The Spirit Of Disaster (Competition 2012)

[LieselSolo]

"Living Through Disaster"

No menus, which is an automatic negative point for me. I like my VNs interactive.

The spirit's characterization as half-crazy is entertaining, though there didn't seem to be much to her other than being half-crazy. I mean, she didn't even have a name. The other versions I've played have all given her a name. I know that's a little thing, but not giving her a name made her seem more like a plot device than a character.

The story was . . . okay. There was quite a bit of telling instead of showing, particularly at the beginning when Genevieve goes on and on about how unexceptional she is, how she has an unexceptional appearance, unexceptional hobbies, unexceptional everything. This is a MAJOR case of telling without showing us anything. HOW is her appearance unexceptional? WHAT are her unexceptional hobbies? That, plus the fact that the prompt itself used the word "unexceptional" reveals a lack of imagination. However, I did like how she kept wondering whether or not the spirit was a hallucination (complete with references to A Beautiful Mind) even to the very end, letting us interpret it as we will.

But then again, that's about the only thing left open to interpretation. The moral of "live your life to the fullest" is a good one, but it's been done a lot, and the way the game spelled it out at the end really made it feel cliche, especially how it listed every event in the story and the lessons they taught. A moral works best when it's not explicitly spelled out like that.

"The Face of Tragedy"

Honestly, this one didn't make much of an impression. I liked that there were many different endings, but the storyline was pretty thin. It's an interesting idea, trying to pursuade the spirit to give up on disasters, but the whole thing seemed rushed. Plus, the protagonist had zero character development - not even a name. I don't even know if the protagonist was supposed to be male or female. This really made the game feel shallow. How am I supposed to care about the protagonist when I know absolutely nothing about him/her? Plus, why can s/he see the spirit when most people can't and why does touching the spirit burn her? It could have stood to be a little longer.

"Who Are You?"

I . . . don't know what to make of this one either. For starters, there are no menus and almost no music. Second, there are quite a few run-on sentences (such as "A girl can dream can't she?") and sentence fragments (like "Arnold kicks back in his bed. His head slamming into the wall behind him."). The game also misspelled "mobile."

And to be honest . . . the story really confused me. Did Arnie have Multiple Personality Disorder or something? Was she always a woman who thought she was a man or was she a man who became a woman? Was she always Bethany as well, or was Bethany a separate entity who merged with her? I GUESS it was MPD, but it was so disjointed and there were so many holes (how do the coworkers not notice anything, for one?), that I'm really not sure.

Also, the fourth-wall breaking was jarring. When the characters are proceeding with the story and then all of a sudden they're aware of the music or the background changing, it takes you out of the story. Fourth-wall breaking only works when it happens frequently enough for the reader to be in on the joke.

[Daggio]

4 dimensional

okay, so in this story, the spirit of disaster is an interface used in an experiment. The experiment seems to test about apocalypse and what people's perceptions of it, like what would you do about it, knowing that it will come? you can either do nothing and the end will comes, or you can try to find out about it which, well, makes no difference, the end will still come.
I only played it once so maybe I don't grasp it very clearly but it's not clear who operates the computer at the beginning of the story and his correlation to story as a whole. Where is he? What is the computer had anything to do with the protagonist? Is the world in some kind of matrix virtual reality where we all are a file in .YHWH format? .YHWH refers to God, but if there are many .YHWH files then that means those files are God's creations, right? where each individual has their own free will

or maybe this world isn't a virtual reality, maybe this is the real world just doesn't operate like what people would assume. Maybe there's no God of magic, but God of science, where when He does a miracle, he simply just rewrote the code of the world to do what He wanted... maybe I'm theorizing too much, my head can't take it

overall, this is a great story, never would've thought that the 'spirit of disaster' prompt could be taken as far as this. Hats off to the writer


Living through disaster

The story about a pessimistic woman who thought that her life holds no meaning and the illness she got only makes her bad life worse. It's not clear whether the spirit of disaster is a real spirit or just a hallucination created by MC. Yeah, usually you don't notice it when you created an imaginary companion, but if you reverse the logic, if you know that the person is something you might have created unconsciously, doesn't that make him/her real? I mean... it's the opposite of the other logic, right? or maybe she is a hallucination but the MC just doesn't want to accept it.

well, whatever.

what's worth noted is the development of the MC in this story, where in the beginning she feels like her life is insignificant to the world, and therefore no need to be lived so seriously. In the end she ended up being much more positive about her life, and start living to the fullest
wait... where have I met an MC like that?
...
....
what? Meaning? was that you?

