I quite like this; it captures that weird-but-consistent internal logic of a fairytale. I also agree with Jenny—being able to make choices outside of Regular Girl's own decisions is real interesting and engaging. And again, it matches the perspective-shifting of a fairytale.
I also liked the consistency, both in terms of how my choices impacted the story but also in the frequency and style of choices; it all felt quite well put-together and planned.
My main issues were in the tenses of the piece—most of the time it was past tense, but from time to time it shifted to present and then back again. It's an easy fix, but committing to one will help a lot.
My other, larger issue is that it's not clear to me what the stakes of the story are, or how I'm positioned within it. When the demon first arrived and offered the deal, I—Regular Girl, forced to scrounge to survive—I was ready to take it (evil stepsisters exist to be punished, no?). But as the story progressed, it wasn't clear to me exactly how evil Susan and Mrs. Girl really were, or what my extra set of eyes meant, or if I even could kill Susan at all. I liked the tone, I liked the style, but the actual plot and progression seemed to meander in ways that confused me.
Still, overall, you've got a strong basis here and an excellent hook.
I really enjoyed playing through this game so far! The concept and narrative style are super interesting. I really appreciated the ability to make choices that weren't directly made by Regular Girl - it led to some really interesting moral dilemmas. I definitely saw potential for tone issues, but no matter what choices I picked, the story still felt very cohesive! I had a very interesting moment where I really wanted to give Regular Girl as many nice things as possible, but it still led to conflict later, which made the story feel very well curated.
If I had to nitpick, I'd like a little more flavor to the world. So far it's very vague, and I'd love some more description to the various settings. It does work as is, though, and it's interesting to use my imagination to fill in the world. I also really like that I can scroll back through the whole story after making choices! As someone who forgets things at the drop of the hat, this was super helpful. Overall this piece is very polished and engaging so far, and I'm super excited to see how you close! Great job!
Very interesting style-It reminds me less of a typical choice narrative game, but more so a story book that has actions you can dictate, but still follows the overall theme of the game. I quite like it!
First, the UI scrolling kinda threw me off-It made it hard to read after making choices. That's my only nitpick though.
Second, I like how you play into the video game paradox of things/events not existing until it is done so by the player. It makes me wonder how much of the game is predetermined or not. It helps make me feel in control of the story and what happens next, even if the outcomes may be the same.
Really like the style of the writing too, and it never got too wordy for me! Wonderful job!
So far, this piece seems very well balanced, especially in terms of the types of choices the player is making — which, as other playtesters have pointed out, makes it Unusually Well Balanced. The player gets to be in a position where they get to pick expressive moments as well as major plot points, instead of just seeing how their choices impact later major plot points, and you do a good job of establishing that early on. The vagueness definitely works right now too! But it’s not clear exactly how the world works yet — players may get the general idea, but if you really want them to understand the setting, that will require more exposition and/or demonstration. The demon conversation feels like a good length for now, especially as fairy tales tend to move pretty quickly past dialogue. If you want it to have a lot of later significance that will be referenced regularly though, I’d suggest extending it a bit to mirror that. I hope this is helpful, and feel free to reach out with further thoughts / questions!
It definitely became clear to me by the end that the concept of being different and unique were what made you desirable. Though throughout the story, I'm not sure if I got enough context to fully understand why not being unique would lead Regular Girl's family to treat her the way they do.
I think you have a good balance going of dialogue/exposition/narration! The introduction gave me a solid place to start without offloading too much information at once, and the conversation with the Demon didn't feel too lengthy.
The omniscient narrator was clear, but I agree with Naomi that it was especially hammered home when I got to make a choice for the Demon. It was unexpected - but really interesting! - and maybe a little bit of clearer lead-up to it would be helpful. Since this is an adaptation of a fairy tale, I think it's effective and a rather strong way to have the player experience the story.
The choices felt like they were giving me an interesting variety of ways to respond to the situation, and they gave me a pretty clear sense of Regular Girl's personality.
I really enjoyed playing this through! It makes me want to know what Regular Girl will do -- if she'll actually go through with the Demon's request, or if she'll ignore it and have to face consequences. I'm excited to play the final version :D
I like the style with the omniscient narrator, although I feel like it could be a little clearer. We start off hearing things mostly from the perspective of Regular Girl, and there's not much extremely overt narration (the kind that in traditional fairytales would say things like "You see, in the town where Regular Girl lived, there were two kinds of people: unique people who had something special about them, and the unfortunate regular people. I probably don't need to explain to you that Regular Girl was of the latter variety." Instead, I picked up on the omniscient narrator idea from the fact that the second choice was choosing what the demon said! This was a little unexpected mostly because it's SO common that choice games put you firmly in the perspective and agency of one POV character, so you may need to make it a little more clear that the POV here is of a narrator, not just Regular Girl.
The conversation with the demon felt like just the right length, and the story bubbles along nicely with the kinds of choices you have -- only the last one feels "major" but the flavor and reactions that arise from the earlier choices feels worthwhile and provides amusing story interaction. Nice work so far!
As for more world-building -- it's a little hard for me to say since I already knew a few things about the world before playing! I recommend finding some more playtesters -- you can DM Jess, who will be back this weekend, and I'd suggest posting it in our class Slack channel too. I'm sure there are folks who would read and comment on it here.
I do suspect you'll need to explain the world not long after the current ending -- but leaving the "regular" and "unique" parts mysterious before that make for an interesting "this is a strange world, but I'm not going to spell it out" tone that I think could work to tantalize readers.
