Return to the Stars

After having been taken captive in battle, you soon settled into a routine: sleep, eat, shower, reconsider your life choices, repeat. Until, one day, there is no more food. Or guards, for that matter. It seems to be up to you to find a way out of your prison and back home...


Return to the Stars is parser-based interactive fiction, which means that you type in commands for the player character and read what happens next. It was created as an entry for ParserComp 2021. If you are unfamiliar with this kind of game, this card should get you started.

The game has built-in hints: just type ABOUT to bring up the menu. In there you will also find a list of 'unusual' verbs, as well as my e-mail address, should you get truly stuck. David Welbourn has contributed maps and a complete walkthrough. Thanks, David!

StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android
Rating
Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars
(1 total ratings)
AuthorA.W. Grayson
GenreInteractive Fiction
Tagsparser-based, Sci-fi, Singleplayer, Text based
Average sessionAbout a half-hour
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard
LinksIFDB, Source code

Download

Download
Plain Story File 1.1 MB
Download
Windows Bundle 1.5 MB
Download
Plain Story File (Comp Version) 1 MB

Install instructions

RttS was created using Inform 7 and compiled for the "Glulx" virtual machine. The Windows download comes bundled with an appropriate interpreter program. For other platforms, use the Plain Story File download, and run it with a Glulx interpreter: examples include Lectrote (Windows, Mac, Linux), Fabularium for Android, and Frotz for iOS.

Development log

Comments

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(1 edit)

Oh, this one is - IMHO - a bit unfortunate: 

Because the writing is solid, good quality (on the technical level: flow and syntax and conciseness and all that) (and with some character, too); well built, implemented, and with good 'flow' from place to place; there's also a good amount of content and a help system...  

it's just a bit dull though. 

E.g. (and without spoilers) 'the fourth room': the exits are hidden behind corners, exciting, it connects to 'the early area', interesting, I'm still feeling apprehensive over my brand new situation.... but there's nothing of note in it.

 Or, the area between the prison and the military complex. That's nice, a bit of surprise, bit of danger, took me '10 seconds' to even get there, and the sediment has its own description, too.... but then nothing in particular happens there. 

After that, we get a brief memory flashback for the character. Maybe we'll learn some more about them later, would be interesting and help the player feel more invested in them...

There are also entire rooms where the description goes out of its way to say that it's bland and basic and featureless, and nothing is to be found there. 

Like, if one wanted a 'hotfix', imagine the character having some interior monologue about why things are this way, what might have happened here before, and what might (have to) happen next. That would IMO go a long way to add suspense (and give the character some more depth). And maybe one more smaller puzzle in areas that otherwise have nothing in them (or cut/ replace some of them)

(+1)

There's a few things that I absolutely had to use the hints for, as it wasn't obvious. How to get the knife, how to get the ship powered up (I had the requisite item), and the lack of prompts about where to go stumped me for a while in the prison.

Oddly enough, the forcefield and getting off the island were easy.

I'd say you'd need to work on polishing up hints of what to examine (The ship controls and the knife REALLY stood out as egregious), and that's about it. Of course I would appreciate more content for each area, and maybe diverging decisions.

Also what's the point of specifying the ammo as three clips/magazines when you don't interact with the items at all? 

Noted.

(The ammo count was one of the things I added just because I felt it would be weird if it were absent. Perhaps I guessed wrong there.)

Honestly, I would put it in with the blurb of you taking the rifle. "You take the rifle, load it, and all the spare ammo you can find"

How do you find the suit?

I found the control room and the helmet.

(+1)

(Note that the game has built-in hints in the ABOUT menu. You can also find my e-mail address there.


I don’t want to spoil too much on the public forum, but you’ll have to explore some more. You are looking for the easternmost room of the building.