God of the Red Mountain (WiP) (Update August 17, 2020)

Really that’s interesting. My mc would probably maek their hair flowers and maybe root like leg’s (at least this is how I imagine some of them).

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When I was younger, the original mc had a wicked scar down his face that he covered with lily blossoms, so it’s entirely possible, power to you :smile:

Actually, you gave me an idea. Should I create an option to allow the mc to pick what kind of appearance they have? It’d have to be vague, but you would get to pick between, say: full transformation, half transformation, mostly not human. I can think of interesting scenarios for each of these in situations to come…

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I definitely would! If you think it can help expand on the lore and fits whatever scenario you’ve in mind then yes!

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I think that customization would fit perfectly

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I would love to be able to pick how i look

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It seems interesting can’t wait for more

This is an interesting WIP to see it has potential

I like the sound of that I think it would be really cool.

I like it, the idea of being a spirit and customizing between different animals and plants is nice. Big sister character is also likeable.
However, there are a couple things that bother me:

  1. Why is courtesan later called a geisha? The more fitting term would be an oiran.
  2. Foxes’ souls return to their bodies after they die, right? Can’t they just be maimed? Break their legs/paws and they can’t really run after you, or would they also regenerate from that?
  3. I don’t fully understand the concept of Foxes here? On the one hand the physical description kind of fits normal foxes, on the other there is a talk about others transforming into foxes. Also, their way of conquering doesn’t really resemble the fox tales I know. They use brute force and immortality and not wits and transformation skills (except for having other people transform into them?).
  4. The setting is a mix of Japanese and Chinese, right? There is the talk of sake and geishas, but the names don’t sound Japanese.
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Thanks for your words! And you have some good questions.

  1. Thanks for reminding me about the geisha slip, the word was left from my original novella and I meant to change it to courtesan. I’ll fix this soon! (and also I didn’t know about oirans, that’s very interesting).

2 and 3. The nature of Foxes will be explained in Chapter 1 and further along the story. In truth, the mc also knows very little about them and they’re a huuuuge part of the story, which is why it’s so vague, but I’m sorry that it’s a bit confusing, haha… I’ll come around to clean the prologue soon. Also, Foxes in this story are very, very different from Foxes from our legends, but at the same time, they may end up rather similar. Maybe. It depends on how you look at it.

  1. Hmm, the world that this takes place in is heavily inspired by Chinese/Japanese myths but it’s also completely different, thus the inconsistencies. It’s a world of my own making that I’ve been developing for quite some time, but I admit I can see where it’d be jarring for someone who is expecting to see one culture or the other. I’m actually trying to avoid using too many Japanese or Chinese words for this reason, but when most of the items in the world can only be accurately described with non-English words, it’s a bit difficult. I’ll work on it.

Thanks for the feedback! :smiley:

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That’s cool, I can’t wait to see how you have the dragons interact in your story.:grin:

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I like the part about earning a name/ power through good or bad deeds. Would a neutral position work too?
Somehow the whole fox corruption thing reminds me of ‘Princess Mononoke’. But it’s probably just me?

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Absolutely, and the stats page is going to updated (after a certain event) so you can see your disposition. Remaining a neutral position between the mountain dwellers, human and otherwise, is entirely possible.

I’m so honored they remind you of Princess Mononoke! I grew up with ghibli films and Spirited Away and Mononoke are such huge influences to both my story and my life in general. The corrupted spirit in the beginning of Mononoke definitely played a part in my creation of Foxes.

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i am definitly gonna get my name by killing a LOT of people.also love spirited away and mononoke.fantastic movies

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I have (very) strong feelings about East Asian mythology so playing/reading something that draws inspiration from it is always a gamble; I either gonna love it or get very annoyed with it, there is no in-between. I’m happy I took this chance though because reading this was a very pleasant experience.

Your writing is exceptionally good. I like how your descriptions are not detail-heavy, they sort of go in and out of focus, guiding reader’s attention and making it impossible to get lost (which is a big deal for me, I tend to space out quite a lot these days). They also gave me strong Chinese MMORPG vibes—probably because of how beautiful and clean everything seemed, just like a background in a game.
The awakening scene was by far my favorite, it felt so- real that I found myself acting out some of the choices so as to know which ones were what I’d actually do in real life.
The pacing needs work though, as you already know. It wasn’t confusing, per se, I did appreciate what you were doing with it, but it was kind of a pain keeping the timeline straight.

Also, major props for not making the main character something cliché like, I dunno, a karasu tengu (or a dragon, I suppose) and even adding plants to the list—that is something I’m very excited about.

All in all, I really enjoyed this. Well done! c:
I cannot wait to see how the story’ll unfold.

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Aaaahh thank you so much! I agree that finding a good story with East Asian influences is super hard, especially since the pool is tiny as it is. Figuring out a writing style for this story was something I spent a long time trying to do. I’m so, so honored that you guys like my story.

And I’m glad you liked the awakening scene. I absolutely acted out this entire part (finger twitching and all) when writing it, so I’m happy it left an impression.

The pacing for the prologue is definitely something I’m trying to fix. I’ve already changed the placement of the flashbacks in a draft, all I need to do now is smooth out the transitions a bit. These changes will be updated into the demo along with the first part of chapter 1, which should come out next week if everything (read: coding) goes smoothly. Thank you so much for your feedback!

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If there’s one sure fire way to make sure your writing works well it is to voice out and possibly act out what you’re writing to yourself or friends/family. You just have to watch out that you’re not reading back what you thought you wrote or expect that you wrote.

I find that my brain is very good at outright swapping the visual of an incorrect word with the correct word it expected to find if I’m not using a tool with auto spelling/grammar checking.

Still, what I’ve read so far is very enthralling. I’m looking forward to progress and hopefully purchasing when yo get as far as publishing with hosted games!

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I’d like if there was an option to keep a childlike human form. I guess like Viridi from kid icarus uprising.

Oh :sob: I found out what happened to big sis after another play through 🤦.

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Good advice, I read out loud to my dog when I’m stuck, haha. The main issue I had was getting the tone right, I suppose. I normally write third person, experimental pieces (that never see the light of day), so changing to second person with a work I’m going to publish was tough to say the least. Thank you for your words! Publishing seems so far off, but I hope to get there eventually! :slight_smile:

@Carson_Lindsey Oh, that’d be interesting (Idk how I never realized Viridi was supposed to be a child. I thought she was just temperamental and short. Oops.) The choices I have so far only go over the amount of human-ness you retain in your form, not age. I’ll consider adding it as an option and see what I can work with.

@Koda222 hahaha…yeah…

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