Song Of The Fallen WIP: Yet another Codex Entry posted for opinion

ok so i’m going to sound really dumb but… what is belle?

Did you play the game.
If yes than did you meet a little girl that offered you a thread
If yes than that little girl is bella.

yea i played the game but i wanted to know if we really know what she is like is she magical is she a god that granted us with the boundblade or is she really just some girl we meet in the rain and there isn’t anything special about her?

I don’t think left4bed will tell us as that is possibly spoilers.
My theory is that she is moongod though.

i like that theory it be cool if she was cause then add some huge tension between the MC and their best friend(i forgot his name) since he became a chosen for the sungod and we became chosen for the moongod

hey alright, i’m a little sleepy (and have apparently left quite a few grammar errors myself, ha!) but i’m still ready to go! i’m glad you found the feedback useful. it’s totally understandable for a wip to have errors, mind (well, it’s understandable for any work to have errors) and it doesn’t truly lessen the experience much, considering the vast majority of your readers don’t seem keen to throw people in the grammar slammer. also, thank you for the info on the fade-outs–i wasn’t aware that was the intention! i hope you do get it to work the way you want it to, but either way, top notch addition by malebranche.

now, as for a critique of the gameplay, it mostly has to do with things i found iffy about the stats, a topic i rarely think about. now, specificallyy, this has to do with the personality stats. i honestly do feel the game is lacking in this regard, or it at least does some strange things i didn’t actually intend to happen.

i’ll need to provide some information about the character i usually play as in order to provide some substance to my complaints, so i will! first and foremost, his actions are largely controlled by anger and impulse. he truly feels anger is power, and so, along with his impulsive streak and a general lack of a desire to be seen as a good person, he’s got a penchant for violence, destruction, and holding grudges. he is an unsmiling (constantly scowling, in fact), hard to approach, arrogant son-of-a-gun, but he sees a boundless amount of beauty in the world and deeply respects and cares for his family. one could describe him as being good-natured, but it’s more that, often, the things he wants to do happen to be kind, rather than him wanting to do them because he is kind. he is essentially an edgy hedonist dork with major anger issues.

so imagine my surprise when his dominant trait turned out to be affable! that was honestly a good chuckle, but it seemed very strange that, despite all my attempts to not appear friendly (other than, you know, with my best friend), i still turned out friendlier than i actually meant to be. i feel this is the problem in using stats like this, where there isn’t really a bar and there’s a very small number of only-somewhat-related traits. i really do think the system, and the game as a whole, needs more nuance in this regard. it did have a strong start, with choices perfect for the character i was going for, but i’m ending up with some slightly unpredictable results at this point. for example, the fact that hunting down a fox only adds to intelligence was a vaguely disappointing surprise for me, since that’s not the character i’m trying to play. it would really help to indicate tone with some choices, and have more choices that are phrased differently but have a similar effect on stats. it sort of ends up feeling overly linear, like a bad hogwarts house quiz.

the other problem i have is with the loads of completely empty space in the stats screen (which might perhaps have a reason, but it just sort of makes the screen look bloated) and the fact personality has its own page instead of being right up front. i mean, i would think that’s the kind of thing one would want to know about, considering it currently plays more of a part and will play a large part for the rest of the game.

i would advise you to get rid of the one ‘(Stats Updated)’ notification, also.

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That’s assuming Ehren ever finds out the truth about what exactly happened. As there are only three survivors present he won’t ever learn the truth, unless one of the other two blabs it out to him. My MC will attempt to strongly dissuade Bella from ever doing that, so that only leaves Marcus as the wild card.
Otherwise my MC will probably say something like this to Ehren and anybody else who inquires, if prompted hard enough: “The mysterious devilfolk hiding in the hills probably ambushed and tried to kill the good sister on her way to somewhere else. Initially overwhelmed she likely made a fighting retreat to the nearest building which just so happened to be my mother’s farm. Alas, her valiant resistance was eventually overcome and she, tragically, died whilst defending, us innocent smallfolk from predatory demons. The little girl and I were knocked out during the fighting and left for dead. When we eventually woke up the house was in disarray and both my mother and the good sister were dead. The assailants, successful in their gruesome task had vanished, taking the bodies of their fallen with them, while the storm had shielded these tragic events from the outside world.”

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hmmmmm gg good job i can see that happening

It might not lessen the experience for others, but it cheapens it for me. I want this to be its best possible version, so have no fear, I’ll try to be as meticulous as possible once I begin my first round of editing and revisions.

