Basement Rats

I have to agree with enterpride on the fact that this story is hard to describe and even harder to rate. It’s a patchwork of little stories stitched into one large story. At my first read, I found it incredibly hard to wrap my head around. Characters winked in and out of existence just like the stars the protagonist so dearly loved, and the whimsical aspects of the house itself was both charming and intriguing. The universe that Basement Rats occupies is not one to be understood but to be experienced. The protagonist’s thoughts, bleeding from topic to topic and emotion to emotion, were confusing to navigate at first.

Though the story, for the most part, was nonsensical, it was still enjoyable. I loved how the characters were described and each one felt like their own person, unlike a lot of whimsical stories of the same design. I especially liked Oberon’s dialogue! The house, though sparsely described, definitely reflected the character’s own traits. There were many small details in the story that I think most readers would overlook, but the overall story (if you could call it that?) was charming and somewhat comforting. In the tangling mess of intertwining inter-character relationships, there was still always the urgency of the basement rats and how to give the children treats.

I enjoyed the illustrations, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed at the lack of art further into the story. Though minimalist, they did their job, and helped bring my interest to the protagonist’s surroundings. However, the longer the story dragged on, the more my interest began to slip. I enjoyed reading about the characters, but without some sort of driving force in the protagonist to accomplish one single task or a sense of duty, it felt like the story was rambling on and on about all these characters and pushing the protagonist into the background, almost reversing their importance. Whether or not this was intentional, I can’t tell, but it confused me for the most part. I wanted to learn more about the protagonist--why she was in the void of space, all alone, stuck with the rats and cold coffee and shelves of books.

Overall, this was a good read for such a short story, and full of that childhood whimsy one would associate with Halloween. MHD definitely establishes her skill in Basement Rats and I look forward to reading more!

MHD has a very good sense of humour and oniric storytelling. However, this story feels flat compared to her previous works. It has weird pacing that drags on the story and makes the last few twist unbelievable. Still, the writing is solid with good prose and Characters like Oberon are a solid addition.

As usual, read the story before letting yourself, and your experience, be spoiled by the reviews.

This story is hard to rate and describe, a Shelleyan patchwork of the fantastic and whimsical on one hand, and mundane, leaning into ennui, on the other. The combination baffled me, leaving me unsure where the narrative led to and what it wanted me to feel.

There was so much unexplained and unreasonable, it felt disassociative. Take the first two pages for example. All the little details gave off a feeling of a peaceful homestead, a calm retreat. A little bit of loneliness seeped in but was overshadowed by the wonders of the stars. Then the second page came in like a sledgehammer with the sentence 'Your existence was unbearable enough as is.' Then, without leaving enough time to let that blunt punch sink in, that too became overshadowed by the sudden arrival of the guests and their ensuing drama, putting your own personality and experience on the backburner. This confused narration marred my first playthrough.

By my second playthrough, I had settled in, became used to this strange universe where people appear out of the void, and hands get burnt by touching the stars, allowing me to appreciate this setting a lot more. As it turns out, when you prioritise your own curiosity above the knocking calls of others, the narrative becomes more structured. I noticed multiple 'offbranches' from the main drama, all essentially being ways to join the world you only knew through books and breaking your solitude.

From those (I think three?), I enjoyed the bigger one, where you join the dead, the most. Aside from the well written and centered tragedy (that contrasted the bizarre elsewhere), I greatly enjoyed the rebranded ending choices that all left you at the rating link. It was a great way to bring the whole ambiance home. The ending where you simply woke up on Earth felt like a cop-out; explaining this unique world as the ravings of a madwoman cheapened the whole, felt more as an afterthought to oppose the otherwise bottlenecked branching.

In the end, I can't help but compliment the writing and all the character you've put in it. Both in writing and theme, this story felt more like a modern twist to the Gothic style of horror, above the modern hauntings and serial killers, and is an unique addition to this category.

To start things off, naturally, the art is great. Just a few objects and setpieces, really, but they're well-drawn objects and setpieces. Can't fault anything about that.

I felt like I was reading the transcript of a nonsensical dream. Though I am sure this is the intended effect, it did give me some trouble understanding exactly what was going on. At the same time, the nonsense was very humorous and I can get behind that.

One gripe I cannot forgive, though, is in my playthough, I only experienced one singular basement rat, which I gave to a small child. By this reasoning, the story should have been called "Basement Rat". If anything, I experienced ice-solid frozen coffee more often than rats, so maybe it should have been called "Frozen Coffee". Unforgivable.

6/8, pretty good.

I hate to say it, but this story completely lost my interest several pages in. There was much repetition but not much plot: happily floating through space, unexpected guests ringing the doorbell, no one offering any compelling answers, but also no one posing an intriguing question. Rinse and repeat.

The writing itself is fine, with whimsical tones and all that. It's just that the story failed to engage me, not in the way some of MHD's past stories have.

I'm also going to brave one more criticism: we all know how well (and quickly, and frequently) MHD can whip out witty drawings, all of them imaginative and well executed. The illustrations here, though, are about as interesting as clip art.

My challenge to the author, then, is to create a storygame in which the illustrations and the story itself compete with other in terms of which is the better. The story should inspire more dynamic drawings; the drawings highlight the richness of the story.

One of the reasons I loved the original CYOA book series was because of the illustrations; not only would I read the stories, but I'd flip through the book and study the artwork. Often I'd find an intriguing illustration, and then keep rereading the story until I found the path that led to it. In other words: a well-written story couple with awesome drawings is nothing short of awesome.

Given how well I know MHD can draw, my expectations for her self-illustrated stories are certainly higher than this.

This was an adventure in, well, somewhere. It certainly created some vivid pictures and sparked the imagination of the reader as the story started and as it unfolded. It creates quite a different reality from the very beginning, but at the same time ends up with some very similar problems involving rats and other unwanted guests.

MHD does an excellent job of mixing up the story, combining the incredibly outrageous with the boring hum-drum in a way that makes perfect sense, at least while you’re reading this story. While there may not be a tremendous number of choices, this is still quite an entertaining story with conversations that shouldn’t make sense, but completely do. It is sort of a cross between the Twilight Zone and Monty Python in a strange way.

When you do read this gem, do take your time so that you don’t miss anything – there is quite a bit packed into a small space here. If you read too fast, you’ll likely miss some of the fun. Great job with this one, MHD, I loved it!

A short and entertaining tale with nice illustrations (as one might anticipate, coming from MHD). Spelling and grammar is controlled. The story has a couple endings following from one arc. The order of conversation and answering the door changes the choices sometimes, lending variance to the story.

Thoughts about happenings in the book follow. The way Oberon's speech is unquoted and unstyled is really neat; it feels like his speech is simply a fact of the universe. I thought the MC switching from not feeling lonely to feeling very lonely was a bit quick.

Overall, a good game and for its brevity, little reason not to try it.