The Intercept

This CYOA is very nicely written with Inklewriter, which I tried out and gave high praise to. Inkle works well for moderate-sized conversation-based stories, and that's what this mostly is. A piece has gone missing from a code-breaking/encrypting machine and you might be responsible.

The bulk of the game is an interrogation, giving answers to questions that are posed to you. You often will get yes/no agree/disagree, often with a choice of lie/truth. The only downside to this is on your first playthrough you're the dumbest person in the room. Several crucial plot points are known to the protagonist and antagonist but the reader only learns what's actually happened after several random stabs at answering the questions. This is not an amnesia game, and the story does not shift based on your answers. It feels like a really good conversation section from a Mass Effect game if it were set in WW2. If this were an endgame to a slightly larger scenario it might not feel quite so trial-and-error.

I never did get the best ending, which might be a testament to the potential of inkle and CYOA, or it may mean that I tired out after giving the same sequence of yes-no-no-lie-yes-agree-yes-no to get to the part of the story that actually branches out and will not let you double back.

It's worth a try - I played this on a lunch break on my android device, and the text is very nicely formatted and readable with large finger-sized buttons for your choices.

Played on my Kindle keyboard. It was well-suited to the screen size and responsive; a good format for this work.

The game play consists largely of trying to guess your way through an interrogation; the protagonist might know the truth (must, since he has the option to lie), but the player is rather clueless. This feels somewhat like showing up to Chemistry when you stayed up all night studying for English.

Depending on your choices, your protagonist may be an unfortunate victim of circumstances or a rather unpleasant personality entirely; the actual events leading up to your interrogation don't change, but where you go from there determines things.

My major quibble after playing it through to a number of endings is that while the protagonist may be happiest with one branch, I found that I far preferred some of the "less than optimal" solutions. I just couldn't empathize very much with the character. In the less optimal solutions, you don't know as much about him and what you do know is morally ambiguous; in the "winning" solutions (that I've found; perhaps there are others), I knew him better and liked him far less.

Worth playing through, for certain, and a good demonstration of inklewriter and kindliser on the presentation end, but the story itself left me a little cold.