46 | THE SALTCAST ADVENTURE
46 | THE SALTCAST ADVENTURE
by: Beth Carpenter
Progress:
- I completed this game, reaching what I interpreted as a good ending, in about 1hr34m.
Things I Appreciated:
-
Of all the games/narratives that I’ve been through so far, what sets this one apart is that I found myself emotionally moved by plot beats in the final sections of the game. That’s a rare sensation for me—to feel that furling/unfurling feeling in my chest that tears might be possible—so I pay attention when I encounter something like that. I put this first and foremost in the “appreciate” category because my opinion is that for something more narrative-focused like this, that is a high compliment.
-
This is a long narrative that takes a huge risk. [Big spoilers] At the end of Part 2, the protagonist Madelaine is lost and you continue a new plotline in the final arc as her daughter, Patricia. I just feel like that’s such a bold and confident way to write? I remember reaching the end of part two and thinking, wow, this one was shorter than I expected, and feeling like there was something lacking—and then… well, the rest of it happens. To say more about this choice, it’s a risk that paid off for me. The risk: I didn’t care about Patricia. Not that there was anything wrong with her, but since I was spending time as Madelaine, in Madelaine’s narrative, Patricia is abstract—a person back home that she is fighting for. Patricia is a motivation, not a true character, in Parts 1 and 2. Switching to follow the narrative of Patricia should’ve been incredibly disruptive, but instead, it was surprisingly immersive. To explain why, consider this thought experiment. Imagine that Part 3 was the main/initial plot; Patricia’s mother disappeared underground and she’s out to find her. In that case, Patricia’s mother has the same quality as Patricia herself does in the actual version of the narrative—a motivation, not a character. I wouldn’t have felt any attachment to Patricia’s mother beyond just like… obviously wanting to help Patricia find her. But in the version as written, I found it deeply immersive to become Patricia and feel deeper emotions about Madelaine because I was Madelaine and Part 3 recontextualizes the struggle that I had as her. Letting Madelaine go at the end of Part 3 is more heartbreaking because I had played Madelaine as someone trying to be compassionate and wanting what was best for the communities involved, so I knew what kind of person she was to warrant the big emotions at the end, rather than having to rely on, say, Patricia’s memories of her to guide my emotional response. I could easily see this not working; I’d imagine many other readers might not click with the perspective shift. But for me, it really worked.
-
The world is unique and fascinating. Primed as I am to empathize with “monster” characters, I always go into fantasy pieces hoping that the human/monster dynamic will be subverted in some way, and there’s a small part of me that always still finds it a bit disappointing when there isn’t such a dynamic, even if I can still find value in narratives where the monsters really are just monsters (you sort of have to, given how pervasive it is). Here, I picked up that thread as soon as I was allowed to and felt like this was written for someone like me. I sort of wondered if something similar would happen with the Hydra King character not being the true antagonist of the narrative, but that thread ended up going in a unique direction because of the nature of the character, so I was satisfied that the Hydra King is a complex and strange villain with some pathos rather than a character you might reasonably side with. I found the magic system with the mirrors really engaging, and the side characters were well drawn (both figuratively, in the sense that they were written to be specific and interesting, and literally, in the sense that someone—the author?—drew cool art of them and it was in the narrative).
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
-
Despite the many screens that allow the player to make choices, I was not often convinced that my choices were consequential. After looking over the game’s thread, it seems like my choices mattered more than I noticed, but I didn’t feel that way while reading it. During my playthrough, I only encountered one death screen (the option I selected, if I recall correctly, was about trying to commandeer the cultists’ ritual, which led to an instant death screen that I just undid and moved on from). Other than that, I breezed through the game just making what felt like the most intuitive choices in the moment, and I guess I was lucky that what I found intuitive happened to lead to the story continuing. There was exactly one moment where I felt like a past choice I made mattered—earlier, I had convinced the group to spare the guards that they were going to kill, and later, this same group of guards returned to attack us a second time and ended up dying. The game wasn’t overly judgmental of my pollyannaish gameplay here, but it was a time where I felt the weight of my choices. Elsewhere, if my choices were intended to come back to haunt or help me, that were not evident from what was happening. That’s why I said up front that the game did not often convince me that my choices were consequential. My character was injured multiple times, but those injuries didn’t hinder my progress in any way that I could detect, nor did the approval system appear to matter. So my recommendation would be, assuming those systems do matter, to foreground those moments more directly as consequences of my actions. I want my attention to be drawn to things that were conditioned by my choices, rather than having them float by me without my awareness. I think in choice-based games, it’s important for the satisfaction of the narrative to feel like the game remembers something that you did many turns ago and it reared its head again, like was the case with the guards.
-
There were a few moments/conversations where being offered a choice was noticeably inconsequential. If to progress a scene, I need to talk about the three conversation topics listed in any order, why offer me the choice at all? Imagine a slightly alternative scenario: there are three conversation topics, but only time to cover two of them. There will be one topic that you are less informed on going forward, which could affect future decisions. Suddenly, it’s a choice that reflects your motivation as a player more: I decided what my priorities were, rather than just sheepishly clicking on the third and final option for the sake of completion to move on. I like the idea as a player that I am taking a risk by choosing to prioritize learning some information at the expense of other information, and I’d like to feel that more.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
-
I see this entry as a reminder to write with a sense of confidence, something I often struggle with. Here, the author makes bold choices in plot structure, that I assume they must know could be divisive. This presents a dilemma: do you write something that is more widely structurally familiar and potentially cultivate a wider audience, or do you make a choice that will land very well with some people and not well at all with others? (You could make a similar analysis of other entries and their approaches.) You might feel like I am passing judgment as to which approach I prefer, but I don’t think that either extreme is necessarily without value. I have, sometimes, an impulse to write with a sense of anger that the story I crave to see in the world doesn’t exist yet, and I owe it to that story to write it my way. (Not that my writing is actually so special; but this can be a potent motive to get shit done, words on the page, and all that.) And other times, I have seen how feedback and influence on my work to make it more appealing has absolutely improved it by allowing my perspective to be questioned, swayed, and refined. Sorry, this got a little away from the intended topic of The Saltcast Adventure, I’m talking about myself again… My takeaway point here is: be bold, take risks, but those choices should still be thoughtful toward the writing context you are in. This is a case where for me, as a reader, the narrative took the right risks in the right context.
-
For a choice-based narrative, I learned from this piece that it’s possible to be too subtle/seamless about how the choices affected what happened. While I think there is a value in subtlety, maybe it’s important for a narrative to show its cards more and demonstrate to the reader/player that the narrative worked out this way only because of specific choices they made, especially in contexts where the player is likely to only read/play once, unless they get a particularly bad ending.
Quote:
- “You see the glitter of exposed mirrors on several of their bodies.” (Out of context, this quote doesn’t necessarily stand out, so let me remind you of the context. Up until this point, you have learned to kill creatures by shattering their mirrors, so these mirrors are closely guarded. This quote stood out to me in a huge way because it shows the level of comfort and trust. The beings gathered here aren’t concerned that you, or someone else, is going to try killing them. They have built a social space where their essential self can just exist without having to be jealously guarded, and that shows the reader something really important about the saltcast society at a time when they’re still deciding whether or not to side with them.)
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- A big, memorable moment in this text is the first time that you encounter the Hydra King. Their presence dominates the room, as does their internally conflicted desire to die and conquer. This was a visceral description that came at just the right time to raise the stakes of the narrative.