2.6 KiB
[RT][C] (A loose narrative retelling of) Avalon Code
-
Author: u/derefr *
-
Score: 12
-
Created: 2018-02-23T00:36:31
Post:
Comments:
u/derefr [+6] (4 minutes later)
Something about the directions MoL and WtC have taken lately has made me recall this narrative Let's Play thread from 2013.
Avalon Code was a kind-of-crap game for the Nintendo DS, but one with an especially intriguing concept. To quote the author's introduction:
Everything you know is going to end. Everyone you know is going to die. There is nothing you can do but try to make things better for those who will come after you. You accomplish this with the Book of Prophecy, a reality-altering tome that will create a new world based on what you record within. You can also use the book to "rewrite" the world around you, allowing you to modify monsters in battle, customize your equipment and even change the fates of other characters.
This, then, is someone's attempt to fix that crap game, by rewriting the protagonist from a generic JRPG MC into a real human being, with fears, doubts, and the ability to grapple with philosophical issues using epistemic rationality; and then retelling the game's story from that more-human point-of-view.
Unlike regular ratfic, this one just happens to be in the form of a Let's Play—and so has been "illustrated" with screencaps from the game it reinterprets. It is, thereby, constrained to stay (mostly!) on the same plotline as the original game, rather than straying off of it toward more world-optimizing-y waters.
I believe that the author's adherence to this constraint—despite the work being effectively original fiction—was an intentional thematic choice. Just like Avalon Code's protagonist must make decisions knowing of an inevitable future, this reinterpretation's author is, by the LP format, stuck "on rails" toward an inevitable ending of their story. The important thing, then—for the protagonist, and for the author here—is how one's choices can still make things better despite that.
P.S.: I really like the author's writing style (Didja Redo on SomethingAwful; Hortyort on YouTube). This seems to be a common sentiment. But they seemingly vanished in ~2014. Are they dead, or are they just known by another name now? If the latter, I wonder if they're out there publishing books these days. They certainly seem capable of it.