In My Garden by MercuryLegba
Hello everyone!
I'm happy to present my first LD entry: "In My Garden", a text based "game". It's an attempt to connect video and sound recordings from my garden with a potentially fictious interactive story about its previous owner, my grandfather. It's for people who like to read. It's rather slow, but rewarding for the curious ones amongst you.
Praise the inklestudios for providing me with the adequate tool. Praise the people who talked me into this experience. Damn my binaural headphones for breaking today, resulting in a rather improvised sound recording. And praised be my girlfriend for letting me sacrifice another 48 hours to the gamedev gods.
This journey might take as long as 15 minutes.
There's several paths, that are radically different.
Do take your time and enjoy the reading.
Wear headphones.
And now, open both sources.
Start watching the video.
Wait for the onscreen text.
When you are told to, change over to the other source.
Enjoy the garden and don't forget to rate!
I'm happy to present my first LD entry: "In My Garden", a text based "game". It's an attempt to connect video and sound recordings from my garden with a potentially fictious interactive story about its previous owner, my grandfather. It's for people who like to read. It's rather slow, but rewarding for the curious ones amongst you.
Praise the inklestudios for providing me with the adequate tool. Praise the people who talked me into this experience. Damn my binaural headphones for breaking today, resulting in a rather improvised sound recording. And praised be my girlfriend for letting me sacrifice another 48 hours to the gamedev gods.
This journey might take as long as 15 minutes.
There's several paths, that are radically different.
Do take your time and enjoy the reading.
Wear headphones.
And now, open both sources.
Start watching the video.
Wait for the onscreen text.
When you are told to, change over to the other source.
Enjoy the garden and don't forget to rate!
| Source 1 (Video/Sound) | http://vimeo.com/104232614 |
| Source 2 (Text) | http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/x2pv |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=38447 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall | 3.11 | 654 |
| Audio | 2.80 | 491 |
| Fun | 2.68 | 870 |
| Graphics | 2.46 | 950 |
| Humor | 2.64 | 374 |
| Innovation | 3.42 | 360 |
| Mood | 3.54 | 149 |
| Theme | 2.81 | 840 |
I'm also not 100% sure about the view of institutionalized people: a lot of times uncommunicative people have a lot going on, internally, rather than becoming vegetative. From that perspective the nursing home section becomes escalatingly nightmareish, as your choices narrow. But, also, make the statement you need to make.
I think with more work to integrate the text and video, plus a rigorous re-edit of the text, you could do a good story here.
I might try a a different plattform next time, where I can integrate video, sound and text better.
The idea of connecting two media worlds is great. Although the video got a bit on my nerves when the humming/beeping started.
The text could have more possible actions for the player. But very well written.
The story also really drew me in, my girlfriend has worked in aged care and I felt a strong connection to what she described.
Played better than many "Choose Your Own Adventure Games" of my youth did. The font adds a lot to the feel of it, though the opening quotes seem to display low, like it was written for a language other than English (I'm using Firefox on Mac OS, if that matters).
A few misspelled words, like "led" was "let", and "younger than" was "younger then". Also, one moment I'm watching TV, the next I'm apparently in an insane asylum. Seems like more of a segue would've been nice. :)
Enjoyed it. Thanks!
I was very moved by the story as i can relate to it and it is very well written, your words are evoking emotions, memories and images, no pixels necessary.
I 'played' it two times and was moved by each version of the story.
The representation of nursing homes and the path we follow through the eyes of the protagonist should stand as an example of how it might be and in fact is in a lot of cases.
I agree with the other commentators that it is a 'stereotypical' view, but it is one story of many that are out there. I certainly have seen / heard of exactly those situations. This is one story out of the many.
I have to admit that i didn't get the parallel video / text part, maybe you could clarify that in the instructions like : First open the video, then when the text tells you go to the second link (or sth. like that for the slower ppl. like me ;)
exhale
Good idea about the instructions, I will try make it more clear.
it would have been better if at some point the video told you something that you can use in the game, so the media are actually connected.
Life is at once beautifully sad and sadly beautiful.
Passage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_(video_game)
Drowning in problems: http://game.notch.net/drowning/
Nice writing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_consumption_per_capita