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silver & gold - a story in two voices
Hi all!
I made this for my little challenge back in January, but I've been meaning to do a round of revisions, perhaps a tiny smidge of expansion, before I post it more widely. I haven't revised yet, so while I re-read it to jog my memory I'm posting it here as well.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you might have -- any confusion, intrigue, frustration, etc. And typos, always typos.
silver and gold
I made this for my little challenge back in January, but I've been meaning to do a round of revisions, perhaps a tiny smidge of expansion, before I post it more widely. I haven't revised yet, so while I re-read it to jog my memory I'm posting it here as well.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you might have -- any confusion, intrigue, frustration, etc. And typos, always typos.
silver and gold
Comments
In general, I quite enjoyed it! It was short, but made for a challenge, so I understand that. I particularly like the terse and visually-emphatic world-building --- very Porpentine-esque. The design of the Twine itself is very slick and the colours chosen well. I like that the hovered links change into the colour of their opposite narrator's links. However, I think the narrators themselves could use a little more differentiation, though. To my ears, it could be the same person narrating both panels; it would be nice for them to have more unique voices, especially given their difference in age and gender.
I played through twice and reached two endings (if there are more, I don't know) and I thought the.... how to put it.... the links that controlled both panels were handled well. The endings themselves were written well, but I wish there had been a bit more of a dramatic flair in the presentation of them. For example, the first ending I reached has:
[quote]The old one never cowers, but lunges on its leash.
You. So utterly changed. Even your voiceyou are become something else, a stranger glowing at your side.
My hands lose the leash, and I flee for my life.
[quote]The streets are abandoned but for us.
"Good evening, Sir," I say. The beast strains, and Sir looks paler than ever, before he runs.
Its teeth may be many, claws sharp, but it is starving and weak
And alone.
on the left and right panels respectively. If I read the right one first, it spoils the final line/punch of the left one; if I read the left one first, I get confused having to backtrack in time and have the man still present (so she can speak to them) and then absent. I think it might do better to present their meeting without his fleeing, and then have a last link that controls both panels to bring the reader to a very short, dramatic screen of the last sentence of the story (on each panel).
This is so hard to explain over the computer xD Basically, the last one might read "My hands lose the leash, and I flee for my life. || The beast's teeth may be many, claws sharp, but it is starving and weak And alone." You can read those almost simultaneously, so that the final dramatic action occurs...together, so to speak. I just like snappy endings, I think. ;D
Agh, very good point. I mean, even with the panels appearing at the same time, the left one would naturally be read first, since it's in English and is a l-to-r language. I'm definitely going to think more about the endings and work on the presentation order.
on ifdb
Definitely seconding litrourke's thoughts on the "richness" of the setting.
If you're looking for any kind of presentation critique, it looks great, and I like your addition of the art, though I will say that my 1200 by 1600px monitor does show the bottoms of the left and right columns. (Yes, 1600 vertical pixels, not horizontal. I am a gigantic weirdo, and my computer reflects that.)
From a gameplay perspective, I wasn't totally sure how best to balance the two sides, but a second playthrough made it make a lot more sense. Just my unfamiliarity with the medium? I dunno. Either way, I got the swing of things, and I think you did a good job with it!
But also: thanks for pointing out the forum thread where you got that trick. It is exactly what I needed to solve my newbie problem in the Twine 2.0 forum the other day!
If you're curious about general inspiration, I can safely say there's nothing spoilery there. The inspiration is my brain, and whatever has accumulated there over the years.
Ooh, that's an interesting quirk with a vertical set-up. I might poke around and see if I can fix that later.
This forum has now been around long enough that there is a lot of treasure hidden away in the archives! Even for 2.0, which is a lot newer. I'm glad I could point you to a helpful post!