Breaking points - A continuously developing interactive digital narrative

Abstract

Breaking Points is an interactive digital narrative (IDN) that puts the user in the position of a young woman who feels trapped in a daily routine she would like to escape from. The narrative design connects more important decisions with seemingly trivial ones and presents the user with immediate and delayed consequence in the form of narrative feedback, for a complex and more life-like experience. By aligning the experience of a single walkthrough with a day in the life of the heroine, the project invites replay. The project is also a study of authorial challenges and opportunities offered by different authoring modes, namely the switch from coding from scratch to the ASAPS environment. As the project is prepared for release on touch-based tablets, the paper focuses on how changes in the underlying technology have afforded continuous reshaping of the narrative. © Springer International Publishing 2013.