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About the StoryIt is dangerous to deceive a husband of magic-using rank...Juliette has been banished for the summer to a village above Grenoble: a few Alpine houses, a deep lake, blue sky, and no society. Now she writes daily to her husband. She tells how she went for a walk and ended thigh-deep in mud, how the draft comes in around the window, how extravagantly she has spent on new gloves, how she misses Paris. She plans her letters on ordinary pages, but when they are ready, she copies them on paper whose enchanted double is hundreds of miles off. The words form themselves on the matching sheaf in her husband's study. No time is wasted on couriers. First Draft of the Revolution is a puzzleless interactive epistolary story, in which the reader interacts by revising the letters exchanged by the characters. Game Details
Language: English (en)
First Publication Date: September 24, 2012 Current Version: 1 License: free Development System: Custom Forgiveness Rating: Merciful IFID: Unknown TUID: yit71oog68ty9m62 |
Awards
Nominee, Best Story; Winner, Best Use of Innovation - 2012 XYZZY Awards
Editorial Reviews
Kotaku
Write (And Re-Write) Letters Of Intrigue In This Fantastic Free Game
First Draft of the Revolution is a marvel—an exploration of the space between the mind and the page the likes of which I've never experienced. Go play it!
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narF voit le monde dans des lunettes hexagonales
Roman épistolaire interactif: First Draft of the Revolution
Chacun des personnages a une manière différente d'écrire et une manière différente de penser. On s'en rend compte lorsque le jeu nous propose de modifier certains passages ou d'effacer certaines phrases. Par exemple, Juliette commence souvent par écrire un brouillon où elle est fâchée contre son mari, puis le modifie petit à petit pour le rendre plus poli et masquer sa colère.
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Rock Paper Shotgun
Magical epistolary intrigues
First Draft of the Revolution is an entire game based around valuing the reader-player’s aesthetic sensibilities, another triumph of Emily Short’s genius for narrative mechanics.
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PC World
First Draft of the Revolution is an odd game because rather than entering text in this adventure, you’re editing it.
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>TILT AT WINDMILLS
Rather than control the main character or choose between branches of story, here the reader's agency concerns how the characters choose to express themselves through their writing. The process of revision and the many small and large decisions (about how much detail to include, whether a certain phrasing goes too far or not far enough, what tone a sentence should take, and so on) reveal a deeper layer of the characters than is found purely in the text of the letters themselves. It's a unique mechanic and a refreshing take on interactive text. The production of the app by Liza Daly is also beautiful and well-polished.
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Haruspex Games
Mechanic of the Year
It’s at moments like these that the strength of the mechanic really hits home, both as a way of furthering narrative, and as a way of exploring characters, relationships, and societal pressures in intelligent, affecting ways. I’d love to see Emily Short, or someone else if need be, take this mechanic and run with it, because my god does it have legs as a storytelling form.
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating:  Number of Reviews: 1 Write a review |
Enchanting. Compelling. Ingenious. Groundbreaking, October 26, 2012First Draft is beautifully presented, and its intuitive user interface effortlessly draws you in to a fascinating story of power, intrigue, assignations, politics, religion and magic. I was reminded of the film Dangerous Liaisons, and particularly of the Marquise when I read about (or wrote?!) Alise's reappraisal of her sister-in-law towards the end of the tale. Wicked!
This is interactive fiction at its most literal and yet its most brilliant. You literally touch and manipulate the text as it's being written by the characters in the story. You're looking over their shoulders -- or perhaps inside their heads -- as they draft and redraft their letters to each other. Is there a better way to reveal someone's quirks, foibles, hopes and anxieties than to let you dig into their very thought processes as they write? I'm gonna say no, there isn't.
This game or interactive text or thaumaturgico-digital wonder is a meditation on and a demonstration of the power and complexity of writing and of how, in its power to reveal ourselves to ourselves and to others, writing is the true magic in our world.
I'm gushing, I know. But I can't help it. First Draft is a delight. I have only one complaint: a Lavoriesque link seems to have been forged between the author's name and the text -- First Draft of the Revolution is far too short.
If you enjoyed First Draft of the Revolution...
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Polls
The following polls include votes for First Draft of the Revolution:For Your Consideration: Games from 2012 that should be nominated for the XYZZY Awards by Molly
There were a lot of great games released in the past year, and now that the XYZZYs are coming up, it seems like a very good idea to take a poll of all the games from last year people would like to see nominated. The management has asked...
This is version 11 of this page, edited by Emily Short on 15 May 2013 at 11:00am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item