[Pyrephox]

4 dimensional

okay, so in this story, the spirit of disaster is an interface used in an experiment. The experiment seems to test about apocalypse and what people's perceptions of it, like what would you do about it, knowing that it will come? you can either do nothing and the end will comes, or you can try to find out about it which, well, makes no difference, the end will still come.
I only played it once so maybe I don't grasp it very clearly but it's not clear who operates the computer at the beginning of the story and his correlation to story as a whole. Where is he? What is the computer had anything to do with the protagonist? Is the world in some kind of matrix virtual reality where we all are a file in .YHWH format? .YHWH refers to God, but if there are many .YHWH files then that means those files are God's creations, right? where each individual has their own free will

or maybe this world isn't a virtual reality, maybe this is the real world just doesn't operate like what people would assume. Maybe there's no God of magic, but God of science, where when He does a miracle, he simply just rewrote the code of the world to do what He wanted... maybe I'm theorizing too much, my head can't take it

overall, this is a great story, never would've thought that the 'spirit of disaster' prompt could be taken as far as this. Hats off to the writer

My take on 4Dimensional (without reading the extensive discussion earlier) was that it was riffing on the idea of reality being a computer simulation, and the MC being a real being within a simulated context - a 'free willed being' surrounded by constructs, or 'non free willed beings'. I found the premise fascinating, and the delivery solid, but I'm not sure it went far enough to develop the idea. I don't need a full explanation (and that would be boring), but the short-story format didn't quite give the author the ability to explore the premise to its fullest extent, I think.

Still, agree that it's a great story. Kinda sad that the choices don't matter to the plot, and don't open up dialogue to have a real debate of it, because this premise and format begs for that sort of interactivity.

[Blane Doyle]

Who Are You?

Writing: .......... I am starting to believe that the shorter these stories are the higher the chance of them being poorly written is. I really disliked how jumpy everything was. Not only between characters, but with scenes. Again. Actually, this has the same pacing issues as the last few short games I read. The humor, while admittedly funny at points, felt like it was added in just because most of the time.

And when the twist is revealed... it's just so poorly done that I really don't know what to think. I'm actually confused as to what actually happened, if it was something truly psychological or something else.

Technical: Another entry with no name box. There are very few transitions (even though said transitions were lampshaded), and I wish they had been executed better.

Asset Use: Why no music for most of the game? Really? I do not understand why there is no music when it is there for use...

Prompt Use: To start with, this concept is great! The execution is... not.

Final: I really did not enjoy this entry. While the ideas behind it were great, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It's too jumpy, too short, and too confusing to enjoy.

Umbra's Calling

Writing: Let me make it known that I do not enjoy second person narrative. I do like that the narrative style is dropped a bit once we get to name our MC, but this is not my preferred POV.

Again, we have some pacing problems, but it is not as drastic as the last few entries. I did like that we have multiple endings and multiple choices... but in the end the story was just so short that none of it really got to leave any real impression on me.

The characters were very lopsided. As we were essentially the main character, we got no real personality aside from general stuff. However, the spirit got a decent bit of character. That said, it was not enough for me to be able to pin one down for her accurately.

Technical: Aaaaaaand another name boxless entry. I suppose I should be used to this by now. I did enjoy many of the technical aspects in this game, such as how the sprite moved and looked, but I wish there was a bit more done with transitions. Stopping the music abruptly is possibly the most common issue and it always sounds very... grating to me.

I did like that we have an endings list with summaries, however I felt some of them smacked you in the head with the meaning, almost as if it was assumed you might not have gotten it.

Asset Use: Loved the ghost like quality given to the sprite! The background use was decent and the music, while I wish it had transitions, was nicely used as well.

Prompt Use: The idea was very nice and it was an interesting way to look at the prompt. However I wished the disaster aspect was touched upon a bit more.

