The author answered that here:
Having finished the game now and sided with both the queen and the Halyards in different playthroughs, I really enjoyed this one. I do have a couple critiques though. As a caveat, I haven’t dived into the actual code, so this is just what I’ve seen from a reader level.
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The choice before the final battle where you choose one and only one companion to go with and finish their story arc feels a little like an intentional decision to artificially increase replayability. It sort of makes sense given the moment in the story that it occurs, but ends up leaving the story arcs of whoever you don’t pick dangling and wrapped up in the background by just telling instead of showing. I would prefer that it was maybe more tied to relationship stats or at least being able to pick more than one per run through, although I understand the design choice.
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On a related note, it seemed like the relationship stat, although continuous, really boils down to a binary. If you’re friendly (at or above 50%) you’re good and can progress through the entire character arc, if the drop below that you’re immediately not and lose access to choices. While it does simplify managing the party, it would have been interesting if there was a bit more nuance.
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Magic skills had a strange place in the story by not being an actual skill. It definitely felt like, aside from maybe one or two spells, if you learned a new spell, you’d either have one and only one choice to use it in the next couple pages or you’d immediately use it and forget about it. I could just not have seen other options because of branching, but, for example, the cessak spell and the magic eye from the archives were only used once. It would have been funny to be able to use cessak on Devatta every time we run into him. On the other hand, my human mage ended up feeling more like a bomb throwing maniac than a mage, because Boom in a Bottle was the
spell that recurred most frequently as a choice. Abstracting it away from the individual spell level would have helped make magic a little more flexible for choices. I noticed the author did that at the end if you choose to become a sage (where magic becomes tied to other stats in choices), but that felt a little jarring given the way magic was presented earlier in the game. I understand that it’s probably to give a sense that the character is now actually a magic user and not just a dabbler, but it’s a strange shift. -
Back to my original confusion about getting all the types of magic, it actually seems impossible for a high learned/second highest charm character to do so. I only saw one charm boost before the chance to get Rune magic, which was not enough to pass the check even with charm as the second highest skill. It’s possible I missed another boost, but I looked and couldn’t find one. Similarly, for bone scrying, it seems a little silly to lock a character out of getting that if they side with the queen, even if they’re able to convince the bone witch that they haven’t. At least, I think that would make more sense in the story if it was more clear she still didn’t trust you, even after a successful check.
Aside from these and a couple smaller issues, this probably ranks as my favorite game this year. Definitely made me feel nostalgic for classic CRPGs like Dragon Age and Skyrim!
2 Likes
I do have one question after two playthroughs. Is it possible to romance Vid and also deter him from taking the throne/dissolve the vayyan monarchy?I’m assuming not and that being anti monarchy will just make him mad, but some of the options seemed like genuine attempts to get him to abdicate so I was curious.
@Adhoc Thanks for the thoughtful critique. Your notes laser-homed in on some of the elements of the book that I struggled the most with.
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For me, if this were an isometric CRPG or something, I would definitely allow the player to go and finish each of these side quests personally. However, for a book of this nature, I do feel there’s some value in asking the player to decide which of these conflicts is actually important enough to them to go fight for and try to more directly influence the outcome of. However, I do agree that it robs the player of some sense of payoff for these side quests.
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Great observation. I agree that it’s too binary. I really struggled with balancing these and every time I tried to make it more granular, it ended up feeling too punishing for players. In the future, I’d probably avoid having a straight up bar that shows this, and also avoid getting so math-y with it, sticking to influencing the relationships more at key moments.
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I really didn’t want to tie magic to just one stat, because I feel that magic can be used in many ways and that it kind of sucks to be asked to choose between being strong vs. being magic. So I went with a more Vancean magic system, but I agree that it ends up being a bit of an odd fit for a book like this where managing inventory and spells is not necessarily the easiest or most compelling thing.
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My favorite thing about this critique is it might be easily fixable! I’m going to take a look at these checks and see if anything can be improved for these. It may simply be set too high.
