Seeing as how July 4th is Independence Day, I suppose now is a very appropriate time to reveal this.
Promises of Honor is a Choicescript game I’ve been working on for the last six months or so, writing on and off again. Set in a fictional world much like our own, you play the role of a junior Royal Navy officer in the Kingdom of Alban, tasked with defending the territory and maintaining the laws of the Kingdom’s Columbian colonies. However, following a great war with Alban’s colonial rivals, the colonies have grown restive and unruly. You will decide the fate of these colonies, suppressing their traitorous rebellion or aiding them in their campaign for freedom. It is the year 1765, and time grows short.
Well, with all that said, I’m nowhere near done with the game. In the six months I’ve been working on it I’ve written three scenes, only one of which is good enough to show publicly, which is the segment linked here.
I write slowly and I have other projects that I’m working on, but I hope to complete an epic story, possibly in several pieces, that allows you to follow full story paths for several factions. You can be a loyal navy officer, commanding your own ship or squadron. Or you could join the rebel colonists, and use your cunning and diplomacy to outwit or outfight the powerful Alban Royal Navy. I have ideas for other factions, but since they’re just ideas right now I won’t bring them up here.
I’ll gladly read and respond to any feedback you have for me. I’m particularly worried about clarity regarding player stats, the writing style (is it too purple or inconsistent?), and whether different choices feel too similar in result.
I read through it, as you peaked my curiosity. It wasn’t bad: I really have no critiques to give other than it felt a bit cumbersome to read Hamilton’s speaking parts. I understand that you are trying to apply a very thick “sailor-like” accent, but I honestly couldn’t make out what he was attempting to convey at points. I would suggest correcting that a bit, not much: just enough to convey what he is meaning slightly better. Lol.
I can’t wait until you finish it up. It seems to have a lot of potential. I hope it does rival Broadsides, as that was truly a good read.
I can understand the concern about Hamilton. The effect I was trying to go for was the Hamilton has a very thick accent in general, coming from the Isle of Man and speaking Manx as his first language, thus his English isn’t easy to understand. It was difficult to write it and I ended up toning it down a lot in later sections, so that is definitely something I need to go back and do.
Very, very well written! *edit* I finished reading, and I like it, but I’m not sure what was happening at the end. I kept choosing an option and then I would have to choose a different one, and somehow I was selected as an officer. I assume this is the prologue/beginning?
My only concern is that the stats screen seems almost identical to Choice of Broadsides. This might be intentional, but with similar subject matter the games might get confusing.
Also, the scenes are well written, but maybe a few more choices instead of clicking “next” a bunch might make it seem more like a game than reading a book. Even if they don’t substantially change the story.
@CitizenShawn
Yeah, this is the prologue where you create your character. I tried to set it in context, by having your stats determined by your choices during your officer’s examination. I think I’ll have to make this clearer, maybe with an author’s note or some sentence like “You answer based on your skills,” if that’d help.
I was worried about the lack of choices, which seems like a problem for an opening section. I might end up writing some more action-oriented prologue so that players can make more interactive and substantial decisions before coming to this character creation section to address that. Of the other two scenes I have, one’s almost devoid of choices because it’s basically a world-building/character-building section, and the other has quite a few because it’s a combat/story section. I’m not quite sure what to do about this.
Is the stats screen that similar to ‘Broadsides?’ I tried to cut down on the amount of stats and skills because I disliked how disjointed the stats screen was in ‘Broadsides.’ Any suggestions on how I could improve on that?
Regarding the stat screen: You know, looking back at Choice of Broadsides, it’s not that your stats screen looks similar, it’s just the stats. “Patronage” was the one that made me so strongly recall Choice of Broadsides. Seeing them made me feel like I was going to have to go through the exact same types of trials in CoB in order to get promoted.
Also, perhaps you could *page_break or make a simple menu in the stats and have the ship stats on another page? That might make it a little less complicated. I like the amount of detail you put into the guns, ship class, and sailor compliments.
Regarding the prologue: I like how you made the name selection options, so definitely keep that. Fighting definitely speeds things up, and with your writing style, a dash of combat might help spice up the prologue. Perhaps at the beginning, you could have some cannon fire and chaos and some decisions that might influence your abilities, then you could skip some time or have your main character wake up from a horrible dream, then walk out on deck and do the whole name sequence?
That is part of the plan with Patronage, though I would like to use it in more informal ways, like increasing the chance of success for certain choices based on it.
The ships stats will become important fairly soon, since your actions will affect the morale and discipline of the ship’s crew, even if you’re not in command. I think I’ll keep it visible on the stats screen, but if things are too cluttered I’ll look into cleaning up the page.
I think I have a plan for a more action-packed prologue, involving colonial smugglers and some character development. That’ll allow me to smooth out this examination prologue a bit and hopefully make it more interesting. Hopefully I’ll have it out before the end of the month!
Sweet! A really great action prologue would really help players appreciate the story later on. Let me know if you need any coding help. You seem to be doing fine on your own, but I like to get my feet wet in other genres so I don’t get writers’ block on my own!
