Our project has undergone a rather significant change in the past few days, and one which I am not entirely happy with.

The decision was made to restructure the story of our project to be far more linear. The reasons for which were to make sure everyone who plays it will get an interesting and satisfying narrative experience.

The original layout

The New layout.

As you can see, its far more streamlined and linear, instead of experiencing one of 2 major paths (that each had multiple mini paths/choices inside them, as well as numerous chances to “cross over”) and 4 endings, there is now one path with some minor choices and 2 endings.

I understand the reasoning, and our “cult” path was fairly boring and straightforward, but that being said I still dont totally agree with the change. The loss of player agency is quite extreme, and our project idea was born from the concept of symmetry. The fact that you now MUST side with the anti-cult organisation is something that doesn’t sit well with me, as I really liked the concept of being able to choose whether or not you were invested in the cult or wanted to work with the anti-cult. I dont have a problem with certain paths in choose-your-own-adventure stories being more boring or straightforward, especially in something that is going to take a short amount of time to finish, and mutliple playthoughs are easy to do. The fun for me in these types of narratives is seeing how all the options play out, and getting a “bad ending” just encourages me to see what the other options do.

I’m also kind of annoyed that all my work on the Power Point hyperlink structure is basically redundant now, and I have to build it all again.

I didn’t say anything to the group because I was clearly in the minority and I hadn’t compiled my thoughts enough to have anything to say except “no”. I’m sure our project will still be good, but Im slightly unhappy with its new form.

Hopefully my group doesn’t read this……