Tangents: The Game doesn't work!
Tangents: The Game is an interactive story written by me, based on Tangents: The Play, also written by me. You can play it here.
Sadly, it doesn't work very well, for four main reasons:
REASON THE FIRST - I'm Lazy
The first episode (Start Here) was written on 6 June 2020. Episode 2 (Play as Colin) was published on 8 June 2020. Two of the three options on that post were posted on 16 June 2020. After that, Tangents took a back seat for a while, and the third option was posted on 19 March 2021. Inbetween, 35 other posts were written, three of which are still in draft status as of writing this post.
Since then, 15 more episodes have been released, most recently on March 31. It's roughly 8% complete (6 characters with their own stories, and this one is just after the halfway point). At that rate, it should be finished by 22 March 2030 (298 days x 12 = 3576 days = 9 years 289 days). However, I have resolved to have finished it by the end of 2021 (although I'm not good at sticking to self-imposed deadlines, so how true that will be remains to be seen.
REASON THE SECOND - It's Outdated
Tangents was written in 2015 based on an idea I had in 2011 (interesting story; I might put it on the blog one day). Therefore, prior to writing the interactive version, the script had been untouched since April 2016. I was very light on topical references (mainly because most of it was based in 2085), but there are still several jokes which haven't aged well.
REASON THE THIRD - It's not funny
Like the rest of my writing, Tangents is a comedy. Sadly, looking through the script, almost all of the humour is based on fourth wall jokes, which don't work when you're writing a second-person story. For example, consider the below dialogue, taken from the play (some irrelevant dialogue has been removed to keep it short):
Chris (Entering): Morning!
Dan: I need a word. (Brings Chris over to where COLIN can’t hear them) I think COLIN let someone in last night.
...
Chris: How do you know?
Dan: Party streamers. (Pointing upwards)
Chris: And the door was forced?
Dan: No, it had been unlocked. With a key. It looks like someone did a titration as well, and you know how dangerous those can be.
...
Dan: Well it wasn’t me, you don’t have a life and Jo doesn’t know where the lab is during the night.
Jo (Entering): I don’t need to. It doesn’t exist overnight.
Dan: For the last time, yes it does, it’s just closed!
And below, the same dialogue from the game (Colin's perspective). I have removed some additional internal monologue:
"Morning!" Chris enters the lab. How does he not have a hangover? Life isn't fair sometimes. Death isn't either.
"What happened here? The mess screams titration at me, but when I came in the door was locked, so I don't know how someone could have got in. I mean, only you and I have got keys."
"Has Ben got a key?" Asks Chris.
"Not that I know of." Replies Jo. "Wait, COLIN's here all the time. Did you see anything?"
(The original play had three characters working in the lab, Chris, Jo and Dan, but I noticed that Dan didn't really add to the story, so I combined his and Jo's characters for the game)
The problem with combining those two characters is that they were originally very different characters. Dan was supposed to be very smart, but cheerful, and Jo was meant to be ditzy but likeable (she was loosely based on Cara from Lab Rats - clip contains one use of b***h and one mildly homophobic joke. It was also released before Jimmy Saville was exposed, hence the Jim'll Fix It reference.
Combining the two likeable characters resulted somehow in one suspicious/bossy character.
REASON THE FOURTH - I was lazy
As I've mentioned several times, the game is based on a play that I wrote in 2015-16. However, I discovered partway through writing it that due to use of copyrighted characters and music, it could not be performed (hence why in my Cats rant, I mention that it's illegal to perform). Any sensible person would have done one of the following:
- Found out how to licence the characters/music
- Removed the copyrighted bits
- Stopped writing it
- (Optional extra - come up with another idea for a play and write that instead)
I bet you can't guess which one I did.
That's right, I wrote several more scenes, then quit. All well and good, until you realise that I wrote Scenes 1-26, but left out Scenes 27-28. Fortunately, I know how it's supposed to end; I wrote a scene-by-scene synopsis before I started, but I'm going to have to write the dialogue from scratch.
REASON THE FIFTH - I know nothing about interactive stories
OK, that's not strictly true. I know that there's a couple of ways to do it:
Way I
Apologies that nothing lines up. I drew this freehand in Paint. Did I mention I'm lazy?
This is probably the version you're thinking of. Every decision you make leads to more choices, and there's dozens of endings.
See, here's the thing. I only wrote one play, and it's only got one ending. Did I mention I'm lazy?
Way II
You might have seen this version before, even if you don't recognise it straight away
Usually, 'Death' isn't literal; It just means the end of the story. However, in my case, it can be meant literally as well, because one of the main characters spends the majority of the story dead.
Way III
This is comparatively rare in interactive stories
In this example, you get to choose between two options, but both lead to the same place. In Tangents, I used a conversation between two characters. You can ask someone one of two questions, but both versions lead to the next scene because what you asked doesn't really affect the overall narrative.
Some games use a way that means you have to ask all the questions before you can continue, but this format doesn't allow that functionality. It's like it's designed for blogging or something.
I use all three ways, and several other versions (to the best of my knowledge, there are no other interactive stories with Intervals) in Tangents.
REASON THE SIXTH - I'm stuck within my blog parameters
As I mentioned above, Blogger doesn't exactly lend itself to Interactive Storytelling, but actually, that's not what I'm talking about. I model this blog after Pixar, trying to hide Easter Eggs in every post. In every Pixar movie you will find 4 things:
- A character played by John Ratzenberger
- The Pizza Planet Truck
- The ball from Luxo Jr.
- A113 (this one has found its way into other media as well)
Of course, I'm not as good as that, but there is something that has appeared in every single one of my blog posts: semicolons. In every post since my very first post, there has been at least one semicolon.
Pixar has the advantage that those all mean something.
- They asked Ratzenberger if he could voice a minor character in each of the earlier movies, and just never stopped. He is now a 'lucky charm' for the studio
- The truck was in Toy Story and served a purpose to the story, but since then they've just reused it
- The ball appeared in Luxo, Jr, the first short film the studio ever made. The lamp from that short famously features in their logo
- A113 is the name of the classroom at California Institute of the Arts where many Pixar animators studied
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