Deep Dark Wood by Senica Thing
This is an anthology of micro IF written in Twine by seven elementary and middle school students from Senica, Slovakia. More information can be found here. Each work goes in different directions, but the framing narrative is always the same: the player is “entering a dark place full unpredictable twists and hostile creatures.” If they feel uncomfortable or have exhausted all the options found in these works, they can return “to the Main Crossroads and try another path”. The premise of a dark forest is more than enough to spark the children’s imaginations, and I like how the games are different from each other. It’s great that they’re collected in an easy-to-read anthology like this.
Some of the games have not been edited by adults, with zero or few changes at all (“The Land Owner left the path nearly untouched”). Others were redesigned (“The Land Owner had to redesign some parts of the story to balance the beginning and the ending and make the adventure sound bit more logical.”) for us unimaginative adults in mind. So all these games are written by kids whose creative voices are not drowned out by outside forces, and I like that.
Overall, Deep Dark Woods is an impressive anthology of children’s fiction. I own several anthologies of children’s poetry and fiction, and this would fit right into my library. It’s fun to read what kids have to say about the world they live in, what they find scary and exciting, etc. And I would say this is a step up from the anthologies I own because there is a common theme/setting. We can trace the imaginative journeys kids take from the premise here, and it’s quite enlightening for anyone interested in children’s education.
I’m going to go through each game because I think they deserve their own review and I agree with the project’s goal of giving feedback and encouragement to the kids.
Back to the City by David
The game begins with us standing in front of a log cabin. We are presented with three choices: join the party, leave the forest, or explore the forest. Each choice leads to other choices that may or may not help the character find their way back to the city.
Leaving the forest is a rather funny option as it’s the quickest way to safety. Joining the party doesn’t help us achieve our goals, but we are able to talk to some of the characters for a bit. It’s unfortunate that I wasn’t able to party with them for long because our character realized that it had little to do with getting home. That’s probably true, but maybe talking to these people in the party could give us some clues about how to get home, and we could have some fun and intelligent conversations with them.
In fact, I think we see that opportunity when the player character meets Steve the horse when we choose to explore the forest. Steve has a map to the city, and that means that our exploration of the forest is rewarded. It feels good to help someone and then find a way back to the town. This is my favorite path because we can lead Steve back to his owner by exploring the town.
So the best parts of the game involve the player character talking to other characters and working together to solve a common problem. I would have liked to see situations like the one with Steve in Back to the City. Steve is also a fun character and I think it would be great to see more scenes of him horsing around with the player character. All in all, a pretty good game.
Dark Dreams by Baily’s Sisters
The player character wakes up in an old house that has a table with a lamp, an apple, and a cup of coffee. The windows are closed. You have three choices related to the items on the table.
Without giving away the game’s secrets, the choices are excellent and lead to some incredible scenarios. I laughed at the hand-standing wolf and was engaged when I learned I was poisoned. The game knows that things have to happen to the player or they will get bored.
The best part of this game is how each ending reflects what the player has done while exploring the house. I like how it remembers what I did and what I didn’t do. It’s nice to play a game that remembers my actions and implies that I should have done something better. More games should do that.
This is a well-designed game that makes you think about the consequences of your actions. There are many satisfying endings, and there’s always something to do and think about on every page.
Halloween by Hailey and Milka
The game starts by asking us to enter our name and then welcomes us to the Halloween Hunt. There are many different paths the player can take, but I think there’s a bit too much.
I think the main problem is that the choices don’t feel connected to the previous scenes. I don’t feel like I’m in control of the world or my character, so the choices don’t feel as meaningful as they should.
Still, I am deeply impressed by how much text there is in the game and how much attention is paid to building a world full of surprises. I enjoy exploring every link and being surprised that there’s more to read and explore. I feel their energy and passion in their words.
I think developers should think about which branches are important for the player to reach. They should try to play the game at least once, so that they can imagine what the player will feel while reading through their game. It’s an ambitious game that could be even better if the developers considered how people will experience their title.
