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'Snow' beta
Hello all!
This is my very first Twine game, and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to give me some comments/critiques: http://philome.la/WordSplicer/snow/play
Hopefully it isn't too broken, and the writing doesn't drag too much. Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear what advice you have to make this game better!
Thanks so much!
Peace!
This is my very first Twine game, and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to give me some comments/critiques: http://philome.la/WordSplicer/snow/play
Hopefully it isn't too broken, and the writing doesn't drag too much. Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear what advice you have to make this game better!
Thanks so much!
Peace!
Comments
It takes many hours of nervous conversation, but the police to come, eventually. The whole of your hallway stands to greet them, like they're royalty. Well, not royalty exactly- authority. Saving authority.
<<if>> bad condition: missing ) after argument list
credits
You encountered the murderer 0 times during this playthrough.
You survived the night. Congratulations!
You did not uncover the murderer's identity.
You did not find out why the murderer was tracking you. <-not actually correct, unless my character's theory was wrong?
More feedback once I actually solve it! ^_^
Remaining phone charge: 3
Remaining glowsticks: 4
"Holy shit, Dr. Flynn, I think I know who did this," you say. Dr. Flynn blinks at you, his cell phone pressed against his head.
"Sorry," you say, but you look down at your paper and continue anyway, "This guy. Brian Carroll. He used to work here, but they fired him for stalking a student or something like that. They brought him back in though, for the storm, because they were so short-staffed. He probably lives within, like, sledding distance of the school."
Dr. Flynn blinks at you again, "That's uh...kind of circumstancial."
"No, it makes a lot of sense. I bet Nikki -my RA- was the girl he was hung up on."You continue, "I bet he lured the PS guys on patrol back here one by one using the comm system, and took them out.Hell, there's no water by this guy," you say, pointing at the dead man on the floor, "If someone had come in from outside and killed him, there would be melted snow, right? But Brian was just cooling his heels at the desk, according to this," you say, brandising your schedule."Between getting fired and getting rejected, I bet he just snapped or whatever. Decided to go on a rampage."
"If it were just Nikki, I agree. But I mean..." Dr. Flynn says, trailing off as he glances down at the corpse before snapping his gaze back at you, "All these people, you know?"
"I think...I think he wanted to really, really get back at the school," you say, slowly. "Look, this is a lot of speculation but...I know he set it up so it looked like the girls across the hall from Nikki just left their door open- if they had actually done that, anyone could have gotten them, right? Not just a PS officer with keys, or the authority to compel them to open their door." Dr. Flynn looks skeptical, but you feel like you're on a roll.
"And I'm the only one who knew that. He saw me try their door -he was right there- and realized that I'd be able to testify that they were safe or something. So he came after me. I bet he was trying to set it up to look like someone came in from off-campus and did this, to really piss on the school's reputation. Hell, if he was nuts enough, he might even kill himself to seal the deal. Or maybe he was just going to make sure there were no records of him being called in, and then he could just leave. Either way, I bet he was trying to get revenge on Nikki for not liking him and the school for firing him."
As you stand there, letting your accusation fill the quiet office, you start to sweat a little. Not that you don't think your conclusion isn't spot on, but becuase you're worried your monologue was entirely unconvincing.
"Actually," Dr. Flynn says slowly, "That sounds...like a pretty solid conclusion. Good job." He looks down at the body. You look at it, too. The blood is congealing into these little, slimy islands. Any elation you felt from solving the mystery is blown out of you.
"I guess...we should wait here for the police. At least there's light here, you know?" Dr. Flynn says, "Maybe we can drag some chairs in, or something. This is all...I just can't believe this, you know?"
"Yeah. You say," and suddenly, you feel more tired than you've ever felt before.
snowmelt
"I guess that makes sense," Dr. Flynn says slowly, "But didn't you say the killer was uh...following you?"
"He definately was. I almost died, like, eight times," you say.
Dr. Flynn looks a little uncomfortable. He says "Yeah," but with absolutely 0 percent conviction.
"I'm not joking. Someone has been creeping on me all night. I'm pretty sure it's the guy who did this. Brian," you say, pointing at the corpse in front of you.
"Listen, Carly, I'm just thinking that maybe seeing your RA dead might have put you on edge. Maybe Brian is our guy, but he wouldn't have a reason to follow you."
You must have looked like you were about to argue about it, because Dr. Flynn quickly continues, "It's no good speculating anyway. We should just wait here. The police said they'd meet us here when the storm lets up a little."
can't find matching endif"Uh, no?" you say. "If there's some psycho PS guy on the loose, I want tell me friends. I mean, he could literally unlock their doors and kill them in their sleep. Or I mean, even knock on their door and say, 'Public Safety, open up!' and I bet they would." You offer the note to Dr. Flynn, "Would you mind hanging on to this and giving it to the police when they get here? I don't want to risk it getting wet or whatever."
Dr. Flynn gives you a wide-eyed look, like you just announced with the deepest sincerity that you were the queen of England. Then his face softens and he gives you a bit of a half smile, and you are immediately reminded of why you have a crush on him. "Well, I guess I'll come with you. Maybe Brian will be less inclined to tangle with two people, right?"
"Uh...thanks..." you say, taken aback by the gesture. He probably just wants to avoid the bad press he'd get if you were murdered on the way back to your dorm, but you'd like to think he actually cares about you.
"Let's go then," he says, hurriedly walking past the dead public safety officer.
visit your dorm
"Fine," you say, sighing. You wish he would believe you, but what can you do? The evidence will prove you were right, anyway. Probably.
Looks like there are some more bugs here. I hadn't actually found out about the other two girls being killed, and the broken conditional clearly gave me two different outcomes at once.
Setting that aside, I think it's a fun scenario, and a good length for the multiple playthroughs required to solve it. You just need to do some debugging -- and some spell-checking, I count three errors on this page. But yeah, well done! ^_^
Bawpite - Thanks! Good point about waiting it out with friends...that's actually a late-game option. I didn't include it up front because I thought the character would initially feel frightened but not personally threatened, but that may be a misstep. Perhaps I'll include it in the future.
http://www.philome.la/WordSplicer/snow
I'd like to submit it to the IFDatabase at some point, but I want to make sure it is 100% in terms of the writing and the code, plus I'm really not sure how to rate it on the Zarfian forgiveness scale. I'm thinking 'Tough' but I'm not 100% sure...
Thanks again for all your help and feedback!
Should be:
Your friends are probably awake, the freaks.
Got killed again, very quickly this time. I'm a coward at heart, so when I couldn't wait with my friend, I waited alone. Ooops. Thanks for the mention in the credits!