For this 2nd week, I decided to show off some of my script and ask questions about my project. I asked everyone about narrating with voice overs along with subtitles, a recommended time limit, how much of each “stage of abuse” in the cycle should appear to be most effective, and any thoughts on it being interactive. Everyone seemed to agree that there should be voice overs to speed up the process and really help put the user in the story. Of course, this led to a discussion about the kinds of sounds I can include in the story, and I already knew the sound would be a major part of the experience aside from visuals. The general consensus for a time limit was about 10 minutes on average and about 15 minutes absolute max so it isn’t too long to lose interest at the showcase. There wasn’t much agreement on how much should be included from each stage or much of a ratio, but it seems like everyone is very interested in the “gray area” of subtle abuse that people may not realize is bad. I’m going to be working out how I can show that off since sometimes it can be such subtle abuse or gaslighting that even the main character doesn’t process the gaslighting until many many months later or even a year later. That gray area will be important as well to show how easily someone can get trapped into an abusive cycle and not even realize it until they are well out of the relationship and on the road to healing. Something that may help with that is spending more time on the character reflecting on the abuse and all the discoveries of the gaslighting that went on to make the character feel crazy or as if they’re overreacting. Otherwise, there may be an issue of the user not catching on to the abuse at the moment as well if it is so subtle and I spend too much time on it. There won’t be an interactive story in the sense of it containing choices and multiple endings, but I hope to make an interactive environment where maybe if the player looks around enough, they can discover more details behind the story if they’re interested. I could make the whole game short when you simply walk through but have opportunities to uncover more stories and specific details along the way if the player was invested in the story enough. Then at that point, the minimum could be around 5-10 minutes of gameplay that could expand into 15 minutes, or possibly more if the player wishes to spend the time learning more.