Light and dark
Standing around in WALLPAPER doing nothing. It gets dark. 🙂
One technique we’ve developed specifically for WALLPAPER is the slow deterioration of light.
In the story, our main character PJ arrives in the early evening as the light is fading. The electricity provider long since disconnected the power, so a large portion of the work involves PJ exploring his family home under torch light.
This has been achieved through the slow interpolation of variables attached to lighting effects in the WALLPAPER world – from a primary directional light which acts as “the sun” to volumetric lighting that can be seen gently pooling through the windows on the west side of the house.
Within a real time period, and often without the reader/player consciously noticing, the story world descends into darkness. PJ’s torch light becomes more emphasized and the outside environment more sketchy and disorientating.
Luckily PJ’s prototype device runs on battery power, giving him a limited (and thankfully fairly bright) window to probe his way into the secrets inside his mother’s locked room.