That’s actually completely understandable, I haven’t been nearly as judicious with the stats as I would have liked. Most of my effort and thinking went into getting the system to a workable form that does what’s required, and from there I really only focused on the story. I’m having a few balancing issues, mainly because (as you can imagine) the system is becoming increasingly complicated and I have yet to determine value limits. Unfortunately this will really only be something I can iron out once I’ve written the story to completion, so as this initial draft comes out you might find similar issues cropping up. My focus, in all aspects, is to create a workable build of the game that does what’s required for the most part. That might sound too clinical and emotionless, but…that’s the best way I know how to explain my thinking.

When I do get that final workable build though (hopefully within the next few months if I keep to my timeline), I’ll need to do extensive testing to iron out all those potential problems, which I’m hoping the forum will be willing to help me with.

I feel like such an idiot for saying this, but…a character built around anger is something that I had never even considered, which is quite a shocking oversight. The reason I added “unpredictable” was because, for the life of me, I could not come up with a fourth trait with a clear enough voice that I felt confident to write! I literally facepalmed myself as I was reading this. I’ll be integrating a fifth “Tempestuous” trait, I really like the wild card value “Unpredictable” affords me, and having five traits instead of four is a nice nod to the overarching lore. I had actually been considering adding a fifth, which was why I asked about it earlier, I just couldn’t think of one.

You might notice the “Disposition” set of opposing bars at the very bottom of the Personality screen (the ones I’ve completely neglected). Those were meant to circumvent exactly that problem, but I haven’t really integrated that at all. My thinking is for your traits to be influenced by what you say, and your disposition to depend on what you do. Together they’ll hopefully create a fairly detailed and nuanced character build. However I’m not quite happy with the preliminary dispositions I’ve put there, and haven’t really taken the time to think of alternatives (again, open to suggestions).

That was honestly put there way before I had a clear idea for what I was actually doing, this began as an entry for CScomp and the whole personality system only came after I had already submitted. That was pretty much a throwaway choice just to show I had a stat menu of some kind, and I haven’t yet gone back and revised all that earlier stuff. A lot of it is really sloppy and rushed, so I’ve been putting off doing that.

Haha! That’s actually due to the fact that certain parts of the stats menu get revealed after certain plot points. There’s also a whole other “name menu” for if you put your name as “Alan”. This is the same name as the MC’s father, so I thought it would be pretty cool if the game recognises that and calls you Alan Grane Junior, and you have a bit of follow up dialogue about being name after your father. I guess no one entered that name though, so there’s a decent sized chunk of wasted code just sitting there.

I actually wrestled with that quite a bit, I initially had it up there and not as a button, but I thought it might make that first menu a bit too long and require a lot of scrolling, especially if you play on a cellphone. But yeah, as the system becomes more nuanced and integral, that additional click will become annoying very quickly, so I’ll give that some thought.

That was just a test, initially I was going to have every stat change give that notification, but then I realised just how many changes there would be and decided it would be far too garish. So it remains as a remnant from a bygone era, yet to feel the wrath of deletion.

Thanks again for the great feedback (especially the anger trait suggestion), you’ve been incredibly helpful!

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Yeah but i still liked the character Helena and sad to see her die.

This is so good ! well done so far so awesome x

I loved each stabbing! I hope i can slaughter MORE!

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That was very emotional, and overall a very excellent. The MC seems a bit like Edragon where his house along with his uncle is burned down. The Chosen Ones seem a bit like Aes Sedai, controlling the magic and using it for their own purposes. Also if the girl creates a boundblade does that mean she’s a god, or a host for a magical force?

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Thank you! It seems quite a few people have been commenting on the emotional aspect, which is great to hear and very reassuring since I’m very much still trying to develop my own style and voice and striving to improve my writing everyday.

I assume you mean Eragon? That’s a fair parallel, although the whole “peasant child leaving their home after a tragedy spurs them on a great adventure” is a very ubiquitous trope in fantasy, and storytelling in general (there’s a forum post I linked to that goes more in depth into the specifics of that trope’s use/overuse).

In terms of how that all affects SotF, your mention of the Aes Sedai is a lot more in line with my thinking not just for the beginning portion I’ve already released, but also with the “feel” I’m hoping to capture. I could write entire paragraphs about how much Wheel of Time means to and has affected me (don’t worry, I’ll spare you that), but in short it’s very much informed the kinds of stories I want to read and, to a certain extent, the kind I want to write.

