Game Thoughts - Kutya by Dylan-C

This is the first text-adventure story I've read upon discovering the IFDB (Interactive Fiction Database) website (not the first one ever, though), and it's pretty interesting, for the lack of a better word. But I guess I'll just talk about things in the review proper.

I tried this one out because of the title. Kutya in Filipino means "scoff" or "mock", and I was curious, what is being mocked? Who is being mocked?

What's It About?

Okay, if I really talk about it, I will be spoiling this whole thing. Let's just say that you're playing as someone's kid, whose day is going swimmingly. However, something drastic happens later that day, and you may or may not realize something about the character that you're playing as.

Writing

As someone's "learning the basics" Twine story, it's a fairly simple story, and at least I can understand what's going on. Well, mostly, as I really had to take it in with a second read-through.

What makes the revelation at the end surprising is the fact that it's in a second person POV, and you don't really know anything about "yourself" (the character you're in the shoes of) other than what the narrator tells you about "yourself". That, and the fact that you would most likely have certain assumptions about the character you're playing as.

Now that I think about it... maybe the player/reader is the one being mocked here in this story.

Gameplay

This is pretty much a basic Twine story, so all you really need to do is click on the links to progress. Despite the presence of links, there are no branching paths, but the ending is pretty surprising, and may also make you do a facepalm for some reason.

If there's something else I would have a bit of a beef with, it's the fact that you have a link at almost every line of text (they needed to do it to make the text appear as the player clicks, although it might be solved by making the page clickable instead), and it's kind of distracting for me. But what can you do as someone who's just starting out and wanting to try the basics? And for that reason, I'm giving some leeway.

Overall

It was only for a short time, but I sure was taken for a ride. It's certainly not the best interactive fiction piece out there, but it can take you for a bit of a loop.

Also, this reminds me that I really shouldn't be thinking so much about making things perfect for my own stories.

If you want to try this game out, you can play it online from IFDB.