A postmortem for my first game

"Into the bush" is the first game that I completed. I wanted to create something small and easy to finish, in order to get a grip on the Twine system.

The game was inspired by various sources, like the book "The things they carried", various Vietnam war movies and countless Vietnam war documents and audio recordings. I wanted to create something that conveyed the burden of command and the countless waste of life that accompained this war. The enemy is always present but it's never seen, and the Vietnam rough terrain becomes a quiet hell.

Getting the best ending is very difficult on purpose, and actually it's not a very positive ending either. The few choices converged in the final scene, where the player's decision affect the outcome of the battle and the main character survival. A tempting option is left open to give a easy but gruesome win, that leaves a bitter aftertaste. The characters are just outlined, the player can't know every one of them in a single playthrough and are killed easily and often out of the scene. I wished to create a bigger interaction net with them, but that made the game too dispersive.

This game gave me the confidence to build other games, and maybe try my luck with more ambitious projects. If you find any errors during the playthrough let me know, even if I won't develop the game further I will definitely fix the errors that will be found.