The Day the Laughter Stopped by Crabman
TRIGGER WARNING. Please read the notes in the menu if there are topics that could cause you significant emotional distress.
The Day the Laughter Stopped is a personal story told using interactive fiction. I don't want to say too much at this point, as it is best experienced unspoiled, but I will soon write at length about the concept, why I wrote it and what I was trying to achieve. I'll add a link to the blog post once it is ready.
The Windows executables are packaged with node-webkit, so it's HTML packaged with chromium. This should be your safest bet should you have trouble with the web page.
KNOWN PROBLEMS:
* It seems there's sometimes a bug with loading later in the game. I couldn't reproduce it when I tried, but the game is very short and shouldn't take more than 10min to finish, so loading is hopefully not too necessary. [FIXED]
* There's also sometimes a bit of odd behavior with the scrolling. But it works just fine most of the time, so this should be but a minor inconvenience. [FIXED]
Everything else works as intended.
EDIT: I have added a link to the blog post outlining what motivated me to make this game. I also added that link to the ingame menu, as I wanted people to have easy access to it. The game itself is unchanged, as are the source files and the Windows build. I hope this is alright by the LD rules, otherwise I will remove it. It is, however, just a link and has no effect on the game whatsoever.
EDIT2: Added some statistics to the web version. Again, no changes affecting the game were made, and the Windows build and source files remain unchanged.
EDIT3: Loading & scrolling bug fixed. Since I made other changes to the web version (see Edit 1-2), I'm not updating the Windows build and source files, so you can still play an untouched version if you prefer.
The Day the Laughter Stopped is a personal story told using interactive fiction. I don't want to say too much at this point, as it is best experienced unspoiled, but I will soon write at length about the concept, why I wrote it and what I was trying to achieve. I'll add a link to the blog post once it is ready.
The Windows executables are packaged with node-webkit, so it's HTML packaged with chromium. This should be your safest bet should you have trouble with the web page.
KNOWN PROBLEMS:
* It seems there's sometimes a bug with loading later in the game. I couldn't reproduce it when I tried, but the game is very short and shouldn't take more than 10min to finish, so loading is hopefully not too necessary. [FIXED]
* There's also sometimes a bit of odd behavior with the scrolling. But it works just fine most of the time, so this should be but a minor inconvenience. [FIXED]
Everything else works as intended.
EDIT: I have added a link to the blog post outlining what motivated me to make this game. I also added that link to the ingame menu, as I wanted people to have easy access to it. The game itself is unchanged, as are the source files and the Windows build. I hope this is alright by the LD rules, otherwise I will remove it. It is, however, just a link and has no effect on the game whatsoever.
EDIT2: Added some statistics to the web version. Again, no changes affecting the game were made, and the Windows build and source files remain unchanged.
EDIT3: Loading & scrolling bug fixed. Since I made other changes to the web version (see Edit 1-2), I'm not updating the Windows build and source files, so you can still play an untouched version if you prefer.
| Web (Bug Fixed) | http://hypnoticowl.com/theday/ |
| Post-mortem | http://hypnoticowl.com/the-day-the-laughter-stopped/ |
| Stats | http://hypnoticowl.com/theday/stats/ |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=30736 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall | 3.75 | 68 |
| Audio | 3.39 | 108 |
| Fun | 2.32 | 845 |
| Graphics | 2.30 | 789 |
| Humor | 1.72 | 725 |
| Innovation | 3.21 | 299 |
| Mood | 4.20 | 8 |
| Theme | 3.64 | 110 |
BTW is there a way to restart the story?
Nice to see people doing good text adventures, keep it up!
Good job.
The later choices that literally don't work are about wanting to do something and not being able to. If you want to know more about why I did this and why I chose to present it this way, you can read about it here:
http://hypnoticowl.com/the-day-the-laughter-stopped/
@Rest of y'all: Thank you so much. I can't put into words how much your feedback means to me. It's been a very weird, overwhelming coupla days, so yeah, "thanks" is all the eloquence I can muster. :D
5/5
And with such a nice way to do it. Merci !
Great mood setting with the music too.
5/5 in overall, theme and mood. Blech
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***SPOILER ALERT***
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Well, a mild spoiler at least. I thought something was wrong at the final choice, but after finishing, I guess it was designed that way. I think.
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***SPOILER ALERT***
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don't really know what else to say.
A lot of games try to make a statement for the sake of making a statement, but this made a statement because the statement needed to be made. Thanks for approaching this with maturity and tact without shying away from the distressing truths. I've seen this story, I know this story, and I hate this story. But thank you so much for telling it.
Good story :-)
the mood is perfect. the music really supports the piece and takes you to the place you want us to be.
this is proof that good stories are the real place to start when creating games that last. that stick with you. and it is also proof that games can be a place to teach and learn and tell stories that arent easy. that are about hurt and love and all those things that most games are not.
thanks and congratulations.
Technically speaking, I don't know if the slow auto-scroll is intentional (to give a little break between steps ?) but sometimes it lost me a little when I started reread previous chapter during the scroll.
The scrolling was also slower the more text I had on the screen (playing the web version on Chrome 31). Near the end, sometimes I would lose a moment waiting for the scroll and then finding out the exact spot where the new text had appeared. Otherwise, very good technically.
Thanks for letting me know!
Based on the fact that a trigger warning existed and the first few passages, I realized pretty early on how things were going to end (although, at that time I thought--hm...how to say this without spoiling anything--I thought the character would be given more power) and was dreading it for the remainder of the story. But nothing could compare to "The Moment The Choices Stopped" (to borrow the subsection title from one of your follow up posts). I thought--no, I desperately hoped I had encountered a glitch at that point. Extremely effective mechanic.
A good game.
And a difficult topic, worth mentioning.
Maybe a bit too much text, I think the game
might benefit from more passages with less text in each.
Rather than a lot of text in few passages.