One of the inspirations that I’ve taken from Zork is the text-based nature of the game. I loved the idea of taking this original gamestyle and applying supporting visuals, while keeping it’s original identity intact.

As the player progresses to new tiles, they should be drip-fed parts of the story. The conditions of this are:

1. The Narrative shows whilst the player is ‘walking’ (between tiles)
2. (TBC) The story can either be told from the perspective of the ‘guide’ (discussed later) or from a narrated perspective. The latter of these would be closer to the original inspiration.
3. The UI needs to be clear of the area it will occupy before any other UI can be visible.
4. The maximum consecutive slides in between tiles should be determined by the amount of text and the time it would take to reasonably read it.
5. (TBC) Consider the implementation of a ‘journal’ that note down any narrative text shown to the character.

This UI is purely used for story telling, any ‘options’ will have their own UI.

Animations

When needed, the bar will slide in from the bottom of the screen and after time, will slide out. This happens everytime there is a change in text content.

Content

The narrative content can be loaded when the player triggers a movement. It should:

1. Be modular – At this point, the narrative text should be considered as standalone snippets and be flexible as to what order they may be used in
2. Be word lite – Multiple slides may need to fit into a fairly short period of reading. Think ‘kids’ book.
3. Be easy to read.
4. Be in the style of a narrated story.

Implementation would look like:

Examples for the first three tiles: Starting crossroad (chooses north), broken down cart, encounters the first nemesis.

• At the heart of a shadowed crossroads, a shimmering knight halts, his armor gleaming faintly in dappled moonlight.
• Towering trees loom around him, their gnarled branches weaving a dense canopy above.
• He grips his sword’s hilt, pondering which path might lead to glory—or doom.

• Illuminated by firelight, the knight’s boots crunching softly against the forest floor.
• A broken horse cart is revealed tilted in the underbrush, its shattered wheels scattered like discarded bones.
• He approaches cautiously…

• Pressing onward, the knight’s path is barred by Lord Pomperoi, a figure clad in silken finery gleaming even in the forest’s dim light.
• With a haughty smirk, Pomperoi draws his ornate rapier, its blade sharp and unyielding.
• “You shall not pass, knave,” he declares, his stance challenging.

I will comeback and update the above, so that we have the narratives for all of the first phase. At this point, I want to see how it works in reality. It could also be cool to incorporate action recognition, but this needs to be thought out further.