Cryogenic Failure

The story is described as a classic CYOA, although I have a quibble with that statement.

Yes, there is some "Time Cave" branching here, and I read through to endings 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Some of the endings were identical to other endings, so despite the multiple story paths the individual stories were limited in nature. And of the original three choices I encountered, one choice ultimately led to a single ending.

Narratively, this is more like a role-playing game or something. The premise is very interesting--I wake up prematurely from a cryogenic freeze, and I'm curious to know why--but beyond that set-up, the setting is presented matter-of-factly. I enter a room, I observe the features, and I can then choose to press a button or continue walking into another room.

Basically, there is no tension to compel me through the narrative. This is not a game, because there is no one objective I'm trying to achieve, and therefore nothing to gain by pressing that button or entering that room. Nor is this a classic CYOA, because the narrative elements are too random in nature, and the consequences of a choice are not apparent until after the choice has been made.

My biggest complaint is that the protag is completely oblivious as to what the buttons do, or where the hallway leads. Therefore I can't really care too much what I do, because I'm in a complete fog as to what the situation is. I walk down a hallway, I see cryo tubes filled with green goo, I don't know what any of it means, but I can press a yellow button or walk through a door.

A good CYOA should set up the situation and give me choices that make me stop and think before I proceed. Instead of pressing buttons or entering doorways, the story should place me directly into a scenario and give me some understanding of what the consequences should be before I make the choice. For instance, I recognize that the cryo tube is about to fail in a matter of moments, the occupant's life is at stake, therefore I can (A) try and reset the controls--a speedier action with less likelihood of success--or I can (B) go through the door and obtain an important tool--a lengthier action that is more likely to succeed, if I can get the tool in time.

But in this case, the protag is completely clueless, and so the experience is like bumbling through a long and unsettling dream where the elements don't make any sense and I have no idea what anything means. Therefore I have little involvement in the story, and take nothing away upon its completion.

I did read through 6 of the 8 endings to be fair to the author, but after learning in one ending that everything really was a dream, or encountering other endings that started to become too similar, I began to despair that the remaining two endings would provide me with a satisfactory resolution.

The interface is eye-catching, and the premise is good, but the story is frustratingly thin.

I seriously enjoyed this.

The plot was possibly one of the best i've seen, and it was very creative. You developed it well throughout the storygame and fleshed it out very, very well, so good work on that.

The color contrast on the pages felt really nice and went great with the setting and storygame. I'm glad you coded this background in, because it made for a more pleasant read i'd say :)

Some of the choices in the storygame didn't feel very meaningful, but it wasn't a very big flaw overall since this wasn't frequent.

I did notice that a few pages seemed to have more effort put into them then others. Spreading out the quality would make my rating rise on this storygame for sure.

5/8.

This honestly was very brilliant. The scripting and structure certainly sets it apart from many other games that are on this site, and the writing was done rather well too :)

This was immensely enjoyable, obviously plenty of effort was placed into crafting this game. An enjoyable read, indeed.

My only nitpick is that I wish some of the endings were less ambiguous, this of course doesn't include the rather bad endings you're able to get in a unfortunate circumstance for the protagonist. But that's just a very minor nitpick of mine, as the game as a whole was quite fun.

good short story

somehow ended up on a foreign planet with a race of friendly aliens after fighting in a space battle :D nice

On a second run, I got the "get beat up" ending... it's really my fourth attempt, though. All of the endings are quite nice, except for the weird "too many ladders" ending.

In the great words of raocow (lack of capitalization intentional), "s'pretty great". Yes, I'm serious.

It's a strange story. I've gotten 2 endings so far.

Chocolate rivers are nice.

I did not exactly know what happened but I think I died.