13/11/25

Today marks the day that I begin production on my Twine-based fantasy game, Strangers in Paradise.

Plan

A key inspiration for “Strangers in Paradise” is The Witcher. Both the books and the games.

When it comes down to the naming of my characters, locations and whatever else, I will be using fantasynamegenerators.com for. (Fantasy name generators. Names for all your fantasy characters.)

The story follows a young woman, Lynn of Kado, who was cursed as a child and transforms into a wolf whenever she gets uncontrollably angry. She also happens to be the heir to the crown of the fictional land of Beveria. The backstory around this character will slowly be revealed to the player as the game continues. She was born in the fictional empire of Kado. Her origins remain unknown throughout the entire game, other than her birth location and a rough birthdate.

Lynn’s goal is to find Peyton, Emperor of Coulecia. She wants to find him as she suspects he is her father. Thing is, he’s been missing for a few months now.

The world of Strangers in Paradise is based on a mismatch of different cultures, alongside my own fantastical spin. The key eras/cultures used as inspiration include: Victorian London, Wild West America and Edo period Japan.

The architecture of major cities is based on Victorian-era structures, with my own oppressive twist. The weapons most commonly used in my world include katanas and old-style revolvers.

A screenshot from Bloodborne (2015), which is also influenced by Victorian-era London. Again, with its own spin on things.

The target audience for my game is anyone aged 16+ who is interested in fantasy. I am aiming for the final game to be fairly lengthy, although I have not got a specific length in mind. Just however long is required to adequately tell the story I want to tell.

My original plan for Strangers in Paradise was to include a basic combat system. While this would have been cool to see, I feel like it wouldn’t add much unless I tried to do something a bit more advanced with the combat, such as different types of spells, defence, etc. The prototype battle system I came up with was extremely simple. In the end, I decided to scrap the combat so I could give myself more time to flesh out the rest of the story.

Strangers in Paradise will contain a good amount of choices for the player.

While writing my story, I have decided to come up with a morality system for the player. It is as simple as good choice = morality goes up, bad choice = morality goes down. To achieve a good ending, the player must have a high morality.

As seen above, the ending the player will achieve is dependant on their morality. There will only be one ending exclusive to both good and bad morality. This ending will involve the players character ending themselves to prevent any of the other endings.

These endings are dictated by a key choice the player will make towards the end. Towards end of the penultimate scene, the story will branch out, depending on morality, locking in the player to either the bad endings or the good endings.

I am hoping that the final version of Strangers in Paradise will be enjoyable to read. I will achieve this by using a concise writing style and fleshing out the world. I also aim to encourage players to try a few different routes by including different choices.

Any convincing world needs good, fleshed out locations and locales. The world is titled “Final Haven”, in reference to the wars and conflicts happening. Beveria, despite being the smallest geographically, is known as the “capital of Final Haven”. Due to it being in the centre of the map, it is the go-to destination for refugees looking for sanctuary due to the ongoing war. As it happens, the Coulecians have began their pursuit of capturing Beveria. Kado is generally a peaceful nation, as they tend to keep to themselves. Sidel and Zunnireth have been in a never-ending war for the past few hundred centuries.

Research

As mentioned earlier, a big inspiration for me is The Witcher series. The oppressive world and the complex characters come together to create an incredible atmosphere which I hope to capture some of in my game.

In The Witcher 3, the ending you get is dependant on how you treat Ciri throughout certain decisions in the last act of the game. If you are a good father to her, you will get one of the two good endings. Be a bad father and you will get the bad ending. I’m thinking of having a similar system in my own fantasy game, wherein being evil will lead to a worse ending for all the characters involved.

Another IP I would like to reference for inspiration is the Fighting Fantasy books by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, which I used to read when I was younger. Anyway, the premise of these books is essentially about “choosing your own adventure”. You obviously have a predetermined story, but there are a lot of different decisions and paths you can take. This series also involved combat elements involving die rolls and choosing your own stats. In these books, there are certain decisions you can make which will end your story prematurely. Some of these also involve die rolls. I.E, roll a number higher than three to live, otherwise, you die. I’m considering implementing some randomness into my game like this. One big caveat is obviously that I don’t want it to be too frustrating for the player. There was also an inventory system for these books, in which the player has to use their own pencil and paper. If I were to implement this into my fantasy game, Twine would automate the process, (hopefully) eliminating the need for pencil and paper.

Creators of stories similar to mine typically tend to use structure, characters and imagery to convey their meaning and message.

Production

W/C 10/11/25
I have begun working on my original fantasy story. Although I have yet to come up with a name, I have a few ideas on what I want to do with my story. As mentioned, the main plot revolves around a girl who transforms into a wolf when she gets uncontrollably angry. Her goal is to find her potential father, who is the emperor of Coulecia. Her motives are both personal and political; she wants to find out if the emperor is her father for herself. And yet, she also happens to be the heiress to Beveria. Would it complicate things if her father was the ruler of a different empire to his daughter?

