This Is Not A Storygame

Usually whenever I review storygames I try to look at them objectively, but This Is Not A Storygame so This Is Not A Review.

This is not a review so I won’t be commenting on the solid quality of prose and lack of general SPAG errors.

Because this is not a review I don’t have to worry about spoiling things, but that’s not a problem because there is not much to spoil as the game is essentially a collection of loosely connected pages that are meant to make the reader question the idea of choice in interactive fiction games. If this was a review I’d mention how the questions and analogies used to present those questions are interesting to read, but it’s not a review so I won’t do that.

What I will however do, is make my own choice in responding to the author with my own two cents in the matter, and those two cents are that as someone who likes philosophy I had plenty of fun pondering the dilemmas presented by his work, and that alone made it worth reading through the 2000 or so words I’ve been presented with.

Have those words shattered my view on choice and the illusion of it in stories? Not particularly, but I find it quite important to occasionally have those views challenged or at least questioned as a way to ensure they don’t become stale and eventually rot away like all unmaintained things tend to do.

Can I invariably recommend This Is Not A Storygame to anyone? Most likely I shouldn’t do that since those kinds of experimental projects tend to be very hit or miss depending on way too many factors. Multiple of which aren’t even relevant to, or required by most typical storygames, which is why I'm really glad that This Is Not A Review and I don’t have to pick a side.

I do have a final score in my mind, but I don’t have to share it because this is not a review.

Interesting reflection on the nature of choice. Though I feel I had a choice. I chose to read to the end.

This was really good and made me think. I'm glad I read it. But one question: Where does option A lead to? I'm gonna go find out!!!

Stories are about discovery - discovering an author's fictitious characters and recognising reflections of people you have known, or raising eyebrows at characters who don't act as you expected. Also a reader can discover a new country, a real or imagined one, even if a million people have read it before. It's new for me, and it changes me.
The author has given something of themselves to the reader.
A storygame isn't that much different from a linear novel. A well-written branched storygame says, '...and this is another idea I had... and this is a third way it could have turned out... and now I will punish you for choosing badly... and reward you for choosing well!'

An interesting meta approach to the concept of storygames and even choice. It is fairly well written with no major SPAG issues. It is certainly one of the more unique "storygames" I've read. It does go on longer than I would have expected, and perhaps the concept is better suited to a shorter presentation to emphasize this more.

Wellllllll, it's good ( I guess )

7/8- makes you think about the concepts of life, and the perspective of what is actually in our control (or not)

Actually hilarious.

fairly intresting.It honestly kept me entertained 6/8

It's not much but it's mildly entertaining in the meta way.