Player Comments on A Very Blackwood November

That was fun!

sorry I didn't rate cuz I can't decide , it has a good formating , but one thing that did kind of hinder with the playing process was the names , somehow they just didn't quite all get stored together in mind at once , I would say that the trouble originates from lack of visual description of the characters , this makes it harder to isolate and make mental image and thus indirectly help in remembering who did what? if you wanna skip this then make the names catch and simple that they just roll of te tounge and decrease the charcters otherwise ,
anyways tbh I was blindly guessing the culprit not because I can't come to conclusions but simply I kept forgetting who was who ??. Beasides that I learnt a bit from this minimilastic style of situation intro , it has opened my eyes on how to keep it simple yet effective .

A quick fun little murder mystery. This is like the distillation of the classic detective story and I was thoroughly impressed with what you managed with the word count limit you had to work with.

There isn't really branching in the traditional sense; in the first portion of the game you will click every link as part of thoroughly searching for clues. But it all works together as part of the whole puzzle of paying attention to subtle details and what's here is satisfying, if a little bite sized.

The screenplay format was brilliant for working in dialogue while keeping the word count and description down and adding to that classic feel.

Nice quick read! For one of my first storygames I had fun. Cant wait to read the next one :)

Quite interesting

Really liked the story and the puzzles involved with the mystery elements layered into it all. The endings were many and distinct and could be made clear with how it branched off into sections throughout the opening and ending apart. Really into investigation type games so this was something that I really enjoyed and was able to finish quite fast compared to other puzzle type games. Was also surprised by the reveal and wasn't what I was suspecting, which I really enjoyed. I was able to get it done with the suspect guessing pretty quicky and I liked it due to the fact that you could keep on retrying it without having it end so badly. I really hope that theres something in continuation with this because I would really enjoy reading it as well if it compares to something like this with puzzle elements and everything else that was also included in this. Really have no complaints or issues that I came across while reading this story other than the fact that I wish it was longer, but even then you managed to fit together everything in nicely so nothing was really left out in the span that you managed to write the story in. Also the grammar for the story was pretty good to and I enjoyed how you spliced together the words to bring some adjectives together while explaining and describing some aspects of the story. With all this being said I see no reason to not give it the highest rating possible. Again I hope you continue to make mystery type games for the site as reading them would really be something good to kill the time with. Also if it could also involve a murder mystery again which would come together very nicely. Nicely Done

A cute story written as a play with you as the star;, this was certainly a cute one. It had fun art and was very well done for the time frame it was written in. This was a simple who-done-it with an introduction to the characters and setting, some exploration of the crime scene, choice based investigation, and picking who you think the murder is.
All the character were well made and the story was very simple but good. There wasn’t a lot of branching in the traditional sense, but it was entertaining none the less. I thought the difficulty was perfect, it took me two guesses to get it right. The best part was each characters embarrassing reveal when you picked the wrong killer. Everyone had some scandal that explained some level of suspicious activity on their part.
Ultimately a very fun well-written story. Relatively linear, but you could hardly do more for a who-done-it mystery written in ONE DAY. awesome work!

A stylish, polished little mystery with some attractive bits of art to add to the theatrical and period feel. The capitalized names, as if this were a script was a brilliant touch, and the investigation had a satisfying number of options and red herrings.

There are lies to suss out that have nothing at all to do with the main mystery to throw you off, and things to examine that are just there to waste the limited time--you cannot investigate everything before you must name a culprit.

My only gripe is that there are a (very) few bits where the language is a little awkward--for example, there is an option for "Ask who is wearing gloves" when in fact you are just looking around to see who is wearing gloves as far as I can tell. And some of the responses from the suspects are too stilted to give me a good sense of their personality, like, "I lied to you. I was in the courtyard with Mister Deal."

Whether you misidentify a suspect or finger the guilty party, the game ends swiftly thereafter with one sentence or so about motive or some led they told that may have misled you; in a *slightly* expanded version, I would love to see just a bit more characterization, especially at this moment. It would have made the endings feel a little more like distinct endings. But as a puzzle game, it hangs together as a interesting and quick "catch the contradiction" investigation. Well worth a play!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Do not read if you have not already played the game.

I thought this was a cute little story. I enjoyed it, overall, and it's evident that the author put a fair amount of time into it. The plot is a bit short, but that doesn't detract from the overall plot. I didn't notice any spelling or grammar mistakes.

I liked how you included a cast of characters, introduced at the beginning, and how the play was split into different acts / scenes. I did have to keep notes of which character was which. If this had been a longer story, I'd recommend including the interviews with each of the five characters be kept as items (profiles). Since it was so short, though, I'm not sure that would do much benefit.

I'm not sure I really liked the final answer, in the end. Though I did suspect Godwin and Deal of having an affair, I thought that one of them was simply covering for the other, for this reason. Even if they were having an affair, why would Godwin lie about them being in the courtyard together? That doesn't immediately imply romance between the two, and it seems like an important detail during a murder investigation. Since Mr. Deal was the only occupant in the room not wearing gloves, this seems to imply that Godwin is the murderer, and that Deal is simply covering for her. (Either that, or they committed the crime together).

Moreover, Mr. Deal claimed that the roses in the garden were white, whereas Misses Englehardt claimed they were black. How would Misses Englehardt even know this? She claimed to have been in the dining room during the murder, not outside. It would've made more sense to me if Mr. Deal's answer was wrong, because he was truly with Miss Godwin - or if the two characters had the same answer because Mr. Deal had been outside, but not with Godwin.

Overall, I enjoyed this story. Keep up the good work.

The play format of this story was interesting.

It was more of a one time puzzle game than anything. So there really isn't much replay value, but I enjoyed it.

I think the author did a good job in such a small word count.

I'd recommend playing this story once. It won't take too long, and it is amusing.

Nice. I liked this a lot. One flaw: why write all characters names in CAPITAL LETTERS? (I lost)

7/8

This is a very fun little diversion, easy to cycle through multiple times if you don't guess correctly the first time. The script-like format presents the information efficiently, and the clues pointing to the guilty party are subtle. The idea of getting to pick just three final questions at the end is clever. I enjoyed it. Thanks!

A good game, if short. The culprit is a little bit obvious at the end, but other than that, this is a solid game!
Not much of a CYOA, but for a mystery it's pretty good.
Ended up getting the culprit on the first try ;)

Well, I didn't succeed in actually solving the mystery, but I do appreciate that you the reader have the option of putting the clues together to try and guess who murderer is. I probably need to go through the story-game again to see if I can figure out the guilty party. Fun and to the point. Very nice. PS I really think you're a very talented illustrator.

it was a pretty good short thing

the clues were pretty nicely placed and the dialogue was well-written. the stageplay theme was pretty unique and I think fit well with the genre