Isaiah Cooper
Level Design
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Never Let Go Of: Creating a Character-Focused Text Adventure with
Relationship-Focused Consequences
Best described as an interactive novella
consequences of that. By the most
text adventure aimed at demonstrating
are long-term consequences embedded
(approximately 120 pages long), this is a
mastery in narrative design. The story
concerns a paranormal agency where the
supernatural is ordinary. The first third
plays like a slice of life as the protagonist
and his friends leave the compound for
throughout the prose of the adventure
that lead to a different reading experience
for every player based on their earlier
choices.
a surprise birthday outing. On a drunken
The scale of the project brought up
taiga in search of the Dream House,
how to properly offer interactivity and
lark, the group walks off into the Russian
a fabled location that grants wishes
and possesses powers that even four
paranormal experts deem impossible.
The project focuses on choices that
impact character interactions, and the
adventure uses a branch-and-bottleneck
structure to show the immediate
24
dramatic moments of the story, there
LEVEL DESIGN
some challenges, particularly with
engagement in a text adventure. However,
the final thesis artifact offers a compelling
story with strong themes and character
development. From it, I learned a lot about
how interactivity and storytelling meet in
narrative design.