Ranaway

This is the third game I've played by TrexandDrago Development. Like the others, this is a shorter story with a bit wobbly English and an emphasis on cool dinosaurs.

This time the dinosaurs are toys named after characters from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but they are only a side part.

The main character is an abused teenager who is covered in bruises and dried blood. The action is all about escaping with the help of a new friend. It's an Adrift game with each action tied to a single letter command, so the game is 'type C to continue' or 'type B to grab the backpack'.

While this is part of the single choice jam, there don't seem to be any choices other than progressing through the story. The game is written in Adrift, but is only available in a downloadable .exe

Overall, as a jam game this was written in a short amount of time so has rough edges; but overall there is a quirkiness and sincerity to the story that I think works well. If there was more time to take these ideas and polish them, I could see it working pretty well!

I think this was the first time I’ve ever encountered a kinetic parser. Following the Single Choice rules, you can only do one specific action at a time before the story ends. You go through two “rooms” and do a few different actions, like looking around you, picking up some items, and move some place else. There is only one path and one path only.

It is not just the game railroading you into this one path (you truly do not seem to have a choice), the text provides you with the action you need to write next to advance the story. There is no guesswork, no puzzle, no thinking. Which means, the focus is on the text alone…

The entry calls itself a remake of a previous game of the author. While it provides some missing information for The Last Notebook (all those games are connected), it also gives very little. Your home life is really not great; so one day, after another altercation, you decide to run away. You look around your room, check yourself, get a few supplies and you are out the window. Some action descriptions are a bit confusing, and there isn’t much more than what’s on the screen.

It would be interesting to see more kinetic parser pieces, but I don’t think this one’s implementation puts that mechanism to a good light.