FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD28 → Alone/Awake

Alone/Awake

By paperblurt

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness1100
Mood643.68
Innovation3173.17
Overall4783.03
Theme6402.61
Humor6751.86
Graphics7022.52
Audio7981.24
Fun8412.33

Comments

theholychicken 2013-12-16 05:34

Brilliant!
Reading your poems is simply exhilarating!

citiral 2013-12-16 09:53

I loved it! The writing was amazing!

jlauener 2013-12-16 11:29

I almost suffocated while playing it. Amazing mood!

chicknstu 2013-12-16 11:33

Good example of how much of an atmosphere it's possible to create with only a small amount of artwork and a short story.

Played it three times. The first question threw me a bit...

Are you alone or awake?

well.. both!

withoutpillow 2013-12-16 11:34

nice, you really used the animations to great effect! interesting and good use of twine.

p.s. i enjoyed your dad vs. unicorn a lot too. and that restart-button in the left corner that you've used in both games is a great and subtle innovation.

p.p.s. thanks for checking out my game!

turna 2013-12-16 11:36

Intriguing and unique to say the least. A bit short, but I enjoy every last of it :)

gupta_shvm 2013-12-16 11:44

Really interesting! Great atmosphere!

paperblurt 2013-12-16 14:00

Thanks so far for all comments.. Seems some people liked it!

And thanks Kristoffer for playing Dad vs. Unicorn too!

emmelineprufrock 2013-12-16 14:53

That was lovely and meditative. I'm impressed that you did that within the limits of Twine, and though you were not a fan of the animation, I think it really lent itself well to the medium as a whole. You are getting a new follower on twitter!

coblynau 2013-12-16 15:09

Interesting writing! Well done! :)

chris-mondok 2013-12-16 15:16

Very interesting, being stranded in space is an irrational fear of mine. It's cool to play through a few times.

If you preload your images, by putting image tags in the document with something like "display:none", the animations won't flicker.

paperblurt 2013-12-16 15:27

Yeah I've had troubles with the flickering images, but I'll try to clean it up!

Thanks for the tip!

kewry 2013-12-16 15:34

Nice story!

mrjordan 2013-12-16 20:41

I honestly have never seen a Twine game incorporate graphics like this before. This is so well written, the animations work so well with it, and it all comes together so well. Bravo!

snoringfrog 2013-12-16 21:51

One typo I caught: you misspelled "something" in the crater in the "alone" side of things.

Overall, I preferred the 'awake' side to the 'alone' side. I thought the writing style for that path was more interesting. I was a little disappointed that the choices didn't have any significant impact on outcome, but it was still a great story regardless. Loved how you worked the animation into a twine. Very cool and gives me some interesting ideas for future twines myself.

paperblurt 2013-12-16 22:04

Hey. Thanks for spotting the typo.
I'll fix it asap.

Also thanks for your kind words!

dmitrix 2013-12-17 04:12

Wow.. that was neat. :)

lucasncv 2013-12-17 13:28

Wow, nice story. My favorite game so far, really well done!

rnlf 2013-12-17 13:32

Really nice writing. Didn't know what a Twine game was before this one, but I believe I checked every possible story path.

nichii 2013-12-17 14:14

Not my style or taste, but I can see the value of the literature in this game. It's very artistic, and while it was not meant to be fun, I get that it is pretty well done on the writing there.

triplevisiongames 2013-12-17 20:11

You've really captured a captivating mood with this one! Also, got to love that you got a beard in there too! Really enjoyed this

garygreen 2013-12-17 21:48

Your IF games always make me think, and I thought the animations were a nice touch too. I enjoyed it.

seconddimension 2013-12-18 17:06

Wow that was brutal! I liked the story, and the animations really helped the mood

diptoman 2013-12-19 09:35

That was... Interesting, to say the least. Your writing was great!

loxo 2013-12-19 10:16

Interesting concept and use of twine. I think the graphics/animations are fitting too. Sadly it's a bit short and there are not many choices to make. It's easy to play all variations, though :)

dray 2013-12-19 10:34

Interesting concept, the animated part is very interesting and not much seen in Twine games. the story is interesting even if i didn't dive in it. Very interesting job, i hope to see more twine like this.

dkilford 2013-12-19 10:36

Interesting entry, the games mood was definitely it's strongest point. The art while not technically spectacular fit the game and mood perfectly so I wouldn't worry about that.

