concrit_x | Concrit for eyeballboba

I want to receive feedback by : Comments on AO3 (anon is fine), or on this post.

Here are the works I want feedback on: Anything on my AO3!

My works' fandoms and content notes are: The archive warnings + some more should be tagged per fic, and there's a range from G to E, but I would like to note that I'm not generally a fluff person. A few of my fandoms are OMORI, Pokemon, Hollow Knight, We Know the Devil, Boyfriend to Death, and Original Work.

I have these questions for readers: I cannot guarantee edits that change the story or major beats, but I would love to hear about those and whether they worked or not! And I'm always happy to get SPAG corrections or line-by-lines, as well as advice, and feedback for things I may not have considered. Right now I'm focused on incorporating feedback into new works rather than perfecting existing pieces, so I will happily receive prompts or requests if my writing inspires you to do so as well.

The style of feedback I prefer to receive is: Any observations or thoughts of any kind! First impressions, what stood out to you, noticed patterns intentional or not, how characters or other story elements came off as, for the twine game what choices you made, and so on. Direct and blunt is fine, asking questions or not understanding is also fine. Praise is nice, but I don't mind negativity either. You can't go wrong with the content of your feedback for me.

Comments to this post will be: Unscreened

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mireia

Hi, I decided to play Adventure in the Forest. I originally intended to take notes while I was playing, but it ended up turning into a liveblog. I know sometimes it can be helpful for devs to see the process of the player as they play, so I decided to clean it up and post it here. If that's not really your thing, I'll make a separate "Final Thoughts" comment at the end (and edit in a link to it when it's up). If a liveblog is your thing but you're having trouble following it, let me know and I'll do my best to clarify.

Perpetuity

I really like the forest background! Very atmospheric for a spooky forest game.
Took me a minute to realize that clicking the food just changes what kind of food you bring instead of taking you to another page. Though I was wondering what kind of alternate path would emerge just from clicking on your tea (taking a few extra seconds/minutes to enjoy your drink? idk) so checks out.
First time I took the bread, because I was thinking the typical Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs trail if I got lost. Then again, that didn't work out so great for them, so WE'LL SEE.
"A layer of pine needles covers the ground." Bringing my own biases in here, but I've always lived in places with pine trees, so the presence of them here makes it feel homey to me. This contrast likely will help the game when it inevitably turns scary.
I realized when I had the option to turn back that there are no save states, so I can't save scum all the options. Since it's a short game, that's fine.
"You could still turn back, but you won't." Uh, okay. I guess that's not an alternate route.
"The flowers were crushed under your body, but when you get up the path behind you is immediately swallowed up by the cheerful stalks popping back to life." I like this description. Very cute.
Gonna check out roses in the meadow, because they're my favorite. I'm afraid if I check the poppies some sort of Wizard of Oz-esque shenanigans will occur, haha.
Oh, okay, I guess it just gives you more description about the flowers. And the poppies do not put me to sleep. I guess it's trying to mimic the sensation of giving you a closer look at the flowers by giving you more description if you click on them. So, basically flavor text?
Hmmm, I noticed the colors of the flowers only appear when you click on them, and almost every flower has an assigned color. The exception are goldenrods and lavenders, which only come in one color anyway, and also poppies, interestingly. The lavender and goldenrod instead have insects checking them out. I'm very, very tempted to take a screenshot of the entire page in case remembering these descriptions are important, but I feel like that might be cheating a little? Uhhhhhh.... I'm going to try to remember these things and see how I do otherwise.
"A river has joined beside your path, burbling along under a lip cut by the water's own journey. " Again, cute. I like it.
"Someone loved this place enough to build this bridge." Aw. Also, the whitewash coming off and the gnarled guardrail are important details that contrast with the sweetness around them, but I'm trying to figure out what the mood they're giving me is.
Altar at the top of the hill? Possibly supernatural shenanigans ahead.
OH, so I'm leaving the bread as an OFFERING. Okay. Well, now I'm feeling that may not have been enough. We'll see.
Haha, I'm glad the protagonist had the sense to leave a soft middle piece. They may like the edges, but the spirit(s) may not! Also, good on them for not littering with the bag.
Getting nervous that nothing is happening on multiple pages... Good sense of dread building up...
Okay, now we're getting to more choices with how to approach the tree. Took me a minute to realize these were all different trees that the protagonist was talking about, because I was wondering how you go "through" a tree. A bit nervous about making the wrong choice...
Despite all the dread, this actually does remind me of the "bear hunt" gave you play with children. 'Can't go over it, can't go under it, I guess we gotta go through it!'
So.... I think I'll go UNDER one of the trees? I feel like if I go around another, I might be surprised by something hiding around the corner. Anyway, here it goes...
Oh, it asked me again. Does this mean I keep going under more trees, or I need to pick another option. I'll go under again.
Takes five clicks for some new text. I have the instinct to make another choice, but I'm going to keep going under in case that's what I'm supposed to do and the game is trying to mislead me.
"Ending: Perpetuity" Hmm. I get this is probably supposed be eerie in its mundane "trapped forever" vibe, but it felt a little anticlimactic to me. Then again, I did not take the option to change my course, so that could be affecting it.
Second runthrough. Gonna bring the bread again and just take a different route, to see if that's a key in changing the ending. However, part of me does suspect that I'm trapped because the bread was not a good enough offering. We'll see!
Actually wait, I realize the roses don't have a color listed on my second playthrough. They do, however, have a scent described. Same with the poppies of unclear color. Interesting.
Perhaps the whitewash coming off the bridge's painted rails is representative of the forest's darker true nature underneath the lovely surface?
Going around this time.
Okay, got Perpetuity again. Looks like the bread is probably an inadequate offering.

