17 | LPM | ROAR
17 | LPM | ROAR
by: Hatless
Progress:
- I reached the end of the narrative in about 9 minutes.
Engagement with Horror Genre:
- I didn’t necessarily see this as a horror piece—it was more of an action thriller. Though, I do feel like “revenge of the animals” is a horror-ish theme. Something like the film 28 Days Later comes to mind, where mistreated chimpanzees are the source of the pandemic virus. There are also the kaiju-like elements here with the giant squid and t-rex, and honestly even the whale which I’m just realizing might as well be a real-life kaiju creature. I mean this is certainly something that would be horrifying if it actually happened in real life, to be fair.
Things I Appreciated:
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I loved the pacing of this. You could imagine a version of this where, given more than four hours, the beginning gets weighed down by a lot of the worldbuilding explaining the situation we’re in. Instead, the reader is thrown right into the action, and it keeps up its intensity the entire way through, moving from scene to scene as we face bigger and bigger threats and tougher decisions before arriving at the end. The piece is just crackling with energy and enthusiasm.
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I liked the variety of animals and encounters. You might think seagulls are unthreatening (I mean, unless you’ve ever tried to eat lunch at the ocean in a tourist area, and the person with you FOR SOME REASON intentionally feeds one even though you begged them not to and then they were somehow still surprised by what happened next) but the idea of countless birds organizing to smash into and overwhelm a plane is great imagery.
Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations:
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I did feel that many of the choices were relatively inconsequential. I didn’t mind this too much, given the four-hour time limit posing restricting the branching, and also how even having not-so-consequential choices so frequently still helped to immerse me in the action. The ones I had a bit more of an issue with were choices where it was choosing between pulling a lever or leaning in a certain direction where I felt like there wasn’t enough information/context to develop a good strategy of what to pick or why. Still, the randomness of these choices didn’t seem overly punishing, as far as I could tell.
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I did notice some scattered typos here and there, which could be cleaned up if a post-comp revision is planned.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
- I really enjoyed the presentation style and how the narrative unfolded. (If I’m not mistaken, this is developed using the Ink one?) I like the sensation it creates that you are building the narrative and how the choices feel like they are propelling you through the story because of the layout. It makes me feel like this type of action/thriller story is especially suited to this program because of how kinetic and fluid it feels. I think that’s something important to consider—even if you are more comfortable with a certain program to develop in than others, to at least run through a mental checklist of the different options in case there’s a program that seems especially suited to the type of story that you are telling. This is an example of a story that feels like it was in great harmony with the program used to develop it.
Memorable Moment:
- As mentioned above, when the plane the protagonist was in got completely overwhelmed with birds and they had to eject due to the damage. For some reason I found that to be one of the most threatening scenes, imagining having to eject into a massive horde of violent birds and try to float slowly down to safety while they swarmed.