The Haunted Place, Ally Wonski, UG '22 (3963686)

“The Haunted Place” is a visual novel style video game concept which explores Edgar Allan Poe’s works in context to world events and experiences in the 2020’s. This work uses composition, storytelling, and technology to engage with audiences across age ranges and interests through popular entertainment media. This piece focuses on societal issues that are defining of the 2020’s and brings the game players to engage in these discussions to question their own sense of place in the world. Subjects such as government, abuse, grief, pandemics, religion, mental health, manipulation, technology, control, and more are explored within this dystopian narrative. Acting as a type of powerful entity in this world, the user is introduced to different scenarios and determines the course of events throughout this game. This presentation focuses on some of the musical aspects within this work and how they engage with the narrative storytelling at key points within the game play in order to add to the emotional impact of these scenes.