You won't last 3 minutes playing this game (yeah really đź—ż)

Playing Project Announcements
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Hello friends

I’ve released my first game on Itch, and feedback from friends has been mixed. Some say it’s very hard, others love it.

GAME LINK: https://undergroundman.itch.io/fickle-solitude

I’m unsure if I should keep working on this project or not. This isn’t just a braindump of random ideas; I’ve put a lot into its world-building—details I haven’t even shown in the game yet. Crafting lore and a cohesive world takes a lot of time, so if people aren’t interested, maybe it’s better to focus on making something more useful or entertaining.

The language at the start was meant to be eloquent and verbose on purpose, but in hindsight, it really impedes the game’s marketability. I’m considering reworking the beginning to create a better hook that draws players in right from the first few paragraphs. At the end of the day, I want to make things that someone would actually use.

Would you guys be kind enough to give it a spin and let me know what you think.

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I think this project is worth continuing, and you’re already on the right track to improving it.

The story needs momentum to motivate the player to keep reading. I would say it currently takes too much reading before the player is able to answer the questions “What am I trying to accomplish here?” and “Why do I care what’s happening with this person?” In fact, I finished the game and I would still struggle to answer either of those questions.

The tone of the writing gave me whiplash at times. Sometimes it’s somber and contemplative, other times it’s goofy and eccentric (“dodo on rollerblades”), other times it’s cynical and kind of misanthropic (the gender selection), and other times it’s just memes. The different moods don’t segue smoothly into each other and the overall effect is that the story feels disjointed and hard to take seriously.

The word-to-meaning ratio is very high. There’s a whole lot that is said but does not do much to advance the action or tell the reader something interesting about the world/its characters.

All of these problems are eminently fixable.

As you say, adding a strong, early hook will draw players in - they need to have a sense of purpose for participating in the story.

As for the mood, I would recommend clarifying to yourself exactly what you want to the story to feel like, and changing anything that doesn’t fit that feeling. Compare the style of the first paragraph with the “omae wa shindeiru” later on - they belong in two totally different worlds.

Don’t be afraid of cutting out pieces of text that don’t serve a clear purpose. Read through the story and keep asking yourself, “What value does this part add?” If you can’t answer that question, change it or delete it. The quality, purpose, and readability of your writing are more important than the number of words you provide us with.

The cover art is gorgeous and the first paragraph pairs well with it to evoke a clear sense of mood and place. That’s a good start; I think your goal should be to follow it up by deploying the hook and building on that initial mood.

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Thank you for the feedback. It’s incredibly insightful and helpful!!

My intent was to subtly portray the protagonist’s descent into a absurd and chaotic mental state as they navigate an unfamiliar and unpredictable environment (there’s actually a lore-driven reason for this - what seems like an ordinary forest is anything but). By the end of the forest sequence, I wanted players to notice a shift in the protagonist’s personality, which other characters who knew them before this saga would also comment on. The protagonist’s once clear and structured thinking becomes muddled, with their thoughts spiraling into strange tangents which don’t even end on any conclusions at most times. I was inspired by Dostoyevsky’s nuanced, unconventional style to bring this about, but I can see now it may have affected the pacing and tone.

The protagonist starts as an average, by-the-book type, but in this strange setting, they gradually stop taking themselves seriously. While I didn’t consciously set out to convey a misanthropic or overly cynical tone, I recognize that some unintended biases may have seeped into the writing. Perhaps this reflects a facet of my own inner conflict, which might be worth examining further to ensure the tone aligns with the story’s vision.

Thank you again for these invaluable tips. I plan to:

  • Trim unnecessary words to streamline the story and improve readability.
  • Add a compelling hook early on to draw players in right from the start, and sprinkle a few more throughout to maintain engagement.

I’m thinking perhaps I should pick a constant tone and stick with it instead of going the chaotic route like I initially intended. What I wanted was to differentiate my work from the run of the mill cyoa novels that I read as a teen on “choice of games”, “hosted games”, etc. They all followed a very similar formula i.e. the hero’s journey with some dating sim features. As a reader it felt more manufactured than what would be expected of works of artistic expression. But then again, the reason they use it is because it works and helps them pay their bills. Many readers return to those “manufactured” stories because they provide a familiar structure.

On one hand I don’t want to totally surrender how I write to the whims of my readers (artistic rebellion?) but on the other hand I have this phobia of expending wasted effort as well as writing things that feel disingenuous to me.

I do think that this is just pure incompetence on my part as a writer because I failed to create an easy to understand and cohesive narrative. I will git gud.

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Now that you explain this, I can totally see what you were going for, but it didn’t come across clearly when I played the game. The concept here is fundamentally a compelling one, and the idea of having the protagonist’s mental state be reflected in the tone of the narration is neat. I just think the game in its current state goes too far with it. I’d say the narration needs to provide enough of a sense of stability/consistency that the player is always at least sure that it is the protagonist, not the author, who is starting to take things less seriously.

Familiarity is often valuable to people, but I think there’s a lot more behind the popularity of those kinds of games. The common formula works because it meets people’s desires for stories that convey momentum (“What is the goal or impetus that pushes the action forward, giving the characters an interesting motivation that the player can invest in?”) and tension (“What is the conflict or question that will be decided, giving the player a reason to care how the story unfolds?”).

Executing a classic hero’s journey formula successfully requires an author to have skill, discipline, and a critical eye. Executing an enjoyable game while pointedly eschewing that formula requires all of those same qualities, plus a solid plan for how to meet the reader’s needs within whatever alternative structure emerges.

In other words, my advice is: don’t just ask yourself, “How am I going to make something fresh and different?” Instead, say yourself, “I am making a fresh and different thing, now what do I have to do to make sure it wows 'em?”

A wise person once said: practice makes perfect.

Good luck, and I’ll be watching this thread for updates!

Edited to add: if you submit anything to one of the larger annual IF competitions that get discussed on this forum (IFComp or Spring Thing), people will write small essays about why they did or didn’t like it. This is an invaluable resource.

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