Beginner’s Interactive Fiction, Part Two: ChoiceScript in Half an Hour
“ChoiceScript” is a tool created by Dan Fabulich, used by the company Choice of Games. I am not associated or affiliated with Choice of Games in any way, but ChoiceScript is my preferred writing tool and I believe it is better suited to long-form stories than any other. It is simple enough for non-coders to use and complex enough to have a great range of clever tricks and features.
STEP ONE: Go to ChoiceOfGames.com, which looks like this (the feature story varies):
Click on “Make Your Own Games” (in the top row of tabs) and the next screen will look like this:
STEP TWO: Download ChoiceScript following their instructions on that page. For me it looks like a folder on my desktop.
STEP THREE: You will also need to have or install a text-only program such as Text. I use a power Mac and the text program I use is called Sublime Text. It is free (although I chose to purchase it after using it for a while).
STEP FOUR: When you download ChoiceScript, it has a small piece of story already set up for you, so you can begin writing by simply replacing their words with your own. To access it, open your ChoiceScript folder, then the “scenes” folder (highlighted in the first image below), then the “startup.txt” file (making sure it opens in your plain-text program). It may just be called “startup”.
Inside, you will see something like this (after scrolling down):
So that you can compare ChoiceScript with Twine, here is the exact scene we started writing in my Twine in Five Minutes entry—as it would appear in a ChoiceScript file. This is what it looks like in ChoiceScript after writing the first paragraph and first set of choices:
Note there are line numbers on the left. They will be extremely useful when you are debugging your story, as the automatic testers tell you what line your mistakes are on.
And this is what it looks like after we’ve added another choice INSIDE the second choice (the same choice we did in the Twine story). Readers only see the second pair of choices if they took the second path.
That’s as far as we got with our Twine story.
As you can see, indents are extremely important in ChoiceScript. So are the symbols “*” and “#”.
Note that the word “choice” is always written in lower case. This is true for all the commands that you will use in ChoiceScript.
Tip: Programs need precision. Commands must always be in the exact same form (no capital letters, ever, and usually no spaces). A tab or space in the wrong place can break your game.
This section of story won’t actually work yet. You need to tell the program where to go after a choice is made. Your options are to go somewhere else in the file (you can even go back to the start if you really really want) or to another file. In ChoiceScript, you have a new file for each chapter. You can even have entire scenes that are only read if certain choices are made. Usually, you end a chapter with “*finish”, and the story automatically goes to the next chapter.
So here’s the same story but with all the loose ends tied up. One choice leads to a unique scene. The other choice will go to the next chapter.
From here, you can test the story if you like. Click on “index.txt” (or “index”) from your original ChoiceScript folder and it will open up your story.
You may have to select the ChoiceScriot folder to run it. The story looks like this for the player:
STEP FIVE: Now might be a good time for a break.
Okay? Okay!
Go to the very first line of your “startup” file and you should see three commands, each marked by an asterisk.
*title
*author
*scene_list
Write in your title and your name, with normal capitalisation, like this:
*title Pirates!
*author Felicity Banks
Your scene list is the list of… well, scenes. You can easily add to it at any time. I tend to use numbers, with some part of the title so they’re different to all my other stories. If I have ‘special’ scenes I’ll give them special names. The scene list tells the program what you want included, and in what order. They have to be lower case, with no spaces, and numbers must be written out in full. The first scene must still be called “startup.txt”. That can never be changed. Here’s an example scene list for a story that has four opening chapters and three final chapters.
STEP SIX:
Now we get to the use of statistics—the mechanism the program uses to keep track of the choices made by the player. THIS is what makes ChoiceScript so useful. Don’t worry—you don’t have to do ANY maths.
In the second set of choices above, both “Get off the ship—NOW!” and “Take a moment to fix a direction while I’m above the waterline.” go directly to the next scene. So, what was the point of that choice?
As writers, we should add some text to the choice to make it more worthwhile. But we can do more than that—we can establish through the text that the player character gains an advantage and/or a disadvantage from this choice.
FIRST we need to invent the stats we want. In startup, after the scene list, we invent our stats and their starting value like this:
*create faster_swim 0
*create punched 0
Writing Tip: You may automatically invent familiar statistics, like Health, or Strength, or Beauty, or Intelligence. But Choice of Games loves unique and interesting stats, like “Disdain” or “Drunkenness” or “Introversion”.
