Suicide available for download off IFDB.
You play a teen girl who is convinced she needs to end her own life. You get to either help her succeed (or fail) at this, or perhaps find some kind of alternative to suicide. 29 different endings depending on your actions. One-room.
Any feedback is definately welcome, I only want to get better.
[spoiler]I thought the diary was quite well done. It’s an interesting solution to the problem of passing information between the player character and the player. It wasn’t really a puzzle in the traditional sense, but it rewarded players for acting in character with some choice nuggets of exposition.
On the one hand, I found it entertaining enough that I played through a good number of the endings. On the other hand, the sheer range of permissible actions served to undercut the sense of dogged determination in the protagonist. I was able to flush virtually all of the suicide implements down the toilet, without any resistance or objection. I would have liked to see some response to player actions that were clearly at cross purposes to her own, either in the form of refusal or grudging acceptance that the suicide was a poor idea.
Really it felt too much like a game in that way, and although it works as a game, it becomes more of a puppet show than a character study. I liked it, but I thought you could have handled your main character with more respect.[/spoiler]
Thanks for the feedback.
Ah the differing opinions. The first version was more like you suggest, and the beta testers pushed heavily for extra actions to be added that were “irrelevant”.
It’s a little tough as the writer on making that balance between replay and just crazyness.
Well, it admittedly works as a simulator where you murder a teenage girl, or manipulate her into quasi-comic failed attempts. In that it’s not dissimilar to the low-budget, slasher horror movies of the 80s, which were both highly sexist and immensely popular for a time.
The fast pace of the game and the high replay value contributed to this effect. I only felt in character the first few times, after which it was very much a game about killing someone else and getting points for accuracy, humor, or novelty. This runs counter to what I perceived as your intent in the ABOUT text, where you relate various suicide statistics and share a hotline number.
I assume you sincerely believe that teen suicide is a serious issue and the numerous failed endings that I encountered first did evoke a sense of tragedy and hopelessness. It’s not a game I wanted to win but I didn’t want to lose the way I did. You definitely hit the mark there. Yet it felt like you shied away from offering more satisfying ways to negate the character’s goal and end on a hopeful note. It could have been about helping her find some small reason to go on, and in fact one of the endings did offer a plausible and personal solution. (The one with the object I liked so well.) But that has a fair chance of getting lost in the shuffle.
I would contrast it with a work like Galatea where the endings are more or less satisfying based on whether the player accepts her as a woman rather than an object. Emily has said that she specifically did not allow for outcomes where the player regards her as a woman but treats her as an object, for example by attempting sexual violence. That strikes me as the more humane and artistic choice.
My only question is … after I drink all the vodka, where does the bottle go?
Perhaps I have a darker sense of humor than most, but I have a hard time taking a game about suicide too seriously when I can bash myself in the head repeatedly with a hammer.
I also thought the following would work:
I tried filling the tub, getting in, and slitting my wrists. assuming I would slide under the water. Guess not.
Good notes.
Definately the evolution of the game threw me off as I was writing. As stated in the ABOUT, it was going to start as kind of a joke game, with the losing ending saying “YOU HAVE SURVIVED”, and there was going to be only 1 way to die.
Then I decided that the “real” ending was the one you mentioned, with a few special “wins” concerning the ecstasy, or some of the other stress relievers
I tried to make the deaths (and survivals) appear painful and crippling, and some of the deaths are intended to show the parents’ emotions afterwards to make suicide seem like a non-viable option in reality.
Of course, the primary goal is to die, assuming that you as the PC don’t try to override that, and I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t put those options in there also.
A tight line to walk- that’s for sure.