aberth: simple text based choose your own adventure by jfraser314
For this Ludum Dare we tried something different. We tried to make a choose your own adventure game using Google Forms (we really wanted to make a game out of something that doesn't make games... could that count as a sacrifice?). We didn't get the images done, and images on half of the game didn't feel right, so we aren't including them. All you do is read and choose. No controls to understand. Read and choose. Make sure to hit next once you have made your decision.
https://goo.gl/forms/37MSPfAoecI4bbYY2
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I teach Game Design to students at a Continuation High School in Central Coast California. Every year we do two game jams as a team. Me + 12-14 students enter my room Friday and don't leave until Sunday when we have a game to publish. They are usually not very good, but we have accomplished something. This is one of those games.
If you want to see the other game that was completed, check out: https://fuzzmonkey.itch.io/are-you-proud
Either way, remember this is a beginning class.
| HTML5 (web) | https://goo.gl/forms/37MSPfAoecI4bbYY2 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/aberth-simple-text-based-choose-your-own-adventure |
Ratings
| Overall | 495th | 3.453⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 620th | 3.135⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 21th | 4.172⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 832th | 2.956⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 962th | 1.424⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 316th | 3.259⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 434th | 3.418⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 45🗳️ | 64🗨️ |
In general, I had a great time playing it and I do not normally like this kind of games.
Good work :)
Question : do you have statistics about players' answers ? That would be fun.

The story itself was a bit dark for my taste, but well written!
Good job, thank you for making this.

Last time I was surprised to see so many board games, but if using Google forms becomes the new thing, then I'm all up for it. I'm a sucker for CYOA games, and this one was quite the oddball. Very somber, with some interesting touch of surrealism and absurdity. While it's not saying much that this pushed the limits to what Google Forms can do, it certainly stands out.
Good work with Aberth. [My team](discord.whalesandgames.com) sends you a polite salute, and wish you the best while wondering if this Google Forms thing will catch on. It's quite a fun time :whale:
Hats off for using something as exotic as Goolge Forms. Certainly the most innovative I have seen this jam so far.
Also the story was interestingly written. As someone who enjoys playing Choose Your Own Adventure kind of games from time to time I can say, that it was pretty well done.
Great job!
Have akitty:
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I liked the story, well written and very dark. Awesome that this is done as part of a game design class!
1. Where is the theme?
2. How the heck did you do this?
All in all, a very solid entry, though there were a few grammatical errors and only one ending. I would've appreciated more than one ending, but the game does show how only one ending makes sense. Great job!
1. As for the theme, on a meta-level, going with Google Forms was a sacrifice (but that is just b.s. because we had the idea for Google forms before the theme went live). At the end, our player is in a cult, and someone is about to be killed/sacrificed for the order, but that idea is not as fleshed out as we could have (I am not expecting to score super high in that category this time).
2. Google forms allows you to edit questions to go to different categories based on responses. First we made a template for the story, then just inserted it into the forms and pointed everything where it was supposed to go.

It did take a lot of organization, and was probably not the best way to make a choose your own adventure, but we have had mostly positive feedback and we are hoping to score high in the innovation category.

But it was interesting. There was quite a few teases towards considerable deviations to the plot, but these were all sadly snuffed out with a game over screen. These provided some humour, but ultimately made the path feel incredibly linear. I can understand time restrictions but maybe I just want to believe that it is paint? There also felt like opportunities where you had choice, but really, there was none. One such is here, where only the bottom option leads to a non-game-over state.

I also got lost with the story many times. Bodies on the floor? Stabbing the therapist? In a relationship with said therapist? Stabbing at the church? CIA operatives? Holy cheese sandwiches? Like what the hell. There was generally very little text (and I liked it like that), but the story you were trying to tell seems to be just a little bit too complex. Whilst all of that thriller action espionage can be interesting, you probably could have dialled down the randomness to provide a more coherent plot. The one you had was quite ambitious, and with limited time, it failed to have much of an impact on me.
Nice choice of game engine though, quite unique. I'm not sure how to rate the game on graphics though, should maybe opt out on that one? I believe google docs are auto formatted right? Maybe you changed some colours, but I'm not sure what score that warrants...
Overall, an interesting attempt, but I would recommend toning down the plot. It was too ambitious and wasn't delivered effectively with the limited development environment of a jam. With some of the blanks filled in, I could imagine a very interesting little CYOA. Keep developing! :thumbsup:
The plot was fun; it felt as if each segment was written by another person only knowing what the previous one said. At points it seemed a bit too random though. Also I would have enjoyed re-playing the game more times if the choices really mattered, but the "wrong" choices either loop back to the mainline, or end up in a loss. Fully branching story would be more time consuming to write (though if taking the "random writing" approach, not all that more difficult), but certainly more rewarding. Perhaps you should have made a prototype on paper (i.e. sticky notes and string to make the fully branching tree) before rewriting everything into Google Forms?