Red and Gold

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.69
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.26
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.16
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.05
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★1.42
Audio★★★★★★★★★★1.35
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.04
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.88
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★75%
A raising sim in Twine where you are an incorporeal alien possessing a human. You need to train up your human Casing to the point where it can defeat the opposing faction's champion in a battle.

Source code is available.

I apologise for the unpolished state of this entry: even with the extra day for the Jam, I had to dummy out a bunch of variables (for example, I was planning to implement a money and food system), and the theme of "you only get one" would have been more prominent. Still, the entry as it stands is fully winnable (and losable).

Some tips for successful human management:

-Don't work your human into the ground. Not only does that impact the human's health, but its suspicion that it is being controlled will also rise.
-Running is kind of poor for levelling up the Toughness stat. However, other options are available.

Inspirations: "Bloody Princess Farmer" by Porpentine; "Horse Master" by Tom McHenry.

EDIT: Note that the list of options may sometimes extend past the bottom of the screen. If anything seems to be missing, just scroll down.

screenshot

Comments28

Vi-King Games17 Dec 2013, 00:19
So far, this is the most original way to use the theme I've seen. Good job!
gamesbyangelina17 Dec 2013, 14:19
Nice use of the theme! I liked the tension in reading books, and the time management in going to town to expand the options. Nice work all around!
Aaants
Aaants18 Dec 2013, 22:21
Interesting approach. I tried to make him super smart but, unfortunately, the smart kid tends to lose the playground fights :(
tripleVisionGames18 Dec 2013, 22:32
Great use of the theme. Really do enjoy this kind of game (Porpentine's work in particular is fantastic), this is great work within the 48 hours
kristoffer zetterberg
kristoffer zetterberg19 Dec 2013, 15:27
impressive, and vaguely disturbing, the way i wouldn't let my human get intelligent enough to see how i used it.
SecondDimension
SecondDimension19 Dec 2013, 20:04
I love the imagination that has gone into this, such an original idea
PaperBlurt
PaperBlurt20 Dec 2013, 16:14
Good Job.. Nice entry, that works fine with Twine!
MrTedders
MrTedders20 Dec 2013, 16:24
Wow innovative stuff here. Really well done
tobbez
tobbez20 Dec 2013, 16:40
Liked the buildup although it was much too slow to replay. The text got repetitive quickly and there were many unneccessary clicks that could have been removed in the training process.
Christina Nordlander
Christina Nordlanderauthor20 Dec 2013, 16:43
@tobbez: Yeah, when I played through it for troubleshooting I realised it was very click-heavy.

Thank you very much for your comments, all of you!
postmodestie
postmodestie20 Dec 2013, 18:08
As for a LD entry, it would have indeed benefited from less repetitiveness, as stated before..
NikinCZ20 Dec 2013, 18:23
Not much fun, it's repeatedly clicking. Like a classic text-adventure.
Gungnir
Gungnir21 Dec 2013, 08:01
Enjoyed the build up and the conclusion. Wish there were more branching opportunities during training, possibly the case - but perhaps I missed the opportunity. Like the concept, point of view and general language.
PaperBlurt
PaperBlurt21 Dec 2013, 08:23
As Christina gave my entry (also Twine) a lot of feedback.

I went back and wanted to pay her entry the same respect:

The first time I played it I gave it a shot - I liked the style and the build-up.

After a while, when playing it again, I, as many other comments state, see that it's real repetitive. The main concept of controling a unaware human is interesting, and could be something good.

But eventually the constant clicking gets tedious.

Feels that, instead of doing a shorter game with less content, you've tried to make a longer game with the same content.

Anyways.

I like the different style (a lof of Twine games are just the standard design) and the start grabs you.

But the end doesn't really delivers.
Christina Nordlander
Christina Nordlanderauthor21 Dec 2013, 10:08
@Gungnir: More branching for the training would definitely have been great, but I kind of bit off more than I could chew with this game, and was lucky to even get the main story finished on time.

@PaperBlurt: You're right, within hindsight it should have been shorter. This is the first simulation game I made, and it was rather hard for me to gauge variables such as length, challenge level etc.

The original idea was actually for the game to be even longer, which wouldn't have been a good thing.

Thank you very much for your in-depth critique.
SnoringFrog
SnoringFrog22 Dec 2013, 04:46
I like the idea, but it did get a little monotonous. I am about to begin my 3rd playthrough where I will attempt to make my human smart enough to find me out.
Xanjos24 Dec 2013, 19:27
Game was pretty interesting and quite enjoyable but it seemed too long and repetitive.
BradleySmith
BradleySmith24 Dec 2013, 19:33
Interesting take on the theme. :)
Erkberg
Erkberg25 Dec 2013, 16:58
A very interesting game. It did get a little repetetive, like stated before. A little more variety in the outcomes of actions would be nice. For example, I was hoping to find some more by going to town than just one thing or that something will happen if I let the human read enough or maybe some random event happens while going for a run. Overall though, it kept me interested for one playthrough, good job!
Christina Nordlander
Christina Nordlanderauthor26 Dec 2013, 13:10
@Erkberg: All those are very good suggestions. I would definitely have put in more of that if I'd had more time.

SPOILER

Actually, if you take the option of running at night, the human has a low risk of getting assaulted by muggers. The outcome depends on their level of strength and remaining fatigue. If they're injured, going to town the next day will open the opportunity of visiting the hospital.
loxo28 Dec 2013, 19:02
I like the idea very much. But I think the game would really profit from a different kind of presentation (some graphics), because there is not much variation in the text and the given options. In the current form maybe shorter days would work better. But you had planed more, so maybe you find some time to incorporate your other ideas.
x70x
x70x31 Dec 2013, 00:01
I feel like this was a lot of clicking for very little payoff. A Twine game should give me something new to read as often as possible. I was skipping past the repeating text as much as possible. The concept and setup was interesting though.
emmelineprufrock
emmelineprufrock1 Jan 2014, 01:15
Very interesting entry, and very cool use of twine + variables.
local minimum
local minimum1 Jan 2014, 21:57
I liked the tone in the text, it felt a bit long, the character training with too few ways to influence the how one progresses. It was hard to know what stats were good, so some general indication would have been great. A nice text-game though.
finefin
finefin3 Jan 2014, 12:41
really interesting way to use twine for an RPG-esque game! the texts could have been a bit more philisophical/existentialist - for example the moment the human recognizes he's controlled could be fleshed out... but hey, I really like it!
RodRoy14 Jan 2014, 23:44
nice game. The use of twine is great, and the management sim idea is good. I used twine for the competition, but i didnt manage to play much with the formatting before submission. I always love a good text game.
Peni65 Jan 2014, 23:36
I'm not spending this long just to assign skill points

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