Final: I did not dislike this game, however I did not particularly enjoy it either. It was simply something that didn't leave an impression on me. So far I have actually enjoyed this and The Day I Died the most because they kept a much more serious tone overall in comparison to other entries. The interactivity may have also played a part in this, though I wish there was a walkthrough so I wouldn't have tried to get every ending for as long as I did.

The Final Test

Writing: My first impression was "alright, this might be interesting". Then Trent introduced himself... unfortunately, the amount of cliches started to bog down what could have been interesting. I did enjoy some of the humor when you meet the spirit, but overall it was just cliched and very simple. Far too much so for me to enjoy the ideas behind it. I know some people enjoy the sort of story that is self aware, but this one was just too blandly so that I couldn't.

There were also some parts where after choosing an option the speaker's name would not show and we'd get narration instead. Very weird... And there was often no difference in dialogue between passing and failing a test until after you know you did, which felt very strange to me.

Technical: I had multiple issues with this, but none more so than, again, lack of transitions and no music and no name box. This seems to be a thing.

I did not like finding out that I didn't really have to do much of anything to win, by the way. It felt very very cheap.

When you chose to skip the intro, there is no background until you meet the spirit, by the way.
Asset Use: Simple, used when needed. This was what I enjoyed most. It used what it needed well. Except music.

At least the lack of music allowed me to skip easier through later plays?

Prompt Use: I feel like I am repeating myself. Great idea, wonderful idea, poor execution.

Final: Well that was... interesting. Not particularly enjoyable, but interesting. I feel like I am repeating myself when it comes to reviewing these entries...

That's it for tonight, I will start with For Stellie the next chance I get.

[CheeryMoya]

Nostalgia, the Dead Child
First off, too many damn characters. You only got one sprite, and now you want me to read about 4 other characters? Even with the colored names they were hard to keep track of.
So here we have this long monologue about Nostalgia and Hope, and as nice as it is the intro is way too long for its own good. The rest of the story is a bit convoluted, with the protag dying...? Both of the characters with sprites are catgirls, so that makes me wonder what the other guys are :/ Personally, I found this story hard to follow because it needed a lot of suspension of belief.
In every other aspect... nothing stood out. They used some of the BGs that weren't as common in the other entries, if that counts for anything. The author went beyond the prompt; maybe a little too far beyond the prompt. Adding in so many characters was this entry's lowest point IMO.
Compared to the other entries I've read, Sachina is a lower spirit than all the others. She's your dead sister, the rest of high spirits who cause widespread destruction everywhere.

Hm... yeah. I wasn't captured by this entry too much. 6/10, if I'm being nice.

[Lumen_Astrum]

Sacrifice
Matthew seems like a believable character. Of course, his hatred towards people was understandable too, since he's at the back of things always getting fired, stuff. But then, there's a sense of typicality that is ruining him. A normal person, living a normal life, everything about him is normal. As a protagonist, even though he is unique on having "his wish granted", it was never shown why is his' wish, of all other wishes out there, was granted. It was never told why is the spirit there in the first place. It has a little similarity in Shakespeare's classic Macbeth, where the three witches and Hecate gave Macbeth prophecies, except that in here it isn't word games. There's no ulterior motive as of why she was bringing disaster, no backstory on the spirit, nothing. It felt like she was just there to be evil.

I liked how the ending was tied to the beginning of the story, though. The statement "sacrifices have to be made" stuck on me. But Jonathan's motives seem a bit confusing. I did know that Jonathan killed Matthew just because of the curse, but then it isn't shown what exactly he fights for. Now that his daughter is gone, and there are no mentioned any other relatives to him, why did he kill Matthew in the first place if his daughter's already dead? Aside from the city, there's nothing left to fight for. And the lack of struggle on Matthew's part is the most annoying. There could have been a fight between Matthew and Jonathan in the end, with them babbling about their own beliefs, but then "poor" Matthew ended up dead with no chance to defend himself. Once again, both of them passes as jerks to me.

