Aisle

[castorp]

Aisle. It's text-based, comparable maybe with 'Passage' in scope, but a totally different experience, and quite old, but I hope at least some of you don't know it. Found it via RockPaperShotgun, who linked to it in their recent article about another nice little game.

I won't spoil it for you by telling you more - just this one thing: if you like it even a little, don't look for a 'walkthrough' or something like that, before you really run out of ideas! Rather give it a days rest, than start looking for hints. (Beware of the comments in the RPS-article for the game!)

[i wish I never read those dreadful comments]

[Nachimir]

That's brilliant.

I tried another version of it before, which was broken. Thanks for reminding me

(I found a bug: it doesn't recognise "defecate" ¬¬)

[Chris]

Jesus, this is great.

[Marek]

Erm. I just get the intro text and nothing else. What am I supposed to do?

[DanJW]

Press space bar

It reminds me of Facade, being able to parse a reaction to almost any text input. Also with trying to figure out the backstory from lots of little fragments.

[eljay]

Enter also works.

The number different things you can successfully try and the variance in results is awesome.

[vimes]

Played it for 5 minutes and so far, it's awesome : I love the fact that you use information from previous stories to create new ones. I wonder if you can get pass the first action ...

[DanJW]

No, I think the point is that there is only one action. I've managed to have another go only by entering an instruction that does nothing, like "wake up" (I was hoping for an Open Your Eyes/Vanilla Sky story).

[toblix]

Okay, not to not appreciate the art and all that, but is this an actual puzzle with a solution or some semblance of progression or closure? So far I've figured out

her name is Clare, which was also the name of a girl who died by scooter in Rome after eating Gnocchi by the Pantheon

[Chris]

Okay, not to not appreciate the art and all that, but is this an actual puzzle with a solution or some semblance of progression or closure? So far I've figured out

her name is Clare, which was also the name of a girl who died by scooter in Rome after eating Gnocchi by the Pantheon

I don't think her name is Clare, because I've directly addressed her as Clare and she doesn't respond. I think that's only the name of your former lover.

[Noyb]

tip for finding more endings:

Try the command "remember ____" on whatever you can think of.

semi-large spoiler on the game's nature:

I was sad when I discovered that not all endings contribute to the same world. Some reinforce each other, some lead to others, but some blatantly contradict each other.

Still a damn good game.

[David]

I'm wondering why my first (well, second, after "look at sauces") instinct was clearly to type "take off clothes".

Edit: Oh man...

"ask brunette her name" = text action!

Am I terribly shallow because I feel like I won the game after achieving this result?

Edited October 25, 2008 by Metallus

[vimes]

Heh, as said in the intro, it's not a story of a single person :

If you use Call Clare, you'll see that Clare is still alive : she's in the supermarket with you, just in another alley.

[Nachimir]

I don't think her name is Clare, because I've directly addressed her as Clare and she doesn't respond. I think that's only the name of your former lover.

I've found at least one other name for the brunette, depending on what you do. Also see spoiler below

I was sad when I discovered that not all endings contribute to the same world. Some reinforce each other, some lead to others, but some blatantly contradict each other.

I think that's awesome. Aisle does exactly what Deus Ex, Bioshock, Fable etc., have mostly failed at.

One of the things I think is really beautiful about this game is that what you choose to do now affects not just the ending but the present and the past. Everything is written so that no matter what you do, it fits contextually. There are happy endings with the original Clare. There are endings where she died of disease or in an accident. There are endings where you murdered her, or she left you. There are many endings that don't involve her at all.

