Prismatic: a personality-based death game [WIP] (updated July 30, 2024, 42K words)

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Prismatic: a personality-based death game

Ever since you’ve returned to your hometown for a family reunion, you’ve been having strange dreams filled with death, violence, and… personality tests?

What will you do if the line between reality and dream becomes too thin?
Who can you trust, and who will trust you?
What does a new AI-powered app have to do with a series of recent murders?
Is there an online cult following you?
And who is the odd person you keep seeing in your dreams?..

Uncover these secrets and more in this dark mystery, horror, romance, personality-based death game!

Play the demo here: https://dashingdon.com/play/pinks/prismatic/mygame/

Check out the Tumblr page: @prismaticif on Tumblr

Characters

Amelie Rose
Gender: female
Age: 22
Romance: women only
Appearance: light skin, medium-length dark blond hair with pink highlights gathered into a low ponytail, grey eyes accentuated by light blue makeup. Very tall for a woman. Tends to wear cute feminine clothing.

Your optimistic childhood friend who you are staying with for the next two weeks. A future doctor from a rich family and the owner of Iggy the golden retriever.

Julia Strand
Gender: female
Age: 25
Romance: any gender
Appearance: light skin, long straight black hair, deep blue eyes, delicate facial features. A bit short. Tends to wear androgynous clothing.

Another childhood friend of yours. Julia has a laid-back, a bit lazy personality, but she is a great friend. She works for Scope, the mysterious tech giant responsible for KaleidoScope, a suspicious app that might have something to do with the recent murders.

Edward Green
Gender: male
Age: 27
Romance: men only
Appearance: pale skin, red hair, green eyes, thin, almost gaunt, but strong facial features. Very tall, lean build. Prefers smart casual clothing.

Julia’s friend who you heard is having weird dreams similar to yours. Lonely and melancholic, he doesn’t appear to have many close friends, but has a surprising number of acquaintances. A future surgeon.

Alex Bowie
Gender: male
Age: 21
Romance: any gender
Appearance: unhelthily pale skin, blond curly hair, brown eyes, rectangular glasses, freckles. Average height. Wears tacky, overpriced clothing.

An irritable and sarcastic college student you happen to meet. He knew one of the murder victims you saw in your dreams. A compsci student. You suspect he has no friends.

Malik Golden
Gender: male
Age: 30
Romance: any gender
Appearance: light brown skin, brown hair, light brown eyes. Has a well-groomed beard. Tall, athletic build. Wears plain clothing.

A former police detective, now private investigator, attempting to solve the mysteries of Prism. Has a nervous, asocial attitude, but is actually kind and caring. He appears to be a bit lonely.

Margarita Lis
Gender: female
Age: 29
Romance: any gender
Appearance: tanned skin, very long wavy brown hair, light brown eyes. Very conventionally attractive. Average height. Wears elegant, well-fitting clothing.

A local actress. You discover first-hand that behind her sweet demeanor, she is a bit two-faced and prone to anger, and isn’t someone who should be taken lightly.

White
Gender: ???
Age: ???
Appearance: ???

A mysterious and eccentric entity you keep seeing in your dreams.

A word from the author:

This is the first time I’m posting something I’ve written online, let alone an interactive novel, but this idea has been sitting in my head for years now, so I’d like to share it! The updates will probably be slow, but I’m always happy to talk about the story with anyone reading :slight_smile:

Prismatic also features a unique, colorful approach to shaping your character’s personality, where you traits are represented by color properties. You will learn more about what they represent as you play the game!

Content warnings

Warning!
The story will feature strong language, violence, light gore, and mentions of suicidal behaviour.

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If you’ve played the demo, what color did you recieve? :thinking: The first test is still a work in progress, so it might be adjusted in the future, depending on the poll results!

  • Red
  • Orange
  • Yellow
  • Green
  • Cyan
  • Blue
  • Purple
0 voters
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Sounds interesting going play now

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I’m not sure why, but I got both cyan and purple on the same page for my results.

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It’s ofc early development (seeing as it just released) but here’s my first impressions:

I think the concept for this is very interesting so I’m excited to see where it goes. I feel like using personality tests like this is something that fits uniquely well with IFs like this. I’m curious if you’re coming up with the personality tests yourself or if you’re using a pre-established one? (Obviously not including certain specific questions lol)

I’m also wondering if acting in ways that don’t reflect our choices in the personality test(s) will have an effect?

On another note, I really enjoyed your writing style. It felt smooth and immersive. There was a good amount of options for dialogue and reactions too. I’m really looking forward to seeing more!

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First of all, thanks to everyone who checked the demo out, I really appreciate it!

We are getting a lot of cyans in the poll, which is expected, but yellow and blue might need some tweaking even if yellow is supposed to be rare.

I see, I managed to replicate the problem, but I’m actually not sure why it’s happening myself. Any help would be appreciated. Between cyan and purple, you should be getting purple.

I’ve used a lot of questions from a variety of other personality tests, but the whole color system is something I came up with myself. Thank you for your kind words!

Acting in ways that don’t reflect your personality test(s) results might produce some effects, mostly flavor text, but you will never be forced to do things based on your results.

