Since apparently there was some tight competition for the highest score, I gave the game a go!
Ran into a glitch involving the cutting board on the way; if you put a veggie onto the cutting board before the replacement appears, the cut-lines are drawn but the vegetable is not. The cut-lines linger for a while and sort of clutter up the space, but it did not deter me from a personal best of $210!
I feel an immense, overarching dread right off the bat.
The art is lovely and very human, yet stylized very well; it creates that dread you're probably aiming for. The lack of color only helps, however I'm fairly certain that it'd give a lot more credence to the story if certain actions — like the Player almost dozing off — were actually visual rather than solely textual with the player's face comprising the only image seen.
The music assisted in making the experience unsettling as well! Are these Jackie Originals:tm:?
The choices, while there're only two of them, felt pretty logical and straightforward. I didn't really feel railroaded onto one path, even though I was.
I expect the story to gain a pretty damn eclectic sort of air, one of dread and smelling strongly of stale honey. I also expect colors, few of them, maybe colors that I've never seen before. Mom won't answer the phone, but she will be on Zoom instead.
I like it! The style is pretty slick, though I can confidently say that I want more.
Skipped one to play this because I could feel my brain buckling at the seams and I wanted to see where you had taken it.
The color of the background was simply perfect for something like this; changing the color of the background and the text completely changes the mood and feeling of the environment! I wish I actually did something like that, since the passage of time and the presence of light is paramount in my story.
I love how you changed up the Rationalize. sections to be more representative of Ishmael's inner dialogue and how it slowly turns into a direct conversation with Moby Dick itself. I also quite like how you set up each day; they start the same way, same writing, same words but something is a bit amiss each time...
Very good stuff. I love this and it's fantastic and it reminded me of why I like your stories so much.
Nice stuff! I adored the worldbuilding, but like Alekai I want More. More little flavors, more options, more tidbits and bobs... Anything would be lovely.
I found Pan's real motive of being like "yo. follow this chick for a real long time :)" to be a bit vague. I may have glazed over it, but I couldn't really find a true motive for him!
It was short, but short and sweet; I liked how everything relevant was presented, although at the same time I would've liked some more person-on-person true interactions aside from quick resolutions. But for time's sake, I completely understand where you're from!
I liked it! Good stuff.
I have no idea who Arsene Lupin is! But I will find out shortly!
I found out shortly and I love him!
The amount of branching paths and options and the sheer cartooniness of the character all add into a very satisfying, joyful jaunt out of prison. I'm impressed you managed to keep such a consistent, bubbly tone through the whole thing! Its branches are wonderfully fractal, giving a very "point-and-click adventure" sort of feeling to it, with the classic "failure doesn't matter because fun is better than faillure :)" twist.
"Bombastic Breakout" is a great name for this adventure. Can't wait to see what it balloons into!
Hercules? How about HUNK-ules? Hah!
Gosh, that's a massive window. Let's see what this is about!
I adored the activity of each choice; the agency inherent was nice, even if it's mostly aesthetic. I'd love to hear more about the city; it seems it's some strange hybrid of modern and ancient, what with the whole dumplings, pink pajamas, boulders, God-wars, and whatnot.
Good stuff! I liked the vibe of the story, and the energy in each passage was very easy to feel. There were a few grammar things, but nothing major and nothing that hurt my understanding too much at all.
One thing to draw attention to, though, is the fact that the passages are immense. It takes quite a bit to realize that you're looking at a huge block of text, and it's hard to tell what's important! I found myself looking at the choices before the actual narrative quite a bit since the passages are so long.
Good stuff, though! I liked it.
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 have the highest expectations. This thumbnail image is giving me the most intense whiplash and I'm scared.
OH MY GOD EVANS AND WOLVERTON MAKE A SECOND DEBUT you maddened being
This is lovely. I like how it doesn't even attempt to have visuals, though it paints a very nice picture in my mind nonetheless. I get quite a nice character-agency through it; pacing the text and using music really helps to set a tone that simple plain-twine is incapable of doing. For all intents and purposes, in terms of imagery and feeling, you're cheating!
But that's okay. You used Unity! I can't blame that!
From now on, I'll just critique the writing and such.
I adore the concept of "accidental retconning". At first I truly believed that Izanagi and Izanami were simply playing mystery rather than truly solving them, which is why the latter of the two mentioned home rule. So what's the deal with that? It's a bit crazy. I'm interested to see where this goes...
So far, though, I've enjoyed the dynamic between the two main characters and the intrigue present in the story.
I like how all the conflicting retcons are going between the two; Izanami probably thinking of The Cave by SIAMES, thinking Izanagi would get the spear as she got out... All that, now affecting the player!
Someone watched the Mystery Skulls AMVs. This entire thing is one single meta-joke-reference abomination and I love it.
So June's the antagonist! You damnable demon antagonist. I loved this one, but GOSH there were a few bugs which hurted a bit.
Whenever there's dialogue which results in a choice, sometimes you simply cannot read the dialogue properly before the choice pops up over it. When clicking to advance dialogue before a choice, the choice will appear instantly! Maybe shift the dialogue when the choice appears, or vice versa?
Aside from that, though, damned good. I'm impressed with how much music can help, and though I can't exactly play through it again due to time restraints, I'm wondering if there are more endings...
