Describe the formal elements that make up the game. Be as clear and detailed as possible.

At first I thought of using Cluedo or Super Cluedo for this question, but after taking part in that Bioware Writing Contest, it only makes sense that I plu- er... I mean talk about my game (yeah, that's the ticket). This game that I'm writing on is "To Hell and Back", a Neverwinter Nights (NWN) module that I made for the contest. (Btw, do download it and review it if you have NWN and its expansions, and also bear in mind that it had to follow restrictions like no combat, 3,500 word limit, etc.)

Anyway, back on topic.

Players
It's a single player vs game, because the contest only allowed people to submit single player games. It's just one person doing stuff in the game to advance the storyline.

Role
You play as someone who was killed in a ritual by the Cult of Bloodfang and finds himself/herself in Hell.

Objectives
The first objective is to find out as much as possible about the place you're in, the second is to defend yourself during trial when you find out that you've been framed, and the third is to try to get back to the Land of the Living. It's exploration and partly solution because you're exploring the storyline through the three non-player characters or NPCs (Spike, the Judge, and the Hell Guard), and you have to try and get out of the mess that you're in. It's not entirely a solution-based game because the third objective is achievable regardless of the path you picked during the game and the verdict you get, although attempting to clear your name, get a good ending and pick the story path that would help you earn the most experience would make it qualify as a solution-based puzzle game.

Procedure
Starting action: Download the module from the above link and put it in the "modules" folder in the NWN main folder. Then start up NWN and select "Play" -> "New" -> "Other modules..." -> "To Hell and Back". At this stage, you can either create a new character, or use one of the existing characters in the game. Once you've done either one of those, the game starts. (A lot of steps for a really short game :P )

Progression of Action: Read through Spike's dialogue and then talk to the other two characters, most notably the Judge. Once you initiate the dialogue with the Judge, the trial starts immediately, and you have to pick the best answers that your character would say during the trial. After that, you'll have to speak to the other characters and find out if either of them can explain what happened earlier, and then talk to the Judge again once you've gotten new information. It's really a lot of talking. (Gee... I'm really ruining the experience for those who have not played it, aren't I?)

Special Actions: The verdict given by the Judge only makes one story path available to you when you make an appeal to return to the Land of the Living. There would have been more special actions in this module if it didn't have to conform to restrictions such as no "special skills" use.

Resolving Actions: Speaking to the Hell Guard after appealing to the Judge and clicking on any of the two "End Adventure" options would bring the game to a close.

Rules
You can't attack NPCs or objects because I wanted to make life easier for myself and not have to worry about people breaking my module, so all NPCs and objects were marked as "Plot" and were therefore unkillable/unbreakable. As this is a dialogue-heavy module, what which character says can trigger something new, be it a new dialogue from another NPC or a journal entry, or experience points, or a new story path. And in the case of the Judge, you can't go to him and make an appeal as long as you haven't spoken to Spike about it.

Resources
Your character has hit points, attributes, stats, feats and such, but these don't matter to this game at all, because the restrictions doesn't allow for combat or class features. Instead, the only resources that matter are experience points, and a letter. The letter is far more crucial to the game than the experience points because it's needed to trigger the Judge's dialogue.

Conflict
There's definitely conflict in this game, because you're placed in a situation where you've to convince the Judge of your innocence. You can be found guilty if you mess up your trial. This would be classified as an obstacle.


Boundary
It's an incredibly small space, because the restriction was a 4x4 space, although I think I might have made the room much smaller than 4x4 due to my unfamiliarity with the toolset. Hell's court is a very small square room with walls and no door. Everything within the walls is part of the game, and you can never step out of the boundaries at any point during the game.

Outcome
There are two outcomes in this game, although both eventually achieve the main objective. There's the good ending, where the Judge is convinced that you're trustworthy enough to send you back to filfull your assignment, and the not-so-good ending, where you have to take the sneaky way out through the Hell Guard.