Then, in our choice, we can change the value of those two statistics, like this:
Later (probably in the next chapter but it may not make a difference for several chapters), when we want to show the results of those statistical changes, we do it like this:
The player who chose to look around before jumping overboard gets this text:
The water is shockingly cold and shockingly dark. You get your bearings and face towards that one glimpse you had of land, carefully noting the position of the sun since the ship is not going to remain a convenient marker. It is impossible to see the land, so you’re glad you took that moment to look around before you jumped, even if you can feel your eye swelling shut.
You swim, setting a steady pace since it won’t be a short journey. Your eye is throbbing, so you tell yourself the rhythm is handy.
The sun moves slowly, slowly across the sky, and finally you can actually see land blurring the horizon ahead.
Something brushes against your leg.
The player who didn't look around before jumping overboard gets this text:
The water is shockingly cold and shockingly dark.
You swim, setting a steady pace since it won’t be a short journey.
The sun moves slowly, slowly across the sky, and even when it sets you still can’t see any sign of land. You’ll be spending the night on the open ocean.
Something brushes against your leg.
Note the commands "*goto" and "*label". That pair of commands are extremely useful. Note also the command "*else". If you use an "*if" command, you also need the "*else" command to tell the program "continue here".
These two stats (“faster_swim” and “punched”) are boolean stats, meaning they are merely yes/no. Most stats are much more flexible, which gives your player the ability to build up skills or rapport or even their personality in a series of choices throughout the story.
You create non-boolean stats in the same way; by the “*create” command just under your scene list, and a numerical starting value. Often you have a starting value of zero, but for some statistics you might start with 50 (50%) to indicate a neutral starting position (so you can add OR SUBTRACT from that statistic) or some other value. Here’s an example.
First, you make the statistic.
*create swordfighting 0
Then, you create opportunities for the player to gain that statistic.
Later, you can test them, like this:
You can also vary a test to see if a player is unskilled, slightly skilled (has chosen swordfighting skill at least once), or extremely skilled (has chosen swordfighting skill at least twice), like this:
Note that you cannot use “*if” twice in a row. You need to use “*if” then “*elseif” then “else”.
Let’s imagine that instead of swordfighting, this “skill” was how well the player got on with a character named Agoye. This statistic started at 50%, with Agoye feeling neutral towards the player. Depending on the player choices, Agoye may hate them (due to choices that set the agoye statistic with a – instead of a +), love them, or continue feeling neutral. Here’s how a scene might play out towards the end of the game:
Note the command “*ending” which of course indicates an ending.
Writing Tip: In Choice of Games stories, your player must get about three-quarters of the way through the story before dying. “Bad” endings should also be well-written, so the player who chooses to lose on purpose still has a great story experience.
The brilliant thing about statistics is that seemingly minor choices along the way can slowly build up a statistic so that when tested, the player can win or lose in a dramatic (and earned) fashion. Some choices will branch off into unique scenes, but a lot of them will just have a line or two of unique text and/or a statistic. That means they remain meaningful choices without the writer actually going mad writing 100,000 different scenes in each chapter.
STEP SEVEN:
There is one more kind of stat that is important to Choice of Games, and relatively simple to do in ChoiceScript. This is the set of stats that lets a player choose their name and gender. These are boolean stats that include specific text. They are created in the same place as all the other stats—just below the scene list in the “startup” file.
*create name “”
*create he “he”
*create him “him”
*create his “his”
Here is the choice of name (including giving the player the option to type in literally any name they like), and then how to use it. Even though the name is coded is in lower case, using the exclamation mark means it will be capitalised for the reader.
With pronouns, you usually don’t want them capitalised, so it looks like this:
Note that I’ve used male pronouns as the base code. That’s because they’re more straightforward.
Note also that if you include non-binary pronouns (Choice of Games is very focused on diversity—and it’s a kind thing to do—so I recommend it) the grammar will sometimes not work, so you may have to rephrase some sentences.
Eg. you can say, “I took him to the shops” just fine in the various genders (“I took her to the shops”; “I took them to the shops”) but you can’t get, “That dog is his” to work, because “That dog is their” is incorrect.
The distinctions are subtle, so definitely get a native English speaker to check your work!
It is possible to avoid using pronouns for an entire story (I’ve done it) but it’s not easy and it tends to feel awkward to the reader.
