The Making of "Interrogation Scene" - Devlog

"Interrogation Scene" was my first narrative design project using the Visual Novel medium. In this devlog I will go into the thought process, goals, and choices behind this project.

1. Goals

The primary objective of this project was to adapt my storytelling and narrative logic into a cinematic scene. As a portfolio piece, this project's aim was to showcase my ability to design things like cutscenes and game sections with interactive dialogue, where the main mechanic is choosing what to say. Apart from merely designing a scene with well-written dialogue, I also wanted to make the player feel that their choices had real consequences, and that it would be smart for them to think strategically. This is why I chose to have multiple endings, all of which have a different pay-off--not just in terms of the player's success, but also in terms of the moral impact of their actions. It is also why I used a stat-tracking system, which tracks two variables: Trust and Confidence. Based on the values of those variables, the scene presents different choices and outcomes for each player.

2. Learning to use Ren'Py.

This was the first time I ever used Ren'Py to script a game. That said, I do have some previous experience with Python and some of its libraries, so that was very helpful. The type of coding you do in Python is very similar in feel to the scripting you do in Ren'Py. The only elements that really bothered me from a technical perspective were the ones that were unrelated to the narrative itself. I found the indentation system very intuitive, and it made it very easy to understand the structure of each part of the scene visually.

3. The story itself.

The story of the scene came to me naturally from the setting that I envisioned. I knew I wanted a seated conversation from the first-person perspective, and so the concept of an interrogation was one of the first that jumped to mind. I also knew that I wanted there to be a twist, a secret that can only be properly triggered if the player makes the right choices. In the case of this project, there were actually two twists. The one being that the terrorist you are interrogating is actually on the moral side of the conflict. The REVA organization is actually trying to defend humanity from the dangerous weapons that your military is trying to develop. The second twist, is that unless you gain enough trust, the terrorist is going to lie, and give you the wrong location, when you pressure him to tell you where REVA will attack next, These two twists serve the story by giving it the two dimensions I mentioned before; the dimension of success/failure, and the dimension of morality/immorality. You can be a successful interrogator, and make him confess the correct location, but if you don't choose to listen to him fairly, you are going to  give that information to the military, which will lead to mass destruction. In other words, the game gives you the choice to become a successful monster, an unsuccessful monster, but also a good person. That's why game elements like stat-tracking can be so fun. They allow you to create multi-layered interactive stories, with higher stakes and more player agency.

4. How does the stat-tracking work?

There are only two variables for which the game keeps score; Trust and Confidence. From the second dialogue choice onward, every dialogue choice requires a minimum value for each of these variables. They both start at 0, and each choice either adds or subtracts a certain amount of points. The earlier choices will typically have an effect of 1 point, whereas later choices have an effect of 2 points. This makes it so that the player can still come back and unlock a good ending, even if they did not make perfect choices at the very start. If the player makes only the worst choices possible, the game will force them into only 2 possible endings; they will either give up on the interrogation, or they will torture the terrorist to death. These are objectively the worst available endings. On the other hand, if the player makes the best possible choices from a stat-tracking perspective, they will be given the opportunity to either succeed but do an immoral act, or to be moral and help REVA guard against the dangers of the military.

5. Mistakes (Failure to modularize).

The biggest mistake I made in the making of this project was this; instead of modularizing some identical dialogue options into a single block of code that I can call, I wrote all of them individually. This made the scripting process more painful than what it needed to be, but in some ways it also incentivized me to come up with a larger variety of dialogue options in some moments, because I didn't get to have that "quick fix" mentality. Certainly in the future I will modularize more, cause in a bigger project the cost of not doing so would be massive.

6. What's next?

In terms of personal projects, I will participate in the Interactive Fiction Competition with the game "The Island of Rhynin". Also, I am looking to make some collaborations and participate in a game jam in the September-October period, though this is not yet certain.

In terms of skills, I am now aiming to get a good handle of basic C# for Unity, so that I can properly integrate narratives from Ink and Yarn Spinner. Many studios use Unity, and I really like Ink--so this is the logical next step. Furthermore, I am currently making a fictional Lore Bible with genealogies, gods, wars, cultures etc. to sharpen up my worldbuilding for video games.

In the long term, I am hoping to find opportunities in narrative design for indie games and studios alike, as I love stories and games!