Down by the river

This story caught when I was in a reflective, contemplative mood and I became engaged with the narrative's grounded focus on the young female protagonist's life crisis. My own personal life affected me a bit with how I engaged with this storygame as I too have an aging grandfather and had long, grueling experiences with narcissists. I initially chose the route where I declined the grandfather's request to join him on a houseboat. I was curious to put my attention on Samantha rebuilding her life, and sure enough she did. I kept chugging along and decided to attend Charlene's wedding, because that's what a good friend does. Seeing her life drama and the comparison to Samantha's experiences naturally encouraged me to want to encourage her to stand up to her future mother-in-law. Then, I attended the funeral, and could feel the sting of guilt by not going on the boating trip. Engaging with one of the people that more recently saw him in life seemed like a logical thing to do...

...and then a cult-wizard turned me into a frog.

Nothing can take away the experience I had reading through a heartfelt story of a heartbroken woman who seeks to rediscover herself in a world that demands she stand up for herself. However, that feeling abruptly stopped after that moment of absurdism. After playing everything else after that initial route, while I was entertained by other silly moments, I still felt that nothing was as good as going through a storyline that was filled with simple life drama.

Encouraging Charlene to do so as well was something that I was proud to do as a reader. However, I still felt that the romantic connection between Samantha and her was very abrupt. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and there were never a lot of choices along the way that affected the development of that relationship.

The storygame is labeled under the "love and dating" category, but I don't think that the romance aspect is its main strength. Rather, it was the aspect of someone having the courage to tear herself away from an abusive situation and rediscover the joy of living. A romance plot could absolutely be weaved seamlessly into it if there were more little choices in the path that could showcase character dynamics, possibly with multiple possibilities for partners.

A lot of this review may seem to give a negative connotation, but rather I think there's huge potential for the author to explore the idea of a grounded, dramatic world. I was blown away by how much I was drawn into Samantha's conflict with different narcissistic personalities and how she could grow as a character in each of those moments. Even with the flaws I perceived in the storygame, it's still a wonderful time, and others may enjoy those other parts more than I did.

That was a really good storygame! There are multiple, well-developed paths that tell a great story.

<<SPOILERS AHEAD>>

I loved that Samantha used her own experience with Dave to help Charlene out of her relationship. It definitely felt like she was the right person at the right place and at the right time to do the job. This is further revealed to be the right call when Charlene reveals that she feels better after breaking up with Henry, just like Samantha did after her breakup. In general, they make a great pair, and I think the paths that involve Charlene are the ones with the most detail and are the most fun to read.

That being said, I do kind of wish that the path where you go with your grandfather on the trip was a bit more well-developed. When I first played the game, I thought that those would be the options that lead you to the main story, but instead they just led to short endings.

Also, if you kissed Charlene when you saw her in prison and then proposed to her, that leads to her proposing back to you and the two of you having your "first kiss" except in this case, it would be the second kiss.

Of course, those are just minor nitpicks. Overall, I'd say this game is definitely worth multiple reads. Excellent work!

I think I've read through all the branches of this story now, and some of them touched me deeply because I can relate to part of what happens here in part. My father died last year, and about one year prior to that, he wanted to go on a vacation with me... at a time where he already had trouble walking, to the point that he was prone to fall if he went more than a quarter mile at a time. I declined going with him because I sensed there would only be trouble if we went together. Some months after, he agreed to be taken to a nursing home, but he didn't like it there at all and demanded to be taken out immediately, so he got 24 hour care at home, which he wasn't satisfied with either, to the point that he even wanted to sue me in order for his care to end, but he didn't succeed in that.

So I can relate to the option where you can take your grandpa to a retirement home, but this option feels rather sad to me because he is somewhat tricked into it and then basically is locked away for the rest of his life, which at the age of 65 may be another 20-25 years. Somehow I think often the elderly people aren't asked what they really want, or they are not trusted to make the right decisions for themselves anymore. This, in fact, inspired me to add another chapter about retirement homes to my upcoming storygame which I'm still writing.

But back to yours. From the structure, I see a main story which isn't really the boat ride, but to get to it you have to decline the boat ride, go to the party and attack the priest, which will give you the longest read-through. All other options die off quickly, mostly in one more chapter which describes how the rest of the story played out with no more branching, only the actual boat ride goes on for a bit longer. This is a bit puzzling because the story description would make you believe the boat ride to be the center of the story. Also I think there could have been done more to include the funeral. The only way to attend it in its full form is to decline the boat ride and go to the party, but there are other endings where the funeral still happens, but it is either only briefly mentioned, or isn't mentioned at all, but presumably still happens. There are only a few paths which would prevent the funeral from happening - if you put your grandfather into a retirement home or prevent him from joining the cult on the boat ride. All the other endings could theoretically still lead to his funeral and have it play out more or less in its full form.

