Horizon Reviews: 80 Days Crossovers, Part 1 · 10:12pm Aug 11th, 2016
(80 Days Challenge: Original Post * Reviews Part 1 * Reviews Part 2)
Way back in the halcyon days of spring, I wrote a post challenging authors to play a lovely indie video game and write something in response to it. If you do, I promised, I'll review it. Half a dozen authors promptly assembled nifty stories, and 80 days later with the speed of an ancient tuna boat rounding the Peloponysian coastline, I've finally had a chance to make good on my promise!
It's been interesting seeing the variety of stories that came about, and the variety of reactions to the game that they represented. While they were all interesting for different reasons, I didn't think there was a bad one in the bunch, and there are a few true gems. Hit the break for my recommendations for five unique and worthwhile tales — hopefully with more to come.
80 Days: Under the Waves by Sharp Spark
While I'm reviewing these in publication order, I'm making an exception and bumping this one to the top of my stack for one specific reason. And that is: This is a Choose Your Own Adventure story that feels like it was ripped straight from the game, right down to the narrative tone and the way it presents its choices. This is so thoroughly, wholly 80 Days that I feel like wandering through this story a couple of times is very nearly a substitute for playing the game.
It's ponified, of course, and the scenario it offers is to my knowledge wholly unique (the protagonists are captured by sharkponies in a pirate raid and dragged to a secret town on the ocean floor). And while it doesn't (and can't) capture the experiences of fiddling with the game interface and the time/money/travel management elements, the way that it unfolds its narrative — and the way that there are layers to every encounter that require multiple playthroughs to fully appreciate, and especially the way that it rewards a certain kind of thinking, which I discuss in story comments — are all remarkably spot on. It feels like the cherry on top that this is just a fascinating CYOA in its own right, with half a dozen unique endings reflecting very different adventure paths. If you want to really sink into the 80 Days crossovers and see what authors are seeing in the game, start here.
Recommended for: Everyone, especially if you haven't had the experience of playing the game.
Around the 80 Worlds in a Day by hazeyhooves
This was the first story published for my competition, and while it's not the most ambitious — it's a depiction of a single leg of a longer journey, more excerpt than complete story — it scratches the same itch for me that the game did, and sets off in its own unique direction. The trip is an excursion around not just Equestria's world but around a ring of worlds (presumably alternate realities rather than space neighbors, since there's mention of rail lines connecting them). That's backdrop to some cool sightseeing, along with a tense situation and its aftermath, and some unfolding emotional reactions that give the trip some depth, and offer the story a sense of completeness if not closure.
Recommended for: Its worldbuilding, and its strong encapsulation of its mood in an easily digestible size.
BONUS REVIEW:
Blog post: "Choices In 80 Days and Planescape: Torment"
I keep telling all y'all to follow hazeyhooves, and this blog post is Exhibit D in an ongoing series. What Haze is doing here is remarkable nonfiction, deconstructing the way that 80 Days presents its choices to you and the nature of the choices you can make — one of the things that makes it such a singular gaming experience — and comparing it with a classic RPG that gave you similar narrative authority. When I said back in my original post that 80 Days can improve your writing? This is someone dragging one of those ways into the light. In understanding the interplay between game creator and game player, and in seeing the ways it shifts narrative agency from one to the other, you can understand the nature of that agency better, and the choices that we are continually making as authors of our own tales.
Recommended for: Anyone wanting a follow-up to my original post.
Pinkie Pie and the Search for Missing Adventure by FrontSevens
This has got to be one of the most enjoyable Take Thats anyone has ever aimed at me. The core of this story is an extended takedown of the game I talked up so much, deconstructing one of 80 Days' biggest failure states. Plot hook after plot hook is dangled under Pinkie's nose as she and Rarity journey onward, but the overarching demands of the trip keep her from experiencing any of them, and you can feel her frustration (and the author's) build as this goes.
There are some parts that the context of the game is required to fully savor — punchlines like the recurring gag about the sale prices of various oddball items are lifted straight from 80 Days gameplay — but this does a great job of making a genuine story out of anticlimax. Pinkie Pie is also written flawlessly, which is no small thing, and Honoluna is best horse pun. Having played the game and caught all the subtleties, this is up there for me with GaPJaxie's Love Letters To A Girl I Hate (a pony story similarly deconstructing Skyrim) in the way it turns a lackluster experience into art.
