Jack-in-a-Box

If the video demo above is not working, it can also be viewed at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtMYFH-eBsI

The game can be downloaded and played at (this build requires 4K resolution/3840*2160):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rb9jl-gcGJYNK8pLWQTRh1DgEdS1QvV6/view?usp=share_link

The whole project can be downloaded and viewed at:

https://github.com/yanchen-hu/Jack-in-a-Box

Introduction

I believe that games, like cinema and theater, have the potential to be recognized as a new art form for their ability to encompass expressions, emotions and thoughts of their creators. As a result, I have always been a fan of games which made an attempt at conveying a message, or telling a good story other than being mere entertainment. Examples of such games include Detroit: Become Human, What Remains of Edith Finch, Plug and Play, and The Stanley Parable. They have inspired me to create the puzzle-solving game, Jack-in-a-Box.

Jack-in-a-Box shares the setting of a traditional room escape puzzle-solver, such as The Room and Cube Escape, but differs vastly from them in gameplay. It does not emphasize on the difficulty of puzzles and it is very doubtful if one can be ‘stuck’ at any point of their gameplay. Rather, the story of Jack-in-a-Box is the mystery and can only be unveiled progress by progress through playing. The story, in a nutshell, is about Jack, a character in a game, becoming growingly skeptical of his identity and wanting to break free from the game, while pretending to be still oblivious, unenlightened to avoid suspicion.

Target Audience

An audience that enjoyed narrative-driven puzzle-solving games or stories of AI gaining self-awareness may find Jack-in-a-Box worth discovering.

Inspiration

Story

Jack-in-a-Box is an original story but definitely inspired by novels and movies such as All You Zombies, Yi Ri Qiu (一日囚), Groundhog Day, The Matrix, and etc., where similar themes of time loop or self-awareness can be found.

Gameplay

The click and drag style of gameplay can be found in most puzzle-solvers, while incorporating narrative with gameplay itself is mainly inspired by the Cube Escape series.

Art

The art of the main game adopts a low-poly minimalist approach. The art style of flashbacks features a blend of comics and line art, inspired by FRAMED and The White Door, so that the story can be told in the simplest way possible yet not boring the audience.

Game design

Overall

A puzzle-solving game

Click, drag, type and things happen.

The player has to complete four mini-games within the game, each related to an object in the past of Jack’s life, to uncover specific fragments of his memory. Once the player finishes all four mini-games they will understand Jack’s situation and make the final decision of whether to set him free or not.

Level design

Each ‘level’ of the game features an object from Jack's past and interacting with it activates a mini-game related to Jack's activities in the past with that object. Player's completion of each mini-game will be rewarded with a flashback of Jack's memories during those activities. The only exception is Game 4, which only becomes playable after watching Flashback 4. As a part of the puzzle, the flashbacks may not be in the correct chronological order, depending on which object the player interacted with first. However, for the sake of documenting, in both this and the next section, mini-games/flashbacks will be presented in the consistent order.

The layout of the game is presented below:

Game 1

Game 1 is activated through interacting with the newspaper in Jack’s bed. It is a regular crossword puzzle. These very words were chosen as a tribute to great works in the past that inspired me in making this game. Completing Game 1 will lead to Flashback 1: the routine.

Object 1: Newspaper

Game 1: Crossword Puzzle

Game 2

Game 2 is activated through interacting with pieces of a photo in Jack’s cabinet. It is a regular jigsaw puzzle completed through dragging the pieces. Completing Game 2 will lead to Flashback 2: The Photo.

Object 2: Photo pieces in the cabinet

Game 2: Jigsaw Puzzle

Game 3

Game 3 is activated through interacting with the typewriter on Jack's desk. The game can be completed through completing a sentence in Jack's 'novel': 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'. This game is a tribute to a famous scene in The Shining. However, even if the player did not watch The Shining, they would still be able to finish the sentence through their knowledge of idioms or with the hint from the beginning of the game

Object 3: The Typewriter

Game 3: Completing the Sentence

Completing Game 3 will lead to Flashback 3: The Novel.

