Story Scraps

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I've always wanted to include a story in HAUNTIBLES. But I also wanted to weave this narrative into the gameplay and do it in a novel way. The solution I chose turned out not to be a new way at all - but a very old one. Scrapbooking.

For centuries, people have told their stories through scrapbooks. Even the famous author Samuel Clemens, or Mark Twain as he was commonly known, was an active scrapbooker. He loved to fill volume after volume with newspaper articles, ticket stubs, and other miscellany from his travels. To simplify the process, he even patented a self-adhesive scrapbook that he sold under his name.
Mark Twain's scrapbook patent earned him a small fortune, as much as $100,000 according to some estimates.
Scrapbooks are goldmines for researchers as they're curated collections of history that tell personal stories. This storytelling power is one of the reasons there's a scrapbook at the heart of HAUNTIBLES. It also works extremely well in the game because (by their very nature) scrapbooks are divided into scraps, little story pieces that players can earn by solving puzzles. 

These scraps come from a variety of sources: some straight from historical archives, others I altered or completely fabricated to help tell the story. 

However, there's a big twist to HAUNTIBLES's scrapbook that sets it apart. This feature, an element of the game that I'm extremely excited about, will be revealed in a future blog post. 

Mark Twain's scrapbooks were filled with mementos from his many adventures. Here he is performing an electrical experiment with the famous inventor Nikola Tesla (blurry).

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