Spy Mission

An excellent entry for the Summer Slam Contest, and arguably one of your finer works. The story was captivating with extensive branching and good use of items in innovative ways, and I managed to find 20 of the endings in all. The probability rolls were a nice touch and really added to the immersion factor.

My favourite path by far involved avoiding the spy mission altogether, where you ended up settling in another country where the agency would never find you. It was a breath of fresh air to have such a route and I'm glad you implemented this. It felt as if the real spy mission was only half of the storygame.

I found that the first chapter was a little drawn-out for some reason. There's an awful lot of sentences detailing "first you did this, then you did that, then you got out of your car" etc. However, this contrasts with the action and intrigue that follows once the plot gets rolling, so this isn't really much of a criticism.

I encountered a few bugs in the storygame, which is unsurprising considered how much scripting was involved. For example, I attempted to use my hotel keycard (in the wrong place), chose another option, and was directed back to the previous page...which forced me to return to the same page I was on.

Also, there was a section near the end where I wanted to shoot someone, only to be told that there was nobody to shoot. I guess I wasn't supposed to use the gun there, considering that the other option was to BECOME MAYOR OF THE CITY. (With a 10% success rate, no less! I don't know how I managed that.)

I didn't find a use for all the items, which explains why I may have missed a few endings, although I found great delight in randomly firing my gun at the airport and causing chaos. Also, I like that some endings were only possible if the player chose only to pick up SOME of the items available on the page. That's not something I see very often in item-heavy storygames. Taking the gun, for example, would ensure that you would never get through airport security. You had to choose to pick up every other item instead.

Now, the main criticisms. Why on earth was I chosen as a spy in the first place?

No, seriously. Why? Why is this organisation so keen to hire me? Did I miss something? My character is apparently some random guy with a crummy job with no experience of fighting or anything. Yet these agents and assassins seem so desperate to recruit me at every available opportunity. I can't even go into a coffee shop without some shady bloke turning up in a taxi and demanding that I follow him.

Even when I do accept the spy mission, the agency gives me some really limited training. Only two training sessions? How do they know I won't break under torture? What if I don't have the guts to kill someone? Isn't there a more conventional way of hiring a secret agent than randomly picking a guy at random off the streets?

What makes my character so special that I have to be singled out for this kind of thing? Did they call a lottery of every random bloke in the city or something? Man, they'd be recruiting every bum on the street at this rate.

I once read a book which was a parody of a spy thriller. It was about a guy who accidentally found himself taking upon the identity of a ruthless assassin (who had recently died), and doing so with much hilarity. This felt a bit like that, except that it apparently wasn't an accident.

Also, what's up with the airport security? I attempted to board a plane without a ticket, and they throw me in jail? How about they just deny me passage and send me back home?

How did my character get killed by three 13-year olds? I know I didn't take combat training on that route, but come on. Not only did I get beaten up by these 13-year olds, but they killed me as well?

A few other minor issues are the lack of any significant characters or relationships (I didn't know anyone's name except for that drug lord), a passage where your character guns down police and apparently feels nothing about it, and a lack of closure in some instances. I know that your writing is based more on action and plot, which is great, but some emotion and imagery wouldn't go amiss.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this storygame overall. It feels like most of the enjoyment is in discovering all of the different endings in store - pretty much every good ending involves settling down in another country. I loved exploring Prague and all the various cities you can go to.

All in all, a really well-written storygame which deserves the commendation you received for it.

men

Good gub

Tu escritura es magistral como siempre, Ogre. La historia del juego en sí está llena de contenido y opciones, y me mantuvo entretenido hasta el final. No pude evitar sentir curiosidad por todos los posibles resultados y decisiones que están tan clara y maravillosamente ubicadas en esta historia.

Disfruté cada minuto de esta historia. Me siento tentado a decir que te has superado a ti mismo, pero tu escritura siempre es consistente en lo buena que es. Gracias por otra lectura maravillosa. Anticipo con impaciencia el próximo juego de historia que puedas crear. Ya sea una secuela inspirada de esta o algo completamente diferente. El nivel de cuidado y atención al detalle que pones en cada una de tus historias siempre es un placer para leer y disfrutar.

Gracias una vez más por escribir esta maravillosa y apasionante historia.

Kinda good...

Ending 19 is a huge bruh moment XD.

Fun adventure!

hard

OUCH MAH RIBS but this is super good

its fun! but i picked the safe options XD