my father's long, long legs

by michael lutz

Horror
2013

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Number of Reviews: 11
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Digging deep, July 29, 2023
by Lance Cirone (Backwater, Vermont)

This story relies on the "nothing is scarier" school of thought, and it pulls it off really well. You play the story as an outsider, not knowing your Father's intent for the digging he's been doing for years on end. But you do know the feelings of unease it's caused you, the fact that it made him drift away your mother, and your brother's sentimentality. It's an intriguing story where you do always feel compelled to learn what's going on, and every few scenes introduces a new bit of information that makes you think. I'm not entirely sure what the whole thing was about, but it left me feeling legitimately shaken by the end of it. Definitely worth the hype.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Unsettling game about the deforming power of belief, May 8, 2023
by ccpost (Greensboro, North Carolina)

This is a short work of interactive fiction that functions in the way of a good short horror story: the game strongly establishes its premise, gets the player invested quickly, and concludes with a swerve into an artful and unsettling ambiguity that asks the player to mull over the brief piece of fiction.

I started my playthrough with a general idea of the gist of the story -- (Spoiler - click to show)the protagonist witnesses the slow deformation of their father, who obsessively digs a network of tunnels beneath the house -- and found the execution very well done, achieving a deeply felt sense of unease as the protagonist progresses through their story. The player has some sense that the protagonist has survived, as they have lived to tell the tale, but the player also has a sense that the protagonist has been altered -- haunted -- in some essential way. Rather than totally subverting the player's expectations, the game works by slowly unraveling the full scope of the final weird and traumatic encounter with the father.

What I found myself going back to and mulling over after finishing the game was the motivation for the father's digging. This, never fully explained but suggestively characterized, was the really disturbing part of the story. What would cause someone to abandon their life and commit to a toilsome, endless digging? Lutz introduces just enough of the father's perspective to give players insight into his twisted mind while keeping the father still essentially obscured, unknowable.

As a more or less linear story, the game achieves this unsettling experience through subtle atmospheric effects and gripping writing. The linear structure of the game makes the draw toward the encounter with the father feel dreadfully inevitable; but the conclusion, in its ambiguity, makes any consequence, from damnation to salvation, feel possible...but we know in our core that whatever happens after the game ends can't be good.

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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A short short review, July 31, 2020
by balt77 (Chicagoland)

A short creepy tale with minimal choices or consequences. Reminds me of Scary Tales to Tell in the Dark or In the Dark Dark Woods.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Some great potential that it didn't quite meet, March 24, 2020

I'm kind of torn on this one. For most of the game, I was thinking "Why is this not just a short story?" It would stand on its own pretty well- there are a few notable grammatical errors, and I think it could have been cut down a little, but if I'd read it on r/nosleep or the like, I would have upvoted it. But as a game- or even as interactive fiction- it seemed to fall a little short. Most of the interactivity consisted of clicking on a word to read the next paragraph, which, ehhhhnnn. There were some points where you had to wait for words to appear, which worked okay.

But then! The end! The end was great! A really effective use of sound and there was one effect that I'd never seen before and worked really really well! Excellent job on that! I just wish there had been more- maybe different sounds based on the options you chose in the dark? And because the lead-up was so long, it felt a little unbalanced. I think it would have worked better if the story had been a bit punchier, and/or if there were some other ways that it took advantage of the medium throughout. I think using the final mechanism only at the end makes a lot of sense, but I think some subtler effects- sound, or even something as simple as changing the background color for some sections- just anything so I don't spend the majority of the story wondering why it wasn't just a regular short story. The ending answered that for me, but the fact that I spent so much time thinking about that at all undermined the experience for me.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Amazing, Creepy Story, February 5, 2018

Wonderful storytelling, had me on the edge of my seat. Not a lot of real gameplay; as there is only one ending, the choices you have will not affect the outcome of the story.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Compelling and evocative, August 6, 2017

A creative and brilliant use of the medium coupled with a well written, interesting story.

Spooky and great.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Engaging and haunting..., July 27, 2017
by juliaofbath (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Related reviews: horror, positive, special effects

'My Father's Long, Long Legs' delivers a reasonable amount of fear and an even more significant amount of unease. The use of negative space and the minimal/dark aesthetic of the text supports the overall atmosphere very well, and effectively surrounds the reader with a murky, growing sense of dread. The story is slow and winding, and to me seems deeply reminiscent of classic short-fiction horror. Often, I found the text referring to the work of M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft, and these references were not at all heavy handed, but instead demonstrated an intimate understanding of horror and the methods of building a sense of the uncanny within the mind of the reader. Additionally, I was very impressed with the use of special effects in the text, and I felt as though they added to the reading experience. Overall, as a piece of fiction, I found 'My Father's Long, Long Legs' very effective and engaging. The story will most certainly haunt me.

However, as an example of interactive fiction, I found this text to be lacking. Although the reader is presented with a few choices, the story is overwhelmingly linear, with minimal replay-ability, something intrinsic to interactive fiction/hypertext fiction. I am not sure how more interactivity could have been worked in, which leads me to believe that perhaps this would have functioned better as short fiction rather than IF. Despite these shortcomings, I still found the reading experience enjoyable.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Incredibly effective use of Twine as a horror story form, February 3, 2016
by MathBrush
Related reviews: 15-30 minutes

My Father's Long, Long Legs is essentially a publishable short story, as good as Stephen King or Dean Koontz.

This doesn't mean that the Twine format feels too confining. The story branches and recombines at various points, and the illusion of choice increases the feeling of powerlessness.

Also, some of the more advanced techniques of Twine are used in the last scene to improve play experience.

I recommend it strongly to subtle horror fans.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Digging yourself deeper, March 22, 2014

As a story, my father's long, long legs is original, weird (in the Lovecraftian sense of the term), and excellently scary. It is the kind of story I will need to mull over for a while, (Spoiler - click to show)especially given the lack of a conclusive ending. The writing occasionally feels a bit lacklustre, but when it is good, it is very good. The concept is excellent and uncanny.

As a Twine creation, I'm in two minds about it. Visually, it's very good. The grayscale background is a subtle, superb touch: representing the dwindling light falling into the father's basement; brightening or darkening depending on the events of the story. However, once the novelty wore off, I ended up feeling that the Twine format was a gimmick. The story is static; the vast majority of segments only have one link to click to get to the next one. The narration didn't even use the simple trick of second person to give the reader a sense of agency. I enjoyed the story, but I felt I would have enjoyed it equally if I'd read it in print or on a static web page.

(Spoiler - click to show)Then I got to the final section, and the story unleashed all Twine's possibilities: a more game-like structure with several possible actions, sound, and a spotlight effect I've never seen in Twine before. All these factors do an excellent job building atmosphere and creating claustrophobia. The music at the end is perfect.

I give my father's long, long legs four stars on account of the story, mood, and some excellent use of Twine's possibilities. However, players who prefer some agency in their IF might want to look elsewhere.

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0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
When you set out digging too deep..., November 13, 2013
by Ray

...you might just as well bury yourself along. But you'll enjoy the experience nevertheless! All the time I was wondering how the author was going to get away with his wild premise... (Spoiler - click to show)And I'm afraid he really didn't.

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