Heroes Rise Is A True CS IF Game Series

No one is saying the game should not be criticized. That is pure misdirection or projection. The problem I have with your criticism is that you are making a claim (that HR is not an IF work) based on subjective analysis when there is a factual, objective definition of what an “IF” work is.

Not only that but by doing so, you question the validity of all authors of CS games.

In this post you use “objectivity” but the simple fact, your entire critique is based on your subjective opinion. There is a difference between subjective opinion stating a work is “good” or “bad” and saying something is objectively and factually part of a genre of writing.

It is that simple: every author who writes IF fiction is diminished when a colleague is defamed in this way. This is something that should not be acceptable in this community. Critiquing a work is a valid excercise of expressing one’s opinion - this goes beyond that.

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The one above mine. Yes, i might have misread it or not, but it certainly struck me as such.

I couldn’t find parts in that post that said those things–I don’t think that post is making the arguments you are attributing to it. I would be very surprised if someone on this forum seriously made the claim that anything is above criticism or believed that popular is the same thing as good.

Indeed, it makes just the opposite point, noting the subjective nature of aesthetic judgement.

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Yeah alright, I missread.
@Eiwynn apologies. Though i’m still of the opinion that a story that is full of choices that don’t matter is, at least, not much of a CYOA, because theres not much to choose for your own.

Edit. HR feels, as stated elsewhere, more like a regular novel with alternate scenes etc in the appendix

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While I tend to agree with such sentiment, I still feel we get more from using the game as a case-study for our own works then to throw the “baby out with the bathwater.”

Both you and I are working on our own game. Heroes is still one of the most popular titles in the CoG library and as such, I look at it and I try to take away good things and learn from the bad so my game (hopefully) turns out better.

Something I’ve personally taken from Sergi, is the way he developed Prodigy as a character. I see growth and improvement over time with this character and so, If am able to learn from his game, hopefully my character development will be that much stronger.

Edit - Where I digress from you in a major way is the following: While I’ll criticize a game for the flaws I see, I still will acknowledge the game is a valid piece of Interactive Fiction. Even if I disagree with the direction taken, the writing, the mechanics, the railroading or whatever.

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Yet the mc is mostly denied the chance at such meaningful character development. We can hook up with Black Magic and that slightly changes things, but the mc is forced to stay mostly “in-character” as a bratty and none too bright teenage glory hound.
Again if you don’t hook up with Black Magic there’s almost no character development for the mc, as none of the other RO’s can influence the story in the same way Black Magic does.
Honestly given her arc I sometimes think Prodigal would have made a better mc than the mc.

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I agree to use other games as casestudy. What I do worry is just that people will copy instead of built upon. Something that can be seen very often.
Take your example with Prodigal. I’d disagree as I see a paint-by-the-numbers charactertype I’ve seen time and time before.

As I said before, HR has a lot of potential, but I don’t feel Sergi ever really worked with it or the craft in general. His writing strikes me as barely improving, and I never get the feeling he’s even willing to get out of his comfort zone and improve.

This is a factor that makes me wonder (as said, i don’t see any development that wouldn’t strike me as pretty standard with P) if Sergi felt at all well about writing what’s meant to be IF.
Because the very bland MC is something I see pretty often in RPGs and similar, because the author/etc wanted to have a MC everyone (or at least many) could identify as. Not necessarily with.
So the char is left mostly a blank slate unless it is unavoidable. In many of these cases the author even shied away from any personality to not estrange the player.
Which, given what personality one is given in HR… Its a bizarre mix of too narrow a personality and none at all…

No…No…No… You mis-represented me…Lol

I was trying to give a personal and hopefully Neutral opinion of Hero Rise, not to “glorified” it… if you must know , i actually have mix feeling about Hero Rise after reading them… i agree that at times, it was frustrating to realise that the “choice” i made had no consequence or depict the true character of my intended protagonist, like the scene when i unintentionally trigger Black Magic’s secret portal, i chose to ignore it and respect her privacy (option 1) but unfortunately it resulted in the same manner where i had to go in instead , i was mad at the time, for i intentionally chose to feign ignorant by refusing to know Lucia(Black Magic)'s secret … but after reading the plot where i learn of her secret and why she did it… i am glad that i was able to read the Author’s intended version, i actually grow deeper and more sympathetically towards Black Magic , thus making it more difficult for me to make my “choices” in the Hero Project, here i must applaud the author’s writing skill in engaging human emotion to make life miserable for me in my future choice…because every time i want to make a choice to side with Lucky due to Black Magic uncompromising tone , the Prodigy set up made it so difficult for me… the sense of betrayal keep hovering above me and even if i choose to loyal to Black Magic, the Author made me feel guilty again by reminding me Lucky was the one share the first kiss and how i will ruin her family… such were the difficult “choice” which readers must make, and i believe the emotion engagement is what hook most readers by choosing…again it was readers choice to ignore the short-coming of the series by embracing final outcome

