Player Comments on The Backup

So far in this contest most of the shorter stories are the protagonist waking up somewhere and trying to figure out where they are. This story almost seems to start that way, but makes it very clear you are in a spacecraft of some sort. And for that I am thankful, because it gives the character a motive you actually can care about. Additionally, this story sets clear the mystery you're trying to solve, rather than making what the mystery is the mystery itself.

So, to sum up, you start in the aftermath of some sort of cataclysmic malfunction in space, and you are trying to figure out what happened, and how you can get the system back to full functionality (before presumably what little remains of life-support is gone and you die).

What would make it a little better I think is maybe a more clearer indication of which choices you should make and why. It's not quite as ambiguous as the two options "turn left" or "turn right" (sadly actually happened in I think two of these entries), but a bit more rationale for each would have been nice.

The fact that it's maybe some sort of alien virus (virtual or otherwise) that caused the malfunction is interesting, although I haven't gotten through enough branches to get a clearer picture to know for sure.

Bottom line: it's a well crafted piece of of a world, this spacecraft. It seems believable. And it it logical. I can't emphasize how important these things are for a story, even if it's short like this one: You have a clear problem to solve, a self-consistent world in which to solve it, and nice descriptions of what you find as you go.

Did I find a life-changing truth or ending that will haunt my dreams? No. But I did find a competent storygame, and a creative situation that it takes place in. And that's more than you get most of the time.

And to top it off, the author was planning on publishing something else. So, nice work.

The world building is great. I didn't particularly like the lack of branching, but the lore available to us worked very well. For such a short game, it was very enjoyable. 6/8