will always choose the “worse” dialogue options, rather than the reader going back and forth between the characters to influence both sides of what is happening.
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In the future, if switching back and forth within the same narrative (rather than fully following the two separate versions of the story from each character’s perspective), I foresee there being issues in terms of managing conflict in the story. I would be most likely to always choose options that force the characters to work together as well as possible, defusing their potentially antagonistic relationship. There isn’t much incentive to work against “myself” when I am being both of these people at the same time, vs. if the story was just strictly from one character’s perspective. It might be interesting to see if certain choices get marked as “unavailable” based on earlier choices, to demonstrate that the player’s earlier characterization of the protagonists has an effect on what is possible later.
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How would the game handle direct conversations between the characters? Would it jump back and forth line by line, or stay in one character’s point of view per scene, and then switch to the other in the next scene? In that case, how would the conversations adapt to how I’ve chosen to respond as my version of each character leading up to that moment? I think it would’ve been helpful for the demo to have included a full conversation between the two point of view characters as a mechanical demonstration for how the switching would work going forward.
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There are a lot of different ways this story could go and be structured and result in an interesting reading experience, so I would curious to see how the final version of the game ends up working through the point of view challenges invoked by this demo.
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I’m not super familiar with Ink, but one thing I’ve seen in previous Ink games that I appreciated is that the choice selection doesn’t clear previous scenes and instead adds on to the end, making it possible to scroll back up to see previous scenes. In this instance of Ink, each choice clears the screen, making that impossible. I personally would recommend using the additive version rather than the screen-clearing version if that’s available!
What I Learned About IF:
- Something I found myself reflecting on is personality-based choices and how that affects the reader experience. In this case, I would roughly divide the Aloyusius choices into “polite” vs. “rude.” The version of the character chosen by the author to appear in the Dr. Marquez route seems to be the “rude” version. This makes me think, well, should the choices have instead been framed as, “which expression of rudeness would you like to choose?” but that would’ve made the choices seem less consequential as they were happening (like the beloathed “yes/yes/sarcastic yes/no, but actually yes” kind of choices). Having multiple characters with player-malleable personalities in the same story seems to really draw attention to whether events can actually unfold the same way between characters with variable personality traits, because the more divergent the personality traits the player can roleplay with, the more divergent you would expect conversations to be. It was interesting to think about the logistical challenges of playing as multiple characters within the same story.
Memorable Moment:
- I think the most memorable moment is at the end of your second playthrough, when you meet a version of the character you previously played as. It shows a lot of potential to be engaging once the game is fully developed.