FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Bad Faith

Bad Faith

By craig-cordeiro

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall7872.9125
Fun7952.6525
Innovation8112.4525
Theme6223.3025
Graphics1
Audio1
Humor5682.0722
Mood4233.2924

Comments

indigowolf 2021-04-26 14:27

Always nice to see story driven games in LD48. Nice work.

tero-pulkkinen 2021-04-26 15:47

tons of text in it. too bad i was looking for cool graphics, but i only get a wall of text...

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-26 21:37

@indigowolf Thanks! @tero-pulkkinen The power of pure text means that the graphics engine is powered by your mind! That means they can be as cool as you want them to be! ;) Jokes aside, I understand completely. It definitely could have used a lot more visual pizzazz. I had originally intended it to be more like an interactive comic. But, I had to scrap that idea about 6 hours into the jam as it would have been impossible to get that much art done and script all the branching in the remaining 42 hours.

magna 2021-04-27 19:46

I agree it has a little bit too much text but it was a nice experience!

timbertoes 2021-04-27 19:52

Well done! I always enjoy a text based adventure. This one was totally unexpected. I enjoy the choice of options while sinking deeper into depression and what seemed like psychosis. I also enjoyed the wiggly text for emphasis :P Keep it up and never stop making games! Great entry.

officialcodenmore 2021-04-27 19:53

Love seeing story-based games like this, simple yet understandable options to choose from, and lots of content.

aflatthrasher 2021-04-27 19:54

I enjoyed it. A good read. I'm not sure I was here for a text-based story game, but it was fun. Keep up your writing!

james-kusardi 2021-04-27 19:58

interesting story, i thought the choices you gave were often creative and interesting. i never really felt like i knew what was going on (but i was hooked!), although i might give it a shot later to see if there's a possible better ending?

quinn-patrick 2021-04-27 20:09

I gotta be real, I just couldn't get through it. When I look for good jam games, I'm not really looking for a novel, so it would have to be a really good novel. The story here didn't hook me, a lot of elements came across as edgy, etc. I commend you taking a totally narrative approach, but it's not for me.

tomh1 2021-04-27 20:12

Nice! That was definitely a trip (in a good way). I think I ended about getting the bad ending but still enjoyed it. I agree that the shaking text is a nice touch but I think it should be used more sparingly. It was alarming and scary when I first saw it but gets old when repeated throughout the rest of the writing.

trabitboy 2021-04-27 20:14

I loved it :) I wonder why interactive fiction is not more popular in this world of smartphones :) I think maybe some introductory text before first choice are a bit long ?

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-27 20:27

@james-kusardi @tomh1 Yeah, I think I could have made the endings a bit more clear cut and varied. There isn't really a "good" ending. There's a "bad" ending. A couple of "not as bad as it could have been, I guess" endings. And, a couple of "I didn't die, but this definitely isn't ideal" endings.

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-27 20:29

@quinn-patrick Totally get. But, the only way I'm going to get better as a writer is if I let people read my stuff and give me feedback. So that's what I gotta do! I'm glad you at least gave it a shot!

ditam 2021-04-27 20:32

Very cool, I love your use of the medium! Dynamically generated paragraphs, trembling text, a lot of cute touches. One of the more inventive titles I've met this jam.

If you plan on expanding or refining this later, I'd love to see the style of the reader choices stay more consistent. Choosing a stage of grief, like in the opening, is a very artistic storytelling device, while the very literal choices (talk to X, go to Y) of later are anything but. Also, having no choice but to click continue multiple times in a row also feels like pointless interactivity.

All that said, this is still great for a weekend's work, well done!

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-27 20:35

@trabitboy I went back and forth on whether or not I should open like for a while. It definitely doesn't ease the player into it. Though, I think I have a decent enough solution for next time should I make another one of these/expand this one.

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-27 20:45

@ditam Thanks for the detailed feedback! A lot of those Continues were to break up the text. Even then, I still think I ended up with too many large walls of text. Some of the later ones were just because I was running out of time and it was faster to put in code linking to a new page than to integrate more things onto the current page. And, oh man, if I could've continued the grief theming from earlier more easily I would have. It was just adding too much complexity and I knew I wasn't going to finish on time if I kept it up. I tried to echo it again at the end, but even then, you only get to that part of the ending if you make some very specific choices earlier. Excuses aside, I do agree with your criticisms 100%!

kristof 2021-04-27 20:50

Good writing. But as others have said, you could have come to the point a bit more quickly ;)

ditam 2021-04-27 20:59

@craig-cordeiro Absolutely, finishing on time is a top priority for a jam, so I don't blame you at all for making these choices. And for the record, when I was talking about keeping the choices going, I didn't necessarily mean literally keeping the stages of grief choices for the whole story (though that would definitely be cool as well), rather just sticking to these "vague" options, which describe *how* or *with what mindset* does the character react, and not what they do exactly. I think that's a very powerful storytelling device.

