I’ve begun work on my first new game SALVAGE TEAM. I’m a newbie working alone, so if it doesn’t suck, I’ll be thrilled.
In it, you play yourself, randomly selected online by an international mining corporation for a high paying job that promises adventure on a salvage team full of misfits in a once profitable gold mine, plagued by mysterious events that you must detect and resolve before you join the scores of dead miners waiting below.
Currently it’s about (92%, 9 Chapters, 45,000 Words) done, and I plan on updating every few days. I’m in Act 3 of 3 - the home stretch of my first draft.
It’s a gender customizable, scary, funny and death-defying adventure that leverages a bit of psychology as well as compounding the jeopardy with every choice.
I enjoyed it, but the scenes are way too short. By that I mean you should use page breaks less often. Having to click next page every two sentences or so gets annoying pretty fast.
I would agree with readher. Lumping about two sentences on each “page” is aggravating. The breaks between pages should help pace the story, not impede it. I feel like I’m reading a series of texts from different people rather than an actual story.
Yes, they are scripted and all but the first are variable in exact timing but the deaths serve a latter purpose and each is important to the climax and resolution of the story. Morty was hard to kill because he’s such an extreme oddball. I hope you enjoyed it!
Do you think six lines or more like twelve lines for dialogue pages and half that represents a more organic flow? Is there any rough ratio I should applying before fine tuning it on the second draft? I really appreciate the feedback, I just started doing this about a month ago as an IF noob.
Personally, I’d like not too long content every page break (though that in the demo’s is still too short). I have a rather short attention span (which I’m working to fix), and a long page of text make me lose interest.
Yes, A phone or mobile device is a different medium than a paperback so there are different sensibilities. I’m not sure what they are.
One of my kids has a 15 second attention span and he’s on the autism spectrum. If he’s not clicking through something furuously, he loses interest fast.
I’d like to find a length that’s inclusive for him as well as readers who like to breeze through IF as naturally as they already do.
I’m going to try some variations in my second draft and see which ones seem the most appropriate.
The feedback here has been excellent and important to help me craft an enjoyable ride for the reader. Thank you!
I haven’t read your story, but usually, a single page (that is, single *page_break) usually represents a context. Now, a context may vary between each person, but a single context always conveys one full information. Of course, you might want to split this information over 2 or more pages for some reason, such as inserting jumpscare/wow events, building up the tension, or subverting expectation.
I personally put a lot of page breaks when the scene involves a lot of action (walking, picking up items, eating), and slow it down when it comes to exposition or dialogues between character.
