Note - I’ve tidied some off-topic posts about announcement threads into their own thread. Please discuss announcement threads there as you wish.
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While I believe the work is in public domain, the art in this CoG is by Aubrey Beardsley, drawn for Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, not by this author.
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I honestly hope someday there will be story where we can play as sir kay or other not so well known knight but yeah i think this good
I wasn’t going to reply but mans has been called out twice so okay. When I said 30,000 words was impressive, I was referring more to the effort and commitment than the actual word count. I have started and left countless projects that far exceed ones that I have seen to fruition. Now sure, not everyone is as blasé as me but the success of an author who has seen and completed a project to completion should be commended, it’s hard to convince myself to get up in the morning sometimes, let alone publish a piece of work.
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i… just read the whole book and thread discussion. playthrough took me a little over an hour. honestly the thread is pretty hectic but the book itself was fine.it has flaws like the much mentioned pacing but i still liked it.
it’s not for everyone so i can see why some people don’t like the humour but tbh you shouldn’t take it too seriously.i liked the angle the book was aiming for and i don’t think it was meant to be a guinevere or whatever merit people put on arthurian games, rather something jokey and short like @Havenstone mentioned.
i would say give it a try if you’re up for a fun and light read. it has a very nice price too.
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A post was split to a new topic: Word Count Discussion
There is a new thread for word count discussion. Please respect the author and stop derailing her announcement thread.
Next post in this thread that talks about word count will trigger moderation.
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Just finished a play through. There is definitely some grammatical errors, misspellings etc
Pacing needs to be polished up more.
Would recommend that the author consider doing a closed beta for their next work to help iron out the rough spots.
I did enjoy the snarky-ness of the author.
This story isn’t meant to be taken seriously so if you approach it with the mindset that it’s meant to be a jokey/tongue in cheek light read then you may enjoy it.
This is their first work and as with anything the more you continue to do something the better you will get at it.
So I do hope the author decides to continue to write Interactive Fiction as they have really good potential.
I look forward to seeing them get better and better at this.
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The post with my review got split into another thread, so I’m moving it here.
I’ve played the game up to the first paywall and I’m not enjoying it so far. I’ll try to give some constructive feedback on why that is. The humor in the game hinges on sarcastic comments and gags that work well only in visual mediums. I feel it would have been better to rely on more profound, sharper jokes about the Merlin universe rather than snarky comments. The scenes transition sharply and there are few descriptive passages. The quest we are embarking on isn’t explained, but I suppose that’s part of the joke.
The unlikeable protagonist is extremely difficult to pull off, especially in a branching narrative medium. If the MC does not have any redeeming qualities, it’s really difficult for the player to form an emotional bond with them. Maybe it would have been better to also show a more human side of the MC in the first chapter.
For me, the length of the game is not an issue, as I’ve enjoyed other sub-100k word games posted here. I wasn’t pulled in enough to get past the first paywall. I understand that the game is made with humor in mind and it’s intended to be lighthearted, but humor alone does not make a good story. Characters, setting, and pacing are just as important in comedy games as much as they are in more ‘serious’ ones.
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I’m gonna start this post with what I liked. Most people are saying that this is comedic and lighthearted. Yes, it does start that way, but I think it’s a bit of a disservice to reduce the story to that because it actually has more up its sleeve if you play until the end. If you choose to be turned into a fish, you will see a vision of Galahad and the Holy Grail. Or if you try to storm out to get away from Merlin, it pretty much reveals that something shady is going on with him.
I thought that part was cool and added something new to the story. Too many adaptations make Merlin an entirely benevolent force whom we’re not supposed to question, so it’s good to see something different. You can even refuse to take the sword from Nimue, which is an interesting addition and a good use of interactivity.
I also enjoyed the scenes where we got to know Guinevere and Bedwyr. They’re both sweet, and Guinevere reminds me of her counterpart in the Merlin show.
As for what I disliked, this feels like I’m joining a dogpile and I feel bad… 
Hope this doesn't come across as harsh, and if it does I'm sorry in advance.
Sometimes the narrator’s snark was funny, but when they asked for my MC’s name and then proceeded to ignore it, that crossed the line into downright mean-spirited. No wonder this Arthur has an attitude problem. That, combined with the MC being called Uther’s son several times, makes it misgendering. It would be one thing if the MC is meant to be a reincarnation of a male version of Arthur (Nimue’s scene seems to imply this), so everyone expected MC to be a boy, but I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be the case here.
This leads me to say that the gender option could have been handled better. It’s not fair to people who play as self-inserts because a male Arthur will never be misgendered and raised as a different gender. The only point where the story uses your inputted name is in the ending, but only if you are in a romance with someone. If you end up with no one, you get a scene with Merlin and he still calls you Arthur.
