Summers with the Sea King
Summers with the Sea King is a short interactive story written for ShuffleComp 2023. It placed #2 in Use of Songs and #3 in Game Goodness, for an average score ranked #1 overall. The story was inspired by the songs "Sea King" by Eisley and "white summer and green bicycle, red hair with black guitar" by The Pillows. I recommend listening to the latter while you read; I listened to it pretty much constantly while I was writing.
- First-person point of view
- UI changes with the main character's attitude
- Approx. 10k words
- Multiple endings
UI code originally based on the template by cer.
Drop an ask or say hi on my Tumblr, or check out the blog for my main project.
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
A great spin on the nostalgic summer romance! I got the sad endings first, and I think they're even more fitting than the happy ending (or maybe I'm just prone to melancholy). But there's something compelling about Kai staring out at the ocean, thinking about everything they've lost forever. Bittersweet and wonderful.
[Spoilers]
Even more tragic if you think about how, by giving up on their dreams, Kai unknowingly locks themself out of ever seeing Caspian again. They lose so much by giving into the drudgery of daily life, and don't even know it.
Thank you for your comments, my fellow fan of sad endings! 💜 It's fantastic to see someone reading the intentions of the story the way I meant them.
I love this so much! I just posted a review of it on IFDB. The only issue I noticed was that some of the flashback scenes switched between past and present tense. I'd also suggest having a "restart" button at the end, as otherwise there's no easy way to replay (I opened the link in a private browser window to get it to reset).
Really lovely game! I'm glad you were able to finish it for the jam. :)
Thank you so much! I'm sure there are some bits with tense I messed up, editing was such a blur, hahaha. Restart button is a great idea, thank you. 💜
There are multiple things in the game that hit me personally. The UI of the game and the backgrounds of the page are an excellent example of combining them to make the experience that much better. I loved Caspian.
Alone, I am moved by the game, but with the pillows playing (as recommended), I am beyond tears.
Truly a wonderful game and I had a great time reading it. And I hope you know that despite the difficulty you had in finishing it, it was well worth getting the chance to read it.
The only sort of "bad thing" I can think of is a, perhaps, grammatical error, which was:
"Still, it reminds me of another another memory from back then, of the game we used to play"
Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful comments! I'm so happy to see people reading and enjoying my sad little story. I always wonder if the parts that make me cry while writing will also make others cry while reading. 💜
ok, so i don't usually comment but i NEEDED to simp for "Summers with the Sea King." It is just too beautiful😠and left me with such a warm, soft feeling after reading. i genuinely love all the different endings... Spoilery ask if you don't mind me asking,
.
.
.
is there a possibility of them👀 meeting in the future if they didn't meet in that particular ending? or was it truly the end� Thank you so so much for creating and sharing such a gem of an interactive fiction<3
Thank you so much for your comment!! That's so kind of you. 💜 Spoilery answer:
.
.
.
.
.
I don't know if any of the endings are definitely the end. I like the way the "Goodbye" ending wraps things up, but for those MCs that might not be enough, and they could certainly go looking for more like the other high belief MC. I also thought about variations on the endings where high belief MCs find Caspian first, but he finds low belief MCs first, and their conversations would differ accordingly. I don't think that meeting couldn't still happen for low belief MCs, but I decided not to write it this time. 💜
thank you so much for the reply💗
hi! I'm sorry, but I think you haven't configured your for itch, it won't scroll so I'm unable to see the choices. most likely it needs the box checked to be launched in browser.
Thank you for commenting! I've changed some settings for the upload so it should have a larger browser frame and allow fullscreen mode to fix this.