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About the StorySwan Hill is an interactive story about brothers who have grown apart. It has multiple endings. Game Details
Language: English (en)
First Publication Date: September 19, 2013 Current Version: 1 License: Freeware Development System: Twine Forgiveness Rating: Merciful IFID: Unknown TUID: xzsklx9j3oqpzlqj |
Editorial Reviews
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Low-key fantasy hypertext about the relationship between two brothers. One chose to rule. The other ended up practicing magic, which goes by the high-brow name of philosophy in the Swan Hill universe.
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating:  Number of Reviews: 4 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Beautiful, melancholy, and evocative., November 14, 2013This is a very simple Twine story with a smidgin of interaction. Usually this type of thing gets boring, but I found this excellently written, and an interesting story about two brothers. One uses magic, and magic causes pain. The more powerful the magic, the more chance it can kill the wielder.
The story isn't about this specifically, but it shadows the relationship and the obliquely subtle plot. This feels like a tiny fragment of a much larger world, and I enjoyed the little glimpse of it that this story gives. I hope this writer has more to show us because the story is achingly lovely and melancholic.
You're never more than a click away from a string of wonderful sentences., October 10, 2020Loved this! The relationship between the brothers is beautifully textured and well-drawn, the approach to magic feels interesting and fresh even seven years after it was written, and the interactivity is subtle and immersive rather than obvious in a way that felt in keeping with the tone and spirit of the prose - this is a world of things that go not quite said for years and years, full of characters living lives of restraint, and it makes sense that the branching should feel meditative and restrained too.
The writing in Swan Hill speaks for itself; it's full up with sentences that could cut glass. So in lieu of a review, here are a couple of my favourite paragraphs in Swan Hill, which I'd suggest maybe saving until you've gotten to read them in context:
(Spoiler - click to show)"Bushels of papers hide the counters. Crates are piled in every corner. The old experimental equipment— iron racks and dusty glass— cut a mad sillhouette against the moonbright windows on the far wall."
"Your brother shines his light onto a small wooden table and a split-log seat. A black and moldy breakfast encrusts a wooden platter. A withered lump of cheese sits on a folded handkerchief. On the cloth beneath the cheese is a perfect halo of translucent greasestain."
I loved this., November 11, 2014I loved the story, the setting, the sense that I was steering the story while making the subtlest of choices. It was one of the few hypertext games I've played where I felt like there was a reason NOT to click on all of the informative links and I picked that reason up through gameplay.
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Swan Hill on IFDB
Recommended Lists
Swan Hill appears in the following Recommended Lists:Best fantasy games by MathBrush
These are my favorite games that include some sort of magical or fantastical element. Games with mostly horror or sci-fi elements are on other lists, as are surreal games, fairy tale/nursery games, and religious/mythological games. I've...
Polls
The following polls include votes for Swan Hill:Hypertext stories that make heavy use of text transformations by Bruno Dias
I'm looking for hypertexts that make heavy use of stretchtext and related effects to tell their story - Links that add, remove, or alter text within a passage. Swan Hill for instance makes heavy use of this, and my own work does too, but...
Games with the best writing by A. I. Wulf
Games are a new medium of art. It's still a maturing medium. But still some works May have succeeded in being truly classic in their writing. As an enthusiastic writer I need to know about the growth of IF in this field.
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This is version 5 of this page, edited by Laura Michet on 15 November 2013 at 3:55pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page