Convolution
The intro to Convolution:
The world around you roars and swirls as you are flung from your train of thought. Flashing glimpses, words on top of words cascade and crash over your mind. In the darkness you rake the air, trying to grab something, anything, to keep steady. To stop falling. The thoughts whip by you like leaves in a gale. You snatch desperately at the whirl, at blurs of hallways, a bloodied fist descending, subway trains screeching, a leg in a cast, a gunshot to the face and plains of pure whiteness. You lose balance and fall backwards.
Piece by piece, your body emerges into your consciousness. A singing pain behind your eyes quietens to reveal the full chorus: aching gums threatening to buckle inwards, burning cheekbones, a mashed stomach. Soon your face comes completely into being and you can feel it slick with sweat. Your shoulders are hunched up, your hands locked behind you. They suddenly bounce free and you slump forward.
When you dare open your eyes, you find yourself slumped in a chair in a dirty pool of light. Behind you, wood clacks on metal and shoes scraping up a cement set of stairs. The footsteps stop. You hold your breath. They continue upwards and away.
With no explanation, you've been left in a spartan basement. The crumbling bricks betray no real location, but there is an uneasy feeling of familiarity or some sort of subliminal understanding pooled in your gut.
You knuckle your head in confusion and then wipe your brow on your fist. Wait. You turn your fist over revealing a scrap of paper caught between your fingers. What the? You stare at the caught piece of paper as you rise on weak, unstable legs. The exertion aggravates your brain with a taut pain. These visions, this headache, this place. Something's not right. And to top it all off, you feel like you've taken a ride inside a cement mixer.
You stand up straight, take a cautious breath and a better look around...
Convolution is an interactive fiction game I've been working on for many years. I've rewritten the game from scratch at least three times. I think it's a great idea that needs to go through some iterative development before I can actually put it out as beta.