Well I'm not going to wait for Chris' reply or whatever because someone literate finally reviewed and I saw the review when I went to check to see if the story really was beatable again and I figured I'd just use this thread to discuss the game, as that's sort of what it's for. Before I continue, I just want to say anything below that seems like passive aggressive snark or trolling really isn't that. I'm just socially inept in real life and all that. Probably why I write so much, and am writing this post on a Saturday afternoon.
To win the storygame, well, you can't really win. There's 3 epilogues, but none of them are the true ending. I said on the page explaining the meaning of the Sotol description that epilogue 2 was the true ending, and there isn't any epilogue 2. The epilogues are labeled 1, 3, and 4. If you just really want to complete the game to rate it, take the train with Aintza and Cheche to the Papal State, don't kill Aintza and Cheche along the way, jump the gap, listen to the guy who talks about the word know a lot, pick the option "Killer wit," pick any of the three options that basically say "get wasted" and go down to the pub. Say yes to the guy in the bar, then you can't lose at this point. You'll reach epilogue 1 and then you can rate the story whatever.
Right, and what comes below is me just using this place as a soapbox for hopefully intellectual discussion. I've just been waiting for someone to make an in-depth review because I have nothing better to do with my life and I'm going to get started.
So, you've gotta be 1) as bonged as I am on a normal day to complete this or 2) get drunk, go to the pub, declare your genius status, go to the castle, palm-strike the fuck out of the text, and then find the hidden meaning.
You'll see it when it says "OFC LET'S GET SOME MORE ALCOHOL EVEN THOUGH IT GOT US HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE".
*ahem*
Now for the real review.
If the author WAS going for the on-acid aspect, 10/10 would read again, because this just describes everything inside a druggie's head.
I'm not on drugs any more but okay. I never did anything more serious than marijuana anyway, unless you want to count alcohol. That's legal, though, when I got over drinking age.
If the author WAS going for something meaningful that would provide the reader any benefit, he's failed. Miserably. Nothing more than an amalgam of rants, highly-contrasted vocabulary, and irrational, illogical decisions that loop back, the story takes the reader on a befuddling trip that seems to never cease with the variety of choices provide in a continual loop, with exploitations of loops and tricky hyperlinks to misdirect the reader.
I'm a she, just so you know. The highly-contrasted vocabulary is how I used to speak; thought it made me look smart. Logically, the normal reader shouldn't know this, but Ignacia was somewhat of a self-insert of me addressing the demons of my own life. Will get to that.
For the commonplace reader who desires only to have a meaningful plot in a cohesive mode with the luxury of variations, this is nothing more than a maze that tests the endurance one so dedicated so as to make a simple comment. No thematical, emotional, psychological, logical, or even spiritual merit is derived from this.
Pretty much the point, I'll get to that in a moment.
There only lies the fact that there are choices at the bottom of the screen. If it be an analogy to the nature of the world we live in, truly, I would laud my praises upon this cesspool, but really, there is nothing to hint at this.
It was, based on the three endings thing I did. The reason I wanted the audience to read the entire thing was specifically just to catch that one minor detail. Pretty much 99% of this story was irrelevant, although I suppose you could enjoy the irreverent humor.
See, if the reader would catch the three epilogues thing, they would then have to make a leap of faith-- based on the absence of a second epilogue and the fact it is clearly stated with no trickery whatsoever epilogue 2 is the canonical ending, and based together with the metafictional aspect of how the CDF went around clearly editing the storygame to stuff as much confusing nonsense in as possible, the reader could make the conclusion Ignacia's life was pointless because she really was killed and it was a propaganda piece in-universe used to keep people wasting their time and prevent from thinking about how terrible their situation was and revolting. It kept them happy, with all that funny, I guess.
In fact, there are no hints to this puzzle other than the fact that one must never loop back to death.
I never really even considered the story a puzzle. It's actually really easy, from what I thought. I'll take blame on that.
The scripting is praiseworthy, for while it lacks the quality and actual utility many other storygames boast on about, the quantity does serve to misdirect the readers. Whether this was the author's intention or not does not matter; what does matter was that it was praiseworthy only because it would chase away all but the most masochistic of readers...or those familiar with the structure of navigating through a storygame on this site(that's about a couple of months worth of experience). There is no promotion of variation, other than the fact that even daring to go beyond the known method leads to aimless wandering.
Not exactly sure what you're trying to say here, I'll be honest. There was a lot of variation in that you could click options to a lot of pages for you to read, and that's basically the gist of a storygame that ain't a quiz.
