Approach 3 – KeeganE

Background:

This project is oriented around the idea of presenting the Eco-Issue of overpopulation in an interactive fiction, utilizing the environment Inform 7 to easily manage both dynamic and narrative elements found within the game.

Explanation:

The narrative focuses heavily on presenting the player with an image of a world overrun by the people who inhabit it. In the wake of a world entirely unprepared for the rising population, powerful syndicates seize control by offering their ‘solutions.’ The ‘solution’ as it turns out was to subdue the growing mass of population and herd the majority of the population underground, where they are put to work as mass-laborers in an attempt to offset the rapidly-declining resources on the surface.

In the meantime, you, the player have the ultimate task of fixing (or irrevocably breaking) the issues created in this sudden, fictional utopia. Your duty will be to tackle complex and controversial issues in what ever way you find most appropriate. Ultimately, the game will be a puzzle/exploration game with these decisions being given to the player as they progress. Each decision will change the course the game follows.

For example, your character learns that newborn infants are not being provided the resources they need; those resources have been channeled to a local underground industrial plant to provide for the workers within. The only way to provide for the infants is if the workers are no longer a part of the picture, so you divert the path of local waterways to flood the plant. The children now have food, the workers have died, and you as the player no longer have access to the flooded area, thereby eliminating any chance of exploration.

Credit:

The 1927 film Metropolis served as the basis for how I want to structure my utopian society in this narrative.

Budget:

I still am estimating a $200-$300 budget for this project, which is based off of (modest) hourly  wages for a project which spans 20-30 hours of work.