There are other places where I wish there were choices when the chapters just go on and on... most notably in the conversation with Charlene on the boat party and in the chapter about the retirement home.

I also noticed there are mutliple narcissists in the game. The word itself isn't mentioned, but other words like "gaslighting" which is usually used when talking about narcissists are mentioned. That topic is no stranger to me because my father was a narcissist, and there is at least one other narcissist in the family who worked with me on arranging his funeral and renovating his flat after his death. The first narcissist you encounter as a player is, of course, your boyfriend who you can break up with or not. So I can relate to the traits of those characters as well, and I suppose there is some background knowledge about narcissists with the author as well.

All in all, this was one of the stories that captured me so that I read it in its entirety.

This story is well written and very engaging. The characterization is very well done, and for the majority of the story the reaction options to things are very reasonable and intuitive. It is also short enough that it is worth a read through by just about anyone.

There were a few issues that jumped out at me. While SPAG and general word choice is well handled thoughout, there are several details that seem unstable, even on the same page (your boots become fragile high heels; you become a director, but later remember being a CTO) It's nothing that fully breaks the flow of the story, but it is jarring enough to be very noticeable. The only thing more jarring is the lack of reaction to real magic being introduced. While that lack isn't surprising in the toad ending, in an alternate path the news of actual resurrection seems like it would be something that would get talked about even in prison, or a religion capable of actual miracles would have more of an impact on society. The fact that it isn't and really isn't reacted to more by Sam strains credulity.

All in all, a very enjoyable story with enough surprises to justify a few readthroughs.

I've been looking forward to reading this ever since the author posted a uniquely insightful and coherent response to my last story. And honestly I wasn't disappointed at all, this story does many clever things. This review contains SPOILERS so read at your own risk. I will say I have it an 8/8 and I would strongly suggest people try it out.

One thing I noticed after going through the choices is that it gives you the ending and experience that your choices indicate you want to have. If you want a wholesome bonding story, a story with a sad ending, a story with a scary ending or others, then this is the story for you. It doesn't try to thwart the reader, it really goes along with what they like, and I appreciate that sort of thing. That being said, although it has a great many endings, there is still a consistent mood for the whole thing.

It starts out pretty mundane, which is the sort of thing that grabs my interest instantly. Many authors nowadays think they have to start their story in the middle of the action or with some big, attention grabbing event, as if the readers need keys jangled in their face like a baby, otherwise their fragile attention spans will move on to something else. But starting out fairly mundane like this helps to ease the audience into the story, which is the kind of thing I enjoy very much.

Another thing about this story is that certain lines stand out to be very vividly. There's one where it describes the neon-lights of the city as a "a magical world where not everything is as it seems", another "You sometimes feel like you're also trapped in a time loop and forced to relive the same day over and over and over again" and "You start to wonder if eating nothing but deep-fried chicken and cake had finally caught up to his brain."

The first one is clever because it sets up the rest of the experience you're going to have in that version. If you're like me and you went through the "boat ride" ending first, these set up a clear contrast between these two environments, with the "neon lights" being associated with a mysterious, constantly changing and high energy place whereas the boat ride as being a calm, relaxing and wholesome experience. This dichotomy is an extremely important one for people to pick up on in our current times especially.

Another thing I like about this story that I have tried to do in my own is that it has such a great variety of environments, each with their own feeling and personality. The other two I just like because they remind me of certain thoughts I've been having.

One last thing, I also really enjoyed how this author treats magic. One thing which I think is greatly lacking in storytelling nowadays (except the Red Dead Redemption games) is the kind of "background magic", that is, creating a world where everyone, including the audience, thinks is completely normal and mundane for the majority of the story...but if you dig deep enough, you find that hidden under all of that there actually IS magic after all. I am of course referring to the "toad" ending, which actually did take me off guard but not in an unpleasant sort of way.

All jn all, this story does a lot of clever, imaginative things and picks up on themes I consider to be extremely important and insightful, which is pretty much exactly what I was expecting coming into it. I would certainly hope that the author keeps writing in future.

There are some minor but persistent punctuation errors, but this was otherwise entertaining enough to override those. I just wish this had been longer; after the wild ride that was declining the trip, it was disappointing that actually going along with it was almost like an afterthought.

I enjoy so much about the writing style and the way RKrall thinks, there were multiple times events and choices had me grinning. So I would absolutely love seeing the trip itself fleshed out properly. Because as it stands this is only ostensibly a story about joining your grandpa on an adventure, the real meat is in refusing.

What there is here is great though, so still a very fun read and well worth a look.

I don't have time to give this a proper review right now so I'll be back soon. But I'll just say that this was such a breath of fresh air and everyone giving the brony attention should read this instead.