Firstly, I love that you have read that far into the story and you managed to get Ursus arrested and into jail to rescue him! It is one of the more unique scene outcomes in the whole story. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that. Secondly, do you think that scene is too much? Did you find the song funny? I have to admit, I am rather fond of both the Allure and Humor solutions to getting Ursus out of jail on that pathway. Later on, you will find out you could of just asked for the keys; but, at the time, your PC did not know that. Oh lord I see some syntax I need to fix on that passage. Anyhow, you are about to embark upon a great adventure across The Great Rift, go fishing, learn about celestial navigation, and more⌠I am so glad you made it this far as the game will really take-off into something very unique; and, I am frothing at the mouth to see how players react to it. You will face dynamic, daily, weather that, in turn, effect sailing and other encounters. It is here, not in the first 10 pages, that all those fun promises come to fruition. For Beta Testing, I did label the ocean grid to ease the crossing and more quickly test various outcomes. If anyone has ideas to get the story started more smoothly, I am all ears. Starting an RPG story can be difficult⌠to balance the story immersion with the need to set up the PC. I have watched live DnD games, although I have never played one, to see how they do it. Certainly starting it all off with dense, scientific and philosophical, writing was a swing and a miss. I will continue to work on that early immersion issue. Thanks again for reading/playing. It really means a lot to me. I need the feedback.
Might I suggest that for the âtype hereâ section, you add a few options that the player can pick from, as well as an option to enter their own text? Itâs commonly done and might help players who arenât that interested in customisation to quickly get to the content of the game.
Your writing style seems interesting at first, but sorry, the amount we have to write about our preferences can be tiring, and I gave up quickly because, as I said, it was exhausting. I only wrote down a few things and gave up. I understand that you may have been inspired by what you watched in Dnd, but that may not be practical in interactive RPGs like this. Your writing is good, but too quick, and the choices can be tedious for some because they would have to write their own preferences all the time. I suggest you put more choices where people donât have to write their preferences all the time but leave an option to select that if they want. Advice: Read more books and check out more text-based interactive wips and games that relate to the theme of your wip, or even those that donât relate to it. You can learn a lot by reading and playing such games. More detailed but not exaggerated descriptions of your surroundings, people, etc., would also be appreciated, but you donât need to make a giant text for it, just what you think is necessary for people to understand and imagine. Your theme seems to be more about adventure, so I suggest reading more adventure books or other topics too, to see more writing styles and how you could work and learn to use them in your writing.
Your beginning seemed interesting, a little philosophical but didnât seem to relate to your wip, which has a more adventurous vibe, but this can be shaped for the story.
One more tip: Your prologue could start with a battle of sailors at sea or maybe some people finding a scary creature and then skip to chapter 1 where you present the location and the people with whom we will interact. Feel free to use these ideas if you like, and I suggest being inspired by writing styles, real or fictional people or characters, adventures, and so on that you find interesting and that involve the themes of your wip. There are D&D and RPG campaigns that you may enjoy, an example of a good story, group adventure, cool monsters, and characters is Vox Machina, or Dungeons & Dragons (the latest movie). Thatâs it.
No offense taken. It is supposed to feel like a character creation center. I am not sure if I like it butâŚI need to make sure I capture all the statistics as I change it. The first chapter starts the âactual storyâ and it reads like a traditional story from that point forward. Thank you for the feedback.
Update 3: The final Great Rift chapter was not loading due to its size. I carefully broke it up using the *gosub_scene command. Thankyou COG gods for putting that little baby in there. It seems to be operating correctly. I apologize for any changes that may have reset your current chapter.
Thanks L.D.Nunes for your suggestions. I have already decided to scrap the âCharacter Buildingâ idea for a more traditional âstory-basedâ beginning. Already started writing it this morning. It is true that I did not know many people found entries into a story to be tedious. It is something that is not continued throughout the story. I will post an update when I have something that works for the first few pages. Not too worry, this is all very fixable and helpful! I just had to put my âwriting hatâ back on and put down the âcoding hatâ. Cheers!
Update 4: Major surgery was performed on the beginning. It now reads like a story and should be engaging, but not weird, while not over-loading. All inputs have a fast track around them or are pre-filled in for speed and ease, or, do not exist anymore. I did find an ancient bug later on in the game and fixed that also. Fingers crossed, this will pass the test. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
One thing Iâm noticing so far with the updated version is that thereâs a lot of unnecessary commas in descriptions.
