Unit 4

Production:

Proof of technical features

Variables:

Summary of all used variables in the initialisation passage. Some of these variables were planned but didnt make it in the production in time but most are used.

Conditional logic:

Using the previous variables, through out the story I used many if statements to differ how people interact with you dependin on your previous choices. This helps playthroughs feel different despite being a fixed story.

Custom styling:

I used a.i to help generate the structure of the code for me to copy and customise for each character. This first image is of the main 2 character styling macros for the MCs speach and thoughts.

Overall I added: a gradient background, syled text, styled links, link hover animation, and a text typing animation.

Below is a example of the link customisation and animation:

Play testing and feedback

My story was fairly enjoyable so not much tweaking was needed.

The fight scene was extra liked and probably boosted the overall rating as it made it more enjoyable to play.

This reinforces the enjoyment of the fight and also the effectiveness of the coloured text to help immerse the player in the story.

I wrote clear enough that the story was not confusing.

A improvement I could of made is:

Which I would have include more variability and paths from the choices. However, because of the time and my lack of enjoyment from storywriting I did not elabourate the variables and simply made the ‘wet’ effect make people tell u to dry off and the ‘knife’ was never used as I never wrote the passage where you go out to the market and sell/ buy stuff with the money from your first payment working at the inn.

Despit writing way less than I wanted too, I did write a realistic amount shown by this. As making the story as long as I orignally planned too would have taken 30mins or more to play throught which is excesive.

I also met the main genre and didn’t go off on a tangent as the players could tell the genre from the story fairly easily. (If they knew what the genre meant)

Key story points

If I continued the story with more time I would add:

• The main character learning the new world with the help of the secondary character
• More variability in the story from picking up things, exploring more and your previous actions. Instead of most things leading back to the main story and just changing a few sentences.
• Forced, story impactful, fighting events where the choice would effect how the character builds cofidence and money.
• Complete happy ending with the character living out their lives in the new world.

Planning

Initial planning mindmap:

Created by me using google slides.

Settings and Inspiration:

Images from animes ‘KonoSuba‘ and ‘Re:Zero‘ with the exception of Inn Image 2 and Marketplace image 3. Moodboard created by me using canva.

Who is the story about and who is my target audience?

The story is about a ordinary guy, who is reincarnated into another world but stays ordinary and does not gain any abilities, and therefore has to learn the way of this new world through experience with the malevolence and kindness in the town. Primarly through the help of the secondary character ‘Minami’ that they build a relationship with.

My target audience is relatively broad as the romance aspect targets more of a teen audience of both genders but primarily male. However the isekai aspect also targets all ages like 20-40+ of again primarily male.

This article dives deeper into the popularity and target audience of isekai media, which further agrees the target audience is wide and for anyone:

Stalberg, A. (2021). How Isekai Became Anime’s Most Popular Genre. Available at: https://gamerant.com/how-isekai-genre-became-so-popular/ [Accessed 11 Jan. 2026].

What will you use as reference or inspiration?

I will use ideas taken from text based story games I have already played, watched someone else play, and also random ones that I played for research for a reference of styling and game features.

For the story I will use inspiration from movies and animes I have watched. A primary inspiration will be from the animes Re:Zero, GATE and KonoSuba which has the same theme of an isekai and also the medieval style city setting I was going for. Though Re:zero takes the overall inspiration as the introduction is very similar to Re:zero’s.

How would the game interest the reader?

Because I will include branching pathways and logic/ variables, that will change how some conversations are said based of your previous choices. Additionally you may be able to be better off in some situations if you pick the correct sequence or end up dead at the start again if you choose incorrectly.

Which means despite the main flowing story you could still vary quite differently depending on each choice.

Each character will also have different colour scheme to clearly show someone else is speaking without having to read the characters name like a play script.

The custom styling of links and text animations will also keep the readers attention as the links moves when you hover over it and the text types its self out so the amount of words doesnt overwhelm you immediatley. Additionally you can click to fast forward the text animation which adds to the interactivity and entertainment.

Furthermore the themes I have picked sell many copies each year such as ‘The fragrant flower blooms with dignity’ or ‘Bloom’ which sold “2,038,691 copies” in 2025 in total counting from “December 2025,… had over 10 million copies in circulation.”

