Nothing really beats cosmic horror in a world where all of humanity has normalized the fact that at any given moment incomprehensible angelic beings of light will arrive on Earth and eradicate if you so much as ignite a single light at night.
I like how illustrate how...boring it is for the main cast to live in such a world. Instead of living in a constant state of fear and paranoia, humanity seems to have tragically adapted to brushing off their increasing list of global atrocities until even the knowledge of eldritch beings wanting to eradicate them is just another bit of white noise in the background.

The though, was icing on the cake. With the knowledge that this isn't the first time a corporation responsible for the protection of human-kind has- to put it bluntly- fucked up, it implies to the player that perhaps the real threat is among themselves.
Great job!

-Christine

Hey Beck!

You have a memorable writing voice which provided a vivid image of this nihilistic dystopia. While the white text on black background is common in twine games, it felt like a purposeful choice here and really highlighted the themes of your game. Your intentional approach was very poignant, especially with the clickable words, which nicely broke up story beats by appearing in the beginning, middle, or ends of sentences (especially the ‘RESIST’ part!). Sometimes I felt that the larger text blocks could have been split up a bit—I occasionally had to scroll up and down to reach certain parts of the story which interrupted my immersion in the game.

Additionally, the MC’s dynamic with Mana was enjoyable to read- they were a fun pair to follow and their dynamic alone brought forth a lot of interesting, passive details about this weird world. Fantastic job!

-Jude

hi beck!

I liked the Easter egg you hid in there — it got me to smile (especially the bonus "Please stop.") This is a really interesting evolution from your last prototype; in some ways, I found your last prototype more engaging in terms of prose, but I think this piece centers well around the "RESIST" moment. Your world-building is still really strong, and I'm interested in the new stronger focus on the Opalescence. I think there's maybe an opportunity to make the concept more engaging for the player by giving them choices in which they can decide what exactly the Opalescence is and what it means for the world. Great work!

-jess

The worldbuilding and writing of the characters felt really strong! I got a clear sense of the world and the threat. The beginning did feel like it was a little heavy on exposition, but since it turns out it was the character's thoughts, it was a strong set up for the rest of the story. 

I agree with both June and Kaz in that the Resist part felt like it was setting me up for something big to happen. The negative agency of that choice felt like it showed how just how strong this being - the Opalescence? - is, and it's sinister potential. Overall, really well done!

Crazy cool story! I loved the atmosphere all the way through. I also really appreciate the quality of the writing in general. In general you have a tendency to over-write things, but this story feels very clear and relatively concise! The writing was engaging and interesting, and never got so complex that I couldn't understand what was happening. My one critique is about the ending: it felt a little anticlimactic. You set up a really cool central conflict, and then introduce even more conflicts right at the end, only to leave them hanging there. I think the story would have benefited from tying up some of those loose ends (or not introducing them at all). But overall, great game!!

You've built a really nice atmosphere with this one! It feels kinda like a black mirror episode, which is really interesting. I can pretty vividly picture the setting of this story, which is always difficult with a twine. Good job on that front. I will say that sometimes, it is a little weird that the links that just progress the text forward are at the beginning of a paragraph, because when I see a link, I want to press it, but I also want to know what's going on, so I end up reading the paragraph and then going back up to advance the text. It's a super minor detail, though, and it doesn't detract from the experience at all. I really like the overall plot arch, and I'm glad it has an open-ended ending. You do a really good job of simulating a day in the life in this much more vast world, kinda like the movie Dredd. Overall, it's a really interesting direction to go and I'm glad I was along for the ride! P.S. I found you out.

I really liked the changes made to this game to make it more compact. The part at the beginning explaining the world clicked with me well, and i understood the rest of the game in a snap. i actually didnt even ask for more explanation, i just "got it" right away. having Mana as a foil/interactive person to talk to was also nice as well, so that it didnt feel lonely. 

i echo kaz-there isnt a way to fail, but the resist part shows promises of somethign cool going to happen. i was actually expecting a button mashing minigame to start up at that moment! still really cool, and the ending hyped me up for even more. 

wonderful!! i hope what happens in this project influences more of your own world going forward.

The thing I enjoyed most about this game was the writing and worldbuilding. I think that these were really well done. One of the biggest risks and challenges with trying to introduce an entire world in a limited space like a twine game with a set due date, is explaining how things work without the heavy, overwhelming feeling of an exposition dump. I think that this game accomplished it pretty well. I didn't feel lost while playing through the game at all, and I enjoyed Mana's quirkier less serious character.

I didn't get a feeling that it is easy to have a loss state in this game. It felt pretty linear when I was playing through it (though I could be wrong about this since I only played it once). Especially during the RESIST part, I felt like there was just no way I could have failed that at all, and there was a little bit of a disconnect there between what the character was going through and what the player is going through. Maybe giving more choices during this part, despite them all leading to a success (which is likely imperative to making the story progress), could have given more of a feeling of the player struggling alongside the character? 

Other than that, this has really strong writing and sense of plot. I enjoyed playing it a lot! The writing definitely added a lot to the emotions and characterization which made the water-sucking lights genuinely creepy. (Also, I caught your lil author's note Easter egg)