Harry Potter: Sorting Hat Quiz

Okay, so a surprising number of people seem to have missed the point of this storygame, and those that did get the point don't seem to like it very much, overall. However, I quite like this - or, at least, the concept. Meta stuff like this is my favourite kind of storytelling, when done correctly. I absolutely love codes, so the morse bit was fun (I used to know morse code, but it's been ages so I had to translate it with a website).

The "join in" bit, plus the weird questions, were fun too. They gave you some insight into the events surrounding this missing girl, and get you wondering what could have happened. I was honestly intrigued at this point. The "look behind you" bit was quite cliche though, but I was willing to look past it (no pun intended?).

And then the game just ended. Like that. Pick a house, and then you're done. Again, I understand the intention behind this, that the narrator (who is also the dead girl? I think?) didn't care about the quiz and just wanted to suck out my soul or something, but it's a bit sudden and a bit anticlimactic. I think it would've been awesome if you explored the glitchy and creepy stuff more beyond this point.

Also, the long build-up is a bit tiring. I get that you wanted to disguise this storygame as an inconspicuous quiz, but as you can see, it's left a lot of people confused and unsatisfied. Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the same way, especially since the creepy stuff came absolutely from out of left field.

Overall, I think this was a very cool idea and had some interesting and intriguing aspects, but it was cut short too quickly and wasn't executed as well as it could have been. Don't let this discourage you though; for a first storygame this is pretty unique, novel, and enjoyable. I look forward to reading your future stuff!

This game will almost certainly be unpublished, so I'll try to get this review in quick.

What you're clearly trying to do here is write a surreal horror game disguised as a Harry Potter house quiz. This is a decent idea, disguising the game as a stereotypically awful Harry Potter house quiz, complete with the classically cliche kind/brave/clever/etc. opening question, distracts the reader from what's going on, and makes the surreal elements, when they appear, less obvious.

Unfortunately, I don't think you pulled it off. The start of the quiz is lackluster enough that by the time the reader gets to the surreal parts they do not have faith in the game's author, and it's much easier to believe these aspects are simply coding issues and bugs.

Recommendations:
1) Reconsider your choice to disguise this as a Harry Potter house quiz. Harry Potter house quizzes on this site are famously bad and low-effort games, and it will prejudice readers against your game. That said, due to this, I came in expecting a lackluster simplistic game and was pleasantly surprised with what I found, so it may work in your favor.

2) Put some more effort into the surreal elements. You'll want to make them more obvious as the game goes on, eventually becoming unignorable. Right now, it's possible to get through the quiz without picking up on it.

3) Make the quiz give an actual result. The lazy "choose your house" end does the game no favors. Either code in an actual quiz system and give the player a result, or end the game with a complete devolution into the game's surreal elements.

4) Read Kelly Unicornstrider and Friends by Gower, featured in the puzzle/games section. It's a brilliantly done game similar to what you're trying to do, and you may benefit from seeing how another author has approached this concept.

This is a game that doesn't precisely know what genre it wants to be, not in a cool hybrid or experimental way, but it honestly doesn't know.

I can see that the goal here was to write a quiz that bends genre to become spooky in a few moments, and to forge a sort of creepy connection between writer and quiztaker with the "looking behind you" bit and the moments of code. Similarly, the way the quiz sort of "forgets" that the goal is to be a sorting hat and the reader has to take the initiative to pick their house--that is all potentially cool and creepy, and of course anyone who attempts to write a quiz that secretly contains elements of horror has a touch of genius in them. That's for sure.

However--this is the thing--the writing here is not sharp enough to sustain that, and there's no attempt to forge any writerly relationship with the reader, or create any kind of metastory. So what happens is that the quiz just looks ineptly done rather than a mis-shapen quiz for story purposes. And I know the *whole* was that it was a crappy quiz for interesting subversive reasons, but if I can't tell the difference between a crappy quiz and a subversive crappy quiz, then what you've got at the end of the day is a crappy quiz, if you see what I mean.

But look, this is not good, but I'm impressed that you managed to think outside the usual quiz structure and grope towards a creative busting out of the usual storygame format. Do that more. You've got something writerly to offer, so don't get discouraged. Write something with more real choices and work on your writing style. Remember that the first million words are just for practice.

I made it a 1 because I thought it was gonna be Harry Potter but then it took a dark turn. At the time of my writing this I am still spooked by it. It's really good. Try it!

I enjoyed it. I liked the use of multimedia and creativity. You should probably have told people to play this game with audio on though (it's easy to play without sound and miss the fun), and made the horror elements more sustained, i.e., the rest of the questions could have been horror instead of them continuing to be interspersed between decoy questions. Looking forward to seeing further works from you!

Edit: I totally missed the point.

I’m so used to spam from games like this I ignored the Morse code bit. Yes.

Alright, I get it now. For that horror piece I suggested, maybe expand on this. Less subtly. Yes, I’m an idiot. Thanks for that.

Maybe I’ll be a little more open minded in the future.

Well.
In theory, this game is… usual. Honestly, I’ve played more sorting hat quizzes than I feel comfortable admitting. This is not like those.

It starts off normal, but you obviously didn’t want to create just another “which one of these words describes you” test, which is admirable in a way. The digressions and little jokes are appreciated at times, but I believe that you took it too far. Some of the questions were completely unrelated, and I challenge you to… not do that. Not for six solid pages.

Stay on task. If you wish to be creative and make the reader laugh, smile, feel slightly creeped out, any of that, consider creating a story game! Not a quiz.

Also, the reader chooses their house in the end.

No.

Overall, you show some potential as an author. I almost want to see you write a horror story.

I actually really enjoyed this. I guess it's not for some people but I was pleasantly surprised.

Any hufflepuffs tryin 2 fuck?

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I don't care about the quiz itself so much as the Sorting Hat itself. I mean, what's the point of segregating the student body if it only serves to stereotype its constituents? If Gryffindors are more outspoken than Ravenclaws, wouldn't it stand that their achievements are noticed more often because of that outspokenness? Likewise, if a well-rounded student gets sorted into Ravenclaw, are they doomed to a life of academia and nothing else? And why are Slytherins, which are proven to be filled with higher-risk students, aggregated together to let the worst of their tendencies fester? And what the HELL is a Hufflepuff? Are the noble lifestyles of healthcare workers, foresters, and farmers to be relegated to some feckless, nondescript creature of little import in this day in age?

Sometimes, I wonder if it's because of Rowling's writings that god-awful series like Divergent and the Hunger Games are made -- emphasizing conformism in an unbelievable, unmanageable context that fails to fit in any child's suspension of disbelief.

I know that it's supposed to be a children's novel series, much in the same way C.S. Lewis's Narnia series is or even Le Guin's Earthsea series is. But those series are written to touch upon the importance of certain qualities, or to dissuade segregation and stereotypical thoughts and understand different cultures as part of their wholes. And they are written from the ground up to suit that purpose. The fact that Harry Potter as a series did not care to explore those systemic, fundamental issues beyond the scope of good/evil is reflective of the author's unwillingness to explore those themes to the true potential that they could be explored; that's a true disservice to young readers.

Nicely made quiz if this was your first attempt at embedding audio into written media, but certainly not a story with choice. I would love to see you implement something similar in any future stories you write! 2/8.