Overall, this would have been a very nice idea, if only the protagonist have a motive to keep his life aside that he wants to keep it. There is a reason to be selfish, but knowing Matthew's background, being known to be fired several times, his wife dead, I would have thought that he had killed himself before Jonathan did to him. But I didn't hate this as a whole. Actually, the ending was a bit of a tear-jerker to me, honestly.

Ariana
I don't know if this is a joke or anything. I mean, a cat girl flirting with a college student? It's a bit... surreal. The romance, as everyone said, felt hurried. She knows surprisingly much about the human world, for a spirit that landed to Earth in a meteorite and is obviously from outer space.

Firstly, I feel like I was forced into the plot when I got killed for running away, when that's the natural instinct I would do when I saw a weird catgirl in a dark forest. How should I know that she's not just some Japanese woman wearing a wig and Nekomimi? But the reaction to her arrival in the dorm is more or less the most natural reaction I have seen so far. Surprise. The way Madison takes in Ariana is pretty much normal, but original. I can't see the reason why would I blame my F on Ariana though. And the way Ariana got pissed on Clara's accusation was... intense.

Ariana is obviously flirting with Clara. And I was surprised when I saw her actually giving into it. The romance was hurried, for there's no solid connection between them, no mutual time together, nothing. It all feels like infatuation.

The tests, though makes no sense to me. Why are people being tested? Why is Ariana thrown out? if there are many spirits of disaster like her, then why is she sent away if bringing disasters is common? Ariana's motives of testing Clara remains unclear, aside from the fact that she's "thrown out". And if she's thrown out, then why is she being returned to her own world?

My Entry
I was laughing the entire time. No need to summarize why.

It is just so cliche and funny and silly and the lack of punctuation is just ergh. I don't know if this is silly or a joke or what. "I BET U NEVER GUES THIS PLOT TWISTER" makes me laugh everytime. I'll point out that the names get mixed up almost majority of the time (who the fudge is Donna?), and aside from that the writer has this habit of typing speech as if she's typing on chat (in the last scene, especially, the "I thought you were my brother" fiasco feels like I'm reading people talking to each other in a chatroom). All caps, badly punctuated, overuse of punctuation marks (and lack in some parts too), bad grammar...

And plus, no motives, no backstories, no believable protagonist. The scenario feels really shallow, and at the end the protagonist isn't the one that solved everything, but these... er... men. It feels like I'm reading badfic, except that the humor of the sloppiness makes up for it.

And yes, I never guessed that plot twister.

[LieselSolo]

"Balancing Act"

I have to say this is one of my favorites so far. I enjoyed the different endings and how the spirit grants wishes by causing disasters to lean in Garrett's favor, espcially how the company had to fire everyone else in order to pay Garrett and how the radioplay had to strain through production in order to finish. And how all the cars had to deteriorate in order for Garrett's car to be the best - it was a great way to use the junkyard background. Very creative use of the tried and true "be careful what you wish for" moral.

The time-travel aspect was interesting, though it could have used some more development. For one thing, was Garrett always "Other Coworker?" And why doesn't "Other Garrett" ever recognize himself? Also, Garrett telling us that he wasted three years making sure the events never happened - telling, not showing again.

But over all, it was very enjoyable and unlike most of the entries, it didn't feel squished by the contest's limitations.

[Blane Doyle]

For Stellie

Writing: This writing was solid. There were some typos that I caught (for example, in the beginning I caught "I made them were fully aware") but they weren't as vast as they could have been. Overall, I think this is the best written piece I have read so far, very nicely done.

I also loved the character of the professor. While a bit over the top I do know there are people like him. So he was not only fun but believable to read. In fact, most of what could have been an exaggeration felt believable enough as I read it but strange enough for me to take quick notice of how it was being said. I loved that! Even the "teacher who spilled coffee" exaggeration is something I can buy as I have known teacher nasty enough to do what happened. Get a whole bunch of them together and that could very well happen.

While in the last few entries I did not enjoy the breaks in narration or the fourth wall, even though I normally love it, this entry pulled it off in a way that felt more natural as this was someone telling a story. Very nice, amusing, and I enjoyed it.

