Hastings, 1066: Aftermath

A must-play game for history genre (nerds) players.

Introduction:

"Hastings, 1066: Aftermath" is a text-based interactive fiction game that belongs to the historical genre. Written by "TheWriterInTheDark", the story depicts the famous battle of Hastings and what happens afterwards, though it does take liberties in making use of real historical/legendary characters.

Story and Narrative:

One of the most remarkable aspects of the game, is how vivid and alive the battle and it's consequences feel, in spite of the writer using the "2nd person POV". I'm a sucker for the fantasy and historical genre, so it was the perfect choice for me to try next, right after playing "Rouges".

The story makes you play as Aethelwulf (some of the Vikings show fans should recognize his name), one of the nobles fighting for king Harold Godwinson and a good friend of his too. As is historically known, the English side is defeated by king William, Harold dies, and you, Aethelwulf are imprisoned along with your soldiers. When brought in the audience of king William, you have three choices: swear fealty and be humiliated, try to kill the king and die with him or show yourself as the true wolf of England and free the country from the conqueror's chains. If you are not dead, you can enjoy some slice-of-life moments with Aethelwulf's family, exploring Aethelwulf's own personality too.

It's pacing is great, though there are some grammatical errors here and there in the story, I'll have to admit. As for the endings, there are more than 52 endings. So it has a high replay value.

Gameplay Mechanics: Well, it is a branching story, which can be followed clicking the choice/links you want to, but beware of some of them: You can die sometimes. There is a go-back option for you to undo the wrong choice you clicked.

Rating: 9/10

This is, without a doubt, one of the most underrated games on the site. I was completely enthralled from beginning to end. The story was compelling, the characters felt real, and most importantly, I could feel every emotion that Lord Aethelwulf felt. Love, anger, frustration, uncertainly and loss were all brilliantly portrayed, and when people died, even when they were just unnamed countrymen, I felt genuinely sad about it. You have a real talent for capturing emotions and you convey them all beautifully.

Most of the characters were decently flushed out, but I completely fell in love with Queen Dierdre. She is one bad-ass mother-fucker. Went back and forth to get quite a few of the Irish-aided endings, and found that I actually preferred one of the bitter-sweet endings to the more traditionally “happy” ones. Will definitely have to go back and play through some of the other, non Irish-aided paths at some point, but I’ll be sad to see her go.

Not really much to say in the way of criticism. I think this game could’ve done with a couple more proof reads before it was published. There were a few spelling mistakes scattered around here and there, but definitely not enough to take away from the story at all.

I’d say that one of the games biggest strengths is that a lot of the decisions were genuinely difficult to make. I find that most of the games on CYS fall into the trap of primarily having decisions that are either “right” or “wrong”, and it’s definitely refreshing to come across a game where you had to think carefully about your choices, and were left feeling unsure of yourself even after making those decisions. (I ended up reconsidering my choices so much that I actually went back and changed my mind quite a few times.)

Also, the imagery was beautiful, the attention to detail was extremely impressive and the fight scenes were extremely engaging and genuinely exciting. I think that, of all the games I’ve read so far, this makes the top ten easily. (Probably top five.)

One of the easiest 8/8s I’ve ever given.

This is what happens when a good concept meets a competent writer.

A common error is thinking that to write something historically accurate you have to adopt the style of the time; this usually prevents the reader from understanding you and feeling involved in the story. Here instead the historical setting is interesting without feeling overbearing (apart from one or two repetitive descriptions of the Norman armor), and that's thanks to your clear and effective style that manages not to feel anachronistic.

There are minor typos here and there but the general grammar is good, and in well-written stories of this size you usually tend to overlook any errors.

The pace is balanced, usually fast but with some strategically placed descriptions to inform the reader. I usually have little patience for detailed descriptions of settings, so if I succeeded in reading through them without being bored, anyone can.

Regarding characters and plot, I got the "Irish Wolf" epilogue and I liked both Dierdre and the bits on Irish culture as a whole, while the English characters were never annoying even if conventional.
One of the only flaws for me was the whole "Your current relation with [character]: Awful/Excellent" at the end of the page that was used only twice, while the rest of the time the opinions of others probably influenced the story but weren't displayed in this way. Also, before attacking London from the South my character explains the plan to Eamon and then in the very next page proceeds to explain the exact same plan to Dierdre, resulting in the unnecessary repetition of a whole paragraph.

The story in itself feels quite linear in the sense that different branches end up the same, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

All in all a very good story with an immersive atmosphere, 7/8.

nice

Excellent storybook

Masterpiece

An excellent and well written adventure, even with it's anachronisms and historical deviations.

Perfect

Speechless.

I am so happy to find a story-game where I can fight back against the Normans and perhaps win! As an Englishman, the events of 1066 and what followed have always been a dismaying historical fact that could never be changed.
There were not too many typos, the reading was still enjoyable and reminded me of a series of Saxon-era historical fiction novels I've read by Matthew Harfy.
Good branching - not too many, not too few, I think.