This is a gross exaggeration of the difficulties life possesses as one learns more and more about the intricate complexities of human culture. This is because, again, there is an absence of learning from this piece of trash. There is no defined pattern, nothing that can bring to mind any non-surreal imagery.
It's not about life in general, although I bet it's possible to dig out support for that. I personally never considered that though. It's about the struggles of my life, in particular. For everyone else, I figured it would just be a straight entertaining read in how loopy and disjointed it was, and one or two people would maybe catch past that.
Hence, I must reiterate that this storygame works as a piece of trash.
If that's your opinion, fair enough. You shouldn't praise its technical quality in scripting and call it a piece of trash, though. Be consistent.
It picks at a respectable name (changing St. Ignatius / Ignacio de Loyola into a feminine Ignacia) into some feminine working of the mind, and continues to pick on conventional, reasonable, respectable foundations of our world by CAPSLOCKING modern-age jargon like genderqueer and such, all under the name of "being high / insane" when in fact, the writer was simply making poor attempts to veil convoluted insults within the rants.
I never actually wanted to insult Saint Ignatius or the Catholic Church or anything like that. You'll notice I went out of my way to painstakingly separate the fictional universe's Catholic Church by making them a completely different religion and by changing the name to a lesser-known one, as well as much of the details of Ignacia's life. Ignacia really is nothing like the real Ignatius Loyola, except in their name; Hell, they aren't even the same age, when I could have done even that quite easily.
Most people in the English speaking world shouldn't really know Ignatius Loyola as Ignacio de Loyola, that's more of a Spanish-Latin thing, so I figured people wouldn't think I'm dissing them or anything like that, as well.
A lot of the jarring stuff was just there to intentionally misled. I was of the opinion that, if the reader would have to sift through piles of manure to get to the main ideas of existentialism and nihilism, they would appreciate the concepts more by the time they would have to invest into digging it out and really thinking about it along the way.
What pains me more is that the whole story seems to hint at making a mockery of Loyola's legacy : the Ignatian Prayer, a self-reflective, rigorous type of prayer that challenges a Christian's mind by delving into his / her own life experiences to synthesize a functional hypothesis / truth, and thus would mature and grow from an analysis of either the Old or New Testament.
If you'll notice, again, I painstakingly differentiated. I never mentioned anything about the Old or New Testament in there; the Machinist Church has a New New New Testament. I never even talked about Ignatius' prayers, either, unless you want to count The Spiritual Executions. That was just a reference to the book's name though, a little shout-out; I didn't delve into the concepts at all. ?
I'm not Christian anymore, and I never was Catholic, so I'll say now if I personally offended your beliefs, it was never my intention. I'm not going to apologize, though.
The Ignatian Prayer, actually, is a Christianized process of thinking that all humans undertake : the production of wisdom. For is it not true that all humans look back on their past failures and analyze them, to at LEAST question their actions and think of a better behavior (of course, acting upon these regrets is a different story entirely)? If it is thus so, then would not this so-called "story", in effect, extend its mockery to one of the most important factors of the human race's survival : learning?
Well, if you think learning is important... I personally do not. Happiness is more so, I'd say.?
It is because of this that I have given this story a 1 out of 8, the lowest possible score. For while it may have "seemed" creative to the standard person, it is only an insult poorly hidden behind ranting.
Fair enough. I'd like to see your rebuttal on all this, though. No passive aggressiveness here, again. I'm genuinely interested in you backing your standing and discussing the story further.? The best thing, I think, would be for you to come back upholding the opinion that the game is worthy of a 1 out of 8 and have well-backed evidence for it.
As quoted from Harper Lee : "...delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts..."
This is just a personal aside but I really don't like quotes. They just feel like substitutes for original thought. And ?I think adjectives should carry the story, because adverbs (mostly ly words) really disrupt the flow and verbs are a little weak on their own only.
The fact is here, that this trash is deletion worthy, in spite of all the effort put into, because 1) it serves only to mock, not yield learning 2) it provides terrible entertainment 3) it's pretty much the opposite of what type of quality we demand, as stated in the front page of the site.
I'd think I addressed the first point already. The second point, well, other people seemed to enjoy it. The final point, not sure what you mean. You yourself said was well-constructed, technically-speaking.
I was pretty interested to see what interpretations people might have as well, as just because I'm the author doesn't mean I'm right. I truly believe in the post-modernist idea of the death of the author, and, if interpretations can be supported, I will concede to them. Looking forward to discussing this with you.
@Swiftstryker
