*YOU ARE STARBOUND* (Story Game Series) - When Death Looms

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Hello there, everyone! It's good to be back in the game. I bring thee the fourth You Are Starbound adventure, which is entitled, "When Death Looms".

I've decided not to give any background to this one except that you are a human: An element of unknown will help here, I believe. You'll just find yourself amidst a story and take it from there. I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised.

This adventure, however, was created using Twine. It's a much smarter set up; it can keep track of things and it's easier to navigate. While health points, skills, and a class system have been debated in the past, I've decided not to use them in this one. I believe one of "When Death Looms"' strengths is how simple it is to play.


Please note that this was not the fourth YAS game the team was creating - We actually decided to take a break from that one, and during that break I created "When Death Looms", which is completely unrelated from what we were working on. That means that there will be no art in this one, though...

I simply felt like putting something out there, so here it is. I hope you guys have fun, and, of course, feedback is welcome!

Play When Death Looms

Visit When Death Looms on textadventures.co.uk

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If you find the font to be too bright, try this version instead.​

 

Loved it, I had a good laugh when you retrieve the hand from the pile

 

Cheers. ^^ Twine sure makes things a lot smoother for the reader, and I haven't even used it to its full potential.

 

Mind the spoilers, please. ><

 

Sorry deleted it but why ?

 

Thank you. There's no risk of spoiling it now for those who haven't read it yet.

Still, if you want to discuss the story, we can do it like this. ^^ Just make a spoiler warning and set up spoiler tags.

 

Just one thing as I begin -- I believe the contrast between the stark blackness of the background and the glowing white is hard on the eyes. Even if it's bearable, it gives this unpleasant searing feeling.

 

interesting defintly a fun game P.S. try to add more pictures next time and could you make a glitch or hylotl one next?

 

Though I honestly did not feel it as an issue, I understand how it could be for some readers. It is possible to change the text color, so I will definitely bear your feedback in mind for future productions. Perhaps a smoother gray would be more eye-friendly.

We usually have pictures, actually. However, this adventure was not produced by the whole team; it was simply a project of mine while everyone was on a break. ^^

 

Playing through, my eyes gradually acclimated to the harsh colours, but the contrast, especially to the cool grey of these forums, could get some people to just never play it.

The content is excellent, though. I'll send over some the review on Sunday's issue and via PM.

 

I've uploaded a second link with an easier-on-the-eye-font. Check out the OP

 

I really need to try these out.

 

If you scroll all the way up to the first post, on the top right of the OP you may select the option Unwatch Thread.

 

oh thanks

 

Cool story, bro! I mean really nicely done... Permadeath is a mean one, though...There is this rewind function on the left however I have no idea how to use....

 

You can click the back button on your browser. (at least I could in Chrome)

 

I really enjoyed the story, though I did have one issue with it, that being many of the options which result in you dying give no hint or indication that a certain choice will kill you, There were several that did give hints, suggestions, whatever that a particular option may not be a good idea, and I really liked being able to reason through a challenge, rather then succeeding by luck alone. Perhaps on your next story you guys could put more hints or indicators that a choice would be bad, even if the hint is vague, or made at an earlier point in the story, I've always liked the idea of making an intelligent choice, rather than just relying on pure blind luck to get me through things... Not that pure blind luck doesn't occasionally have its uses. I used to read 'choose your own adventure' books when i grew up and it always bothered me that you made most if not all of the choices in the book blindly, and it was completely down to luck to make it to the end alive, as opposed to using reasoning and intuition to puzzle out the correct path.

All in all i thought it was awesome. It definitely had a whole 'survival horror' thing going on there.

btw, is the character's name Rodriguez? Or was he just another of the victims?

 

Thank you very much for the feedback. It is true that while some suggestions had hints mentioned previously, others were resting on luck. It's a bit difficult to make everything rely on hints alone, though, especially in terms of choosing doors and paths when the player doesn't really know what to expect after selecting. Even when faced with a choice such as go to armory or go to shooting range, it is still unknown what may actually happen in those areas. I believe some luck is necessary as well to give the game an edge, even though it may be a bit of a bummer to die due to that. (We can just push to return to the previous page, gladly: No longer do we need to search the previous passage out of 400 xD)

Nonetheless, I definitely welcome your feedback and will try to offer more subtle hints in future games. Or at least the option to uncover them if the player is thorough. I think that'll help make the game richer. Taking my last example of armory and shooting range, maybe if the player gets to read someone's datalog, he/she will discover that the "baddies" are setting up an ambush in the armory.

The player is simply meant to be one of the victims. That's the way I designed it, at least. In YAS, I avoid mentioning the protagonist's appearance and name, so that each individual reader may reflect his/her own looks and name (or whichever he/she wants) onto the main character.

However... I do not reject the interpretation that the player could have been a crewmember named Rodriguez, who was in on the crew's plan. You simply wouldn't remember it due to your memory still being broken.

 

This was so much fun. Thank you! It's gonna be a lot tougher to kill the second boss now..