It’s a game where you walk around a real park looking out for birds. There are photographs and external links to the apps the author use in their trips. It’s like if The Fire Tower was more open-ended and let you just go around and experience things.
It’s clearly a love letter to birding, and I really appreciate how the writing captures the enthusiasm of the writer. The feel of noting the birds down on the journal with a button is so rewarding too. It felt like I was on a real nature adventure.
While I enjoyed the photographs, I do wonder if this activated the interactive fiction brain in me. The novelty of The Fire Tower for me is that I had to imagine the park as I trekked along; the cognitive load in this game is greatly reduced with the help of the photographs. I suppose this wouldn’t be an issue if I found this game on Itch without any context, but I like to use my gray matter and visualize the world with text games in IF spaces.
What do people think? It’s a lovely game and I hope more people play it.
I really liked the stroll by the park. It remenbered me another game with integrated sounds placed in several seasons which weighted a lot (350MB).
The final photo of the author was awesome. Congratulations for this great strolling game. We need more interactive games of this flavour.
Just finished playing! I quite enjoyed the anticipation when choosing where to go next and the feeling of discovery when finding a new bird. It was nice exploring and getting a sense of this specific place, and I appreciated that it’s not just a matter of visiting each location and checking it off—returning to a place you’ve already been may have you seeing a new bird there, just like in real life. Excellent photos too.
Agreed! Somehow, that little additional bit of interactivity is very satisfying and helped keep me engaged.
My final bird stats: 25 species of birds, 59 individual birds
Minor note:
“You can’t see anything man-made” here is contradicted by the next paragraph:
The thin dirt path is lined with shoulder-high grasses. Past the grasses is dense forest. The tree tops are thick, providing some welcome shade in the heat. The trees are more spread apart on the ground, so you can see pretty far into the woods. You can’t see anything man-made. This path is rarely visited, and quiet.
In the field, there’s a small disused wooden building the size of a shed. It kind of looks like a child’s playhouse.
Author here. Thanks for the feedback, and I’m glad you enjoyed it. This was my first interactive fiction game. I normally make more traditional video games as a hobbyist. I was excited because I’m not much of an artist, and this was the first game where I was able to create every part of it myself.
Hi Eric, earlier people pointed out the slow loading of most images. Since my games have graphics, i also have the bandwidth problem. Here’s what I’ve learned;
Some of your images are 4k. I have this too, but only for downloadable versions of my game. 4K images are great but too slow even for broadband.
I size most to 2k for broadband connections.
I detect mobile and serve 1k versions.
Switch from JPEG to webp. I’m finding pretty much universal compatibility for webp. It’s smaller and you can have transparencies.
Ah yeah, sorry about the gigantic images. I knew I need to size them down for the web version, but decided to spend the time finishing other odds-and-ends before I ran out of time.
My keen birder husband had problems with the images on his iPad mini. They blew up so much, messing up the user interface so he had to give up playing. I wrote more about this in my review in the authors’ private section. But it was a passing mention, because playing on my laptop I had a great time with your game As a Scot/Brit I also marvelled at how different your birds are. So educational!
Did you try clicking on “You scan the small soccer fields”? Because that’s what just made the huge images appear on my iPad Pro. You may need to use a tablet to see this though.
As a Scot/Brit I also marvelled at how different your birds are. So educational!