At the start, the MC doesn’t really interact with civilians because they were kept isolated—their daily life was mostly spent in the lab being studied by the mages, or walking around specific areas under heavy surveillance. But I could definitely look into adding a few scenes like that early on!
Slight spoiler for Zatus’ route:
If you follow his route, he’ll actually try to get you to socialize a bit with the villages around the camp, since the people there don’t really know much about the Warden.
Quick question about a certain choice in this update (spoilers if you haven’t played it yet):
Did you end up accepting Azgor’s offer?
I’m curious to see how many people went for it and how many turned him down!
Option A: You accepted and let him do it
Option B: You refused
My main criticism would be that there’s a general lack of nuance and variation between choices. As someone else said, it feels like there’s only three distinct archetypes and nothing else in between. That’s pretty limiting. For example, it’s impossible to be proud of who you are without being an asshole about it. Its all “Duty”, “You’re all beneath me” and “I’m a monster and I wish I wasn’t”
I also think it would be interesting for us to decide how we feel about Azgor and what kind of relationship we have with him. Right now, we’re forced to be annoyed and frustrated by him every time we interact. Considering he’s been with MC since childhood? (I think) and that no one else cares about them, I could see a MC seeing him as some sort of father figure or at least desiring a friendly relationship with him.
Just got done with this and I think it’s really good so far I had a lot of fun with it.
Like some other have mentioned I do think the personality choice is a bit rigid right now
I think rather than having a choice tied to several different stats that make up personality maybe have a choice for each personality stat that way people can make more complex characters. Like one choice for ego one for rage one for honesty etc etc.
Also the choice to kill the king made sense from a logical stand point as a player but it felt weird for my character to think of that. Like no dialouge or choices would have made me think my MC would’ve considered doing something like that.
Also I would like to recommend special dialouge and reactions to having certain names for yourself.
I thought naming my character Azgor or Five would be pretty symbolic considering the story and everything. It would be cool if people reacted to you choosing very specific symbolic names for yourself.
Yeah, my plan now is to rework some of the interactions and choices. When I first started writing, I was aiming to create three main paths for the player to choose from, but I feel like I deviated quite a bit from that later on — and honestly, I think it was for the better. Still, I want to go back and revise those earlier scenes, especially the prideful/arrogant route, which I’m not entirely happy with at the moment. I’ll also be adding more choices throughout. The next update should focus mostly on that.
As for Azgor, it’s a bit tricky because he doesn’t really allow the Warden to get too close to him. He purposely keeps his distance, annoys the Warden on purpose, and tends to pull back whenever he feels like he’s letting something slip. The prideful/arrogant Warden would naturally get along better with him, but since I’m reworking that path, I’m not sure yet how it’ll end up. I’ll see if I can add more variation, but for now, the relationship with Azgor is intentionally a bit static because of how guarded he is — at least for the time being.
I’m glad you liked it! I do plan on reworking some of the dialogue, especially in the beginning, and I want to include more choices as the story progresses.
Regarding the choice to kill the king — that was actually supposed to be available only if the MC’s ego and rage stats were decently high, but I forgot to set the condition for it! I completely understand what you mean though, and I think it makes sense to tie that option specifically to the prideful/arrogant route, which I’m already planning to rewrite. I’ll probably lock that choice if it’s outside that path.
Funny enough, I did think about adding special reactions if the player chose one of the characters’ names — like Azgor getting annoyed if you picked his, or Arael and Zatus reacting if you used theirs or someone they know. But I thought maybe no one would actually do that, so I ended up leaving it out. I’ll probably include it in the next version though, just in case!
But you can definitely keep “Five” if you choose the option to not change the name. Neither of them will be particularly happy about it, but they’ll go along with it.
Not at all! In Chapter 2, you’ll have the option to create your own empire regardless of the route you chose. You can choose to support Theresa, support Ecbert, or choose to carve out your own empire. That last option will have different variations depending on whether you chose the romancce option with Zatus or Arael, or if you’re alone/waiting to romance Walls or Ruby.
Concerning Azgor, I get it. It’s why I focused on the Warden’s perspective of him. The idea of a close relationship seems out of place at this point of the story and I wouldn’t dare to assume his feelings and intentions towards the Warden.
Buuut… like I said, he is the one who was closest to the Warden after he was separated from his “siblings” and probably the only one who had a semblance of care towards them.
