Refraction

More of a mechanics idea instead of a narrative one.

So, imagine a game that starts in a simple room.

Nothing much to do, but walk through the only exit.

However, imagine there are 10 different versions of this room. Let's call them Starting Room #1 through Starting Room #10.

All of these rooms are identical and have the same printed name. Player will never see a difference.

At the beginning of play, a hidden dice roll is done, and based on this roll, the player starts in one of these rooms at random.

From the player's POV, nothing is happening. Every play through starts identically in the same room.

This is an intentional misconception.

Now, let's talk about starting room #1.

Let's say the dice roll landed your play session in that room.

You walk out of the room into a connected room. In this room are a number of items and features.

A tennis racquet, a water cooler, an old one wheeled bicycle, etc etc.

You get the idea. Totally unrelated stuff.

Well, let's say there's a chasm in the floor and the only way forward is over that chasm.

The player might mess with the stuff. They might try to cross the chasm. Etc. Etc. Many possibilities. Let's call this room the Chasm Room and this apparently identical version of the room Chasm Room #1.

Now, let's say they decide to ride the bicycle.

When the player gets on the bike, they hear a voice yelling behind them.

"Hey, Mike, what's the big deal? Where were you??? Why aren't you dressed!?! The race starts in minutes, you gotta move! Here, put this on and follow me!" The man tosses you a professional bicyclist outfit and leaves through a previously unseen side door.

The game continues on from this vein, exploring this premise and idea.

This is the Tour de Xyzzy game. Enjoy.

Now back up mentally, wipe that out of your brain.

There's more.

So, let's say you never chose the bicycle. That never happened.

Instead, you're fixated on crossing the chasm.

You try to jump, but the game informs you it'd be better if you could fly, because it's far too wide.

The player, perhaps out of aggravation or on a whim, types "fly" or "fly over chasm."

The player sprouts giant wings out of their back and gracefully flaps over the chasm.

Turns out they were a fallen angel and had suffered some amnesia.

The game continues on that vein, with a completely different story and beat, different genre even.

Your game is a fallen angel seeking absolution game.

Now wipe that from your brain again.

Back up.

All of the objects and scenery have hidden triggers like this.

The player is specifically in Chasm Room #1, which matches starting room #1.

Once the player hits a trigger, let's say it's the flying one as an example, they're silently and instantly transported to "Chasm Room #1 - Flying" which is a separate room. None of these movements are apparent to the player, and every version of the chasm room has the same printed name.

Now, what makes "Chasm Room #1 - Flying" interesting is this version of the chasm room does not have a professional bicyclist trigger. It's just an ordinary bike.

In fact, all of the other triggers are gone too.

Another critical point, when starting a new game, UNDO IS DISABLED UNTIL THE PLAYER HITS A TRIGGER.

After that, they can undo all they want, but only to that point.

Not before it.

They can physically backtrack as well, if they like, to the starting room, but it isn't the same room they started the game in.

It's "Starting Room #1 - Flying" not "Starting Room #1" even though it appears to be the same to the player.

So do you grasp this so far, how your experience for being dropped by dice roll into "Starting Room #1" would go? You got your head wrapped around this bit, right?

Good.

Now back up, and imagine we're playing this for the first time again.

Okay, good.

Dice roll happens.

You land in "Starting Room #7" not "Starting Room #1".

Player has no idea this dice roll even happened.

The player leaves the single exit.

Finds themselves in what appears to be an identical chasm room.

No observable difference. Tennis racquet, water cooler, old bike, chasm, etc.

Right?

Player decides to jump the chasm.

Receives same failure message that hints at flying.

Player types "fly"or "fly over chasm" or "fly across"

AND THE PLAYER PHYSICALLY MORPHS INTO A LITERAL HOUSEFLY.

Gruesomely and painfully.

The game now is from the perspective of a housefly trying to avoid all of the common pitfalls a fly might have.

Spiderwebs, getting stuck in the fridge, etc, etc.

Totally different genre.

Same as before, when the player typed "fly" they were whisked silently away from Chasm Room #7 to Chasm Room #7 - Flying.

All other triggers cleansed. Undo reinstated going forward from this point.

But it's an insect simulator game, for sure.

Now back up mentally.

Wipe this from your head.

You never typed fly.

Instead, you decided to look at the bicycle.

And as you examine the bike, you grow muscles and chest hair, tattoos appear on your hands, and your clothes morph into leathers.

You're distracted by your changes, but then you hear a revving roar.

The bike is now a huge motorcycle.

You are now a biker, enjoy your rough and tumble biker gang game.

