This is an interactive novella in Twine about creating vape juices that make people fat. There are two romance options, one male and one female. The full story is almost 13,000 words, and the average person should take about 30 minutes to complete one route.
Since this is a prototype, there were some ambitious things that were scrapped (e.g. it being a visual novel, a grading system, a bookmarking system, a secret early ending). I also apologize for any bugs or writing errors I may have overlooked in my debugging phase. Still, I hope you all enjoy the first real “game” I’ve made!
Well written story with light and unobtrusive interactive elements!
I loved the little vape-shop specific details that gave everything a feel of time and place and I’m very happy with my chubby punk wife we will be very happy together thank you!
Lovely, just lovely. Story adds tremendous depth, while the trial-and-error game element provides stimulating interaction that does not interfere with enjoyment of the weight gain aspects. Pacing and length was just right, thanks to an orderly progression with timely elements of humor and charm integrated in. It did not feel like it needed a bookmarking system, since the novella draws you in and keeps you engaged the entire time. The dialogue felt realistic and developed characters very succinctly. Couple that with the second-person perspective, and you get downright immersive experience. The grammar, punctuation, and spelling were practically immaculate, with maybe one small, forgettable error, if anything, observed on my first run through. It only makes sense that Alstor is a professionally trained editor.
I appreciate the choice of romance options, especially because I am in the minority (preferring BHMs). Fat details has substance in such a perfect amount, it is hard to describe. The structure seems to have enough flexibility for fans of every fat figure (apple, pear, etc.) to each envision their own ideal visual. At the same time, the content was ample enough so that users only had to flesh out minor details to their liking (any puns were unintentional, I swear). I almost feel that developing it into a visual novel would undermine this great feature, unless there was settings that allowed one to customize their images, to some extent.
Not sure what Alstor meant by a grading system, but if it has to do with making unique responses to each of the failed flavor combinations, I think it would be a nice addition. I am curious about what that scrapped secret early ending entailed. Overall, this game is one of my favorites ever published on this forum. It did not feel rushed, incomplete, or unrefined. It is shocking that this is Alstor’s “first real ‘game’”. I hope to see more games (or just writing, for that matter) from him in the future.
Thank you for all the kind words! Reading this was the absolute best thing to wake up to.
It’s great that you found the ambiguity of the fat descriptions perfect because that’s exactly what I was going for. I really wanted readers/players to be as immersed as possible so they could fill in the blanks as they wanted to. It’s also why I was even ambiguous of the MC’s gender; it’s 100 percent the readers/players inserting themselves into the story.
The grading system would have been a letter-grading system (S, A, B, C, D and F) based on how many mistakes you made in the playthrough (S = zero mistakes, A = 1-3 mistakes, etc.) I just couldn’t get it to work in time for the jam’s deadline. The custom failure messages is a really interesting idea, though! Also, the secret early ending would have been a comedy ending involving putting literal scrambled eggs into an e-juice and trying to vape it.
I’m glad you (and the rest of the people that commented) enjoyed it so much! I’m not 100 percent sure if I’ll keep on improving this story or move onto a next one, but I’m happy you’re excited to see what I might do in the future!
Thank you for the kind words! It’s ultimately going to depend on my availability, but I would like to work on this a bit more. I’m not completely satisfied with how the story progression went down, and the time constraints of the game jam made me scrap more interactive gameplay mechanics that I had originally planned. I’d also like to experiment with the possibility of making it a visual novel. I’m happy that people enjoy the story as it is right now and want to see updates for it, so I’m at least motivated.
I cannot give a definite answer, but I would like to work on this some more. If that happens, it will be in its own project thread on this forum.
A very interesting slow burn story in a unique setting of running a vape shop. The story was overall good though a bit slow at first for my tastes, with the end going a pace that was a bit more my speed. I liked the mixology puzzles as they are an interesting way to add some depth to the game. That being said how to figure out the correct combination is not explained to the player making the choices feel more trial and error than building an understanding of the underlying concepts.
Kilif Score
Category
Total
Basics:
20000
Art:
0
Writing:
295
Concept/Design
1120
Msc:
150
Total:
21565
Comments:
I quite liked this one as it explores some of the more creative ways to setup a text adventure. Though for the life of me I couldn’t get a grasp of the logic used in the flavor combinations, I did somehow stumble my way through the game with only a few mistakes. The writing felt very genuine and the characters were easy to empathize with. My only real complaint is it would have been interesting to allow for the mistakes to be encoporated into the story, or allow the mixing to have different effects and thus different paths the story could take. But this is largely a fantasy nitpick more than anything else. Excellent text adventure.
Juxtaterrestrial Score
Category
Total
Basics:
20000
Art:
0
Writing:
273
Concept/Design
1075
Msc:
94
Total:
21442
Comments:
Definitely an interesting take on the theme. The story had mystery and romance. You did a good job making the characters voices distinct. I really liked the color coding of dialogue. I’m surprised more VN type things don’t do that. I think my biggest feedback would be that you can definitely afford to cut down on some of the text. It’s not bad, it’s just sort of a “less is more” sort of situation. Cutting it down would make it easier to get into for new readers. Two questions I try to use for this sort of thing are “does the reader need to know this?” If the answer is no, then cut it. If the answer is yes then ask “Does the reader need to know this at this specific point in the story?” If the answer is no then push that detail later in the story. Good work. Keep it up!