38 | KING OF XANADU
38 | KING OF XANADU
by: MACHINES UNDERNEATH
Progress:
- I reached the end of the game in 15 minutes, and spent another 15 minutes exploring alternate branches to get a sense of the text that I missed. So in total, I played for around 30 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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The most engaging thing this piece did for me was create a gap between the stated/informed agency of the king, and the non-agency of the player. The king is, in-universe, a despot whose word is law. You can, for instance, order the entire army to fight itself, and it will do that. But, as a player, you will always be unable to stop the rot that starts in the grain and eventually consumes the entire kingdom. By the end, it is the (to the King) nameless and faceless hordes of peasants who have the agency to develop a new religion worshipping the rot, and ultimately, to leave the kingdom. This narrative is built entirely on this relationship between the power of the king and the powerlessness of the player.
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As a player I feel like my inclination is to search for the choices that will make for the best outcomes, but the game essentially seems to be saying, no good could come of this form of authority: despite the aeons of perfection leading up to it, the rot is an inevitable consequence of the king’s unchecked and arbitrary authority. I liked that even choices that sounded potentially good were revealed to be bad. For instance, when faced with the army, I thought doing nothing would be the most harmless option, but the result was them standing out in the heat motionless all day and suffering as a result. No choice made under this system of governance could be ethical, and the narrative somewhat playfully skewers the reader/player for having any attachment to the belief that it might work out.
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Where this text landed for me the most was in the dark humor that it provides. Depending on how far you lean in to roleplaying as a completely delusional despot, you can make truly surreal and out-of-touch choices that would be horrible if they actually happened, but are grimly funny within the refuge offered by fiction. Like sure, why not let a diseased dog take over a title of nobility for a few days while the nation-state crumbles? I enjoyed when the narrator showed this prickly sense of voice, it made the text feel vibrant.
Feedback/Recommendations/Questions:
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Because this game is so short, and the branches don’t branch that much, the semi-frequent typos were a bit distracting. I tend not to comment on typos too much since it’s not really a very interesting thing to talk about, but because this piece is so focused and (at least relative to the hours-long behemoths that are also in this competition) small in scope, I think another clean-up editing pass would benefit it significantly. I guess this is the thread you come to for incredible bespoke writing advice like “do more editing.”
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As I said further above, I connected the most with the dark humor of the piece. By contrast, I dissociated from the text when the moon-lady showed up, and the more dream-like sequences. I very much felt like, the text is perhaps a bit too transparently Doing Symbolism now, and for some reason, probably owing to the mood I was in at the time I read it, I felt emotionally removed, rather than involved, with what was happening. This is also around the point in the text where the illusion of choice has fully dissipated, and you are just clicking through to accept the fate the piece has for the king.
What I learned about IF writing/game design:
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Here was a good example of using the power of choice to make a point. Because of the interactivity of the piece, the natural feeling to start off reading/playing is to think your choices matter. And at some point, perhaps as early as the harvest, or as late as the very end, as a player you are invited to come to terms with the fact that your choices do not matter despite the power that the in-universe character wields. It’s just another case study of how the interactive aspect of a piece can be wielded creatively by the author to serve a particular narrative experience.
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I noticed a great example of an interactivity setup vs. punchline. Earlier on, you can listen to up to three advisors on the grain situation, clicking each one and getting told a snippet of information. You then deliberate, and make a choice. Later on, when the situation is more desperate, you are presented with a long list of choices. I confidently clicked on one expecting the same process of deliberation: that I would see a description of what that option entailed, perused at my leisure, and then make an informed decision. But the punchline: clicking any of those words doesn’t matter and advances you to the next screen. The narrative taught me that a long list of options worked a certain way, and then surprised me by “changing the rules” in a way that illustrated how the crisis had intensified. Perhaps this setup/punchline of taught interactivity could be applied to all sorts of IF writing/narrative situations!
Quote:
- “Parts of it flake off onto your fingers, leaving behind a sticky residue. Very bold of the earth, to excrete this stuff, and in Xanadu, no less.”
Lasting Memorable Moment:
- At the point that the famine is finally reaching the palace, you have the option to try and feed as many hungry people as you can, or “Hold a feast, in commiseration of their suffering.” Up until this point, I had been trying to make good choices (or at least, to pick the choices that seemed the least bad). But this was so darkly humorous that I decided, you know what, eff this, let’s finish this shit out “Masque of the Red Death” style.