It's a completely different thing to anything I've played before. Most involve many hours in which just a few verbs are repeated over and over. Aisle has one moment but many verbs.:tup:

[castorp]

[no explicit type-this spoilers below, but some broad thoughts about the different paths the game could follow]

I wonder if Aisle would have worked better, been a better game/experience, if it only had two different stories/men. First I thought having just one story would be the best way to deepen the emotional impact, but soon realised, that one of the strongest moments for me was, when I had a really happy moment, with Clare right by my side, after several moments indicating a very lonely guy with a tragic past. So this duality in fact heightened the experience for me. But when I realised, that there was more than one tragic story, some quiet mundane, some bewildering violent in contrast, it somehow watered the whole thing down in my opinion. With just two stories, one happy, one tragic, it would still maintain this at first surprising duality, and the implicated options, like the incentive to find out, where it all went wrong, or the possibility to kind of switch from one path to the other. Mmmh, I’m quiet uncertain about this.

Notwithstanding a great game

[Chris]

[no explicit type-this spoilers below, but some broad thoughts about the different paths the game could follow]

I wonder if Aisle would have worked better, been a better game/experience, if it only had two different stories/men. First I thought having just one story would be the best way to deepen the emotional impact, but soon realised, that one of the strongest moments for me was, when I had a really happy moment, with Clare right by my side, after several moments indicating a very lonely guy with a tragic past. So this duality in fact heightened the experience for me. But when I realised, that there was more than one tragic story, some quiet mundane, some bewildering violent in contrast, it somehow watered the whole thing down in my opinion. With just two stories, one happy, one tragic, it would still maintain this at first surprising duality, and the implicated options, like the incentive to find out, where it all went wrong, or the possibility to kind of switch from one path to the other. Mmmh, I’m quiet uncertain about this.

Notwithstanding a great game

When I first realized there were many possible realities, it was an interesting moment, but ultimately it leaves me less intrigued and compelled to continue as when I was under the impression that I was working towards uncovering the full extent of one reality.

[castorp]

When I first realized there were many possible realities, it was an interesting moment, but ultimately it leaves me less intrigued and compelled to continue as when I was under the impression that I was working towards uncovering the full extent of one reality.

I know what you mean, and I'm not sure about what to prefer. I think for me it could still work perfectly with two stories, if it was outspokenly one guy, with one past, until this moment, where it all went wrong (or simply not). Up to a certain point in (past-)time, you would hear stuff about the City and the Woman radically different in light of the coin toss of this one moment, but equal in content. You then would try to find out, where it went wrong, would try to know more about those now totally different men, who once were the same guy.

Okay, maybe the game kind of tries to achieve this, but, in my eyes, fails with providing to many different stories.

[Nappi]

I actually tried to keep the pieces together for a while even though I knew they were different stories. For example:

You meet Clare for the first time when you ask the brunette her name. Then later you have a deja vu experience while out shopping with your beloved girlfriend. And finally years later you find yourself, in a strangely similar setting, thinking about Clare.

Of course this doesn't work at all because, well, it's not meant to. Nevertheless, I would have preferred one consistent story so much that I tried to create one. The concept is interesting and well executed, but I too would have liked to discover the one story between the man and Clare piece by piece and possibly make things right again. Something like that anyway.

[Nachimir]

I like it with the different stories. There are still things to find out on each of them with alternate endings, and it just doesn't diminish it for me. I don't think it needs a single past, timeline, or overall narrative. It's more like a bunch of parallel universes. You're not finding out about a story, you're finding out about a character, and what things might have put him in so many different states.

Aisles are linear, the game really isn't. Making it that way would, IMO, significantly change it and move it closer to all the broken implementations of branching narrative games have done to death already.

Edited October 25, 2008 by Nachimir

[Chris]

Aisles are linear, the game really isn't. Making it that way would, IMO, significantly change it and move it closer to all the broken implementations of branching narrative games have done to death already.

I don't see what you mean by this.

[DanJW]

I don't see what you mean by this.

I think he means that in most games the branches are false, or at least purely cosmetic. The most you can hope for is a detour before rejoining the main narrative path.

In a way it is a very elegant solution to the problem. The reason why most games don't branch much is due to inflation of assets. If the story path is x units long, and you have n branches, then you will need x X n assets to cover thw whole game (for example).

So what Aisle has done is to reduce x so that n can be increased.

