RELEASE NOTES

This is the full version of a game originally entered into the 2014 Interactive Fiction competition. The competition version is still freely playable at: http://ifarchive.jmac.org/if-archive/games/competition2014/Raik/Raik.html . You can read my postmortem of that version, which includes notes on why I wrote the game and what I wanted to do with it, at: http://www.intfiction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=17066&

This full version is roughly 80% bigger than the competition version, in both wordcount and number of original passages, and includes a few structural changes as well. For the very interested, here's what I've done:

- Written more content, both vertical (more scenes as you progress through the story) and horizontal (more details in side-passages), with a focus on back-story, world-building and dialogue. The aim was to make the lead characters in both narratives more engaging and to give them more rounded worlds to live in. I've also worked to improve the writing and style in general.

- Made it a bit prettier in general, with new stylesheets, link colours, and professional cover art. Emmanuel Turner generously wrote me a macro to ensure that expansions stayed expanded between language switches, with the translate button always visible, which made a huge step forward.

- Introduced a checkpoint system, meaning that you don't have to repeat everything if you die, but you can if you want to.

- Recalibrated the damage points so you're a bit less likely to die.

- Introduced more forced switches between languages, paced them better, and improved the thematic connections between them.

- Slightly simplified the Scots throughout, with better proofreading.

- Lots of fiddling!

There are still things I'd love to do with it. I could learn more CSS and improve the aesthetics. I could introduce some more special effects, especially for damage and language switching. What I'd love most of all is to do an audio version. But I'm ready to release this into the world. It took me a year longer than planned to release a full version, and it's time to let go! My desires for my game will have to wait for the next game. I hope you like this one. I'd love to hear what you think at aitch@harrygiles.org

Hx


121 passages - 218 passages
15,519 words -