Recommended For: Its catharsis (especially if you disliked the game), and its strong Mane Six character work.
Soul Searching by Grand_Moff_Pony
Like the above two stories, this centers on a much-heard critique of 80 Days — that you rush headlong between tiny snatches of different adventures, not always finding closure (or even hearing the whole story). But this tale goes in a very different direction, one that reads more like a love letter to the game than a reinterpretation of it. In fact, the majority of the story isn't even told from the point of view of the world travelers, but from a cleric of the Arcane Council who (we later learn) never even met them firsthoof, and who is trying to track down one of the NPCs who aided the trip. GMP here is bringing to vibrant life one of those stories that the game only shallowly intersects, and while the story ends on a distinct lack of closure, it makes a defiant statement on that lack, and serves as evidence that the game leaving space for us to imagine our own resolutions can lead to moments just as powerful as if it had wrapped everything up with a neat little bow.
Recommended For: People who enjoyed the structure of the game, and for its ending twist and thematic statement.
Around The World in 81 Days (And Other Problems Caused by Leap Years) by GaPJaxie
As of this writing, Jaxie's story is at 17,000 words and climbing, with the journey at Day 12 of 81 — so this seems likely to clock in at novel length. I've created a monster.
But oh my gods, what a beautiful monster. Throughout the writing process, Jaxie peppered me via PM with teasers like:
Spike stuck out his tongue and crossed his arms. It wasn’t until Twilight laughed that he realized she could see his reflection in the glass. The interior of the car was almost totally dark now, only the backwash from the car’s headlamps providing any consistent illumination. “Oh, hush, Spike. You’re being worse than Shining Armor. I can take care of myself just fine, and I promise, the tango is not an ancient mind control ritual that makes mares dot their i’s with hearts and start planning what their wedding dress will look like. Though I did enjoy it.”
And the rest of the story is littered with glorious bon mots like that, mixed expertly with moments more melancholic and bitter. This is a wide-ranging adventure with on-point worldbuilding, on-point characters, and a roller-coaster of emotions, and the light-hearted tone is the perfect leavening for a dramatic story about tense racial relations and travellers getting in over their head (as well as Spike starting to find a place for himself out of Twilight's shadow). I so desperately want to talk about how everything in this story subtly and naturally builds to a moment in Chapter 7 which upends everything, but it would be a crime to spoil.
If you've heard good things about this, they're all true. If you haven't, let me be the first to point you there. This uses 80 Days the way that Stardust used XCOM — wholly accessible without it, with bonuses for fans — and I hope the Crossover tag doesn't keep general readers away.
Recommended for: Everyone (with special easter eggs for history buffs).
(Continue on to Part 2 of my story reviews.)
It's always such a good feeling when plot bunnies succeed like this. I look forward to seeing more stories too n_n
So wait, it's not over yet? <.< I can't review these if they aren't all there! Why is everything so difficult help D':
I say, Horizon! Well done. With just a few words and some good taste, you've brought about quite the little literary collection!
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Now, to read your review of my story in-particular...
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Thanks for the review, Horizon, and for putting this challenge out there. Definitely has added more items to my reading lists! :D
Thank you for the review, and the challenge! This experience was a big win for me--I got some games, I had fun writing a story, and you didn't dislike my story despite it being the extended takedown that it is :P
4144524
I've reviewed every story which has so far been published. 4144837's story is apparently about halfway posted, and there may be a few latecomers trickling in -- Icenrose, Cynewulf and Bradel all expressed an intention to write. If those stories aren't happening, I'll declare success here, but I want to check in with them first.
The only one I've read so far is GaPJaxie's, and it's an excellent one. I'm looking forwards to reading the rest of these, they all sound very cool!
It was a fun challenge, and now I finally get to see how the other writers approached this.
..... aaand everyone else's story is too amazing
Thank you for the review, Horizon, and thank you for the initial idea to begin with. It's really special seeing all of these great stories coming into existence as a result.
Why, Horizon, I always thought you far too circumspect to admit when you thought something sucked.
4146196
**facehoof**
That'll teach me to change my mind about how I want to express a thought midway through a sentence. Thanks for the editing eyes.
4146196 4148257
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And of course in a comment about editing mistakes, I can't even correctly tag the comment I was responding to.
Thank you for the help, Monarch; and Sharp, thank you in return for your story, and I'm glad this has turned out so well.