Trafficking
Abstract
I chose the theme traffic. I use this word in the most obvious sense of like car traffic in some of the memory flashbacks but I mostly use the other definition of traffic as in trafficking illegal goods, in this case endangered species. I wanted my game to have lots of possible paths that are somewhat determined by the player and somewhat determined by chance, just like life. So I used random functions here and there as well as choices. I also wanted to provide more background for players who like to go more in depth while offering the option to skip past the background/detail-y stuff so I set up stretch-text type descriptions which, in addition to providing more description of objects and surroundings in the game world, internally set up the opportunity to randomly get a flashback in a later passage. I hoped that players who wanted more information would get a more vivid image of the world and get a back story about the character's past as a normal kid wanting adventure and magic, a background unavailable to players who didn't look closely at things. In the background/flashback material I wanted to show a character longing for this fantasy adventure that they've read about and then in the present-trafficking world they are in a world of adventure and fantastical creatures. Are they dreaming? Are they dead? Are they really in the fantasy world? What, if anything, is real here? I hoped these questions might come up for some players.