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The End of the Line

by Coral Nulla profile

Slice of life
2023

Web Site

(based on 3 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

On a longhaul train journey to the end of the world, you encounter a stranger with many stories to tell. These are tales of lovers and runaways and an ever-changing world. You can suggest how each story should end, and you will find out what lies at the end of the line...

An old idea from 2018 reimagined for ShuffleComp 2023 as an interactive novella. Each chapter takes inspiration from a song in the random selection I received (plus two extras of my own choosing):

"Under My Skin" // Jukebox the Ghost
"Send Me the Moon" // Sara Bereilles
"Master of the Wind" // Manowar
"Yeah! Oh, Yeah!" // The Magnetic Fields
"The Whole of the Moon" // The Waterboys
"The Dreaming Moon" // The Magnetic Fields
"Habibi" // Tamino
"Dragostea Din Tei" // O-Zone
"The End of the World" // Skeeter Davis
"Feeling Good" // Nina Simone


Game Details


Awards

4th Place, Game Goodness; 2nd Place (tie), Use of songs - ShuffleComp 2023

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A collection of stories, on shuffle, January 22, 2024
by MathBrush
Related reviews: 15-30 minutes

This game was made for Shufflecomp.

In it, you play as someone on a train who is approached by another passenger. He wants to tell you stories of the six other travellers who had spent time on the train before getting off.

The game uses Decker, and has a fixed width retro font.

The stories are very diverse, and build towards the ending stories, those of you and the storyteller. Each story seems to focus on personal relationships, either in pairs or threes.

The writing was solid, and the stories made sense, but something felt missing for me that I can't put my finger on. Almost like buying a box of legos and finding that most of them are already one big molded piece, like bionicles or something. After reading each story, it was hard to say what each one was about. Maybe it was because people were acting in them not as real, flesh and blood people, but as archetypes, like reading a story about tarot cards or astrological signs.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Playlists inside playlists, January 14, 2024
by manonamora
Related reviews: shufflecomp

With each participant given a playlist of songs to be inspired by and to use as a base for their entry, this game does not only take inspiration from all songs, but the theme of the jam itself. Through a sequence of snippets, which you can read in order or at random (like a playlist!), each inspired by a song, you get to uncover the backstory of different characters, they trials and tribulations, and maybe their ending (which you can choose).

The story takes on an interesting turn after you go through all snippets, as a way to link all stories together. Didn't see the twists coming.

The interface, made through Decker, is pretty interesting: showcasing each story in the form of a "deck of cards", with a retro/pixellated aesthetic. It gave me a bit of a StoryNexus vibe, with the story selection.
The game also provides the option of a "cheat" mode, to be able to re-read the stories and choose different outcomes for each characters without having to go through the whole game again.

This was neat!

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The End of the Line on IFDB

Recommended Lists

The End of the Line appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Surreal games on trains by MathBrush
There is an unusually large amount of surreal games on trains (maybe from the Dark Tower?). Here are the ones I can find.

Polls

The following polls include votes for The End of the Line:

Outstanding Decker Game of 2023 by MathBrush
This poll is part of the 2023 IFDB Awards. The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here. This award is for the best Decker game of 2023. Voting is open to all IFDB members. Eligible...




This is version 3 of this page, edited by Coral Nulla on 10 February 2024 at 5:24pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page