IXI in the Forest by Leontine
IXI wants to make friends in the forest and there seem to be two animals he can befriend: a doe or a bird. The doe turns out to be hostile, but choosing the bird gives us a story of friendship.
It’s a pity that the bird is “good and nice but lazy”. The choices in this game revolve around making the bird or the doe do things, so we need to make the bird not lazy.
I like the bird because she seems happy to help people out but only if we remind the bird what it should do. I also like the rabbits who can choose to invite the bird or not. I wish I could learn more about the bird, rabbit, doe, and IXI. They seem like interesting characters and I would like to know what each of them had for dinner. Animals do have interesting meals after all.
The game is short, but I think it has memorable characters and environments. I just want more because I think it’s very good.
Little Frogie by Natalie
You are a hungry frog, but you can choose not to buy food and starve. It will be a sad moment, but that’s how the game begins: it wants you to consider your choices to find the best moments a frog could have.
The mistakes the frog could make are mistakes many of us would make. On a personal level, I understand using salt instead of sugar for pancakes, or how a delicious cake could make my teeth hurt. We have to consider things like the time of day and our other needs if we want to help our frog friend.
So I think the game does a very good job of exploring how our actions and choices should be aimed at satisfying a need and nothing more or less. Why would we want to paint the Mona Lisa when we could paint a cool cat with funny sunglasses? Each page makes me think about what I should do next, and it’s fun to click on a choice I know is wrong to see the hilarious results.
This is my favorite of the Seneca Thing games because of the balance between gameplay and text. Looking for different endings always makes me laugh, and I like how Natalie finds ways to summarize the endings into moments. It’s an impressive game with a good sense of humor and a great understanding of interactivity.
Survive or Die by Unicorn Sisters
This is a real horror game. We are in an old house and we have to explore the creepy attic or stay in the hall.
The atmosphere of this game is really captivating. I didn’t know what to expect, so I was surprised that there was a monster running around. The descriptions of the attic and other rooms are very well done and make me anxious on what I should do next.
I also like how the good choices are the ones people don’t tend to do in horror movies. Sticking together is always the best idea, but movies don’t do that. This game does and I appreciate that it has some common sense, so when the scary stuff happens, it feels more believable.
The monster is also quite effective at spooking me. The game never describes the monster, so it’s up to my imagination what the monster should look like. My own imagination is scarier than anything the developer can come up with, so I’m glad I was given the space to come up with the scariest monster to crawl around the house.
The ending surprised me, but it made a lot of sense since the monster was hungry and we just happened to order pizza. That was a great twist and I think the ending is very clever. Scary yet hilarious, this game is a great example of how horror can be mixed with comedy to create something very special.
The Dark One by Mushroom
This game starts by talking to you and asking if you’d like some blueberries. It feels like you are talking to a friend who has come up with a fascinating story. However, this friend doesn’t seem to know much about you since you can’t swim and oops.
So I like how the narration has personality. The narrator doesn’t know everything about you, but they are friendly and helpful if you earn their trust.
That said, I want to know more about the narrator and why they wants to help me. Their lines are so funny that they make me curious. It would be fun to see scenes where the narrator and I hang out and do things together, like friends tend to do. I would also like to read what the narrator thinks of me, so that we can avoid the swimming accident from now on.
I’m also interested in the title. The game never mentions what The Dark One is. Is the Dark One the narrator? Or is there something lurking that I haven’t found yet?
There are a lot of mysteries in this game that will be fun to unravel and explore. I like mysteries, so it will be fun to solve a few and leave the rest for me to ponder about the world. I’m looking forward to learning more about The Dark One, the narrator, and the world this game takes place in because it feels like there’s a lot of potential here.
That’s a lot of writing, and I hope it’s useful to developers and readers alike. Writing all this was exhausting, but I’m glad I did it.
A rewarding moment.
Anyway, two years ago I was in the UK, so Spring Thing seems fair. Anyway, I’ll see myself out…
Suggestions duly noted. The point on focusing on process rather than solution leaves much for me to think about, so thanks!
i’m particularly glad to hear the pacing worked for you, as that’s one of the things i find trickiest to control in if as opposed to standard fiction.