Fruitual

text adventure game about fruits and rituals

Creating a text adventure game is no easy feat. It takes a lot of time, creativity, trial and error. The key to creating an interesting game is putting yourself in the player’s shoes and making sure there are plenty of fun twists and turns along the way.

I decided to keep my game simple and tell a linear story. I used a web engine called Twine (twinery.org, an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories) to help generate the game’s storyline, and I adapted the script from a Bulgarian fairytale (“The Most Precious Fruit”). But things didn’t always go smoothly. When the python script started generating the wrong messages for players who strayed from the script, I tried to find solutions on StackOverflow, but it was all too complicated for me.

In the end, the game took me around 6-7 hours to make, including writing, coding, mapping, editing, and lots of trial-and-error. It was a great learning experience, but it also taught me that game development can be tough if you don’t have much coding experience. I had to approach it more from a writer’s perspective and figure out the coding later.

I learned that game development is an iterative process, and sometimes your initial ideas might be more complex than what you end up with. It’s all part of the journey. Before starting this project, I had no idea text adventure games existed, but now I’m happy to say I’ve made one in just a few weeks. Lastly, I would like to express my appreciation for the guidance and support provided by our prototyping tutors in developing these projects.

Full story “The Most Precious Fruit” available at: https://fairytalez.com/the-most-precious-fruit/