Pitka's Fables

Unlike many games on CYS, this game has an almost literary quality, and it poses a sort of literary question, of precisely the sort that I frequently post to my students to their boredom and sudden muteness: what do you do with a story that suddenly "breaks" in the middle and feels like two different stories?

You can say that the author has lost control or that the story is bad or annoying or something like that, and sometimes that's the case. However, having read Ninja's other work, and knowing that he knows his way around a narrative, I'd rather trust the author and poke at the storygame and see what's interesting here. And there is a lot.

The first part professes to teach us some morals, and these morals don't all hang together well--it's not clear to me how you would "know your place" but also "question everything"--or exactly placing the "overall" ahead of "your viewpoint" works with helping in a way that is "tailored to your personal talent." The morals often interestingly clash and butt up against each other in a designedly incoherent way.

If that were it, I don't think there would be much here--it would be, with apologies to Mizal, another version of "Now You Gotta Deal With This S***"--a collection of short pieces stuck together.

And if the second half, a suddenly embittered whirlwind of a narrator, quick to turn on the reader, were all there were, I don't think there would be much here either--it would be just sudden venom, exhaustion, sometimes in a "gotcha" voice and sometimes in a sarcastic, nasty voice, but always unpleasant.

But it's the connection of the two halves that makes this story work. Here's why: you can slowly see the narrator responding to his own morals, hearing the hoary and really rather boring lessons ("Pride blinds you from Potential," gee, thanks) as attacks on himself and his own accomplishment, in life as a whole, but more particularly his own writing, and the collapse of the story sort of becomes the point. You can do a truly shit job of writing a story about a story collapsing, but this one is not that. There's control in the way the morals get echoed (annoyingly so) in the narrative--suddenly ideas like "personal talent"; "your viewpoint"; "potential"; "knowing your place"--all of these become taken by the narrator as attacks almost on the part of the reader choosing these stories.

Is it the most pleasant thing to watch a story and narrator implode? Not at all. But interesting art is often pretty abrasive. In the hands of a worse writer, this story technique would lead to something pretty laughable. But in Ninja's hands, I think he has created something interesting and memorable.

Was not expecting to be told that I was loved by a story game today, but here we are. Thank you.

Your stories have good morals too.

great. :)

Really opened my eyes. The first interaction fiction I've ever read and honestly really enjoyed it. Thanks a ton for the experience.

Great lessons in this text-game. It's short mostly however packed with pieces of purity. Worth every penny.

The game is short and initially confusing, with the 'choices' not exactly matching what I'd like to say. But those are the only downsides of this story - it is well-written and really engaging. Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it reaches a truth that can hurt just a little. I would completely recommend spending a little time playing.

This story is unusual and I like that.
In particular I enjoyed the moral lesson being told with the morals sometimes contradicting each other. Then throughout the rest the story your character accepts these morals in a subtle way.

Overall a well written good story.

Wow, this was really good.

I'm shocked that I found this entertaining haha.

This was intriguing. Before I spoil anything, you need to play this game first. Reading a review of it will spoil everything unique about it. So GO PLAY THE GAME. I will tell you right off the bat that it is worth picking up. If you are reading this, then you have some interest in it or the author, so just do it.

With that out of the way this game can be split into two parts. The first part is the fables, and the second is the mental breakdown portion of it. While I prefer the latter, they both were very good.

The fables themselves were fairly well done. I did go back and read all of them, and I liked them all. My favorite was the sages, but they are all worth a read. I'm not sure if you wrote all the fables, but if you did that is even more impressive. While they all are pretty generic, I like that they focused on a particular theme and were normally pretty short. All in all, not bad.

Then there is the depression section. I tend to like the games that introduce meta elements, especially when they are executed well. It sure is a good thing that this story was executed very well. This section makes up a good portion of the story, and nearly all of the branching. The story isn’t very long by any means, but it is enjoyable.

In conclusion I like this story. It is well done, and it combines two concepts I enjoy a lot. I have a fondness for fables, and a fondness for games with meta elements. The branching isn’t very vast, but it works for what it is. This is a story you sit down and read. Then you walk away. It is no masterpiece, but it is solid, and sometimes that’s all a book needs.