@Igneous
Per your question: To paraphrase Meatloaf, Vid will do anything for love, but he won’t do that. I feel even with the player’s influence, Vid’s still a pampered prince who grew up heavily dependent on the monarchy for his identity, and he wouldn’t be willing to give that up.
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I had a feeling, haha, just wanted to double check
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My suggestion would be to simply lower the rune magic stat, as well as the bone scrying stat to 60. This way, both learned/charm Will have a chance to succeed as a second highest skill When acquiring it.
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I’m glad you found my notes helpful! In general, my philosophy for stats in CoG books is that first/second stats should be able to pass everything especially if the second stat is even a little boosted. Otherwise the opaque nature of the checks can make you wonder if it’s a mandatory fail.
As far as not tying magic to a particular stat, I respect your decision and it makes a lot of sense with what you’re going for. However, I think tying it to particular spells and esoteric items is a little bit too confining and also creates situations where your character seems to just forget about useful spells/items. Unlike say a TTRPG, you can only “choose” to use an item/spell when it’s chosen for you by the author. Perhaps a compromise might have been abstracting magic to the level of spell books/types of magic that you collect rather than specific spells? That way you can avoid making it a stat while also avoiding the pitfalls of having to keep track of individual spells.
To follow up with some things I really did like, the characters were superb and I appreciated having multiple opportunities to start romances. It was nice being able to start a romance when it felt in character and timely, not just rushed at an character’s introduction or the end.
Another feature I noticed that I really like and haven’t seen much of was being able to pick the specific dialogue after succeeding a Charm check. I think I saw this twice, when negotiating with Vid’s assassins and later with the Dwarven miners. On top of adding more choice flavor (which is generally good) I think it’s a good way to highlight a high Charm character’s talent isn’t in finding the one best argument, but knowing how to convince the listener to do what they want.
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I love that you noticed that regarding your final point, and it doesn’t just apply to Charm. Wherever possible after a skills check, I tried to allow the player to define how they succeeded or failed. ie if you passed a Might check, you can define whether you won because you fought with precision, wild abandon, etc. and similarly if you failed at it - were you too careful, not careful enough, etc?
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@JoshMLabelle Maybe it’s just me, but I found it strange that there is no lore about the halfling. Will we know more about them in a possible sequel or book in the same universe?
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That’s a great question. They aren’t really a big cultural force in this particular corner of the world, and occupy a similar place culturally to city elves (people in the human cities who have sort of halfway culturally assimilated and halfway stick out), so it wasn’t something I explored very much in the book. I also thought leaving a few gaps was probably a good idea for the future. A book set across the sea, in the land south of the mountains, or focused on thieves would likely feature more about halflings and where they fit in to everything.
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New patch!
- Fixed a few buffs vs. nerfs that were set incorrectly towards the end of the queen’s pet path.
- Added clarity and some small improvements with regards to the cost of the ship in Chapter 8 if you have connections in Varaja.
- Lowered challenge level for some of the checks in chapter 7 and chapter 8 for learning the different magics of the realm.
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i like that there were many side quests(also spells and inventory items) and things to do on the journey to end the queen. especially many tough choices in this like helping the dwarves or go all in against the queen. the scrolls for Khattya/Scribes or the sword for Anattho, etc
was playing as an elf with main stats Charm and Learned. though not every charm option was actually the best, but it’s good there were other ways than violence each time.
I romanced Anattho and Vid(as sophisticated an orc can be lol), since I liked both. & became the “concubine” of Vid & also lover to Anattho in the end.
my main issue is that I always had to choose between this & that… but it was still fun.
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Do you mean “consort”? I’m pretty sure there are no concubines in this game.
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yea sorry! confused the two words, English is not my native so I do get words mixed up sometimes. I meant “consort”
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That’s understandable. I’ve studied a few languages myself and said some silly things in the process. 
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Yet another fantasy story: I sleep
The villain has a robot army: Real shit
You can romance the main villain: Ascended
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POST-MORTEM: A CROWN OF SORCERY AND STEEL
Overview
In this space, I’m going to talk a little bit about the process of making the game and my takeaways. I’ll dig into some of the challenges I faced, what I think worked well, and what I think didn’t work so well.
