Premise

The premise of the game is a child making up a story using old photographs of their grandmother. At the beginning of the game the player can select the photographs they want to use in their playthrough, depending on what photos they choose the story changes.

Story

Part 1 – An unamed kid is looking through her grandmothers old things and they find a series of old photographs and begin creating an imaginary story.

Part 2 – This is the imaginary story. The characters, environments and obstacles can be changed depending on what the player chooses. The only constant in this part is that the story revolves around Mabel searching for the missing pieces of her camera around the boardwalk.

Part 3 – Once the second part is finished the POV goes back to the unnamed child, they have spilt ink on the pictures and ruined them. The grandmother comes and consoles them resolving the situation by teaching them how to develop photographs.

Example Story Puzzle Dependency Chart

Mabel has lost her camera on the boardwalk, the sweet shop owner, Jackie, provides some help. She instructs her to check out the window of the shop display, she can’t see the display as the window is too dirty. Walking around the boardwalk she finds there are places she cannot enter – the dancehall and the funfair as you need to be a plus one for the dancehall and have a ticket to the funfair. Exporing the environments allows her to pull a bin and find a screwdriver which she pockets.

Speaking to the people she meets she learns that Jackie has a ticket to the fun fair but is to focused on her ice-cream parlour to give it to mabel so she resorts to stealing it via distraction. After talking to Jace she discovers he is due to play in the dancehall for his first professional gig however he is far too nervous to enter and is worried that he does not have a tie. Talking to Beatrice she reveals that she has the shutter for the camera she is willing to trade it though for a brand new hoop that Mabel must find.

Mabel has some pocket money she finds which she uses to buy Jace a tie, when he recieves it he lets Mabel into the dancehall as his plus one. Once in the dancehall Mabel sees her camera lens being used as a light, she lowers the light via the pulley system but finds it is too hot to touch, thinking back to the her conversation with Jackie she remembers that there are temperature resistant gloves for the ice-cream, though Jackie needs them as the parlour is still open. To get the gloves she plans to buy all of the ice-cream available but she needs money.

Entering the shop she pushes over a mannequin to distract the shopkeeper and grabs the money from the register. Going back to Jackie she purchases all the ice-cream and gets the gloves, she also uses the ice-cream to lure some ducks from the funfair to the shops, startling the tiger that gives chase and frightens Jackie – letting Mabel swipe the funfair ticket from her. Once the tiger has gone she finds a cloth. Entering the funfair she finds a statue with a hoop connected to the base, knocking over the statue she uses the screwdriver to unattatch the hoop and gives it to Beatrice getting the shutter for her camera.

Going back to the dancehall she retrives the lens and talks to Jace again who has bought a drink, complaining it tastes like vinegar, a good window cleaner. Talking with him she helps him with his nerves and he gives you the drink, she then watches him play his solo. Outside the dancehall Mabel unscrews an air freshener and empties the bottle, combing the cloth, spray and vinegar drink she makes a window cleaner. Finally going back to the shops and cleaning the window display, uncovering the body of her camera. Finally with the missing pieces Mabel puts her camera back together.

This story and puzzle graph is only one of many options, once more characters are created the puzzle graph can be expanded or completely changed, the only constant is the end goal of finding the camera pieces and evry characters motivations and story do not change.