I was hoping the theme would be either this or “Deep Space”.
It’s 4 A.M. over here, so I’m not going to do any coding before I go to sleep. For now, I have the basic idea charted out, and I’ve noted down some thoughts on the system and the overall scenario.
I’m going to try creating a pshychological drama with two characters having a picnic on a lovely day, having a conversation. How the conversation proceeds depends on what happens beneath the surface of their minds, i.e. in their subconscious. As a player, you won’t be able to traverse the conversation tree freely, but you will be able to influence the character’s mood and intuition by choosing which parts of the subconscious have the strongest voice. The couple may end up arguing, debating, or reconciling, depending on whether they can reach an agreement on the subconscious level. I’d like to create an illustration of the relationship between text and subtext: what we say is often a distant reflection of what we actually mean.
My next step is to write down draft dialogue so that I can see what kinds of decisions I need to allow the player to make. I think I’ll divide the game into four sections: one for warmup, and one for each of the three key choices that the character needs to make. The game mechanics are going to be very simple: I need to track where the characters are in their conversation and how each of them is feeling at the moment. I also need an input system for dragging items around the screen.
The maximum goal is to make both characters playable so that the player can see the same situation from two distinct perspectives.
