Seeking Beta Testers for first choice-based game “Purpose” (Twine)

Hello there, my name is Christopher (a.k.a Inferno), I’m a first-time creator looking for some feedback on my MCA choice-based Twine game named “Purpose”. I’ll ramble on for a little bit, and then post all the details for the game at the bottom of this thread. Since this game was not created for a competition, I’m assuming it is alright for me to post the link to it directly? I’m sure someone will let me know if that’s not the case haha.

Purpose has been a passion project I’ve been working on for two and a bit months, on and off. I don’t hide the fact it takes a lot of inspiration from Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead; I finished playing through the series a little while back and was still craving more, so I figured I’d try writing a story of my own in a similar theme.

As I said this is my first “game”, so I am open to any and all feedback; specifically, I would appreciate comments on the following:

  • Cloud Saving System

    • Is it too complicated?
    • Did it work properly?
  • Spelling and grammar

    • Not a strong suit of mine and the lack of spellcheck in the Twine editor did not make my life easy haha.
    • Thoughts on the way I organized speech; I’m not sure if there’s a norm, so I just wrote what felt natural to read.
      • All the writing I do these days is academic, so this is all a bit foreign haha.
  • Story length

    • Too long/short?
      • If all goes well I plan on writing more chapters of the same sort of length.
    • Too many/not enough words on the page?
  • Story itself

    • It is interesting/engaging/funny/sad/etc.
    • Are the characters round enough, or are they too flat?
    • Does it feel rushed?
      • Namely, I’m worried that things happen “too quickly”, i.e. not enough time is spent in each “area”.
  • Design

    • The font: is it too much?
      • If it is driving you mad, you can toggle it off in the settings haha.
    • Overall layout of the text; would the story be better told in a more traditional dialogue-based format?
      • I.e. each page has a single character talking.
    • Delays in showing text; is it offputting, or does it convey time passing as I intended?
    • Where to place artwork?
      • I commissioned some lovely artwork (see “Extras” from the Main Menu), but I’m not sure where to put it, and it seems a shame to waste it.

The only other thing is the load time; I’ve found sometimes when on itch.io if I click “Run Game” it will just show a grey (or black on mobile) screen for several seconds. I’m not sure if that’s something to do with me or itch.io, but if you experience it feel free to mention it.

Those are just a few things that I’m wary of, by no means am I expecting anyone to go through all of these and write a full-page review (unless you wanted to); I will happily accept any feedback, even if it’s just “I played five minutes and got bored and closed it”.

I really don’t mind where feedback is left, whether it be here on this thread, in a DM, on Discord, or in an E-Mail.

Thank you!

P.S. By default “Debug Mode” is enabled, so the passage name is displayed in the bottom right of your screen; you can use this when referencing issues with specific pages (such as typos). If you are a mobile user and it is getting in your way, you can toggle it off in the Settings.


Game Blurb from itch.io

Play as…

…a young woman struggling to survive and find purpose in a post-apocalyptic world. Her life is changed forever when she meets a little girl named…

Purpose is an episodic story about a young woman struggling with the loss of her sister in the Walker-infested post-apocalyptic world. Join her on her journey as you make decisions that influence the outcome of the story, in this choice-based text story inspired by Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead.

Features:

  • 22,500 words (Chapter 1)
  • Multiple dialog and action options
  • Cloud-Saving
  • Achievements
  • Choices influence the story
  • Mobile friendly

Made in Twine 2 with Snowman 2.

Content Warning: Mature themes including trauma, depression, suicidal ideation, swearing, and written depictions of death and gore, in a post-apocalyptic setting.


Play on itch.io

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1 Like

What does MCA stand for?

-Wade

1 Like

Sorry, I assumed this was a common acronym - Multiple Choice Adventure. Through my research, I discovered the post below which indicated MCA was the most accurate genre for the gameplay. If there is a more recognized name I’m open to changing the wording :smiley:

That’s not a thing. The author just made it up. Which may be one reason (among several) why the comments to that decade-old thread were so negative.

Ah, I see; I can’t say I read into it too deeply if I’m honest, it was just one of the first results in Google when I was researching :sweat_smile:. What would be the most suitable name in that case, just CYOA? Thanks

Edit: Yeah reading through the entire thread now I see it was… less than productive. Whoops!

Heh, no problems. I guess mostly people around here start off with either ‘parser-based’ or ‘choice-based’ to broadly categorise an IF game.

-Wade

2 Likes

Yeah, “choice-based” is the main term used these days. Exactly what input method is used, whether clicking links, selecting radio buttons, or typing numbers from a menu, is basically just cosmetic; they’re all the same thing under the hood.

The distinction the poster of that thread was drawing was (I believe) that they also had a parser-style world model, with a bunch of context-dependent options made available to the player every turn, not just a prewritten story with bespoke options at every choice. But even that is still a very different play experience from the parser-based standard of mostly (if not entirely) hidden options and the player being free to type whatever* they want each turn.

2 Likes

Much appreciated you two, I will go through and change everything that says “MCA” bit by bit. Thanks!

Edit: All done