Rough Draft

Christopher Huang
This is RenPy, and the story is presented as a CYOA with branches into various plotlines. However, it differs from a standard CYOA flowchart in that one is expected to explore non-winning branches in order to obtain objects and information for the winning thread; in this respect, the CYOA format that RenPy is made for is subverted into a more traditional adventure game map. Instead of exploring rooms, we are exploring plot nodes … in a sense, we are exploring time rather than space. I thought it was a very ingenious use of the medium, and an interesting look at the creative process of writing a story.

That said, Reina’s story is a little simplistic. It’s supposed to be for children, of course, and it does come off that way. There’s a part of me that wants to dismiss it as a little juvenile, but that really is the point of the story, after all, so … should I say that it did succeed in what it was trying to do? I don’t know. I suppose I would have preferred a more mature approach to motivation and characterisation, but there’s not a lot of room to delve into that sort of thing within the constraints of the chosen genre. Perhaps the prose could have done with a little bit more character–a little more attitude from Denise within the context of Reina’s story, as opposed to merely in the form of commentary.
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