Beyond Lies The Individual

This is an Interactive story for my Intro to Narrative Design class.

The story is a literary adaption of Beyond Lies the Wub and Not by Its Cover by Philip K. Dick  and The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster.

Assignment:

Create a digital, choice-based game, based on a literary work that is in the public domain. You can find many works in the public domain at Project Gutenberg. The game can update the original setting of the work (e.g. set in in modern day or in a different culture)

You should use images as part of the game. The game should have at least 50 passages and at least 5 images. Passages can be reused and recombined to make a longer game.

Brief Design Rationale: I had a lot of fun making this interactive story. I have been a big fan of these Sci-Fi stories for some time, so I thought they’d be the perfect pieces to base my adaptation on. Although the two authors express different scenarios and character philosophies, they seem to both rely on a world that battles with the intersection of differing morals and connections to a higher power, whether that be the Wub’s spiritual underpinnings or the Machines omniscient power over its residents. The Wub believes in the interconnectedness between all life forms and hopes to educate/discuss its beliefs to anyone who will listen, albeit, only to those it deems worthy. The Machine, in contrast, doesn’t permit discussion in conflict with the world it has created and rather than educating it indoctrinates through providing the means and resources its residents access knowledge. Since both of these two characters are so idiocentric, I wanted to create a story where the two meet and discuss their views. Rather than having the Machine come into direct contact with the Wub, I wanted to have one of its inhabitants, who really is an extension of the Machine, debate with the Wub. But through the resident’s reliance on the Machine to live its life, it would be subject to the Wub and its games, unable to hold their own ground in the face of differing ideology.