"Arthur: A Retelling" by Isabel Azeredo

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I will ask everyone to exercise patience until we come to a consensus.

So for now, please do not discuss another’s behavior in this announcement thread.

Please keep your focus on the story-game itself and not the posters of this thread.

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I really am a big fan of Arthurian legends and IF, but I’m starting to be a bit concerned that there have been more talks about the virtues (or lack of) short IFs. There have been some really fantastic short IFs. The concern lay in that there are more discussions going around the topic of this IF and not about it.
For those that might be wary because of length, it would be helpful if people were specific on what they liked (or disliked) about this IF. And not sweeping generalizations that make me wonder if people have actually read this or are just trying to be supportive of an author (which is valid). I have seen more discussions not about the IF here than about the IF (directly).

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For what it’s worth, I’m quite certain that The Passenger and Mage Elite not getting an announcement thread was purely accidental - a careless oversight that was in no way targeted or malicious. It was just after the chaos of the holidays, they were probably temporarily understaffed, they were already running late, and out of the many, many small moving parts that go into a game release (uploading and announcing to various platforms), one was overlooked.

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For what it’s worth, criticism is still criticism, no matter how it was delivered. Especially when we have only seen one guy who has actually read the book and make a review on it. And the rest is just about defending the length of the book and not the actual content within it. Like c’mon, saying that this game can be good(especially when you guys haven’t read it) just because other short games are good is kinda low-hanging.

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After an initial reading and investigation, the moderator team believes that any misgendering is unintentional and should be reported to the HG support team by sending an email to support@choiceofgames.com.

Regarding aspects of the game that you may like or dislike: feedback is both encouraged and welcome, although adhering to community standards and expectations, that means giving constructive and actionable feedback. Please adhere to the Be Kind To Others section of the FAQ when writing critique.

As I have said above. It is time to move forward from any feedback/criticism involving word count or lack of word count.

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I don’t think shorter works are bad, but I am a little skeptical that anyone can tell an “epic reimagining of Arthurian legend” in less than 30k words (including code) and in IF form no less. I’ll try to pick it up later if the reviews are favorable.

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This is my position as well, the mythology around Arthur and his era is way too vast for me to put much credit in any attempt at reimagining it under a few hundreds of thousand of words.

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Ok come on guys, be nice. This is the first work by this author and seems to have gotten limited amounts of people volunteering to beta test it before release, so if there’s something you wish was different, phrase it nicely rather than making assumptions about why the author has done something. First game often has a big learning curve for a lot of first time authors out there myself included. If there’s possible issues, it’s good to hear them, but it can be done constructively with some consideration that the author is human and wanted to make something enjoyable for the IF community.

I’ve only looked at this up to the first timer which admittedly is not far in. My feeling about it I think is correct, I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t have a strong inspiration from “the sword in the stone” cartoon which is whimsical and meant to be a bit silly in a mildly humourous kind of way. This game feels very modern rather than medieval in some ways, particularly the speech. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, to be honest I’m generally more into more serious takes on the Camelot stories, but that’s the trickiness of writing humour. I’m pretty time poor at the moment, but given this game is FREE, I’ll likely come back to it and see where it goes.

Yes it does seem to be written as a semi defined character with some set characteristics. Shouldn’t be surprising since this is a retelling of Arthur of Camelot, a character that already exists. IMO this one probably could have done with being a totally set character if there’s a particular story the author wanted to tell IMO, but that is generally very poorly received as there is a strong preference for character creation rather than guiding characters so I can see why they’ve coded gender variables in but then left it as you tend to be classed as a boy or a tom boy type character. I detected no malice there. This is not a COG game which seems to be possibly where the confusion comes in. HG rules are much, much looser with regards to character creation.

It’s happened before. I’m sure it was an accidental oversight particularly given the time of year. The other option is if the author makes a release thread before COG gets to it they often don’t make a second one. This game and the author have nothing to do with other game’s release schedules, this discussion does not belong here.

