IFComp 2023

“Out of Scope” tries something new and unusual with its interface. It… did not work for me, even though I see the seeds of lots of cool ideas in it.

Things I found frustrating about the interface:

• Clicking on a passage and not knowing whether it would cycle through new text in-place, or navigate somewhere new.
• Clicking on a passage and ending up on a screen that's blank, besides the helpful arrows telling me which way to scroll.
• The smooth zoom going on while scrolling around doesn't make for the most comfortable reading.
• I kept wishing instead of click-and-drag to look around it would pan on any mouse movement. And FPS controls would seem appropriate.
• I also kept wishing for a zoom control… Which makes me think we need a CYOA built on a mapping library like Leaflet where the primary interaction is zooming out and in to different locations.

I did play with a touchpad when the game recommends a mouse or touchscreen. However, this feels designed for a device that makes “looking around” as natural as possible, like a VR headset or even a simulated rifle scope, like the Silent Scope cabinet modded to run a CYOA. Also a fun idea!

I also struggled with navigating the mapped space through these choices. I found myself wishing for compass directions… actually, a compass HUD giving a sense of direction to the empty void is kind of a neat idea… or a more direct “go to” power. As is, the collection of unnamed rooms connected by twisty passages had me going in circles more than once. This clashed with the narrative of the first chapter, where I'm playing as Joe, who should know the house well and is *trying not to get shot*.

Then I did get shot, and the perspective shifted to Zoe. (Based on the walkthrough, this is the start of chapter 2.) In a moment I'm fairly certain was a bug, I found myself going in circles again and somehow ended up shifting perspectives back to Joe, and getting shot again! Then I was Zoe and wandering again, trying to check if Joe is dead but unable to find a path back to the hillside where I was when I got shot as Joe.

After what felt like an hour, I opened the walkthrough and discovered I was only on chapter 2 of 10. I found out where Joe was hiding so I could advance the story (shouldn't there have been a trail of blood to follow or something?) and I made my way into chapter 4 before deciding I'd hit my limit.

For all that, I feel like I barely scratched the surface of the story. It looks like there's a whole family thing wrestling with some complicated themes here. I'll be interested to see what other folks have to say, especially if they have a better time with the interface than I did.