Data of Death: feelings in the machine, a tale of descent

[cjh302]

Data of Death is a 257-day diary of someone tracking global COVID cases: as you might expect, their emotional state deteriorates over time.

The code is on github, the novel can be found here.

Updated on 2020-11-30 to incorporate a (colour blind-friendly) palette of colour for ease of reading: variables, emotional state, and assessment of the world situation appear in different colours to the template text, with colour intensity increasing as emotional state deteriorates.

Sample screengrab attached.

[dx9240]

Great result! 📖 I really like that you went for a template style in the form of a diary - it fits well with the subject matter and it's easy to see the emotion intensifying or breaking down in later entries, even if you're reading by skipping down the text and just sampling the diary entries.

[cjh302]

Thanks @dx9240! I played a bit more this morning and added colour (for the variables) to make reading easier, and emphasise the change in emotional state.

[dx9240]

Nice! I wonder if there are handwriting style fonts which could match the emotional changes too? Like violent or nervous handwriting scribbled into a paper diary.

[cjh302]

That's a great idea. I might play more with this in next year's nanogenmo :)