NE By NW Oz
By Ron Baxley, Jr.
“Once again, however, in your quest to become a magic user, you have the choice to make between being wicked or good. Ultimately, your decisions will make you forever named theWicked Witch of the Northeast or the Good Witch of the Northeast.”
In my previous introduction, I said I’d use a line that stuck with me. Unfortunately, this one did. It does illustrate exactly what you can expect from the title in both content and theme. The author appears to write mostly books in the world of Oz. I know a little bit about the world L. Frank Baum, having read a few of the original books, and watched the movie like any Good Witch would. Not technically a Friend of Dorothy, but I can claim to be a friend of a Friend.
General Story:
You are a commoner in the world of Oz, with aspirations to become a replacement for one of the two Witches ‘offed by the Kansas tourist’, per the author. The story follows in a slapdash affair with the meeting of famous characters from the Wizard of Oz, or pretty continual references to the characters like the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow. That theme is really interesting and could carry a story, but the story itself often felt like some of my old assignments did in school, racing to meet a required number of words.
Format and Typos:
Readability was very low. Quite a few typos, including the one in the quote from above, were present. I don’t know if this was done with intent beyond padding word count, but it felt like everything that was said was repeated at least once. Sometimes immediately after… looking at you, quote from above.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
The author, in a response to the announcement thread, said that the fact there was no Stats screen was purposeful. The game tracks Good and Wicked points, and displays them periodically throughout the story. Actions add either of these points to a total, and the ending is influenced by which is higher. There does not appear to be any form of stat checks other than that. It felt like a simplified point-and-click with a ‘you must have this item from earlier’ to proceed.
Replayability:
Good or wicked. Mostly, the replayability seems limited and it would be just to see what descriptions occur behind the choices. I don’t think you are kept from choosing either in response to anything, no matter which witch you choose to be. No romance options are available in the game.
Dislikes:
- Many typos, and formatting made it difficult to parse. Reported a few, so they may not be there by the time you read it.
- Did you miss what was said a page ago? No worries, it will be repeated multiple times on the next few pages.
- Bad ends are hand-wavy and drop you back off to make a different choice at a previous slot.
Likes:
- It’s obvious the author knows their Oz.
- There is some grade-A pun work. Shout out to the Seers and Rogue-bucks catalog that the witches buy their pantyhose from.
- The artwork for the chapter intros was actually really nice, and evoked the storybook feel.