Player Comments on Day of the Dead--One Soul's All Souls Procession

The first page feels like the strongest page out of the story. I like how you used the differences in beliefs between Matthew and his mother to tell the reader a little bit about the Day of the Dead. You did a great job expressing Matthew's shock by having him not realize he died.

Changing the text color was an interesting choice. The grey text seems to be used when Matthew ditches the costume to follow the man. If that's the case, I don't understand why you wouldn't do the same for the page that he phases through the wall. I'm not sure if that was from a lack of time or if it was intentional. The black text confuses me because it seems like it's being used for the main action of the story, but I don't understand why it was used in other places.

I think changing the font for the possession in the office ending was a good idea. In the possession ending, Matthew becomes the killer. In the office ending, Matthew is separate from the killer and is fighting against his influence.

Overall, ditching the costume feels like the stronger branch. Even if you didn't have the formatting, I think the action is expressed better and presents a moral dilemma. Do you try to save the kids and let the killer escape? Or, do you try to catch the killer and let the kids eat the candy? The choice to (impulsively) chase the man didn't make me question what the 'right' choice would be; the kids' lives aren't in danger because he didn't have a chance to hand out candy.

I thought the office ending with the epilogue was the most satisfying end. Unlike the other endings, the parents get closure and the killer is brought to justice. In other endings, the killer either dies or gets away. If the chase branch had felt stronger, I would've preferred the folder ending.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

I thought that this was an excellent story, especially considering that it was only written in four hours! Does that include the time spent revising/editing? Crafting a tale with consistent characterization of the protagonist and such a wide diversity of endings in such a short time is a very impressive feat, and for that I congratulate you.

I thought the writing was excellent. Most of the sentences flowed very well, and the overall narrative gripped my attention. Unlike most story-games, I read through all the endings in this one, because I really wanted to grasp the full picture.

The introduction to your story was well-done. I love how your opening passages (including the description of the narrator’s feelings of claustrophobia, and that moving around is hard) foreshadow that they are buried in a coffin. I also loved how the protagonist initially described feelings of disdain for their mother’s beliefs, before realizing that they were dead themselves, and their mother was correct all along.

I liked how one of the endings had an epilogue associated with it. Ironically, I didn’t think that this was truly the ‘best ending’ in the game. Although the police found the culprit in this ending (or rather, he found the police and confessed), he still poisoned several of the children, beforehand. I liked the ending “The Office” better, which revealed less information but in which none of the kids died.

Though I could tell this story was obviously thoroughly revised/edited, I did still spot a few grammar mistakes, throughout. For example, in the sentence “Everyone knows that death is the end, you may become nutrients for the grass…” you should have a semicolon after ‘end’ instead of a comma. The same principle applies for the following sentence, after the word ‘today’: “We only get one day now, today, the rest of the year we spend in the ground.” In this third sentence, you should have a comma after the word ‘light’: “Without a body, you feel extremely light making the task trivial”. Finally, in the following excerpt, you should have two extra commas, one after ‘turning’ and one after ‘namesake’: “Turning you come face to face with your late grandfather and namesake Matthew Garcia.” I also noticed that your page “The Office” had a different font than the rest of the story.

Regarding your epilogue – I liked how whether or not the possession failed depended on your choices in the beginning of the story. I also liked how the narrator started to get their own personality confused with that of the culprit.

I felt that the antagonist's motivations could have been explained better. He was upset about someone he cared about being murdered, so now he decided to hurt children in a similar fashion to achieve some sort of "poetic justice"? Poetic justice is when good characters are rewarded for their kind actions, and evildoers are ultimately punished. That doesn't really fit the man's actions, here.

At one point during the final scene, you write the following: “That’s you, the boy in the picture is you… It wasn’t you--why you need to remind yourself that is beyond you.” (Note that the ellipses are included to indicate not all of the author’s initial writing is included in the quotation.) Based on the context of this scene, the word ‘you’ in the first sentence refers to the narrator, whereas the word ‘you’ in the second sentence refers to the culprit – the protagonist is trying to remind themselves that they didn’t commit the crime. This isn’t really clear, and I would consider altering the text slightly to explain it.

