NoKey - An Experiment into bad-game-making.

NoKey is an exploration into a game that feigns agency and a branching narrative but ultimately reveals itself as a bearer of a cyclical plot in which nothing really progresses or changes. This game is experimental in its exploration of narrative creation and its commentary on the often false idea that gamers can make their own choices within a game. My main creative goal was to frustrate the user.

I want this game to communicate that even though we sometimes feel as though the choices we make in games are our own, it is more often the intent of the game designer to have all branching options come back to one central plot point. All roads lead back to the main idea, ultimately making our choices and opinions irrelevant.

For me, I designed this game while thinking of the frustration I have faced in the games where I was presented with a fantastical prompt that could, in my own imagination, lead me to a fulfilling experience in within the interaction but that did not actually allow me to explore these possibilities either because of a restriction on the hardware, software, game design, or narrative. In my experience, games that invoked this frustration in me in particular were my least favorite. Thus, I decided this idea would be most fruitful for me to explore in this “Bad Games” prompt.

I began by imagining narratives in my head that might inspire me, should they happen within a game. I toyed with the idea of an earthquake happening outside of a small hut where the user watches from the inside as the world through their window tears apart to reveal an alternate reality. Or a universe in which the user somehow comes upon a mystical object in their day-to-day lives but instead of investigating further, is only given the option to put the object down and continue their mundane task. However, I ended ultimately with the narrative of the girl at the fast food establishment as I felt that it was the most relatable. I felt as though the dullness of a part-time job in the service industry added to the commentary of the dullness of games in which the user has no real agency. I wanted to draw parallels between the ultimately meaninglessness of menial tasks within an insignificant job and the meaninglessness of choices that are offered in video games solely to feign complexity.

I drew from games like Dragons Age, in which I found that although it seemed at first that every choice you made in the realm as a player had weight in the world around you, I saw that ultimately the story would unfold in a similar manner regardless of what choices you made. I also thought of Fable and how in this game, you could become either the extreme good or the extreme bad and still complete the game with the same story plot points and arcs.

If I were to continue working on this game I would refine the artwork and add more cyclical narratives. I would provide an infinity of options and have them all return to the same point.

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