I did notice others mentioning that Stellie's character development was broken from someone with a poor grasp on the English language, as she has difficulty with the word streak, but that was not the impression I had gotten. I got the impression that she was just confused about the past tense of the word and not simple minded or not-bright. This is something many people have problems with. Even writers who study English and have large vocabularies have the problem sometimes, especially with commonly misunderstood words. I felt this scene was used to show off how the two character bounce off each other and how unusual Stellie is. She is a shooting start after all, she's certainly got quirks. (She did mention that they gather knowledge but do not get to properly use it, I felt that was a decent explanation as well.)

But, I could be utterly incorrect. We wouldn't know unless the author told us.

Also, "scrambling like flaming foxes" is the best simile ever. The only thing that would have made me laugh harder at reading it would be if they were flaming squirrels.

Technical: Oh man, I really really loved how this entry looked! It's almost full on NVL but not quite... it just looks so unique! I do not mind a pause after completed sentences while someone is talking, however the amount here was a bit much. During the smaller sentences I felt it may have been alright to let the dialogue continue on.

Asset Use: I was disappointed in the lack of music, however I can understand part of why it was left out I suppose. It fit the story given to us, but not as well as original music may have. In fact, I found a track to listen to myself and I enjoyed it more than the music assets when I tried them.

I enjoyed the use of the backgrounds, simple and minimal, and the use of the sprite was very very nice! I wish the back part could have been cut off, but as is it looks wonderful!

Prompt Use: I thought this was a very interesting use of the prompt. We got disaster, but not in the obviously expected way. She is a spirit, but not in the expected way. You follow the shoot start but DEFINITELY not in the expected way. This use was completely unexpected, and I loved it.

Final: So far, this is my favorite entry. Good writing, interesting characters, a good story, and interesting use of the prompt and assets. Overall, good!

It's All Your Fault

Writing: Ok, I admit, that note at the beginning got a chuckle out of me. Actually, this entry in general got one giant chuckle out of me. Some of it more disturbed or awkward than others. This feels a comedy alright, but not in the usual modern "haha you so funny" meaning. This feels like satire. Mean spirited satire.

This entry seems to be exceptionally mean spirited, actually. Not just toward the player but in general. And yeah, some parts of that mean spiritedness were funny (mostly when it is obviously a joke, for example "and your teeth are better than his")... most of it was just unpleasant.

But somehow I get the feeling that was the point. I don't think this entry was meant to be a pleasant read. I get the feeling that this was almost meant to be a character study, or a look into someone's head. A very unpleasant someone. And that someone is supposed to be YOU. It either makes you feel uncomfortable if you think like the guy or it makes you feel angry if you don't think like him. But you don't think like him. And you do think like him. There are parts where some people will agree with him for good reason and parts where they won't for good reason.

I cannot deny that it was well written, oh no. This was well done, very well done indeed. For as little as I enjoyed the characters and being pelted with being a horrible person, that was damn fine writing. Writing should get some kind of emotional response, and it certainly got one alright.

Technical: I did like the idea of switching between NVL and ADV here, but the contract in brightness started to hurt my eyes after a while... I was grateful for the existence of transitions.

Asset Use: Agh, another one with no music... a shame, but I understand the reason in the note. The use of the assets was simple and plain, not much to touch on here.

Prompt Use: This has certainly been the most... unique use of the prompt, and that is all I will say about that.

Final: I did not enjoy this entry. In fact, I sort of hated this entry. But I'm not sure I am supposed to enjoy this entry much either. All I can say is, damn sir that's some fine writing you did there, that was the best writing I have read so far even, but please never let me near this character again.
Ever.

Fairy Tales of Innocent Children

Writing: The writing of this wasn't great but it was not bad. I would call this writing decent at worst and good at best.

I felt the characterization of the little girl made her seem very very young, perhaps 4 or 5 years old. She was written decently. The spirit was written in... a rather unusual way. Almost as if before she -redacted for spoilers-, her depression drove her to the point of "I don't care anymore, I'm gunna say whatever the hell I want", which was interesting. And a bit entertaining to me, in a morbid curiosity sort of way.

Not great, but not bad. Certainly interesting.

Technical: It was nice to see the name box being used, but the text box changing size was a bit... annoying to me. Unless it is part of a gag about the character talking so much, I suppose this is a pet peeve of mine.