Writing Tip: Speaking of gender, Choice of Games also expects you to have a roughly equal number of male and female characters. They will appreciate characters who are non-binary or otherwise gender diverse, too. And every other kind of diversity (IF it is done well! Harmful stereotypes are not appreciated, and if you’re writing about a minority group you don’t know very well then there will be a lot of stereotypes you don’t even realise you hold). You can get Sensitivity Readers, but it’s harder to get them for interactive fiction than regular fiction, and you can’t rely on Sensitivity Readers to fix everything. Also, if your entire plot is offensive then you can’t fix that.
The type of statistic you used to set the player character’s name can be used for other things too. In my cat breeding game, the player can type in unique names for every single kitten.
Beginner’s Interactive Fiction, Part One: Twine in Five Minutes
Interactive fiction is any story that involves the reader in the story, usually by giving them choices along the way that change the text.
“Twine” is a tool that creates a story map as you write your story. It’s shockingly easy to use (speaking as a person who has major struggles operating her own phone).
STEP ONE: Go to Twinery.org, which looks like this:
If you can, download it as a desktop app. Otherwise, click on “Use it in your browser”. Press skip (or don’t press skip, and go through a quick tutorial that is better than this) and you’ll get to the screen that looks like this (if you are using the desktop app it won’t have the warning):
On the top left, click on “+New”. You can type in a title if you like, or leave it as “Untitled Story”.
Your new story looks like this:
Yay! You are now writing a story in Twine.
STEP TWO: Double click on the box in the middle of the blue space. Then your screen will look like this:
In the white box (aka a bigger version of the little blue box), type the first few sentences of your story.
Writing tip: In interactive fiction, most readers want you to get to a choice as quickly as possible, ideally within 300 words. This applies to every choice!
I am starting with two useful story hooks: An interesting setting, and an interesting problem.
Writing tip: Interactive fiction is usually a game (even when there are no sounds or pictures or animations), so using tropes is a VERY GOOD thing eg. Dirty violent pirates; dangerous nature; femme fatales or mad scientists. Try to think of your story as a game. If you were writing a pirate game, you would definitely want fighting, alcohol, historical weapons, and danger—so make sure those things are present in your story. When I wrote “Scarlet Sails” I started with a list of every pirate trope I could think of: betrayal, rum, ambition, gold, evil mermaids, treasure, sea monster, storms. Then I made a plot that linked them all. That is my most successful story.
STEP THREE: Make at least two choices (you can make as many as you like, but it will get out of control extremely quickly, so I recommend starting with two).
I have chosen:
- Take Redbeard’s sword and challenge his friend to a fight to show how fierce you are.
- Sneak up the other ladder and dive overboard—perhaps you can swim the rest of the way.
In order to tell the computer that I want them to be choices, I type them up like this, with double square brackets at the beginning and end.
[[Take Redbeard’s sword and challenge his friend to a fight to show how fierce you are.]]
[[Sneak up the other ladder and dive overboard—perhaps you can swim the rest of the way.]]
Twine instantly creates two new boxes; one for each choice. You can rearrange the boxes by clicking on them and dragging them around. Here’s the same page after I’ve rearranged them so I can see everything better:
To write the next sections, I double-click on either box and start typing the next bit of the story. Here I’ve written a bit of story and another pair of choices. Because I used [[ and ]] again, Twine has made two more boxes for me.
And the story is up and running!
Let’s stop here and see how it looks for a reader. Click once to highlight the original box (the one with your title or “Untitled Passage”) then go up to the menu and click on “Test from here”. It will automatically open a new window.
The choices are in bright text, and I can click on either of them. I choose the second choice.
If I click on either of these choices I get a blank screen, because I haven’t written them yet.
Note the “back” arrow on the top left of the black screen. If the reader changes their mind about a choice, they can go back.
Aaaand that’s it! That’s how you write a story in Twine! Congratulations! Here’s a kitten picture to celebrate.
BUT if you used your browser, you MUST save after each session, because if you don’t touch your story for seven days it will be deleted.
STEP FOUR: Saving your story.
Close your ‘testing’ browser window so you’re back to your usual blue screen. Click on “Build” in the upper menu, then “Publish to file” on the menu that appears below it.
Your story file will go to your downloads folder, and if you open it, it will look exactly like it does when you test it online (but it will not require an internet connection to open). You can email it to friends to read.
Writing Tip: Did you notice the typo in the very first choice in this story? “chellenge” should be “challenge”. The easiest way to fix it is in the very first box, here, where the choice is written:
It will automatically fix the typo in the title of the next box.
