ID:NULL Release Notes

ID:NULL is finally out! I finished up the submission build for my semester-long project for my Writing for Games II class. 

As written in my game summary, ID:NULL is an interactive narrative with a hint of suspense, cyberpunk, and urban dystopian fantasy. You play as Zero, a fixer for hire, over the span of 3 in-game days. With secrets abound and agendas afoot, where will you emerge, when all's said and done?

This is my longest published Twine project to date (roughly ~9400 words and 84 passages). My goal with the story is to leave the mystery solving in the hands of the players rather than explicitly stated within the story. In each route-specific ending, you're meant to get a piece of Zero/Yulia's past to carry on into your next playthrough. 

For the full build of the game, there are going to be a total of seven endings: three through Venus' route, three through Wren's route, and one that can be achieved in both. However, as of the submission date, Wren's route is not available. Venus' route is complete, and there are three different endings the player can get. 

Some general things I learned from the overall experience: 

1. Planning ahead is super important. I have two different multi-paged documents and a presentation slides that I constantly referenced when writing. I think I would have struggled a lot more without their guidance because I'm often indecisive when it comes to what I want to write about. 
2. Reiterating on planning ahead, be sure to have some structure or bare bones for the story. My notes weren't as fleshed out as I would like and I found myself throwing stuff at the wall and revising on the fly until I was somewhat happy with the outcome. There's probably some story inconsistencies, but I tried my best to ensure the plot was somewhat stable. 
3. Music is critical. I have Spotify playing my playlists constantly to help my maintain my focus. I find myself pinballing between early 2000s or mainstream pop or video game OSTs (more specifically, Gris) depending on the mood. 
4. Having a person to refer to throughout the planning and writing process helped a lot. I talked to my friend, also in the class, often throughout the creative process, and it really served as a sanity check. 
5. I don't think I'll be attempting this type of genre ever again. I'm way more familiar with writing romance and fantasy, or some combination of the two, so this was meant to extend my writing abilities. Somehow, the combination of mystery and cyberpunk took me out as I'm not familiar with the terminology, which is why I decided to coin it more under the general umbrella of science fiction, and change mystery to suspense. 

In my original notes, I planned to have the time span over the period of a week, but I had to trim down the scope due to time limitations. Revisions and the possibility of extensions on the main story are in the plans for the future. I hope to revisit this, clean up some of the variables, and add more choices and character interactions for story coherency. 

Anyways, enjoy ID:NULL. :)