It's a shame you ran out of time, I would have definitely liked to have seen more branches. Overall a solid effort.

shellfishgames 2013-12-19 15:12

Something different, finally, and an interesting read.
Regarding the "Basically you could say that I took on a challenge I could not muster" thing - I think that's just part of the deal. Sometimes those 48h projects work out great, but often we realize at some point that it doesn't quite work out the way we imagined. Despite the final product not being exactly what you hoped it to be, most people here, myself included, seem to enjoy it nonetheless. :)

2hitadam 2013-12-20 10:11

A little context on this huge comment: I asked on twitter if anyone wanted feedback on their jam and paperblurt shot me this link. I happen to be a creative writing graduate so what the hell, let's do a little friendly deconstruction while I procrastinate!

First thing's first: animations in Twine is awesome and pretty innovative by the sounds of it, so well done with that. Sets an amazing mood. Probably should issue an epilepsy warning though.

Next on the agenda: the writing. It's not bad, especially for a jam where you're rushing. There's a few typos here and there, nothing that detracts from the story enormously. But there are a number of areas that could be improved. So in no particular order:

- Vocabulary. You're writing a sci-fi and using modern terms like Instagram or calling it a "freaking hammer" but at the same time reaching back for outdated words like "shan't" and "nay". My advice is to update your vocabulary and be consistent, leave the loftier-sounding archaic english out.

- More tell than show. Hopefully you're familiar with the "show, don't tell" mantra of writing, and there are a few places it could be used better here. Why tell us he starts hearing voices in his head when you can show us that transition? Why tell us the crash was horrible when you can show us the horror? I don't want to take your word for it as the author that it was a bad time for everyone involved, I want to see it for myself and make my own assessment. It's much more engaging that way.

- Structure. This was pretty good. One thing you did very very well was make me want to know what happened next, that was all in the atmosphere and the way you withheld plot points til the next click. Really ramped up the mystery. The shiny thing at the bottom of the crater was particularly good for this.

- Clarity. I'll use an example. He goes into the space ship and starts talking about "My fallen colleague." What fallen colleague? "Oh, I guess there was a dead guy the protagonist knew in this crater pod for some reason?" That's a pretty big leap you're asking us to make there, rather than just spending a couple more words letting us know what's actually going on.

Annnnyway, that's my two cents! Feel free to ignore any or all of it. Either way I still think it's an awesome use of branching narratives, and man, if you managed to animate Twine then I'd love to see what you'd make with HTML5 or Flash and infinite possibilities. Peace!

grifdail 2013-12-20 21:32

Whaouuuuu.

christina-nordlander 2013-12-21 00:09

Once I got into this story, I enjoyed it a lot. Space exploration (and space marooning) has always held a lot of power for me; stories about mental disorders likewise. The plot was interesting enough for me to replay it for all the choices.

However, the story confused me a bit, and I'm still not sure I get all of it. This may have been the result of me playing the "Awake" version before the "Alone" one. I'm still not entirely sure whether the protagonist of all the storylines is the same person.

The only thing I didn't like about the graphics was the flickering at the start. (Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Twine to suggest a fix.) The other graphics are good enough for me, and I'm impressed with the way you did animation. On the other hand, sitting through the animations gets a bit much when you replay the game many times in a row, even if they're not all that long.

Typoes I caught: "coms" should be "comms"; "as gravity would bare" should be "bear"; "ponding" should be "pounding".

A very involving story, and an interesting way to combine Twine with graphics. I think you rose to the challenge.

postmodestie 2013-12-21 00:53

There is some good writing, but it's also full of cliches, like the god thing etc. and it is not much of a story, but judging from the comments you got the mood right, even if the game aspect is lacking - only two choices? If anything it shows that you hit the right spot, that is storytelling nontheless..

paperblurt 2013-12-21 07:33

Big Thanks to Christina Nordlander and 2HitAdam for their thorough reviews.
I've update some typos as one often (when stressed for time) miss some errors here and there..

Overall it seems that the majority seemed to like it and the atmosphere I was going for, so that makes me glad.

When it comes to the flickering images I can't seem to solve it, but as I stated before - this was just a test with animation in Twine and I'm not fully pleased with it. Twine isn't supposed to be used for animation I guess :)

It’s also been interesting to see how you react to the ”Alone” and ”Awake” parts too.
It’s ripe for interpretations..

irma-vep 2013-12-21 12:54

The only snafu? But I like your animations. They're simple and cute. More comments later, when I got enough time to play it carefully.

jupiter_hadley 2013-12-25 16:40

I found this game to be weird but also kind of cool. I included it in my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you'd like to take a look :) http://youtu.be/Sii3dnpSvEI

archaeometrician 2013-12-27 21:07

Very well written. It was a great experience to play your game!

rosastegosaurus 2014-01-02 17:34

well written for such a short time & great animation. lycka till!

nikteddy92 2014-01-05 14:08

Wow.... Strange...
But nice story :)

jedi 2014-01-06 17:55

Very nice mood, and I like the animations of the spacesuit. I'm not 100% sure I understood the story from playing it through once. Is that the intention?