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Following advice from @Clayfinger, I'd love to get a second set of eyes on Proto Singularity. I've been staring at it for a while and would love to get your feedback.

It's mostly complete, but there are a few "under construction" pages and a ton of typos. Probably mechanical glitches as well. And I feel the Adapted path ended up getting a bit too complex and wonky.

I hope the summary is better (it sounded like AI before) and that the rest of the writing doesn't come across like that. The only place I used AI was for the "cover art" - and that seems pretty obvious. I can ditch it if you think it's better without.

500

500 points?

Now that I've read the actual story, I have to say this was quite the read. Actually succeeding in your goal but being limited by your technology is certainly an interesting way to tackle this concept. I think this game certainly has a lot of potential. Here are my thoughts based on what I've read:

What is this helmet and this capture machine?

- The second paragraph has a bunch of sentences starting with "And" and a lot of ellipses. Of course, that could be because your brain is recovering, so I'm okay with that if it was intentional. The fourth sentence in that same paragraph starts with "And a then a" which I'm pretty sure is a typo.

- 6th paragraph: "that's what you've told the powers-that-be 'at' Virtudyne"

Write a message to your output stream

- I guess this part isn't done yet. I tried sending SOS again, but nothing happened. There aren't really any clues of what other messages I should be sending, so I'm not really sure what to do here.

Execute analyze

- Both of the commands lead to a blackout state with the analyze option being removed from the inventory. So again, I'm guessing this is yet to be completed.

Read "A Choice"

- The first paragraph of the message starts as "I realized is that..." which seems to be a typo. Maybe it can be rewritten as "I've realized that..."

Overall, I'd say this quite an interesting read. I'll look forward to the completed version of the story :)

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. And I just went in and fixed the typos!

Otherwise, it sounds like you escaped the recliner... did that require the walkthrough? I was worried that puzzle would be a turnoff so early on.

The "Manually send a signal" option does nothing... it's just a deadend. I'm on the fence if it's a good idea. I wanted to give the feeling of being trapped and doing something while accomplishing nothing. There are no secret codes - and thematically, your biological self would not be looking for anything.

That said, everything should work; there are 8 to 10 pages with a 🚧 Work In Progress 🚧 banner. So based on what you wrote, you experienced the Terminated ending by running out of time while trying to develop new commands.

I'd be very curious if you remember what steps you took. I'm guessing that it took a few too many tries to guess out how to fork, and then you couldn't buy extra time.

I wonder if I should simplify the initial fork mechanic, perhaps by moving Software optimization options, and only allowing hardware; I cannot think of a way to drop hints on the formula needed, except the fact that there's 18 weeks available but 20 weeks of upgrades.

Oh do you remember seeing a "Weeks Left" notice after escaping? If not, you must not have READ/WRITE messages enough.

Overall, my goal was to have the storygame played a few times to experience the different endings, but have each iteration be a bit of a learning experience. No real theme there, but it's a time-based puzzle, so hard to "win" at that without trying a few times.

Yes, it did require the walkthrough if I remember correctly. I probably wouldn't have guessed to use morse code otherwise.

The dead end is definitely a good idea, I understand now the idea you were trying to convey. That being said, you could add some sort of text when you return to the same page, maybe expressing frustration that no one is understanding your signals. Any sort of feedback that acknowledges the player's previous actions will help drive home this effect better. I think in the first SOS sending puzzle you had altered the text to show how many times you had tried a short scream. Something like that at the dead end would help with the effect, I think.

I don't think I managed to get to any "Work in progress" pages. Yes, I did reach the "Terminated" ending... though I don't remember having any opportunity to develop commands outside of the "Execute Analyze" page. From what you are saying, I'm guessing I should've had enough spare time before the project's cancellation to develop those commands from analysis?

As for the initial fork, I'd provide an option to run a simulation after an upgrade to determine which component to upgrade next. This can be at the cost of time so that players can't just simulate after every upgrade.

I don't really remember seeing "Weeks Left" after the fork. I did have READ/WRITE and NOOP options. I had used the NOOP to get to the "Execute Analyze" page, I think.

