HOROLOGIA

Aboard Station Mendacia, idling his days away is the station's sole human occupant for the past five years – maintenance man Joshua. Joshua’s sole responsibility on the massive station is its maintenance and upkeep – not a terribly Herculean feat since Mendacia is almost entirely run by its impeccable artificial intelligence, SAM. 

When Mendacia passes by the black hole Janus, gravity fluctuations cause a minor maintenance issue that Joshua must fix - but the choices he makes along the way prove to have strange consequences.

What is the truth behind Station Mendacia? What ulterior motives is SAM hiding? And can Joshua ultimately separate reality from fiction?

HOROLOGIA is a story of the hero's journey, where each end strives to encompass a different stage of the monomyth - from the call to adventure to the journey's nadir, and finally to the return with the elixir. Its narrative is heavily inspired by a myriad of cultural media, chief among which are films such as The Matrix, Moon, and Interstellar, games such as The Stanley Parable, and of course prominent characters in cultural memory such as HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Ultimately, however, HOROLOGIA is a metaphor for ourselves as readers, and our relationship with the narrative presently unfolding wherein Joshua and SAM serve as foils for both the reader and the narrative voice. Does the way the reader interacts with the story influence the way in which the narrative is told? Or does the narrative march inexorably forward regardless of the reader? HOROLOGIA endeavors to be an exploration of these musings.

Created in partial fulfillment of NM4231 Digital Media Storytelling Strategies.

Special thanks to Ms Sarah-Tabea Sammel.

An interactive fiction story created as part of Communications and New Media studies.

CNM Department, National University of Singapore