Saturday, February 8, 2014

Madras Psychedelic - an Interactive story about weirdness, Madras and being lost in an alternate dimension.

For a while, I've been tossing around in my mind an adventure game I wanted to make about Chennai.

The first prototype is finally here - it's called Madras Psychedelic.

This prototype is a text-only (with a few pictures) Twine based interactive story in which I'm testing out the overall feel of the narrative. Check it out here : http://img.sonofbosey.in/game/Ep1.html

Maybe sometime in the future, I'll mock up something with graphics in AGS or something. But for now, I want to see if the narrative works. Is the world fun to explore? Are the characters fun to interact with? Is the story interesting enough?

So I'd love for you guys to play through this VERY early Alpha version and let me know what you think .

Here are some teaser images to give you an idea of what's in there :








Do play, and give me lots of feedback and harsh criticism. It's over here : http://img.sonofbosey.in/game/Ep1.html


7 comments:

  1. The idea is fantastic. And even as a text only format it was interesting to me, mostly because of all the experience playing online treasure hunt in engineering college fests, which means I am sure a good percentage of the populace will like the concept.

    I played your detective Facebook game (sorry the name doesn't strike me as it has been a while) and what I wanted to convey was that a lot happened on a single spot. It sort of gets repetitive after a while,. so I am hoping you have planned more dynamics in this game. Since it is you, you will never run out of kvlt references, so I am sure you can add in a lot of dynamics :D more references, navigation etc.

    Not sure how much of a help this feedback will be but I guess I can represent my kind of the audience. Looking forward to episode 2.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. Yeah Hidden Shadows is a free to play Hidden Objects game - so the repetitive design is kind of a business necessity. Perhaps we overdid it :)

      This is a personal project - so more open to any mad idea. Let's see where it goes. Thanks for playing.

      Delete
  2. Ok, I'm going to try this again.. for the 4th time...

    Great concept! Works well, etc.

    1. How will it translate from text to graphic if you plan to do so?
    2. I want to know more about the protagonist and I want to know why I hate to love him?
    3. The references are key to the writing, but since I don't get most of them and I wish I did, I was wondering if there was any way to broad base it without losing the essence of the theme?
    4) Technicality: The text could change depending on the order of events (what is read first) and could become more contextual (I know that means more writing but will be more interesting).

    Rest is the usual, 'keep it up' and 'we need more of these' and all that jazz.

    Ok, going to try posting this one last time...

    **That didn't work but this time I saved the feedback :)... Ok, once more, from Chrome

    ReplyDelete
  3. NAdigar Thilagam speaking as Major Sundarrajan HAS to be the highlight. And ought to be a million tumblrs now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looks very interesting, maybe one day create it as the silent age game! best wishes
    @googler_ram

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very intrigued by this game.. Love the narrative style.. This would make a great Telltale-series-like game(see: The Walking Dead and A Wolf Among Us episodical series) with cell shaded graphics.. May even go well as a comic!

    Good luck in developing this game further.. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is so so good. Orey Noir + Fear and Loathing feel, if that's a thing. Anyway, the room descriptions like the builtin wall shelf and Nilkamal chairs are spot on. You brought back the vision of a 10 year old me staring, for an abnormal period of time, at the lizard by the flickering tubelight waiting for it to make its move. Speaking of which..
    "You decide that you're not yet ready to venture out. You should go back to your room and investigate the strange Lizard and the poster of Sivaji Ganesan first."
    This passage appears irrespective of whether you have spoken to Lizard and poster Sivaji. However, the links after Go Inside appear correctly.

    The writing kept me entertained for two full playthroughs. Waiting for Ep2.

    ReplyDelete