I’ve said before that I don’t like when my MC’s gender forces them to present or behave a certain way. This applies in reverse, where no matter what, the MC will be brought up as a boy and wear boy’s clothes, and it’s not up to you whether you want that. If you want to let a female or nb Arthur present as a boy (maybe they are gnc or trans and closeted), it should have been an option for the player. Also, the bit about medieval gender roles doesn’t feel true in the rest of the story, since neither Bedwyr or Guinevere seem surprised to learn that the MC is a female squire. They treat you the same way, and there are even some endings where you end up married to Guinevere.
I would’ve liked to have more scenes where Arthur spends time with one of the three ROs before making up their mind about them. The romances moved too quickly imo, but to be fair, they were a nice depiction of teenage love. The plot in general felt too fast-paced, even in a slow read. It’s a shame because there were clearly a lot of references to the myth, and they could’ve been expanded upon if it hadn’t been over-ambitious.
I think it would’ve reached more of its potential if it were a self-contained, slice-of-life-ish short story about Arthur’s youth before taking the crown. Without the high-stakes parts of Arthur’s destiny like Excalibur and rebel kings, it would have allowed for more focus on the characters, interactivity, plot lines being resolved satisfyingly etc. without needing to write hundreds of thousands of words.
Also found a bug in Chapter4:
“Welcome back, ,” you hear her whisper into your ear. You shiver yourself a little bit.
I think this is supposed to be ${sibling}, but the variable is never filled in and remains blank for the entire game.
I did enjoy the story for what it has to offer, and fwiw, it tries to bring something new into Arthurian adaptations. I hope to see more works from this author.
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Gongratulations on the release and good luck with your next projects!
Sadly, I can’t get past the narrator.
That book is just not for me, but I will check out your next books 
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Congratulations on the release. While I’m seeing a lot of people saying “30K isn’t a lot” etc, It really is. From someone who has written 75K so far in my book, 30,000 is a lot of words! Great job and I really hope that you don’t get discouraged by these comments! (Not to mention the coding it took and endless hours of trying to find an error only for someone to give me a feed back really makes you feel like you want to bang your head on the wall lmao)
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They said to report the misgendering as it’s a bug
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That’s the thing. I’m honestly genuinely confused about whether it’s a bug or not. The female version explicitly says that everyone other than Ector thinks you’re a boy. I got the impression that it was a feature, not a bug. Especially since most of the time, the narration refers to you as Arthur, which is not really a gender-neutral name like Kay or Morgan.
Text for comparison (takes place after the interaction with Ector):
Yes, that’s the truth, isn’t it? Born female, but dressed and treated as a boy your whole life. Why? You’ve never really questioned it, but it might have something to do with the fact that your excessive attitude would likely doom you in the necessary pursuit of a husband. Yes, whoever gave birth to you probably thought your issue might even prove advantageous in the world of men! Of course, she was dead wrong, but it was a nice thought on her part, you suppose.
In any case, you have a boy’s name, a boy’s clothes, and just about everyone except Sir Ector seems to be under the impression that you are indeed a boy.
It should probably be fairly obvious to Kay at this point, but then again, he’s never really been the brightest bulb in the box.
Admittedly, the nonbinary version is different. Still not great that you get misgendered as male:
Your gender naturally reflects your mysterious appeal, and is thus too indeterminate for any of your medieval peers to truly comprehend-- you’re pretty sure that they gave up trying quite a while ago (after all, it’s been some time since you last spotted Kay’s fellow apprentice-knight friends squinting at you from afar and trying to puzzle out whether you appeared more of a boy or a girl. “Neither” was apparently too confusing an answer for them.).
I’m sure it was an honest mistake and there was no intention to be malicious. I feel like I’m coming across as oversensitive here, making this complaint. I’ll do another readthrough, probably tomorrow when I have time to catch and report the gender errors. Sorry everyone.
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The moderators had said it was a bug and to report it
Only the author can answer this, but I’m pretty sure they are doing the not uncommon trope of the girl pretending to be a boy in order to be able to participate in a “male only” profession. (Think Mulan, Eowyn going into battle or Alanna by Tamora Pierce when trying to learn to be a knight.) As this is an adaption of Camelot, and all the knights of the round table are men in the original text, they have probably followed that women weren’t going to be treated the same if they wanted to join the army (alluded to by the “world of men” comment.) They do specify that you’re female, but being treated as male because of the name and clothes you’re going by.
It probably could be explained better, but it does seem like a definite case of this trope to me. You’re not getting misgendered, you’re getting mistaken.
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Yes I sent an email like I said I would in the other post. I included a few typos too.
Long post warning.
I’ve always thought that misgendering means being mistaken for another gender, accidental or not. Maybe deadnaming is more fitting, at least when it’s people calling you Arthur even though you chose a different name. It’s true that a male MC who picks another name will still be called Arthur, so that would be a case of mistaken identity. But with an nb or female MC, it still comes too close to deadnaming. Like I said, Arthur doesn’t work as a gender-neutral name.
