The setup of this game scenario was excellent, BananasQM! I was very inspired by it, I really enjoyed playing it!
I liked the sparsity and minimal use of elaborate detail, I felt it contributed to the mystery, sense of possibility and dramatic tension.I think you struck a good narrative balance and resisted overexplaining the scenario or adding excessive description / superfluous character detail or background worldbuilding, it felt very focused on the Inside Place, detail which otherwise would have suffocated or overwhelmed the mystery... you provided a lot of space for players to project their own imaginations and theories into the game setting!
The wish-granting element of it reminded me a little of a tale told in Tarkovsky's STALKER film (1979) the film that inspired the videogame etc. That film is about the search for a chamber that grants your deepest wishes and desires, located within a sinister anomalous wasteland. The eponymous Stalker guide tells a tale of his predecessor and mentor, who journeyed deep inside the Zone to find the wish-granting chamber. His mentor returns, laden with wealth and riches, but soon afterwards he kills himself. It turns out that he had sought to find a cure for his sickened and dying brother, but the chamber only granted your truest hidden wish - he realised it was just a selfish desire for wealth and his own enrichment at the expense of others, and he is then unable to live with himself afterwards. Near the end of the film, the Stalker himself finds the Wish Chamber, but remembering the cautionary tale of his predecessor he does not venture inside; instead, (none of this is explained explicitly) Tarkovsky positions the film camera within the wish chamber doors looking outwards, suggesting that those granting the wishes are the audience, looking out upon the frightened actors.
I was quite intrigued by the protagonist name, Rodney King. Why choose this name? Is the character African American? Is the name itself suggestive of the ending (ie, finding a "Rod" or "pipe" ie passage / tunnel, see my psychoanalytic interpretation here
>>5974225>>5974196The pipe / passage a metaphorical journey of self-discovery, a wish-fulfilment sceptre that enables the ptotagonist to become "King" and achieve wealth, power, desire?
Anyway, I really enjoyed this quest, many many thanks for creating and running this game!