The pauses between dialogue where the text box would disappear were also mildly annoying. I didn't know what happened the first time and was worried it was a bug. Changing to NVL suddenly during endings was also a bit jarring.

Asset Use: Yes, music again! However, the use of it broke some of the moment that could have been more emotional to me. Jazz music and emotional scenes don't mix well for me it seems. I also wish the tracks had been used for longer amounts of time, the jumpiness of the music really started to break immersion as it distracted me.

The use of the sprite was interesting, and I liked that the appearance was lampshaded.

Prompt Use: This was a very strange way to take the prompt and I enjoyed it. It was out of the box and yet close enough to the original idea that it stuck to it like glue, an unusual and welcome combination. I felt it was rather creative, if a bit strange.

Final: Overall, I enjoyed this entry. So far, this takes my number 2 spot in enjoyment after For Stellie and before The Day I Died (wow, is it bad that so far I still like the shortest one so much?). Interesting and decently written, even though it could have been a bit better.

Looks like I will be reading 4Dimensional next. Oh, that should be fun.

[LieselSolo]

"Dusted Star"

All the flashes made me dizzy. Flashes can be effective, but they were REALLY overused in this story - it was like every few lines there was a flash. It went beyond dramatic and just became annoying. The other effects were overdone as well. It really started to feel like the author was more concerned with showing off than telling a good story.

Also, although the credits claim that the story was proofread, the narration switched tense around like crazy. There would be a few sections in present tense, and then it would suddenly switch to past tense, and then back again. Sometimes the sense even switched in the middle of a sentence, which was really distracting.

As far as the story goes, I like the idea of the spirit thinking that fiction is real, but it relied pretty heavily on the player being familiar with Stardust. I've both read the book and seen the movie, but someone who isn't familiar with either will be confused and likely won't get much out of it. Plus, it wasn't clear just which version of the story Miu was obsessed with. She says the movie version is the one her sisters told, but then she doesn't seem at all surprised when she finds out that the book ending is the one that actually happened. The movie and the book have completely different endings - how can she know both of them if she thinks both of them are real? Also, has the protagonist never heard of Amazon.com? Why does he/she think the only option is pirating? Plus, the message telling the players that pirating is bad felt really unnecessary. It broke the flow.

And speaking of breaking the flow, the fourth-wall breaking was really clumsy. In fact, the "Narrator" character was completely pointless. What was the point of reciting the entire contest prompt at the beginning? The narrator's clumsy intervention wasn't funny - it just took me out of the story.

[Anarchy]

4 dimensional

okay, so in this story, the spirit of disaster is an interface used in an experiment. The experiment seems to test about apocalypse and what people's perceptions of it, like what would you do about it, knowing that it will come? you can either do nothing and the end will comes, or you can try to find out about it which, well, makes no difference, the end will still come.
I only played it once so maybe I don't grasp it very clearly but it's not clear who operates the computer at the beginning of the story and his correlation to story as a whole. Where is he? What is the computer had anything to do with the protagonist? Is the world in some kind of matrix virtual reality where we all are a file in .YHWH format? .YHWH refers to God, but if there are many .YHWH files then that means those files are God's creations, right? where each individual has their own free will

or maybe this world isn't a virtual reality, maybe this is the real world just doesn't operate like what people would assume. Maybe there's no God of magic, but God of science, where when He does a miracle, he simply just rewrote the code of the world to do what He wanted... maybe I'm theorizing too much, my head can't take it

overall, this is a great story, never would've thought that the 'spirit of disaster' prompt could be taken as far as this. Hats off to the writer

My take on 4Dimensional (without reading the extensive discussion earlier) was that it was riffing on the idea of reality being a computer simulation, and the MC being a real being within a simulated context - a 'free willed being' surrounded by constructs, or 'non free willed beings'. I found the premise fascinating, and the delivery solid, but I'm not sure it went far enough to develop the idea. I don't need a full explanation (and that would be boring), but the short-story format didn't quite give the author the ability to explore the premise to its fullest extent, I think.

Still, agree that it's a great story. Kinda sad that the choices don't matter to the plot, and don't open up dialogue to have a real debate of it, because this premise and format begs for that sort of interactivity.