I don’t think it would be far fetched for someone as lonely and isolated as the MC to try make something out of it, whether or not they agree with Azgor on most things.
By allowing us to choose MC’s feelings towards him you could also allow feelings like hate or others.
I’m not opposed to the idea, I’m just not entirely sure how to implement it.
I feel like simply adding a single option to define how the Warden feels about Azgor, without reinforcing it later, might come across as a bit empty. But at the same time, making every interaction with him depend on a specific variable doesn’t seem very practical, so I’ve been handling it through a standard relationship bar like with the other characters.
That said, I’ll try to look into possible alternatives. I’m planning to rework parts of the early game anyway, so this might be a good time to experiment. Thanks for the suggestion!
Definitely not the easiest thing to handle, especially with how you’ve constructed the game. But for me it was a small source of frustration throughout the story since the only choice in response to him is the one at the end of the chapter. A few dialogue options with him would be welcome.
Whatever you choose to do though, I really enjoyed the game and I’m eager to see what you’ll do with it.
Adding more dialogue options with him is definitely something I can do.
I hadn’t really stopped to think about it, but you’re right—one of the only moments where you can directly respond to him is at the end. The only other instance that comes to mind is after the first conversation with Arael, but even then, the choice isn’t very meaningful, and their exchange is brief.
I’ll make a point to improve that. Either way, chapter 2 will definitely have more interactions between the two, depending how chapter one ended for you.
I was wondering why I hadn’t had a chance to choose a name outside the default yet and realized after replaying and checking other choices that it’s only on the route you go along with Arael.
Due to the whole ego/pride thing I’m going for, getting captured by her wasn’t appealing to me, hah. Hopefully in Chapter 2.
I find it astonishing (though realistic) that everyone claims to be the true successor to this great empire the Aureliens built that they apparently really love and meanwhile the actual people who founded this empire are hunted and enslaved and killed on a regular basis. Like, they admire them, but they don’t actually value them as people. “We like your culture so much that we’ve decided it’s ours now and we’ll take what’s left of it apart until we have what we want from it.” There’re actually quite a few times I can think of where this has happened irl tbh.
The writing and dialogue seem good so far, but the tense-changing every few paragraphs really takes me out of it and makes it hard to get into. I think present-tense is and should be the standard for IF, but there’s a lot of past-tense seemingly at random, which unfortunately makes it read more amateur-ish than it should. I say this because I respect the work put in and it seems like an interesting story that I want more people to want to read!
Hello! You can also choose a new name in Zatus’ route. However, at the beginning of chapter 2, you’ll have the option to pick one regardless of the route you chose.
Hey, I’m glad you liked it! Could you maybe share a screenshot of one of these moments as an example? That would make it easier for me to track them down and fix later.
This is so good. I thought you were gonna introduce the MC as OP then nerf them. But here you wrote the plot so well that I don’t even care about being OP. I just want to keep interacting with Arael and other characters. I have never read an IF where I’m actually more excited with talking with other characters than fighting. How the MC connect with people is so real and prescious. Even the dragon inside you is not the typical evil or good demon. His opinion change and he can treat you well today, but can curse you tomorrow. It feels like your actually interacting with real people.
Here are the tense issues. I can’t upload a screenshot for whatever reason, but this is the text. The presentation goes from the word “belonged”, which is past-tense, to “you think”, which is present-tense. Then “chuckled” (past-tense), then “you know” (present-tense), then “boomed” (past-tense). This seems to continue throughout what I’ve read, but it is often less back and forth and continues with one tense for a few paragraphs, then switches.
–
This voice in your head belonged to none other than Azgor, the Black Dragon of Calamity—a monstrous being that crawled out of a deep dwarven mine 350 years ago and brought the great Aurelian Empire to its knees. From what you’ve heard, it took them fifty years of relentless war to finally kill the beast, and it brought them to the brink of extinction.
“I still don’t understand why you chose this,” you think, sidestepping Azgor’s remarks. “Out of all the things you could have done, why tether yourself to me? Stuck in my head, watching through my eyes… Doesn’t it get tiresome?”
Azgor chuckled. “Well, it’s certainly better than remaining trapped in my core, letting those researchers poke and prod me for another 300 years.”
You know he’s not telling you everything. It’s one of the small advantages of having his consciousness tethered to yours. Not that it matters—you can’t do anything about it.
“And now!” the announcer’s voice boomed, jolting you back to the moment. “Facing him is a red dragon, captured in the northern mountains!”