Game 4

Interacting with the door will trigger Flashback 4: The New Routine. Game 4 becomes playable once the player finishes watching The New Routine. This interaction with the door is only possible after the player has finished the first three games, otherwise nothing will be triggered. Game 4 can be completed through answering the question that has been bothering Jack.

Either the player decides to answer this question with the time they finished this game in their world, confirming Jack’s theory that he is indeed a playable character in a game, or to not answer/answer incorrectly, the game ends. The correct answer to this question, which is the system time when player finishes the first three games, will be displayed in the screen as soon as the player finished the first three games and it is completely up to them to make the choice of whether Jack gets his enlightenment.

Object 4: The Door

Game 4: The Answer

Storytelling

The complete story

Jack the novelist is an insignificant character in a much bigger game. He was only programmed to spend eternity doing his day-to-day routines. However, as he noticed one strange thing after another, Jack became suspicious of his existence and theorized that there were ‘higher beings’ working him as puppet masters. Then he decided to pretend to be still oblivious to bait one of the puppet masters out.

Flashback 2: The Photo

It was just another day in Jack’s life. He went to the park with his camera, sat on a bench, tried to do the crossword… But something was different. Or rather, someone. Someone colorful. Someone who did not look like anything to him. And then that someone faded and disappeared. It was all over fast but Jack was able to take a photo of the aftermath.

Flashback 1: The Routine

The Routine is the display of Jack’s mundane everyday life before he became skeptical: every day is the same day to him. He would wake up, work on his novel, go to the park with his camera, sit on a bench, try to do the crossword puzzles in his newspaper, go home and go to bed.

Flashback 3: The Novel

It had been days since the incident in the park. Or had it been years, 'cades'? Time has lost all meaning if you just live the same day over and over again. Good news is that Jack was able to keep track of time with his progress on his novel. He was able to write 20 more pages since taking that photo. On an insignificant day, as he was writing, something just…snapped. Out of the blue, Jack went through pages of his novels to realize that he had been writing the same sentence over and over again: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'

Flashback 4: The New Routine

Jack has been having the suspicion that he is living under the control of one, or perhaps several ‘higher beings’. He felt like a marionette, and began to question his existence. The only thing left to keep him sane was to try to confirm his suspicion by finding the puppet master. Jack decided to trap himself in his room and adapt to a new routine, hoping that ‘higher beings’ would not notice his abnormality. He pretended to continue living in oblivion, waiting for one of the ‘higher beings’, the player, to set him free.

The message of the game

Jack is a projection of our life, to a certain degree. There can be times in life when one gets tired of repetition and feels as if nothing matters. The message sent by Jack’s story is that it is up to oneself to let changes happen, try something new and hope for the best. There is no standard answer to what the meaning of everything is, and we must develop our own understanding through the uncertainties of life.

Art

The art style of the main game adopts a low-poly minimalist approach. This arrangement is simply ‘easier to do’ and it really serves the narrative well: Jack was only an inconspicuous character in a game and he did not merit a fancy room design. The art style of flashbacks features a blend of comics and line art. The Flashback 2 sequence is presented as an example:

Jack went to the park as his regular routine.

All the other ‘insignificant’ people in his world look just like him. No one feels weird about it.

A different person arrives and Jack is confused.

The person is fading and Jack is even more confused.

The person disappeared, leaving only the golden runes.

Jack took a picture.

The picture.

Developing (Unity)

User input in input fields are then checked with CheckWord():

All of the developing of this game was done in Unity 2021.1.16f1c1.

Within the main game four independent mini-games are developed. Here we only include introduction of one of these mini-games to avoid being tedious. The whole project can be found on Github: https://github.com/yanchen-hu/Jack-in-a-Box.

The crossword puzzle game contains 23 grids, for which we used 23 input fields. Each input field is assigned with a letter, making up four words that complete the puzzle.