I’ve been experimenting with creating text-based choices games. I’ve thrown together a joke game for court reporters everywhere that accurately captures the experience of being a court reporter. It should be playable on any browser. I have not tested it on mobile yet.
There is actually a real-world component that you can teach students using this game. Mathematically, the rate impacts your earnings more than the appearance fee (unless your appearance fee is crazy high.) This is likely why agencies favor bonuses instead of raising rates. If you play the game without cheating, though it’s very exaggerated, you’ll quickly find that the rate matters a lot more than the number of pages you do. This is true in the real world also based on math I’ve done in the past.
I may create other small projects, especially if people have interesting ideas. For those of you that want to become creators, I’m using Twine. I’m working on a much larger fiction game based around a sci-fi version of court reporting that will test the audience’s decision making and present uncomfortable scenarios, so I’m hopeful that when that’s done it becomes another piece of media we have out there in the world.
I also am considering exploring utilizing this technology for creating practice written knowledge tests. As some of you know, I created a computer program that generated practice tests for New York’s civil service exam, but that goes underutilized because it requires people to install Python 3 to use it. This requires no installation. It would be easier to create such a thing with some help, so if you’re someone that wants to see that dream realized, hit me up, or whatever the kids say these days. Chris@Stenonymous.com
Please feel free to spread this around or send me ideas. I’m a one-man team, currently trying to expand to a two-man team, so I can’t make too many promises. But I think the possibilities are endless. I planned and wrote this game in about 2 hours. I’m sure that with enough time and attention, much higher quality stuff is doable.
Addendum:
My attempts to test this on mobile have failed. If anybody is able to get it working on mobile, please let me know. It displays fine on my laptop.
One reader was able to make it work on a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Android phone. No one has gotten it to work on iPhone yet.