[Chris]

I think he means that in most games the branches are false, or at least purely cosmetic. The most you can hope for is a detour before rejoining the main narrative path.

In a way it is a very elegant solution to the problem. The reason why most games don't branch much is due to inflation of assets. If the story path is x units long, and you have n branches, then you will need x X n assets to cover thw whole game (for example).

So what Aisle has done is to reduce x so that n can be increased.

Yes, I understand the design and content issues with branching narrative, and obviously I understand why they are not an issue for Aisle, but I don't understand how writing the fiction to center around one narrative rather than many would introduce any problems that are common to branching narratives. It's entirely an issue of writing, and nothing else. Writing the various "endings" such that they all would inform a single reality rather than an indefinite number would not cause the game to run into any design challenges or roadblocks. The factors you mention really have nothing to do with Aisle, because regardless of which avenue is taken--one reality versus many--it simply requires just however many blocks of text the author feels like providing. The difference is entirely a question of aesthetics.

[DanJW]

Hmm, you're right. I suppose having decided on the "choice changes the past" flavour, having a the "jigsaw puzzle" flavour as well would be a cop-out. The jigsaw puzzle method has been done before and is something we are used to - which may be why several people wish it existed here. We often unconciously desire the familiar. Change is scary

I don't have a problem with the alternate realities in this case, since we are told about it right up front in the intro. Its purpose is to provide a complete story with each playthrough - not to provide a single piece of the story.

edit: having said that, the intro does in fact say "You are about to read a story. Or rather, part of a story". But it also says the stuff about there being several possible stories and protagonists.

[Chris]

Hmm, you're right. I suppose having decided on the "choice changes the past" flavour, having a the "jigsaw puzzle" flavour as well would be a cop-out. The jigsaw puzzle method has been done before and is something we are used to - which may be why several people wish it existed here. We often unconciously desire the familiar. Change is scary

It's not unconscious, I'm pretty aware of my opinions on it! I was just really compelled when I felt I was finding clues, and piecing them together.

I don't have a problem with the alternate realities in this case, since we are told about it right up front in the intro. Its purpose is to provide a complete story with each playthrough - not to provide a single piece of the story.

But even in the game as it is currently implemented, the individual "stories" don't actually stand alone. I don't think I've found any of them that can't be fleshed out with others. Each one is definitely a single piece of a story, it's just that there are several stories.

[Nachimir]

I see your point here, there's nothing inherently broken about using a single narrative with branches, though implementations so far have tended to be either either rigid (Fable, Colony Wars), or very brittle (Erasmatron, Facade). Deus Ex is still probably the best one, but developing branching narratives to that extent is a nightmare most developers would not entertain.

I just think Aisle would have been a much less interesting project if it had taken this approach. The idea of a present action also influencing the past, in order to give it meaning, is an excellent and (AFAIK) unique one. It might be possible with a single narrative, but it's easier with many and I think more eloquent that way too.

"Done to death" was a harsh wording, and on reflection "yet to perfect" would be more accurate. However, most attempts at branching narrative have been pretty broken. I liked that your actions throughout Stalker led to a contextually appropriate ending at the wishgranter, but even around that there were a couple of binary choices

(whether you find the hidden passage leading to an explanation of the zone, and whether you then join them or destroy them)

that disregarded much of what had gone before (Duty/Freedom/Army/Solo, wealth, the way you treated others, etc). The non-linearity of Aisle has a beauty that all of these other examples do not.

IMO

Yes, I understand the design and content issues with branching narrative, and obviously I understand why they are not an issue for Aisle, but I don't understand how writing the fiction to center around one narrative rather than many would introduce any problems that are common to branching narratives. It's entirely an issue of writing, and nothing else. Writing the various "endings" such that they all would inform a single reality rather than an indefinite number would not cause the game to run into any design challenges or roadblocks. The factors you mention really have nothing to do with Aisle, because regardless of which avenue is taken--one reality versus many--it simply requires just however many blocks of text the author feels like providing. The difference is entirely a question of aesthetics.