Additionally Re:zero had over “13 million” copies of the light novel and manga sold by 2023, further proving the popularity and interest in these themes.

Information from:

Wikipedia Contributors (2025). The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fragrant_Flower_Blooms _with_Dignity [Accessed 11 Jan. 2026].

Hart, A. (2025). 2025’s best-selling manga in Japan show a growing interest in romance. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/oricon-best-selling-manga-2025-romance-dandadan/ [Accessed 11 Jan. 2026].

Wikipedia Contributors (2023). Re:Zero. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re:Zero [Accessed 11 Jan. 2026].

Research

· Explore 3–5 examples of storytelling in your chosen medium (e.g., short films, podcasts, graphic novels, animations, games).

· Analyse how creators use structure, character, imagery and sound to convey meaning.

Examples and inspiration

Re:Zero

Primary inspiration becasue of the theme and fantasy setting aligning with my story well. The medieval housing and river city primary inspired my storys setting. The physcological and literal horror themes in rezero does not match the Rom-Com aspect of my story but enough does for inspiration.

Subaru Natsuki Is the main character of Re:Zero who develops over the anime through intense suffering and hardships. Subaru is summoned into another world at night while blinking, which is what I based my characters summoning off. Character development is slow as Subaru learns he is just a ordinary guy but with one excruciating power: ‘Return by death’.

This is how the creator primarily develops their character as subaru watches everyone he loves die over and over again as he strives to save everyone. This is kind of a cylical story structure that the creator uses as he is tested with insanity and constant torment but prevails to keep everyone around him alive with re-trys of the events. His character develops from the unemployed ordinary highschool kid to a strategic and caring hero who literally sacrifices himself to save others practically daily.

The creator uses a change in artstyle and facial expression to show the differnce between joyfull scenes to more exasperated, horrific and gorey scenes. Usually revealing things true nature throuh subarus death and re-living of the event trying to conquer it a different way.

The creator uses sound to emphasis subaru’s death with a high pitch angelic hum and then tune. This stacked with the shocked and still imagery effectly builds the tension of subaru’s deaths.

Further more Subaru is given the choice of a peaceful ending chosing romance and living away from chaos happily ever after, but choses to keep trying and be a hero. This type of choice I could reflect in my story during fight scenes.

KonoSuba

Im primarily inspired again by the medieval fantasy setting with the main guild inn, partially inspiring the structure of my Inn in my story.

The creator builds Kazuma’s character from a stay at home kid who skived school to play video games, to a cunning tactition using his quirky knowledge, strategies and luck to overcome his enemies.

Character development is mostly built within Kazuma’s party in which the main structure of staying and messing around with your friends leads you to victory. Kazuma himself has no extra-ordinary stats or abilities besides luck and a Arch priest who revives him from the worst of situations. The ordinary character feature will be a incredibly key theme in my story, as they adapt to the surroundings but dont become much more poweful.

The Creator uses a main Proairetic Code of the main character having to build up their strengths and tricks to take down the great evil pestering the world. However the creator approaches this structure fairly uniquely with the Main character being just a ordinary guy with no abililties. Through sneaky tactics and skills Kazuma is developed into a famed Adventurer who has taken down many great evils but not quiet the main boss.

Sound is mostly used for comedic purpose with awkard expressions and silence when something silly has been said. Otherwise sfx over spells and fights add to the tension and enterntainment.

The creator also primary uses Imagery to either build a scary tension around evil characters or purely for comedic effect such as funny facial expression or poses or characters in the background laughing at the focused characters. There are also incredible action imagery with budget draining explosion effects which adds emphasis to fight scenes. I will do similar with more sinister fonts and colours when a ill-intended person speaks.

The fragrant flower blooms with dignity

I picked this as research because it matches the romance theme I wanted to remotely capture within the story.

The root of Blooms romance originates from food and the bakery which I am remotely mirroring in my story with it starting with food and the inn.

The creator kind of uses barthes Hermeneutic Code to with hold information about the pair until later into the story which depens the relationship and sweetens the story.

