Ratings and Reviews by verityvirtue

I really liked the blurb. It sounds snarky. It sounds like it could be a satire. It sounds like it could be fun. The game itself, though, was none of these, sorry to say. It was hard to understand- if there was something deeper than what I saw, then I missed it entirely.

The intake form of which the blurb speaks doesn't even give you a chance to make sense of things. It doesn't start off normal - it's garbled through and through, and finishing it takes you to a room. Rooms, as it turns out - the content of which changes with your earlier choices in the form. What happens in them... (Spoiler - click to show)also doesn't make much sense. Playing it, I got the persistent feeling that I was missing something somewhere. Should I be understanding this? Is there some textual hint? Read the first letters of each word or something? Apparently not. This made the game vaguely unsatisfying, like an itch your arms are too short to scratch. In short, interesting premise, I guess, but either badly executed or just not for me.

(Removed reference to Twine bugs.)

Playing this, I had the impression that this game could do with some beta-testing, as it is not yet a polished product. It does have, at its heart, a logical story, which would make a lot more sense with greater characterisation. Contrary to the author’s fears, it isn’t actually repetitive, so that’s a point in the author’s favour.

I had the general impression of going through too many actions which did not advance the story. I get that the author made an intentional effort to create suspense, but if the author wanted to make the twist (that is, (Spoiler - click to show)when Mr Kennington fires the player) more shocking or devastating, then it would make sense to show us what kind of emotional stake the player character (PC) has in the job.

(This is where characterisation comes in- something like an explanation of how the PC got this job, or whatever the author sees fit.) Allowing more interaction with the old man would also help in characterisation.

The game’s general appearance is not particularly encouraging, as there are frequent spelling mistakes and lapses in grammar. This gives the impression of hasty writing.

The puzzles in the story were a bit trivial- in fact, if there were no puzzles but instead thoughtful interaction with the old man, or something to show the PC’s emotional stake in his job/clockmaking in general, that would be completely fine.

As a side note, it would be good if there was an option to switch audio off, too.

To the author: take heart! Please don’t let this dishearten you, and do continue writing- it’s not too hard to find people to test your game (http://game-testing.org or http://intfiction.org/forum). They can often spot things which an author would never think of, like bugs, spelling errors, plot holes and such.