Heroes of Myth -- BETA TESTERS NEEDED

Announcements Beta Testing
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You’re a fake, a fraud…an illusionist. But when the false prophecy that you “vanquished” three years ago suddenly starts to be occur “again,” you’re called upon by the princess regent to rise again to the occasions. But who’s behind the fake omens this time? And what if, this time, they’re for real?

Email me, jason AT choiceofgames for access. DO NOT SEND ME A MESSAGE THROUGH THE FORUM MAIL SYSTEM. When you send your EMAIL, include your forum-name, your real name, and the game you want to test.

DO NOT POST ASKING WHAT MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS. The first test to becoming a beta tester is inferring what it is based on the above paragraph.

(You cannot be testing two games at once. Send feedback on one and you can apply to another.)

I will send you a link, a username, and a password.

Return feedback TO ME. Preferably part of the same thread, rather than a new email.

I’m looking for “high level” and “low level” feedback. Not mid-level feedback.

Low-level = typos and continuity errors. A continuity error is when a character’s gender flips, or someone comes back from the dead, or you run into a plotline that just doesn’t make sense (because it’s probably a coding error).

For these low-level issues, SCREENSHOTS are VERY HELPFUL. If you see a problem, take a screenshot, or copy and paste the text that is in error, and email that. Also, the “BUG” button is great; but if you use BUG, make sure to say in your email who you are, so I can give you credit for the report.

“High level” feedback has to do with things like plot, pacing, and characters. “Scene A didn’t work for me because x, y, and z,” is useful feedback. “B character was entirely unsympathetic, because u, w, and v,” is also useful feedback.

“Mid-level” feedback describes things like grammar, style, or the use of commas. As I said above, I do not want mid-level feedback. In particular, DO NOT WRITE TO ME ABOUT COMMAS.

“I had a great time and saw only a few spelling errors,” is not useful feedback. In fact, it’s the sort of thing that results in you not being given access to future betas.

Some examples of useful feedback:

In Choice of the Dragon, you get to choose what type of wings you have: leather or scaled. Someone wrote in and asked about having feathered wings. Great suggestion! Done!

In “The Eagle’s Heir,” someone asked about Eugenie. They said that the romance moved too quickly–because she only appeared in the last third of the game–and wished they could have had an opportunity to meet her earlier. So the authors added an opportunity to meet her and start the romance earlier in the game (in a scene that already existed).

In “Demon Mark: A Russian Saga” several people commented on how the PC’s parents were unsympathetic, so the authors added a choice or two to deepen the relationship with the parents in the first chapter, to help better establish their characters.

Similarly, pointing out a specific choice and saying, “this is who I imagined my character was at this particular moment, and none of these options seemed right for me. I would have liked an option to do X instead,” is really helpful feedback.

Another useful piece of feedback: if you choose an #option and then the results of that #option don’t make sense. Like, if you thought an #option might test one stat, but it seems to have tested a different one.

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Ok, I’ve sent out a bunch of invites. If you haven’t received a link yet, please hold your horses. When we receive a new draft, I’ll send out another set of them.

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Please refer to Jason’s post again to check how to apply to beta test.

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Question about the game, is it a stand alone/start of a series or is it connected to anything? Just asking cause the description suggests that some stuff involving the readers character happened in the past which usually suggests either a possible prologue or this being the sequel to something. I guess my question is whether this has something before it or if there’s just a interesting past connected to the player character

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It’s a standalone, nothing comes before it. You’re just coming in with a backstory.

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Changelog:

  • Many typo fixes
  • Various prose adjustments and clarifications (palace guards made less inconsistently incompetent in Chapter 7, clarified what Evander does with the letter if you go to visit Mardas in Chapter 3, Letha reacts more to your orders about Pasema in Chapter 10, PC is less surprised that Alvis knows not to hold swords by the blade in Chapter 4)
  • Added more neutral reaction to meeting Alvis again in Chapter 3
  • Added more politically neutral motivations for whether or not you do the mean thing to Evander in Chapter 6
  • Added a hint on the stats page that many options test both a skill stat and a personality stat
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Changelog:

  • Fixed a somewhat notable bug in Chapter 10 where under certain circumstances, the difficulty threshold for a climactic choice could be 100 points higher than it was intended to be
  • More typos and prose adjustments (more acknowledgement in Chapter 4 if you know Min’s password but didn’t use it, more outright friendly motivations for the mean thing with Evander in Chapter 6)
  • Various tweaks to combined stat tests throughout: more direct in-text hints when choices will be testing multiple stats, and more opportunities on certain combined tests for full or partial success based on a single stat
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Thanks so much to everyone who’s sent in feedback so far! If anyone has a chance, I’d love to hear if there are any issues with the asexual/aromantic options - if you choose that you’re not interested in romance but still get romantic-seeming choices later in the game that don’t seem like they should be there, or if romance paths seem to be correctly acknowledging if you’ve previously chosen that you’re ace. There’s some fiddly code stuff going on there.

