In my Twine project, I designed an escape room story where the player finds themselves waking up inside a creepy office, and the task is to explore the story to discover a route to freedom. The essential aim behind my design is to transmit a feeling of curiosity and unease to the player. In my project, I have designed the story nonlinearly by employing paths, loops, and dead ends. This is to recreate the sensation of feeling locked up.
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From a visual point of view, I deliberately kept things simple so that the attention could be on the atmosphere. I employed fast transitions, placed hyperlinks unexpectedly, and used environmental elements to ensure the experience of exploring was felt by the user, and not a story being told. Working on the project has encouraged me to think not only like a story teller but also a level designer.
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This project opened my eyes to the extent to which spatial digital media is embedded. Digital spaces, whether it is a website, a game, a software app, or a social media site, are built spaces. They shape and control behavior, influence the rhythm of attention, and shape the paths of information. In discussions during class, we covered screens in public spaces, ambient media, and interactive media, and it struck me how media is not merely present within a space, but media produces space.
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In Twine, every hyperlink led to a doorway. Every mouse click led to a small act of navigation. This is analogous to how contemporary media spaces influence the decisions we make while simultaneously giving us a sense of freedom. The concept of spatial media also influences emotion, where some paths are constricting, others are liberating, and some are intentionally disorienting. Working on my assignment has also given me an understanding of spatial media not only theoretically but also practically. In today’s media reality, narrative and architecture are not separate.