Mark, an average guy, receives a strange package containing a black string and a letter from the mysterious "Murder Industries". He learns that if cut, the string will kill whoever he's thinking of - but he only has one hour to decide who to use it on.
Deciding that this could be a force for good, Mark sets out to discover who the worst person in the world is so that he can kill them, but ultimately - the decision is up to you.
This game was made in Twine, and is best played on the web.
If you play the game, please leave a comment below! I'd love to find out what people thought of things, and what everyone's first choice was at the end. Thanks for playing!
I actually considered doing something like this (one bullet, who'll you fire it at) but then I've decided that it won't be much of game when you have to do only one choice and only. The writing is good but in the end it's and interesting shorstory (although I'd swear I've read something like this before) with ability to change the last paragraph and making "player" to think about the choices... (My first try was to kill the boss of Murder Industries, because I really don't like an idea that something like this would exist in the world)
I don't particularily enjoy text games, so I'll try to go easy on this one. The text is really small and could have been larger. It made for quickly tired eyes.
Yeah, really interesting! I loved how you mixed the real-world knowledge about current dictators in. The endings all felt different and ethically ambiguous. The fact that the story only has one actual choice in it, which would usually be a flaw in an interactive medium, fits the game competition and subject matter so well.
My one piece of advice is that neither Mark's friend nor sister felt very likable. They both give intelligent, interesting responses, but it was weird Mark thought poorly of his only two close relationships.
In terms of my final choice, I felt that the serial rapist was the best choice. I think the death of a dictator can usually just splinter an organization, rather than fixing the underlying problems. I don't think I could have been so coldly logical in real life, but it seems like it would have done the most good with the fewest unintended consequences.
Icredible! I really enjoyed it. Example of how with so little you can achieve so much in term of atmosphere. I would like to see extension of the idea.
I chose to kill the head of Murder Industries: I could resist the symmetry there. A nice closed loop. I was disappointed by the fact that my choice seemed to be a "wrong answer", but then maybe they all are.
This was nice! A little too American, maybe? I think this subject matter deserves to be collaborative: maybe try a remake with your pen-pal on the other side of the world?
Nice writting. I try to not read the comment to avoid spoiler. I hope everybody do the same. I choose the person in charge of Murder Industries, but i could kill anybody else of the list. The world is corrupt :(. Glad to see something different. Congratulations!
I'm glad you tried to expand on the theme in a meaningful way, instead of just saying "you've got one bullet" or "one life". I also like how the story is interesting for debate and a little educational in the wikipedia sense, while not coming off as too preachy. I think it was tastefully done!
Given the medium, I wished more options were available to enable forks in the story and add some interesting re-play value. But that imply a way bigger complexity in how to connect all the dots :)
In order to make the story more impacting, maybe it would have been cool to play around with the way the text is displayed. Instead of having one big block of text coming to our face, display things letter by letter, play with the tempo, the colors, etc.
That was still nice experience though! Good job ;)
I liked this a lot. The writing is OK, not really outstanding (a bit too wordy for me), but the descriptions of the string are great. Story-wise, it's very good. The initial plot felt a bit too similar to "Death Note" for me (which you admittedly point out), but I like your story more. You do a good job balancing the various sides of the moral argument. The story itself is pretty linear, but I think the ending provides enough options to make all players satisfied.
I got a bit creeped out when the story presented me with real-world leaders to kill: for some reason, that feels more disturbing to me than the various LD entries about going on a killing spree in the workplace. But it feels realistic that Mark would think about killing them, and after all, the game doesn't force you into killing. (And it makes sense that the concept of a magical death-string should freak me out.)
A couple of typoes and other nitpicks: "bizzare" should be "bizarre"; "diagree"; towards the end, you're missing a space between "said" and "half-heartedly". Also, dialogue should end with a comma rather than a full stop when followed by a dialogue tag (e.g. "she said").
In the end, I chose...
SPOILER
The person who was going to commit the most murders or rapes later on. If I'm going to get a magical way of killing people, I guess I might as well use it to save some lives.
Interesting idea. After playing through a few times, I was slightly disappointed that most of the decisions seemed to bring me to the same final point, but otherwise it was a very good, through-provoking story. I particularly liked Kyle's portion.
Interesting concept. It would be compelling if the player could type in the name at the end instead o picking from a list, then using online data to contextualize their choice.
The writing is good but in the end it's and interesting shorstory (although I'd swear I've read something like this before) with ability to change the last paragraph and making "player" to think about the choices... (My first try was to kill the boss of Murder Industries, because I really don't like an idea that something like this would exist in the world)