Following Me

An entertaining story, but with only nominal deviations from being straightforward static fiction: it appears that any branches in the story quickly converge back onto the main path, and it is only around the endgame that we begin to see some real branching out to multiple endings. Or, at least, that's how it feels: there's a high text-to-choice ratio, and, without a save-game feature to mark my place, I can't really explore as much as I would like.

The story concerns a game of cat-and-mouse, with our hero as the mouse being pursued through the woods by a psychopathic villain who always seems to be just a half-step behind her. Adding to the tension is the knowledge that our hero's sister is still in the clutches of the villain's partner-in-crime, his father. The story doesn't go into detail, nor does it have to, but, given that the hero and her sister are young college girls, and both villainous characters are predatory males, it isn't hard to guess what their fate might be if they were to fail to escape. Even as our hero tries desperately to give her pursuer the slip, it isn't far from our mind that her sister might be right that moment suffering a fate worse than death.

It emerges that our hero's sister isn't completely helpless, however, and eventually it turns out that she's managed to impale the villain's father on a railing post. Our hero, a medical student, is caught in short order and dragged back to save his life in the endgame.

I don't know ... it strikes me that the sister's story would make a more interesting game. It's obvious that the phone call that alerted the villain to the problem did not come from his father, who was hors de combat at the time, so it must have been the sister who called him. Which means that, although it's not outright stated, it's the sister who saves our hero from being chased around the woods by some guy who's ultimately only toying with her. Perhaps there were plans to allow a major branch near the beginning, to an alternate path where it is the sister who escapes into the woods and the hero who must deal with the villain's father in the house.

I think, in any case, that the sense of terror is adequately conveyed, which is probably the most important thing in the writing. It's a well-told story.

This is a breakfast sandwich: farmer's sausage, egg, and cheese, on a toasty-warm English muffin. A tasty little package, more substantial than it at first appears. Hot chocolate in a thermos, to be enjoyed outdoors.