Arowana speculated earlier that that's the whole point of the choices - they don't matter, implying that the protagonist (or even the player) isn't a FWB who has the free will and the ability to choose branching paths, that this recording is merely a simulation of free will.

I don't think something like this should be explained fully either, but I feel like the storytelling isn't clear enough to let us draw any really meaningful, coherent conclusions. I feel like it's trying to be like Umineko, but Umineko's different in that you CAN create many different coherent theories based on the narrative, AND that you can GET the general emotional thrust of the story even if you don't bother to reason your way through the mysteries. This story, in comparison, is not quite there yet.

It's interesting that you think the world of the recording is a computer simulation. The word "recording", for me, implies that it's recording something from real life, but then again, what with the popularity of video LPs and in-game photography nowadays, it's entirely possible that it's a recording of a simulation. Interesting. You can read it as saying that we, humans, are 4D beings (the fourth dimension is time, right?), but what does 3D mean, in that sense? Oh, maybe the sprites of the in-game characters are 2D (the spirit's sprite is 2D, after all), and by adding the dimension of time to it, that makes it 3D? That's an angle I hadn't considered! Maybe the messages ARE recordings of a computer program/game (maybe similar to Conway's Game of Life?) in which certain AIs have emerged as free-willed beings, as opposed to other AI constructs who... just aren't. And the programmers are completely baffled as to why this is happening, and so they're trying to experiment on the free-willed AI so they can replicate free will in real life? 4D beings (= us) don't have free will, after all. Maybe the common usage of MindOS is our attempt to "graft" the free will trait onto ourselves? I wonder.

[papillon]

Reminder that there's about a week left for discussion (because I'll be busy next week so I don't want to start organising the votes until afterwards) so get your arguments in!

[Carassaurat]

Crud, that means I'll have to hurry to get the reviews I want to get out out, and that I'll have to skip writing up lengthy reviews of some.

In that case, I'm not going to review 4Dimensional in detail, so let's get this out of the way:

The .YHWH extension on a FreeWill Media player reminded me of the Catholic interpretation of Genesis 1:27, man being created in God's image, which is that that is to be taken as being able to exercise free will through rationality.

Thoughts: after the vision scene and answering that it's not that simple, the Spirit says that it all happened because of the traits of the people and wonders if it could have gone any other way; i.e. we, 4 dimensional people, don't have free will, but are forced into situations by our and others' personalities. Meanwhile, 3 dimensional beings such as visual novel characters (who lack a z dimension) get to have clear cut choices that affect things... except in this VN, I suppose.

I dunno. The more I think about it, the less I want to. Agreeing with Anarchy and Auro-Cyanide, I like a puzzle every now and again, but it would be nice if we were at least handed all the pieces.

Edit: I also want to point out that, unless I'm completely not getting it, 4Dimensional doesn't really do much with the prompt — or at least, not much that anybody is getting in the discussion, for as far as I've read.

More worthy of attention, it's
Lady Misfortune

Which one was that again: the one in which the spirit Mallory stays over for a weekend and may or may not learn compassion.

Lady Misfortune doesn't start off particularly well; the dream sequence is vague, redundant and, in the context of a contest that is entirely about disasters on every corner, not really a good attention hook. Alex being startled by his guest isn't a scene that serves much purpose either, and after that we're treated to a morning routine and a work situation before the spirit is finally introduced and the whole thing gets going. It's neat that there's some heavy foreshadowing on the radio during these moments, but I think they're dragging a story down that needs to kick into action, and none of this shows the wit that the entry displays later on. But when it does get to the point where the spirit Mallory and Alex get together, Lady Misfortune gets a lot better. The banter between the characters is is nice and snappy. To be honest, I think I'm getting a bit too used to that now — it was the 23d entry I played — and I think I might have appreciated that more of it were one of the first be played, but I appreciate it nonetheless. It's a bit inconsistent sometimes, and perhaps it never quite finds one voice as it switches between charming fun and talk of disaster, but it's pretty good overall.