Overall, I really liked this story. You should keep up the good work. 6/8.

I have to admit, I'm a bit disappointed that this storygame was so short. The idea was such an intriguing one, coming back on the Day of the Dead to solve your own murder. And I definitely felt that the very first page of the story was well-written. It was easy to feel the confusion and disorientation as the player character realises he is in fact dead.

I would have liked a bit more of an opportunity to explore the world. For instance, it would have been good to be able to spy on people...listen in to their conversations. As it was, it's immediately obvious that the man who sees you had something to do with what happened, which meant that the only mystery was what exactly happened...and the motives. And while the first was answered simply enough, I can't say the second really gave me any closure, as I still didn't get a satisfactory explanation as to why.

I did like the fact that different paths revealed a bit more of the story, though I was confused about the possession thing. It seemed like, in one of the paths, the protagonist's own soul is overwhelmed by the other's. I also thought it worked well that no ending was entirely satisfactory. Even the ones where the killer is found/brought to justice, it's almost impossible to put a stop to the nefarious scheme that's been set into motion. Again, this is something I felt would have been good to expand upon. Being able to get information and help from other spirits would have been a nice way of expanding the mystery and showing more of not just the protagonist, but his family members.

I did find all seven of the endings, which was good, but definitely not long enough to let me feel fully satisfied by the time I'd finished. Still, it was a good and interesting read, and while I have heard of the Day of the Dead, this storygame did contain a lot of new information that helped to keep me reading.

First off, I really enjoyed this. Trying to solve your own murder was fun, but having to do so while also wrestling with some ethical dilemmas made it even better.

So, where to begin? Having not read the introduction to avoid spoilers, I didn't initially know the protagonist was dead. I just saw a cool title and picture and decided to read it. But it didn't take long to realize this was a "howcatchem" self-murder mystery. At first, I thought maybe Matthew was suffering from sleep paralysis, or that he was being haunted by the dead for his resentful skepticism of the customs related to Día de Muertos. But very shortly it was easy to realize he had been poisoned by Halloween candy.

But that isn't a bad thing! It created interesting dramatic irony. Would Matthew find out? If so, when, and how? And once he found out, how would he go about getting revenge/justice? And that led to the best part of this story: the moral weight of some of the choices.

Do I stop the little girl from eating the candy that at this point I know is poisoned, and the protagonist surely suspects—at the cost of potentially never getting justice? Do I save the other children? Would that really solve the problem? Is it just to sacrifice them to stop even more murders? These were great, meaty moral decisions the protagonist had to make, and I read through all of them.

I also like that in one branch, if you choose the selfish option to go after the killer knowing children will die, he gets away anyway, and the kids still die. Selfish readers should be punished in this way.

The author did a phenomenal job with this aspect of the story; each of these moments was morally weighty.

Random thoughts:

*Wow, being dead sucks. Can't even come back without marigolds, and only one day a year. And apparently, you're just stuck in the ground forever if no one tends to your grave appropriately.

*How are you suddenly visible with the costume? Does the costume make you corporeal? Or is it that you're simply able to manipulate it, still invisible underneath?

*The killer turned evil after losing his beloved to a poisoned or unsafe candy, so I had a small amount of sympathy for him. But his choice to slaughter innocents by the hundreds far outweighed any of that. Let him burn.

*The first time Matthew possessed the killer, he very quickly lost all sense of himself. He maintained just enough to not remember what was in the folder, which allowed him to solve the mystery of his own murder by opening it. But at that point, he seems to have already been absorbed by the killer. I was thinking at the time I would have been more satisfied if Matthew used this possession to force the man to turn himself in. More on that in a minute....

*The SECOND possession was entirely accidental, and perhaps that was the difference. Because the second time—the "true" ending, I assume, since there was an epilogue—Matthew was able to fight through the blended consciousnesses and compel the killer to turn himself in. He kept enough self-awareness to get justice and then leave the man's body. Excellent.


