Deviant: The Eerie Side of Digital Literature

Donna Leishman's Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw brings us the crazy story of a girl who was believed to be demon possessed in the 1600s. In a time period dominated by witch burnings, it was uncertain if what Shaw was experiencing were actual signs of possession or her own clever tricks, but nevertheless, her story has now been brought to us in an interactive narrative.

Through the use of colorful environments and harsh user-generated events, we are introduced to the chilling world of Christian, and everything we see or do has some consequence for her. Be it making her fly or breaking her back, we are put into this third person perspective to witness her sad life. As the environment slowly gets duller in color and the trees die away, we begin to see the "demon's" power slowly take more and more control over the girl.
Emotion is conveyed through heavy visuals and a few subtle sound effects. As we interact more with the world, we unveil small clues as to what is happening in Christian's mind at the time. A major feeling you may encounter while playing (yes, this essentially works as a point-and-click adventure game) is frustration, which I find to be good given the nature of this story. Christian HAS to be feeling some amount of fear and frustration for what is happening to her, and putting the audience in that same mindset makes it that much easier to tell your tale. The user sympathizes with Christian at this point, effectively drawing us in deeper. Everything comes together smoothly to give us an abstract yet fully mesmerizing tale.
As I said, interactivity plays a major role here, one of the defining attributes of a digital work. Interaction helps us to understand this story better than words alone could do, since we can visibly see the pain she is going through, as well as hear what she hears. This lets us be in the same emotional state as Christian, something very scary to think about.