Wicked Garden

A typical short storygame consisting of two puzzles. Feel like this should be in the Mystery / Puzzles category rather than Fantasy, because it has less focus on the storyline.

I liked the Serpent Lord, who spoke in rhyming words. It gave a sense of rhythm to the story. The pages of the story were organised according to the guessing points of the riddles, which made me want to continue to read on and see what is on the next level. I liked the part where even towards the ending, we still got a choice on whether we could choose to pick treasure or freedom. Of course, if we chose treasure, we all knew that we would turn away from what we wanted at first, but it also felt wrong that we should get nothing for solving the riddles and nearing death. It was an interesting dilemma. The description of surroundings were also written pretty well, presenting a convincing surreal atmosphere in just two to three sentences.

However, there were some parts that could have been done better too. The ending didn’t explain who or what the Serpent Lord is, why there is a tower in the middle of a village, etc. It left me still as confused as I was at the start of the story. Also, although the mysterious ghost at the start said that there were a few layers of riddles and puzzles ahead of the reader, there ended up to be only two.

I think the story is definitely suitable for most readers on this site, as long as you don’t think too much about the backstory and just have fun with the riddles. Fans of puzzles would enjoy them very much. A decent game.

Great start with the description of this story. It sounds quite intriguing and looks like it will be involved and detailed. I like that it sets me up as the reader and it’s going to be a challenge since no one else, ever, has succeeded! Challenge accepted!

Jumping into the story, the first page keeps the excitement going. I like the descriptions there and how the story starts right in the middle of the adventure. (Minor point: “You grip the tree next to you and watch it fall…” so the tree falls? And I’m gripping it? Whoops, the story is over before it even gets going!). I did like the imagery around the garden. Somehow it felt much, much bigger than I pictured the top of a tower, but that makes it kind of fun, too. So in we go!

It was a little confusing in chapter two. It sounded like I was going to be challenged on each and every floor. In fact, I’m pretty sure the ghost guy said that. But in chapter two, it sounded like I was just walking down the stairway past one floor after another. No challenges, no stops, just walking down like it’s a casual Sunday afternoon. And then instead of stopping at one of these floors, I found a door. Okay.

I did like the hints around the first doors. It is nice when you have choices and get some hint in the text when you have no idea otherwise which to choose. But then it was suddenly over! I thought I was going to have all these levels of challenge and yet there were only two! That’s really quite a short tower, isn’t it? Well, what was there was interesting and fun. The final riddle was really kind of obvious, but it was still a good one and I liked the way both endings appeared out of that one. Well done, thank you for sharing this story with the site.

You’ve been playing Tower of Riddles, haven’t you? Well, they do say that imitation is the best form of flattery, and I am suitably flattered. I thought your writing was really good. The descriptions of the character’s surroundings in particular were very nicely detailed.

There were a few flaws that I feel I should point out. For one, the italics sometimes confused me. It makes sense when they’re used to display things that’re said or written, but sometimes they’re used to indicate the protagonists thoughts, whereas other times the protagonists thoughts are just written in normal text. It doesn’t really make sense. Also the spacing was inconsistent. Sometimes paragraphs were divided by one space, and other times they were divided by several spaces, with no apparent reason as to why.

Still, these are pretty minor flaws and are really just me nitpicking. The main issue is with the riddles, since they’re pretty much the premise on which the game is built. I’ll start with the first riddle. Now, the riddle itself I thought was very good, and very well put together. The issue is when it comes to solving the riddle, which is a pretty massive problem, because… Well… You don’t. It would’ve been a fun riddle to solve, but the player doesn’t really get the chance to. Instead, you’re just presented with an option that says “Figure out the riddle.” This would’ve been a lot more enjoyable if you’d actually given the player a few options to choose from, instead of just an option that literally says “Figure out the riddle.” Like I said, the riddle itself is great, but giving the player the opportunity to solve the puzzles themselves is what makes games like this fun.

As for the second riddle, I suppose I could complain that it was too easy, but I can’t really blame you for that. As 3J once pointed out, ChooseYourStory isn’t really the best platform for riddle/puzzle games, since the fact that the player has to choose between a list of choices means that, once they’ve read all of the choices, the answer is probably going to be pretty obvious, and unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do about that.

Now onto the main problem with the riddles, and I think the only one that really matters… There aren’t enough of them. To be fair, you did state that each floor contained a new riddle, but since the game is set in a tower, I kind of assumed that it would have more than two floors. I’m sorry, but for a game where the premise is solving riddles, three riddles just aren’t enough. It’s a good start, but it just kind of feels like you got bored after the first riddle, and just threw a couple more together and called it a day.

Anyway, to sum up, I think the game has a lot of potential, but you’d need to expand it quite a bit before it became a really enjoyable puzzle game. Either way, it’s a great start, and I definitely hope I see more games from you in future.

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Eh, little disappointing but decently written.

One thing that stood out is that although the story is titled Wicked Garden, it really is more a tower that you are trying to escape. Perhaps you liked the title of Wicked Garden and just had to use it. However, why not have the goal to escape a garden maze rather than floors of a tower?

Other than that, its very short, only 2 floors. The writing was pretty good, and I would have enjoyed reading more. Also, it would have been great to have some backstory and connection to the main character.

Overall, meh.

It was fun.

I thought this was pretty good - very well written and a really strong style. There was some challenge in some of the riddles but overall it was pretty easy for me at least, because the choices seemed to guide me to pick a certain conclusion. Regardless, I still enjoyed the experience, and I would recommend playing it.

Fun and quick.

The plot and the story were great but it was too short. There was only 1 riddle and it was easily seen which answer was correct but the ending was really interesting as I never expected it. I like the story even though it was short so good job for creating this!

This was pretty good. I feel silly for getting the answer wrong and dying. I agree with all of those who said this was way too short. Otherwise this was pretty good.