Hello! I’ve finished 3 runs of this gamebook, so I can safely say that it clicked with me and I loved it. Thank you very much for finishing this off so well Brian!
Pros:
I’ve definitely enjoyed some of the magical girl genre over the years, and this channeled a lot of the best parts of that perfectly.
The writing was fun and tight, yet descriptive and engaging. I feel that the balance between providing details and keeping the player/reader moving was perfectly walked. Also, I would never have known that this had two different authors if I hadn’t read about the creation process.
I adored the stat setups in general, especially Insight and Creativity.
The way the stats were grown and challenged over the course of the game was also compelling. I was never scratching my head wondering why a main stat grew, or why a certain stat was challenged. And the mix-up of different kinds of stats being available to use at different points was also very well done.
I waffled on whether this was a pro or a con, but after sitting with it, I think it was just great writing to learn about the former Stellaria child having died so tragically, and not offer a way to restore her.
The four endings I have experienced all felt fantastic! I’m greedy and want even more epilogues/years-later scenes, but I truly can’t complain. And the swap to Morgan’s POV when I became a nightmare was perfection!
Cute romances and friendships.
Everything about Kit.
Edit: I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed all of the player character customization options! Just great stuff, and referenced well.
Mixed:
I am probably in the minority in not favoring gender-swappable characters aside from the main character. I find they tend to come across as much shallower characters then those written as a whole being with a well defined personality etc. from the outset. Worse, sometimes they read as though they did have a specific gender in mind. And often, reading a slew of fully gender neutral names really pulls me out of the immersion. In this case though, I didn’t struggle with Kit or Morgan at all - again the line was walked perfectly imo. Jesse though, didn’t quite live up to the mark for me. (I would say my own preference is selecting what gender(s) I want to romance in the beginning, and if a character does simply swap instead of having two different options, then also fully swap the name and some other details.)
Cons:
The Shine stat was the only confusing one. On my first run, I had 0 clue what it did/was-for even after using it a couple of times. I had a goal of manipulating it on my 2nd run, started that up, and none of my choices did what I expected. (I still had a blast doing what I wanted fwiw) Finally I came here before my 3rd run and read the spoiler. Okay, I started up that run… I think it’s also bugged, because I failed a bunch of challenges including against nightmares and it still went to 60 instead of going down from 50, but I kept going and eventually my failures dragged it down. I had to REALLY work at it. I felt that like maaaaybe half of my failures actually triggered it going down? I don’t know that it necessarily should have been “explained” in the game, or perhaps my choices kept me from learning about it, but I wanted to express my experience.
I was constantly wishing/pretending the setting was a college with young adults rather than children. I think everything would have still worked out perfectly with classes, parents, peers, and extracurricular activities, with some minor tweaking. I have this problem in videogames too, where it’s awkward to romance or attach to children, even while rping as one. A bonus for this change would be the ability to spice up romance. (College sequel to this, please!)
Like others, I too went looking for signs of poly-options, but stuck with solo so I didn’t risk losing my preferred partner. This is a very minor con for me.
Other thoughts:
This is my first post! I’ve been a bit addicted to these gamebooks for months now though, and I’m an analyst by trade and have been ruminating about feedback for all of this time. I’ve also now read and enjoyed Brian’s “what I learned” post. Something that goes along with the “confusing stats” problem is that it feels like authors almost want to trick me by going to powerthesaurus and finding what words they can use that kinda/sorta mean the stat name, without using the stat name.
I normally have a preference for long single-runs (though I think I might revisit some in the future to make other choices), but some of the stories, like this one, really grabbed me and made me explore other routes.
For anyone who enjoys the magical girl genre, Zeboyd games developed “This Way Madness Lies”, an indie turn-based RPG with fun writing. I highly recommend checking it out too.
