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."  

After the incredible reveal in KOTOR, I was really looking forward to the finale. I was extremely motivated to play after that fantastic twist. I wondered how the writers would deal with such a great shift in character and what other secrets would unfold.

I eagerly played through the last planet and found myself trapped on an unknown planet that resembled an island paradise. While this new place had some interesting conflicts, I found myself less engaged with the game than I was during previous levels. This stage was a means to the end, and I no longer cared about details such as the history of a new alien race. I was hungry for the real drama - I wanted to find my lost friend and beat Malak once and for all.

Malak was still a couple of levels away. I had to weave through a labyrinthine tomb and then fight wave after wave of enemies on his ship. I spent almost an hour fighting what seemed like endless streams of nameless enemies. I grew frustrated. I had been given a taste of fantastic narrative and suddenly I was stuck in some boring hack-and-slash. I don't mind fights at the end of a game, but these enemies had little narrative connection to the story; they were essentially bodies thrown at me to slow me down. Eventually, I took advantage of a chance to skip out on a fight and ran ahead to face Malak.

I confronted my friend and then reached the final boss fight. There were few surprises in the narrative and the final boss fight was dull and poorly paced. Malak would frequently run off to leech power, and I would heal myself quickly before hacking away at his HP again. It was tedious and dull, especially when I would have to wait for him to run over to me and attack me.

When the final boss fight was over, I was shown the "light side" cinematic ending. I was incredibly disappointed to watch a few lame 2D people cheering for me as I got a silly metal. After 30 hours and a ridiculous amount of fighting at the end, I won a war and got a few empty words. It was such a letdown after the big reveal that I thought there must be a better ending for the dark side. I looked it up on YouTube and found that the dark side ending definitely gave the player a greater sense of power. It was certainly not Mass Effect's ending, but this version was obviously superior to the light side version. I wondered if the game would have been more fun if I was on the dark side and spent 30 hours being mean to people.

As a fan of RPGs, I finish relatively few games. Many RPGs require such a time investment that it becomes impractical to finish a game when I grow frustrated. I don't regret finishing KOTOR at all, but I wish that it had given me more of a sense of accomplishment at the end. Mass Effect left me feeling as if I'd saved the universe and Okami nearly had my crying tears of joy. I was disappointed that a game that had such an awesome climax fell flat on its face at the end.