If you haven’t played yet, this may be somewhat spoiler-y or influence your opinion of the book as you read. So if you’ve got any interest, I really recommend playing the game first and coming back to read all this later. (Plus, it’ll make more sense.)
And of course, if you like the game, rating it and reviewing on the platform of your choice is unbelievably helpful and much appreciated.
Beginning of the process
My first encounter with Choice of Games was when I played Choice of Robots on a plane many years ago. The trip absolutely blazed by as I tried all the different story routes. I really wanted to eventually make something that someone else might enjoy as much as that, and working on a CoG book became one of my long term career goals.
In 2020, I pitched a few ideas to Choice of Games, but after some back and forth I didn’t really have anything that seemed perfectly suited to the brand. A few months later, after I came first in IFComp that year with a fantasy story (Tavern Crawler), CoG reached back out and asked me if I had pitches of a similar tone and vibe to that. I whipped up a pitch for A Crown of Sorcery and Steel and barring some small changes along the way, the story maintained most of the key elements that were in that pitch.
Everyone at CoG was very easy to work with, and the back and forth on the pitches and the outline were both extremely positive experiences. As I worked on the book, I came to really appreciate some of the early notes I received that helped me head off big issues before I ran into them, such as clarifying and diversifying my stats and alignments. In retrospect, I wish I had understood these notes better and spent even more time addressing them. About halfway through the book, I thought of several additional stats/alignments that I wished I’d thought of earlier.
This is one of the biggest projects I’ve undertaken both in terms of the scale of the book itself and also the length of time I spent working on it. I initially set myself a goal to finish a chapter a month, but as chapters got more complicated this became difficult to adhere to. I would have never finished this book if I didn’t set myself a word goal each night. In general, I aimed for 1000 words each weeknight and 2000 each weekend. What I didn’t expect was that I’d be switching jobs partway through working on this. My steady, predictable schedule got upended, and dragging myself to 1000 words each night became really difficult.
I think if I were to write another book on this scale, I’d set myself weekly word count goals or something like that so that on days when I had nothing in the tank, I could ease up on myself a little. The daily goal was good for making steady progress, but it was pretty unforgiving. There were definitely sections of this book where it felt like dragging myself through glass to squeeze out that last 200 words each night, and I wouldn’t want to repeat that.
As many of the players who helped with beta feedback can attest to, one negative consequence of my working method was that the book was littered with unfinished sentences early on. I have some pretty serious executive function issues, and often to push through I’d have to jump around in the book a bit, trying to interest myself and pick off a few sentences in different sections as I went. I would… NOT recommend this approach, and thank you to everyone who helped catch the times when I simply started a sentence and never ended it because of my attention crapping out in the span of literally ten seconds.
Biggest challenges
Overambition
ACoSS is almost 400k words longer than my next biggest piece of interactive fiction, and many design challenges arose during the course of making it that I didn’t anticipate. In retrospect, I think it would have been wiser to scope down (both for my own mental health and for the quality of the end product) and allow myself to make something less ambition but more polished.
Perhaps that would have meant the queen’s route becoming more of an Easter Egg, removing a character from your party, or having fewer big options for your initial background at the beginning of the story. Trying to fight to include all of these in one story was simply too much.
Trying to pack everything in also meant that not as much time got to be spent on the small moments, building tension and tone in scenes, etc. On a future project, I’d do fewer scenes, more lovingly rendered, rather than ripping through things at such a speed.
Cursed Game Design Goals
From early on in the process, there were a couple of things that I really wanted to do in this game that caused me a ton of grief. The main ones were:
- Give the player the option of 4 significantly different backgrounds that radically change their experience of the first hour or so of the game
- Have a “queen’s pet” route that opens up quite early in the game.
In a way, I feel it was a mistake that the first two of these goals are geared towards increasing excitement about replayability but were executed to the potential detriment of a player’s first read. A ton of effort went into simply fighting these fundamental design issues.
