Player Comments on Horsing Around

Time to break out the big guns.

To begins, there were little to no choices. For example, when you have the choice to "Bite him?" Or "Let him?", biting only makes you choose "Let him?", and that's not a choice.

Multiple spelling mistakes were scattered around the storygame, such as "realise" and "recognise" instead of "realize" and "recognize." Was your Z key broken when you wrote this or something?

The plot was interesting at best, and could have been decent if you'd fleshed it out more. Playing as a horse is a rather interesting perspective, but the choices seemed pointless, making the plot overall not very good.

You gave little to no detail of anything, and when I simply know that i'm playing as a horse, I get miffed. Why? Because I don't know, am I a white horse, a black horse, a brown horse, a young horse, an old horse? I could have been a squid horse with a built in plasma gun for all I know.

There was only one actual path, and zero branching. And i'm not exaggerating when I say you cannot make a single choice that actually effects the story in any way, (unless you die or have to return to the stable, which about 70% of the links make you.)

I feel like i'm being generous giving you a 2/8.

You know its not good for a storygame when you can easily write out the entire plot in points.

-Farmer begins to train you
-Farmer trains some more
-Farmer falls and needs medical attention
-You need to pull a cart or something
-The end.

Unlike many storygames, I don't consider this to have the correct necessities of the "game" part in "storygame". You basically make a choice: be a good horse or be a bad horse. With choices like "Do you bite him or do you let him pet you?", you know exactly which choice will lead to victory, and which won't. And the most saddest part is that even if you don't behave, you are pushed to behave. The story doesn't veer off at all, no, if you don't behave you get the The End or you are pushed to be a good horsey. What I mean by this is that you might choose to kick the farmer, being the rebel you naturally want to be, and it would say (as an example) something along the lines of "You pushed him. He didn't like it and slapped your stupid face, now you guess you should behave." And then the only choice would be to behave.

(Btw, I don't think this is much, which is why I'm putting it in parentheses. If you choose to not behave, and you don't get pushed to do the right thing, you get "put down" for being a "wild animal". I haven't grown up on a farm nor do I have experience with running a farm/raising animals, but I think, just because a horse kicks you, doesn't mean you should kill it. Maybe you could give it away to someone else who could train it better or sell it off, but killing it seems WAYYY too extreme! I've never heard of "putting down a horse" because it kicked/trampled its owner. And going along with this, wouldn't the natural instinct of an animal like a horse be to kick or trample when getting displeasured, if it isn't already trained not to? Think about that! If it didn't like how the farmer was saddling it, or riding it, then I'm sure it would kick or shove or bite OR something. I don't believe this neccasarily means it is a "wild animal".)

I believe a game is supposed to have a central goal, then certain, specific choices which control the plot and/or stem consequences. This, although did have the central goal, didn't have many choices, and the choices which it did have, DIDN'T affect the plot except for being pushed into the correct/ideal desicion or getting the The End.

The story was very short as well, which was how I was able to list it above. It doesn't veer off into any other paths, no, the above is the main central idea. So that was not very amusing for me, the reader.

The writing was at least good. The grammar had little/no mistakes as well.

This is good... for you to poop on.

2/8.

what I f**king killed the farmer what the heck

i like the horses

This story started out with a nice idea, but it fell short of its potential in many ways. It was, however, interesting enough to try to play through all the options to see where the story went.

The point of view of the horse was an interesting perspective. But the character of the horse is very one dimensional and flat. It would be nice to have this character developed more fully since it is the main character of the story.

The narrative felt very linear and seemed to push you along one preferred path. When choices were available (many pages only gave you one), there were usually only 2 and one was easily the right choice. More variation in the paths would have made this game more enjoyable.

Overall, this game is an idea that had potential, but did not live up to the potential.

Honestly, the only good thing about this was the title.

