Probably one of my most interesting projects, Get Out was a game meant to be read out by digital assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant. All interaction was meant to be done by voice and there was absolutely no screen to speak of.
On thing that was especially difficult with this project is that while you can learn how to write for something that is read mentally, and learn how to write something that is read by a VO, there really isn’t any knowledge base when it comes to writing for text-to-speech. At least, not for making it sound more natural and taking into account he intonations, inflections, pauses, and other things which make speech more natural.
This was further compounded by the fact that Alexa and other digital assistants are not really made for this sort of task. As such, there was quite a bit of trial and error to get things sounding at least close to normal, and that was just the first hurdle. We then needed to integrate all the typical CYOA/gameplay systems you’d expect to be represented on a screen, but with voice only.
One such example was the inventory system, which we ended up removing access to completely, and instead opened up new paths or choices to make if they had a particular inventory item.
The custom game engine made for this project could take input from Twine and translate it. As such, it was relatively easy to build a narrative, write it and import it into the engine, with the ultimate idea being that it would be a story-telling platform for writers to use. Much like with MeStory, I was acting as a breakout writer for the platform to showcase what could be done with it.
Ultimately, I believe that the project never went anywhere past beta, as the client disappeared after we finished the first few levels. It’s a shame, this was such an interesting and fun project and I think it would have contributed greatly to game development in the long run.
Albert Bassili 