I feel my solutions to these issues didn’t really end up being ideal, and every negative review has picked up on issues that I feel were caused partially by my failure to resolve these issues. Some of the things that I feel it contributed to are:
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Inactive/unmotivated player character
Because the player’s background is so malleable, and they come into the main location of the story as an interloper without much knowledge of Breakwater, there’s a lot of story and information that’s driven by other characters. It often feels too much like Anattho or Khattya is the main character, with the player along for the ride and telling them where to steer at key points. When I think about a story that does a great job with keeping the player character in the driver seat, I think of something like Blood Money by Hanna Powell-Smith, where I never feel railroaded and feel like my character is doing cool stuff from the very start of the game, driving the story forward. If I were to ever write another CoG book, I would aim for closer to that vibe and eschew this kind of broad experiment. Perhaps I could have avoided these problems by just being a more careful writer, but I really feel that a lot of them resulted from that initial story structure problem. -
Lore dump opening/feeling like you’re on rails
The opening has to inelegantly bring the player up to speed on elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, etc. It’s not the best for creating immersion early on. A lot of events in the early chapters feel like they’re just coming at you rather than feeling like they’re being driven by the player, simply because there’s so much to get through. I feel this was a bad foot to start the book out on. -
Broader character definition with less granular control
While you do get to decide if you’re an elf, dwarf, human, or orc, there are simply fewer choices of significance in building your character because of the high number of things already decided by your background. What’s interesting is that many reviews still complain about choices not mattering even though there are almost 100s of thousands of words of differing content in just the prologue and first chapter alone… because so many of those words spring from just one choice rather than many. -
Incoherence depending on some player choices
Because of the way the Queen’s Pet route works, there is the chance a player can experience a high degree of incoherence depending on their choices. These are edge cases, but they do exist. For example, a player who unlocks the Skaldsword or the Scrolls in the Annals before deciding to completely declare their allegiance to the queen will experience some weirdness in Chapter 6. I’ve tried to do what I can to fix these paths but the fact remains that a player on this route can run into more immersion-breaking weirdness than a player doing a meat-and-potatoes heroic playthrough.
Difficulty finding common threads in the beta feedback
The beta feedback for this game was really all over the place in a way that I hadn’t experienced in previous things I’ve worked on. While there were some common threads, there weren’t as many as I’d hoped and it was a bit hard to tease out what to spend my time on improving.
I’d have one player who loved Khattya and another who fiercely hated her. I’d have one person who loved how flawed all the characters are, and the next person say they were just a bunch of annoying tropes squabbling with one another. I’d have someone say the queen is the best antagonist they’ve seen in one of these games and another person say the queen is underdeveloped and barely a presence. I’d be told something was terribly balanced in one direction, then be told it was terribly balanced in the exact opposite way. I’d have a string of “meh” to “negative” reactions and then a couple saying it’s one of the best CoG books they’ve read.
You get the picture. All this to say, there was a ton of wonderful beta feedback that really helped me, and I appreciate everyone who contributed to it, but even with all that help it was still tough to figure out where to focus my attention and what to change, especially in a 450k word book that had so many small things in need of improvement. I also think that frankly, a lot of the problems with the book started with structural/design things that I wish I’d caught earlier on, and some of the mixed feedback may have related to that.
Being a better writer by the end of the process than I was at the beginning
This is kind of a weird and abstract one, but I think it’s true. When you write something that’s 450k words, you’re a better, different writer at the end of working on it than you were at the beginning, but you’re still stuck with all the work that first, less good writer did.
While I have done prose in the past, my main background is in screenwriting and game design, and I’ve never taken on so much prose at once before. I made a lot of rookie mistakes at the beginning of the process. My last months of working on the book were dedicated to a complete rewrite and overhaul of the opening two chapters, but I simply couldn’t account for all of the weaker prose and scene-craft that I had done when I was a less confident writer at the beginning of the book.
Takeaway
In keeping with the mixed reactions in the beta period, it’s been a bit hard to suss out what the overall response to the book is. Steam reaction is split right down the middle, and the negative reviews tend to zero in on the exact things I struggled with, with guided missile precision. Elsewhere, reviews have been more positive. So, I guess I can conclude it’s been sort of mixed overall.
