Prompt 3 - The design choices in Monster in my Bed really emphasize the story’s darker tone. The game has a dark background and white text for the most part, with the only color present being the bright red of the text links. These colors only emphasize the darker feeling of the story and make everything seem much more serious. The bright red is very eye-catching against the dark background and also contributes to the eerie feeling the story has. The font also adds to the serious tone of the game as it looks more professional. Text effects used for certain passages also contributed to the atmosphere of the game. For example, at one point a phone rings and the word ‘ringing’ is repeated, with each use of the word coming after a pause and the word shaking. The shaking of the word made the phone call in the story feel more jarring and added to the unsettling feeling the story has.
How the text looked also contributed to what is communicated to the player. Formatting cues such as bold and italics are used throughout the game. When these cues are used they grab the players attention and give the formatted words and phrases more weight. The text layout also helps communicate certain things to the player. The text is mostly laid out in paragraphs but there are some moments in the game where a single word or phrase is alone on the screen or is separated from the rest of the paragraph. These instances where certain pieces of text are separated draw the player’s attention to the text and makes what the text says seem more important than the rest of the paragraph.