Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
The Cabin by the Valley - a short, relaxing exploration game
Hello, Twine forums! I started learning about Twine last week, and just finished a very short environment-game, which clocks in at about 2,300 words. It's far from complex and I'm a little unsure how good my writing is, but I'm still quite proud of it. Have a look if you've got a minute, and let me know what you think!
The Cabin by the Valley
The Cabin by the Valley
Comments
Your writing style is rich and descriptive-- it's a pleasure to read, and it works well for a game about exploring an environment like this. My only real advice is: if you ever decide to make this (or something similar to it) into a longer game, I'd recommend separating the text of some of your longer passages into a greater number of smaller passages. The amount of text that you can get the player to engage with before their eyes start skating over it will, of course, vary from person to person, but on the whole, smaller blocks of text are easier to digest and produce a more focused, lens-like effect that reduces the overwhelming feeling of being hit with a long page of detailed description.
Another technique you could try out if you're interested in expanding on things is changing the descriptions of re-visited places. By incrementing a variable every time you visit a particular passage, or by using the (random:) macro to vary descriptions randomly, you can alter some or all of your passage text to make areas seem more alive by presenting changes in or new insights on the environment. I'd be happy to provide examples of the code for either of these if you're interested and it would be helpful.
Great story!