My feeling is that this book has many flaws (balance issues and problems with the execution of magic rank high in my list of second tier flaws), but I think the book overall will work for you if the characters work for you. Your companions are prickly, very flawed, and take a while to open up to the player. This is an experience that I enjoy having in a game, but I can understand why another person might not, or why the book may not offer them enough reasons to put in the effort, and why the game may therefore fail for them.
For me, ACoSS was my constant companion throughout two years of pandemic, changing jobs, family stuff, mental health and career challenges, and moving apartments. I worked on it virtually every single day. I can honestly say I’m too close to have perspective on it yet, so perhaps this is more of an autopsy-while-the-body-is-still-warm rather than a post-mortem.
I’m happy that I got to write a book that packed in so many of my favourite fantasy elements and I hope people who will really dig it continue to find it! I’ve loved hearing player stories of the high drama they experienced as they romanced and betrayed their companions, or the kind of adventurer they created – from rogueish orcs playing both sides of the war to learned elves who cared only about preserving knowledge and everything in between.
Every player who shares a story like that makes me feel that the work put in on this book was completely worth it. Thanks so much to everyone who’s read the book and shared that kind of thing.
24 Likes
Didn’t you get a Review like other authors??
Every hardship is a mark of your endurance, every step you take speaks of your willingness to meet the challenge, every drop of sweat is a testament to your tenacity, and every success (Or failure) teaches you and others that the path may not be easy, but it will teach you and shape you regardless of where it leads.
Now that I got my hero worship out of mah system, you want drama?
Kathya, every time her eyes twitch? make me laugh and I’m like ‘Run for it? Run for it’ 
Wishing you all the best and looking forward to what you will come up with next! 
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Thank you so much for sharing these very honest reflections on your experience and your process. I always love this kind of glimpse behind the scenes, and I think we could all use a reminder of the tremendous effort involved in making interactive fiction of this kind, which at its best feels so utterly effortless.
I am glad that you went in with such high ambitions. The final product may not have lived up to your wildest imaginings, but that doesn’t mean it was a failure. In particular in the area of providing a diverse array of backgrounds that feel meaningful to the story, I thought you did brilliantly. I thought the “queen’s pet” route could have been stronger, not because it was at all bad in itself, but because everything else was just so much better. In a less brilliant game it wouldn’t have felt weak at all. And aside from what you’ve learned, which I do hope I get to see you put into practice in another game sometime soon, I hope and expect that other writers and aspiring writers will learn from this game - both by emulating what it does well and by putting some serious thought of their own into what they would have liked to be different and how they might have accomplished that.
If you do another game for CoG, I’d be interested to see how you handle something with a more intimate scope. ACoSaS is almost as epic as it sets out to be, but some of its best moments are the smaller ones, the arcs of the individual characters, the moments when a tropey persona falls away to reveal new depth, little moments of celebration or relaxation or grief. In fact, I’d say the reason the epic battle scenes and such work as well as they do is because of the attention you’ve put into making even minor characters feel like individuals. And you did so well with something massive and unwieldy that I think your work on something smaller in size and scope might well approach perfection.
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Thank you very much… and thank you for being my number one unfinished-sentence-catcher!
Despite my self-critique, I am proud of what the book is and part of me is really glad that I went big and ambitious for it. It’s been great to hear the incredibly different experiences that people were able to have because of that scope.
You also made me think of a point I forgot in my post-mortem, which is that I definitely underestimated the number of people who would go the queen route for a first playthrough. My experience professionally has been that evil paths tend to get picked by 1/10 people the first time through, so I figured the breakdown would be similar here, and I sort of expected this path to be more of a fun dessert that changes your experience on a second playthrough rather than a main course. However, I seem to have underestimated the sway of a hot, evil elf queen. Rookie mistake!! I would have dedicated a lot more time to this path and tried to fix a few of the oddities on it. That said, some of the most exciting player stories definitely come out of this path, so I am glad it’s in there.
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