Planetary Quarantine

[Elmithian]

Essentially it is better to try to make a story like this and get mixed results than never try to start with. It was an interesting read, personally I did enjoyed reading it, even if some of the endings were sometimes… errr, quite dark lets just say. (I have to admit I kind of laughed at this ending, simply due to the traditional “We hoped you enjoyed the game” text following right after, here it is

Spoiler for part of an ending below

**
The schoolchildren and their teacher are pulverized by countless shards of debris hurled their way at immense speed, then incinerated by the fire following closely behind. Separatists have struck again. We hope you’ve enjoyed playing Planetary Quarantine.

Since everyone has pretty much said most of the large things I was thinking about saying I will go into some smaller things that I might have had some issues with of the small things I liked.

Small issues (with huge texts)

1. Regarding terraforming: This is not exactly an issue as much as uncertainty on my part. You mention that attempts at terraforming had all failed due to various circumstances, but then in another segment some time later you mention colonies on Mars and the Moon.

I do realize that terraforming the moon is impossible(/or at least impossible with current knowledge and technology) due to its low gravitational pull being unable to keep gaseous materials around it (it does have an “atmosphere”, but it is an extremely thin one) thus making any type of terraforming nigh impossible and even if possible, unfeasible.

Mars, on the other hand could, with our current technology be terraformed, the main issue would be that it almost lacks any polarization force which is what protects us here on earth from most deadly of the sun rays (don’t remember the proper English term for it, too lazy to check). But that simply would mean that it would need thicker atmosphere and some other precautions.

Fudge, that was a derailment if I ever saw one. Err… let me go back to the issue/question. Is Mars terraformed or not in that story universe? It is extremely unclear since the colonies seem to indicate that it is whilst a text earlier on indicates that people gave up on trying to terraform things.

2. The endings (just have 3 of them so far so I am only voicing this about them): I see what you were trying to do and I respect that, but I do believe that the time transition might have been a bit to quick. Suddenly after the case of the farm I jump to being a store owner?

It is a bit too sudden and could have been lead into that segment better. In that segment I meet with Big Boss (as everyone seems to be calling him that) and get the last choice regarding some things, at that point I would have been content with it ending there, left in vagueness but still, somewhat of a pleasant ending that left more questions than answers (I do enjoy that it does though).

But then it takes a huuuge leap and suddenly I am a gravestone, it retells how my life went after that to some aspects, giving me the feeling that no matter what you do, time moves on (and other philosophical stuff that I will spare you from in this already stupidly long post of mine). The issue is the transition itself is a bit too sudden and changes the formula of the story too quickly for (my) comfort. How to fix that, I have no idea. I just think the last part felt slightly more rushed than it had to be.

Note: Especially considering folk could apparently easily become over 300 years old. That means (I am guessing) we jump over at least 200-300 years of story or even further ahead, considering that the gravestone was already weathered which usually takes decades.

(on related, unrelated note. I would have thought that my guy would have started working as a detective of sorts there, due to him having 104% diligent and 103% Investigate, aka pretty much Holmes/batman without gear)

Positive things

1. Well as I mentioned above, I did truly enjoy reading this through, especially when I was in full investigation mode.Truth be told I suspected M from the very start she said that we shouldn’t focus so much on the dead person. Since this was obviously an abnormal situation that required that we investigated further it sounded the alarm bells in my head immediately. I like that was somewhat spot on when it came to that part.
   There were many small touches like that I really enjoyed seeing, and getting B to do individual research and then speak to her when I start suspecting that someone isn’t being truthful in the team was a nice touch.

2. The writing: Not sure whether this should consider this to be mainly positive or 50% positive and 50% negative. Overall I did enjoy the writing and the style of writing, it is similar to my own (when I try, though I am not close to as good) though when I started nearing the end I had this feeling of vagueness, not just from what was happening in the story but also from how the text/sentences were presented, it felt, if I may be so rude, that you were a bit overwhelmed due to the huge amount of things you had to take in account from stuff that happened previously (just note that I wouldn’t be able to do anything nearly as well as you did). It is the same feeling I got when I am planning something for Dark Heresy sessions, and when I am running them, I know how the overall story is going to go, but I can’t see every single path the players are gonna do so some vagueness from me seeps sometime into the storytelling of the game.

Overall, I liked writing, the writing style became more vague at the end but that had minimal impact on my enjoyment of the game.

Okay Will stop now since I obviously can’t be trusted to give constructive criticism/opinion/review as I always get too derailed >_<

Edit One more thing, I think (personally) that the word enlightened is too vague of a word, since it can both mean that you are spiritual or a rational thinker, which it turns out, don’t always see eye to eye. Rational/informed would maybe have fitted better? Just a suggestion.

