As opposed to saying, “I see this” or “I hear that,” I chose to use the thoughts and reactions of the astronaut as based upon my own experience as I played through the original game. In doing so, my goal was to convey a similar experience to seeing the visuals and hearing the audio. In my port, I used this observation to my advantage by utilizing first-person pronouns.
SPACEPLAN itself can be seen from a first-person point-of-view since the player is presented with a series of computers of different functionalities. I chose to translate these media and their associated tones through adding the thoughts of the astronaut. The original SPACEPLAN heavily relied on audio and visuals to create the atmosphere, but my port was entirely text-based. The process of porting, then, has left me with a greater appreciation and understanding of porting and electronic literature design in general. These many direct and indirect alterations help to reflect my own interpretation of the piece, revealing the surface and underlying meanings of the original as I understood them. In making such changes, the manifestations of the essential properties of digital literature as well as the interactivity were indirectly altered. In creating this port, there was a drastic change in media which called for alterations on the presentation of the narrative and different expressions of aesthetics. SpacePlan isn't a very long game - in fact you'll probably spend time with your phone idling to allow resources to accumulate - nor is it mechanically complex in any way.īut its charming and humorous narrative framing gives its simple gameplay a purpose that drives one to see through to its enigmatic end.My Twine port of SPACEPLAN transformed Jake Hollands’s narrative-driven clicker game into a text-based story. Time travel even gets involved at one point, but if you're interested in SpacePlan, it's best to experience its story and reveals at the game's pace. Soon your perspective expands from a single planet to the entire solar system, and the story grows in scope and absurdity as well. Guided by a snarky AI, your actions receive comments and insight from your digital companion, introducing objectives to achieve and sci-fi questions to mull over. SpacePlan is rife with this narrative context that imbues what its idle play with purpose. Suddenly your tapping and growing wattage has meaning - you need to unlock an improved probe that can penetrate the atmosphere. Much like how Lifeline and other incremental narrative games spread out their narrative snippets, SpacePlan tells its tale in sync with your unlocks and actions.Įarly in the game, you need to launch probes onto the rust-red Earth to study its surface, but a thick atmosphere destroys each probe during the descent. The real draw of SpacePlan is threefold - its charmingly silly narrative, its minimalist style, and its gradual introduction of new elements and technology to unlock.īeginning with a single satellite, your arsenal grows to landing probes, massive orbiting spudguns, gargantuan tater towers, and planet-pushing rocket boosters, all made in your quest to uncover the truth behind the Earth's demise. However, like the best clickers, SpacePlan is more than just its tap-heavy gameplay. It's fair to say that this isn't the most mechanically interesting experience on the App Store. Tapping and swiping is how you interact with SpacePlan.You're tapping on the screen to add to your wattage total, tapping on items to unlock them and then create more, or swiping between screens of messages, the solar system, and unlocks. More watts let you unlock potato-powered technology, from the humble "Spudnik" to the "Probetato". SpacePlan's resource is wattage, built up by the satellites and probes circling the solar system. You're gathering resources in order to unlock progressively more powerful tools, which in turn increase your resource gathering capabilities. The game is a clicker through and through, and that means tapping on the screen countless times. If you were to judge SpacePlan purely at a gameplay level, you might be disappointed. While the gameplay is what you'd expect from a clicker, the surrounded mould makes for a uniquely enjoyable and humorous galactic journey. The ever increasing amounts are only a means to an end, like surreal new items or secret game mechanics unlocking, or a story unfolding. And that's about it.īut if you play the more interesting entries in the genre, such as the popular A Dark Room, Cookie Clicker, or Candy Box, you may see that the appeal isn't the numbers going up, but the why and the how. At its core, it can seem like an ephemeral thrill - tap, tap, tapping away, making numbers go up higher and higher.