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A jam submission

Great GatsbyView game page

Submitted by frogf — 8 hours, 34 minutes before the deadline
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Great Gatsby's itch.io page

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Comments

Hey Kaz!

Your take on frat-ifying Gatsby was very fun! Your writing really carried over the characters well into this new vision of the story. Nick’s personality as a kind of average joe student and his wonderment as an outsider to the party scene was quite relatable.

I enjoyed how you allowed the player to seek more detail by clicking on words in the text blocks, and how these extra details could shape the tone of the story. This particular moment: when Nick walks into Gatsby’s house and realizes they’re the only one with an invitation— the bewilderment that follows worked both with or without knowledge of this extra detail which was a clever way of creating small, but compelling branches in the story.

Great game so far! Super excited to see where it leads.

-Jude

hi kaz!

I really enjoyed seeing more of this, and the party setting is great to explore. You build up a good in-world mythos surrounding Gatsby, which makes the player expect a really big payoff when the two finally meet. The most intriguing part to me was the library scene — much of the party blends together (not in a bad way, just in the way that parties tend to), but the encounter in the library is distinct from the rest, so I'm interested to see where that eventually leads. Some of the side characters don't have particularly unique voices, but it's hard at this point to tell which characters are making one-time cameos and which will have major story impact. Looking forward to seeing more!

-jess

Submitted

This is great! I love how evocative the setting is. I was really intrigued by how similar the game's storyline is to the novel; as far as I can tell, a lot of the content is pretty one-for-one, yet you did a great job of reframing the narrative around your chosen genre and time period. I'll be really interested to see where the story goes from here and how it concludes. If it's anything like the novel, it'll be a huge twist, and hard to pull off -- but if you do pull it off, it'll be really incredible. Great job, I'd love to play this when it's finished!

Submitted

I adore the dialogue! Every character I interacted with felt so unique and full of life. The set up of the party, the letter, the music -- everything felt like I was truly in the world. Being able to catch glimpses of Nick's thoughts felt quite natural and gave me a nice bit of insight into who he is.

The longer I played and the deeper I got into the search for Gatsby, the more I wanted to know who he is. I think this is coming along really well, and I hope to be able to play the final version!

Submitted

I can't wait to see how it'll end!

So far I love the dialogue and how we're doing a small amount of detective work in order to get some info on the evasive Gatsby! I hope we do get to meet him, whether it's at the party or we find him while we're leaving!

Submitted

this was very fun-it felt like i was going to a little party, and it was cool to compact that kind of experience into a choice narrative game. I was so upset i couldnt see gatsby! upset in like, a good way. as in i really wanted to see more of this! 

the dialogue is very fun to read, and each character is so distinct from each other that I can imagine what they look like, even without having a description. for me, i still see tobey maguire as nick, and that will never change.

wonderful job!!

Submitted

I can definitely tell you put a lot of effort into writing. I personally think The Great Gatsby adaptation wouldn't be a easy task to do, but I think you did a great job! I really liked the What if... setting. I think more options would be nice, but I think it'd be hard to twist around. The story is already great! I liked how some tags led you to more information. Some tags, however, kind of confused me whether it'd give me more info or just proceed to the next story. Overall, I had fun reading it!

The writing for this game is simply phenomenal. Especially in the beginning- if I hadn't known that this was an adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby' I would of assumed I was experiencing the real thing. I especially loved how the highlighted words revealed the main characters inner monologue. A clever way to emphasize his thoughts at any given situation.
The college setting is extremely fitting for a story such as 'The Great Gatsby'. If there was ever an appropriate setting in modern times for a mysterious rich man to throw block busting parties while remaining unseen then it would be this.

The only criticisms I have for this game is this:
-If possible, try to differentiate the outlined words so the player knows which one contains inner monologue or takes you to the next page.

- While establishing the story taking place near college grounds was seamless, however the time period is abrupt. I initially thought the story took place around the 1960's  because Gatsby owning the 'Lord of The Rings' trilogy stood out to the main character in that massive library. Around that time I assume this is when the series was at it's peak 'must have' prestige. So to have that followed up with Game of Thrones- a series that began in the 1990's, I had to pause just a bit to realize how modern day this version of Gatsby is.
One way to solve this could be to make more passive references to dated tech near the beginning. For example- instead of the main character falling waking from his nap to find a letter on his person- instead he see's a QR code, or a print out of a Google Map with location, etc. to indicate that he's been invited to the party.

Good luck on the rest of your project!
-Christine
 

Submitted

Ok. Straight off the bat, the idea of Gatsby being a frat boy is just so immensely funny to me and I have no idea why. Also "New Yorkers really are built different." There's some great lines in here. I like most of the choices, and think it has a pretty good sense of forward momentum. And simulating walking around the party was nice too. Luckily, I'm familiar with The Great Gatsby and I think you do a good job of adapting it while also modernizing the setting. I'm very interested to see where this love story goes and if the ending will be any similar to the original, because if it is, this might be more powerful than the book. Great work!