Thank you very much, glad it made a strong impression on you! You may enjoy my other jam game in a similar style, Carry On. It is very short compared to this one,3 endings if i recall right.
For this jam project, currently there are two endings and choices lead you to one or the other (you are always offered to “escape the fate”, which kind of relevant later in the story).
In visual novels and interactive fiction the branching likely gives more options than that. They also can lead to completely different stories in next chapters or have totally unrelated plot parts, but in many cases they sort of keep the same plot points.
From the more popular games that aren’t considered visual novel/interactive fiction, Baldur’s Gate has multiple endings. Ideally I want my action games to have the story in them, not otherwise. My original project issues and lack of time decided for me in this jam (jk, i knew i would end up breaking it… i knew it…), had to redo using different engine (Twine for text instead of Unreal Engine for 3D).
For this game version there’s basically two ways: you either “avoid the trouble”(you don’t experience the plot of the story) or you don’t(here’s the story).
In the full version I plan you’ll be able to interact with characters, there will be some puzzles and exploration elements (pick objects, use phone as a light, drink alcohol, change music etc). It won’t be much on top of what’s in the game, because under the hood survival horror(the classic one) is basically a walking sim, imo. For visual novels etc, having the multiple endings is the interactive part, as I gather at least. Here’s the earliest prototype you can mentally place the text onto to get a overall idea:
Yes, sound part is in next update.
My devloghas some notes on the future of the project and whatever happened during the jam.
Thanks for playing!