The Hound of Ricsige

Adapted from a SpringThing25 Review

Played: 4/2/25
Playtime: 15m, 3 playthroughs

Why make fiction interactive?

I ask this question sincerely, in full knowledge of the forum it appears in. What is the point of it? Oh, sorry, I should clarify. I’m not asking you, the reader of my winkingly labeled ‘reviews.’ I’m asking you, the would-be IF author. What is it about your work that makes interactivity intrinsic to its form or function? How do you expect interactivity to impact the consumption of your work - its plot, themes and characters and/or overall experience? It feels like a ‘gotcha’ question and it kind of is one. I see Interactivity as an attempt at a more personal engagement from the reader. By giving them some agency in a story’s progress, the reader develops investment, insight, and personal alignment with the proceedings. More intimate than even the best novel.

Maybe. The trick for the author is to nurture and develop that dynamic into an artistic statement. HOR (heh, loving the acronyms this year so far) takes several steps, deliberately or otherwise, to use interactivity to push the reader away. This feels misguided, if intentional. Really, I think it is the intersection of ambiguity and interactivity that misses the mark for me.

Let’s start with setup. This is kind of cleverly done by using mouseover to change dialogue options. We are presented with “coworkers” and “Boss” that become “Knights” and “Commanders” as our setting reveals itself to be an order of knighthood. That played pretty fun, though it did have one effect: it let we the players know that we are NOT aligned with the protagonist. Despite making conversation and thought(!) choices for the protagonist, we don’t really know their life. Now, this will always be true in IF - I have not lived my life as a hobbit or detective, I just haven’t. The trick is to maximize opportunities to align the reader and minimize overt disconnects. Unless tied to the theme of the work, choices that HIGHLIGHT that disconnect work against us.

A far more serious disconnect evolves through the creative choice to bounce the player back and forth between two sides of a conversation. The knight stuff is really just (interesting) background in a ‘you don’t appreciate me’ conversation between two… friends? Lovers? Something in between? Not knowing is another level of disconnect. We see and inform the STRENGTH of the protagonist’s angst, but develop no true feel for the SOURCE of it. Which is kind of important if we presume to carry half the conversation! Not understanding the source made the heat of it unsatisfying and ultimately baffling. Perhaps we are intended to supply it? That puts the cart before the horse a bit - asking us to watch an escalating emotional spiral, then retrofit motivations that make sense.

Further distancing player and protagonist, any attempts I made to defuse the angst (for example to focus on ‘are they maybe hurt?’ rather than ‘they hate me’) seemed to be basically ignored by the narrative. I was left with the strong perception that while I could try to shade things, I had no true ability to alter the conversation’s path. This is not automatically a problem if tied to the theme of the work (which it very much seems to be here), but it does have a distancing effect between player and protagonist. My input is roundly ignored, diluting my investment in the proceedings.

Worse, by occasionally being given the opportunity to drive the other half of the conversation, and by extension getting a glimpse of the partner’s inner life, we are underwhelmed. Nothing about the partner’s conversation choices suggest any level of worthiness, any level of justification for the protagonist’s angst. Rather, we are left in the position of confirming that yes, the partner is an obliviously smug and selfish person that the protagonist is well rid of. We saw their thoughts! We know this!

There is a read that maybe we are not seeing the partner’s thoughts at all, but the protagonist’s PRESUMPTION of their thoughts. Thing is, that may redeem the partner (though their objective actions are still an unanswered indictment), but it further exposes the protagonist as not ready for the relationship they want, and whose paranoid projections are decreasingly sympathetic.

All of which makes the bodice-rending, chest beating, wailing of the protagonist fall so, so flat. We don’t understand their investment, either internally or externally, and it comes off as needy drama they should just let go of. And it was interactivity that got us here!

All this plays into a theme (intended or not!) of alienation, of our interpersonal relationships being little more than projections we ourselves bring to the table. Both protagonist and player are caught in a spiral of having to assume thoughts, motivations and mindset of others instead of, y’know, having a real conversation about them. Yes, interactivity provides the tools to include the reader in this dynamic rather than simply presenting it. But to what end? The protagonist’s responses feel SO exaggerated they are off putting. Our need as player to fill in gaps feels less ‘universal truth’ than railroaded authorial hand. CAN this dynamic exist? Of course! MUST it exist? The work has not convinced me of that. The opposite, by using interactivity to alienate the player, the message feels unnaturally imposed. This is famously an ineffective way to work with people. Entire countries have been founded rejecting this!

Horror Icon: Carrie
Vibe: Doomed Relationship
Polish: Smooth
Gimme the Wheel! : While I’d be tempted to charge after the low hanging fruit of technical issues, I’d be better served to reassess the interactivity of the piece, sharpen its use against my narrative goals. Right. The highest possible fruit on the tree.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

You're waiting for your friend. Is he going to show up? Held up at the office perhaps? No, not quite office stuff.

This small choicegame is largely a short conversation between two friends, after some waiting. Some story elements in the conversation are vaguely explained, but perhaps such vagueness was intentional. It was a somewhat entertaining conversation, although it ended quickly. While someone elsewhere apparently managed to find some interesting content by venturing off the beaten path, I was unable to find it.

The story makes use of a lot of colored text, as well as timed text and other simple effects, to tell the story. I liked the attempt at special effects, but some color options made the text harder to read. (Not the first time I'm saying this for this year's Spring Thing.)

It's short, but still good for a bit of entertainment.

This is a short Twine conversation with some nice styling and neat CSS effects (like hover-over color changing).

You are talking to a friend and you have deep conflict in your heart about your interactions with them. They are a knight, the Hound of Ricsige, and they also don't really consider your feelings all the time (that's the impression I got).

The story makes use of tastefully timed text that doesn't take up much time (and the game itself is short enough that time text isn't a big deal).

I feel like I'm being vague with this review, but the way the game was written, I felt like either:

a) the author was writing in a purposely vague way to make the game more relatable, with its tropes of angst and difficulty communicating, or
b) the author was writing about pre-existing OCs and didn't feel a need to provide more context as the context already exists in their mind.

I'm guessing it's more a), and as a relatable conversation, it works pretty well.