Really enjoyed this one.
6 Likes
OK I usually donāt give critical reviews, but I wanted to give my thoughts on this game because I think there is enough good to work with here that this may be constructive for future projects.
Pros:
- The mystery/suspense is well done. There is a lot of mysterious things going on throughout the story, which are fun to speculate and wonder about as you go. Not all of them are answered at the end (which I also consider a pro), but you get enough answers and hints for other things that it is still has a satisfying conclusion.
- Structure. I think the strongest parts of the story are where the player has the opportunity to investigate areas and uncover clues. That was the part of the game I was having the most fun. I highly recommend leaning into this in any future sequels as your writing is strongest when allowing the player and their allies to play nancy drew. Having it structured where you had multiple options to investigate and you can go through them one by one really made it cool. I think you should consider trying to incorporate puzzle elements to these mini adventurers where the order of exploration determines the success or you need to go back to a previous place when you find info/an inventory item to unlock extra information from somewhere previously explored.
- I thought the NPC-NPC dialogue was very strong. Incorporating this with the exploration structure really helped strengthen both. And I felt like it was the goldilocks situation where you got just the right amount of it.
Meh:
- The writing. I really struggled on where to place this because I donāt think it really deserves to be in this category. I think specifically the writing is very strong. Probably in the top tier in comparison to other works on this site. I think the author is very talented and this gamebook is very readable. The descriptions allow you to visualize what the MC is seeing/feelings and the way its written does a good job at communicating the feelings of intensity, horror, or dread that the author is trying to get across. Often times I would speed up or slow down my reading subconsciously depending on the intensity of the scene which I give kudos. However, I struggle to put writing in the pros because a lot of the cons end up bleeding into the writing and initially made me feel like the writing was just bad. Certain word choices, while obviously intentional, were just so bizarre choices to me that it just took me out of the experience multiple times.
Cons:
- Worldbuilding. This was probably my biggest issue with this story. There is a lack of aesthetic and so many nonsensical choices made by both NPCs and the setting that its just constant immersion breaking and very hard to roleplay a character. I think that people who like these stories for the more āgamey aspectsā like the mystery and puzzles are going to enjoy this story more. If you like to either self-insert or create a character to immerse yourself in the world, I think you are going to have trouble enjoying this one. Once I stopped trying to roleplay and just āturned offā the thinking part of my brain and view it more as a mystery book, I was able to start enjoying it more.
- Romance is kinda non-existent. I think the most romantic parts are actually between the two poly characters on their route, but its pretty much all between the two of them and you are kinda on the side from the romance part. I restarted multiple times while playing so I got to experience a bit of two different romances and a bit of the poly route. The playthrough I āfinishedā was the one where I didnāt initiate any poly paths but ended up selecting romance dialogues for both of those characters and favoring one of them. I think the people who are going to like the āromanceā paths in this game are people who are more on the asexual/aromantic spectrum as they are very much just weird friendmances with no chemistry and seemingly no feelings of desire/lust.
All in all, I would give the experience a 2/5. I would recommend this game to people who like occult mysteries and who are more asexual/aromantic and prefer the female gays.
6 Likes
Iām very confused. I thought all ROās were gender-selectable?
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They are.
sorry I meant āgaysā as in like ālookā not sexuality. Like as opposed to the āmale gaysā.
edit: ugh that is not a very good clarification. Like the verb gays not the noun. To gays like when you are looking at something.
āgazeā? Ah, you mean female gaze.
11 Likes
Ohhhhhhhhh.
@Eiwynn To hear from you is so cool; I remember being a lurker wayyyy back when and seeing your name on threads, offering support and sharing your own creative insights. Thank you for the well wishes! 
This means so much! 
Thank you for your congratulations, and Iām happy that you might get to spend more time in Fernweh this weekend with your beloved(s).
@nizzlebiebs Iām grateful that you love Book One! A gentle note that the JR route is a poly route rather than a love triangle; the two of them will naturally have some tension as their personalities kind of clash, but they both want to be in romance with the MC. 
(Iām not sure what color heart to do for the MC, but theirs would go here: ). Hopefully, you still enjoy the route; it will have a different kind of tension/conflict than with a love triangle as the three realize their feelings. 