It would be cool to see a post-jam version with more consistency in this regard.

Kudos.

zondarg 2021-04-28 00:11

Cool, another Twine entry. Yes, lots of text, an interactive short story - but that was to be expected. :slight_smile: I found it a good read and the two endings (which I have seen) are equally cool. I found it (especially at the start) very detailed for a compo game, that level of detail decreased a little to the end, probably due to time constraints? But overall, very nice. Maybe it could be broken up in smaller paragraphs for better flow, or accompained by matching ambient sounds/ music / noises to enhance the multimedial experience. But all that is post jam work, and I liked it how it is. Good job! :thumbsup:

eugenik 2021-04-28 12:21

i like this game.

xpoho 2021-04-28 12:54

Хорошая практика, чтобы научиться лучше писать произведения. Мне понравился стиль. Интересно, какие любимые авторы у разработчика? ^_^

slowfrog-again 2021-04-28 14:37

Nice story.

I think I caught a "typo" in Part 1: when choosing "Acceptance" three times, the interlocutor switches from Walter to Hector (probably wrong), to Walter again.

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-28 21:22

@slowfrog-again Find and Replace has betrayed me again! Thanks for catching that.

@xpoho That's a big question and answer is always changing! As far as style goes, my current favourites are Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothfuss. Ignoring style and going for pure plot and characters, let's just say that I've given Brandon Sanderson a lot of my money. When it comes to humour, Douglas Adams all the way! Thanks for asking. Are there any authors you'd recommend? I'm always looking to read new things!

xpoho 2021-04-29 09:34

@craig-cordeiro, я читаю, в основном, русских авторов - Достоевского, Толстого, Горького. Сейчас перечитываю античную трагедию - Софокла. Из иностранных читал Драйзера, Джека Лондона (люблю его Железную пяту), Герберта Уэллса, Айзека Азимова, Рэя Брэдбери, Гарри Гаррисона - цикл "Стальная крыса" (The Stainless Steel Rat). "Автостопом по галактике" тоже читал, занятно! В общем, 42! ^_^

craig-cordeiro 2021-04-29 20:10

@xpoho I haven't gotten to them yet but I do have War and Peace, and Crime and Punishment coming up on my reading list. Maybe I'll push them up the queue a bit!

bkmld 2021-04-30 06:27

Nice concept. Would be good on mobile.

carraka 2021-05-01 22:22

Ooh, a text-based story! I love reading!

Unfortunately, from the very beginning, I couldn't sympathize with the protagonist. I didn't know who had died or how or why it mattered. The protagonist was very upset, of course ... which is understandable, but I didn't feel her grief. The explanation of who had died (where Virginia Is for Lovers is explained) still didn't hit home. It was as though Connie spent more time being sad than thinking about the reasons for her sadness, which is what would help me identify with her. What does it mean to lose someone? How does it hit at you at the most unexpected moments? What gap did that person fill? I often felt like I was watching a film of Connie grieving, but never able to peer into her mind. I still know barely anything about who Connie is or was other than a woman, a victim, and a grieving person. Which is the advantage the written form provides over the visual - the details of what's going on inside.

Later on, I think the story became about making a deal with the devil? I was a bit sad that I couldn't just let Connie ignore the devil and instead work on self-healing. I ignored him all the way to the end, until I chose the "Accept destiny" option and then was very annoyed that "destiny" just meant making the deal, because that was not what I had meant at all. But hey, I admit I'm not a fan of stories with clearly demarcated good and evil, so I'm just not your target audience.

I see a complaint above about lacking graphics, but I think that's missing the point. Still, I did notice after a while that I didn't know what Connie or Hector looked like. I also am always forgetting to describe things ... gotta write myself reminders. Happy writing!

craig-cordeiro 2021-05-03 22:35

@carraka Thanks for the feedback! You've definitely given me a lot to think about.