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I didn't really like this one as much as the last, but it was still pretty good. Some of the endings aren't really endings though. Like the "Bookshelf is pushed on you and all of you are fine" How is that an ending?
Yeah, this is a valid criticism. None of the endings on their own are really that complete. You have to gather a bunch and piece it together. More of the endings in my last game were more complete, but they were also very similar. I wanted more variety in this one, but sometimes I just reached a point where it was very difficult to continue.
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(SPOILER) Sad that there's no way to get a good ending with Faith. Either you learn math and you have no choice but to become evil, or you lose the ability to learn math and Faith loses interest in you. Ending #3 is my favorite, though it gives little closure, and #8 comes close despite its tragic undertone.
Thanks for the feedback! I didn't want to have any 100% good endings. There are some good things that happen across several of the different endings, but I wanted these things to come at a cost to other elements of the story. All of the different endings are building the over-arching story, so I didn't want there to be one single stand-out ending that wraps everything up in a tidy little bow, because then that would be the "right" ending with the "right" choices. But I didn't want the options to be right or wrong, just different.
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... got ending #1 at first try... and honestly, the idea and setting were interesting until it went all DBZ on me >_>
I... actually don't read interactive fiction. Sorry to disappoint! I don't even read regular fiction... I just get weird stuff in my brain that wants to come out. I don't even set out to write anything at all unless something just comes to me naturally.
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Excellent stuff, I've been really hyped for this proj for a really long time! IMO it doesn't quite measure up to 1000$S - themes seem a) much simpler and b) very unsubtly stated. The constant jokey references and fourth wall breaking also rubbed me the wrong way, but that's probably just me being over serious.
But tiny things really - congrats! Super well written with awesome music, great art and v pleasingly interlocked endings. I live in awe and keep you bookmarked!!
Thanks for the feedback! This was the story I originally wanted to do, and I just whipped up Thousand Dollar Soul to test the format and learn some lessons. The main lessons I learned were that I needed less text between options and more variety between the endings. I think I accomplished that here, but after I read it all over the first time, I got a sinking feeling that it wasn't as good as my last one, even though I just did the last one to prepare for this one. Oh well! It's kind of a mess, and it's all over the place, but I'm just glad to finally get it out of my brain. This story was told in a more serious tone in an earlier draft, but there's so much ridiculous stuff that I eventually just decided, "Screw it, I'm just going to make this silly." The end result is a little weird because it's sort of half silly and half serious. For my next writing project, the tone will be more similar to Thousand Dollar Soul -- darker, if anything.
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(spoilers) Well that was all certainly... interesting. I have no idea what to make of the morality of any of this. What with god being a tyrant to the other gods, but his existence being necessary for the totality of life anywhere but earth. Do the lives of "lesser" conscience beings even rank with that of the meta-beings in a utilitarian moral calculus? And does the kantian philosophy of not treating self-aware being as a means to an end apply to the gods who treat entire universes of conscience beings as a means to the end that is their own existence? Is this what you were going for?
I wish! The music is made by David Carney (dvgmusic.com) and Halcyonic Falcon X (http://halcyonicfalconx.bandcamp.com/), my two favorite Flash musicians.
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I feel like this is sort of offensive... 2/5 Not my type, but kinda hard to pick an option. It WOULD be nice for an army styled Text-based adventure. But really... I feel this is offensive.
I had this thing all planned out, then I read that Terry Pratchett quote and I was like, "Holy crap, this summarizes my entire story perfectly!" So I had to create an otter character too.
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There's only one concept in this that I with- the idea that all sentient Earth life is evil because it eats other lifeforms. There are multiple animals that eat only fruit, which *wants* you to eat it, because it benefits both mother plant and seed (seeds can't travel on their own, so they get an animal to carry them.). Still more animals eat only nectar, which not only benefits the flower, but does not involve consuming anything that is, was, or could be alive (nectar has no DNA, for starters...). Additionally, there is a plethora of plants and animals that feed only upon things that are already dead.
Unfortunately, that is a major premise of this story...
This is a premise of the story only in the sense that the distinction is arbitrary, meaningless, and hypocritical. (spoilers ahead) God orders a grape-free wine just before asking you to assassinate his daughter. The larger point being made here is that morality is dependent on using common sense, not just following arbitrary rules. As Faith not-so-subtly explains in the bunny planet ending, "Earth is evil because everyone who lives there consumes life" is just an excuse that the rest of the universe uses to keep it quarantined and suppressed. It's easier for us to oppress people when we can figure out a way to label them as "evil," even if it's done in a way that's completely unfair, since the inhabitants of Earth don't have a choice about what they eat -- God made them that way!
I read a lot of CYOA books when I was a kid. I can't think of any one particular book that influenced me, but I will say that I was influenced by how the backstory of the universe would change within these books depending on the choice you made. That always bugged me, so I made a conscious decision early on to keep the backstory/universe consistent across the paths regardless of what the player chooses. It also kind of bugged me that the stories across the different paths of CYOA books were completely unrelated to each other, and there was no common thread between them. So I wanted the paths to have relationships to each other, even if they were mostly different. In my last game, Thousand Dollar Soul, I think the paths were way too similar, so I wanted to add more variety here, but I also wanted there to be common themes and a consistent backstory.
