This Is Water by solons

[raw]
made by solons for LD26 (COMPO)
This is a text-based dungeon-crawler I designed about my criticisms of the education system as I've experienced it. It is an unfinished project, but I'm happy with what I have for the large number of systems that are involved in the game.

It is a rogue-like game about corruption and loneliness that uses the minimalist aesthetic to inspire tedium in the player.

It only has three possible weapons (out of an originally devised 54 :P) and three monsters to fight (out of an originally planned... Blugh?) Those are the first places I will be going when I work to expand on this project in the future. Also, it does have an ending. I did get that far!

Hope you enjoy!

Ratings

Coolness 45% 1411
Overall 2.79 954
Fun 2.54 962
Graphics 2.32 1080
Humor 3.13 142
Innovation 3.00 650
Mood 2.65 788
Theme 3.07 976

Feedback

CherryNukaCola
29. Apr 2013 · 07:53 UTC
Hahaha, very good!
KHANanaphone
29. Apr 2013 · 07:56 UTC
Weird is the best way to describe this.
texel
29. Apr 2013 · 07:58 UTC
I think there's a rather large bug in the game -- no matter how far west I go, I always end up getting the widowmaker. I ended up with three of them!
caasi
29. Apr 2013 · 08:12 UTC
Well, title screen is cool. ;)
hnjslater
29. Apr 2013 · 16:56 UTC
I'll be honest it didn't rock my world, but it was pretty funny.
Rutger Megahertz
29. Apr 2013 · 17:02 UTC
I think you could have gone further with the surrealist theme,
instead of it ending up like some monthy python skit.
nintendoeats
29. Apr 2013 · 17:05 UTC
A: That title screen looks distubringly like a picture of a black hole that I used to use as a background.

B: I appreciate the way this game explores the dissection of different forms of reasoning, and then throws them against traditional rock/paper/scissors RPG mechanics. I'm a philosophy major, it's sort of my thing >_>. Good on you.

C: What was going on at the end there? Did my friend kill me? Did I kill him? What? Did I miss something?
escence
29. Apr 2013 · 17:11 UTC
Nice, I had to smile from time to time - it was a lot of repeating text to read, though. But especially the beginning was quite amusing :)
ataxkt
29. Apr 2013 · 19:25 UTC
Ahah, fantastic. Best text based adventure ever! This is the first I've enjoyed enough to complete!
🎤 solons
30. Apr 2013 · 05:15 UTC
Wow! Thank you all for your kind words ~ it is so wonderful to see everyone's different interpretations of the materials I put together. (Or at least, what I got to) This is my first LD and so I'm not sure what liberties I have with updating the game during judging-time since most anything you put into a Twine game can be interpreted as a major content change.

@texel thanks for sticking to the West! Unfortunately, I only put together a single weapon for each direction, but the idea is that you will be able to transfigure your entire being with either the tech, nature, or shadow aspect corresponding to North, West, and East respectively. (South represents 'general education' for when you aren't specialized anywhere to be accepted to any other direction.)

@nintendoeats First thing when you Google 'hole', although the 90s pic of Courtney Love's band was tempting as well. Also, thanks for getting to the end! I hadn't tested it and was really worried that enemy health didn't scale up right! The end was going to involve seeing your family and interacting with them the only way you know how, but I changed it to a 'friend' to be less violent and scary. It was my interpretation of coming home from school and trying to reconnect with old friends.

@Rutger Megahertz That is the BEST analysis of 'what I was going for vs. the end product' that I could think of! I'm so glad that the surrealist themes shined through even in a small way. They will as I update and add more color to the game.

@Everyone Else THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I've never had such direct feedback and commentary on any of my games and so this is an absolutely amazing and validating experience just to be here and be able to share my experiences with you!
SnoringFrog
04. May 2013 · 02:29 UTC
Unfortunately, I didn't care for this one too much. Got too repetitive by the time I finished :/
Erunaamo
08. May 2013 · 16:26 UTC
Fun at first, really liked some of the prose the first time through. Got boring as the same events repeated with no indication of how many times. (Every kind of monster has talons?) Did not know if I was progressing or in an endless loop, except by seeing that comments spoke of an ending.

Really liked how the first scene played with interpretations.