Oh, I bet the creep factor kicked up a notch as the evening progressed and it got darker. I love your enthusiasm, and I am working diligently on Book Two. Thank you for your kind words!
@Empress_Nightmare Thank you! Iām touched that youāve been looking forward to its release. I hope that youāre enjoying your travels in Fernweh. 
@AdventureIV Awesome, thank you! Book Two is in the works, but the support from the community motivates me even more.
I think there is a good chance that you all have seen the Book One Discussion thread, but I wanted to link it just in case: here.
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First off, congratulations on the release of TFS. A LOT OF PEOPLE have been eagerly awaiting this release and, looking at the comments, are thrilled with what you have produced here. Second, damn you! Once I got home from the doctorās office yesterday (early onset arthritis and torn miniscus) I planned on purchasing TFS and blasting through story immediately to see how it ended. Then I started noticing, I think, minor changes in the text from the original WIP, and had to slow down so I didnāt miss anything new. Now I am stuck slowly savoring the completed story. I want to know what happens but I am enjoying it so much that I want it to last. I canāt wait to finish the book so I can start it all over again to explore a different path. Thank you for creating a story that I am going to find myself reading over and over again.
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I just wanted to write and congratulate the author, as well as recommend this game to anyone on the fence. I hadnāt been tracking this gameās progress at all, and truth be told I wasnāt even aware of its existence until a few weeks ago but itās one of the better hosted games that Iāve played over the last few years. Iām quite looking forward to seeing the story continue.
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In case you are not aware: As an ace person, your post reads incredibly judgmental and invalidating regarding a-spec identities. Of course, you are allowed to have your own opinion on the romance in this game, but to judge it as only so-called romance in quotation marks or āweird friendmancesā that solely people would enjoy who, in your eyes, apparently have absolutely no understanding of desire, lust or chemistry seems patronizing both to a-spec folks like me and the many non-a-spec readers who nonetheless came to adore this book and its characters.
Sidenote: Itās also a bit ironic to use the phrase āasexual/aromantic spectrumā in the first place only to follow that up with such a reductive interpretation of this very spectrum youāre talking about. After all, itās a spectrum for a reason: A-spec experiences are not homogeneous, including a-spec peopleās feelings towards sex and desire. Not to mention that, for many people (a-spec or not), thereās still a vast difference between actual desire/sex and fictional content about it, and that enjoying something in fiction doesnāt always translate to enjoying the same thing in real life. Or vice versa.
Personally, I would have chosen to sleep with R the first chance I got, but considering the game circumstances (long absence, grief, and residual trauma if you play it that way), I understood why the first part of the game needed to focus on the MC reacclimatizing to Fernweh and its residents in order to set the scene for the coming saga. By the way, I also felt an instant spark between R and my character because, from their first meeting onwards, Rās interest was made quite clear. As long as the author wonāt dangle the prospect of commitment over my head for three or four more books, Iām willing to wait and have every bit of faith that Iām going to enjoy the ride that is this developing relationship.
20 Likes
Iām normally nota fan of the āthrillerā genre, I much prefer either fantasy or slice of life. That being said I GREATLY enjoyed this one. There were a couple of times where I felt the pacing was a little off and there was a little too much prose to get through, but all in all it was a great ride and I especially enjoyed the ending set up for the continuing story.
4 Likes
I disagree with your cons to varying degrees.
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Roleplaying: You are not playing a blank slate but a character with a very specific background, a set of prior relationships that you can somewhat define at the outset, and a very specific reason for returning. Within those parameters though, it gives you a good deal of latitude to define your relationship to all those things in the present.
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World building: Again, I disagree with this. I very much felt a sense of place. If I had a wish, Iād probably wish for a few more encounters with former neighbors and acquaintances just to further drive home that sense of a place returned to and a larger canvas, maybe a few more one off encounters at the memorial or when wandering town. However, I could clearly envision the town as it was, my history with it, and a general sense of how it was and how it has changed. Most importantly, knowing it was a part 1, it did a good job of parsing out enough information to know what I needed to know while leaving enough questions and curiosities for me to look forward to further revelations in future books.
