Mind Game(s) - Prologue by samboyer276

[raw]
made by samboyer276 for Ludum Dare 45 (COMPO)

Thanks for checking out my submission! I've not had much time this weekend, so decided to take a more relaxed approach and made something like a demo to a game instead. I'm not really sure if you can call it a game, or an interactive novel or whatever... but it was fun to make ^^

The page is running under the Dedalus engine, a really cool narrative system I'd recommend checking out! All writing and styling was done by myself. The fonts are free to use from Google Fonts and here. The background art in a later section was styled by myself and generated using WaveFunctionCollapse.

Annotation 2019-10-06 154924.png

The story revolves around you. You start with nothing, in the middle of nowhere, with no means of calling for help. The story's deliberately vague, and doesn't answer many of the questions it raises. Maybe some will be answered in later chapters if I make them, but for now the story's open to your interpretation :wink:

I'm by no means a talented writer, so please excuse any questionble language or oddly specific plot devices. (unless they're deliberate in the universe)

I'm not sure if I've been able to test every combination of events, so if you find any glitches please let me know. Hope you enjoy the game, and best of luck for your submissions!

Ratings

Overall 76th 3.85⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 104th 3.625⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 247th 3.275⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 113th 3.825⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 466th 2.353⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Humor 38th 3.684⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 57th 3.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 1🗨️

Feedback

adliberum
08. Oct 2019 · 09:21 UTC
Great work, a really well put together text adventure game! :thumbsup:
ROBOWARRIOR1982
12. Oct 2019 · 10:12 UTC
Good game like a book which you are the hero, nice !
Cyberwiz
12. Oct 2019 · 10:14 UTC
I absolutely loved this! The mood the writing in this creates was great and I really enjoyed playing it, even if it was a little linear :smile:
FinnThePirate
12. Oct 2019 · 10:31 UTC
I'm a fan of old text games, nicely written Good work
Weine
12. Oct 2019 · 10:37 UTC
I *think* I enjoyed that, or at least one of me did... Great writing and interesting settings. Not really sure what is going on, but at least I / we kicked *some* alien lizard butt.
🎤 samboyer276
13. Oct 2019 · 11:21 UTC
thanks so much peeps <3

@cyberwiz haha yeah, there's not many choices in most of the story due to both time constraint and the idea that this was a tutorial of sorts. The 'multiple endings' sort of count as a branching storyline, but we don't actually see the effects of that in this part :'(
Jonno
22. Oct 2019 · 16:48 UTC
An enjoyable text adventure without a horrid parser. You managed to squeeze a lot of content within the time limit, and it was entertaining to play, with a great sense of humour. Not sure if this is down to the engine or how you've designed it, but the interface was very intuitive, and I liked the way the display didn't have to refresh with each option taken. The background visuals were a nice touch too. Will definitely check back to see any more content you might make with this engine.
LoneWolfDev
22. Oct 2019 · 17:56 UTC
Nice text adventure! Really fits the theme! Good job!
🎤 samboyer276
23. Oct 2019 · 10:54 UTC
Thanks guys!

@jonno yep I love the interface too, but it's mostly down to the engine :D it's very flexible in allowing for more text to appear within the same 'room', so I tried to make use of that as much as I could. The dynamic backgrounds were a custom addition though :)
fashionbatman
24. Oct 2019 · 19:32 UTC
It's always cool to see text games show up in LD. Really great job!
Dudum Lare
25. Oct 2019 · 08:11 UTC
I'm impressed by your ability to make the player visualize the scenes with text only!
Virimine
27. Oct 2019 · 10:39 UTC
Truth is I am not a big fun of text adventure games because after some point I get bored of reading a lot of text and cannot follow... >__< so I appreciate that you kept the text simple and on point. The font is very easy to read too and the changes in the background make it more immersive, so good job with that! I also like your tone and way of writing! It was fun and I could make images in my head very easily by reading it! At first, I thought it would be a cliched story and I am glad that I went till the end to find out it was not. Good job!:D
Tim Eriksen
28. Oct 2019 · 19:54 UTC
Really well written! Thank you for making this :smile:
Raomer
28. Oct 2019 · 20:01 UTC
Nice little game :)

It was nice to play, the story was fun to read and i am impressed that you managed to set this up in the time we had.
Catusfelony
28. Oct 2019 · 22:35 UTC
Oh that was really really great! The writing is witty and engaging and I loved it to bits!

The background changing contextually added a lot to the immersion, really fancy stuff, wonderful work.
conk
28. Oct 2019 · 23:36 UTC
Questionable morality and 26% HP! Very funny and the background changing as the story progressed was really pretty :heart_eyes: A few spelling mistakes here and there, but that's to be expected with the shear amount of text you must've written for this.

Great job :grinning: