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Review
Hard to put a finger on this one...
Let's get the obvious out of the way first: this is a demo for a new IF authoring tool called Spiki, presumably developed by the author themself.
Spiki looks like Chapbook from Twine. Like, really similar. I would've thought it was a modified version of Chapbook if I didn't read the blurb first.
The only notable difference is that Spiki has a chapter index, containing all story passages, available from a menu at the top left. Cool, but pretty useless, in my opinion, and practically speaking, since the ordering of passages is static, without any indicator for what passages you've already visited, and with the only differentiator of passages being their names, and a number or letter.
There's a ton of passages and you're likely not remembering what all of them are titled, so navigating with the chapter index is infeasible. So, ignoring that, it's just Chapbook, then.
But this is all secondary. Though it's offered as just another demo, the story's actually really interesting.
Without giving too much away, you follow 3 friends as they look for 'temporal anomalies'. A certain Latin word keeps popping up again and again, and it's driving them crazy. Depending on your choices, you can either leave the site early, or eventually happen upon the real purpose of this story.
Which is, that it's a demo for a dialogue system. A really really complicated dialogue system (to my untrained eyes). You'll get a link to the author's blog where he explains it all. There, you'll find explanations for many of the unexplained terms in the story, like Florean Winograde, and the name origins for our trio (I was like, "OOOh, Aaai get it" when it finally clicked).
All in all, a pleasure to read. The writing teeters just on the edge of too abstract and sheer brilliance. I'm leaning towards brilliance, here. It's honestly way over my paygrade. I had only vague ideas of the setting at any given point in the story. Walking down the river, I conjured, unbidden, an image of a quaint town by the Thames, 19th century. No clue if that is in any way accurate.
Also, I love the trio dynamics. My favourite is Appleby. He's the one who actually gets things done. B and C are inseparable, though, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Would definitely read more of these guys. CFN 2? Here's hoping.
