Jam winner: narrative design makes it more enjoyable

Web Hotel by FunnyGameDev, made me feel comfortable! It deservedly got first place in the micro jam 48. My key takeaway: Tying the game together using narrative design helps make it more enjoyable. By using narrative design (for me that includes the theme as well), you can turn your game into a holistic experience. The theme for the jam was webs, so in this game you create webs in rooms by standing in front of them. This could have been it, but FunnyGameDev did one more. Why are you webbing up rooms? You are trying to ruin a guests experience. The guests are jolly and are shooting out attacks until you succeed in webbing up their room, and they are frustrated so they stop attacking you. In the end this leads to bad reviews and an article in the newspaper ruining the hotel’s reputation. Connecting everything this way makes a cohesive experience that’s easy to understand and hence, enjoyable. Fluency is the fancy term for it: the easier something is to process, the more we like it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zivanovic.substack.com