My Old Kentucky Home by emmelineprufrock

[raw]
made by emmelineprufrock for LD28 (COMPO)
A long Twine game about scarcity and isolation in a future Eastern Kentucky. The game features original covers of traditional songs, and is probably played best the way it was written: in a dark room with a set of headphones.

The music might not work in all browsers.

Ratings

Coolness 92% 2
Overall 3.22 326
Audio 3.36 115
Fun 2.82 534
Graphics 1.58 975
Innovation 2.59 694
Mood 3.90 27
Theme 2.55 683

Feedback

spike_xp
16. Dec 2013 · 03:10 UTC
Didn't quite catch the theme, but this is an intriguing story :D Really love the story and how it branches!
ming_tea
16. Dec 2013 · 03:24 UTC
Very well written and great atmosphere!
Crabman
16. Dec 2013 · 03:37 UTC
Pretty damn cool, love it! And re: the theme, it's her, right? She's the one, alone and on her own, the only person around (for the most part)
BoppreH
16. Dec 2013 · 03:56 UTC
Frisson when the music started and "she hit him again". I too didn't catch the theme (one chance? rapture?), but the mood was great, the text well written and the mechanics used wisely.
OnlySlightly
16. Dec 2013 · 04:43 UTC
Beautiful. Seriously gave me chills.
delfino
16. Dec 2013 · 04:57 UTC
Excellent writing, it does the job of getting an emotional reaction. The visuals are simple but help set the mood. The songs are great. No real 'humor' but that's obviously not the point of this entry. Great job overall!
benedict
16. Dec 2013 · 05:00 UTC
I liked this. It's not particularly strongly tied to the theme, but it works. There was some nice branching. The arc of the story felt a little stilted, but the world it built was very nice. The singing caught me off guard but I loved it.
Bogden
16. Dec 2013 · 05:53 UTC
Well written.
whiteknife
16. Dec 2013 · 06:06 UTC
Good story, gets across the feeling of isolation well, and you make good use of the Twine medium (hit him again and again). The songs are also amazing! Great job overall!
PaperBlurt
16. Dec 2013 · 13:59 UTC
Nice feeling and atmosphere.. I like these Twine games that's slice of life focused!
sknoslo
16. Dec 2013 · 15:33 UTC
Great story, very well written. The music was a really nice touch.
chardish
16. Dec 2013 · 21:01 UTC
Chilling stuff, and one of the better Twine games I've played. Good writing, good use of the medium and a consistent way of delivering mechanics that makes it clear when you're taking an action and when you're just learning more information. Amazing work.
sudorossy
17. Dec 2013 · 01:46 UTC
Great writing, but I don't quite get the theme
Integershift
17. Dec 2013 · 01:54 UTC
I didn't see the theme in that. Maybe it was you only get one story? I don't really know. It was fun reading though!
ThatGuy
17. Dec 2013 · 01:56 UTC
Nice story, good job.
Christopher Schulte
17. Dec 2013 · 02:02 UTC
The writing and the medium itself set a very good mood for the game. Keeping information from the player also encourages the imagination to fill in the blanks and become more invested in the character and her struggles. Well done.
mize_VS_mildmojo
17. Dec 2013 · 03:06 UTC
Good description. Really set the mood.
Lissar
17. Dec 2013 · 06:13 UTC
I really enjoyed the extra bits of writing you could look at that gave the text extra flavor.
kewry
17. Dec 2013 · 12:19 UTC
Great atmosphere! nice story!
kristoffer zetterberg
17. Dec 2013 · 14:46 UTC
the songs are really beautiful, the set the tone perfectly. and like chardish said, your use of Twine is very good.

the writing was perhaps a little on the slow part sometimes, but i liked it.
finefin
18. Dec 2013 · 12:08 UTC
the music didn't work in my browser (firefox) - nonetheless this was a great interactive story! nice work!
🎤 emmelineprufrock
18. Dec 2013 · 13:58 UTC
@finefin hmmm, the macro was supposed to work in firefox, so I'm not sure what's up with that -- but I didn't play test there, so it might be something up on my end. I know for sure it said that it probably wouldn't work on Safari and Opera.
pjchardt
18. Dec 2013 · 18:52 UTC
Very nice writing! The way you use the mechanics/interface of Twine to drive home the brutal nature of the events in the Kitchen is wonderful and haunting!
Diptoman
19. Dec 2013 · 09:42 UTC
It's well written, but uh, how does it use the theme again? :\
🎤 emmelineprufrock
19. Dec 2013 · 13:36 UTC
@Diptoman the theme is probably one of the weakest aspects, I'll admit. The hard part, for me, was integrating the theme without making it obnoxious or just including it as a line of dialogue (which I thought about doing).

