2012-07-12th Dear Diary: Detective Word Game, Mark Frost, Story Ideas

Dear Diary,

2012-07-12th

Tying to work out the core game design mechanics, and story for my detective word game.

A word game, alternating with story snippets.  Must be an excellent story, gloriously written.  The player must be yearning to know, what happens next?

I was thinking of asking Mark Frost, co-creator of Twin Peaks, if he would be interested in writing it.  I watched some interviews with Frost, and in 2008 he was playing World of Warcraft and interested in where interactive storytelling is heading, with the audience wanting to be in the middle of the action.  He is a master of mystery, and weaving fascinating driven stories, so it could be a really interesting match if I could get him on board.  He's currently writing a trilogy of teenage fantasy books, so probably not!  Maybe later down the track...

I read a great article by Steve Farrelly called Growing Pains: An Exploration of Mature Game Design about games maturing as a medium and dealing with more mature themes, and consequences, and I got totally inspired to write the story myself, and actually make it meaningful, relating to the state of the world, the things that threaten the freedom and happiness of all mankind, and the animals and the planet, and the solar system.  

Perhaps to have a criminal who is a sort of anarchist, tying to take down all the forces in the world that seem to be held up as great, but I actually bad for the earth as a whole.  Unrestricted capitalism.

He's questioning... "What is progress?  Is progress always good, is it always moving forwards?  At what point do we need to hold ourselves back, to say that we are happy, to say that we have enough, to indeed try to trim down our population, to pear back our impact on the earth."

I like the idea of the criminal seeing humans as a cancer on the earth, building our cities, these concrete melanomas over the body off the earth.  And that as the story unfolds, we start to question what is right and wrong, who the criminal is, whether the laws of the world are protecting us or emprisoning us.  Where we are being manipulated and deluded.