Hi Drewwolf. I just had a few thoughts on reading the start of your game. Please don’t feel like you have to take any of what I’m saying on board. It’s all just my opinion. I’m guessing it’s a stylistic thing, but at a guess at least part of what people have reacted badly to is the use of the “----”. It actually makes things much harder to read and I found my eye kept skipping over things if I wasn’t careful. It makes it distinctive, but I’d use it very sparingly if at all personally. Like maybe it could be used in a flashback/dream to denote that, but the rest as normal text.
IMO you’re overdescribing and wandering into purple prose territory in places, especially in the first sequence which is where you need to grab your reader. Like I get why it’s been done, and I’ve had people tell me I do this in my own work, so it’s something I try to look out for. The problem with overdescribing is it slows the pacing right down and isn’t nearly as interesting to read when there’s a bit of an info dump of it. I’d go a lot more simple. Try to use one word rather than two or three related ones where you can. I felt like there was more description than story in the first bit which left me quite uncertain what was going on (and more in a confused rather than wondering kind of way.)
For example:
"The baby cries. It lays upon the cold, stone altar. Its grey-blue, newborn eyes swelling with tears. Blubbery arms flail and jerk---- accomplishing nothing. How utterly useless they are. A nexus of need. This creature. This inefficient vessel.
If it were me, I’d perhaps halve the text to tighten it up to something more like :
“A crying child lies helplessly on the cold, stone altar. Its small, weak arms flail looking for comfort, but achieve nothing.”
(Obviously writing style comes into it here and it could be more flowery, but the more description, the harder it can be to keep the reader’s attention particularly in the opening sequence which is the hook.)
This does seem to improve further in. Like when you’re in the icefall area, there is more of a balance with speech/action and more of the essentials when describing where you are.I like the style of writing in this section better.
Particularly with reader choices go simple and very clear. There was a body choice where I had to look up google to check which were endo/meso/ectomorphs (I think you might have two mixed up BTW, aren’t endomorphs curvy I think?) You don’t want that. Players want to be able to click through quickly. You already had a second descriptor which means the same thing (I think it was like ectomorph/lean) I’d just use the second descriptor personally.
Be careful with accents. I’ve used these too but you have to be careful as they can be harder to read and turn people off. Although it feels like it should be worldbuilding, I don’t feel it is absolutely necessary here. For example I had to read "“Weh ken ketch them ef weh hurry” three times to realise they meant “We can catch them if we hurry.” That kind of thing can get wearing on your reader if overused.
On that, I’d be careful of using author made words. Sorry if I missed it (or if it is a thing I don’t know about), but I think you were referring to a knife by some of the other text (the Almakan?) in the first sequence but I didn’t recognise the word so I wasn’t sure. You can put words in a glossary (which I saw you have one which is great), but again, that’s not something I’d recommend in the intro because having to check words in the first few pages will likely turn people off. Either could just use a regular word like “dagger”, or append the word like they picked up the jade Almakan knife, or a word or two of description like they picked up the sharp bladed Almakan to help with identifying new words.
But then there’s also a little bit of a disconnect when this feels like an alien world but while there are made up words for some things, for others it is like a “green whale”. That’s where I actually would go a step up and say something more like hunting the insert name here, one of the massive, green mammals who rise from the depths on fins as longer than your boat. Or even just keep “whale” here but don’t elaborate. This would feel better than a whale in an odd colour.
Too me personally there feels like there are too many stats. Even if you want to use them, do all have to be listed? (For example does humour actually play a vital role in something you need to build? Or can it just be a background checked respond for whether you respond jokingly/seriously etc). This is a personal preference and some games do just fine with lots of stat bars (like night road), but for me it screams I’m going to be micromanaging stats which is not my cup of tea in a narrative style game like this, so if it’s not a tightly managed stat game I’d reconsider how many bars to show. It also is going to complicate things for you trying to balance that many different stats in your game and be a lot more work.
On readability, new speech should generally be on its own line.
Anyway, I know it sounds like a lot of crit there, but I’m trying to be constructive. The concept for this game is good. We really don’t have enough games that attempt world building on other planets. The setting for it is fascinating. It’s an ambitious project and could be a very good game. It just feels like the pacing and text need some tightening to move it along a bit faster and more clearly. I didn’t see the original but from comments it sounds like it has already improved. I do hope you decide to continue it or another project with your unique spin on CSGames.
