Prompt 4: Drawing on Brian Upton's definition of narrative play, describe how your process of anticipation and interpretation.
Anthony Bonfiglio opens up his "metallic angels" game with setting up an anticipation of mystery and wonder by having the first words be "Nothing... nothing... more nothing" on a vibrant blue background. The next page lulls the player into an uncertainty by having this featureless ocean and completely blue sky. However, there is more anticipation built because there is "nothing except us". Who is this "us"? Delving further into the story, Metallic Angels sets up a narrative where there is a plane flying with bombs, but the plane is lost, running out of fuel, and has no hope. Metalic Angels heightens the player's initial uncertainty by adding stakes and danger. At one point, Metallic Angels gives the player the option of choosing between throwing all hope to the wind or picking up a map. I picked throwing all hope to the wind to see what would happen. Metallic Angels rejects this initial suggestion by encouraging the player to not give up hope. This builds anticipation that there may be a way out of the dire situation the game has set the character in. There are two possible endings to this story. The first is that the player flies in the direction of safety. The second, the player finds their target and releases their bombs. In both situations, the player does not find out what happened. Metallic Angles builds this anticipation as to the fate of the characters but leaves their ultimate fate left up to the interpretation of the player.