Initial Research

To start off with I researched games of a similar genre, such being Gone Home, The 39 Steps, The Stanley Parable and Dear Esther. The Stanley Parable and The 39 Steps appealed to me the most out of these games. The Stanley Parable particularly because of the humour, but also how the actions you should take are narrated, it is in some way as if you are part of a play, being given direction by the narration. However, another interesting thing about this game was that no matter what choices you make all the narration seemed to fit, as though this was an AI talking to you as you progressed.

What I found really interesting was the way The 39 Steps played, it was very narrative driven, yet the artwork with slight animation really helped it to appeal to me. This is the game I will draw most influence from, as I am more inclined to go down the 2D route and have my interactive environment more narrative based. When researching the design behind the The 39 Steps, I came across their website http://thestorymechanics.com/ and there were posts about the development of the game where the initial artwork is shown and how it was built up from that:

I really liked that it had more interactive elements than other games that also furthered the story. Above is a scene where you can interact with certain objects, be it a letter or something else. As I am planning to base my environment on a scene or two from Othello, I feel like this is a good route to go down to help tell the story or explore elements of the story, such as Othello's paranoia. 

Also from their website was a post titled "10 Games Incredible Games You Never Knew Existed" and one of the games listed was a flash game titled "Every Day The Same Dream", which really interested me also. The repetitiveness can throw people off but when you discover that there are little differences and you can deviate from the path that seems to be laid out, an interesting, dark story develops. The message conveyed is quite striking as well, which I think is what makes this game so profound and engaging, despite the minimalist art style, which perhaps even lends to the core meaning.