In a moment I'm going to talk about Wilmot's End, the first of several content chunks we're releasing to bring a bit more joy into the narrative economy. It does some experimental things, so I want to talk first about experiments.
We like to mess about with style in EBZ. As Yasmeen just outlined, we've harvested back some specific practices and techniques that work, but this is still unexplored, though not virgin, territory. And we're here to do interesting things. A couple of areas of interest first.
Reuse. We don't just mean grind, although some reuse is grind. Interactive narrative will repeat content. It might repeat it as a room you revisit in traditional parser IF. It might repeat it as ambient remarks in a CRPG, or as a combination of repeat and alteration, as with this charming piece [1]. When it's done straightforwardly, it's just immediate repetition, which is one of the issues with some parts of EBZ. When it's suitably distributed among novel content, or content repeated along different patterns, it can become a leitmotif or a security blanket or an underlying rhythm or a chorus or a navigational tool. One of our players[2] once said that us adding a new branch to a familiar Opportunity card was like coming back to a well-loved café and finding there was a new piece of art in the corner.
The second person. It's the default mode for any sort of interactive narrative: you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, and so forth. I'm not, I'm talking to you. He's not, she's not, those are someone else's adventures. We're not, unless it's one of those jolly confiding games of the mid '90s, or unless the Many are talking to you again. Don't listen to the Many.
[SPOILERS next. You have been warned.]
Of course this is partly a natural fit, and partly just convention, and either way it's good to mix it up. Yasmeen did this in the Stormy-Eyed layer on the Dreams, using the first person. (If you want to try this, pursue the dreams of What the Thunder Said... you'll see the signposts before you find the way in). The effect is quite striking, especially when it shows up unexpectedly in other places like the Royal Bethlehem Hotel or the House of Chimes. We want a particular effect of immediacy, urgency and slightly unwelcome intimacy, which wouldn't work without that shifting register. (More Stormy-Eyed is on the way, incidentally...)
We use the first person in the tomb-colonies as well. This was a very early experiment of mine: I wanted to switch to epistolary mode to give a sense of time and distance, because the actual transition from London to the colonies and back is only a piece of text and a standard location transition. This was way back in the first beta, long before At Sea, long before the complex of alternate and interstitial spaces we use for the places around and between and beneath the Neath. I also wanted to do something consonant with repetition in the op cards: you're back in the tomb-colonies again, desperate to return to London, and once again you're surrounded by these sad revolting people doing the same sad revolting things... the feedback has been that the intended effect doesn't quite work. People like the epistolary effect initially, but you can't do much in the tomb-colonies, and successfully simulating a tedious context by establishing tedium each time... formally it works, but practically it would be better to leaven the boredom with other effects. I'll go back to it some day. In my copious spare time.
But the reason I've come in is Wilmot's End. I won't spoil the stylistic effect up front, but ever since the first, groping, ladder-structure patterns on EBZ, we've been searching for ways to make reuse more than repetition: to write (as Yas said last time) with an eye to rewarding second and further visits, to allowing players to determine their own underspecified, coalescent personal narratives. I gave Nige a difficult and experimental brief here, and I think he's done a masterful and memorable job. It's all about espionage: clandestine meetings , characters with agendas, clues that might make sense eventually, answers without questions. Inevitably, I think this is the first significant appearance of tobacco in Echo Bazaar.
Well, go see. Shadowy 110+ and wait for an opportunity card. You may even get some Bazaar components out of it. Note that this is only the first part. Enjoy, and as always let us know what you think on the
feedback forums.
[1] Incidentally Ian Millington, our co-founder on Varytale, is also the creator of the framework this was built on - http://undum.com/, a light, slick clientside framework for interactive stories with some ideas drawn from EBZ and quality-based narrative. Take a look.
[2] I forget who! feel free to claim credit in the comments.