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hey team!

This seems to be coming along really well so far — you use a couple techniques that take player a second to get used to, and then you let them sit with those techniques for a minute or two before introducing another. That pacing is working well right now. The conversation with two text colors is strong in that it's a bit unconventional but very readable, and it creates a slightly disorienting effect that seems to fit the mood of the game. I didn't find the layout confusing, and entering the rooms satisfied my desire to feel that I'm making discoveries along the way. However, I'd say that you could take the ambience of the rooms a bit further, with the lighting or the sound design or something else entirely. You're clearly looking to make an impact on the player when they enter, so think about ways you can make an even bigger impression in that moment. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

-jess

hi brian!

You have a really strong sense of action here, and I think it's all going in a good direction. Some things that would help with readability and engagement have already been pointed out by others: editing for consistency in perspective and editing for length. The passages are a bit too long and have the player scrolling up and down too often, which is disorienting. You have hints of a really engaging setting, so I'd recommend expanding on that more and including more detail. Otherwise, the prose is very readable, and the action choices feel like they have weight. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

-jess

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

hi ashley!

I'll keep these notes short, and give you more feedback on the complete version if you're updating that later! So far, the core tension is compelling — as the player, I wanted to know what was going to happen between Vronsky and Anna. However, Anna is a little bit of a flat character in my eyes right now. By far the most interesting tension is actually the one between the POV character and Karenin, so I'd love to see further exploration of that. 

-jess

hi beck!

I liked the Easter egg you hid in there — it got me to smile (especially the bonus "Please stop.") This is a really interesting evolution from your last prototype; in some ways, I found your last prototype more engaging in terms of prose, but I think this piece centers well around the "RESIST" moment. Your world-building is still really strong, and I'm interested in the new stronger focus on the Opalescence. I think there's maybe an opportunity to make the concept more engaging for the player by giving them choices in which they can decide what exactly the Opalescence is and what it means for the world. Great work!

-jess

hi kaz!

I really enjoyed seeing more of this, and the party setting is great to explore. You build up a good in-world mythos surrounding Gatsby, which makes the player expect a really big payoff when the two finally meet. The most intriguing part to me was the library scene — much of the party blends together (not in a bad way, just in the way that parties tend to), but the encounter in the library is distinct from the rest, so I'm interested to see where that eventually leads. Some of the side characters don't have particularly unique voices, but it's hard at this point to tell which characters are making one-time cameos and which will have major story impact. Looking forward to seeing more!

-jess

hi lianna!

You've made great progress since the last prototype! I think your integrated choices are strong, and you have really strong narration of the action scenes. The choices seem like they will have a significant impact on the outcome of certain scenes, if not necessarily the entire story. So far, it seems like Robyn and Johan are close, but their relationship will create much more investment when the characters themselves are more fleshed out. Looking forward to seeing where it goes!

-jess

hi steve!

This was a really fun one — I know the pacing was hard and inconsistent with the timers (stuff like that often just requires a lot more playtesting than the timeline for this assignment allowed), but I really appreciated the use of invisible timers and thought they added a lot to the experience. You had a really strong, whimsical tone, and I also enjoyed that this iteration had more consistent notes of humor integrated throughout the story. The biggest critique I have is regarding pacing (not in regard to the timers though), specifically endings and transitions. I found that the shifts from scene to scene were abrupt in a way that is sometimes jarring and/or confusing. That's not uncommon in fairy tales, and it didn't detract too much from the overall experience, but adding in some more transitional language could definitely help the player feel more involved.

-jess

hi wesley!

Really enjoyed this interpretation of Dorian Gray — as I've said before, you clearly have a very good handle on the character and how you want to portray him. The red text was a good, clear way to portray the painting's influence over the POV character as well — however, I'd recommend a different approach for the red nonsense text beneath the hyperlinked choices, mostly because it looks like a keysmash right now, which is slightly goofy to look at and undercuts the sort of light horror elements you're going for.  Using some vague symbols or unusual characters there instead would probably be more successful in achieving that (even if it's a bit derivative). Part of me also wondered why brothels and opium dens were framed as overtly outlandish to Dorian when the suggestion arises — he describes his apathy as so overwhelming that I would expect those to be only mildly risque to him. The later murder also makes sense in the light of his descent into madness, but felt a bit rushed to me. As it appears to be the most horrific thing that occurs, I'd like to spend a bit more time exploring it! 

-jess

hi sarah!

You have a really strong sense of place here and a really consistent, dark tone throughout. The characters also have distinct voices, though Alice feels more generic (not necessarily a bad thing, very common in choice adventures).  One of the things I was expecting more of was expressive choice that either varied significantly or had impacts on conversations at hand — right now, the different options don't feel particularly distinct from each other. This doesn't hold back your game too much, because the core experience centers around reading your prose, not around pursuing a distinct playstyle. But to make the choices more engaging, I would suggest introducing more variety, even when the choices are primarily expressive. 

-jess

hi jackie!