Personification

Third time: we're going to bring apples. A bunch of apples seems like something more appropriate? Natural, a generous amount of them... Seems like it's more fitting for a forest spirit.
"A brown paper bag filled with tawny red and orange autumn apples. Full of nature to make you feel like you're in nature." And looks like the protagonist was thinking the same thing!
Okay so... I get why, but I am concerned that leaving the bag will upset whatever lives here. At least it's paper and not plastic.
"There is nothing for a moment" I do think the unfinished sentence works well here in building up tension. Likewise with the change in background, the trees becoming all twisted.
Oh FUCK. We're gonna die, aren't we?
"You squeeze until your ears crack and pop against your skull. " OUCH. Nicely visceral. But it looks like we're going to live. For now.
"The bridge is made with the wood of a thousand corpses, buried among the living. The voices waiting for you are tormented and tortured souls hammered together by a human like you." Took me a minute for me to realize that it meant dead trees and not human corpses, but once I understood, it became a very effective visual. Another unfinished sentence, I'm dreading crossing this bridge...
And fuck. Ouch. Definitely enjoy the malice in the splinters driving into your hand.
"Slowly, you tighten your grip." The way you have to click on each of the last three words helps build up the tension.
Uh, uh, oh fuck. I'm not sure which direction to take? Does it even matter? Am I screwed regardless? Since they just keep coming, I'm thinking I'm screwed. I wonder if something happens if I just wait for the screen to fill up with "advice". Maybe I'll die.
I've waited a few seconds and it doesn't look I'm dying. So, I'm pushing past the nervousness the whispering sound effects to see if one direction is repeated more than the others.
Left and Up are mentioned the most. Right is only mentioned once, and it is the only one that is. I'm thinking THAT maybe the actual way to escape? Here goes nothing...
"Ending: Personification" Oops. Nope. Also, I'm a bit freaked out. I like the slowly loading stream of consciousness sentence with no ending punctuation here.
Wondering if there's a right direction to take? Or perhaps there isn't. Well, let's try again with the apples and check with Up.
Wait, hang on: are directions randomized every time? I'm taking a screenshot so I can check against it another attempt. I also noticed one of the directions was at the top, but pushed down. It happened too fast for me to catch which one that was, though. I think it's still in the top three choices? I wonder if that's significant.
Okay, no the directions are not randomized. I just misremembered. And Right and Up are both the first directions given. We'll try the first Right, but I'm beginning to think this is futile. We are hanging from a bridge after all, lmao.
Yeah, let's try the tea.

