This entry was produced for Dr. Melinda White’s Digital Literature class at the University of New Hampshire for the Spring 2026 semester. Pry is an acclaimed piece of interactive fiction, winning multiple awards spanning from “Apple’s Best of 2015” to being a finalist for the 2014 “Future Story Telling prize. The story tracks a young man, James, through his day-to-day reality as a Gulf War veteran. It not only portrays his personal experiences with the lasting trauma and PTSD caused by battle, but also how he chooses to face it. As the player moves through the chapters, an amalgamation of text, video, and interaction-based media is used. Through the user interface of opening and closing James’s eyes with pinch capacitive sensing, players uncover his external realities, inner narrative, and his subconscious. The motif of closing his eyes represents his attempt to block them out, blurring the lines of the three streams of consciousness.
The platform that Pry is written on employs the player to evoke multiple different senses. The game is written and filmed through a second- person point of view, enabling the player to see through the eyes and mind of James. It also uses heightened surround sounds, like a truck driving by or a person speaking, to maintain the image of a day-to-day life. The most prominent use of the sensory qualities is through the user interaction of pinching and zooming to open/close his eyes. By using capacitive sensing, the user attempts to “pry” open his memories. This translates into the game, showing different streams of consciousness depending on how far the player zooms. By using sight, touch, and sound, perspective is given to the player, regardless of the ambiguity of the storyline. There is also the consistent motif of closing the eyes, depending on the user to interact and search through multiple streams of consciousness. Regardless of how hard or fast the user zooms or pinches, there are some pieces of the story that lack accessibility. Some segments don’t open at all, while some only open for a few seconds, symbolizing James’s state of mind and aversion to specific memories. Like James, the user has limitations on what they can see.
Despite the game being in the interactive electronic literature genre, the user does not make decisions. Instead, they delve into all three perspectives or states of mind, relying on the capacitive sensing to move the story and retrieve context. While the user can control how much of each perspective they see, the gameplay remains linear regardless of user interactions. This serves as a great metaphor, but also as a reminder of mental health. There still is a mental health stigma, but programs/initiatives like this help mitigate it. By immersing users in the mind of James, they can better understand what PTSD and other mental illnesses actually feel and sound like, not just what they look like.