@comradeleninI liked her too. Unfortunately, I felt that scene needed a bit of death for impact and she drew the short straw…
@Jukka_Sarasti Thanks! Great to hear you enjoyed it so much!
I’m going to comb through the endings to make sure that the various ends are tied up in each one. There should be something written for every eventuality so it’s probably a case of fixing some missing links.
There should also be a mid-tourney conversation with Isabella - I certainly wrote one! I’ll look into why it isn’t displaying. Also, yes, I agree that she’s the least developed of the ROs so I’ll see if I can tweak her interactions a bit for the next update.
I understand the rational, it just seemed like a huge waste. A little extra drama in the intro doesn’t feel worth killing off one of the most interesting crew members. I really just felt frustrated after that scene. Sudden deaths like that are a pet peve of mine.
If you do consider a sequel (please do, you are a fantastic writer, I’m fascinated by the world you’ve created, and I’m dying for more) I’d love to see what things are like in the Americas in this world, particularly the Aztecs, Mayans, and Inca.
I don’t know if you’d have any interest in that, I’m unclear if you’re a fellow Middle East specialist (being generous to myself here, I’m a political science student with a lot of Middle Eastern studies in my curriculum) or if you just felt that this setting was best for the narrative.
@Jacob_Tebbe I Agree with you!! The Author is a fantastic writer… I world is fantastic and I’ve really grown attached with the characters… Though I really feel sad for Viv @Wiwyums that’s a hell of emotional punch there… It took me a whole week get over it before I decided to play it again with different choices…
I have questions…
Is it possible to meet the Golden Horde? And are you considering to make a sequel??
For it to happen, you need to meet one of those criteria:
To have met Smorg.
Join the Caliphate and promote war against the Papacy.
To have choosen that your goal is to find your crew.
To have Otherness higher than 60.
If you have one of those, you will meet Rashid. Then agree to meet him in his terms. You will meet the Golden House after it.
@Jacob_Tebbe Thank you! Although a sequel isn’t on the cards right now, I’d definitely like to return to this world in some way in the future as I do still have stories I’d like to tell with the setting. Like you, I’m especially interested in looking beyond the Middle East (not a specialist, by the way, but a passionate amateur with a long-standing interest!). Would be great fun to explore how other parts of the world developed the new technology…
@ezra Thanks! Concerning Viv, if it’s any consolation she would consider herself to have had a good life, well-lived. It was hard to part with her but it somehow felt right…
@cergyn Yes, and you can also briefly romance the bandit chief Ali, although you can’t settle down with him, just fool around for a summer if you’ve already met him and then decide to become a knight errant and a bandit.
That’s just my opinion, but I think it’d be a bit hard to make a direct sequel work with all the different endings in Ironheart. I think the game is better complete in itself, and I’m looking forward to see what you write next.
I agree. I really can’t see a way of making a direct sequel work. If I do return to the world of Ironheart, it would probably be in a completely different time/place, or possibly even in a medium other than interactive fiction. I do still feel there are things I’d like to explore…
That’s for the future, though, and in the meantime I have indeed started on something new!
i think the game has changed because i could meet with the assasin leader in my first playthroughs on the road to the trial, but in all my latest games (minus the one where i sided with the caliphate) aside from agreeing with the beggar in the begining what else can i do to help give me the option
Nothing should have changed in that section so you can still definitely meet him. Rashid will approach you if you’ve come to his notice in one of the following ways:
You’ve met him already in Aleppo, when he called himself Simorg. This means agreeing with the beggar, as you mentioned.
You’ve called attention to yourself either by actively searching for your crew or raising your otherness score past 60. There are lots of ways to do this - essentially, don’t try to fit in with the times.
You’ve expressed hawkish and warlike views which make him think you could be a useful ally/pawn. There are a couple of ocassions when the game asks you for a decision along these lines.
Latest version now seems to be live on all platforms and it warrants another thank you to all the contributors to this thread who have given such constructive feedback and advice.
As with the last update, there are no big sections of new content but lots of tweaks throughout. The endings are now much fuller, with care taken that every possible ending ties up every loose end (including the stories of Nadia and Raymond).
No, the game is complete now really. I’ll keep making fixes as they come up (thankfully, it seems to be pretty tight now) and I’m open to small changes if readers spot anything that I’ve missed or that really doesn’t make sense.
Yes, I’ve been meaning to squeeze an extra conversation in with her so that’s still on the cards. I’m not going to do much more with the bandit leader as that could be difficult to thread in amongst the current routes but I could easily have them return in the epilogue for players who romanced them during the ‘questing’ phase. I’m scribbling that on the list now…
The new ending materials were great! I especially like the descriptions of how Trebine and Nadia can turn out. Ironheart is one of the best choose your own adventure games I’ve ever played.
My favorite character type to play is the ship technician. [spoiler]Building the foundry and inventing bicycles more than six centuries early had me grinning like an idiot. I can’t help but imagine what else the technical-minded astronaut could come up with/invent early after a good ending, given the presence of archons and the perpetual motion sky stones.
Tonzo: “My fish, what is this?
MC: “I call it, the printing press! You can make all the books you ever want!”
Touika: My lord, what did you do with that tiny skystone? It’s too small for an archon…
MC: Behold! The horseless skystone carriage! Or simply, the car.
Iberian: The Count of Tyre did what?
Other noble: He built a sea-going archon; a skystone-powered metal boat with no sails!
Ygraine: “Dear, what on earth did you put in my archon?”
MC’s synthized voice: “A voice transmitter my dear. Perfect for our coordinated archon operation, no?”
Nadia: What do you think, my teacher?
MC: I think we might have a skystone-powered flying machine, my apprentice.
Particularly nasty Mongol: “We shall destroy them all …(explosion)
MC: “Gundam Archons! Follow me! Rain fire on those Mongol bastards!!”
Unfortunately, I felt that scene needed a bit of death for impact and she drew the short straw…