Everything about this story was surreal and hilarious to me .The family hates Regular Girl for being an embarrassment...but also starves so she has to live off dumpster food in public. Her crime was not being born as a hairy person. A family of hairy people are rich and everyone respects them. Having an extra body part on your body elevates you to superstar status.
I have so many questions about what is going on in this bizarre world, but that's what makes this so entertaining. Regular Girl is ostracized because shes'...regular. I love that so much. That's not even getting into the whole Wishing Demon plot, where the dude was just pulling her leg the whole time. I wonder if there was a way to save the necklace, because clearly the guy couldn't even ENFORCE his own deal. I technically got a free magic necklace that lets me have like...a neck mouth.
If possible I would try to deactivate the 'made with Inkle' link that shows up at the beginning of your twine. I accidentally clicked on it and got sent to Inkle's site and could not come back to your game without refreshing.
Really enjoyed reading through this, and the omniscient perspective is great. I think you chose a great narrative tool for this as well — inkle is very well-suited to this style and perspective. For revision, I'd advise that you make either the world or the characters more textured and detailed. As it stands, it feels like everything is nebulous, but it's hard to get invested without some solid grounding in person or place. Additionally, this may not have been a problem for others, but I think the text needs to be broken into somewhat smaller passages. Inkle is great for longer passages, but sometimes the new text added after a choice doesn't all fit on the screen at once. There are a few ways to mitigate this, but ultimately you should either cut some prose per passage or add a couple more small choices to break up passages further. The fairy tale tone is working really well for you, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I can totally feel the agency that I am a part of the author who contributes to the story and help to decide not only which way I want the story to unravel, but also just smaller details about what I want the characters to say. I like this style of approach, where it's less like a text version of point-and-click adventure, but more like a choose-your-own-adventure journey.
The changing of the pace for what kind of choice we are facing is also interesting. I appreciate sometimes we are not only making decisions from the perspective of the protagonist, but also from those of other characters, or the setting of the story in general.
Based on my choice while I was playing, sometimes I ended up with no more than just one single choice. I appreciate that as well because I totally feel the consequences because of my decisions, sometimes when we made a decision and we might put ourselves in situations we can no longer control anymore. It is smart of you to do so.
It may not be finished but I like where it's going! First thing's first, thanks for introducing us to a new interactive story text editor, it looks amazing!
For part of the plot I'm a bit confused. Does Regular Girl's family have Hypertrichosis AKA Werewolf syndrome? I might be misunderstanding something there but it sounds like it. Also, is RG a product of an affair? It sounds like that may be the main reason for her mother's hatred towards her? If the reason she hates her is within the story, sorry! I'm not familiar with your story!
Other than that I'm interested to see where this will go!
In the original fairytale, the difference between the sisters is number of eyes! Her three-eyed younger sister and one-eyed older sister treat the main girl badly because of she has two eyes "regular people." My original idea was for this story to abstract this into a world a million years from now where people evolved in tons of different ways, in a society which valued uniqueness and popularity above everything else. But a lot of the world history stuff didn't make it in, so it's good to know that it could still be more obvious! Thanks for your feedback!!!
This was really cool! Your unique approach of having the player really pick the next moments was pretty successful, and each choice gave enough context for the player to predict accurately what that choice entails (which is a very very good thing!). This made each choice feel like it actually mattered and had weight and like I am actually the one writing and controlling the story rather than picking a choice in a narrative that already exists.
On an unrelated note, Inkle was my first narrative design platform and it is very nice. It's also nice to be able to scroll back up in your case to see the story we've created. Would love to see how the completed versions might look!
I agree with Kaz! They mentioned the plot, the agency, and the writing; it all sort of flows very nicely into a coalescent sort of intrigue, giving the player a nice level of agency while permitting each character to have a fantastic personality on their own time and as to not distract from the story's direction too much.
VFX-wise, it's very pretty! I adore the scrolling-thing you did; it looks far better than the plain old Harlowe 3.1 white-on-black abomination that I was stuck with.
The story itself is engaging, delivered in little tidbits that aren't too long yet aren't too short, either. It's pretty nice, easily-digestible, and rather comfy as well, aside from the demonic-deal overtones.
Very nice, very good! But What does Regular Girl want most? The world may never know.
I really liked the plot and writing in this game. It was interesting how you didn't just control the main character, you had the opportunity to control the entire narrative and story and manipulate every character in some way, and gave me a big feeling of agency. I had to take the time to think about every choice I made because it really did feel like each choice was going to affect the story in a big way. That was a refreshing touch. The visual effects were pretty nice too, though I would suggest changing the main story font and color to something a little less grey and thin just for legibility purposes. Overall I had a good time with this game!