Again, I will stress that whether people play multiple times depends on whether they WANT to play multiple times. I didn't necessarily feel like I was learning anything new with the iterations of play past the fork which is why I stopped playing when I did. Maybe an option to reflect on your failings can be a good way to motivate players to restart. That could be a third option outside of terminate and sleep when you end up in the digital cemetery. You could use that to drop hints to what players could do differently.

Wonderful ideas, this helps me a lot.

I realize that you must have NOOP'd too early, which would have eaten precious weeks without "seeing it". I just now hid that option until after doing a READ-WRITE-READ sequence; that initial R-W-R buys more time, and then unlocks new WRITE options to gain even more time, increase memory, and increase CPU.

I'll add these to my TODO:
* add some kind of hint that the "Manually send a signal" is a deadend to prevent reader from trying to guess
* add clues (run simulation?) to help user figure out how to upgrade in act 1 so at least have a shot of not being immediately Terminated after adapting
* encourage reader to replay after a bad endings (especially Terminated), perhaps telling them the exact upgrade formula on how to not waste time in the first act, so they can just skip ahead to second act quickly

I think the "real story" comes in the epilogues; I think the "Adapted" epilogue is the most fun to play, but I like the story of the "Transcended" epilogue the best.


Anyway ---- if you want to try again, I unhid the a warp link on the first page that skips to Act 2 with minimal requirements.

I took a glance at it, the first thing that caught my attention is that the link to the "What to do from here?" page is "Do something something else..."

I also feel as if there's an overuse of ellipsis, and the onomatopoeia at the beginning of each loop is a bit off-putting. On the "What are these brain blackouts?" page in the fourth paragraph it should be a "--" on either side because you're using em dashes like commas. You did it with the other example on that page, so you should keep it consistent. On a few other pages I also noticed this, so it might be best to look over the whole thing and stick to either single dashes or double dashes. I even feel like you might be overusing them? I see at least one on each page and it takes away from the impact to some degree, but that's a nitpick.

The questions at the beginning also provide a bit of an info dump, which my eyes kept glazing over. Although it is more of a puzzle game than a story, perhaps you could put a bit of story-based exposition at the beginning so we can get some knowledge of the world building and our narrator. How exactly is AI leading to the world's demise? And how would this Natural MI help?

This is my personal opinion, but I don't think the helmet needs more explanation than its function? Of course it's not like you shouldn't provide it, but in a more subtle way would be easier for the reader to take in. The fork concept is fun, it reminds me of SOMA. I also feel like it could be more of a subtle delivery, but I don't mind it being known from the start.

I want to see a bit more writing on each page. There's a story, but the more direct telling doesn't make me feel bad that the narrator is getting cheated on. More emotional investment would raise the stakes, and I feel it'd be interesting if there was a page that set the tone halfway or two-thirds into each route. The time limit doesn't feel like much of a time limit. And I wish you didn't directly state which endings were bad, and instead showed it through some longer segments of prose.

The game really picks up in the second act, the formatting and usage of items is quite fun. I feel like there's an opportunity for more development in the "memories" you can replay. Each option just directs to the same page. I purged everything and felt nothing, but that may be because I'm an unfeeling bitch.

My final thoughts, keep it up! It's pretty entertaining and challenging to click through, and giving the reader more reasons to care couldn't hurt.

Thank you for the feedback, that's very helpful :)

I fixed those typos, and definitely need to come back and do a proofreading check. I've just been writing a page here and there, and there's not as much consistency as there should be.

Great advice on reworking the first act; I'm thinking I could shift a lot of the question-based exposition into interactions/encounters with Alana, mom, etc., or "walking around" the the lab and "looking at" things or whatever.

Oh the replayed memories originally had their own page.... but I just kept cutting and cutting my Work-in-Progress pages😅 -- but now I'm feeling more motivated to go back and finish up the story bits. It really feels like a lame shortcut.


By the way... what did you mean by "page that set the tone halfway or two-thirds into each route"? As in, like expressing the urgency of the deadline or something? Or like, grounding reader somehow? Just trying to picture it.

I'm excited to read those memory pages if you add them, would definitely add more depth to the purge command. By setting the tone, I did mean expressing the urgency of the deadline. It could also be a point in the right direction for someone trying to get to the best ending, especially if a player feels trapped in a loop and doesn't quite know what they're doing. I feel it would allow them to move on to trying other things.