Movie Night

My cycle game!

For my cycle game I picked my cycle of watching horror movies. Since it is Halloween season, I have been very into older horror movies and the tropes that come along with them. I chose to base the actual game off of a typical 90’s slasher film and employ some of the tropes that I have witnessed within the genre to create a spooky game that utilizes the cycle elements.

My meaning gap comes from the titles of the passages representing different stages of watching a movie vs the game itself which is as though you are in a movie. The difference between watching vs playing changes your relationship with the characters in the story which can affect the overall experience. Through playing games in class, I have noticed that when you are able to make choices for a character, you care more about their destiny because you feel responsible for it. This contrasts with the external view of simply watching something because no matter how hard you try, you can’t make the characters do what you want. 

The thematic argument I wanted to approach with this game is how strongly our choices affect us / the people around us and the question of how much control we truly have over our own lives. In my game, the player character is given several options through the game, but they all end at the same conclusion no matter what choice the player character makes. I also implied in the story that when the player character drinks water in the car at the conclusion of the cycle, they are brought back to the same house where the story begins, meaning that although they “escaped” the murderer, they ends up back where they started.

I wanted the setting of the game to feel like a movie set to relate to the original cycle that I used for the game’s inspiration, and in doing so, I think it adds a feeling of claustrophobia for the players. The game forces you to do the same thing over and over again, despite the illusion of choice. The illusion of choice is especially true in the passage where you can choose to attack one of the other characters or run. If you choose attack, you are brought back to the same page, this time the only option being “run”. I wanted this passage to clearly demonstrate that your choices really have no meaning in the game.

These points bring up questions about how this game design functions in our own lives. Do the choices we make have a big impact on our futures, or are we stuck on a set path that is unavoidable despite our best efforts?

From my playtests I was able to add the function where when you visit a passage more than one time, the text can change. This allowed me to clarify that specific passage so it didn’t look like the game was functioning incorrectly. I also edited my writing for spelling and clarity. Otherwise, because of the simplicity of the game, there wasn’t as much feedback as on my bigger game.