The Realest Team Build: “Anonymous”

Links:

Storyboard for Anonymous

Team Member Blogs:

Jordan Denton

Joshua Hughes

Brandon Zhou

Description:

Anonymous is a psychological thriller game that focuses on the overall immersive experience of the player. Play as an unnamed student that lives on the San Jose State University campus: go to your classes, make friends, and travel the campus and uncover clues; however, you must keep track of your surroundings: who you interact with (perhaps they have nefarious intentions); what you say to people (are they helping the stalker?); who’s around you (don’t say sensitive information around suspects); and what time of day it is (not saying out too late). Passing your classes is the least of your worries once you begin to feel that you’re being stalked. Will you notice the subtle changes? “Did I lock my door before leaving?”  “Who is sending me these anonymous texts?”  “I thought I left my keys on the nightstand.”  Who can you trust? Everyone is a suspect and nowhere is safe. Can you uncover the identity of the stalker before it’s too late?

Rationale: 

Anonymous, created by The Realest, is a virtual reality psychological thriller that focuses on immersing the player into an artificial environment that they are familiar with: San Jose State University. The features of the game were seemingly tailored to suit the college gamer; however, with its focus on the psyche, the game is relatable to everyone. The game aims to provide a relatable, authentic experience that generates anxiety and fear in the player.

Psychological thrillers are a unique genre in video games: using the mind as a weapon against the player. The overall experience of psych-thrillers is that they force the player to be immersed in the game; they demand the full attention of their players, and Anonymous takes it a step further by utilizing virtual reality. As players play through the several days spanning Anonymous, they may notice subtle changes in the environment and character behaviors. Additionally, the narrative is structured to be somewhat emergent. As the player deals with their stalker, the game becomes less about the story content and more about the choices that the player makes. They must make decisions regarding the lengths they will go to in order to discover the truth, and these decisions shape the gameplay. For instance, invading the privacy of a suspect in order to confirm a suspicion is an option that not only has immediate consequences in-game, but also provides narrative meaning for the player as an avatar in the game world.

The basis of the game is a situation that is, in fact, very real and has happened countless times in real life. This realism serves to push the interactivity to a personal level.   Anonymous focuses on the immersion of the player in an environment that is familiar and an experience that is authentic–it plays on the notion that this can happen to you. 

One doesn’t give a second thought to questioning their trust in their friends, their surroundings, or their memory; however, Anonymous challenges this and will make the player second guess everything. Anonymous focuses on immersing the player in a real environment and presenting them with a believable, dangerous situation.  Anonymous allows the player to step onto the virtual version of San Jose State—to be part of a very real experience. The game implements multiple types of interactivity that further submerge the player into world: giving the user an abstract body in the narrative as well as branches of options; and the use of authentic situations in the plot type further perpetuates the user’s overall experience in the interactive fiction—allowing the user to truly embody their avatar’s experiences in the simulation.