STEP FIVE: When you’re ready to learn more, go back to Twinery.org and pay attention to this section:
There are great articles for beginners on the left.
And, Twine comes in four “flavours”: Chapbook, Harlowe, Snowman, and SugarCube. Once you’re getting better at Twine, you’ll need to pick which one or ones suits you best. Use the “Twine Cookbook” to decide which one you want to try, then use the online guide on the right.
STEP SIX: Time to join the community.
The interactive fiction community is pretty great. It is usually very inclusive (especially of women and LGBTIQA+ people). One of the places people hang out is https://intfiction.org and it is definitely worth signing up and having a look around, then joining in the conversations. (They’re getting a lot of spam at the moment, so it may take a little while to prove you’re human.)
Welcome, and enjoy!
The next lessons will include writing with ChoiceScript (which is better than Twine at book-length stories), the Choice of Games forum (for users of ChoiceScript), and how to keep your many many branches under control.
Going to Indonesia to teach Interactive Fiction
The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation is a not-for-profit that does all kinds of wonderful things to improve the IF community (which is already fantastic) including organising and fundraising for the IF Comp; keeping Twine running smoothly; and they’ve just started a micro-grant program.
I happen to be one of the first recipients of a micro-grant from the IFTF: a grant to go to Indonesia at the time of the Ubud Writers’ and Readers’ Festival and teach IF to Indonesians (and other speakers of Bahasa Indonesia).
This was the excuse I needed to take my whole family to Indonesia, as Chris and I have been planning to do since before we even had kids. From the age of 12 to 24, I planned to move to Indonesia as an aid worker/teacher, and before the IFTF grant I’d visited various parts of Indonesia seven times altogether. At one stage I was technically fluent in Bahasa Indonesia. Chris and I visited Indonesia briefly after a year of marriage, but that was more than ten years ago. It was the longest period of time I’d gone without visiting, but I’d also become disabled (and diabetic) in that time. And, you know, we have two kids now.
There are so many reasons I wanted to take the family to Indonesia that I’m not even aware of all of them. Holidays build resilience and flexibility in my kids, which is especially handy when they’re both autistic. And it’s valuable to spend some time in the third world, even in a luxury setting like Bali.
We’re home now, and our trip went really well. I taught about twenty students (eighteen in person including two ex-pats living in Bali) and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the “Oh!” on their faces as they saw how easy it is to use interactive fiction thanks to tools like Twine.
And my family all had a great time, complete with some of the classic challenges of travel to Indonesia (traffic, heat, food poisoning, communication challenges, unexpected obstacles, etc).
I’ll be doing a LOT of travel videos. This first one is about the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud.
Spoiler: it was excellent!
IF Comp 2024: Welcome to the Universe
I’m getting mixed messages from the cover image, title, blurb, and content warnings. What even is this thing?
The opening confuses me even more, as it sounds educational. However, it’s very interesting, talking about a different version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Which also doesn’t seem to relate to any of the information about this game I’ve been given so far. Is it comedy? Horror? Realistic? Fantasy? I can’t answer any of those questions, when normally I’d be able to answer them from the image OR the blurb OR the title OR the opening paragraph.
But there’s no typos and there’s some psychology, so I’m interested.
Okay! That was a kind of prologue, ending with a joke. So… comedy? Probably? I can certainly deal with that.
This is delightfully weird.
Here’s an entirely random example. What does it mean? I don’t know. But I’m enjoying the ride.
I enjoyed the ride all the way to the end, and was impressed when the game fed various choices back to me in a cohesive description. I’m not sure I’d recommend this game, but maybe I would?
I have to let it percolate for a while. The writing is interesting and solid throughout, so I suspect it’ll rate highly with me. I’m biased like that.
IF Comp 2024: Civil Service
Okay, this opens in a surprisingly atmospheric, interested, poetic-but-not-annoyingly-so way. I’m quickly hooked.
After a while, the poetic qualities grow stronger. It’s hard to know what the plot is, and sections seem disjointed. I’m not sure what my choices are doing most of the time.
…
Wow, that was WEIRD.
I think I sort of understood the plot in the end, and a lot of my confusion was due to the deliberately mysterious writing. I’m not sure it worked, not quite. But the writing suggests this author will appeal to some people, and has plenty of talent.