[distracteddad]

Wow, thanks so much for the detailed feedback @Elmithian ! I’m glad you mostly enjoyed it but even the negatives are good to hear.

You’ve got me dead to rights. As I said upthread (IIRC), this turned out to be much harder to do than I originally anticipated. First time writing a game and all that. The later scenes, especially, were added after beta testers complained that the early version was too short. It literally took over 2 years from start to finish, with lots of big-time distractions in between, so by the end yeah, I just wanted the damn thing finished. But that’s the only way to improve. My current WIP, Trench, is twice as long as PQ, I wrote it in half the time, and the feedback so far has been much more positive.

On the question of terraforming/colonies, in my world Mars and the Moon are NOT terraformed. They have bases, akin to “Waters of Mars” on Doctor Who or even the Mars colony in the original Total Recall (minus the 80s schlock). Think some kind of large-scale version of what we have in Antarctica today.

I tried to make the game’s world as “realistic” as I could. That meant concluding that terraforming is next to impossible except in theory – the planet or moon in question has to be otherwise Earthlike in sufficient respects to handle being altered into a self-contained and self-sustaining Earthlike world. Terraforming seems to be like trying to make Boston more like Honolulu by planting tons of palm trees there. Mars lacks a magnetic field, lacks a large moon to stabilize its rotational alignment, lacks gravity strong enough to keep a thick atmosphere that includes all the stuff we’d need in it, etc. So you could pump massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, sure, but then it would slowly dissipate in the low gravity, get blown away by the solar wind, or freeze again the next time Mars falls into an ice age and in the meantime everything would get radiated.

Thanks for playing the game and for taking the time to share your thoughts.

[Elmithian]

Thanks for replying!
Excellent point about Mars (also, magnetic field, I have no idea how I forgot that term >_<), I have heard that the most likely (theoretical) way to terraform it currently would be to create bacterial life that can survive/thrive there whilst at the same time excess the much needed gases (especially co2 into the atmosphere there. That would theoretically be the optimal way to do it (with current technology), though even then it wouldn’t finish the first phase of terraforming until, what 10.000 years later at best (or was it 100.000 years)?

I don’t know about the gravity being a huge factor (simply means I don’t have enough knowledge to evaluate that part, not that you are wrong) but you are 100% right on that the solar winds have had large part in swooping a lot of the gases in Mars atmosphere away.

In retrospect I may have sounded a bit arrogant when I was talking about Mars in my previous comment, for that part I apologize. Your points were right on the mark there.

I am looking forward to playing Trench (not volunteering to beta test it though, like to be kept in the dark when it comes to these things), around what time do you think you will have put the final touches on it? If you don’t mind me askin’.

Also nice to see a writer that can take criticism, both positive and negative, well. Often people seem to obsess too much on either the positive or the negative kind and that usually leads to them not improving as they should (I should know, I have fallen into that trap myself).

edit: Re-reading my previous comment is painful, so many grammar and structural errors >_<

[distracteddad]

Terraforming, like spaceflight, certainly seems plausible, just really really hard. So instead of magic-wanding some solution like “warp drive” I tried instead to explore how things would develop given those kinds of obstacles. Make them a central part of the story instead of just assuming them away.

Trench is coming along, thanks for asking. I’m trying to get it done before the end of the month but that’s looking dubious.

[Eric_Moser]

@distracteddad,

You cranking out, possibly, two stories in a year gives hope to fellow distracted dads everywhere. How do you do it? Some sort of force field to keep the kiddos away?

[distracteddad]

Ha. I’m a stay at home dad and the kids are still napping in the late afternoons, so there’s usually an hour here or there. Plus, and more to the point, we have no lives. If it’s 9:30pm my wife and I are on the sofa, TV on, laptops at the ready.

[Elmithian]

You mean you have an enjoyable but calm life right?

[Sailendranath_Murmu]

Can someone tell me what the game is about. I played 3 times, yet still couldn’t understand the main goal of the game.

[Jacic]

Haven’t played it for ages, but seem to remember it feeling like one that was possibly planned to get a sequel at some point to tie up the different parts of the story but doesn’t have one.

[James_Marsh]

The information to figure out what’s going on is very scattered across multiple playthroughs and I don’t think I ever did get all of it. I have the distinct impression it’s meant to be experienced over repeat playthroughs using knowledge from prior playthroughs to guide you.

What I eventually put together was that there was some large-scale organized and elaborate conspiracy to slip stuff past the quarantine including one of your team members. You’re sort of on their trail but on a large number of paths you hit a dead end and spend the rest of your life wondering what the full story was; if you let the conspirator look into things unsupervised they report finding nothing of interest. Once or twice I rooted out the traitor, found a major center of the conspiracy, went to raid it, and died or got mind-wiped. Never did figure out if there was a way to get past their security.