Package Retrieval: A Narrative Adventure in Lamplight
Package Retrieval text-based adventure game where you play as a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, sent to find a lost package by a shady faction of businessmen. Along the way, you make choices that split off into one of twelve different possible endings. I made this game in the Spring of 2021 using Twine, and it is playable on PC.
Image sourced through Creative Commons
Image sourced through Creative Commons
The world experienced in Package Retrieval was an exercise in my worldbuilding skills I performed for a class assignment. I was challenged with creating a new setting for a game that felt like a whole, fleshed out world, and presenting it in a short presentation. While looking for inspiration on what my world would be about, I came across an article describing a phenomenon known as a Coronal Mass Ejection.
A Coronal Mass Ejection is when a star experiences a massive buildup of energy and plasma and unleashes it in a massive blast, producing an effect similar to an EMP, but on a massive scale. Our own sun experiences these frequently, and in 2012, the largest ever CME was recorded. It nearly hit the Earth, and if it did, the EMP produced would have knocked us all back into the Stone Age.
While terrifying, it sparked an idea within me: what if the CME had hit us back in 2012? This became the basis for the world of Lamplight. I envisioned a world where, after the CME wiped out all electronics on the planet, the world quickly descended into chaos. Governments lost control as nuclear plants melted down without cooling systems online and lacked the ability to communicate without radios and the internet.
Image sourced through Creative Commons
Image sourced through Creative Commons
After understanding how the world was destroyed, I needed to determine how the world would look afterwards. I decided to focus on a post-apocalyptic New York City, as such a place is large enough to act as a central location for an entire game. I also wanted to give the game a Gothic feel, as that era of history is aesthetically linked to darkness, and it would pair well with a world that had lost its electricity - becoming literally dark.
To add to this aesthetic, I made it so that the nuclear fires that had burned the world had blackened the sky with smog, making the world constantly rainy or overcast. Classism was also a major issue during the Gothic period, so I had that reflect onto the world of Lamplight.
The people of the world are split into those that can afford to live in massive settlements and those that have to squat in the ruins of the old world. Both groups look down on one another, and a person becomes an outcast in both groups if they try to cross the cultural lines.
This world I created was received so well, I decided to take my work done on building this world and turn it into a fully fledged gameplay experience. I wanted to show off the full scope of the Lamplight setting, so I devised a story where the player and a friend are hired by the Sulsbury Corporation to seek out a lost package, earning enough money to lift themselves out of poverty if they succeed. This story became Package Retrieval: A Narrative Adventure in Lamplight.
Credits
Written and Designed by Zach Ginsburg
Created using Twine