Over the past month, I’ve been working on a couple of game projects — an interactive tale based on a classic folk tale and a narrative adventure. The first of these has been completed and launched and the second is currently in development.
Bluebeard: An Interactive Tale
After oodles of work, I finally completed my first Twine interactive tale. Bluebeard: An Interactive Tale is based on the French folk tale, “Bluebeard,” relating the story of a young woman who weds a wealthy man harboring deadly secrets.
The interactive tale features a branching narrative with a total of seven possible endings.
It’s been an interesting process adapting a linear tale into a text game with multiple endings (which I plan to write more on later). Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about crafting branching narratives, and I’m so proud of this project.
What Lies Underneath – Development Process
What Lies Underneath is a small narrative game built using the Bitsy game maker (created by Adam Le Doux), an open source tool designed to be simple enough for just about anyone to make their own games.
I’m sure I would have sat on the idea and pondered it for a much longer time, if not for the Greenlight Jam. The jam is designed to have participants work through each stage of the game development process — from ideation to prototyping, production, and release of the final product.
Thus far, I’ve worked through the first two stages, ideation and prototyping, for the game, which I shared a little bit about on Itch.io, where you can also play the prototype of the game.
Let’s kick things off with a couple of fantastic poetry collections.
Second, This is How the Bone Sings by W. Todd Kaneko is a stunning collection of poems focus on Minidoka, a concentration camp for Japanese Americans built in Idaho during World War II. The author blends history with myth and folklore to explore how the scars of the past carry through generations — from grandparents through to their grandchildren. The wounds caused by racism and hate are continue on through memory and story. These poems are evocative and beautiful, providing an important memorial for an aspect of American history that should never be forgotten.
Delving into fiction, Nnedi Okorafor’s Noor is the story of Anwuli Okwudili, a woman who prefers to be called AO, who has a number of necessary body augmentations on her arm and legs — a fact that that makes some superstitious people in Africa believe she is evil or wicked. When she is attacked by men in her local community, she fights back with incredible power and flees into the desert. On her journey, she finds new companions, faces off against an powerful corporation, and finds hope filled utopian community finding safety within the winds of a man-made natural disaster. I loved the characters and communities portrayed with Okorafor’s Africanfuturist vision of a future. It’s a great read.
Cosmobiological: Stories by Jilly Dreadful is a collection of hopepunk short stories that explore love, relationships, passion, the resilience of the human spirit, and the possibilities of hope through myth, fantasy, and science fiction.”5×5″ (which you can read at 
Isabel Yap’s 
“I realize I want to hear my voice and only mine. Not the voice of my voice within a cacophony of old pains. Just min, now.”