I guess in other games, I could accept having a fixed name for story reasons, but it sticks out here because it was one of the things I thought I could customise. Prejudice or not, my MC being called by a name they never chose is not a great experience. It could’ve been meaningful, but it needs to be treated as a plot point, and the MC given a chance to assert their identity.
The idea of female knights is not entirely unprecedented either. Maybe not in medieval Arthuriana specifically, but The Faerie Queene and Orlando Furioso both draw from the Matter of Britain and have a female knight character. Check out these pages on Nightbringer (this website is great, it’s a comprehensive list of characters and locations from the medieval Arthurian texts of various European traditions).
Re the disguise, my problem is not necessarily the Sweet Polly Oliver trope itself, but more that it wasn’t made into a choice to begin with. I would’ve appreciated options like being openly female and facing those barriers anyway, wearing male clothes but making it clear that you are female to people you trust that information with, or agreeing to be raised as a boy to blend in. Without that choice, it means the MC is forced to present a certain way.
The way gender is implemented here could use some improvements. Other characters like Bedwyr/Guinevere don’t seem surprised that the MC is a girl and a squire since that is eventually revealed to them. That makes it a continuity issue. In fact the only time the gender variable is used is in the variations of their kissing scene, and the focus is entirely on the romance:
“So, er… you’re, um…”
Bedwyr gesticulates vaguely towards you, his face a deep shade of crimson now. You think you know what that means.(Male variant)
“…gay,” you answer, completing his sentence.
“Yeah, just… making sure.” He stares intently at the ground, but before long, a wide smile begins to creep across his face.(Female variant)
“…a girl,” you answer, completing his sentence.
“Yeah, just… making sure.” He stares intently at the ground, but before long, a wide smile begins to creep across his face.Bedwyr sits down on the grass, taking a moment to process what just happened. You sit next to him. Your hand brushes his, and he takes yours with a blush.
“So… I guess we’re…”
“Yeah, I guess we are.” You smile, unable to hold it in.
(Guinevere’s version is similar, it’s: “Um, you do know that I’m a girl, right?” “Yeah. I know.”)
So gender doesn’t actually change the story, and I would have preferred it that way from the start. It could have been toned down to something like “most knights and squires are men, but you’ll find the occasional dame or nonbinary knight”, rather than “a girl squire is so rare/unusual that you need to disguise yourself as a boy to succeed in your job”.
Also, judging from castle being named Castle Sauvage, wasn’t this inspired by TOAFK specifically? Yes White’s source was mostly Malory but it’s a modern adaptation. Arthur: A Retelling has anachronisms for other things like language and narration, so having the knights be all men, always, feels arbitrary. Surely other anachronisms are allowed?
To be clear I didn’t find the gender issue to be a deal-breaker. I just think it could’ve been handled better and the implications considered.
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tbh it’s a bad game. Since we can’t kill lancelot.
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I’m going to try and be neutral, but the start of this game left a sour taste in my mouth.
On "Gender" Selection
To start, listing the genders as male,’ ‘female.’ or ‘other’ feels… Very off putting, as a nonbinary person I did not like being literally ‘other-ized’ by the author as soon as I see my gender being ‘included.’
Literally, all they had to do was to let the narrator ask whether you are a man, woman, or neither (or preferably a person) that would have worked infinitely better. Why? Because ‘male’ and ‘female’ are sex markers, further emphasizing the foreign spin they put on the ‘other-ness’ of the nonbinary MC. Not to mention how they point out how people ‘constantly try to figure out whether they are really a boy or girl’ or something.
I don’t know how other nonbinary readers might have felt, but it immediately came across as degrading.
Is this bugs or just no custom text written for nonbinary MCs?
“Come now, sir, this is no time to rest-- we must celebrate my freedom!”
…is she just dense or what?
Anyway, you rise to your feet; thankfully, the only thing that seems to have been bruised is your pride.
“That’s more like it!” She nods approvingly. “Oh, but I forget myself; for one so handsome as yourself, sir, I must introduce myself: I am the Lady Guinevere, come to this idyllic hamlet with my wealthy father to witness a great jousting tournament for the history books!” She grimaces, as if unpleased with her words. “No, you see, that isn’t quite right… well, yes, I am Guinevere, and my father is really tremendously wealthy, but I have little interest in jousting or idyllic hamlets… in fact, I yearn for the freedom that I have now attained! Well, for a few hours, at least.” She shrugs.
I’ll add more later, I’m tired.
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I did some code diving and no, that scene always refers to you as male*/sir regardless of gender. That’s why I thought nb!Arthur was also raised and treated as a boy.
*in the sense of using he pronouns and using words that are gendered male.