loved this game! wonderful and intriguing trans horror ngl. i like the different spectrum of opinions and beliefs on the team and how you experience the same events from their different perspectives. also it's cool how the rowing order/positions plays into the experience and creates this sense of the physical in this primarily text-based game. i played in order and definitely think Nat's is best for last!!!! <3
the framing of the different team members where you follow their POV through each side of the story works so well, especially with seeing how each of the girls views the other girls and watching the social dynamics play out from both insider and outsider perspectives. the building horror of the creature and the reveal with nat also made me fall in love with this story even more! and MAN what a trans story. trans horror rules forever
This is such an amazing story. I love your writing style, it gives detail when it is supposed to while also withholding just enough information. It also made me feel things and that's one of the most important things in writing imo. Also, the deep dive into different perspectives offered so much richness to this story. Just thank you for making it!
This game is fantastic! I knew nothing about rowing but it turned out to be a super fun framing device for this game (shoutout to the art, lol). I love the transness in this story and how different all the characters feel from each other. Trans characters being allowed to be messy and imperfect? Yes please. Definitely worth playing.
holy shit, this was incredible!!! you did such a fantastic job with giving each perspective so much detail and focus while still withholding JUST enough to make me need to read the next part as fast as possible. i love that it can be read in any order, but working my way up from christine to nat was so fun, the fact that they're all facing the same direction except nat is so perfectly symbiotic with the formatting of the story. getting the internal monologues for each character was always interesting and rewarding, you got into each of their mindsets so effectively--NONE of them felt flat at all, each one was so great at representing very specific and very prevalent behaviors/mentalities in women's sports and where exactly they stem from! i don't know how else to describe it, but it feels like it really creates its own weight, representing each of their fears so closely against each other--like the TERF paranoia just feeding further and further into itself against the very tangible threat present for the trans women around them, or the fear of social consequence versus the fear of outright violence, like, it feels like there's so much space for the story to really speak for itself, if that makes sense. sophia's perspective had to be my favorite out of all of them, her taking over the bow was SUCH a good moment every single time, especially from her angle! amazing work!!
If I was Nat I would have... probably acted similarly albeit out of non-confrontational hesitance instead of callousness and that's a bit terrifying.
The first time I got to see a character survive it was a relief of a surprise plot reveal because for some reason I assumed that Nat would be the only one, if any.
RIP Beetie although I likely would've hated her IRL
I found the story a bit confusing at times. Partly it's because I don't know anything about rowing, so the relative position of the girls was hard to conceptualize, but that's my problem; mostly because it was at times hard to track who was talking. I think it could have used a few traditional dialogue tags.
Because of this occasional confusion, I also did not like the choice of preventing the reader from accessing the same POV twice. Seems excessively constricting for no real reason.
That aside, I thought the writing managed to mostly hit the sweet spot between being quick and having enough detail, which I feel is important in interactive fiction. It was interesting jumping around different points of view (the Cox being upside down gave it away, though!). The cover art is also really nice.
Spoiler alerts for the story below First of all HOLY FREAKING COW THIS IS SO GOOD AHHHHHH LITERALLY CHANGED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY IN REAL TIME I WAS GASPING IN SHOCK AND LITERALLY GLUED TO THE SCREEN OMG
Ok shouting aside, I love the formatting, how it's the same story told from 9 different POVs, and how each girl's thoughts and background displayed in their section. At first I thought that it was Cox who was the only trans girl on the team, but turns out that she was the reason that the whole giant monster squid attacked, and the supernatural aspect just makes the whole story so much better. Like technically this story could be read in any order, but I waited until I read 1-8 until I read Cox and SUDDENLY things started to make sense and I was like OH MY GOD SO THAT'S WHY
Also I loved how none of the girls were two-dimensional, including the terfs. At first, when I read the story from 2's POV, I hated 3 and 5, but when I read their POVs, I still hated them, but at I understood why they acted the way they did. And also 4's fears and doubts about not belonging in the team, about how her and 3's thoughts mirrored each other. Made everything hit so much harder
Holy cow there's so many layers to this I could talk this for days. The interactions with each other, how there are things that some girls noticed that other girls didn't, how their different personalities and backgrounds all led them to the same rowing team in college, how the many mentions of the transphobe protestors and twitter and online hate made it feel like there was a whole world outside the story (which is extremely like our world, unfortunately)
like how did you do this??? Like there's so much contained in this stand-alone that there's so much to go off of ahhhhh it's so amazing
Last thing: I love the cover art, how it looks yonic, and the tentacles connecting to each of the paddles and how the tip of the boat reminds me of the Jaws movie poster
Ok peace out I need a few more days to fully absorb this into my skull
a beautifully written piece that talks about transphobia in women's sports :''') know nothing bout crew but i was never lost. i love how you formatted it, too!! it's that feeling of, "damn, i wish i thought of that." and switching between povs... very cool. to anyone reading, i recommend playing in order. save nat's for last!
(i'm pretty sure it's meant to be read in order, but i didn't realize that at first..)
oh!! then don't mind me, hehe. i read beatrice's pov first cause i liked her nickname – but my sentiment of "do nat last!" stays strong! i'll definitely reread with the context i've learned though!
