Twine production

production seven

For production seven, I wanted to try to make an immersive experience that could bring people through the life of Mersault, the "protagonist" of Albert Camus' The Stranger. It is a book often studied and read in french classes. I wanted the game to immerse the player in the philosophy of Camus, that of the absurd, by allowing the player to make a few but overall meaningless decisions about how Mersault goes about life. At most stages, the player can make decisions to drink coffee, smoke, go to work, sleep, etc. But overall these choices do not impact the narrative and ultimately the player's fate is already written. For the most part, I think the game achieves this, as the player can get stuck in loops making the same decisions over and over again, which kind of add to the idea of meaninglessness that Mersault's character embodies. I wanted to use video and audio to demonstrate how Mersault is overly focused on the physical sensations he experiences, rather than any deep emotional journey like most protagonists go through. I was hoping to simulate the experience of being Mersault, so player's would garner a better understanding of absurdist philosophy. While a feature of a good game is often that it allows players to make decisions that contribute to personal or social goals of a player, this game does that in a way that doesn't quite change the outcome, once again underlying the idea of meaningless decisions throughout the game. I do think with more time / experience making games, it would have been better to add more choices that affect the later outcome. For example, to have different options at Mme. Mersault's funeral (all of which would highlight Mersault's indifference) but have those choices change what is held against you at trial, for example. This would allow players to get more invested as they would be more likely to identify with the main character and feel like they have a say in the outcome of the story (even if that outcome is just small changes in the details).