W/C 17/11/25
I have made some good progress on my fantasy story. I have begun working on a combat system and have written out the first scene, involving the protagonist in a tavern.

W/C 24/11/25
In the end, I decided to scrap the combat system as I felt it wouldn’t add much to the final game, other than being a minor obstacle. Not to mention, it gives me more time to work on the actual writing, world and characters.

W/C 01/12/25

I have begun writing a new character for my story. Frederick. A higher vampire. He is old friends with Lynn, however they ended up on bad terms.

While I am writing up my story, I am brainstorming potential names for my game. One idea I have is “Strangers in Paradise”.

While working, I have settled on this name.

Up to this point, I have made a decent amount of progress on my third scene. I am still not sure how many scenes I want to have total. However many is required to adequately tell the story.

W/C 08/12/25

While working on my story, I am concerned about the continuity. I wanted to have the tavern scene at the beginning start with snowy weather, but that would not be consistent with the rest of the story. I might just be overthinking things, but I still feel like it’s important to consider.

There’s also the matter of the worldbuilding. As I mentioned in my planning, I wanted my world to be influenced by various different periods. As of writing, I have done very little to convey this, which I would like to remedy.

W/C 15/12/25

Up to this point, I have written some more scenes, including one involving an abandoned temple, in which the player will find a gem which can later be used to gain a morality point, influencing their ending.

W/C 22/12/25

I have now written the aforementioned scene involving the gem the player can find in the abandoned temple. In this scene, the player will encounter an old-looking lady. If the player has the gem, she will forcefully take it from the player, reverting her back to her younger form and granting the player a morality point. If the player decided not to take the gem, they will lose out on this opportunity.

W/C 29/12/25

I am going to begin working on the ending scene for Strangers In Paradise. The scene begins with the player walking back to Clinpool, a local village. The player then encounters the aforementioned Peyton and Frederick, a vampire acquaintance of the player’s character.

The ending the player gets is dependent on the decision they make at the end (Stepping in or leaving Frederick and Peyton to argue with eachother.) and their morality.

There are going to be five endings. Two involving bad morality and three in which the player needs a morality of > 0. The ending in which the player steps in and forgives Peyton is considered the true ending. The same without forgiveness is the evil ending. The two bad endings with bad morality involve the players death.

W/C 05/01/26

I have begun writing the various endings.

As of writing, I have finished my Twine story. There are five total endings the player can achieve depending on their choices. The two endings in which the player decides to let them argue with each other involve the player’s death, or the player becoming the ruler of the kingdom, depending on morality.

Reflection

Overall, my final story was just okay, in my opinion. Some of the scenes felt a bit rushed and I probably could have put some more time into planning and fleshing out certain aspects. I would have also liked to have a few more optional or branching paths for the player.

While looking through my document, there were a few aspects that I neglected to include in the final story. I didn’t include many references to my chosen periods. It could have essentially been set during any period. Additionally, the pacing is not great at times.

The writing was inconsistent in the sense that parts of it were more well-written than others. However, despite my various gripes with my final story, there are still some good parts about it. There was definitely an interesting base for a story there, with some good potential.

Next time, I will focus more on the planning of the story and including these aspects in my game.

Bibliography

Reference list

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Melkonian, R. (2025). How to Write Fantasy: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners. [online] Quill&Steel. Available at: https://www.quillandsteel.com/blogs/writing-tips/how-to-write-fantasy [Accessed 20 Nov. 2025].

Ohiofi (2016). TwineFray: A Battle System for Twine · OhioFi.com. [online] Ohiofi.com. Available at: https://ohiofi.com/blog/twine-battle/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2025].

Rose, A. (2024). Fantasy Worldbuilding Checklist – Wandering Words Media. [online] Wandering Words Media. Available at: https://wanderingwordsmedia.com/fantasy-worldbuilding-checklist/ [Accessed 4 Dec. 2025].

Russell, G. (2025). 20 Creative Writing Examples: Ways To Empower Your Imagination. [online] Self Publishing School. Available at: https://self-publishingschool.com/creative-writing-examples/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2026].

Wakes, D. (2018). Twine for Beginners: Using Variables. [online] Damon L. Wakes. Available at: https://damonwakes.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/twine-for-beginners-using-variables/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2025].

Wikipedia Contributors (2019a). Narrative. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative [Accessed 5 Jan. 2026].

Wikipedia Contributors (2019b). Narratology. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narratology [Accessed 5 Jan. 2026].

Wikipedia Contributors (2019c). Stock character. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_character [Accessed 5 Jan. 2026].

Wikipedia Contributors (2025). Fighting Fantasy. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy [Accessed 28 Nov. 2025].