http://philome.la/ChrisFromDCC106/a-day-of-songs/play
The premise of my twine game is that you are a high school student and every choice you make is a song lyric. When I made this game, I had hoped that the player would find some humor in seeing some of these lyrics taken completely out of context. In this aspect, I do not think I succeeded. In class, I realized that I had forgotten to mention that the game was based on song lyrics. Additionally, it may be harder to identify the origins of the lyrics in this setting. I added information about the premise of the game to the first passage, in the hopes of clarifying the game. The “plot” of the game is that you wake up on a Friday morning and you have to decide what to do with your day. The only thing you have to do to “win” is keep clicking; all of the end results portray the main character as content.
In making this game, I tried very hard to avoid assigning genders to any of the characters. The player is only ever referred to as “you” and the people you interact with are “friends”. I did this to avoid any assumptions the player might make about how people of different or same gender are expected to interact. I do not think I was very successful in this aspect either. Perhaps because my classmates knew the game was created by me, or perhaps because I am a male and I wrote the game, my classmates assumed the the lead character was also a male.
However, I think I succeeded in removing assumptions about the relationships the character has with others based on gender. While dating and sex are a source of many of the problems in the life of a high school student, I did not want that to be a part of the game. I tried to avoid to the topics of dating and sex because I wanted all of the possible endings to be positive, and it would be very unrealistic to have every choice on relationships turn out well. The game is not about interacting with other people as much as it is about determining the personality of the character.
List of songs:
“Sleeping In” – The Postal Service
“Road to Joy” – Bright Eyes
“I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” – Ida Maria
“All Black” – Good Charlotte
“Blue Jeans” – Lana Del Rey
“Daylight” – Matt & Kim
“Chardonnay Summer” – Leggy
“Plans” – The One AM Radio
“The Perfect Kiss” – New Order
“Stay Useless” – Cloud Nothings
“A Different City” – Modest Mouse
“Skeletons” – The Front Bottoms
“Temptation” – New Order
“A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger” – Of Montreal
“A Pair of Matching Taxi Rides” – Into It. Over It.
“At Last” – Etta James
“Shoulder Pads” – Gleemer
“Nine” – La Dispute
“Sunlight” – The One AM Radio
“I Wish” – Stevie Wonder
“Therapy” – Relient K
“The Great Escape” – Boys Like Girls
“shmuck in the room” – frankie cosmos
“Anna Sun” – Walk the Moon
“Next in Line” – Walk the Moon
“All Star” – Smash Mouth
“Take a Walk” – Passion Pit
“Streetcorner Symphony” – Rob Thomas
“Enjoy the Silence” – Depeche Mode
“Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999” – Prince
“This Charming Man” – The Smiths
“A Thousand Miles” – Vanessa Carlton
“Fast Car” – Tracy Chapman