I'm always searching for game writing inspiration. When I heard about "Planetfall," an unconventional novella inspired by science fiction literature and modern interactive narrative, I was intrigued. Author John Burnett, a user interface (UI) artist for video games by day and a renaissance man by night, has written a linear story with a sleek flash interface that affected me in a powerful way.

"Planetfall" differs from other novellas in its format. The story is presented in a seamless UI inspired by early images of the Animus from Assassin's Creed. The narrative is written entirely through a futuristic messaging system that is a hybrid of modern-day emailing and instant messaging. While no dates or timestamps are present, the chronology of the story is quite clear, and the pacing is strong. At first I thought the lack of dates was a fault, but, upon further reflection, I began to see how it aided the overall flow of the story.

The plot is an interesting experiment of a crew put in a drastic situation. The reactions are profoundly human, representing some of the best and worst aspects of humanity. In a relatively short amount of time, Burnett manages to convey the struggles of a large group of people and the variety of emotions they experience. It is very reminiscent of games, as the electronic messages are all we have of the incident. The gaps must be filled in by the reader. Fortunately, Burnett manages to take advantage of the opportunity to leave out information and throw in some surprises. The ending left me somewhat shaken, but I enjoyed it and the finale was fitting.

Burnett has a great attention to detail despite the deceptively simple interface. In his notes, he mentions key decisions, such as having photos for each character to emphasize their humanity. He then explains how he lights up each character when they are the person who wrote the message, but when their picture fades out, the light remains slightly longer on their eyes. Burnett also made several revisions to the novella that added a surprising level of polish, such as the maintenance reports that help break up the messages with a more visual piece of narrative.

While Burnett's novella could clearly provide some positive inspiration for game writers considering telling stories through logs or files, there are still a few weaknesses. For a story told in 2030, his characters have an unusual grasp of some terms that would surely be antiquated by that time. Certain phrases, such as "grab a pen," may be outdated. More futuristic phrases, such as "grab a stylus," could provide more suitable replacements. Also, the story sets a very clear tone through the dialogue. I enjoyed the dry wit and the coolness, but this did create characters with less depth. I wanted to see a character or two with more quirkiness, or characters with different senses of humor. Also, several of Burnett's central characters have a high degree of academic literary knowledge. It seems unlikely that characters in 2030 stuck on a spaceship would've spent hours in a classroom studying Shakespeare and Yeats which they can then quote to express their frustrations.

Despite its faults, I feel that "Planetfall" provides a strong narrative. Outside of sci-fi literature, Burnett cites his inspirations as System Shock 2 and BioShock. This style of on-demand narrative through logs in increasingly popular, as it will also be utilized in the upcoming Dead Space. It has certainly inspired me to write my own interactive narrative through messages. It certainly seems a challenge to write an interactive narrative that could affect me as strongly as "Planetfall."