Ama Lou's Antique Shop

Year: 2022
Format: Digital escape room · Interactive story
Built in: Twine (HTML, CSS & JavaScript)

In search for a missing item, an elderly man stumbles upon an antique shop.

The story

A teapot, an ad, and a shop that has it all

Edgar hasn't been able to look at a newspaper since his wife Ellaine passed. Then one morning, something pulls him back to the daily paper, and an ad catches his eye: a new antique shop that claims to have it all.

Through his magnifying glass, he spots blue hydrangeas in the photo, the same pattern as Ellaine's teapot. She spent years looking for the teacups that matched it.

When he gets to Ama Lou's, the shop is deserted. Somewhere a child is crying, and the phone won't stop ringing. What Edgar does next is up to you.

Three ways through the shop

Every choice adds a teacup, a toy soldier or a key to your item log. Whatever you collect most of decides how Edgar leaves the shop, or whether he leaves at all.

Selfish · teacups"Look around the store"
Chase the hydrangea teacups at any cost. Edgar can leave with his item, but only after committing an evil act.
Selfless · toy soldiers"Who's crying?"
Follow the cries and help whoever needs it. Edgar may never leave the shop, for reasons the story reveals.
Sensible · keys"Answer the phone"
"One of five, get out alive!" Find a way out. Edgar escapes, but leaves the item behind.

Puzzles on every floor

Each floor ends at an elevator that won't move until you prove you were paying attention. Players track everything on a paper Item Log handed out at the start.

What colour was the box?
The call buttons only work if you remember where your first item came from.
T _ _ _ _ T
A riddle
"What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T?" The answer is the code.
E · A · P · T
Letters on the wall
Unscramble them to fix what's broken and call the elevator.
Glowing letters
The last elevator stops dead. Which word do you see first: tea, toy or key?

The original pitch

Edgar finds a newspaper advertisement for a new antique shop. Upon investigating the image, he spots what looks to be the item he has been searching for, for the last 20 years.

The items that were left behind after a ruthless ransacking of the shop such as an hourglass, rotary phone, compact mirror, lighter and candle all hold mysterious significance as they reveal their value to Edgar's search. As Edgar interacts with the items, he is led down hallways which get darker, requiring him to use his other senses of hearing, smelling and touching to navigate through. The items that Edgar collects determine his fate as he inches closer to his goal or imminent death.

In the end, Edgar could either leave alive with his item, having succumbed to the evil that led him there, aborting his mission and leaving the item behind or being swallowed whole by his quest for closure.

Twine; the technology behind the game

Twine is an engine that can help create Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (CYOA) Games. It is built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These languages can also be utilized to make visual and auditory experiences for audiences. At a minimum, Twine is used for branching stories, but further customization requires code.

Using Twine for Ama Lou's Antique Shop allowed my team to clearly map out and organize our branching narrative in a user-friendly engine. The participants will navigate the story primarily through text. However, Twine still allows for the use of images and audio which will further enhance our story as it progresses, where participants will be asked to use other senses (e.g. hearing).

Objectives: the 5E model

Entice
Participants follow Edgar, an elderly man, on a hunt for an object that is not explicitly stated in the beginning. This encourages participants to keep exploring to find out what Edgar is trying to obtain.
Enter
Edgar's search begins with a newspaper article advertising a new antique shop in which the participant can explore to gain access to the quest.
Engage
The objective is for participants to sympathize with Edgar in the desperate search for an item connected to his dear, late-wife. Throughout the story, participants are faced with choices that determine Edgar's fate. The participants will rely on visual and auditory cues within the passages to further unfold the story.
Exit
Edgar's final outcomes can either be: leave the shop without the item; leave the shop with the item, however after committing an evil act; or unable to leave the shop, for reasons that will be explored within the story.
Extend
In the end, the participants are presented with a link. It directs them to a website that asks for a passcode. This passcode can be found throughout the story with highlighted letters that spell out a word. When the participants enter the correct passcode, they will be given extra content from the story which will include a certificate of completion, an image of Edgar and a newspaper article that explains the mystery of the shop.

As the players end the game, they are left wondering if the choices they made were worth it.

Play the game

Grab a pen and paper for your item log, then step inside.

Play Ama Lou's Antique Shop on itch.io ↗

Play in your browser ↗

Human-made. No generative AI was used in the creation of this project.