Branching · Design document · Treatment

Liber Paradisus

Nocturama Bononia · 2021

One last delivery. One customer who can’t wait.

▶ Play the three choices and both endings

A delivery rider is late for his last order. Three choices are counted as on time or late, and the count decides under which of two porticoes of Bologna the night ends. If you want to play first, the treatment at the bottom of the page tells the whole ending.

Structure

Choice 1Answer his wife’s call?

Answer · late (R)Decline · on time (O)

Choice 2Jammed road or free sidewalk?

Jammed road · late (R)Free sidewalk · on time (O)

Choice 3Speed up or slow down?

Slow down · late (R)Speed up · on time (O)

↓

Tally of the three choicesmore on time (O) than late (R)?

↓

More on time (O)Ending under the Portico of Death

More late (R)Ending under the Portico of Life

From the design document

Writing sample · Design document · First choice

Frame 15

Close-up of Red’s phone, filling the frame: an incoming call from Dalila, name and photo visible. The player decides whether to answer.

GREEN button: answers, late (R). Go to frame 16.

RED button: declines, on time (O). Go to frame 21.

Writing sample · Design document · Second choice

Frame 24

Long shot from behind. Red at the edge of the road; the avenue opens ahead of him.

The road full of cars, seen in the previous frame: late (R).

The adjacent sidewalk, free of obstacles: on time (O).

Both objects light up slightly when the player hovers over them.

The ending under the Portico of Death

Writing sample · Treatment excerpt · Liber Paradisus, the ending

plain and restrained. Close third person, no commentary; the horror arrives in the last image.

Red gets back on the bike and rides to the start of Via de’ Musei, where he leaves it. A man in a dark blue suit and tie is waiting for him, murmuring lines from the Liber Paradisus, the document by which the Commune of Bologna freed its serfs. Seeing how battered Red is, the man asks him what happened. Red explains as best he can in his limited Italian. The man tells him he needs to rest, and insists on walking Red home himself. Red gives in. They walk together beneath the Portico of Death. The man places a hand on Red’s shoulder, and Red smiles. In the lamplight, we see the hand: no flesh, no muscle, just white bone.