In Route Ninety-Six, you'll play as a different teenager fleeing a fictional country called Petra. Petra is in turmoil, and along the way you will meet extraordinary people, some of whom will help you escape, some of which will do the opposite. We started working on Route Ninety-Six in 2018 with the goal of creating a programmed game where every player can have their own story. Our slogan is: each has its own way out.
So we created prototypes and designed a system that generates a story based on the player's personal taste, which is why the game starts with a few questions to ask you first. The AI will then use parameters to determine your starting position, abilities, money, and (yes, no mistake) hidden causal elements. At the end of the first act of the game, you can choose the method of leaving the country. Along the way, you'll find that this isn't a linear branching system, but a series of story passages selected by ai-powered people for your own journey.
There are multiple modes of transportation in the game. If you choose to walk, it will obviously take longer to reach the border. (Assuming you didn't die on the way) This summer of 1996, time doesn't stand still. After a few journeys (6 to 15), you'll trigger one of many endings, depending on your choices and behaviors on the journey.
If you look closely at the map, you'll see that each character's route is different, which is the beauty of the program generation system. Mathematically, it is almost impossible for each character's route to completely overlap. (Which makes us very happy) In simple terms, the total number of routes that are possible to generate is 60 x 59 x 58
Since each story passage could happen in the desert to the south or to the mountains to the north, we needed to create different images for each environment, plus day and night settings, and the art team had to quadruple the workload, and they were pretty good. The music of the story is also different at the beginning of the summer journey, or near the end, when tensions across the country are heating up. Even if it is extremely complex, it is necessary to create a feeling of true freedom on the journey.
The narrative design and text of Route Ninety-Six are completely different from the traditional linear or branch story experience. We never know when and where an event will be triggered, so we have to test a lot of parameters to determine if you've met these characters, if you know their backstory, and if more information about them is allowed to be revealed at the right time. It's funny to see how players react when they see the truth of these stories come to light.
So, there's no mistake, every decision you make is crucial, will determine where you and all your passers-by go, and affect each other's life trajectory. It's an experience of deep dive into life. We just like to explore things that have the potential to have an impact on people's lives and (perhaps) try to make the world a little bit better.