My Indie game is ‘Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger And The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist’ This game definitely falls into the ‘experimental’ category. It is very similar to The Stanley Parable, because it was made by the same developer. Also it’s meant to be a similar experience.
This game embraces the fact that it’s a game, at multiple times during the story. This happens in The Stanley Parable as well. There is a narrator in this game also, and he guides you throughout the story.
Something I like about the game is that you find out the story at your own pace while playing the game. There are collectibles that you can find that will increase your understanding of the story, which is great. Overall, I feel this game is great at telling the story it does, and it’s pretty short and free, so you all should play it.
For my final project, I want to add another cutscene / series of events in the town to my game The Second Mind. I worked on this game for two months just because I had free time, and I really like the way it turned out so far. It’s just a demo right now and I plan on extending it later. I’m at a point where I would need to add more story, so I plan to do that with this project.
Basically, the game is about AI, teaching, control. The main character is an AI, and you can control him whenever you want. the main mechanic is teaching the main character to solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and more. In terms of control, the Narrator basically controls everything in the game (outside of AI Mode and player movement). And even then, you control the main character against his will.
The feelings that I would express would be empathy, futility and helplessness. Sometimes, the Narrator can control you against your will. It does not care for the sidequests where you help the townsfolk, so it intentionally tries to prevent you from doing them. For example, it would give you all ‘bad’ dialog options, and you would have to pick one. And for certain characters, you would need to talk to them in order to make them feel better. With the Narrator actively harming this, it creates the feelings of helplessness and longing, and you wish you could actually help the NPC by saying the right things, but you just can’t. Sometimes, life is like this as well. Sometimes, there are things you want to do, and something else is stopping you from doing so, whether it be another person, the laws, or even a mental disorder. But that doesn’t mean you stop trying.
You can check out the game here:
https://teammike.itch.io/the-second-mind-demo