For example
They billow-open in the brisk, easterly, wind, like a glacial wyrm sending a cone of intense, deadly, frost toward some unsuspecting prey.
should be
They billow open in the brisk easterly wind, like a glacial wyrm sending a cone of intense deadly frost toward some unsuspecting prey.
With the commas separating each part of the sentence. Theyâre like pauses in a sentence, and if you read that out loud with a comma between each word then it wouldnât flow at all.
Thereâs a useful (but long) article here that might help.
I donât want to sound too negative though. The descriptions are very vivid, and theyâre painting a pretty picture for certain.
So, I did go to the the website. I am not sure I am using commas wrong at all. Perhaps more readers could weigh in on that subject. It is a tricky subject; however, I do always want flow over strict punctuation. I spent a long time looking into this issue a while back. This is something that I would need more people to disapprove of in order to even approach flipping around commas. Thankyou for your input.
OkâŚwooosh. I believe you are talking about coordinated and non-coordinated adjectives. I did some more reading. In the case of " brisk, easterly, windâŚ" you are correct Blunderbutts. However, in the case of âintense, deadly, frostâ I believe it is fine. Because I could send a âdeadly, intense, frostâ as well. But an âeasterly, brisk, windâ does sound weird. This will now have to be something I will comb through gradually. It is so easy to flip back and forth between correct comma usage and incorrect comma usage when it comes to the more complex usages. There are many cases where there are two accepted methods for comma usage. I will say this BB, I am for less, than more, commas in general; however, my writing was forged in the crucible of philosophy where they really like punctuation. Itâs why poetry is so freeing. Now that my brain hurts, time to go oustide ha ha. Cheers!
Update 5.0: Non- coordinated Comma Sweeper: âFree the commaâ Chapter O and Chapter 1 swept of this type of comma foul. It is not as fun as âFree the nippleâ, yet, oddly satisfying when it is done. I found this error everywhere so I will handle it chapter by chapter. Thanks again Blunderbutts for having the courage to say something. Happy writing!
Update 5.1: Comma Sweeper: 2nd Chapter, Berkley, comma swept; I went through chapter 0 and 1 again and removed a few more. I did other minor literary changes here and there.
Update 5.2: Comma Sweeper: Cleaned-up the 3rd chapter on The Great Rift pathway. I also added the link to leave feedback while viewing it on dashingdon.com; no major code changes
I like the concept of this game, but as it is, itâs really not engaging.
It feels very rail-roady - like there doesnât really seem to be many actual choices and a lot of random stuff happening that seems to have nothing to do with me e.g. it seems to get the sword and the bow no matter what you do, so why not just have them in starting inventory? Every few pages there are random stat boosts. Thereâs no point in stat boosts that arenât linked to choices.
There are far too many page turns with no choices - if there are 4-5 page turns with no choices, it just feels like reading a novel
The few choices there are just feel like pass/fail, with no real way to predict which is which (maybe if you have RL saving knowledge?? - I donâtâŚ). I stopped reading when you asked me to solve quadratic equations - 100% not why I read IF. Pass/fail based on stat checks, fair enough, but I have no interest in a trivia quiz.
Itâs also really lacking in context - âLiamâ throws me my xyc - who is Liam? âUrsusâ shows up - who is he? What are we doing on the boat? where are we going? Is it just me Ursus & Liam or are there others? - A bit later on, we discover weâre off to the port of logos - why? - it could really use a decent setting the scene introduction before we get into character building.
Thankyou for your feedback. I decided to edit my original response and take a different approachâŚ
First, you are not off to the Port of Logos, you are setting sail from it. That is pretty clear. I think you skimmed past that one too fast. After reading your comments over the course of a few days, I realized you are contradicting what you want in a story. First you donât know who a character is and then you donât want them to be known yet⌠I did add in a little more initial scene setting back into the story; but, too much and it is too slowâŚand not engaging with choices. Why do you need to know if you will meet more people? Are you an omniscient MC player? Is there a âhow to start a story manualâ that you are referring to? Stories start differently; they stary with mystery and the unknown; they start with the MC already knowing a few people. Otherwise it would be weird⌠or just a really cool premise for a Sci-fi novel.
