This has nothing to do with the upcoming Book 2 in my Fairy Doctor series, Fairy Doctor in Disguise, but I thought I would share a choose-your-own adventure game, Glitch and Multiverse, which I created last year. I have stayed creative during the pandemic, although I made this before the shutdown. I coded and wrote this as an original story for schoolwork. Don’t worry! It’s short, and I’m sure you’ll love it. I hope you’ll play all the different paths!
Do you remember ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ stories?
Did you read any Choose your own Adventure books as a kid? I always enjoyed skipping to the end of the book and tracing the story back. It was like a mystery, trying to figure out how did this ending happen? I also remember once reading the book normally, like chapter by chapter and ignoring the ‘skip ahead to page 84’. This way you got all the different stories out of order. I guess I was impatient. The adventures were always exciting, but I think ultimately disappointing when you failed and reached an abrupt ending. There wasn’t much character development either, but as a short-flash fiction story, I think they can be fun and entertaining.
Second person stories are hard to write, to make them truly second person. I prefer it when the ‘you’ in the story is actually referring to a fictional persona, not actually myself. It feels more meaningful to roleplay the story.
One of the few literary novels I’ve read in second person is A Pagan Place by Edna O’Brien. She is a fantastic Irish writer. Her writing is lyrical and stunning. She uses unexpected descriptions to catch your off guard and creates characters that have deep souls. O’Brien does not shy away from discussing heavy topics, and her frank exposure of women’s sexuality caused her books to be banned in Ireland when they first published in the 1960s. In her book A Pagan Place, the main character has a personality and family history. She is not the reader but her own person, yet her story is told as ‘you’. You did this. You saw. You went. It is like she is talking to herself, recalling memories of a particular time and place from her childhood. It is masterful. It is shocking. It is heartbreaking and a glimpse into another time and place. I recommend it if you want to experience a very literary novel. For more information on Edna O’Brien see the sources linked below.
But that’s enough serious talk. What is this game about?
About the Game
Discover a strange universe… will you go time traveling? Visit Cyberpunk City 2020? Encounter sentient cyborgs? Find your true love? You decide.
The story features two branching paths: Glitch and Multiverse. You are in control of your destiny.
Start your adventure by entering your name, or any name. (I always used the name Zee, for my character.)
If you have trouble using the window above to play, here is the link to the full website/game: Glitch and Multiverse: A Sci-fi Text Adventure Game. (I’m not sure the game works well on mobile. It’s not very responsive, which is unfortunate, someone should complain to the designer!)
This isn’t the first time I’ve experimented with text adventure games. I’ve looked into Twine before. Twine is an open-source tool and provides all the coding, so you can focus on creating your inter-twining, interactive stories.
Let me know what you think in the comments below! Should I make more mini text games?
Enjoy!
sources: Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Edna O’Brien”. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edna-OBrien. Accessed 22 June 2021.
The Country Girls. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_Girls