Alan
I'm Alan! currently a Junior in HCI and a not yet defined self-defined major.
I've programmed in Python and Java most recently. I have also used processing and a tiny bit of openFrameworks. I am decent in Maya and Photoshop. During the Summer I developed web applications which used PHP, some JavaScript, CSS and MySQL.
So this game really speaks to the power of words. After reading the intro, I genuinely calmed down and chilled out, which was really cool to experience. That said, from a branching narrative standpoint, I think I only made 2 decisions the entire time, so I think branching the narrative a bit more could make it a richer and more replayable experience.
Not a lot of choices but very original theme. I find New Age speak quite hilarious, I don’t know if it was intentional.
I really like the first page – it reminds me of those warnings in front of roller coasters and draws me into the experience. I don’t know if it was meant to be serious or sarcastic, but I thought the writing was well done and progressed smoothly from page to page.
The only things I would suggest is to cut up the text into smaller segments, and maybe to remove the images. I thought it was a bit too obvious that they were Photoshop-filter pictures and they drew me a out of the experience a little.
I think your writing is strong, even in some of its small, unexpected or redundant (I don’t say this insultingly) nuances. You drive home certain feelings and notions by your word choice in phrasing. For example: ‘leave your physical body,’ while it sounds redundant, it implies a metaphysical being. It adds to the experience! which is what you were going for (I think). There are still some parts that feel heavy-handed and pushed.
The images aren’t necessary, but don’t take away from it.
I liked how you put so much effort into thinking about the experience of the reader. Between the forewarning and the language choice I think you did a really good job of appealing to the reader’s senses. I thought you could improve it even more by thinking about the “architecture” of the language, if you will, and structure the words and sentences in a way that will force the reader to slow down to read it. I also think the experience could be enhanced by adding calming music in the background (you could add in the forewarning to turn on the volume of your computer). Overall really nice.
P.S. I really liked your images and made one my background 🙂