The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo utilizes a text narrative overlaid on a photo. Considering that these games are primarily text only, using an image, in this case, helps set the eerie mood of the game/story while also giving it extra depth. There are certain pros and cons to using visuals with text. On one hand, as aforementioned, they can better set the tone of a game or story. Alternatively, using images may hinder the world building that goes on in the head of a reader. The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo seems to find a solution to this by using both photorealistic and more abstract images. The former sets the mood while the latter still allows a reader to imagine a visual during critical moments in the story, like when they encounter “The Uncle” for the first time.

The Girl in the Haunted House uses different colored text at certain points in the story. While some games may italicize or bold clickable links, a different color obviously makes hyperlinks more visible. Different colors could, however, be used to indicate different types of game interaction. For example, green could indicate action options (go into the room, talk to a character), yellow could be a hyperlink to background information to a plot point (how you met a character) and purple could lead to more precise visual descriptions of something in the story. Color could also be used to drive home an emotional point (angry dialogue could utilize red text).

Something that became clear when playing both The Girl in the Haunted House and The Uncle Who Works and then comparing them both is how functional fixedness can be detrimental to creating an innovative and engaging game. Color, different type face, color, size, italicization, highlighting, sound and images can be used typically, or creatively to make a text based game more immersive.