Chatham Senior To Publish Interactive Fiction Game

CHATHAM, NJ - Not quite in time for the holiday gift giving season, but in less than a month Chatham High School Senior Brynn Chernosky will publish her interactive fiction game Keeper of the Sun and Moon Through Choice of Games LLC on Jan. 17

The 300,000 word text-based game, which will be released by Choice of Games’ Hosted Games label, puts game players right into the center of the action by allowing them to step into the shoes of the main character, Chernosky said.

In the opening scene the character is attacked by a monster, and is then whisked away to a college for the supernatural to learn how to harness previously unknown powers.

Game players face a variety of choices as they play through the game on everything from what magical species they are, to the classes they take, to friendships, to possible love interests. The different choices mean that no two game players will have the same experience and players can play multiple times and have different adventures.

According to Chernosky, the game combines fantasy, suspense, and a great deal of humor as the character juggles classwork, training in magic, roommate dynamics, and romance, while at the same time working to save the world.

Chernosky spent nearly two and a half years writing and programming the 300,000-word game while juggling honors classes and numerous other school activities. Game development for the game took several years because Chernosky needed to write and program multiple storylines based on choices players make. For a point of comparison, the typical novel averages around 90,000 words, Chernosky noted.

Chernosky participated in an open development process through the Choice of Games Forum, where she shared early versions of the game to receive feedback. Over the course of development, she built up a fan base on the forum as well as on Tumblr.

According to their website, Choice of Games LLC is dedicated to producing high-quality, text-based, multiple-choice games. Choice of Games has developed a simple scripting language for writing text-based games, ChoiceScript, which it makes available to others for use in their projects, and they host games produced using ChoiceScript on their website.

(Photos courtesy of Brynn Chernosky)

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