<aside> 💡 Summary: I’m going insane

</aside>

Inform 7 is insane and slow. It’s fun and charming and I can see how powerful it can be but oh my lord it’s slow. Since we only have one week, I choose to make a simple, self-contained story that takes place at my desk in my bedroom, with an assortment of items that the player can examine. Play here.

The premise of the experience is “a person sitting at their desk on a Friday morning, trying to reply to an email before the workday ends at 6 pm.”

The act of examining any item takes away 1 hour, and after 8 turns, the game ends (”You lost track of time and the day ended. Better luck tomorrow!). The act of leaving the room to go anywhere else (kitchen, bathroom, balcony) also automatically ends the experience. With this knowledge, the player has to work with limited moves and play over and over to build up information and figure out how to reply to the email, and more importantly, what they are experiencing.

The two un-described/scenery items are Alexa (the smart speaker) and a bottle of Adderall. It was interesting trying to construct Alexa (I set her as a woman but also scenery, so she is not mentioned unless asked for). There are hints in the items (notes in the notebook, bills from insurance, etc.) to suggest that the player recently went on Adderall for ADD. Finding the bottle of Adderall leads to two endings: it either provides more time, or it can fast-forward and end the game, mirroring the unpredictable effects of Adderall as an ADD medication.

It’s basically a showcase of how my brain works LOL