The aim of The End was to create a deeply personalized and empowering artwork that blended immersive theater techniques with the structured interaction of game design. Towards an open-source goal of sharing what we learned with other makers working in this form, on this page you will find an outline of and excerpts from our operating manual for the project used in both developmental rehearsals and performance of the game. This manual served a number of functions, everything from defining our macro-level goals, giving structure to how we communicated with players and tracked their journeys, to defining concrete guidelines for the day-to-day performance during its run. Preceding each document is a short paragraph explaining how it was generated and its use to the creative team. We share these documents for those interested in seeing the “script” that we used to define core mechanics/operations of the game along with some reflections on their usefulness for extrapolation towards future projects other creators might undertake.

Mission and Mechanics from the Gamemakers

This document was created to define the goals of The End for both the creative team and players. This writing was offered to players during their intake process to give a sense of the aesthetic qualities we envisioned the game would have and what philosophical perspective we were grounded in. 

Grounding Objectives for The End

Early on in development, it became obvious we needed to define the underlying principles that manifest through the character of The End as it interacted with players. As the players’ main experience of live interaction with the game, The End needed to embody the values articulated in the above mission statement. In other words, we needed to create a set of guidelines for what The End wanted to do with those who talked to it.

This was no small feat. A vast majority of the conversations that occurred via text message were responsive, following each player’s response to a card’s quest. Unlike traditional playwriting, performance guides needed clear rules about how to act out the character in an improvised conversation. This document was the start of the process guides trained on, drawing from the language of acting objectives: defining what the character wants and some of the ways it goes about getting those desires met.

In this sample, you’ll see nine core interaction modes we identified in rehearsals. After each is an emblematic statement in the voice of The End about how it articulates that dynamic. Following that emblem is further clarification language about how that manifests in the structure of the game the character offers to the player. Note that this character writing is framed as if it were speaking to the player directly so that these phrases could be transferred directly to the conversations in the game, if needed.

Sample of Actor Diving Chart

In conjunction with the Mission Statement detailed above, we created a “diving chart” for performers to get more concrete specifics about enacting each of the above general interaction modes. This document lists two of the nine dynamics and then shows a series of action verbs that demonstrate ways the character of The End might attempt to enact this with players in practical application. Under each verb are examples of phrases in the stylistic voice of the character that guides could employ.

Rules of Gameplay

This language was crafted to define the overt rules players were expected to observe. We worked hard to keep the defined rules limited only to what a player absolutely needed to know so that emergent play could unfold during the game.

Guide Checklist and Daily Protocol

This document outlines the functional procedures for guides at the beginning and end of a day of performance. Because the tracking of a huge number of players was so multi-faceted, guides found it helpful to have the step-by-step checklist to refer to so they could ensure they had covered all their responsibilities during a shift of the game.

Aesthetic Guidelines for Speaking as The End

While rehearsing the beta run of the game, we learned just how tricky it was to have a character whose role was shared across eight different performers. For players of the game it was imperative that regardless of which actor they talked to during a day’s play, their sense of The End’s persona stayed consistent. Simple grammatical differences like a preference for an ellipsis to indicate a pause, if not used by all guides, quickly exposed an individual actor. It became clear that in addition to overarching objectives for The End as a character, it was necessary to create a much more detailed set of guidelines that standardized how The End wrote in its improvisational text exchanges.

This document outlines different aspects that emerged through the iterative testing of the game that could potentially disrupt the continuity of the character portrayal. It includes overarching style rules, specific grammar consistencies to observe, standardized language around daily mechanics of play, notes on where best to focus conversation, nitty gritty specifics about what this supernatural creature says about the physical world and its own being, and commonly used phrases.

Player Dossier Excerpt

The team kept dossiers on each player to ensure that information from one day’s session guiding a player was logged and available for the next guide to interact with them. Dossiers were developed over the beta month and continually updated for most efficient use. These were logged both online and printed for easy access as a paper copy for perusal during active guiding. These dossiers also helped to act as a physical tracker – the binders they were housed in moved from one storage spot in the room to another when a player texted in, another while they were out on a quest, and a final spot after they completed a day. This gave an easy physical way to track where players had progressed at the end of the day.

