Honey, I’m Home: An Adventure Game with Procedurally Generated Narrative Puzzles

Abstract

We present Honey, I’m Home, a short 2D adventure game which makes use of the SPHINX framework for procedurally generating narrative puzzles. The player guides the protagonist, a journalist for a local newspaper, through four game areas, interacting with numerous characters and objects along the way. The player must solve puzzles to complete each area, combining objects and interacting with characters in the game. The procedural generation of puzzles ensures that while the gameworld remains largely identical between replays, the puzzles encountered are different. The aim of Honey, I’m Home was to serve as a tool for our two-fold evaluation of the SPHINX algorithm, from its functionality in game development, as well as its effect on player experience. To this end a small user study was also conducted on Honey, I’m Home.