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Black Rock City

by Jim Munroe

choose-your-own-burnventure
2016

(based on 16 ratings)
3 reviews

About the Story

You're at Burning Man, with six choices to make before the world goes white. Choose wisely. Or wildly. The dust storm won't care.

Zero puzzles, sixty-four endings.

Cover: Trish Lamanna


Game Details


Awards

30th Place - 22nd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2016)

Editorial Reviews

The Breakfast Review
The structure is a branching CYOA, with completely unrelated branches, so stories might differ wildly. While the very first ending I hit seemed a little ominous, all the others on subsequent playthroughs have been bright and cheery; so I get the sense that this is about portraying the event's positivity, about describing the delight of an afternoon at Burning Man.
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Narrativium
Its well-written, filled with evocative turns of phrase, neatly capturing the hazy, drug-addled Mad Max vibe. Get the full Burning Man Festival experience, without the $400 ticket cost plus travel to the Nevada Desert. There are no real objectives, but lots and lots of branching.
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Member Reviews

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Number of Reviews: 3
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Make beautiful art and set it on fire., October 26, 2016
by Owlor (Sweden)

One of my favorite things about this game is reading reviews from people who either don't know about Burning Man or didn't connect this game to it. Absent this context, it kinda sounds like this strange magical realist story as opposed to a pretty accurate depiction of Burning Man, by all accounts.

Because it's such a celebration of Burning man, I think you reaction to this will depend on your feelings about the festival. Personally, I just like the fact that something that strange exist in the world and I'm fascinated by the contradictions surrounding it. Since I am scandinavian, on the wrong continent, and would die in a desert, this is prolly the closest I'll ever get to experiencing it.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Weird in a good way, October 6, 2016
by Sobol (Russia)

Black Rock City gave me the same relaxed feeling as did Beautiful Dreamer by S. Woodson.

The PC doesn't have any clear goals, they just have some time to spend at Burning Man festival before a dust storm hits. There are no right or wrong choices, no pressure; you explore different branches of the game, learn things about the bizarre city and its inhabitants, feel free to try even ill-advised actions like (Spoiler - click to show)jumping from a flying carpet.

The game has 2^6=64 endings and a considerable variety of possible actions across the branches; in addition to standard adventure verbs like "examine", "talk to" and "kiss", sometimes you can choose "believe", "sass", "admire", etc.

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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A Texture game with pure binary branching, May 10, 2017

I've played this game 3 times since IFComp, each time trying several endings.

It uses Texture, which is a mobile-friendly app which seems like it could work well with screen readers.

Each page, though, is just two choices, which split into 2 choices, about 8 times. Or 6, actually.

The writing is good, but pure branching just isn't my style. I did enjoy it more on my 3rd playthrough, though.

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Black Rock City on IFDB

Polls

The following polls include votes for Black Rock City:

Games with high replay value by Wendymoon
What games do you find yourself returning to again and again? Maybe to get every last lousy point, to do some amusing things, to try for different endings or just for the enjoyment of replaying?

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Writing of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best Writing in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here...

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Settings of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best setting in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here...




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