5 | MISS DUCKWORTHY’S SCHOOL FOR MAGIC-INFESTED YOUNG PEOPLE
5 | MISS DUCKWORTHY’S SCHOOL FOR MAGIC-INFESTED YOUNG PEOPLE
by: Felicity Banks
Progress:
- I played through the game and reached an ending after about 1h10m.
Things I Appreciated:
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The player character customization was great. I like that it was a compromise between a totally blank protagonist and a specifically defined character—there were different pre-existing backgrounds to choose from. My character was Lucas, an artsy Canadian car
thiefborrower with purple hair who was “as gay as a bucket of glitter.” Fittingly enough, he grew fairy wings shortly thereafter. I was delighted. -
Have you ever been as gay as a bucket of glitter, with purple hair, giant fairy wings, and a gun, headed on a roadtrip to Alaska? Well, now I have.
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I really enjoyed the prologue (prior to getting to the school). I was instantly engaged in the story and was excited to see where it was going.
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I liked the visual presentation of the choices at the bottom of each screen set apart from the main text in a table. This made it easier for me to focus on the narrative first before evaluating the choices.
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The magical school setting was well developed, I enjoyed the different scenes and descriptions of the food (which I normally don’t even like but because my character was so consistently hungry, I was invested in hearing about it).
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I connected the most with the character Amity. I was invested in helping her solve mysteries and try to activate her magic. I like the aspect of interactive fiction here that allows me to focus on the most interesting element of a world instead of feeling like I’m being pulled away from things I like as can happen in “static” fiction.
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I thought the magic development being based on story tropes was an interesting meta aspect of the narrative, with characters openly discussing if it was possible to essentially take control of their magical development and rig it to get what they want. That was a fun and unexpected approach.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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The main issues I had with this game were in terms of the pacing of the narrative. I was caught completely off guard by the game ending. This isn’t such a bad thing; because I was invested in the narrative my mindset was that this was essentially the first act of the story (deciding who would be in charge of the school). So my expectations were wildly off in the scope of the game.
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The romance plotline felt underdeveloped. I was looking forward to that element but I didn’t feel much of a connection with Mulyadi. From my perspective, he just abruptly showed up and then we ended up dating without me really learning that much about him or spending a lot of time with him. The main trait of his that was developed was that he’s secretly rich, so good for Lucas, I guess
. Maybe this reflects more on the choices that I made, but that’s how it went for me. -
The narrative does a good job simulating the experience of a character being dropped into a pre-existing political power struggle that they have to navigate. But I don’t know if I wanted it to be simulating that. I felt like I was being asked to decide things without grasping the significance of them. The scene of arriving at the school feels very busy because it’s full of a lot of interesting things happening, but as a player/reader I wish there was more uncluttered time to just learn about the school and develop relationships organically before the power struggle takes over the plot. I think a slower pace when arriving at the school is essential because I wanted to learn about the community, how things are run, etc., to develop an informed opinion of which side I wanted to support, before the conflict really takes off. As it stands, the actual power struggle/main plot felt less engaging to me than the setting and developing character relationships and my own character’s perspectives.
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I felt like the way characters popped in and out was a bit disorienting. For example, I spent some time meeting a person named Rohan and their winged baby, and then after that Rohan disappeared and I never found them again. Meanwhile, Amity just kind of shows up out of nowhere as a major character, which is great because I really liked her, but I didn’t have a lot of context as to why she was suddenly there. Similarly, at the end I looked at my “stats” and learned there was someone named Ravindra who didn’t appear in this playthrough at all that I encountered.
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Because I had fairy wings, I thought it made the most sense to take flying lessons to maximize that specialization. I was surprised during the final battle when instead of using the skill that I trained, my character abruptly used some kind of acid attack that I didn’t realize that I had the ability to do. In hindsight, I think as a player I should’ve picked the tasks that specifically signaled that flying was involved, rather than just assuming that I would use the flying skill in the situation I chose.
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Okay, I feel like this set of commentary gives the impression that I didn’t enjoy the game, so I just want to reaffirm that I did have fun and the long and short of it is that I just want things to be developed/fleshed out further. I would definitely want to play more games (or next chapters) in this game universe.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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This was the first game that I played that had a customizable player character, which I think is a great device. I appreciated how the game handles it which I discussed above. Something I want to highlight is how important it is to include periodic reminders that are specific to the background you chose as a reminder of your customization and to create the illusion that your personalization matters. I thought this game did a good job doing that, I took note of it hoping that if I ever want to write something with multiple character backgrounds/choices, I want to pepper in contextual details like that to improve the specificity of character and improve the feeling that the reader/player’s choices matter.
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One of the most important lessons I think this game has to teach is about the economy of choice. In any given playthrough, by the game’s design, the player is missing a significant percentage of the possible encounters/content. This is a tough tradeoff; on one hand, this game is very replayable and encourages you to try different routes to get the full picture of the world. On the other hand, I am evaluating based on the specific playthrough I got resulting from my choices. In my case, the narrative doesn’t quite cohere and I feel like I was missing out. My question is, how do you balance replayability/choices mattering with the desire for the player to have a satisfying experience even if they only play once? That’s a question that I grappled with in developing my Single Choice Jam game, so it’s been on my mind. I don’t think I would have a fully satisfying experience here unless I play this game at least one more time.
Quote:
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“The troll grabs Jimmy, carrying him under one arm like a very surprised suitcase.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- The moment when Lucas jumps off the highway overpass trying to land in the snow, and sprouts glittery fairy wings to survive. It was (literally) a magical moment and got me so excited for what was going to happen next.