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Myriad

by Porpentine profile

Depression
2012

Web Site

(based on 22 ratings)
5 reviews

About the Story

branching outcomes of a fetid day. 115 nodes. suited for treaders, meat-eaters, plant-eaters, students, arthropods, starvers, and victims.

inspired by HyperCard shareware adventures packed on cd-roms with 500+ games on them | All The Depression


Game Details

Editorial Reviews

>TILT AT WINDMILLS
What I'm Playing: Myriad
Besides having evocative, darkly beautiful writing, I found Myriad's play with structure really intriguing.
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Member Reviews

5 star:
(2)
4 star:
(11)
3 star:
(6)
2 star:
(2)
1 star:
(1)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 5
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Most Helpful Member Reviews


7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
More Branches Than a Shrub, August 7, 2012

Myriad steps towards the kind of branching story I always wanted to read: to hell with merging nodes, I want full bifurcation, 24/7; and Porpentine obviously also heard the sirens of unreasonable work-load calling and dove into the pools of unending possibilities and dragged out this strangle-weeded narrative, a pocket of infinities. The quality is high, mostly consistently so; for most of it I was thinking 'Yeah, this is pretty good, I can see what she's doing here, blah blah, blah,' but then I played the scorpion queen section, which borders on being a puzzle, and it was okay; BUT THEN, then afterwards the denouement hit me like the well crafted metaphor that it was and I felt compelled to give it a write up pronto-like.

[So uh, don't waste time not reading Myriad when you could be reading Myriad. For me, (and I love-hate star ratings) this would have been a five star experience if my jaw hadn't taken four play-throughs to drop.]

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
An HTML fever-dream, August 13, 2012
by Hanon Ondricek (United States)

This is CYOA where you click on keywords. Usually there are two or three choices per page, and there are lots of branches, and lots of endings that happen unexpectedly. There's not a whole lot of through line to the plot as it meanders on a trippy, poetic tangent. I played about four times, and was surprised that what I thought would be the length of the story branched out somewhere totally new and continued. You won't be engaging any sort of problem solving or rational progression muscle. What happens next is usually random and is based little on the wisdom of your choices, but this is definitely worth a read or two if you like some fervently written prose in a psychedelic fantasy-horror vein.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A branching, surreal narrative about an anthropology class, February 3, 2016

Myriad is classic Porpentine, though overshadowed by her later work. Bizarre, surreal scenes filled with bodily fluids, strong profanity, gender references, and insectoids.

The game is clever and daring. However, playing it right after IFComp 2015 gave me a new perspective on Porpentine. I had thought that the emotional effectiveness of many of her pieces DEPENDED on the disgusting, gritty, profaneness of it all.

But I feel like Summit achieved a similar effect with a more subdued approach. Birdland gives a compelling portrait of LGBTQ life. I feel like the Twine world is developing in new directions now.

(Note that Howling Dogs, while it's a few years old now, also manages to be incredibly compelling while differing strongly from her ealier work).

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Myriad on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Myriad appears in the following Recommended Lists:

IF Playlist for the Brontoboards by Molly
This is a list I created as a general guide to interactive fiction for a thread I'm making on Brontoforumus. I'm trying to give a good overview to both parser IF (usually called "text adventures") and choice-based IF (or...

Polls

The following polls include votes for Myriad:

Games for Beginners by WriterBob
I'm looking for games that are suited for adults who are new to IF. My purpose is to share these games with friends and let them get experience IF without being frustrated by mazes or guess-the-verb issues. Please avoid children's games....

I'm looking for a great surreal game. by Bishopofbasic
It's pretty hot up here in Canada and I was wondering if anyone knew of any great surreal type games. Something I can spend my time in front of the AC or in my office hiding from the world. Thanks you guys.

More than it appears to be... by dacharya64
I'm looking for games that aren't exactly what they seem. Perhaps they come across as simple or romantic or anything really, the point is that things take a turn for the worse (or perhaps the better) and everything begins to change....

See all polls with votes for this game




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