Overall, this was very charming, weighty despite its small length, and had a minimum of errors (only flagrant one I can think of is "can see" when the context suggests the author meant "can't see," right at the very end of the story. But otherwise, this was just excellent.

The first page was probably your best page and it had me wanting to read more. It set up the character's personality and told me about the day of the dead through memories. The memories not only set up the plot and told me about the day of the dead, but it also made me feel like I was the character and it made me care about the outcomes. The general writing quality declined after the first page, but it was still good enough to make me want to find out who killed me.

Another good thing is that even though this was written in such a short time span it still had a decent amount of quantity and not too many spelling or grammar errors. I was able to find a few, but that is to be expected when you don’t have much time to proofread.

This is interesting

What a fascinating concept and very well written good job!

For something so short, really well balanced as a story, with an excellent twist at the end. Quite impressive for 4 hours work! Good job

*SPOILERS*

For a 2/8 length, there's a lot here. An actual plot with good writing, so nice. I liked it a lot.

The premise was unique and done very well. It was a little confusing at some times, but I figured it out after not much effort. It moves fast and sometimes I think too fast, but with 4 hours to write it, that's understandable. It's an interesting take on the afterlife and someone poisoning kids on Halloween.

The choices offered allow for flexibility of the player and also are choices that someone might realistically make. It deals with the supernatural, but nothing is implausible here. I really enjoyed the way that each choice will essentially take you down a completely different path to a different ending. It makes for a replayable, overall enjoyable storygame.

The writing itself is really good excepting a few spelling errors in the story. I don't know if the four hours included your revision time, but anyway a few things slipped through. They're not super noticeable in the story and fortunately don't subtract much from the reading experience.

6/8

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

I thought that this was an excellent story, especially considering that it was only written in four hours! Does that include the time spent revising/editing? Crafting a tale with consistent characterization of the protagonist and such a wide diversity of endings in such a short time is a very impressive feat, and for that I congratulate you.

I thought the writing was excellent. Most of the sentences flowed very well, and the overall narrative gripped my attention. Unlike most story-games, I read through all the endings in this one, because I really wanted to grasp the full picture.

The introduction to your story was well-done. I love how your opening passages (including the description of the narrator’s feelings of claustrophobia, and that moving around is hard) foreshadow that they are buried in a coffin. I also loved how the protagonist initially described feelings of disdain for their mother’s beliefs, before realizing that they were dead themselves, and their mother was correct all along.

I liked how one of the endings had an epilogue associated with it. Ironically, I didn’t think that this was truly the ‘best ending’ in the game. Although the police found the culprit in this ending (or rather, he found the police and confessed), he still poisoned several of the children, beforehand. I liked the ending “The Office” better, which revealed less information but in which none of the kids died.

Though I could tell this story was obviously thoroughly revised/edited, I did still spot a few grammar mistakes, throughout. For example, in the sentences “Everyone knows that death is the end, you may become nutrients for the grass…” you should have a semicolon after ‘end’ instead of a comma. The same principle applies for the following sentence, after the word ‘body’: “Without a body, you feel extremely light making the task trivial”, and this sentence, after the word ‘today’: “We only get one day now, today, the rest of the year we spend in the ground.” Finally, in the following sentence, you should have two extra commas, one after ‘turning’ and one after ‘namesake’: “Turning you come face to face with your late grandfather and namesake Matthew Garcia.” I also noticed that your page “The Office” had a different font than the rest of the story.

Regarding your epilogue – I liked how whether or not the possession failed depended on your choices in the beginning of the story. I also liked how the narrator started to get their own personality confused with that of the culprit.

At one point during the final scene, you write the following: “That’s you, the boy in the picture is you… It wasn’t you--why you need to remind yourself that is beyond you.” (Note that the ellipses are included to indicate not all of the author’s initial writing is included in the quotation.) Based on the context of this scene, the word ‘you’ in the first sentence refers to the narrator, whereas the word ‘you’ in the second sentence refers to the culprit – the protagonist is trying to remind themselves that they didn’t commit the crime. This isn’t really clear, and I would consider altering the text slightly to explain it.