IF Comp 2024: Birding in Pope Lick Park
I’ll be honest: Pope Lick is a terrifying name for a park. But let’s do this anyway.
Putting the opening of the story on the title is an unusual choice, but fine. It’s also the blurb. Still fine, just unusual.
It’s a perfectly adequate opening.
Pope Lick Park seems to be a real park—so much so that there’s a link to the actual web site on the first page. I really like that. There’s loads more links after that (some informative, and at least one to a comic), which is also cool.
The pics are way too big for my browser, but that’s probably my fault. (Yup; I switched browsers and all is well.)
The accessible text is excellent.
There are some minor typos and a LOT of photos. The bird photos are excellent. The other photos are adequate.
For a little I felt like, “What’s the point of the story?” but clicking on the birds I saw along the way became more and more compelling. I hate repeating text (which I got a little as I wandered around) but the game clearly remembered when I’d been somewhere before, which meant I’d often see new text or even new birds in the same area. That was VERY cool. It really felt quite immersive, in the gentlest possible way. I began to find the scenery photos more compelling too, as it became clearer and clearer that this is, effectively, non-fiction. Everything here is real.
Okay, I’m finished my play-through and I’m totally converted. This is a great story that grows more fascinating as you stroll through it. And yes, it’s incredibly educational and beautiful too.
Cat calendar
JANUARY
Buttons was a bitey boy.
I found him in a shed. My friend and I caught him together. We both ended up bleeding a lot and covered in cat urine.
He was about four weeks old.
He taught me that fostering kittens is messy, tiring, bloody, stinky, stressful, and just as wonderful as I’d always imagined.
Buttons was adopted into a family of experienced and undaunted cat owners.
FEBRUARY
In February 2024, I started fostering the ‘Nature Kittens’: Dawn, Thunder, Cloud, and Midnight.
MARCH
While the entire Nature Kittens litter was still with me, someone I know caught another litter of five stray kittens that would have to be euthanised because no one had any room to take them.
They were barely a month old.
I took them to my house “for a few days” until I could find another rescue that could look after them.
One of the two calico girls (sitting up on the right) hissed and spat so much on that first day that she set off the others. She was so tiny and so fierce… and she sounded like popcorn. So I named her Popcorn, and her sister Caramel (second from the left, with some orange patches). Then I named the boys Violet (“Violent”) Crumble (left), Curly Wurly (top middle) and Sprinkle (bottom), the runt.
Two members of the Snack Pack nearly died from cat flu, but recovered. Little kittens are extremely fragile! Even if they can also rip a full-grown human to shreds when they really don’t want to be picked up.
APRIL
Thunder and Midnight were adopted together. Their new owner built a custom enclosure for them, which they loved immediately.
MAY
Cloud suddenly stopped eating and lost more than half her body weight. The vet suspected she needed major surgery, and would never live a full life. She always was smaller than the others.
It turned out she wanted a different kind of food.
She was adopted by a retiree who had cared for her previous cat for twenty-three years despite the cat’s health being poor for several years. So Cloud now has a devoted personal handmaiden… and that is precisely what she requires.
JUNE
Popcorn was the first member of the Snack Pack to be adopted. She doesn’t hiss or spit any more, but loves to purr and snuggle, and will cheerfully approach any human.
JULY
Sprinkle (left) was the second member of the Snack Pack to be adopted.
In the early days he was extremely concerned that I would neglect to feed him and would scream hysterically when I entered the room. He would sometimes forget where the food was located after I put the bowl down, and would scream some more.
Why is it that the smallest kitten of the litter always has the biggest personality?
AUGUST
Dawn was finally adopted in August… and then she was un-adopted, as her new owners discovered one of them was allergic to cats. Fortunately she quickly found another home, and is now settled in happily.
SEPTEMBER
Violet Crumble looks almost exactly like his brothers, yet still manages to be the prettiest. He was adopted next out of the Snack Pack.
OCTOBER
The last two kittens in the Snack Pack were adopted together.
So Caramel and Curly Wurly will continue to make a cuddle puddle daily for the rest of their lives. They are very lucky, and so are their owners.
NOVEMBER
In Spring, with no fosters left, I helped another rescue organisation by taking on four of their kittens: I named them Squirrel (fluffy tortoiseshell and white), Bunny Rabbit (her sister, a tortoiseshell very much like Dawn), Meeouse (white), and Monkey.
Monkey was so named because he liked to climb upside down across the roof of his enclosure.