Anyhow, I like that you want more choices. When I read other WIPâs, I often think this too. I often think about stats that donât really do anything aside from flavor text. Perhaps the beginning is a relic of my coding learning curve. It is simple at the start. But donât assume it stays that way. Most things are simple at the startâŚthat is just how things are. So, I gave you a quick pass to the choosiest parts of the story. Those are codded, complicated and free range. It was actually these parts that I was most unsure about as far as entertainment goes. So far, I am wishing I just went for writing a novel and only having to worry about writing quality. For, in a book, you can load in all those scene descriptions and back stories to your hearts contentâŚso long as that is not boring. Enjoy the week!
Update 6: Allowed for fast travel to the open sand-box areas of the game. It seemed important for readers to get to these places quickly should they grow restless or just wish to engage more with the coding/gaming aspect of things. I would like feedback on these areas in particular. I added back in some âsettingâ descriptions to the introduction that I had removed earlier to speed-up the pace of the story. Other descriptions like that are already in books the MC can find at various places in the story. Some readers found these things uninteresting so I placed them in voluntary reading places.
Thoughts: Early stat boosts not linked to direct choices are there to show you how those stats will be linked in the future. This is not uncommon. One of the biggest complaints I read before starting this whole thing was a reader ânot knowing what certain stats will do or how they will effect their choicesâ prior to making a choice or even after they made the choice. There are a lot of comments about this in multiple threads.
Items: Some items are given away early as part of the story, you donât choose themâŚthey need to be there. How does the MC know they have a sword if they donât know they have a sword? By making them check the inventory? That seems dry and tedious.
Characters: Whoâs Liam? Whoâs Ursus? You have to read to find out. Do you want me to spend more pages describing their childhoods and why they are your friend, or, can you just accept that relationship on face value and grow to understand it as the story unfolds?
I 'm not sure why I typed IO to be honest. I think IO means something to me and I keep typing it. Thankyou for your feedback. This is all very concerning. So, I did some research. I do read a lot; however, I tend to read older authors. Aldous Huxley being one of my favorites. I do read Terry Goodkind. He is easy to read. I think he is one modern writer that I read often. Oh, and Joseph Cronin. So, I like english authors. They write longer sentences and use semi colons. I did not even know semi-colons were out. I also discovered that Hemingway, whom I never cared for, is the center piece mascot for this short sentence movement. And thus, the app was named after him. Donât get me wrong, Hemingway is great. This is not a bash on Hemingway. Anyhow, the idea is that shorter sentences are less work to read. Longer, more complex, sentences take more energy and thought to process. The assumption is that this makes the sentence less clear or makes the writer seem unsure of what they are writing, or maybe just seem like an embellisher or something. I didnât know this folks. I did do a lot of research about making these games; but, I didnât look into the writing world at large for the latest trends or writing styles. Something I am sure someone suggested to me at some point prior to creating the game. I have been writing a ton for about a year and a half. The story has been around for a few decades now. I did go back and brush over the whole thing, but, my penchant for more complex sentences remains. A famous writer once said that ââŚyou write for yourself and not the readerâŚâ In fact most of them say that. The other thing they all say is to get better you simply need to write often. It will happen. Other people often suggest going to a workshop; but, you ask a known writer, and they will usually say just start writing and donât stop. Write for yourself. Read it outload. And I do that. I do read all my writing outload to my self and my dog. I do not have trouble reading it. Could it be better, yes. Is it all wrongâŚno. But, it may be all wrong for COG. It might be time to hang-up the spurs here. If it is my writing that needs work, then I need to focus on that. If everyone wants only a certain format, then I need to move on. I kind of thought one person would think sailing the ocean with changing weather would be funâŚor an old school Mac RPG feel would be fun. There are so many things no one got to. The titles are there so you can skip through things you donât need to read, or if you are playing again, or have to pause. I could of done page numbers. Anyhow, to receive so little positive feedback with so much backlash for anything out of the ordinary, I raise the white flag of defeat. Iâm not making money doing this and it sounds like I wonât ever get thereâŚand how many copies would sell anyway? I also will stop reviewing other WIPâs as it sounds like I am clearly out-of-touch with the community. I donât want to give bad advice. Advice is a dangerous thing. Good luck to everyone. Cheers.
and good luck.