There are a couple of ways it could be related to the theme. I took the idea of "You Only Get One," and focused more on the "One" aspect -- she is the only one left, for example. She only has one bullet. She has a strong sense of isolation and scarcity -- the concept of limited resources that I feel is present in "You Only Get One." It's probably more tangential, but I do think there is a connection to the theme.
mcapraro
20. Dec 2013 · 20:38 UTC
i love that you wrote that story, its really spooky and compelled me to read more. the music really caught me off guard at the end. great mood building.
Denis Chakarov
20. Dec 2013 · 23:13 UTC
I was just about to write "Man, you've written a lot for two days" when I've realized you are a woman. In an instant it makes sense the protagonist to be female too.
You're very good at setting the right mood.
I see no problem with theme - "You only get one - home!"
Respect for making a text based game, which won't appeal to the mass. Was that you singing the songs?
🎤 emmelineprufrock
21. Dec 2013 · 17:34 UTC
@Denis Chakarov yes, that's me singing. I needed the accent and it had to be a woman. No one else in my dev group fit the bill. :)
Gamelabbers
22. Dec 2013 · 09:51 UTC
The combination of text and song is amazing. You're right, the shaky quality of the recording does really add to the sense of insecurity you feel for the protagonist. I must add you do have a lovely voice. The story is well written... Glad I stumbled past your postmortem. Thank you!
drkrunk
22. Dec 2013 · 09:54 UTC
That was pretty well-done, the writing was fantastic and the atmosphere was perfect. Great job!
Strangelander
22. Dec 2013 · 16:33 UTC
Audio worked in Chrome and Firefox for me, OS X. Maybe it's just me, but it's annoying to listen to lyrics and read text at the same time. Probably one verse of Amazing Grace would have sufficed.

Your writing is solid, very minimal, yet evocative. I would like to see it cleaned up and developed into a longer story. Reminded me a bit of *The Reapers Are the Angels* by Alden Bell, for setting and protagonist (check it out if you haven't read it).
Arkrothe
22. Dec 2013 · 16:49 UTC
The story was good, and well written, apart from a couple of contradictory instances (like when we're in the mine, if we click on the description text, it says that she never "home", it said that she still wouldn't light a fire here, and then suddenly she wants a warm dinner).

Other than that I enjoyed it. Would like to know more about the thing that had happened. Or is it that i missed some branch where that is explained?
Christina Nordlander
22. Dec 2013 · 17:10 UTC
Very well-written, with a lot of realistic detail. Very nice use of music. On the downside, the story has been done before, and the plot is very slow-moving at the start. Those are minor nitpicks, though.

I might play again later to see if I can get a different path.

A couple of typoes: "remnats"; "prys" should be "pries"; "her Mamaws" needs an apostrophe. Also, the title of the game is spelled "Olde" in-game, but not on this page.
dekart
22. Dec 2013 · 18:21 UTC
Good story.
🎤 emmelineprufrock
22. Dec 2013 · 20:00 UTC
@Arkrothe There's references to people she has lost, but there's no specific explanation of what "happened." I wanted to leave that up to the imagination, and I also felt like she didn't know -- so including it would've been outside the scope of her knowledge.
postmodestie
22. Dec 2013 · 23:09 UTC
Windows Firefox audio works. Was nice to read and play, but ended apruptly after the incident, maybe i didn't get it all, skimming through the text..
stigmawall
23. Dec 2013 · 21:55 UTC
I like your story, it's tense and you singing is lovely! Congrats!
tompudding
24. Dec 2013 · 20:09 UTC
Very atmospheric writing, nice job. Not a great deal of choice, but the mood more than made up for it. Songs were perfect.
GaTechGrad
06. Jan 2014 · 04:40 UTC
Nice text-based game. Those Spaghetti-Os were delicious!