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An actual comment on the story - I usually try to find something positive to say, so I will say that the author does seem to have been genuinely passionate about their work. The artwork is convincingly made, and the art style compelling.

I will not comment on the word count as it is not very relevant and others have.

The actual work though, seems to have been (and was advertised) as a comedy, but I found myself laughing not because the book was funny, but laughing as in “these jokes are really bad, it’s so absurd I’m laughing because WTF?”

I also felt like I’d been dropped in a weird setting without much explanation, and wasn’t sure why I was searching some…high school bleachers for a helmet??

I’m not sure their choice to have such a closed beta was a good idea either - doesn’t seem to have gone through much rigorous testing.

If it had, someone might have given some advice on the paragraphing/spacing.

As it is, even the Stats Screen variables are not capitalized. The coding end and fake_choices are also not well done.

Frankly, it felt like I was reading a book made by a thirteen year old, and not in a flattering way.

Edit: One of the screens seems to have been taken from Choice of The Dragon and the animal names just edited and the wording loosely paraphased. This is intensely lazy.

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“Arthur, you ignorant weasel! How many times do I have to tell you, kung fu is strictly forbidden in this home!”

…yeah. Some things shouldn’t need tags. :smiley:

It’s a cute, jokey little piece. It made me laugh. It’s worth the ad view and/or the £2 to turn off ads. And it’s worth a forum thread.

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and you get to make fun of Merlin!

The pictures are nice too!

I say 'Don’t take it seriously and enjoy the silliness.

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To be fair, that’s how most of comedy genre feels to me. It’s way more hit-or-miss than, say, thriller.

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True. I have an innate dislike of most comedies, but obviously that is not very fair to the author. Still, the writing is poorly paced, and I am surprised there were no lines about “breasted boobily” in there - that was the level of humor.

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For the taking of 75% of revenue to publish with Hosted Games, for purposes that include marketing and the such, I expect this to be an issue that should be taken seriously and not attributed to “the chaos of the holiday season” when this also happened to Sword of Rhivenia. Being that the only marketing it received was an email to the email subscribers…

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I have to agree with this review. One thing I absolutely can’t stand in a book ( and this might be a personal pet peeve) is a snarky narrator. The narrator who just wants to have a one-sided conversation with you, the reader, and rub their superiority in your face.
I couldn’t get past it long enough to finish this book. However, I read enough to realize that it’s the kind of comedy where the wit is supposed to make up for the lack of story-telling and worldbuilding. The story exists as a setup for the author’s jokes and that’s why there is Kung-Fu in Camelot.

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Oh dear. Now I am a bit afraid - my own book definitely has a snarky narrator, but I definitely don’t rub things in your face - at least I try not to! I only really rub if you’ve managed to fail a stat check so badly you deserve it (by obviously picking wrong things)

Will have to relook at my open demo…

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Start a tumblr, discord if it gains traction, and be active on all of those so you can get beta feedback. Put yourself out there!!!

I hope the author of Arthur: A Retelling sees this and does the same for their next work! Dont be discouraged mate, you can make another game and learn from this as you further polish your skills!

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There are some readers that really enjoy a snarky narrator.

If you still have concerns read back over the feedback you have gotten so far on your open demo to see how readers are liking the narrator.
If the majority of the readers are enjoying the snarky narrator then just leave it as is

Or you can create a poll and ask them how the feel about the narrator

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Release Threads Discussion

If I’m not mistaken, the turning into animals thing was originally in TH White’s The Once and Future King, which the Disney animation is based on. It (Arthur: A Retelling) does start with a more humorous/whimsical style instead of a straightforward take, though it gets more serious and fantastical in later chapters fwiw.

(Also I thought the kung fu thing was a reference to King Arthur Legend of the Sword. Anyone remember Kung Fu George? :stuck_out_tongue:)

A note about the gender options: if you play as female or enby Arthur, your name will still be Arthur. You will at times be called son of Uther and “Arthur himself” at one point by Rience.

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