IM Mysteries

Sample Gameplay Scenario:

The player logs on to their Instant Messaging client of choice. Having scouted out a cool community of people on Myspace, the player contacts one of them hoping to get a date.

And that's when it begins.

The NPC is glad the player called, because they've been feeling lonely and more than a little scared tonight. But she won't say why. While the player and the first NPC start chatting together, another friend jumps into the conversation in a separate IM window. And then another. Everyone seems a little jittery for some reason. But the first suddenly falls mysteriously quiet. Nothing. They try chatting her. They check her webcam (pointed at the table, of course). They even give her phone number to the player to call, only to find that it's dead.

Someone volunteers to go over there. They find the place a mess. They stand up the person's webcam for all to see. As they're standing up the webcam, they find the body. They freak out and run, leaving the webcam eerily pointed at her legs coming out from behind a couch.

Two more friends are brought in, in separate chat windows, whom the player has to keep up-to-date by passing information back and forth between people. Someone throws up a quick google map of where everyone is. All of her MySpace friends are potential suspects. Even her high school web page provides clues. But the stalker is still wandering from house to house. The player doesn't have long to unravel the mysteries surrounding this rather strange group of middle American kids and their dark ways. At least, not while they're still alive.

The thing that I like about this, is that the player's participation is not just voluntary, it is initiated by the player. The player contacts these people first. They call them. They initiate actions which will hopefully save the lives of the remaining friends. The player isn't just participatory, they drive the interactions.

Plus with the limited window of a chat client, the AI can be plausably eccentric when responding to the player without seeming fake. They can even intereact with eachother in completely normal, scripted ways. Getting 5 or 6 of them chatting together adds to the believeability. Add in a rich online world just begging to serve as backdrop, and a few consistent photographs and web-cam shots, and you have a completely engrossing scenario that the player will never forget.