I am the perfect gentleman (okay maybe not always, but in this story I am). My first attempt to read this “novel” ended with the perfect ending. All I had to do was not to drug any woman and be polite to everybody. I wondered if this is the message of the story so I went back and tried to reach all the other endings. While I did not reach all of them, I did find out that the creators of this work definitely had an agenda behind the different paths. I died twice (once by a deadly python) because I did not maintain my virtue and I succumbed to the “dark” ideas of getting drunk, laid, and arrested.

I realized like the previous posting that this was definitely more of a game than a novel. All I had to do was figure out what the creators wanted me to do in order to reach a desired ending. The power (which we touched on last week) at first seemed to be in the hands of the reader but as I continued to experiment with the text, I realized that the authors had complete power. They are the ones who mapped out the different paths through this novel. Sure, I could choose what I wanted at certain times but if I wanted the perfect ending (and who doesn’t want that satisfaction) I had to think of what they wanted me to do. Once I approached this text with this mindset, I had a lot of fun with it. There were some very amusing scenes and comments from the authors. The (Premature) Ending was very funny. I mean you better not die in your dreams. We all have heard that before.

There was a bit of frustration in reading this work though. When faced with a choice I wanted to choose both so I could find out what both paths entail. It left me with some questions. What was in that drink he gave me? What happened to that naked girl I left with the police? If I chose something different, would I have found out? Not that I could figure out.

-Dave