Tabitha's 2025 Spring Thing Notes

Competitions Spring Thing
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My plan was to keep these fairly brief and informal, buuuut then I wrote 400 words for the first one. We’ll see what happens with the rest!

A Brand New World by Raiden (from the As I Sat on a Sunny Bank anthology)

This is a fun story that starts with a relaxing walk on the beach but (possibly) goes somewhere very different! The opening descriptions drew me in, capturing the feeling of unwinding from your stress in nature: “It’s moments such as these that remind you that you are alive, that you can breathe and simply… be.” The descriptions are detailed and vivid, with some nice phrases like “the horizon painted in a hot pink colour as the last bits of sunlight embrace it.”

The main storyline is about visiting a fantasy world, but you can choose not to go, and in that case you get a completely unrelated story about encountering a lost child (with two possible endings). I think the game would be stronger if it eliminated that second possible storyline and focused on developing the fantasy world further and giving the player more choices about how to explore/interact with it (which I’ll elaborate on in the next two paragraphs!).

Remy was a good NPC; we get a strong sense of their personality, and I liked seeing their interactions with Mikhail. But I wanted to have more choices for how I interacted with them. For instance, at this part: “Should you say something? Should you keep quiet? Should you question why the dragon took to the skies the moment they showed up?”, I would have liked these to all be options I could pick from. I wanted to feel like I was shaping my relationship with Remy through my choices, instead of the game simply telling me how I responded to them.

I liked the choice of whether to approach the dragon or not—the text clearly signaled that doing so would be risky, and if you choose to do it anyway, you face the natural consequences! But the final choice of whether to stay or go was weaker; similar to entering the hole or not at the beginning, it felt like a “Do something interesting” or “Don’t do it” choice. I think it’s generally more fun when both choices are interesting; for example, at the end you could pick which trinket you want to buy, or which part of the market you want to explore before you have to leave.

Anyway, I had fun with this and I look forward to more IF by this author!

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Fragments of the Nile by Storyteller (from the As I Sat on a Sunny Bank anthology)

This story has a fun historical-investigation plotline and a twist! I especially liked the scene where I entered the memory. And this was a funny reference by one ending to another: “At least you died pain-free, unlike some poor guy who might have been cursed in a parallel reality.”

Some of the choices were “Do the interesting thing”/“Don’t do it” like I talked about above. I liked that at the beginning, even if you choose to stay home you can still get a full storyline related to the Egypt mystery, and I think it would be nice if the choices reflected this. Instead of simply go/don’t go, the choices could be “Travel to Egypt” and “Offer to help out with research from home.” That way, the player knows they’ll get an interesting story no matter which one they pick.

A few other small things!

  • I was confused when I exploded like a tomato but wasn’t dead! Maybe the game could tell me I died, but give me the chance to go back and try again? Or make it clear that the explosion wasn’t life-threatening.
  • I noticed only one ending has a link to go back to the beginning, but it would be nice if all of them did.
  • There are a lot of small spelling errors (a frequent one is “trough” instead of “through”), so I’d suggest running the text through a spellchecker, or having someone proofread it.
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Power Turtle by 3N (from the As I Sat on a Sunny Bank anthology)

This game is very cute; I enjoyed playing through multiple times and exploring all the different outcomes for my new turtle friend.

I liked that the opening choices were not “investigate the interesting thing”/“ignore it”! But, when I replayed, I found that both choices just lead to the same result, finding the turtle. Because of this, I don’t think a choice is needed here; you could just give a “Look in the water” link, and then let the choices start once the turtle has been found.

It was fun how many different paths there were in this story. “The fish and the turtle became besties” was one of my favorites; that line made me smile. There were some paths where storylines I was interested in didn’t get resolved; in one, the turtle grows bigger than me, but after that happens it isn’t mentioned again. In another, the turtle refuses to eat, and I never got a chance to solve that. So my advice here would be to keep exploring those story threads once they’re introduced. When the turtle gets big, maybe I can ride it, or I need to find a medicine that’ll make it small again.

Overall, a cute story with many different endings to find!

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Those voices are getting louder, captain by Mushroom (from the As I Sat on a Sunny Bank anthology)

This is a very funny and clever work; I replayed a bunch to see all the different possibilities, and every one was delightful. I loved the voice of the narrator talking to me, giving commentary and advising on what I should or shouldn’t do. And when I discovered the in-story reason for it, it was even better! Some examples:

Ask him if he´s okay
Simply ignore him. (I mean…this guy is always nervous, why would you bother him and yourself by asking stupid questions.)

This is the first choice in the game, and it’s kind of the “do the interesting thing”/“don’t do it” sort of choice—but it works here because we have that outside voice pushing us to pick the “don’t do it” option. To me, this makes both options equally intriguing. I want to find out what’s up with this guy, but I’m also curious what will happen if I listen to this mysterious voice.

(You´d better comfort him, I´m not giving you other options.)

I loved this moment, where the voice takes away my agency because this poor guy just needs comfort so badly.

(Don´t. You. Dare.)

Another great moment, where the voice does give me two options, but it really doesn’t want me to pick one of them! (Of course, this meant I had to pick it…)

One tiny note that should be an easy fix—when I start up the game, it goes straight to the story instead of the opening menu screen like the others in the anthology (but the opening menu screen does exist; the “Play Again” button takes you there).

Finally, two more very funny quotes that I copied into my notes:

´´Crow, Crow! Captain is a #### !´´the parrot says. You don´t argue. The captain truly is a #### . You´re just about to teach the parrot a new curse word when the captain walks in.

“AND STOP MAKING OUT!!!´´
Captain yells with his nerves on edge. (He hates when sailors are not doing their job, he hates not yelling at sailors and he hates love…

Basically… go play this game.

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Big thank you for feedback Tabitha :smile:

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Thanks for the feedback :grinning_face:

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