Unless you choose to be a “good horse” you die. That is boring. I would rather do exercise than play this! And I hate exercise. While it was detailed, and that was cool. I would like more options and maybe not to die every time. I think by running off, biting someone, trampling someone, bucking, etc. you could run away and be a wild horse or actually have a story line. I think this story is the only horse one on the website. It could have been so much better. Disappointing… It has almost no good comments either. It could have been so much more and so much better. It had so much potential when I saw it, but of course a horse choose your own adventure is to good to be true. ??????????????????????. Well that’s my negative review of ‘Horsing Around’. ?? ??? bye, peace out-Molly P.S. I ride horses actually so I do know what I am talking about and that game was???????

It was interesting, I enjoyed it.

needs to have a bigger story, and should let you actually be able to choose another option without being put down

I like the horses, game is boring tho.

There isn't much to it. The story might be more fun with more varied options. Half of the choices are instant death, and the other half aren't really choices as you end up on the same path no matter what you pick.

3/8 Take what I say with a grain of salt.
The options were pretty mundane and there was no real character development nor was there any comedy.
I assume you like horses? Try putting more effort into stories ever watch the movie "Spirit"? They did the horse themed story right not that you did it wrong necessarily it just wasn't very fun to read.

Yay! A story supporting animal abuse!

I liked the part where you kill the sexually devious farmer and run into a camp of religious fanatics. Honestly, though, I would have liked the story more if you had included the option to prove your worth to the extremists by showing off your bloody hooves. Maybe they would let you take part in ceremonies where they use two horses to rip someone open. Or maybe they could have arena battles where you become this freakishly awesome warhorse that wrecks any opposing warriors using this giant spike attached to your nose.
Not to mention the idea of breaking out from the camp and slaughtering each religious fanatic one by one until you get to the White House and run for president of the United States on the grounds of not letting terrorists on your back.
I would have given it an 8/8.
Honestly, it's more of a choose your own boredom kind of deal because it's just one overdone storyline with all options leading back to the original path or some kind of one-sentence fate.
Good spelling/grammar, though. I believe some people (cough, cough - MinnieKing) might be confused by the British spelling of "recognise" and "realise," but those spellings are perfectly acceptable.

It could be a little bit more with more options and stuff

It's great! Wait, was it based on the story black beuty?

This was linear, but a nice story nevertheless.

Very nice.

3/8.
Lack of effort, interesting storyline.

It's an okay-okay story. ;)

why dose rebeling slightly get you so severely punished? if i saw someone treating there horse like that....they would die...-_-

As some of the comments said, I didn't like it. The punishments are too harsh for the readers to make any choice besides dying or being the obedient horse.

I'm chucking in a low score because you did meet my expectations for a really short linear story, but you did not provide any choices at all whatsoever.

Forcing the reader to select one "good" path in the story is easy to do, but it makes your content a lot more limited and smaller.

In this case, you're forcing the reader to be a good, obedient [albeit used harshly at some points] horse that is saintly, and punish your audience for going out of line. I would've given you a 2 / 8, but I'm being lenient.

3/8
For a first, it isn't TERRIBLE. I mean, there are much worse. This one seems to be a nice story overall, for a novice (in a good way) writer as yourself. Some things you could improve are adding more options. The game is lead by a 100% guarantee, meaning that there are two options: One bad one that makes you lose, and one good one that progresses the story. Another thing is, what if you could become a wild stallion without getting killed in the end? That could lead to an interesting perspective. I liked the the pages were a decent size and that the story didn't let the reader wander in circles. Keep it up and think about these things. I only give it a low rating for what I said. Fix it, and who knows?

Good first attempt.

Pretty good for a first game. It was a little short though, so maybe you could make your future games longer.

One of the better first stories, i killed the farmer and lady :P but where is part where i eat the horse

I'm not sure if this was intentionally hilarious but I couldn't stop giggling after I read "The more he strokes you, the more you realize you are actually quite enjoying it!" and "Nuzzle his neck gratefully as he rugs you up?" Not sure what 'rugging up' is but I hope everyone's rugs are clean. Great story, well done