Core Decisions is an intense text adventure created with a colleague using the Twine editor. The player assumes the role of an engineer aboard a spaceship with a failing fusion core and just 60 minutes to destruction. Each valid action takes 1 minute off the clock, making prudent decision-making a must in order to survive.

Being our 3rd project in Twine, we both had some familiarity with the engine and how to best utilize it. The time constraint was the... core mechanic we designed around -- our goal was to keep the player anxious about the ever-dwindling time, while still providing some space for experimentation. We double down on in this in the "best" ending, introducing deadly toxins to the player which cut any time remaining down to just 5 minutes.

In retrospect the writing is not the strongest, but I still feel that we made good use of the time mechanic to create a sense of urgency in a genre that traditionally can devolve into just typing everything under the sun until something sticks.