Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(+2)

That's actually pretty much what I was hoping people would pick up from a first run.  The exact effects are up for grabs - the steed has the ability to weep money, for example, which I would hardly expect anyone to guess up front - but basically boil down to benevolent/non-violent versus threatening/lethal. This was partly an exercise in giving the player abilities that would never be universally good or bad, so killing things with the serpent is a "right" choice as often as not (and likewise, the steed is only "good" in situations where it won't leave other travellers stuck with whatever threat you use it to escape).

I have been thinking about including some kind of expandable menu/footer (partly because I'm considering adding audio and should probably have a switch to toggle it on and off). That might offer an unobtrusive way of letting players check what cards they have. It could also just be shown in the corner somewhere, but I'm less confident of my ability to drop it in neatly than I am setting up some kind of show/hide function.

Including a system to track and describe already-seen choices could be neat, but would take an amount of work that I feel is disproportionate to the amount of use people would get out of it. However, I might be able to use colour-coded hyperlinks to track previously visited passages without too much trouble: you wouldn't get a reminder of exactly what the outcome was, but you would have a small clue on screen to indicate that you'd made that choice at least once already. I'll seriously think about it for the Android version, since I imagine that anybody who goes to the trouble of installing the thing would probably be more likely to try and explore all of it.

Thanks for the comment! I'm really glad you enjoyed the game.

<beelinespan class="beeline-node">Remembered links would likely be sufficient, especially as you get near the end of the game and even if you tried to get 100%.  (I'm not generally a 100%er, but I am a Spade, and digging into the little details of a small game is a lot of fun.)  Kinda reminds me of a pattern I saw once for a computer that taught itself a tiny (3x3) version of chess... and was made out of matchboxes, no electricity involved.  (Every time the human wins, remove the bead that indicates the move that made the computer lose.  Eventually, the computer becomes unbeatable.)</beelinespan>

<beelinespan class="beeline-node">The lack of always-good or always-bad options is a nice touch.  I have a storytelling card deck I've been designing with that general theme, which is kinda based around balance or wisdom (the portion of wisdom that judges when to use Tactic A and when to use Tactic B and when to choose a third option).  Like how following authority can be good in one circumstance and bad in another, or how violence can be appropriate in some cases but not in others, or how Nature vs. Technology sometimes goes one way, sometimes another, or how loyalty is not a positive quality when it ties you to a bad person/force.  Even the Loss cards are understood to be a positive change sometimes, and other times a road block that you get stuck in and need to move beyond.</beelinespan>