Excellent use of text effects and gameplay loops in this one! The core choices were interesting and invited multiple playthroughs, and each choice became more interesting over time. I appreciated that most of the narration was choiceless, and you used a simple click to continue format — one thing I might say is that the "Continue." hyperlink felt like it could have been replaced with a more minimalist signal to continue, since the rest of the hyperlinks were sparse as well, but that is a minor concern. I'd also say that this game is just the right length — the player gets to experience and understand the logic behind their choices, and evolutions of it, without any risk of the choices becoming tiresome or tedious. Ahab's voice was fun and felt appropriate, but I might recommend breaking up the all-caps passages of his dialogue a little bit; occasionally it felt gratuitous. Congrats! A super well-executed and appropriately-scoped concept.

-jess

hi max!

This was a wonderful exploration of engaging expressive choices. The prose was especially well-written in that it had a strong and consistent tone, and each element of the story continued to be relevant after its introduction. I would say that this is a story that is primarily about relationships, and delivers a meaningful commentary on queer relationships (and one's own relationship to queerness). However, many of the characters ended up seeming quite thin, with few traits that distinguish them from others. If you were to give this another pass, I'd recommend rewriting dialogue so that the character voices are more unique and less homogenous. This will make the ending with Henry much more impactful. That said, you accomplished a lot with this assignment and delivered a compelling retelling of a familiar story.

-jess

hi dominik!

This was super interesting to play through, and I felt like the setting felt more tangible and concrete with the newly added details. There were a couple big things that stood out to me (and I suspect they will stand out to others as well). The first is that there were some dead ends with no further choices, where the narrative came to a close, but these did not qualify as "Endings" in the game's framework — this is a little bit confusing! It's unclear why this is the case, and what in particular distinguishes these dead ends from official endings. The other big thing was the ending stats that describe your relationship with various characters. Right now, it's unclear what these numbers mean. Presumably higher numbers indicate a more positive relationship? There are some inconsistencies here too — why would you have a relationship score with characters you can pass by entirely in a playthrough? Things like that. But the more important question here is about the signaling of the importance of different story elements. This game seems to be mostly plot- and world-driven, not character-driven, so it's sort of confusing to see character relationship stats listed in the ending! Perhaps there are different stats, more plot-related, that you could incorporate into the ending, or perhaps you could go back and include more character writing to give the existing stats greater significance. 

-jess

hey isiah

This was super fun, super absurd! I felt that you improved on some of the dead ends from you last prototype, giving the player a bit more absurdity to appreciate despite their choice leading to failure — this helped make dead ends more enjoyable to experience, not just disappointing. Something I found interesting was that you occasionally hint to the player ("maybe if you tried xyz..." or "there must be a way to ...") that another option could lead to success. This is a very puzzle-y sort of signaling, which would have gone much farther if the player had more options (say, 5 or more) in each scenario. As it is currently, this signaling is a bit redundant because there are only a couple of options in each scenario, so the player doesn't have to think too hard about their next attempt! Something to consider if you plan to revisit this twine again. Great job on the satirical and humorous tone; I think your classmates will have a lot of fun with this!

-jess

hey alekai!

So far, this piece seems very well balanced, especially in terms of the types of choices the player is making — which, as other playtesters have pointed out, makes it Unusually Well Balanced. The player gets to be in a position where they get to pick expressive moments as well as major plot points, instead of just seeing how their choices impact later major plot points, and you do a good job of establishing that early on. The vagueness definitely works right now too! But it’s not clear exactly how the world works yet — players may get the general idea, but if you really want them to understand the setting, that will require more exposition and/or demonstration. The demon conversation feels like a good length for now, especially as fairy tales tend to move pretty quickly past dialogue. If you want it to have a lot of later significance that will be referenced regularly though, I’d suggest extending it a bit to mirror that. I hope this is helpful, and feel free to reach out with further thoughts / questions!

- jess

hi sarah!

Protagonist seems adventurous, thoughtful, and appropriately bewildered without laboring over that fact. I don't have any assumptions about the ending yet really! I haven't felt the narrative priming me for any particular development yet. More general feedback: Your prose is strong and executes light horror themes very well, but I would recommend (as it seems some other folks have) changing up some of the interactivity, either in links that expand to provide more information/detail or in expressive dialogue choices, or something like that. It seems like you are guiding us toward certain story beats, which is working well, but it's worth exploring other ways to present and interact with the prose you already have! Excited to see where this goes next.

- jess

hi todd

The protagonist acts the way I would expect Dorian Gray  to act! You're doing a good job of capturing his tone in an approachable way. As for choices, I felt that I had a BUNCH of options and agency in the first conversation, but relatively fewer in the following ones — this obviously ties into pacing. I found it a bit inconsistent, and I'd like to spend either less time on the initial conversation or more time in subsequent ones.

-jess

hi kaz!

I think the pacing is great — not too rushed or too slow, although I did find myself craving slightly more detail sometimes. This is in part because your narration has some slight similarities to the original text (retrospective framing, sharing bits of knowledge in advance that the character doesn't know yet), and that primed me for a similar writing style — however, I may be in the minority on this! The introduction wasn't too rushed for me, although if you want to give the POV character a more distinct voice or personality, that would be a good place to expand. No pressure to do that, though, as I think a relatively blank slate POV character works well here.

- jess