To Kindle A Light by blokeyman

Comment Kmo73

Am a bit late to the party but am playing this game at the mo. Am liking the atmosphere but cannot get into the dining room for the life of me!

Review karimcassimally

I haven't completed this yet, but the writing is excellent. You have managed to create a highly-atmospheric and terrifying game. Well done!

Comment blokeyman

Hi Sarah thanks for the feedback again. Yes there were some ambiguities I left in there on purpose, although I admit the general state of the house was something I didn't really think about. Lets just leave it down to apathetic realtors/agents :D

I definitely wanted Mark's story to be a mystery and leave some things open to interpretation. Although he had some obvious mental health issues, I tried to hint at some metaphysical underpinnings. There are references and nods throughout to notions of solipsism and philosophical concepts like the logical absolutes and the simulation hypothesis. Mark, wether through paranoid delusion or not is almost aware he is a fictional character. The ending is meant to convey this awareness almost being passed onto to the protagonist after everything she has been exposed to.

Comment sarah4

Hi, thanks for your swift reply, I am pleased you found some of my remarks useful. I have actually finished the game now, the command 'put photo in ticket office' or 'put photo in window' both resulted in this action being carried out (rather than prompting any error message) but did not cause the game to end. It was only when I used the tried and tested 'use photo on ticket office' command that the end script was triggered, this hopefully solves that particular queery!

I see you have uploaded an edited version of the game so I will download that and give it a play through when I can before reviewing as I am sure the very few bugs there were have now been ironed out and I want to write a fair review based on the newer version.

In response to your questions about the narrative, I thought it was mostly very well constructed. The building sense of creeping fear and dread was quite effective and the various clues scattered about the house that pointed to the uncle's history and quickly declining mental health were also utilised to good effect.

I am not entirely sure what to take from the final journal entry and the game's abrupt denuement, though I imagine you had intended to leave the player with many unanswered questions so this is not a problem. I interpreted the end of the game as being a comment on the fact that loved ones are left with countless unanswered questions in the wake of such a tragedy, but that their inability to cope with the uncertainty causes them to go round in mental circles in a fruitless quest to make sense of things. I'd be interested to know if this is your interpretation or if you had another conclusion in mind for the player.

There were a few slightly jarring details of the story for me, one, fairly major one, was the state of the house. I never discovered how uncle had died, though I presume that he must have died in hospital since, if his body had been found in the house, I cannot imagine that the state of the house would not have been n

Comment blokeyman

Hi all,

More updates uploaded. Bugs with some locked doors and some events rectified. Game should now run a little more smoothly.

Thanks!

Comment blokeyman

Also, it's a fairly short game. Anyone else who may be reading this:

(SPOILERS)


Putting the photo you found in the ticket booth back where it was is the end game. It SHOULD end for you there so I'm not sure what's going on. Again, I'll look into this.

Comment blokeyman

Hi Sarah,

Thank you so much for playing! Despite it not being to your taste, I hope you 'enjoyed' it as much as you could haha.

I'm sorry about the bugs. This is my first ever game and I guess my playtesting just wasn't thorough enough. I admit this game took me a while to create and once I'd finished I hastily uploaded it just to get feedback.

Your comments are very welcome. I will look into these problems and update the game as soon as I get a chance.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but, ignoring the (seemingly numerous) mechanical problems, did the story make sense to you? Did it flow, did the narrative devices in the cell or shed any light on anything or were you still left confused?

Comment sarah4

I can tell that a great deal of work has gone into this game, even if the content is not to my taste (I am extremely squeamish and have a very low tolerance for violence and disturbing imagery so I am probably not the target audience for this work!). However, the writing is good and evocative (maybe a little too evocative!) and there are some very novel touches that make it an interesting play. I also appreciate the attempts you have clearly made to consistently describe as many objects as possible, even when they are purely there for atmosphere.

However, there are a few problems which you may wish to fix, most of them do not make the game unplayable but they are quite jarring. The first issue has to do with directions, the layout of the house seems inconsistent, you can find yourself in a hall by going in a direction which should logically not lead you there, this made it a little difficult to map out the house effectively. There is also an issue with being able to perform the same action repeatedly, for example, if you perform the requisite action in the office you can find the key repeatedly (even when only one key turns up in your inventory, also, the log still appears in the description of the porch once you have removed it. Also, I have not completed the game because I appear to have become trapped in a loop after discovering the unspeakable underground cell. I exited the house, received a phone call and headed down to the station where I am now stuck. Every time I return to the grounds of the house the same phone call is triggered and I get the same messages whenever I enter the house and go back into the safe as when I leave it. I realise that in order to complete the game I must have to do something with a photo, but I cannot figure out what action I need to perform. Placing the mysterious photo back in the ticket office where I found it does not appear to work and I cannot remove the photos from the hall wall or from the bureau (if I try to remove them the description says the bureau is closed and I

Comment blokeyman

Updated with some slight corrections.

Thanks for the plays everyone. Please leave comments, good or bad.