A coming of age story, set in an interesting fantasy world. A grand (some might say overlong) plot. A huge swathe of rich characters. The “good” sometimes being “bad”, the “bad” sometimes being “good”. A complex, interweaving (pun intended) narrative, with seemingly insignificant characters and decisions affecting things is a big way.

This is a small picture of what I hope SotF will eventually be, in some ways it’s almost my own homage to WoT as I’ve placed a number of deliberate nods to the saga.

The Chosen Few are fairly similar to Aes Sedai in a purely political sense and the kind of influence they have, but this is really only when it comes to the monarchies in the Sunblessed Kingdoms (Temia, one of those monarchies, is where the story will largely take place for now). Each of the Fourfold Nations have different ideas on how the Chosen should be approached because the Boundgod of each Nation is revered and worshiped in different ways, and so their servants have different roles. The Chosen Few, as the most exalted of these servants, are an extension of this. The sunClave also operates in a similar fashion to Tar Valon and the White Tower, but really only in the sense that it’s a place where training happens in the guise of our “westernised metaphor” and it also has it’s own hierarchy (though it’s one in line with the previously mentioned Rule of Four and not divided by color), but I think that’s a trope that transcends WoT. The Chosen Few (and only the Chosen) also have very long lifespans, however they are not in any way compelled to be truthful like the Aes Sedai.

You may have noticed a few mentions of the term Wardren (though I think I may have mistakenly left out the “r” in the demo) at certain points in the story, most notably when Ehren tells you he’ll be leaving to become one. Continuing with the Tar Valon parallels, they’re similar, both in role and wording, to the Warders. They are highly skilled aides and protectors assigned to fully made Sisters of the Sun. However, they are not magically linked or bonded in any way and exist only within the sunClave. In addition, once a Sister becomes Chosen, her Wardren has to to retire.

Someone else brought up WoT before and as I told them, the very early portion of Eye of the World is similar to the early beats of this story, at least in a thematic sense, you’ll continue to see that if I eventually get around to finishing chapter 3. However, from there I forgo my incessant winking (aside from a few references here and there for my own amusement) and head into mostly uncharted waters.

Sooo, yeah, glad I didn’t make that overly long or do the kind of rambling breakdown that probably nobody cares about.

Well she’s certainly magic in some way, aside from that, all I can do is leave you to speculate as I wiggle my eyebrows and smile that annoyingly coy writers smile.


Question?

All this typing, that sort of took me into the background lore of the story, has me wondering whether I should maybe post Codex entries here as I write them, for you to muse over and perhaps give me feedback on while waiting for the next update?

A lot of the specifics I’ve yet to really figure out, so in a way that would be a peek behind the curtain of my thinking as I think it.

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I’d be very interested in that. :ok_hand:

A very good thing for my MC, who more or less live by Dr. House’s motto: everybody lies. As I’ve previously noted in my MC’s case even to himself and perhaps especially to himself.

It would neatly confirm my MC’s suspicions that she’s using him as a tool and he, himself has no strange powers or magical aptitude whatsoever. Maybe you could make a dialogue option where the MC can ask Bella to refrain from using him as a magical puppet? In any case he’ll forgive her for it this time since it did save both of our lives and killed the bad gal.

In any case selling my MC on the whole chosen thing is probably going to take a LOT of explaining and persauding, especially making him believe that he has any powers of his own and that whatever he manages to do is not simply just because of Bella channeling her magic through him.

Ha, as it stands my MC seems a bad choice for a high and mighty virtuous “chosen one” seeing as he’s a cynical and sarcastic liar, not to mention, from what we learn in prologue a poor excuse for a farmer. In any case he’s not the guy to go around preaching the virtues of some god whilst dressed in silly robes, wielding a glowing weapon in public. In fact becoming a priest, extolling the virtues of some god while dressed in silly robes, might be the one occupation he possibly views as being worse than what he already is, a starving farmer.
In any case by choosing my MC, Bella/the Moongod(ess) has chosen someone more like Han Solo than Luke Skywalker, at best.

Yes, please.

yes plz, just a question may take your glasses so I may politely bash them in anger. . .

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Haha! My poor glasses, what have they ever done to you?

I can destroy the world in the end? Because i have the feeling, my destiny can be very dark.

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All sorts of things could happen. I can’t predict the choices you’ll make, I can only give you the freedom to make them.