First of all, congratulations on the submission! The narrative style reminded me of a choose-your-own-adventure book, which I enjoyed.
I think there's a tension between the depth of the worldbuilding and the encouragement to visit as few links as possible. There's a lot of detail and a huge number of people with potential reasons for involvement in the murder, which was great in terms of enriching the story but also meant it was quite difficult to keep track of the facts (e.g. who owned what company) without moving to a new page so that I could read more and gradually accustom myself to the setting. It's also very easy to miss the fact that the player is penalised for each link they visit.
What I think you could potentially do is start the player off with a certain time limit. Then, perhaps each link could take a certain amount of time to investigate, so that clicking links is more like spending a resource than being docked points. You'd also have the opportunity for consequences if the player visits too many links and runs out of time.
Overall, I think there's a lot of potential in the setting. The tech-dystopian, Blade Runner-esque vibe was clear without being too overwhelming. I'm left wanting to know more about this world - for instance, how was a corporation able to get away with cloning humans despite the fact that so many people object to it? What's up with the Cybersquads, and could they be turned against the player as a consequence of getting on the wrong side of someone? The final line of the intro does a great job of setting up the player character as someone generally apathetic to all this as long as they're able to get enough work to stay afloat, and I thought that was a good narrative choice since you've given the player a clear objective. However, all these factions you've set up give you ample opportunity to have things go sideways for a protagonist who keeps poking their nose where it's not wanted...
If you do ever revisit/redevelop the game, I'd be interested in seeing the results!
Wow, thanks for the detailed comment! I wrote this back in 2015 based on a board game, which is where the scoring and narrative style come from. But having a “time limit” with consequences makes more sense, especially for a digital game where you’d be able to see the time limit on screen.
I don’t actually remember what the Cybersquads are since I wrote it so long ago! 😅 But the world was heavily influenced by the card game Android: Netrunner and the Tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020 so if you’re interested in the genre in general I recommend checking those out!
the writing is pretty good and the setting is very cool. i enjoyed it and it’s fun but it felt a bit lacking in terms of gameplay because it’s more about just following the trail. penalizing the player for visiting more locations also seems to push the player to go on a more linear path and limit their space to speculate (i.e. their play space). perhaps you can replace the penalty with consequences in the narrative instead, like it took too much time or just being there triggered something - it can be positive or negative. and reading the online profiles should not be part of the penalty. there is a potential complication there with the activist poster which can make things interesting, and i think you can take advantage of that further. all in all, great job!
Thanks for playing! The scoring system (penalizing for locations) is based on the board game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, which I agree was somewhat weird (and why our group personally didn't care much about the score when we play). I think when I made it the online profiles counted toward the locations by default, and also because I didn't feel like I had enough locations without them. But I think you're right that they shouldn't be the same penalty - maybe a partial penalty since it would still take some time reading them? And narrative consequences would be super cool but also require a lot more story making!
The story was interesting and so was the world, but I did find the mystery to be pretty, well, elementary. I think that may be a weakness of trying to make a mystery game that encourages you to look at as little information as possible.
Thanks for playing! I think I didn't want to make it too hard (I don't really remember my thinking since I made it in 2015) because it's very common for people to get negative scores in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective so that could be frustrating for them. But I probably over-corrected.
Eh, that's a matter of opinion--you're right that if it was more difficult it would quickly become frustrating that the game penalizes you for visiting more locations.
Comments
First of all, congratulations on the submission! The narrative style reminded me of a choose-your-own-adventure book, which I enjoyed.
I think there's a tension between the depth of the worldbuilding and the encouragement to visit as few links as possible. There's a lot of detail and a huge number of people with potential reasons for involvement in the murder, which was great in terms of enriching the story but also meant it was quite difficult to keep track of the facts (e.g. who owned what company) without moving to a new page so that I could read more and gradually accustom myself to the setting. It's also very easy to miss the fact that the player is penalised for each link they visit.
What I think you could potentially do is start the player off with a certain time limit. Then, perhaps each link could take a certain amount of time to investigate, so that clicking links is more like spending a resource than being docked points. You'd also have the opportunity for consequences if the player visits too many links and runs out of time.
Overall, I think there's a lot of potential in the setting. The tech-dystopian, Blade Runner-esque vibe was clear without being too overwhelming. I'm left wanting to know more about this world - for instance, how was a corporation able to get away with cloning humans despite the fact that so many people object to it? What's up with the Cybersquads, and could they be turned against the player as a consequence of getting on the wrong side of someone? The final line of the intro does a great job of setting up the player character as someone generally apathetic to all this as long as they're able to get enough work to stay afloat, and I thought that was a good narrative choice since you've given the player a clear objective. However, all these factions you've set up give you ample opportunity to have things go sideways for a protagonist who keeps poking their nose where it's not wanted...
If you do ever revisit/redevelop the game, I'd be interested in seeing the results!
Wow, thanks for the detailed comment! I wrote this back in 2015 based on a board game, which is where the scoring and narrative style come from. But having a “time limit” with consequences makes more sense, especially for a digital game where you’d be able to see the time limit on screen.
I don’t actually remember what the Cybersquads are since I wrote it so long ago! 😅 But the world was heavily influenced by the card game Android: Netrunner and the Tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020 so if you’re interested in the genre in general I recommend checking those out!
the writing is pretty good and the setting is very cool. i enjoyed it and it’s fun but it felt a bit lacking in terms of gameplay because it’s more about just following the trail. penalizing the player for visiting more locations also seems to push the player to go on a more linear path and limit their space to speculate (i.e. their play space). perhaps you can replace the penalty with consequences in the narrative instead, like it took too much time or just being there triggered something - it can be positive or negative. and reading the online profiles should not be part of the penalty. there is a potential complication there with the activist poster which can make things interesting, and i think you can take advantage of that further. all in all, great job!
Thanks for playing! The scoring system (penalizing for locations) is based on the board game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, which I agree was somewhat weird (and why our group personally didn't care much about the score when we play). I think when I made it the online profiles counted toward the locations by default, and also because I didn't feel like I had enough locations without them. But I think you're right that they shouldn't be the same penalty - maybe a partial penalty since it would still take some time reading them? And narrative consequences would be super cool but also require a lot more story making!
The story was interesting and so was the world, but I did find the mystery to be pretty, well, elementary. I think that may be a weakness of trying to make a mystery game that encourages you to look at as little information as possible.
Thanks for playing! I think I didn't want to make it too hard (I don't really remember my thinking since I made it in 2015) because it's very common for people to get negative scores in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective so that could be frustrating for them. But I probably over-corrected.
Eh, that's a matter of opinion--you're right that if it was more difficult it would quickly become frustrating that the game penalizes you for visiting more locations.
I submitted my comment on the game’s page itself.
Congrats on the submission! I enjoyed it a lot.