Dusk Falls tackles some pretty big issues throughout both book stories. While hit-and-run relationships, mental health, and suicide all take center stage alongside the game’s main crime-drama storyline, Interior/Night really insisted on providing a uniquely interactive narrative game. Despite these issues in the main stories, Caroline Marchal, CEO and Creative Director of Interior/Night, admits that the team tweaked some of the action based on playtest feedback.
“We did some rewrites,” Marchal says, before confirming that Jim’s dog, Zeus, did indeed die in a previous draft. “There was a story in episode five where we drastically changed the ending because I think maybe it got a little too dark at some point. So we reworked it.”
While Marchal hasn’t revealed which story the team changed, episode five follows the two main stories (warning, spoilers ahead): the confrontation between Sharon, Paul, and Dante, and the late-night journey of Jay in Salt Lake City with Vanessa. It’s unclear which one has changed, but it’s an intriguing insight into the impact of public playtesting on the evolution of the game over time, as both cover already difficult enough topics and include effective choices. . It also suggests that there’s a version of As Dusk Falls that goes deeper than we initially thought.
However, that’s not the only other change resulting from the feedback. Marchal told The Loadout it’s a fairly late addition that ranger Jay might face in the final episode, but it’s something the team is proud of.
“It’s my favorite,” says Marchal. “I have [the park ranger] You have Jay’s dream job. Like Jay but if all was well in his life. I love this extra branching.
While these changes might seem pretty big, Marchal points out that the overall story and characters haven’t really changed during development – these are just some of the ways they’ve taken to get there. .
And for a game with over 1,200 pages of dialogue and 15,000 individual blueprints, that’s impressive. These playtests may have been “instrumental” in helping Interior/Night unravel the overall story tree, but they also helped the story find and connect with its audience. And in a narrative game designed to break down barriers, that’s key.
Learn more about the development of As Dusk Falls in our big interview this week.
Source : The Load Out
