PRAYDAY: The Holy Heist

A ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Twine game about stealing saints’ relics and choosing what you, as the thief, want to do with your stolen treasure. Features a branching narrative, offering a handful of different options for each step of the heist and culminating in numerous endings.  Each run begins in the planning stage, asking the player to pick a target from a number of saints’ relics. The heist stage then prompts the player to decide how to execute the theft; will they go alone or bring a team, steal in silence or go loud-and-proud, remain pacifistic or get violent on the job? Following the heist, the player enters the loot stage where they’ll decide what to do with the goods.

Each relic target will offer a narrative thread that represents the historical events of these relics being stolen and what the culprit did with the objects in their possession. While these threads will embody the real-life occurrences of relic theft, following these threads will not be the definitive way to play the game. A completed run will not lead to a win state based on the accuracy of one’s choices to those of historical relic thieves. The game’s focus will not be on a win state at all; instead, the goal for this project is to examine the personal and cultural meanings behind the choices made regarding saints’ relics. As such, the choices that aren’t made are just as significant. A player’s decision to deviate from historical events will lead to equally engaging narrative conclusions for any given run.