Designer-Choice Twine Game: The Last Stop

The Last Stop

This Designer-Choice Twine Game is inspired by my obsession with crime stories in the spirit of the Halloween season.  The main takeaway players could carry with this story is that curiosity can be a double-edged sword.  Through the decisions that they make, I aimed to emphasize the consequences of their actions, whether it be trusting the wrong person or choosing a selfish, safer path. To achieve this, I relied heavily on the narrative and displayed each decision with tension, where the world around the player feels hostile and mysterious.

I engage with Greg Costikyan’s definition of a game by focusing on interactivity and the player's ability to navigate through the story through the paths they take. The player is given agency through choices, allowing them to actively influence the direction of the narrative. Moreover, endogenous meaning in my story arises from the player's decisions. Every choice is meant to feel meaningful because it impacts how the story unfolds, which varies the playthrough experience based on the decisions made.

I utilize the "key nodes" structure as presented in "Branching Infinity: Exploring the Many Structures of Interactive Fiction" by Nat Mesnard. There are various branching paths while the core narrative is fixed several main points (such as arriving at the village, the encounter with the man, and the final confrontation).  I was mainly inspired by the structure of having multiple branches and paths, but still coming to one single conclusion. So, most choices presented in The Last Stop lead to one bad ending, increasing the chances for the players to end there. This is to emphasize that it is the process of the narrative impacts the overall experience of the playthrough, rather than the outcome.

However, as during the playtesting phase, a feedback I got was to incorporate an unlikely path where the player can get away from the dangers of the plot. This way, curious players can explore with the story and go back to find different paths that is unlike all the others. With this, you can find that this game as a main "bad" ending that more curious players will end up in, and a few "safe" endings that only open if the player avoids dangers and obstacles of the story.