The Tide Traveler - WIP / Demo

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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flood_venice

It’s the year 2076. After more than a century of slow subsidence, started in the 1920s, Venice has completely sunk into the lagoon. Most of its inhabitants have now left, and all that can be seen is the top part of the tallest buildings and towers. Among them, photographers, scientists, engineers and tourist guides still flock to the city every day.

You were born in 2053, on an artificial island in the Adriatic Sea, from a displaced Venetian family. Your heritage includes dukes, gondoliers, merchants, farmers, fishing workers, travelers, artists, but you have never seen the fabled city your family tells you about: Venice is now lost to the water.

Still, there is hope. Your parent, once a successful entrepreneur, was responsible for some of the unfortunate choices that accelerated the collapse of the lagoon ecosystem. They are now financing a secret, risky project that may revert the city’s fate.

As you go by your daily activity in Venice, you are suddenly summoned to be a test pilot for Tide. Are you ready to leave all behind to save the city?

Find out here: https://dashingdon.com/play/tide/the-tide-traveler/mygame/

Hi all, @charles_parkes and I are happy to present the first chapter of The Tide Traveler, an interactive story set in present, future and past Venice, where your goal is to prevent the ecological collapse of the Venetian lagoon and the destruction of the city.

You are Marco/Sofia/Alex, a young engineer/photographer/biologist/tourist guide working among the city’s ruin, when you are suddenly tasked with the goal of driving a risky and untested experiment that may reverse the fate of Venice.

In the first chapter (17,000 words), you are introduced to the main characters, their motivation and their goals. Then, be ready to face the maze hidden in your own mind to connect to Tide and save Venice.

Feel free to contact us (here, or with a private message) with any questions, suggestions, ideas, complaints. Also, we are looking for help with the art and design!

Enjoy!

Some technical notes

  • The game features a graphical puzzle (optional), with art courtesy of @loudbeat.

  • The story is driven by a balancing set of three stats (legacy, fortune and environment), graphically visible in the stats page.

  • This game collects aggregate game statistics to detect bugs and improve the game flow (thanks to @Flurrywinde11 for help with the stats). You are free to opt out from the data collection.

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Hope you enjoy the demo everyone! :slight_smile:

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Interesting concept you have their. So far the story has good promise. I really like the picture in the beginning, and the maze, I thought done pretty well. Did not expect the interactive part of the maze, but slowly liking it.

Almost reminds me of paradox factor. It has that feeling.

I look forward to seeing how the Marine life will change through the story.

It looks like a lot of work to do and was being done. I commend you on a very new element in the choice of game. Ie the interactive maze.

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Very nice so far, I’ll like to point out some things I don’t know if they are really an error as I’m still learning punctuation myself, but so far they are only minimal.

pronoun of father is her on the choice.

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when you leave a blank space afaIk it is used to change the voice from one character to the other (I don’t know if that’s an “unbreakable” rule though.

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quotes are never closed

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same here, quotes never closed + same voice on different paragraph.

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same here also

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redundant right hand.

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Btw, thanks for the mention, and good luck with the project, it seems you have a solid idea there.

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@Dpwjeremy thanks for your nice words. I’m happy you like the maze. You can look at the link below if you are curious about its development. I’m now going to look for Paradox Factor. @Charles_Parkes and I spoke about a book called Recursion by Blake Crouch, which has similar mechanics.

@Loudbeat thanks for the suggestions - we’re on it - and again for your help with the maze!

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I really enjoyed this demo - the world building is really immersive and I really liked the way the choices were phrased :slight_smile:

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The demo is very nice!!
I like how you include (some of) the stats that are affected by your choices in parenthesis.
I don’t know anything about coding but perhaps you could make the transition from the selected choices to the next text smoother? I suppose it’s just for it to look more pleasing though.

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I’ve only read a little so far, but here’re a few preliminary thoughts. Well, first off, I’m liking the premise, being about a sunken Venice, the relevance to our times in terms or rising sea levels, and the intriguing idea of a time travel project.

I’m wondering if the effect of the three stats could be made clearer from the beginning, though? Like will I definitely become wealthier if I keep choosing the fortune choices. LOL.

I’m pretty sure the save/load game function isn’t yours, but it’s not working right for me. (I’m on the Brave browser on Ubuntu 20.04.) It seems to restore a few pages in the past, and then, just today, when I overwrote slot 0, it became empty. Then, after a reboot, the dates of slot 0 and slot 1 became 6/11/2020 and 9/11/2020, which aren’t correct. The 11 is, I assume, the month, but if so, then it’s not right. The 9 might be right, but I don’t think so. The 6 is definitely wrong because the last time I saved in that slot was today. Oh, but when I restored slot 0, it was a way older save, so that date might’ve been that older save, with today’s getting lost somehow. Oh, and sometimes I have to hit the button twice.

That’s about all for now. I will give more feedback as I read more, but now, a question: Will you share with us some of the data you’re collecting? I’m kinda curious how many other people are answering the questions the same way I am. For example, the answers that feel right to me are the ones where the MC shows concern about the big picture and/or is introspective, but maybe I’m just an oddball that way. LOL.

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Hi all, thanks for all your comments. We are revising the first chapter and working at the second.

@Flurrywinde11 I am using the save function as is from Dashingdon. I noticed some glitches too. I will do some research.

In terms of stats, I was surprised to see that about 60% people are playing on a phone. 50% are doing the easy puzzle, 25% hard and 25% are skipping. Most people are finishing the maze in any case - I’m happy that people played it to the end.

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Every time I stumble upon on of your projects, it’s always a moment of ‘whoa, you can do that?’. Story was great, too. Felt polished and professional and I seriously loved reading it. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Hi all, happy new year. We have not disappeared!

@Charles_Parkes is reorganizing the story so we can have a very strong second chapter. It will take some time - Rome wasn’t built in a day - but it’s going to be very thrilling. Stay tuned!

IMG_2363

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That looks absolutely beautiful :open_mouth:

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that is an awesome map/storyboard

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