Sixteen Words

Disclaimer: to the author, take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional writer and only somewhat of a seasoned reviewer. To the readers, this review will contain lots of spoilers, so I suggest you read the storygame first.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

As this storygame is a site classic, I’m surprised it doesn’t have any long reviews. Then again, should I even be surprised? Long reviews are actively discouraged, considering the structure of this game, the quote at the start, and the word count limit that the description imposes on comments. But zeroes are worth nothing, so I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I use the loophole of writing precisely 16000 words.

I love the attention to detail in the description. Almost every single paragraph has exactly 16 words. I wanted to do that in this review too, but realize it'll be more challenging than it's worth. Nitpick: that last paragraph ruins the streak as it’s not 16 words, but only 11. Even adding something like ‘go check that thread out' or 'you will get extra credit' would have made it 16 words. But we're here to study English and not Maths, so I'll move on.

WRITING STYLE & FORMATTING

This storygame uses a cave-of-time branching and each path is ‘supposedly’ 16 words. The choices move towards the right as the storygame proceeds. On the first path, the storygame’s text represents the nemesis’ action and the choices are the protagonist’s actions. It reads like an outline of a fight scene.

I like how formatting is used to make the story dynamic despite the word limitation. Lava is in orange text. Teeter has its letters spaced out to show its wobbling motion. eMErGE... ...cHaNGeD makes use of spacing and random capitalization to convey the meaning of its words, and it’s a nice touch that ‘the end’ becomes ‘enD thE’.

The only issue is that this storygame used symbols to represent pictures. Everyone knows that a picture is worth a thousand words, so there are several thousand words in some paths.

Color and font is used to convey characters. The purple text and a different font is used for the ‘sister’ character, making it clear what her responses and reactions are. The vampire’s text is in gray and surrounded by inverse triangle brackets, perhaps representing fangs? And the exclamation mark between the triangle brackets followed by slayer makes it clear what happened to him. As the protagonist’s text has been black the whole time, when he becomes its spawn, there are triangle brackets around the black text. I liked this cool detail. The spider parts were in all caps, yet when the spider protagonist became depressed, there wasn’t even capitalization for the first word haha. There is so much forethought for what appears to be deceptively a simple sixteen words storygame.

Another nitpick: during the paradox, the storygame loops to the start, making it so that there are more than 16 words! Perhaps this balances out the ‘silence’ plotline as the text becomes purely ellipses.

I only found one typo, which is the word supremacy spelt ‘supremecy’. But I suppose this is thematic. After all, when one is truly supreme, no one dares question their spelling.

The word ‘powerless’ getting smaller and smaller after each choice is a nice touch considering puppet kings have no power.

Possibly my favorite stylistic choice was the one with the blue dashes like waves, and the word ‘glory’ being spaced out, each letter on a new line, moving towards diagonally, giving the impression of drowning.

CONTENT

There is a coherent storyline in each path. Despite each having only 16 words, basic elements like plot, characters and setting are not sacrificed. Some parts even had plot twists and humor.

Readers can choose the protagonist’s actions and personality. There is some juxtaposition in choices: to ‘watch’ as someone dies or to have ‘mercy on them; to either see their death as a ‘victory’ or a cause for ‘sorrow’; to take the ‘throne’ or to be a ‘hermit’. In life, there are opposites. Highs and lows. An event that may bring joy could also cause sorrow. Something that may raise a person up may also alienate them from others. The throne being a typical happy ending, with colorful ‘ceremony’ and ‘fireworks’ contrasts the gray ‘mountaintop contemplation’. I would have liked to see the colors represent a hidden word there, but that's probably cheating, making more words out of less. (It’s also what I did in a poetry assignment with limited words once: I created a poem within the poem, having the bolded words paint a completely different picture of the narrative, and thankfully, my teacher found it clever).

Some paths tell a full story, like the person who set off to destroy an enemy, succeeded, but felt sorrow. They retreated home and either got traumatized or healed. Again, there are lots of polar opposites, perhaps to maintain a balance between positive and negative. That's why I'm writing this long review—to balance out the shortness of others.

