Zeitgeist 1980 is a Twine game I started working on in November 2019 for National Novel Writing Month. Heavily inspired by the action-comedy films of 1980, most directly Smokey and the Bandit II and Any Which Way You Can, it puts the player in the role of a suburban high school Sophomore sent to stay with their irresponsible cousin over winter break.
One thing leads to another and the next thing you know, bam, they’re driving a big rig loaded up with a mysterious cargo cross country.
I’ve now reached the point where the story is playable from beginning to end, though in a rough and unpolished form. I still need to go through and check my spelling, grammar, and the overall prose flow. Before that, however, I need to make sure all the code is working, catch any bugs, repair any dead links, add any missing HTML tags.
It is, however, a big game. Hundreds of passages, and not very linear. Playing through each permutation with every possible character isn’t terribly feasible. Not for one person.
Hence the open beta-testing.
Beta Testing Guidelines
I want you, reader, to give Zeitgeist 1980 a playthrough. Heck, play it more than once if you feel so motivated. While you do so, watch out for:
- Dead links
- Missing HTML tags
- Assorted other bugs
- Logical errors
- Broken formatting
I’m not as interested in grammatical or spelling mistakes – after the beta testing is complete I’ll be running a revision pass over the text and neatening everything up.
I am interested in your general opinion of the game. Specifically, did you enjoy it? Is it worth polishing with art assets and music? I’ve got an idea for a sequel inspired by 80’s films Caddyshack and Alligator, should I go ahead with that or maybe switch to a game inspired by 90s cinema?
Take a look, let me know what you think.
Michael Coorlim
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