Exploring the Minitua of Truly Building an Experience

As I get deeper in prototyping my interactive fiction, I’m realizing that some things need a little extra time.

I am notorious for not scoping my projects thoroughly enough. It’s something I became aware of recently that I’ve been trying to really become better at. I’m too eager to say something will be quick and easy when in reality, it needs a little more hands-on care. Since I’m interested in creating interactive fiction (IF) that makes the most of sparse multimedia elements, that means really making sure that the multimedia that is there is the best that I can possibly make it.

Over the course of winter break, I found myself realizing that some of the elements I expected to include in my thesis were going to be a bit more work than I originally anticipated. As a writer, I have an Achilles’ heel in both of my legs. One of those heels is my notorious propensity for underestimating the importance of sound. I feel like I’ve been conditioned by staying too immersed in the written word that I don’t give enough attention to make something a compelling auditory experience.

Over the break, I started scouring through different royalty-free sound clip websites to find bits that work well for my project. Since the script I’m working with has a lot of nature imagery, I’m collecting sounds like rain, wind through the trees, streams bubbling, and occasional birdsongs. While it sounds easy in theory, sticking with free resources does mean digging through audio clips of varying quality levels.

The other challenge I’m finding is getting sounds that work for the mood that I want to create for this project. The nature of The Wildwood of Thought is a deeply introspective, self-reflective IF experience that really pulls the reader into this hypothetical setting. However, since the goal is to make the reader think more deeply about their values and the things…

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