I like how the story is low key. No wishes, no earth shaking decisions, no choice to kill anyone or upset the spirit world or what have you. It's all just one weekend in which Alex and Mallory talk back and forth for a bit, with the disaster theme embedded in a more 'philosophical' than practical way. In a first review I wrote up of this, I dismissed most of it as insignificant and a lack of action in the face of a great disaster. But it's better the second time, when you know that the little talks eventually have a great effect, and can appreciate them better. I also wonder if the ending is really doing Lady Misfortune a favour. The writing after the second meeting isn't bad, but there's something to be said for the uncertainty and simplicity of the idea that it ends with the idea that the little talks that Alex had ended up changing Mallory's mind. When she comes back, being grounded, it devolves a bit into another one of those spirit bureaucracy stories that we've had more of, and I think that theme isn't as interesting as the ongoing theme of compassion.

Lady Misfortune isn't the most audacious or spectacular entry out there, and saying that it has a bit of a meagre story isn't an unfair criticism, but I like it. It's low key, there's chemistry between the characters and it sometimes manages to avoid exposition when that wouldn't have added anything, which is something quite a few entries have trouble with.

[CheeryMoya]

Anniversaries, Adversity, and Pepper
I think I skimmed a review that said this story veered off into either a cutesy friendship story or a horror, but I... didn't get any horror ones? Just endings were the protag got killed by the bad luck, but no nightmare-inducing material :/ What's different in this entry is that the protag has known Pepper for 1 year at the start of the story, so they're old friends with habits by now. Unfortunately, their interactions felt like an info-dump to me. "Ever since you came here I've been fired from my job, cows died, etc.!" "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry!" I attribute this to the word count though, but establishing that they're old buddies could have been done better. Depending on your choices, you either get Pepper to stay with you, leave her behind, or get yourself killed; all possibilities are easy to believe. The one thing that ticked me off while playing this entry was the text color, which made it hard to read, and strange alternating use of NVL and ADV sometimes. There were ADV segments that stretched the box a lot, and I had no idea why NVL wasn't used there.
All this aside, AAP has been one of the better entries I've read. Pepper wasn't over-excessively called cute, and her characterization was pretty good.

The Golden Hound
... What did I just read? Bad grammar and typos sprinkled about here and there, plus there was a lot of... no story transitions? Huh? Golden Apple? Cult? Pet the cat? Wife was a witch? I was really confused while reading this one. You run into the Spirit of Disaster (literally) and you somehow get roped into being her follower, and then things go downhill from there. I get the feeling that a non-native writer wrote this, or at least someone who was very lazy since they don't know "your" from "you're." I also defiantly dislike the mix-up with words too. The writing is sloppy, the sprite transitions are sloppy, and there isn't even any music. Hell, I became the Spirit of Disaster and I don't even get this. This is just a bad story, even if they made some Greek allusions. The only neat thing they did was some coding effects, but that's not enough to balance all the other flaws.

[Cidz]

I tried downloading the file, but it gives me an error something about the source file.

[LieselSolo]

"Sacrifice"

Again, no menus. It would have really been nice to have some control over Matthew's fate in a story like this one. Also, it seemed like half the game was on a black screen, which got boring after a while. It was an interesting idea - either sacrifice yourself or let the disasters keep coming - but Matthew's characterization was pretty bland. All the repetition of, "I can sacrifice myself to save people, but I don't want to die" and the like felt like drumming the story's point into my head. Again, it would have been really nice to have some interaction here, have some input in whether or not Matthew sacrifices himself. Also, it wasn't clear exactly why Matthew gets out of bed and goes looking for the fallen star in the first place.

Overall, good idea, but the execution was lacking.

"My Entry"

Um . . . just WHAT the heck was THAT? It felt like reading a bad fanfiction - a REALLY bad fanfiction. The punctuation was practically nonexistent and the characters' names were inconsistent (was the protagonist named Ponna or Donna?). The people talked like cavemen half the time ("no Edwardo you be nice boy" for example). Plus, the plot was just . . . what WAS the plot? Find these seven crystals or whatever, but then the story skipped over actually finding them. No one had any characterization and the big "plot twister" was resolved in two seconds ("no Edwardo you be nice boy" "oh ok").

I really, REALLY hope that was submitted as a joke - otherwise I think I lost faith in the human race.