A plot twist came in the form of showing mercy, but when embracing the opponent, there’s a treacherous push. Adjectives are used sparingly, so ‘treacherous’ becomes more significant. Falling references the other path with lava, using the word ‘sizzle’. There is continuity between paths. I noticed a lot of fire-related choices of diction too, though I have not figured out why. And I like the cliffhanger pun haha.

Speaking of humor, there’s a lot of it. Obeying the teacher leads to being a prized pupil but nurturing hatred leads to… ulcers? The randomness of this caught me off guard. There are many in-site jokes and references, e.g. the sister incest and being gay. Ogre’s storygame Boobs made a cameo too.

Dark humor was used as well, like the guillotine and ‘half sister’. There are more wholesome jokes too, such as the one about common tropes like the barkeep being a low level quest giver. Innuendos and the play on words with ‘booty’ (the treasure kind vs the other kind) were funny too.

This storygame works as an outline for longer stories too. It has good plot beats, build up and consistent characters like the mentor or the nemesis. Some parts hold good advice: In a mission, acting immediately leads to salvation where being confused may cause an apocalypse. Wavering in battle may lead to death, so strike when you can. If you get blind from grog, remember that’s an opportunity for a profitable lawsuit.

There's a time loop too, which is fun. The protagonist gets to attack their nemesis again, but since they’re more powerful this time, both choices are similar: mutilate or instant kill.

On the ‘university, hired’ path, one of the choices is tenure. It leads to ‘cackle’. Gower, are you trying to tell us something about being a professor at a university?

Haha, readers can also play as a spider and raise kids. Honestly, some parts of this storygame resembles infinite craft, where one can combine words and see what result they get. For example, killing the farmers lead to ‘farmer-poltergeists’. ‘Lamenting’ and ‘sure’ leads to ‘co-dependent relationship’ lol.

But there were some moments of realism: not bending to authority as a chief justice may lead to getting brutally murdered, while agreeing allows the protagonist to continue their role. Having endless delays with negotiations and attorneys and court hearings is so real, given everything I’ve learnt about law so far.

REAL ENDING

It’s ironic how the ‘boring’ path is the least boring. The protagonist has an epiphany, changing the course of the story, and suddenly, the narrator is no longer confined to 16 words. Maybe I’m overthinking, but I found three themes in this storygame.

—Theme 1: the only limits that exist are those we place on ourselves—

Our imagination is so vast, so limitless, that even from the barebones of a story, we can create our own tales and weave word after word of a whole new world. Even the assumption that we can only read 16 words before getting tired is a self imposed limitation which we can break through. Boredom may help with this. How many times have we been bored to the point where productivity is a welcome distraction? Or maybe that’s just me.

—Theme 2: everyone may have different interpretations of the same words—

Everyone may have derived different meanings from this story. The way I've interpreted them in this review may be completely different from another reader. Such a thing is most prevalent in this storygame, but even in tales where the meaning is clearer, readers still have conflicting views. Even the author's view may not be authority on the manner to some, though that's a topic for another day.

—Theme* 3: Gower takes this opportunity to teach readers about cumulative sentences—

*Yes, I know this is not a theme, and my creative writing teacher would mark me down for this, but I wanted to add something about this here. When this path is unlocked, each sentence expands the story, new details fleshing out the narrative, altering the meaning of the sentence, yet ensuring its original statement is kept intact. It first follows a subject, verb and object structure as a simple clause, then it is modified with a dependent clause. Soon, more and more clauses are added, full of descriptors and modifiers. This is an ending to die for, though in the context of this story, we have already died to reach it.

TL;DR - a good read for readers with short attention spans and writers looking for inspiration.

This is really impressive, Gower managed to convey a world of options in merely sixteen words!

Not the absolute best, not the worst. This is a nice game of sixteen different words.

Amazing!! Was not sure how this could work, super fun following the paths.

got boobie ending. totally amazing. Thank you for the game.

I had seventeen words in my last comment. That’s really quite embarrassing and I'm extremely ashamed.

Wow.

Much in few words.

Characters, setting, emotions, well written.

Good formatting and word choice.

Highly recommend.

Cute.

Ulcers…

It was very confusing and I want a walkthrough.. Thank you however. I didn’t really enjoy