Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

By Gabby Wu and the Grimm Brothers. Played to completion ten times.

In Grimm’s Godfather, a man chooses between God, the Devil, and Death as a godfather for his son.

The godson becomes a physician and is confronted by a series of deaths. Their godfather has opinions on who should live or die, and then godson can either follow their wishes or go against them.

I felt like this was too slight a piece to get across anything useful, but I’m putting the rest of my thoughts after spoiler space.

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The only path I wasn’t completely disappointed by is Death’s.

Both God and the Devil have very straightforward stories which never hit rising action — there’s the setup, the climax, and the conclusion, with none of the buildup in between.

Death’s story has a bit of ledge to hang on. If you choose to defy Death and try to save someone who he has already claimed, he gets angry and takes you to his realm, but there’s still further conversation from there.

It’s a very short conversation with one choice that does not help stem Death’s wrath, but you at least get the *hint* of a story-mountain being built. This was the only path I felt like I was dealing with characters rather than abstractions.

Also, this is a good line!

The force of fables is that the things in the story are universal representations that comment on larger social lessons. The simplicity and raw choices might seem to make them optimal for interactive treatment, but in reality interaction makes it more likely for the player to care if they are dealing with empty vessels. When elevating possible branches to a choice, they fall flat if they don’t have either the revelation of character or the sting of true consequence.