7 Likes
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Super interesting! Looking forward to future updates!

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I will roll out a small update that I think should fix the multiple descriptions bug and maybe make the cyan option slightly less popular in favor of other colors.

Will wait for a day or two so the update has a lesser chance of breaking people’s ongoing playthroughs. In the meantime, if you’ve recieved multiple color descriptions, that means you have two top colors by the end of the test. The update will try to adjust the test to give you the less popular option!

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This seems really interesting so far! Can’t wait until the next update :grinning:

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I didn’t get a good feeling for the writing due to the demo length but the concept is really cool

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This is really good and I very much enjoyed it, can’t wait to see how the story progresses!! Btw do you have a tumblr linked to this IF that we could follow?

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No Tumblr yet. If the story generates enough interest, I’ll make sure to create one!

Small update:

  1. Fixed the bug with multiple color descriptions and changed the scoring system slightly.
  2. Added slightly more meat (heh) to the first chapter, with more descriptions and flavor text. The story is now at 10K words!
  3. Rewrote color descriptions, both when awake and in the dream world. I’ve also added the option to skip the test in case you’ve already been through it, and it will stay as long as the story is in the demo stage!
  4. Added an important variable I forgot about. Unfortunately, you’ll have to start the story from the beginning next update :upside_down_face: Sorry about that, feel free to blame me.

Check out the dream sequence in case you haven’t seen it :wink:

Edit: haven’t proofread this versions as well as the initial one, and now I notice a bunch of typos :man_facepalming: Will fix them in a day or two, then get to writing the second chapter.

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I’m currently going through the demo, and I’m a little bit offended by the Cyan description! Cyan is being really dramatic :joy:

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A stance that one may be willing to air in exchange for a counterstance is that:

  1. Personality is as changing as the diaper the test-taker changes every day.
  2. The measures taken by the test-taker to answer every question may not match with what the test-designer intended to measure from every answered question.
  3. Ironically, the test-taker may not know themselves well enough to answer the questions to get to know themselves well enough.
  4. So, as a result, lying may be the funniest part of the test anyway.

Y’r welcum, y’ll bean enlightened, praise the lord.

5 Likes
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It’s still a bit short to really post too much of an opinion, but I think you seem to be off to an interesting start. The personality test thing was a bit drawn out to me, but it didn’t detract from your intro. I’ll definitely post here again, when there’s more to play!

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I agree that it was a bit drawn out-- I think one thing that would help is if (at least for the computer path, I’m not sure if it’s possible for the dream path) is to have a “progress bar” with each question like “7/20 done” so that there’s a sense for how long it would be. I found myself losing focus at the end because instead of feeling “ooh, it’s almost done!”, I was more “it’s still going?”

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I’m assuming you were going through the dream route? The dream descriptions are supposed to be offensive because someone is being an asshole, and you will receive a normal description once you wake up.

In the meantime, here is the normal cyan description to cheer you up :slight_smile: :

Cyan

You are cyan, the color of thoughtfulness!

The captivating hue that is cyan—a color synonymous with sensitivity and an innate capacity for introspection. You embody these qualities in every fiber of your being, radiating an aura of quiet contemplation that invites others to step into the rich tapestry of your inner world.

Your story is one of profound depth, marked by a thoughtful consideration of life’s complexities and nuances. Your imagination is a boundless wellspring of inspiration, capable of conjuring worlds both fantastical and real. You are a beacon of creativity, your fragility is also your strength, and you want your story to be full of curiosities to occupy your rich imagination!

Can you share your wonderful inner world with the rest of us?

Good points, especially considering that the approach to designing the test wasn’t exactly scientific! The test serves multiple purpuses within the story, and it isn’t meant to necessarily represent your character, which should be made clear in the next update.

Thank you, this is useful to know! There are currently 32 questions within the test in my unreleased version, mimicking serious online tests, and for what it is, I think it might’ve been an overkill. I also had to add two yellow questions, which made the test even bigger. I’ll make sure to look into which questions I can remove before the next update, and I’ll try to cut the number down to at least 25.

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My bad. Those points were meant to target a strawman for online personality tests in general. The dream sequence is what made this particular one stand out to me—no vague, ambiguous flattery whatsoever! Whether the test taker lies or not, the data will still be used.

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Rlly like how this goes… I need more

Also I got dream cyan and when I saw thta cruel description I was like ‘damn spot on, will I get sucked into the game?’ haha

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This is a really interesting beginning! I enjoyed the range of responses in the dialogue sections and having the choice to be honest, deceitful, or simply avoidant when talking to others. It felt well-thought out mechanic for building or losing character trust.

My only question is whether or not the game can recognize that I only picked the middle options (‘neither true nor false’/‘it depends’) on the personality test. I wanted to see how it would react if I avoided giving the system any definite information. But it seemed to decide the color association based on the one question testing how I reacted to the accident (even though I still picked the in-between options there for all 4 permutations of awake/asleep and disturbed/undisturbed), rather than being able to identify what I was up to. I’d be curious to see how the system handled being denied any kind of definitive data on purpose.

Overall, I think the personality test is a really cool way to interact with a game, and I’m excited to see what happens next. I also really liked getting to see how the description of your test results depending on where you took it. That was a lot of fun!

1 Like