Ooooh... These are getting me itching to make a KS level again.

This is an old thread, but I figured I'd throw in my two cents since this is something I've thought about a fair bit.

I think that the main thing to consider about games as a medium is that they're interactive. This has been touched on by others in this thread, but my point is: how can you leverage that interactivity as part of your storytelling? We've started experimenting with that already; any game with multiple endings or a morality system can attest to that (even if both those mechanics are currently severely limited in the best cases). In those cases, you've affected the ending by your own play.

But we can go a little farther than that, I think. Take OFF, a French RPG where you control this guy called the Batter. The game makes the distinction very clear: It's not that you are the Batter, you control him. It's a quirk of the game's fourth-wall-less storytelling (which, at the risk of introducing spoilers, becomes more important to the story at the end of the game).

Now, I have some things I could say about OFF and the way it handles its own gameplay in service of the story. :U But if you can get past the first boss (sigh), the story really does leave you with a lot to think about regarding your agency in the game, and I think that angle is one that we could explore a lot more in game stories.

...
Aside from all that, one of the things that's been brought up (and which I REALLY enjoy) is when the game has a story that it leaves you to discover on your own. That's really just interactivity leveraged in another way: rather than feeding you the story all at once in a particular order, you can find it out on your own, at any pace you like. In some cases, you can even ignore the story to complete all the challenges, if that's your style. You're just put into this world and can enjoy it at your own pace. And that's what I, at least, really love about games: the potential for exploration, the ability to just take in a setting and infer from it what you will. Is that a lot of work, as Salmoneous said? Yes, but creating something that's good and worthwhile is nearly always a lot of work.

(I'd like to interject briefly and point out that the original rules said "the next three people", but it seems to be working without that, so I'll change it.)

Ahh. Thanks a lot for the input on the intro and outro; I wasn't sure what to do with them and they were sort of eleventh-hour additions anyway. I mostly just wanted to inform the players of what it was they were supposed to be doing.
What could I have done better, so I can keep it in mind for future endeavors?

I'd have to put some critical thought into figuring out how to make the pit escapable with the umbrella, haha. But that's a great suggestion!

And thanks for the kind words. I'm honestly as proud of my ability to actually do some of those jumps as I was of being able to create them. The umbrella one was probably one of my favorites.

Thanks for your feedback!

Granted. Your lack of bodily feedback regarding temperature results in the most bizarre hypothermia hospitalization your local clinic has ever seen.

I wish the Kickstarter projects I've funded would release sooner with no loss in product quality.

Bump, and the like! I think this level deserves it.
What a well-put-together little adventure. I enjoyed this a lot; the tilework and challenges were great.

Talk about a year-plus bump, wow.

I've listened to a couple of these, and I like them a lot so far! Lost Winter is quite nice; it reminds me (vaguely) of some of the battle themes from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, though that may be simply because I'm particularly fond of that game.