After saying all this, do i think Hero Rise is a good interactive novel ? i honestly don’t know , i feel that to read it again is to experience the emotional trauma once more , but at the same time … it is a bitter experience that still hanging in my mind…

Do i wish to Live in the world of Hero Rise as the Protagonist i act? Definitely NO, i can’t bear to realise those dagger and disappointment stare by Lucky was actually “Real” and definitely don’t want to be remind that Prodigral love me and die for me… it is a painful world to live in even though i found joy in the arms of Black Magic, Jenny and Grandma…

So in the end, it do feel like a certain choice had been made thanks to the Author’s writing skill, and whether it is a master piece or not… i think it is a Debate just like the choice(s) i made in the novel, there is no definite Right or Wrong answer …

Despite agreeing with you for the most-part, I fail to see what this has to do with the development of Prodigal as a character.

I also agree with this. And this is the reason I look to Prodigal’s development rather then Black Magic’s. Black Magic (in my opinion(subjectively)) was actually ret-conned as the series progressed. I enjoyed the conflicted and asymetrical early Black Magic much more then the later “white-washed for PC” Black Magic.

I am of this belief as well. Prodigal (again in my subjective opinion) is the best developed character Sergi has written. In all of his series. I think having a game based on Prodigal’s story would have been awesome and that is what I would have done as a follow-up to the first series, instead of “season two” shenanigans.

Having been involved in games and game development since I was a pre-teen, I can honestly say, most game developers copy others, even wholesale without change and it is, while not rare to find a developer who tries to build upon what exists, it is more rare then it should be.

Sports Leagues in America are all copy-cat leagues, meaning that if one team finds something that works, all the others do that same thing. Then when it fails that team, they change.

Game development is much like this too, except that for games, it is easier to make a quick buck by copying something wholesale and then just waiting for another to innovate and copying the innovation wholesale and repeating.

I’m going to address the rest of your post in another reply - this must not turn into Eiwynn’s Great Wall of Text.

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Of course that would likely have been more of an interactive novel and gender-locked female.

Nothing except as a contrast, the fact that the “villain” does get character development while the mc gets next to none throughout the series is frustrating. Like I said before there’s a number of ways to mc could have developed, in my case having him become a little more politically and legally aware over the course of the series would have been nice. Alternatively becoming more of a vigilante who learns to effectively work alone, working tirelessly to solve both our parents and prodigal case would have been nice too.
Instead the mc is forced to continue on the ineffective and largely oblivious teenage gloryhound path, that let’s be honest, yields the mc more humiliation then success or wealth, a sign for me that my mc really needed to change tack or at least vary and expand his repertoire.
Instead we save the day by essentially deus-ex-machina through Infinity powers that of course work best only if you’re famous.

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I think the appeal of HR for the people who like it are the things that don’t really make it a good CYOA game. The railroading, for example, is terrible for a CYOA game but getting to see the game the way the author envisioned does help the narrative in some ways, like the example @Eric_knight gave. Yes, it’s bad that we didn’t really get a choice on what to do but it did ultimately help the story.

It’s a good COG for someone unfamiliar with these games. It gives people enough choice to feel like they have consequences but not enough to be overloaded. The trilogy is just long enough to get invested and let the player see how their actions impact the world, and the Superhero setting is one that’s easy to understand and a lot of great people enjoy. HR is a game I would give someone curious about these games to, and then let them branch out to the bigger ones at their own pace.

There are way better COGs, I would even say that Sergi’s other series Versus is better but I HR has a special place in my heart because it was my first I really got into. Could it be better? Of course. But it’s not without any merit.

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Yeah. It’s what I meant. I get easily frustrated (hands up if anyone’s surprised) when people, regardless where, prefer to just copy ad nauseam instead of fleshing out the ideas that are unique to their work.

And, and this MIGHT surprised many, I’ll be fully honest (the discord chat knows, though), but without HR no CuCu, cause a lot of it stems from discussing HR with friends.
Ranging from ‘why didn’t he do this thing to explain the powers instead’, ‘why didn’t he use that opportunity to resolve this, etc’ and it basically culminated in ‘yknow what, screw it, instead of just babbling about it I’m going to write it and let others judge how well -I- did here’ (this sounds much ruder than it was, and I’m quite certain I now blew all my chances for positive feedback out the water)

I can understand your position here … I’ll comment on this in a moment.

Without getting into Sergi’s head, the best we have is his interview done at the time of HR’s release - since @Havenstone already linked the relative passage there, I’m going to leave this unanswered.

With that said, I am of the opinion that this is something personal to each developer/author and as such, while I can (and sometimes do) ask why? - I feel it is not my place to question the author’s/developer’s prerogative to do so.

