ETEC 540 – Task 12: Speculative Futures

Click Here To Play My Twine Narrative Game!

To complete Task 12, I decided to use Twine to encompass my story of speculative futures. My reasoning for this was to use a single program that would take users through a story with two different viewpoints – utopian and dystopian. Twine was a natural choice for this as I could have a split narrative path to contain both of these options.

My overall idea came down to using a dream sequence as a jumping off point for the story. The character (which the player names themself) is just about to fall asleep. As they toss and turn, they are given the option to decide if they will have a “Sweet Dream” (Utopian) or a “Nightmare” (Dystopian). This sets the player on a short journey through a world in which technology thrives, or into a world in which technology has led to the destruction of our society.

My main focus was to showcase how the technology had changed between the two visions through a natural narrative as the player explores their own neighbourhood in their dream. In the Utopian version, the player tries to find their brother to see where they are and how long time has passed while then also visiting their old school to see how education has changed. On the way, they interact and overhear small tidbits of information that showcases how society has progressed.

In the Dystopian version, the player lands in a world filled with scrapped technology and in a bare wasteland. They try to uncover the mystery of what happened to their world by searching for their old school and wandering the neighbourhood.

Overall, I had a great time trying to figure out Twine for the first time after seeing how my peers used Twine to create incredible experiences in Assignment 5. I recognize that it was a risky decision as I would have to learn through my mistakes, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out how to add background music, images, and variables with conditions. I recognize that there are a few bugs that I was not able to iron out relating to sounds and their durations, but it overall was a great experience using Twine!


Academic Reference
Hariri, Y. N. (2017). Reboot for the AI revolution. Nature International Weekly Journal of Science, 550(7676), 324-327.

Digital Media Reference
Source of all images and sounds: Pixabay
2.4 million+ stunning free images to use anywhere – pixabay. (n.d.). Retrieved August 6, 2022, from https://pixabay.com/

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