Overall, I really liked this story. You should keep up the good work. 6/8.

I definitely enjoyed this story. To think this was written in four hours is astounding to me, on account of you stating that you wrote it in roughly 3 and edited in 1. This story would be good enough without the fact that it was written in 4 hours, though with that fact it makes the story exponentially more impressive. I read this in roughly ten to fifteen minutes, and that is with ever ending, so there is no excuse for you, the dumbass who reads reviews before the story, to not just go and read this story. Right now. Like for real go do that.

One thing I love about this story is the concept. I love the whole idea of being dead, and only rising up once a year. It is explained in such detail in the first paragraph too. I also like searching for your killer. The killer feels like a real person with his own motivations, and while they are insane, that just makes it better because I can see a person doing this. It wraps up good too and that brings me to my next point.

It is grounded. It knows what it wants to explore. I’ve said this in a lot of my reviews already, though being able to cover something so thoroughly in so few words never ceases to astonish me. This story is about a boy who was killed and while he is a spirt he stops the killer. That is it, no more, no less. What this does is it lets you hyper focus on this concept, and makes a short, focused, and if done well an amazing storygame.

I did like the branching. As I stated I got every ending and it branched fairly well. Every choice you make matters and all paths are roughly the same length. I have stated that time cave works great in these types of grounded stories, and this is no exception.

In conclusion this is a great game, that was written and edited in no more than 4 hours! Even without that it would have been great, though that makes it excellent. I almost want to give it a 7 because of that, though I can’t quite do that.

6 out of 8

This was really well done. There's a lot of content for something written in a small time-frame. Yeah, the change from 1st to 2nd person almost dissuaded me from continuing to read, but the style and interesting characteristics of the MC and his parents kept me going. I'm glad I kept going.

This is certainly an enjoyable story for its length, and well written given that it was crammed into 4 hours' writing time. The central story was compelling, and the main character was interesting. There was a POV shift from 1st person to 2nd on the first page, and I was unsure of the "mechanics" of being a ghost from time to time. For instance, my costume can't pass through the wall, but the folder with the manifesto can; and what is the reaction to the sight of all that candy getting ripped out of the kids' hands by an invisible force?

But that's just me being me. I enjoyed this story.

It is incredible what you have achieved in four hours both in quality and in quantity. the feelings of the character are really well expressed, and the mystery about how the character dies and the persecution makes the game dynamic and a thrill to read. Maybe I miss more a certain opportunity to not care about how we die and go more to the cause havoc. But that probably conflicts with the style of narrative.

This is a quick, atmosopheric, and engaging cave of time style game. Yeah, it's short (written in four hours as it was) but in that time, Shadowdrake has managed to pack in tons of atmosphere and a few surprisingly emotional gut punches in some of the endings. There's sorrow, insanity, the confusion of the recently dead, and a bit of mystery to deal with.

The game will be about three or four clicks long, and the choices make a lot of sense and offer sudden and satisfying endings. You could hardly do more with a cave of time in four hours--the setup is excellent, and I cared about the main character's predicament right from the first page. An original way to approach the Ectocomp prompt. I happily read through all of the endings and wished there were more.

The setting is the day of the dead and your among the deceased. The author detailed facts of the day of the dead and it's rituals, that I personally didn't know. (which may not be saying much) However, it was clear the author most likely is of Mexican descent as the story illustrated knowledge of the culture. If the I am mistaken about the author's background, then bravo on the research done for the story. The small details made it a page turner. I wanted to start over and read the next path, and did so more than once. However, the story did begin in the 1st person and I believe if I recall correctly it switched to the 3rd person. Minor grammar issues. The story tells of a 15 year old who woke one morning dead. It takes you on a search for how you died and who killed you. It could be a bit longer, and more detailed in some of the scenes, but the plot itself is well thought out and could expand into a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing it here. I enjoyed it. M.