First ever "Workshop my Game" thread - "Thank you for your cooperation"

[Villain Mastermind]

Since there doesn't seem to be any threads in this section yet, I'll start the ball rolling with my new story: Thank you for your cooperation

It has been a long time since I've written any fiction, so I decided to have fun with it and go crazy a bit.

http://adventurecow.com/stories/726/thank-you-for-your-cooperation

Thank you all in advance for your cooperation...

[Chris]

Curious. Does it always loop around? I started trying to look for a break, as well as some connection between the different threads.

[Villain Mastermind]

I'll admit it is a bit confusing to those expecting something linear or even semi-linear, but the circular structure is tied into the overall theme. All the threads return to a common point, all endings are beginnings, possibilities diverge and converge, cause and effect blur, everything that preceded is nullified and reset to zero...

Is there actually a difference between dreams, delusions, and reality?

It is Divergent Possibility Entertainment, an obscenely obtuse satire on CYOA in general.

The original introduction with all of its talk of choice and the illusion of control over your life or even your own thoughts was much more revealing. The first person I ever had test it actually reacted in the exact way I had hoped for:Complete confusion and helplessness over the ultimate fate of "her character". Eventually, she gave in and "just went with it" (her words).

In games, how much choice do you actually have? For that matter, how much do you have in this flesh-and-blood life?

Are you really in control of your choices? Which choices do you actually have a say in and to what degree?

Now re-read it with that in mind and try to go through every thread... Then let it sink in.

I thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Extra Credit Challenge: In several "ending" passages, two or more threads combine in a way that shouldn't be possible unless their separate realities overlap. Can you identify them?

[Chris]

Heh. It was seeing the same things come back again that made me look for a way to "break out of the matrix," so to speak.

[dacharya64]

I haven't quite decided how I feel about this game yet. It's not the type I'd usually go for, but I must say it's interesting. I didn't play through all the endings, but I think that my primary objection with this game is what you intentionally made a huge part of the gameplay--the fact that the player's actions have little if any effect on the outcomes. My favorite part was probably the way various ends did tie together (the kid getting kidnapped/the car driving into the woman's house, for instance). This, at least, made the gameplay feel like it had some overall connection and feel more like IF than reading a narrative.

I didn't really see the piece as a satire (though it was humorous); to me the revelation that you were a character manipulated into making choices for someone else's entertainment more of a horror/psychological thriller type thing, although it was breaking the fourth wall.

While a comment on IF, I found myself personally trying to find (perhaps futilely) the connections, story, and the things that do make the genre matter (ie choices affecting action) rather than observing how it defies the very genre in which it was created.

Just a note as well--it seems the apostrophes and quotation marks have the weird bug from when you copy/paste them from Word or another text processor that makes them come out funky in the html build. There's a fix for this here: http://forums.adventurecow.com/index.php?topic=49.0

[Villain Mastermind]

Just a note as well--it seems the apostrophes and quotation marks have the weird bug from when you copy/paste them from Word or another text processor that makes them come out funky in the html build. There's a fix for this here: http://forums.adventurecow.com/index.php?topic=49.0

Sadly, I haven't had time to fix it yet... Probably do it this weekend.

EDIT: It should be fixed now (7/3/13)