These questions are some of my own too but without Sergi himself here to talk to, I can’t get those answers. Sometimes I look to my friends to see if they have insight I do not if I can not ask the person themselves but most of the time I just try to look on how to improve and go forward from that point.

I like your project - if I were not inundated by my own deadline crunch and prior commitments to other projects, I’d be more active in your project. I’ve only read an earlier version of your intro but I look forward to keeping an eye on what you accomplish.

If you can pull off your goal, I believe there will be a new Super Hero story (or series?) that I will enjoy and buy. Assuming you publish.

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I think it might greatly have to do something with the ‘getting out of one’s comfort zone’ which can be a right a**hole for everyone creative.

That’s encouraging to hear :slight_smile: Thank you.
And yeah… it might easily end up a duology, seeing I have just the perfect ending for either path with this one (and I know there are people who will want to strangle me for it)

And yeah, because a good number of people already do know (again, mainly on the discord server, there’s a bit of a (and I quote the friend responsible for this) 'Eh, forget what Sergi said, this is canon now D= ’ going on with the basestory :wink:

EDIT:

However, any similarities between Francis and Jury are unintentional. Even though Francis earned the nickname ‘Not-Jury’ during development before naming >_> Also, this happened:
Jury: Who are you?
Francis: I’m you, but less of a douchebag.
Marcus: Eh, I’d have said the jury’s still out on that one, but… you know him for a grand total of 5 seconds, so whaddaya say? :smiley:

I have good friends. Weird but good.

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Prodigal gets to do a lot more than the HR Trilogy protagonist ever does so, yes, it might’ve been more interesting to play her role. It’s the big thing that shocked me by my playthroughs. The author looooved Prodigal, even to the detriment of the character who was ostensibly the protagonist. What’s worse, is that it felt like he wanted us to love Prodigal and think she’s a radical dame – and only that – too.

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I’ll start this off by saying that for one I’m terribly biased, as I absolutely adore each of Zacahary Sergei’s titles. But I am confused as to why so many people are bashing HR.

Yes everyone is entitled to their opinion of course. But I think that most of us can agree that we all love COG as a whole. Yes some stories are better than others that’s true. And yes some stories are definitely more non-linear. But at the same time I feel like we should not get hung up on the flaws and faults in the author and their writings. After all In no way shape or form do these writers work for us.

And I’m not saying that we should not give criticism to the authors but I am merely saying that instead of bashing the game or the author by saying that the game is “terrible” or “it isn’t a real CYOA” or other blatant over exaggerations like these we should try to offfer criticism in a way that is supportive to the growth of the writer as a whole. If we disagree with a writers design and feel the need to tell them, or the need to express it in general then let’s express our criticism in a way that builds the writers up, and not in a way that tears them down. Point out the virtues as well as its flaws. I feel we As a community need to be more supportive of the writers and titles. Especially when we dislike the game. Because at the end of the day I think we all agree that it takes a lot of work and dedication to write a CYOA game at all. And even more courage and dedication to pursue its publication. And the last thing we want is to discourage them or any other potential author from writing more stories, because we all know that if they did all our lives would be so much more boring.

This is just my 2 cents I could be right or I could be wrong. But either way I still think our duty as a community is to support one another especially the authors among us.

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I am in agreement with these statements.

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Call of duty 4: modern warfare is a fantastic game, I love it, and it is a video game, so by its very nature it is an interactive medium. However, I would not classify call of duty as a game with choice in it. A vast majority of the choices you make in Heroes rise have absolutely no meaning whatsoever, you make a choice that pisses someone off, it doesn’t really do anything, it has no effect on the larger story. At the end of the day, there are a couple of changed blurbs, but no effect is actually shown, legend is a thing, but playing through a story as a legend 100 hero and a legend 2 hero was basically identical. No matter what you choose as your option, you wind up at the exact same setpieces, find out the exact same knowledge and wind up more or less in the exact same place. Make no mistake, I’m not saying heroes rise is a bad game, if one were to look at my achievement list on steam you would see I have every single achievement in the main trilogy, and quite a few in the new one. I certainly think it has its problems, but at the end of the day, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for some of the more outlandish stuff, and while my choices may not change anything but the window dressing, I still like what I’m reading.Heroes Rise can be called interactive fiction, but it is not a true cs game. While others may say that was the early era of choice script games, the most recent title hasn’t exactly bucked the trend set by its predecessors. True choice script games are games like choice of robots in which the choices you make have an effect on the world and the grander story. In Conclusion, Heroes Rise is a work of fiction I enjoy, and it has interactive elements, but none of those elements provide enough agency to be classified as a “true CS game.”
Regardless, I thank you for your time and wish you a pleasant day.

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I can explain for the umpteenth time in great detail why I don’t like Heroes Rise, but that’s just my personal opinion. Havenstone even linked to one such explanation from almost five years ago earlier in this very thread.

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