– more subtle terror might be nice–right now I don’t feel too much urgency to get out until I start punching things
– more meandering: I enjoyed being able to talk to your co-star and the stage manager, perhaps more characters would enrich the experience
A single play through elves enough to the imagination that it warrants replaying, and the theme of questioning control is really interesting when highlighted in binary form like this. I would have liked it to be a little more visually or interactively engaging.
A slightly supernatural thriller that leaves a lot up to the audience’s interpretation. Are these puppets magical? Are you both drug addicts? I feel the misery and emptiness of our characters and their position in life, but the environment itself isn’t all that fleshed out.
This reminds me about that joke of the clown going to the psychologist. Entertaining in a sick way, but entertaining none-the-less
Oh my gosh, this was great! I wanted to explore each choice because each choice was so interesting– each one was something I would have liked to do. I ended up playing through twice and both endings were meaningful and convincing. I also really enjoyed the premise of evil-puppet-mind-control. Very very good.
I would have liked to see visuals other than the default twine layout, as even subtle things like text and color can contribute a lot to setting tone in a piece like this. Overall the narrative tone felt kind of straightforward as well, and I would have enjoyed more nuances and emotion in the writing rather than just descriptions of what was happening, especially for a story which investigates the loss of bodily agency. I also feel like you could have played with the pacing by making parts of the story be revealed in different lengths. Right now it seemed like each passage was roughly the same length, making for a pretty unified flow that didn’t have a lot of interesting slow points and fast points in the flow.
I liked the story but I felt the details could have been more vivid. The puppet for instance, didn’t seem as creepy as it could have been for me. Also, I think maybe describing the scene more, of the character being on stage, the spotlight burning down on them, sweat trailing down their forehead as the puppet whispers viciously in their ear–just something to bring a darker tone/mood to the story. Also, since everything was pretty much straight forward, I think playing around with the links and the way things appear could have been a good way add tension to the story.
Great prose and good dark humor, it surprisingly doesn’t get too silly. I got to an ending that breaks with the real time format you adopted throughout (a sort of flash forward) and it felt a bit rushed. I think it would be more coherent to have all the paths ending at the “curtains up” moment.
I managed to ‘escape,’ but also found other endings where the show must go on. I found your game highly relatable, and I really liked the way you presented it – the role change between puppet/puppeteer was innovative and a good metaphor for depression, I felt. The show must go on.
Liked the role reversal — interesting idea. When I think of puppets and dolls, I think of bad horror movies and jump scares. This game was more of a mild creepy horror. Not too scary. Maybe that’s what you were going for, maybe not. I think that you could have added more tension by either having more vivid descriptions or adding more elements that deviate from the standard branching storytelling.
Great story! In particular, I like how you restrict the players’ choices to, e.g. to just “The show must go on”, matching the game mechanic to the story mechanic of having your choices made for you
Mildly creepy but very well executed! I loved the little details and seemingly small choices that branched out into different endings, which made me replay it many times. There were a number of interesting scenarios, including the symmetry of your co-star being controlled by the puppet vs. you apologizing to her.
There’s a lot of mystery to the narrative and it’s magnetic. The pacing and amount of text to read is really working here and helps to create this lonely psychological landscape. I don’t think the default settings are doing you any favors though. There’s so much complexity and perceivable depth to the narrative, and the visuals could really aid the sense of atmosphere.
– more subtle terror might be nice–right now I don’t feel too much urgency to get out until I start punching things
– more meandering: I enjoyed being able to talk to your co-star and the stage manager, perhaps more characters would enrich the experience
A single play through elves enough to the imagination that it warrants replaying, and the theme of questioning control is really interesting when highlighted in binary form like this. I would have liked it to be a little more visually or interactively engaging.
A slightly supernatural thriller that leaves a lot up to the audience’s interpretation. Are these puppets magical? Are you both drug addicts? I feel the misery and emptiness of our characters and their position in life, but the environment itself isn’t all that fleshed out.
This reminds me about that joke of the clown going to the psychologist. Entertaining in a sick way, but entertaining none-the-less
Oh my gosh, this was great! I wanted to explore each choice because each choice was so interesting– each one was something I would have liked to do. I ended up playing through twice and both endings were meaningful and convincing. I also really enjoyed the premise of evil-puppet-mind-control. Very very good.
I would have liked to see visuals other than the default twine layout, as even subtle things like text and color can contribute a lot to setting tone in a piece like this. Overall the narrative tone felt kind of straightforward as well, and I would have enjoyed more nuances and emotion in the writing rather than just descriptions of what was happening, especially for a story which investigates the loss of bodily agency. I also feel like you could have played with the pacing by making parts of the story be revealed in different lengths. Right now it seemed like each passage was roughly the same length, making for a pretty unified flow that didn’t have a lot of interesting slow points and fast points in the flow.
I liked the story but I felt the details could have been more vivid. The puppet for instance, didn’t seem as creepy as it could have been for me. Also, I think maybe describing the scene more, of the character being on stage, the spotlight burning down on them, sweat trailing down their forehead as the puppet whispers viciously in their ear–just something to bring a darker tone/mood to the story. Also, since everything was pretty much straight forward, I think playing around with the links and the way things appear could have been a good way add tension to the story.
Great prose and good dark humor, it surprisingly doesn’t get too silly. I got to an ending that breaks with the real time format you adopted throughout (a sort of flash forward) and it felt a bit rushed. I think it would be more coherent to have all the paths ending at the “curtains up” moment.
I managed to ‘escape,’ but also found other endings where the show must go on. I found your game highly relatable, and I really liked the way you presented it – the role change between puppet/puppeteer was innovative and a good metaphor for depression, I felt. The show must go on.
Liked the role reversal — interesting idea. When I think of puppets and dolls, I think of bad horror movies and jump scares. This game was more of a mild creepy horror. Not too scary. Maybe that’s what you were going for, maybe not. I think that you could have added more tension by either having more vivid descriptions or adding more elements that deviate from the standard branching storytelling.
Great story! In particular, I like how you restrict the players’ choices to, e.g. to just “The show must go on”, matching the game mechanic to the story mechanic of having your choices made for you
Mildly creepy but very well executed! I loved the little details and seemingly small choices that branched out into different endings, which made me replay it many times. There were a number of interesting scenarios, including the symmetry of your co-star being controlled by the puppet vs. you apologizing to her.
There’s a lot of mystery to the narrative and it’s magnetic. The pacing and amount of text to read is really working here and helps to create this lonely psychological landscape. I don’t think the default settings are doing you any favors though. There’s so much complexity and perceivable depth to the narrative, and the visuals could really aid the sense of atmosphere.