Brand new

The cabbie's making conversation, he's told you that work's been a bit slow today, and traffic was bad on the way to the airport, where he picked you up. Outside the grubby windows, implausably tall, gleaming skyscrapers disappear into the clouds, the sun flickers in the corner of your vision, a nearby suspension bridge's symmetric struts interrupting its gaze.

"You new around here?" He says, off-handedly.

You've only been playing the game for half an hour, this still feels like the playable intro. He's implying you are in the way he asks, but the UI brings up a discreet overlay - 'yes' or 'no'. Its the first time you've had a choice in dialogue from your otherwise silent character.

He's expecting a response. Smiling at the fact of it:
"Yes", you reply silently. Look out of the window again, "brand new" you think.

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A single optional choice dialogue, what the NPC responds with is appropriate, but only a line for either choice. In a sense, it's rhetorical, in that the actual choice is non-concequential. What's important is that the player thinks about the question for a second. And in a sense, that choice defines a binary attitude to the game that may stay with them. Bright eyed, hopeful, excited 'yes', or jaded, disinterested, deceptive, experienced 'no'.

Luminescence

The sky is an ashen wash, painted monotone. Get up late and feel like you'd never been to sleep. Cloud cover filters a low light, noon feels like five o'clock. Rain tip toes across welcoming foliage, watch from a window with the tungsten down. Greens are greener, soft shadows.

So much water - it takes you back there, hundred of feet beneath. Echoing chimes of the Electroplankton return, their blithe expressions a portrait of serenity. Passing by the glass, a jar, invading droplets spurred by the howling wind make dusty lagoons of the window sill.

The pitter-patter cacophony takes an intermission. Sun-Animalcules and Luminaria hum contentedly, basking in the luminescent haze of the ocean floor.