Headache

I am opening up all the flower descriptions on most attempts. Does it make a difference if you stop and smell the roses?
Yeah, if the trees don't like the bag, I can't imagine they'd like an entire metal can of a common brand of tea. And only $1.99? Come ON, protag! Put some damn effort into your offerings! That's probably why the spirits keep getting angry with you! Make them some some damn cookies, or bring some rare fruit, or at least play them a song or something! Geez. I wonder if they even looked this place up more than "hey, this place has a spooky altar wooo~" Maybe they'd actually bring a good offering if they did. Or perhaps know better not to go at all.
Buuuuuut maybe the spirits like tea, so I could be completely wrong. Let's find out.
Uh, okay. That reaction is disturbing. And in a different way than with the bag of apples. The trees seem almost horrified with the offering. Or perhaps embarrassed. I mean, that's fair.
I wonder...the high pitched unnatural sound...could it be in response to the unnatural gift?
Okay, both a path and a drop are clickable. I'm wondering if this is a choice or just flavor text. In case it's a choice and I'm being deceived (meaning the path actually leads to the drop), I'm gonna click the drop...
"You lean away from the drop." Hm. I'm not sure if that's going to help or it's just another "can't do that" like with turning back at the beginning. Let's see...
Well, we're at the bridge, and it's not horrifying like it was with the apples. That's a good sign...or I'm being lulled into a false sense of security.
"your brain dashed to matter against the rocks." um is that LITERAL??? Or just a horrifying and visceral description of how bad the head pain is?
Okay, just a description. But it looks like I'm still about to die.
Or...not?
OHHHHH, this is where the flowers are important! Or are they? Nevertheless, gonna check the descriptions. I believe we first encountered poppies, so that might be the way out.
Oh fuck, they're all grey. So the location may have been important instead. If so, that was some nice misdirection at the beginning. I approve. I'm gonna do roots because we originally entered under a bush. If I fail here, I am taking a screenshot of the flower page for my next attempt.
"Ending: Headache" Welp, that didn't work. Also, I laughed at the dark comedy with "headache". Now the brain being dashed against the rocks IS literal!
ONE MORE TIME.
Wait Wait Wait! The intro is different!

Final

Ah, we're different character now. And I'm taking Moron's finger. I wonder if the trees craved human remains as their sacrifice and that's what I'm going to do with it.
Ohhh! Okay, there is also a corpse in the river, too. So, the different offerings were by different people. And yet, they were all so stupid. :'(
"Ending: Final" All right, so I think I've got all of the endings. I wonder if there's a significance with the final offering being a finger, heart, and eyeball? I feel like there might be, but it's escaping me right now. Anyway, I think that might be all the game has to offer, so I'll stop here.

Overall thoughts to come...

From:

mireia

Final thoughts:

I played this like a standard choose-your-own-adventure game. I knew there were multiple endings and that things were going to get creepy, but in a lot of these games you can get an ending where you either live or find out the whole truth of the situation if you pick the right answers. I thought paying attention to the details would save me. I thought watching out for tricks and misdirection would save me. But...no. It was all futile. The characters were all doomed the moment they set foot in the forest. When I say "futile", I don't mean that I felt like a waste of my time to play. Not at all; it evoked that sense of despair that comes with feeling helpless, no matter what you do. These trees hate humans for how they've treated them, and there's no way to make the forest stop or let you go. Well done. Both you and the guardian of this forest got the better of me. (And for all I ragged on the protagonists for being stupid*, was I much better? I spent so much time trying to outsmart the game when I should have picked up that it was hopeless much earlier.)