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I quite like this; it captures that weird-but-consistent internal logic of a fairytale. I also agree with Jenny—being able to make choices outside of Regular Girl's own decisions is real interesting and engaging. And again, it matches the perspective-shifting of a fairytale.
I also liked the consistency, both in terms of how my choices impacted the story but also in the frequency and style of choices; it all felt quite well put-together and planned.
My main issues were in the tenses of the piece—most of the time it was past tense, but from time to time it shifted to present and then back again. It's an easy fix, but committing to one will help a lot.
My other, larger issue is that it's not clear to me what the stakes of the story are, or how I'm positioned within it. When the demon first arrived and offered the deal, I—Regular Girl, forced to scrounge to survive—I was ready to take it (evil stepsisters exist to be punished, no?). But as the story progressed, it wasn't clear to me exactly how evil Susan and Mrs. Girl really were, or what my extra set of eyes meant, or if I even could kill Susan at all. I liked the tone, I liked the style, but the actual plot and progression seemed to meander in ways that confused me.
Still, overall, you've got a strong basis here and an excellent hook.
I really enjoyed playing through this game so far! The concept and narrative style are super interesting. I really appreciated the ability to make choices that weren't directly made by Regular Girl - it led to some really interesting moral dilemmas. I definitely saw potential for tone issues, but no matter what choices I picked, the story still felt very cohesive! I had a very interesting moment where I really wanted to give Regular Girl as many nice things as possible, but it still led to conflict later, which made the story feel very well curated.
If I had to nitpick, I'd like a little more flavor to the world. So far it's very vague, and I'd love some more description to the various settings. It does work as is, though, and it's interesting to use my imagination to fill in the world. I also really like that I can scroll back through the whole story after making choices! As someone who forgets things at the drop of the hat, this was super helpful. Overall this piece is very polished and engaging so far, and I'm super excited to see how you close! Great job!
Very interesting style-It reminds me less of a typical choice narrative game, but more so a story book that has actions you can dictate, but still follows the overall theme of the game. I quite like it!
First, the UI scrolling kinda threw me off-It made it hard to read after making choices. That's my only nitpick though.
Second, I like how you play into the video game paradox of things/events not existing until it is done so by the player. It makes me wonder how much of the game is predetermined or not. It helps make me feel in control of the story and what happens next, even if the outcomes may be the same.
Really like the style of the writing too, and it never got too wordy for me! Wonderful job!
hey alekai!
So far, this piece seems very well balanced, especially in terms of the types of choices the player is making — which, as other playtesters have pointed out, makes it Unusually Well Balanced. The player gets to be in a position where they get to pick expressive moments as well as major plot points, instead of just seeing how their choices impact later major plot points, and you do a good job of establishing that early on. The vagueness definitely works right now too! But it’s not clear exactly how the world works yet — players may get the general idea, but if you really want them to understand the setting, that will require more exposition and/or demonstration. The demon conversation feels like a good length for now, especially as fairy tales tend to move pretty quickly past dialogue. If you want it to have a lot of later significance that will be referenced regularly though, I’d suggest extending it a bit to mirror that. I hope this is helpful, and feel free to reach out with further thoughts / questions!
- jess
It definitely became clear to me by the end that the concept of being different and unique were what made you desirable. Though throughout the story, I'm not sure if I got enough context to fully understand why not being unique would lead Regular Girl's family to treat her the way they do.
I think you have a good balance going of dialogue/exposition/narration! The introduction gave me a solid place to start without offloading too much information at once, and the conversation with the Demon didn't feel too lengthy.
The omniscient narrator was clear, but I agree with Naomi that it was especially hammered home when I got to make a choice for the Demon. It was unexpected - but really interesting! - and maybe a little bit of clearer lead-up to it would be helpful. Since this is an adaptation of a fairy tale, I think it's effective and a rather strong way to have the player experience the story.
The choices felt like they were giving me an interesting variety of ways to respond to the situation, and they gave me a pretty clear sense of Regular Girl's personality.
I really enjoyed playing this through! It makes me want to know what Regular Girl will do -- if she'll actually go through with the Demon's request, or if she'll ignore it and have to face consequences. I'm excited to play the final version :D
I like the style with the omniscient narrator, although I feel like it could be a little clearer. We start off hearing things mostly from the perspective of Regular Girl, and there's not much extremely overt narration (the kind that in traditional fairytales would say things like "You see, in the town where Regular Girl lived, there were two kinds of people: unique people who had something special about them, and the unfortunate regular people. I probably don't need to explain to you that Regular Girl was of the latter variety." Instead, I picked up on the omniscient narrator idea from the fact that the second choice was choosing what the demon said! This was a little unexpected mostly because it's SO common that choice games put you firmly in the perspective and agency of one POV character, so you may need to make it a little more clear that the POV here is of a narrator, not just Regular Girl.
The conversation with the demon felt like just the right length, and the story bubbles along nicely with the kinds of choices you have -- only the last one feels "major" but the flavor and reactions that arise from the earlier choices feels worthwhile and provides amusing story interaction. Nice work so far!
As for more world-building -- it's a little hard for me to say since I already knew a few things about the world before playing! I recommend finding some more playtesters -- you can DM Jess, who will be back this weekend, and I'd suggest posting it in our class Slack channel too. I'm sure there are folks who would read and comment on it here.
I do suspect you'll need to explain the world not long after the current ending -- but leaving the "regular" and "unique" parts mysterious before that make for an interesting "this is a strange world, but I'm not going to spell it out" tone that I think could work to tantalize readers.