Rintaro develops from a isolated and mis-understood character who is seen as a outsider and bad person, to a more expressive character who is understood by his friends around him. I will reflect this in my story as my character has strange clothes from a different world and weird accent and is therefore treated as a outsider.

Through the use of my secondary character like in Bloom the character becomes happier and more familiar with the environment. Not feeling like a alien anymore.

The creator uses imagery and sound to convey emotion in situations with emphasised blush and steam in embarrasing moments. The imagery builds a sense of romance overtime which I would like to replicate if I can progress my story that far.

Techniques/ method

I will keep my story fairly simple with a linear structure with a few branching choices that occasionally branch out into quests that can effect how the characters perceive you or gain extra items to sell or use. If statements will be used to change how characters react with you based on previous events and choices. If I write alot then major quest changes and events could take place that greatly effect the main character and secodary characters relationship.

Narrative techniques

Information about Barthes’ codes from media studies (2021). Roland Barthes’ 5 Narrative Codes | Media Studies Theory. Available at: https://media-studies.com/barthes-codes/ [Accessed 11 Jan. 2026].

In my story if i can progress it far enough I would like to use Barthes’ Hermeneutic Code to hold information about an attack or strange event that the characters have to collect information to allow the reader to understand.

I will use Proairetic Codes to convey the linear story with simple events that build and release tension to keep the player interested primarily with fight scenes where you can ease the fight, win the fight, loose the fight or run away each having a small effect on how the characters treat you further on in the story.

Story patterns and techniques

The patterns I chose to primarily focus on was ‘Branch and Bottleneck’, ‘Quest’ and ‘Gauntlet’. The ‘branch and bottleneck’ pattern has very similar early story and much later the effects of your choices change your path and how people view you. If I enjoyed storywriting more I could have explored this techinique further.

The ‘Quest’ pattern is simple, It branches off from the main story with different quests depending on which path you take. I included one example of this in my story with the ability to take a shortcut and cause a fight sequence, in which you can die, delay the story or win and gain something to sell.

The ‘gauntlet’ pattern is just a general idea of how I want to keep my storylinear and not be limited by your choices like the ‘Time cave’ pattern.

Branch and Bottleneck:

Linear story which I like with many choices which don’t take too much effect early game but lead to larger branches off and changes later into the story. I like the linear multibranching pattern but don’t like the restrictive and differing endings.

Gauntlet:

This Is the main/base pattern that I will use as you can choose wrong decisions or paths that lead you to find out more lore or items that you can use in later areas, but the main story stays linear and isnt too effected by the player.

Quest:

I like this pattern alot. Linear story with differnt quests that effect the character and outcome differently. This will work alongside other patterns as I would like to keep the story linear but have the choice to do different quests. If I had more time to progress the story I would have made more quests which effect the relationship of the main and secondary characters heavily.

Time Cave:

Encourage replayability and vast change between playthroughs.
I dislike this as I want the story to flow straight with small changes that only effect how you get to the end of the story, not the end itself.

Open Map:

Used for more open world/ adventure/ dungeon games rather than a story game. Creates a literall sense of a building being able to enter each room and go backwards and forwards through the halls instead of progressing a set story.

Loop and map:

Too complex to keep re-using passages in my opinion so I would prefer to keep a linear story. This loop could work for a progressing day system which I do want but not in such a literal way.

Images and article from: Ashwell, S.K. (2015). Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games Available at: https://heterogenoustasks. wordpress.com/2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/ [Accessed 11 Jan. 2026].

Politics/Ethics

The story itself has nothing to do with the real world and therefore is not concerned with politics. However the storys ethics will stick to mostly ethical choices with no currently planned passages that the characters would do anything immoral or wrong. Additionally the charcacter remotely believes he could be a hero as he was summoned to this world for some reason and therefore will usually pick the ethical option in a situation.

Conclusion

Overall, I reinforced the fact I dislike storywriting despite enjoying watching storys a lot. I think the styling of my story adds to the entertainment and suits the text based theme. If I enjoyed writing more I could have managed my time better to further plan and write a more indepth and meaningful story instead a story that feels cut short. However I still feel the story I wrote conveys the Isekai theme and keeps the reader remotely entertained with a single fight scene and a few paths that lead other characters to interact with you differently.