My game “Riddle Me That” involved being trapped and having to solve a series of weird riddles in order to escape. Each riddle required players to think critically and choose carefully. One wrong answer, and the door would lock, shrinking their chances of escape. I was drawn to the idea of riddles because they challenge players to think creatively, and the satisfaction of solving one appeals to people of all ages.
However, creating this game made me realize that using hyperlinks as the main interaction tool limited the experience. Because hyperlinks work best with multiple-choice answers, players weren’t really solving riddles, they were guessing. This took away from the tension and sense of entrapment that I wanted to create. If you know you have a 25% chance of survival no matter what, the challenge becomes less about thinking outside the box and more about luck.
To fix this, I experimented with giving players only one chance per door and the freedom to choose which door to open first. That made the game more interesting but also much harder to code, since every choice created new pathways and outcomes. Working with hyperlinks forced me to plan ahead and sometimes even work backward to make sure everything connected logically. Eventually, the branching became so complicated that I simplified the experience into a fixed sequence.
This process gave me a new appreciation for game developers who manage countless branching storylines and decisions. I also began to see how hyperlinks, while useful for connecting ideas in articles, online shopping, or discussion forums, don’t always work well for immersive experiences like this one. They’re powerful tools for navigation and reference, but not necessarily for emotional or cognitive depth.
Reflecting on Heim’s discussion of Engelbart and Bush, I see how hypertext was originally imagined as a way to enhance human thought, what Engelbart called the “augmentation of intellect.” My experience, though, revealed that technology doesn’t automatically make thinking deeper or better; it depends on how it’s used. In my game, hyperlinks simplified thought rather than expanding it, making problem-solving more mechanical than meaningful. Perhaps, as Heim suggests, true augmentation happens when digital tools amplify the complexity of our thinking rather than replace it with easier shortcuts.
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