Whoops, "cultery" should be "cutlery"! I'll be talking about this as I play it and as I think of things to say.
There's broken script macros everywhere, but that's not too much an issue. The intent gets across just fine, though I would certainly fix it up!
Nuts, I hit a dead-end.
One passage completely cuts off the end of it! It appears that it broke due to the binary choice of Not getting the divorce. I was actually kind of getting into the story; it's delivered very well, actually, and despite your lack of true exposition I was able to find my place, the time period, the spirit of the time... All that. I'm impressed with your passive worldbuilding!
However, I was a bit jarred by the shift between second- and third-person through the passage. Sometimes you refer to Karenin as, well, Karenin, and yet sometimes you refer to Karenin's actions as the player's.
However, passing that little roadblock, the decisions and choices really explode. The amount of agency you give the player is truly staggering, although I'm not really certain how much each choice truly matters. It feels good!
I like that each "I'm leaving" choice smoothly transitions into the proper outlet. However, it looks like all three endings are easily accessible due to a break in the scripting. Whoops...
What's the deal with the "It's Over" ending? It seems like it breaks and leads into the "wait for her to realize her wrongs" ending. I'd fix that up, since it was a haunting, though confusing thing. I kinda liked how it looped.
Despite all the breakages and script muck-ups, I found this to be engaging and fun! I enjoyed toying with the decisions and I found it to be very entertaining. Good job!
I'll be talking about this as I play.
From the get-go I can tell that each passage is really darn long! It's impressive, although it'd be nice to break up each passage into more digestible chunks. I can also tell that this will have binary choices with at least some level of agency. I like that!
However, not knowing if there's some kind of failure-state is making me tentative in choosing the more reckless options. But I'll get to them eventually.
By being a coward, I ended up at Xi Zheng's proposition. That chunk doesn't appear to be finished, but that's alright!
One thing I noticed was that there is little agency inherent in the way you click on options; there are options, yes, but without a more nuanced look at the mechanisms of the game or what you were thinking when you made it, how was I supposed to understand that telling Cao Huan about the divergent cuisine of Wei would take me to be invited to his palace? It seems like a rather arbitrary connection to make, and in honesty the "missing everything from my homeland" choice is the more natural decision to make if you really wanted to deliberately attempt to get his help on your side. But no, it is the food. Why is that?
I feel like it would be better to flatly state the intentions you have in speaking in the dialogue choices. Instead of presenting me with the loaded decision of telling Cao Huan about the cuisine, tell me that I'll try to disguise what I want from him in the form of a plea to get some more authentic Shu cuisine. It'd be easier and provide the player some more tangible knowledge of what's going on instead of blundering about through only dialogue.
Nonetheless, the construction of the game is pretty good. It plays fairly well, if a bit under-construction, but nonetheless is rather fun. If you had to change anything, I would revise the dialogue to better reflect the intent of your character in his speech.
Hi, Sarah!
Rebellious, cautious. I like her; she seems to be entirely aware that something is extremely wrong and that everything here is twisted beyond its true recognition. Relatable!
The ending feels like it'll be a test of willpower for poor Adelaide. She doesn't want to be Alice, and what with how perception and reality are being treated, I have no clue if anyone else even sees her as herself, either!
I'm very interested to see where this is going. It's quite long, too!
The mood was markedly grim; I was a bit surprised at the darkness you injected into what I recall as a relatively innocuous story.
Hi, Todd. Thanks for letting me try this out.
1. As a vain man? Of course. I like the cut of his jib. He seems to entirely understand his own vanity, and embraces it in kind. I like the options available, too! They all work.
2. No. You covered off on every angle, really! I'm just worried for the scope of your project.
3. Pacing feels fine. Though, the theatre route feels more like a speedrunner's route; it cuts short the talk with Henry and it generally has less dialogue and monologue than the other.
Aside from that, I like this! It feels fresh and interesting, but there are so many choices it's hard to say if I can be completely aware of any of them possessing any real influence on the story or if it's all just a personal thing.
Right off the bat, the pacing is definably charming. It feels pretty on-point, with even-spaced timing and short, digestible passages. The little highlighted passages with the extra blurbs of info add some nice informational agency, and helped make the game feel like less a story and more akin to a point-and-click adventure.
Though, some of those blurbs tend to be necessary for the flow of the passage. Like -
"I had immersed myself into a different world,
a world where hundreds of students forgot about the upcoming semester, and just let themselves go."
There are some strange capitalizations in terms of writing and odd choices in terms of word and sentence structure, but that's alright.
I found the beginning to be charming and funny, with its fair share of comedy and intrigue to be lovely. I like Gatsby's reclusiveness; his reluctance to wave hello.
The introduction lacks any explanation of what the "west egg" is. Despite having read The Great Gatsby in the past, I have since forgotten what it was. So, some exposition on that would be good.
After some exploration, holy HECK the scope of the party is massive. Lots and lots and lots to do. Try not to stretch yourself too thin!
Also, I liked the rando girl conversation. It felt very natural, besides her extremely long-winded sentences. I'd suppose they'd be more interrupted and frantic considering the circumstances.
Nonetheless, solid foundation. Can't wait to see how it pans out!