Same as before, whisked to "Chasm #7 - Bicycle", triggers cleansed, undo reinstated.

Got all of this? Cuz I'm not done.

As things stand, two different people can play the same game and make the same exact choices, but, due to a hidden dice roll, have wildly different experiences.

Different games altogether, really.

I would expect this to cause some confusion and it would make command walkthroughs less than helpful.

Got all that so far? Good.

Moving on.

So, there's a feature that allows the creation of a tiny text file.

You trigger something in the game, and it creates a text file on the user's computer named what you please, and containing what you want.

You can set the game to search for this text file before it does the initial dice roll when starting a new game.

If the file exists, it cancels the dice roll, and checks the file.

Well, the file is written when a player picks their first trigger.

It records which starting room they were in (7) and which trigger they chose (Fly).

Then, if the game is restarted for any reason, it simply starts the player in "Starting Room #7 - Flying"

The only item that can trigger IS trying to fly.

Everything else is nonreactive relatively speaking. Still has descriptions, but no big trigger.

So, the player tries to restart the game, either because someone on IFDB is claiming the game is an insect simulator, or perhaps because they realize they can't undo past that a certain point. They start a new game, and they can undo all they want, but it won't help them.

Or, if the player forgets to save their game or just wants to start over, or whatever, for any reason really. They have the same starting experience every time.

They are CONVINCED, UTTERLY CONVINCED, this is a leather clad biker game regardless of what some obviously clueless person on IFDB is claiming.

And they will fight people to the death about it, because they KNOW. They've tried everything and there's no sign of this other sillyness folks are talking about.

They're nuts.

On top of that, the file that is saved is quietly dropped into a folder on the computer. Someone could delete the game and reinstall it, but, assuming they don't arbitrarily change install folders, this innocuous little txt file will just hide in plain sight.

As long as this file is still found, it still kills the dice roll and replaces it with the player's trigger selection.

Even if someone says, "Delete the game, reinstall it! I swear it's an insect simulator!"

It still won't work.

Alright, wipe your brain again, we're moving on.

Ready? Good.

Now let's say you beat the game, and you want to replay it, well, the player is in for a surprise. When they beat the game, the game edits the file.

The edited file now knows to run the dice roll again, butttttt....

The starting room and trigger are remembered and removed from play. Let's say "Starting Room #7 - Bicycle" and "Chasm Room #7 - Bicycle" are now gone from the available options. 

You can still access all 10 starting rooms by random dice roll, but pre-trigger "Chasm Room #7" has been altered to give fairly tame nonreactive bicycle responses even if you somehow manage to land in "Starting Room #7" again, even with the only 10% likelihood.

This special edit swaps the "used" trigger with a benign version of that trigger in whichever of the 10 rooms it was found in.

(There's a benign trigger object out of play that can be swapped.)

If you happen to land in Starting room #7 as before, and try to pick the removed trigger again, let's say "fly".

Nothing happens.

You have the strangest sense of deja vu... but then it passes.

You can't fly, silly!

(Triggers still unselected.)

Forces the player to investigate something else.

Once they select a trigger both the game and the file quietly lock that choice in until the game is beaten again, at which point that trigger is swapped with a benign one and the whole cycle repeats.

If there are, say conservatively 5 triggers in each room, then that's 50 different possible games packed into one.

With the goal of as wide of a variety of genres, topics, and writing styles as possible.

You'd have to beat the game 50 times in 50 different ways before the game couldn't offer up new unique (to you) content.

Alright, last wrinkle (for now).

At this point, after 50 rounds of edits, beating the game for the last time would make one last special edit onto the file.

After that special edit, if you restart the game, the file change prompts a special congratulatory text.

It then gives you the option to TRULY reset everything to a new state, which deletes the text file. Or to access the hub room, which is really "Starting room #11"

This starting room has 10 exits.

Each exit is an identical chasm room, but, in actuality, is just a copy of the each of the 10 chasm rooms.

All 50 triggers are selectable.

If you choose one, it moves the game forward from that point and removes the othet triggers, but no more file edits. That means if you restart the game, you are in the hub room and all 50 triggers are available to select again.

So, basically, you can either reset the whole mess after beating the game 50 times (that literally deletes the file).

Or you choose the hub room, which makes one last permanent edit to that file and makes it read only too.

No matter what, you always restart the game in room 11.

Even if you delete and reinstall the game.

You now have access to everything, curtain pulled away.

The only way around it is to know about this single tiny innocuous file and to delete it. 

Okay, I'm done. That's the idea.