The visuals are simple, but atmospheric. The use of only black and white really helps with the mood. I also really found the sound effects incredibly creepy and effective, and I was kind of glad they stopped when I clicked away to take notes. The descriptions of the horror were very visceral and effective, and they made a nice contrast with the genuinely cute and sweet descriptions early on. Overall, just a very nice atmospheric game. I played the routes in this order: Perpetuity, Personification, Headache. I felt like the routes built on each other nicely: the unsettling but not graphic fate of perpetuity, followed by the more detailed and visceral Personification, and finally the player coming so very close to finally escaping in Headache.

I guess the one criticism I have is how anticlimactic "Perpetuity" felt to me. I get that it's a much more mundane horror than the other two routes - and it is - but it didn't feel much like an "ending" to me as just a place where it kind of stopped. But then again, that's the kind of the point, since you're wandering until you die. I'm wondering if the background changing once you reach the page with the ending might have made it more effective to me? Something subtle like the trees being thicker or taller? I don't know.

Since we never learn the secrets of this forest, I wonder... Is it just an atmospheric game? Or is the theme a cautionary tale against messing with things you don't understand?

*Now that I've posted it, I wonder that came off badly. If so, I am so sorry, it was not meant as an insult against the work.

Edit: Shit, I forgot you can't edit comments that have been replied to.

Edited Date: 2022-07-18 12:19 pm (UTC)

From:

eyeballboba

Ahhh thank you so much!!!! I've been super busy these past few days so I knew this comment existed but didn't want to read it before I had the time to sit down and properly appreciate long comments, but now that I'm here... This was a delight to read and perfectly well-attuned, thank you very much!

I absolutely love liveblogs and you are completely correct that it's helpful for devs to see the process of a player as they're playing, so this was all really great. I'm evilly tapping my fingers together and going muahahaha as I'm reading your reading of my story right now... I think it would take another year if I were to talk about all the little things you noticed that made me go :D so I'm just going to talk about some of the big things, but rest assured all your thoughts were very appreciated!

But...no. It was all futile. The characters were all doomed the moment they set foot in the forest. When I say "futile", I don't mean that I felt like a waste of my time to play. Not at all; it evoked that sense of despair that comes with feeling helpless, no matter what you do.

Ohh, very interesting! When I was figuring out what game I wanted to make, before I decided anything about the plot, I knew I wanted to make something easy and story-oriented where the player wouldn't need mental overhead for save scumming or need to reset to see missed dialogue. So what's coming off as futility to you is me trying to be nice, hilariously enough -- which is also a super useful thing for the next game I've been thinking of. I think I might try to signal that there's no need to reset or get stuck a bit more obviously. (And also no need to apologize about your thoughts on the stupidity of the protagonist, ahaha -- that was also a very interesting angle I hadn't considered! My focus was on the horrible deaths when I was writing this, but I think it might be fun to have the character interlock with the story and themes next time.)

(Also >_> shh don't tell anyone but part of the reason that the body parts chosen don't match up with the themes too well is because I was running out of time and slightly panicked ahaha. I slightly wished that I picked better/more fitting symbolism a few days after posting, ahahaha, so it's kind of satisfying to have that pointed out now.)

I'm wondering if the background changing once you reach the page with the ending might have made it more effective to me? Something subtle like the trees being thicker or taller? I don't know.

The background actually did change!

Here's the image of the forest: https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/5863312/publish%20copy/images/forest1.png
Here's the image of the forest (bread): https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/5863312/publish%20copy/images/forest4.png

One of the reasons why I think this ending works better after the others is because this was a much more subtle change that's easier to miss if you don't know the background is already going to change, ahah... though I might also make it more striking of a difference for whatever I use visual effects for next time! Or perhaps it would be more clear if they only changed once the End: Perpetuity came up, hmm hmm.

Anyway, like many other commenters (not just you) have mentioned I think I definitely made the bread too interesting lol, it seems like a lot of people picked that first!

Oh, also, in case you wore wondering: There's no randomness in this game, and the first part of the routes, from you walking through the forest up to before you place the offerings, are all identical!

Anyway, thank you very much for your detailed comment! I feel so spoiled, ehehe, since it sure felt like it was basically all praise. I appreciate you very much!