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New draft is up! Changelog:

  • Many typo fixes
  • Hopefully fixed a continuity error in the epilogue where references to whether or not Verity kept her position as mayor could be inconsistent. I think this should be taken care of, but please let me know if you’re seeing anything that seems odd in Verity’s epilogue descriptions, with screenshots if possible.
  • Fixed bug in Chapter 10 where you could go directly from the friendly Caron scene to the enemy Caron scene
  • Prose adjustments, including but not limited to: made it clear that Min isn’t suddenly appearing in the middle of a conversation at the start of Chapter 5, made Aton slightly less eager to congratulate you after the battle in Chapter 10 if he doesn’t like you, clarified that Meredith was watching and knows if you tried to kill Caron in Chapter 8 even if you failed, clarified start and end of flashback at the start of chapter 4, emphasized how hard Min’s trade language is to remember and why you can still fail the related test in Chapter 4, adjusted references to saying goodbye to Evander in chapter 3 so it’s not setting up something you don’t get the opportunity to do, more opportunities to say you want to maintain your lie because it sounds like the best way to defeat Cadafel, clarified that getting elemental magic does not remove your ability to use illusions, clarified that Zaman’s idea about joint rulership couldn’t happen in the timespan of the game, reworked opening choice descriptions so you in some way succeed in what you attempted
  • Added option in the epilogue to ask Caron if you can visit them without taking the diplomatic post
  • Added more reflections on your orphaned childhood in Chapter 1, including a choice about your reaction to suddenly living in luxury
  • Added a choice in chapter 2 to reflect on how you have or haven’t changed in the years since your first quest
  • Extra lines in the epilogue for characters you have good relationships with but aren’t romancing, to affirm that they intend to keep in touch
  • Reworked the descriptions if you were interested in Alvis or Verity during your first journey so it’s clearer they weren’t aware how you felt and weren’t deliberately ignoring it
  • Tweaked the Letha not-quite-romance path so that it no longer requires asking an extremely personal question at an extremely awkward time
  • Further hinted that the songwriting choice with Min in Elith is a Min relationship + Showy test
  • Slightly tweaked various relationship changes to make characters less sensitive to being disagreed with
  • Made it very slightly more likely that Min or Verity will challenge your portal strategy after the final battle, because it was almost never happening. If you ever have had this happen, I’d be interested in feedback about how the scenes feel and how difficult it feels to avoid negative consequences.
  • Added glossary elaborating on stat meanings

I’d be interested to know if it seems possible to romance or otherwise have a good relationship with people while pursuing an overall strategy they disagree with (Alvis if you want to tell the truth, Min if you want to lie, Evander if you want Despina on the throne, Verity if you want to help the demons, etc). It should certainly be difficult, but I don’t want it to be completely impossible if you work on improving your relationship in other ways. (Getting along with Meredith if you’re anti-demon or with Despina if you’re supporting Evander may not be feasible, but most other conflicts shouldn’t be insurmountable.)

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I’ve sent out the last of the invites. If you have an invite, and you haven’t sent in feedback yet, the clock is ticking.

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Hello, where can I leave my comments on the beta?
I already play

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I just finished the game and I have one Word… Awesome!! I’m into the whole magic Thing so this game was great

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New draft posted!

  • Typos and minor prose adjustments
  • Gave a more specific explanation of how the royal succession works in Chapter 2
  • Clarification on how Min’s powers work and what their limits are in Chapter 4
  • Emphasized that if Caron is an ambassador in the ending, most people do not know they’re the demon from the wedding in the epilogue
  • Elaborated on why Cadafel leaves during the final battle in Chapter 10
  • More acknowledgement in Chapter 3 if you’re traveling with Evander but he was upset with you when you last talked
  • Clarification that the circlet still doesn’t completely solve the crown illusion problem if you’re in the balcony in Chapter 8
  • Improved flow of the scene with Mardas and possibly Caron in the epilogue
  • Adjusted a few things in Meredith’s first scene in Chapter 3: clarified movements and positions, followed through on your original intention to examine the Book
  • Clarification of what happens if Despina or Evander endorses your position at the tournament in Chapter 10, but you still fail in your goal
  • More description of mid-Masquerade results in the ending
  • Made it so Min will not reference you successfully using the trade language in Chapter 6 if you did not, in fact, successfully use the trade language in Chapter 4
  • Hopefully actually fixed Verity’s Elith epilogue
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As a note, there are still more changes I’m planning on implementing later today, so if you sent in feedback on something that isn’t mentioned here, that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about it!

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New draft is up! Changelog:

-Typos and minor prose adjustments (including one line that used to say “The Academy is less than a day’s travel from the Academy,” which may not have been what I intended but I maintain is not technically inaccurate)
-Acknowledgement in Min and Verity’s epilogues if they broke up with you for your portal decision
-Additional conversation with Verity in the epilogue if she’s come around a little on the whole demon thing
-More consistent descriptions of Pasema if Cadafel collapses it in Chapter 10, and more acknowledgement if you had Caron or Eirian defend it
-More on why Despina is willing to give you the crown to take to the vault in Chapter 7 even if she doesn’t like you
-Added an option in Chapter 4 to say Min’s trade language with an illusion rather than with your voice, since it was in fact weird that you could do that while practicing but not during the actual battle
-Clarified some information about demons and gender, and Caron’s various forms in particular
-More adjustments to the early Alvis and Verity romance options, mostly hoping to avoid implications they were trying to manipulate you
-Some playing with opportunities for friendly/platonic touch, especially if you’re playing as aromantic - let me know if you have ideas about where else this should happen! I’d be happy to add more.

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The beta testing period is now over, and the game has gone to copyedit! You should be seeing the game released later this summer. Thanks so much to everyone who sent in feedback, it was really helpful!

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