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loved this game! wonderful and intriguing trans horror ngl. i like the different spectrum of opinions and beliefs on the team and how you experience the same events from their different perspectives. also it's cool how the rowing order/positions plays into the experience and creates this sense of the physical in this primarily text-based game. i played in order and definitely think Nat's is best for last!!!! <3
would love to play more things like this ngl
the framing of the different team members where you follow their POV through each side of the story works so well, especially with seeing how each of the girls views the other girls and watching the social dynamics play out from both insider and outsider perspectives. the building horror of the creature and the reveal with nat also made me fall in love with this story even more! and MAN what a trans story. trans horror rules forever
This is such an amazing story. I love your writing style, it gives detail when it is supposed to while also withholding just enough information. It also made me feel things and that's one of the most important things in writing imo. Also, the deep dive into different perspectives offered so much richness to this story. Just thank you for making it!
This game is fantastic! I knew nothing about rowing but it turned out to be a super fun framing device for this game (shoutout to the art, lol). I love the transness in this story and how different all the characters feel from each other. Trans characters being allowed to be messy and imperfect? Yes please. Definitely worth playing.
[very mild spoilers ahead!]
holy shit, this was incredible!!! you did such a fantastic job with giving each perspective so much detail and focus while still withholding JUST enough to make me need to read the next part as fast as possible. i love that it can be read in any order, but working my way up from christine to nat was so fun, the fact that they're all facing the same direction except nat is so perfectly symbiotic with the formatting of the story. getting the internal monologues for each character was always interesting and rewarding, you got into each of their mindsets so effectively--NONE of them felt flat at all, each one was so great at representing very specific and very prevalent behaviors/mentalities in women's sports and where exactly they stem from! i don't know how else to describe it, but it feels like it really creates its own weight, representing each of their fears so closely against each other--like the TERF paranoia just feeding further and further into itself against the very tangible threat present for the trans women around them, or the fear of social consequence versus the fear of outright violence, like, it feels like there's so much space for the story to really speak for itself, if that makes sense. sophia's perspective had to be my favorite out of all of them, her taking over the bow was SUCH a good moment every single time, especially from her angle! amazing work!!
MASSIVE spoiler comment probably
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If I was Nat I would have... probably acted similarly albeit out of non-confrontational hesitance instead of callousness and that's a bit terrifying.
The first time I got to see a character survive it was a relief of a surprise plot reveal because for some reason I assumed that Nat would be the only one, if any.
RIP Beetie although I likely would've hated her IRL
I found the story a bit confusing at times. Partly it's because I don't know anything about rowing, so the relative position of the girls was hard to conceptualize, but that's my problem; mostly because it was at times hard to track who was talking. I think it could have used a few traditional dialogue tags.
Because of this occasional confusion, I also did not like the choice of preventing the reader from accessing the same POV twice. Seems excessively constricting for no real reason.
That aside, I thought the writing managed to mostly hit the sweet spot between being quick and having enough detail, which I feel is important in interactive fiction. It was interesting jumping around different points of view (the Cox being upside down gave it away, though!). The cover art is also really nice.
Spoiler alerts for the story below
First of all HOLY FREAKING COW THIS IS SO GOOD AHHHHHH LITERALLY CHANGED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY IN REAL TIME I WAS GASPING IN SHOCK AND LITERALLY GLUED TO THE SCREEN OMG
Ok shouting aside, I love the formatting, how it's the same story told from 9 different POVs, and how each girl's thoughts and background displayed in their section. At first I thought that it was Cox who was the only trans girl on the team, but turns out that she was the reason that the whole giant monster squid attacked, and the supernatural aspect just makes the whole story so much better. Like technically this story could be read in any order, but I waited until I read 1-8 until I read Cox and SUDDENLY things started to make sense and I was like OH MY GOD SO THAT'S WHY
Also I loved how none of the girls were two-dimensional, including the terfs. At first, when I read the story from 2's POV, I hated 3 and 5, but when I read their POVs, I still hated them, but at I understood why they acted the way they did. And also 4's fears and doubts about not belonging in the team, about how her and 3's thoughts mirrored each other. Made everything hit so much harder
Holy cow there's so many layers to this I could talk this for days. The interactions with each other, how there are things that some girls noticed that other girls didn't, how their different personalities and backgrounds all led them to the same rowing team in college, how the many mentions of the transphobe protestors and twitter and online hate made it feel like there was a whole world outside the story (which is extremely like our world, unfortunately)
like how did you do this??? Like there's so much contained in this stand-alone that there's so much to go off of ahhhhh it's so amazing
Last thing: I love the cover art, how it looks yonic, and the tentacles connecting to each of the paddles and how the tip of the boat reminds me of the Jaws movie poster
Ok peace out I need a few more days to fully absorb this into my skull
a beautifully written piece that talks about transphobia in women's sports :''') know nothing bout crew but i was never lost. i love how you formatted it, too!! it's that feeling of, "damn, i wish i thought of that." and switching between povs... very cool. to anyone reading, i recommend playing in order. save nat's for last!
(i'm pretty sure it's meant to be read in order, but i didn't realize that at first..)
it's meant to be read in any order!! but i understand the desire to save nat's for last 🥰
oh!! then don't mind me, hehe. i read beatrice's pov first cause i liked her nickname – but my sentiment of "do nat last!" stays strong! i'll definitely reread with the context i've learned though!
beautiful work :)
looks mildly like a vagina, i like it