The game begins with a flashback sequence showing Prospero’s brother Antonio seizing power over Milan and casting Prospero off to sea with his infant daughter Miranda. After drifting through the sea, the player will gain control of Prospero in the tiny boat off the coast of the island from The Tempest and must paddle ashore before collecting supplies to find food and to build a shelter. Once the player has established stable shelter, Prospero can begin to venture out and explore the island. The player will encounter the sprite Ariel imprisoned within a tree trunk by the witch Sycorax, and will be able to free him from his twelve years of captivity. After freeing Ariel, the player can use the sprite to gain knowledge of events occurring in distant areas of the island without having to travel there on foot with Prospero. The player will also encounter Caliban in a different region of the island, and can either choose to befriend him or can enslave him using his powers of magic and newfound command over an army of sprites. If the player chooses to enslave Caliban, Prospero will no longer need to perform repetitive tasks such as collecting wood or food, yet Caliban will attempt to escape and rebel over the course of the game. If the player instead opts to befriend Caliban, they will gain access to secret areas of the island that contain special resources. After these early encounters, the player will continue to make progress building up Prospero’s settlement and can also unlock more advanced magic powers by collecting various ingredients found across the island.
Once the player has reached a certain level of magical prowess, they can progress to the events of The Tempest and begin the main storyline. At this point, the player would gain the ability to take control of Ariel through Prospero’s magic, allowing the player to directly cause the Tempest and scatter the sailors across the island. The player would then be able to use Ariel to spy on each of the stranded groups and lure them towards Prospero’s settlement, enabling him to recapture his dukedom and engage Miranda to Ferdinand. Depending on the player’s actions in the early stages of the game, Caliban may carry out his revolt with Stephano and Trinculo or he may be willing to help Prospero if he is still free. In the final stage of the game corresponding to Act V in The Tempest, the player is able to make several key choices that will decide the fate of the other characters in the play. The player may choose to leave Antonio and his court stranded upon the island as revenge for Prospero’s many years of isolation, or may grant the usurping rebels mercy as Prospero returns to Milan to claim his birthright. The player may also allow Caliban to remain as the rightful master of the island if Prospero has already established a positive relationship with the native earlier in the game, granting Caliban true freedom from civilization.
Analysis:
In my design of this game, I strove to grant the player an unprecedented understanding of Prospero’s actions, allowing them to better understand his motivations that are clouded by the third person perspective of The Tempest. My initial idea for the game was inspired by the following passage, imaging a game structured around Prospero’s efforts to survive after being exiled from Milan: “In few, they hurried us aboard a bark, / Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared / A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigged, / Nor tackle, sail, nor mast—the very rats / Instinctively have quit it. / There they hoist us / To cry to th’ sea that roared us, to sigh / To th’ winds, whose pity, sighing back again, / Did us but loving wrong” (1.2.144-151). The idea for a prequel was especially compelling by allowing the player to witness the backstory that led to Prospero’s iron-fisted control of the island, while also allowing them to better analyze Prospero’s actions by giving them agency over the outcome of the game. It was this desire for a more concrete positive or negative outcome that prompted me to expand the subject matter of the game to include the events of the play itself, with the video game concluding with an epilogue in the place of Prospero’s final monologue that outlines how the player’s choices have affected the other characters within the game.
Through the process of designing this video game, I felt that I gained a greater appreciation for the extent of Prospero’s suffering prior to the events of The Tempest and found many of his actions within the play to be more understandable. This method of creative adaptation could both serve to depict Prospero as a more sympathetic character or to cement his role as an antagonist within the world of the play. If the player were to preserve Caliban’s freedom, then Prospero’s one major failure from the text would be averted; conversely, the player may choose to ruthlessly enslave Caliban and leave the sailors stranded on the island as punishment, painting Prospero’s intentions as far more nefarious. However, most players will likely find themselves within the morally ambiguous area between these two extremes, calling into question whether Prospero’s actions within The Tempest are in fact justified by the extreme tribulations of his exile.