Actually this post doesn’t contain spoiler alerts; it’s ‘about’ spoiler alerts / trailers.
Surely it is a conundrum for anyone producing a game/film/novel etc. in which surprise and changing expectation is core to the experience.
Aura Alert is a game masquerading as an App. ie the iTunes description states it has a certain function, and this is replicated on the website/facebook page etc; however, if you play it for long enough narratives emerge which form a puzzle. To be solved.
It is very difficult for me to disclose more without actually ‘spoiling it’.
My conflict is this: ‘delight’ in Aura Alert is probably to be found in discovering that it is not what it seems.
Yet I probably need to reveal something of its nature for people to be interested in it.
I can easily see inundated reviewers having a cursory try, taking it at face value and giving it a negative review, without even discovering the puzzle, because it is designed to emerge slowly.
Personally I try very hard to not see trailers of films, certainly of franchises I am invested in, but do I miss out on seeing great movies because I haven’t been seduced by a trailer? Probably lots.
Games such as ‘The Stanley Parable’ and ‘Papers Please’ are cutely based on frustration of feeling lost in a system; however I expect most people get to those games through reviews that reveal their basic conceit and they are the kind of people that would enjoy the self-reflection and wit of those experiences, a more general public may just think they are badly made games.
Aura Alert is intended as a journey where the app changes from a ‘toy’ to a story to a game.
I would prefer if people who bought the app had no idea that was going to happen. Then again the people that would enjoy that are maybe not the kind of people who would buy the app as advertised.
A conundrum, any thoughts?