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hmmm. a man named stan who wears red clothes, has a red beard aaand red tattoos on a bald head. i wonder who he might represent. i wonder.
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*SPOILERS*
Shadowlord, killing a god kills every being they have created. So solution 1 is bull. Solution 2 is equally bull, for roughly the same reason. We killed God in the same way he killed Faith. Empowering an Entity such as Stan is effectively the only solution, assuming that God and Faith are wrong and the species on Earth are not inherently evil.
But the species of Earth are destined to conquer the entire universe! I wanted the morality here to be as ambiguous as possible; no one is purely evil or entirely free from evil.
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Often times when my mind wanders I contemplate the possible nature of existence. The scenario put forth in this piece of interactive fiction matches quite well to one such contemplation I have had in the past. Combining the enjoyment caused by seeing such a concept brought into a piece of writing with the quality of the writing and my personal preference for interactive fiction makes this a welcome addition to my favorites. Furthermore I wish for you to continue to produce such high quality work so that I might enjoy them all. I'd go into a more detailed review of the material, but this is just a comment section.
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2) Or we can transcend our creators and become morally superior to them by killing no one. Life is to valuable to be extinguished, even if they are the creators of evil.
Instead we must imprison them for all eternity by trapping them in The Abyss at the bottom of their home. Unable to leave, or interact with their creations anymore. They will spend eternity together, learning everything about each other until they form a hive mind.
Bound to the bottom of The Abyss.
Thanks for contributing your philosophical musings! I have no idea what the correct/moral choice would be within this story's universe. In fact, I put a lot of effort into trying to make it so that there ISN'T one. Seriously, what could you possibly do within this story's universe that's not evil on at least some level? When I was a kid going to Christian Sunday school, they taught us that we were all sinners, and that nothing we could do would change this, since everything is a sin on some level. Yeah, no kidding...
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1) The death of Every God.
It has been shown that the gods are NOT perfect beings, and since all of them are immortal, the chances of them becoming corrupted as their own powers grow, increases (it's only a matter of time). None of them are innocent either. For they are the creators of evil and every evil deed can be traced back to them, making them the sole reason anything bad happens.
But if we go to there world we are STRONGER then they are! We, together we are Legion! And we are the only ones who can Punish them, and undo every evil thing they have ever done.
Even if it means our own death. . . .
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After seeing all endings and understanding every characters motives, I have come to the conclusion that the there are only two morally justified options.
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Quick Note: The Black Plague killed an estimated of 25 Million people in the course of 5 years. Now the Spanish Flu killed 50 Million in 1 YEAR.
I feel like there should have been a foot note in the game talking about the new & improved plague.
Faith heals children, holds back humanity, can't be trusted, doesn't listen to reason (according to Stan), leaps from a falling ship, consistently activates her pineal gland, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting, but yeah, in several situations her character is a metaphor for lowercase faith.
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I would not recommend this game to an average visual novel or CYOA player. While it might be fun for someone new to them, the writing and themes were a bit too polarized for some. I really love seeing these sort of games being hosted on Kongregate, but the game itself felt a little too railroaded and silly.
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Well, I'm the kind of person who get's bothered by non-disclosure (or whatever), and ending #8 was pretty much no closure at all, so I wrote up an alternate ending to make myself feel better. Thought I'd better notify you of this. You can read it here:
http://www.wattpad.com/57130466-god%27s-assassin-alternate-ending-8?d=ud
If you wish I'll take it down, no problem. Just thought I'd share.
That's awesome! If you (or anyone else) want to play around with the text directly in the game, I *think* you can download a slightly different version of the swf here: http://we-are-1.net/CYOA_5.swf That version of the swf, I think, will load the text file from locally on your computer. Save this text file into the same location: http://www.we-are-1.net/TestFile.xml Open the xml file in Notepad, make all the edits you want, save it, and if that first swf is in the same folder, then you should be able to see your edits. So you can rewrite as much as you want and share it around if you want. I don't care. Have fun!
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I'm a Christian but this game, not in a bad way, has really opened my eyes to certain philosophical questions/paradoxes. I'm so happy you took your time with this and forced us to come away after the game with a few more provoking thoughts. You've even made it enjoyable, which is something special, can't credit you enough bro. I really urge you to make more interactive-fiction that not only entertains us, but in an unbiased way, provokes us to think differently, because you're really good at it.
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I love "TheSwain" and his art style. His games/stories are always of the highest caliber. I always find myself digging through to uncover every end of his interactive stories. I suppose this is the sequel of sorts to "Thousand Dollar Soul"?
I wouldn't say it's a direct sequel because the story is so different, but I did want to establish that they take place in the same universe (Faith invents angelfire, the earpiece here is sort of an early prototype of the one in TDS, and Dr. Madison in the hospital is the same Angela from TDS). I am working on a non-interactive novel that will be a sequel to both stories, starring Clint, Angela, Todd and Faith.
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This was actually quite thought provoking. Not a huge fan of the pro-drug agenda, but otherwise very well made and interesting.
Hey, 3 out of the 4 main characters are anti-drug! Are you blindly listening to Faith? ;-) Also, the Evil Quiz is intended to be unreasonably judgmental.
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TO GREG: Splendid game. It should have badges, like find 10 endings, etc.
P.S. Check your kong messages, I have left you a shout