I quickly discovered that he also loves jumping into the arms of the nearest upright human. Or onto their back. Or shoulder. He’s not fussy. But he’s shockingly fast.
DECEMBER
I hope all four Animal Kittens will find their forever homes by Christmas.
Edit: I shall add more pic/s of those four, possibly including a group shot or two.
IF Comp 2024: Doctor Who and the Dalek Super-Brain
Doctor Who is excellent so I was always tempted by this one (and somewhat concerned about intellectual property law). Inside the game, it says that it is fan-fiction and does not generate any revenue. But the IF comp DOES give out cash prizes, so doesn’t that count as revenue?
I do think the author is safe simply because they’re too small to bother crushing.
Of course, copyright lawyers and daleks both really, really enjoy disintegrating things. And Doctor Who is on Disney+ now, and Disney is famously fond of bringing the full force of the law down to exterminate even the most tiny and innocent of artists.
Hmm.
Anyway, that’s not really my business.
I very much enjoyed pushing the giant red button to start the game.
This is my third surprisingly visual game in a row! The visuals are basic, but enjoyable. However, the general experience is clunky. It feels like the choices I make are merely scrolling up and down a prescribed conversation.
I died horribly (in a genre-appropriate fashion). The death is totally fine (good, even) but this game required much more problem solving skill than I think I possess.
The ability to click on objects in the image to get more detail is very cool, even if I cordially dislike the entire ‘click such-and-such to get more detailed info’ system. Obviously that’s a matter of taste.
Some of the writing is pretty basic, but some bits are good.
. . .
I think this requires me to sometimes remember things, which due to my various mental issues means I can’t properly play the game. So I’ll stop here, and I won’t rate this game either.
Apologies to the writer.
IF Comp 2024: Quest for the Teacup of Minor Sentimental Value
I forgot to explain last entry that the IF Comp is a big contest for Interactive Fiction stories that runs each year. I enter it often (ever since 2015), and love it. Partly because I usually do reasonably well, and mostly because the community is just SO GOOD. There are loads of people who gladly test games in the lead-up to the contest due date, and even more who help to judge games (and often write great, thorough reviews as well) during the six-week judging period. There’s even a secret section on the forum (which is here) where only authors who have entered that year can post and see posts.
Yes, I have entered this year. You can see and play all the games here.
Whenever I enter, I try to review five games. This one is the second one I’m trying out. Obviously I adore the title! The blurb is great too:
I’m surprised but pleased by the basic visuals and animation. They’re sweet. I don’t think they’re a custom thing; I think Inform or something can do things like that. But I could be wrong. And they’re not something I’ve played before, so they have novelty value for me. If every game had them, they’d be annoying.
I quickly reached the bad ending, which was just fine by me. The game is very merciful and simple, so it’s easy to explore here and there without feeling any pressure.
I laughed out loud at the line, “I keep forgetting there are only two other people in this village.” A perfect joke for the IF Comp, where a significant number of judges are also authors, who scrambled furiously to meet the deadline and probably had to massively cut down their original grand idea along the way.
And laughing even more at, “Sorry I didn’t hear you knock. I was busy alphabetising my potatoes.”
I’ll stop reporting every single line that makes me laugh, because I suspect now there may be a lot of them. (EDIT: There were.)
Pretty sure the maths question is wrong. But maybe I’m missing something.
I reached a REALLY COOL bad ending (and several that were just funny), and eventually reached the good ending.
This is an adorable, funny game that is simple, well executed, and highly enjoyable. Colour me impressed.
IF Comp 2024: Imprimatura
First of all, I’m so glad the blurb immediately explains the title: “Imprimatura (It.): the first layer of paint on a canvas.”
This game is going to produce a picture. Colour me intrigued.
The writing is evocative and beautiful (essential for this story), and the soundtrack and effects are perfect too. It’s very warm and gentle (probably partly because of the choices I made).
Sometimes I got the same painting description twice in a row, which I think is an error. On the other hand, the game explained at the end that even selecting the same paintings in a replay will unlock different memories. So maybe not.
It was fascinating, well-written, and the final result was interesting as well as giving me the option to go back and change things, which I liked. I didn’t like that the emotional choice of the final painting always partly obscured the image, but that’s an artistic choice I think. The layering along the way is incredible.
It’s an extremely replayable game. There are over 100 versions of the final painting and much much more to discover along the way.
I think this might be a perfect game.
Felicity Banks 