I enjoyed playing this game. It is stylish and classical in a good way. Reminded me gamebooks by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.
As for the cons intro could be shorter or more interactive. And main quest could be more epic to my taste.
Liked much an insidious crocodile. It managed to fool me numerous times.
Your comparison is quite correct : much of my inspiration came from the gamebooks of the 80s, such as the Fighting Fantasy series created by Jackson and Livingstone (though I didn’t keep the dice rolls and the statistics). I did play a few Choose Your Own Adventure books as well, but not that many.
Everyone who’s commented on my entry has criticized the length of the introduction, and now that I’ve tried most of the other entries, I understand why. By comparison, the first page of “Within a Circle” really does look like a wall of text.
There are a few entries that also have long introductions, but the authors split them into smaller pieces. I guess I could have done that : it would have made the introduction look less daunting, and shown the interactive nature of the story more quickly.
Well, too late for that now. I can only hope that most readers won’t give up immediately after taking a look at the first page.
It’s true that the story is hardly epic : what may happen only really matters for the heroine and her opponent, and even if the heroine succeeds, she’s still far from reaching her real goal.
The modesty of the scenario is quite intentional. I can fully appreciate a story/game where the main character performs grand deeds that will have an impact on many other people, but I thought it would be refreshing to write something much less epic. For the same reason, the adventure is but a small part of the heroine’s story : it’s neither the beginning nor (hopefully) the end.
Anyway, thank you very much for your comments !