Comments
Everything about this story was surreal and hilarious to me .The family hates Regular Girl for being an embarrassment...but also starves so she has to live off dumpster food in public. Her crime was not being born as a hairy person. A family of hairy people are rich and everyone respects them. Having an extra body part on your body elevates you to superstar status.
I have so many questions about what is going on in this bizarre world, but that's what makes this so entertaining. Regular Girl is ostracized because shes'...regular. I love that so much. That's not even getting into the whole Wishing Demon plot, where the dude was just pulling her leg the whole time. I wonder if there was a way to save the necklace, because clearly the guy couldn't even ENFORCE his own deal. I technically got a free magic necklace that lets me have like...a neck mouth.
If possible I would try to deactivate the 'made with Inkle' link that shows up at the beginning of your twine. I accidentally clicked on it and got sent to Inkle's site and could not come back to your game without refreshing.
hey alekai!
Really enjoyed reading through this, and the omniscient perspective is great. I think you chose a great narrative tool for this as well — inkle is very well-suited to this style and perspective. For revision, I'd advise that you make either the world or the characters more textured and detailed. As it stands, it feels like everything is nebulous, but it's hard to get invested without some solid grounding in person or place. Additionally, this may not have been a problem for others, but I think the text needs to be broken into somewhat smaller passages. Inkle is great for longer passages, but sometimes the new text added after a choice doesn't all fit on the screen at once. There are a few ways to mitigate this, but ultimately you should either cut some prose per passage or add a couple more small choices to break up passages further. The fairy tale tone is working really well for you, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
-jess
I can totally feel the agency that I am a part of the author who contributes to the story and help to decide not only which way I want the story to unravel, but also just smaller details about what I want the characters to say. I like this style of approach, where it's less like a text version of point-and-click adventure, but more like a choose-your-own-adventure journey.
The changing of the pace for what kind of choice we are facing is also interesting. I appreciate sometimes we are not only making decisions from the perspective of the protagonist, but also from those of other characters, or the setting of the story in general.
Based on my choice while I was playing, sometimes I ended up with no more than just one single choice. I appreciate that as well because I totally feel the consequences because of my decisions, sometimes when we made a decision and we might put ourselves in situations we can no longer control anymore. It is smart of you to do so.
It may not be finished but I like where it's going! First thing's first, thanks for introducing us to a new interactive story text editor, it looks amazing!
For part of the plot I'm a bit confused. Does Regular Girl's family have Hypertrichosis AKA Werewolf syndrome? I might be misunderstanding something there but it sounds like it. Also, is RG a product of an affair? It sounds like that may be the main reason for her mother's hatred towards her? If the reason she hates her is within the story, sorry! I'm not familiar with your story!
Other than that I'm interested to see where this will go!
In the original fairytale, the difference between the sisters is number of eyes! Her three-eyed younger sister and one-eyed older sister treat the main girl badly because of she has two eyes "regular people." My original idea was for this story to abstract this into a world a million years from now where people evolved in tons of different ways, in a society which valued uniqueness and popularity above everything else. But a lot of the world history stuff didn't make it in, so it's good to know that it could still be more obvious! Thanks for your feedback!!!
This was really cool! Your unique approach of having the player really pick the next moments was pretty successful, and each choice gave enough context for the player to predict accurately what that choice entails (which is a very very good thing!). This made each choice feel like it actually mattered and had weight and like I am actually the one writing and controlling the story rather than picking a choice in a narrative that already exists.
On an unrelated note, Inkle was my first narrative design platform and it is very nice. It's also nice to be able to scroll back up in your case to see the story we've created. Would love to see how the completed versions might look!
I agree with Kaz! They mentioned the plot, the agency, and the writing; it all sort of flows very nicely into a coalescent sort of intrigue, giving the player a nice level of agency while permitting each character to have a fantastic personality on their own time and as to not distract from the story's direction too much.
VFX-wise, it's very pretty! I adore the scrolling-thing you did; it looks far better than the plain old Harlowe 3.1 white-on-black abomination that I was stuck with.
The story itself is engaging, delivered in little tidbits that aren't too long yet aren't too short, either. It's pretty nice, easily-digestible, and rather comfy as well, aside from the demonic-deal overtones.
Very nice, very good! But What does Regular Girl want most? The world may never know.
I really liked the plot and writing in this game. It was interesting how you didn't just control the main character, you had the opportunity to control the entire narrative and story and manipulate every character in some way, and gave me a big feeling of agency. I had to take the time to think about every choice I made because it really did feel like each choice was going to affect the story in a big way. That was a refreshing touch. The visual effects were pretty nice too, though I would suggest changing the main story font and color to something a little less grey and thin just for legibility purposes. Overall I had a good time with this game!