The Weight of a Soul by CKY (Spring Thing Prerelease Build)

[center][url=http://www.springthing.net/2017/play.html#TheWeightOfASoul][size=120]T H E · W E I G H T · O F · A · S O U L[/size]

In a world of arcane mysteries, a young doctor’s apprentice unravels a conspiracy most grim.[/url][/center]
Hi everyone. I’m the author of The Weight of a Soul, a game-in-progress which was recently submitted to the Back Garden of Spring Thing '07. It’s a mystery/suspense parser game inspired by the likes of Anchorhead and Fallen London; although it’s not quite finished, a good enough chunk of it is fully implemented that I worked up the courage to toss it out there and see what feedback I get. I’m indebted to Aaron and the IF community for making this possible.

If you’ve played the game, whether in a playtesting capacity or just as a regular player, I would very much like your feedback. The Weight of a Soul is still in development, and I’m open to improving all aspects of the game: the plot, the prose, the puzzles, and even the core mechanics. My goal is for this game to be the best that it can be within the constraints of the medium.

All in all, I hope you enjoy The Weight of a Soul and have a spooky time. Comments and criticism are all appreciated.

EDIT:
Known bugs:

  • After examining a dead body with the endoscope, you can’t exit the endoscopy by typing >out or >up as intended (because I’m a goofball and accidentally made an intervening Before rule). You can work around this by attempting any action “out of endoscopy,” such as jumping or taking inventory, which will automatically pull you out of it.
  • There are some minor glitches with truth states in Doctor Justinian’s conversation, so it’s possible for him to repeat things he’s already said. Luckily, this doesn’t affect gameplay.

I haven’t finished all of the sample provided, but am finding this impressive so far — very solidly built, rich world-building, and a variety of optional interactions. (I wound up having a long conversation with my neighbor outside my apartment building, but I had the impression I could also have walked right by her and skipped that.)

I also liked how the opening sequence manages to work both as a narrative hook and as a gameplay tutorial; that’s not always easy to do, and a lot of games have to settle for doing one or the other.

Thanks for playing! I’ve been a fan of your work since I was introduced to IF, so it means a lot to me that you’ve enjoyed your experience with the game so far. I will appreciate and take to heart any feedback that you provide.

The opening sequence has been refined over quite a lot of feedback from my playtesters, who don’t have any background in interactive fiction. I’m glad that it works as a tutorial.

EDIT: Added a list of known bugs in the Spring Thing build.