This dossier shows an anonymized player to give examples of the kinds of data collected. The first page was displayed as a cover to the dossier binder for quick access to macro-level game notes (mission, major past experiences that were recurring themes, anything that the player commented about cards they wanted to draw, etc). Page 2 was placed on the back cover and includes important but less urgent info than page 1. Page three shows a card in the game where players defined activities that helped calm intense feelings, a useful thing to keep on hand. The following pages give a sense of the kinds of notes tracked in daily interactions for subsequent guides.

Note that players never saw these documents; they were only internal to the team for tracking purposes. Additionally, this dossier was a place that also developed internal protocols for recording in. We learned that the less “judgment” we made of the player and the more of their own words we could directly share with the next guide, the less we gave a distorted view of them.

Sample Sticky Note

Because the information in the dossiers was so extensive, it felt useful to have a secondary system that gave a quick snapshot of a player within a few seconds. Because of the volume of attention required once a player and guide start talking, this sticky note system gave “need to know” communications when the full read of a previous day’s dossier was not functionally possible. Here you’ll see the generic form we used to capture the most important data. Note these sticky notes were placed inside on the front page of the dossier binders.

“Day” Script Sample

The End’s script was constructed in two parts: scripts for a given day of play and scripts relating to a card quest undertaken by a player. This document shows a few excerpts of how we constructed “day scripts,” language that was required to communicate to a player because they were undertaking a required step in the overall progression. This happened more extensively in the beginning of the game as players learned the ropes and at several delineated points where they needed to undertake required quests.  Generally, when required day scripts were used these were printed for guides to easily refer to, and also open in computer tabs so the content could be cut and pasted if needed.

In this particular day script – usually performed on the sixth day of the month – you will see how guides navigate three different card options (Cards 7, 8 and 9) that a player has to choose from. Two of these result in a phone prompt, one in a solo walking quest.

Some formatting notes to help navigate this text:

• The title of the document indicates the day of the month first, the options for card draw, and finally the number of days left before the finish
• Bold and underlined headings indicate which part of game the player is engaging
• Text on the right side is system-wide communication (ie – texts sent to all players at the start or end of the day). These are useful for guides to see but aren’t sent by them.
• Text on the far left side is language for guides to say to players in live time.
• Black font indicates text to be texted to the player. When bolded text this language (or some version of it) is required to be communicated.
• Non-bolded text is optional but potentially useful, always subject to following the player’s lead.
• Blue font indicates language that is not script to be sent to player, such as improvisation suggestions/guidelines or texts sent as Announcements. When bracketed it indicates stage directions or what action must occur to engage this set of language.
• Highlighted language indicates spots where a guide might need to look at a player’s dossier for information or time-sensitive responses for a card

Card Script Sample

This document shows a sample of a “card script.” Card scripts are the second half of the structured language in the game. While many responses were improvised, some cards required specific directions to the player via text, which is indicated in this section of the script catalog. Card scripts detailed all the online portal text that a player would encounter. The performance guides all familiarized themselves with this text throughout the beta and rehearsal phases of the game. Additionally, we had large posters that included a quick synopsis of each card for easy reference. Several quests required performances by guides or hired actors over the phone or in person. A sample of how these interactive performances were scripted is included here as well.

Card Cheat Sheet Sample

Throughout the beta run and the full game we found that it was also helpful to have a document that aggregated many kinds of data about a given card in a single place. We came to call this the “cheat sheet” and it included various aspects that would be useful at a glance: a card’s name and image, a brief summary of what the card does, notes about drawing it with a player, and/or useful hints in reflecting on it. We also included content tags and modes of interaction here in the aim that if we ever turned this into a searchable database, we could enter keywords to identify cards. While we were iteratively testing cards, we also used this document to keep notes on potential changes to the writing.