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Romance: Iāve only played through once, but again itās part 1 so the slow burn I experienced makes complete sense within that, and in the case of the two that I developed (best friend and rival), they both built up in ways that properly reflected their starting points. For the best friend, it was the isolated, supportive nature of the trip that gave way to something more and for the rival, it was a āgrowing upā of the relationship that first yielded friendship and then attraction (and you even have the choice of establishing a childhood attraction, ie roleplaying).
If youāre that down on the writing, then thereās really no altering your opinion (and thatās one point on which I disagree completely), but if you ever replay it with a focus on it being the first part of a multi-game single story, you might react a bit better to it. Or not! Whatever floats your boat.
As I wrote prior, I quite liked it and Iām already irritated that I canāt play Part 2 immediately (cracks whip at the writerās keyboard).
8 Likes
My apologies. I 100% did not intend to come across judgmental towards you. The reason I said what I said was because I have read several posts on this forum from people like you regarding the romances they like and I was trying to give a recommendation to people like you because a lot of the stuff I see you guys saying that you want, is in this book. So it was meant to be helpful, not judgmental.
I donāt particularly see what is wrong with the quotation marks, but after rereading I agree that using the word weird was probably inappropriate, and I apologize. I was thinking of something else at the time, and my mind wasnāt exactly on asexuality when I was trying to communicate an idea. To clarify my intent, my friends and I have long criticized a trope we see in media as unrealistic where, guys in particular, people friendzone themselves who they donāt have any chemistry with in order to ānice guyā themselves into a relationship with someone. Ross/Rachel, Leonard/Penny, etc. And we have referred to it as āweird friendmancesā that would never work in real life. Thats an opinion obviously, and its an obviously popular trope since it is used so much in tv and books, so Iām not trying to debate or shame anyone who likes that. But I was not intending to call what asexual/aromantic people want and like weird. I donāt want to spoil anything here, but the āromanceā paths are different in a way to that trope due to reasons, but the initial pre-relationship friendship that you see in those tropes is fairly similar and it reminded me of what people like you have been saying you wanted. That was my only intent was to be helpful.
Any reductiveness you are seeing is due to me not wanting to spoil things. I could get into details that would specifically address all the minor facets of that spectrum. And obviously people who identify as asexual and as aromantic tend to want vastly different things, but I see things in this gamebook that would appeal to both of them separately, but I am not going to go into spoilers in this thread. Whether people want different things IRL vs media, I get, again, I am just addressing things I have seen from people saying what they want to see.
I am glad you liked one of the characters (the character I also liked and romanced 
). I think that highlights the point I was making. People like you are likely to like this type of gamebook because this is the type of romance people like you have been asking for.
@phimseto For the record, I have no problem with set character backgrounds and relationships. And I want to be clear, as I mentioned in my review, I thought the writing was excellent. I just thought that the cons ended up making the writing appear to be not as great. To me āmehā means neutral not bad. A wash. I can clarify some of my points with specific examples if you like and provide screenshots if you are interested in seeing where I am coming from. If you are interested, would you mind me PMing you? I donāt want to put spoilers for people who havenāt read it yet. And quite frankly I donāt want to unnecessarily ruin your fun and excitement, so I completely understand if you arenāt interested. But if your are curious, like my post and Iāll send you some screenshots and explanations via PM.
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@swilson50125 Thank you for the congratulations! I hope that your appointment went well; a close family member also suffers from arthritis along with other joint ailments. 
I love that TFS was waiting for you after that appointment, but Iām actually more over the moon about how you detected those changes from the WIP version of it and chose to slow down. Thatās a great call! I think some of the connections and links in the mysteries can come into better focus on subsequent runs of the story (partially due to how I included variation to not let things get stale like with exploring the cabin). That is what I heard from my betas noticing subtle clues during their playthroughs, so Iām happy that you will be spending a lot of time in Fernweh. 
@phimseto Hello! Itās nice to meet you and even nicer that the release allowed for it. I appreciate you taking the time to give my book a try. Book Two is something Iāve been avidly working on; I plan to start sharing more about its development a while after the release (with a demo and new thread as well), but please know that Iām also eager to share this world with you. I will likely put some updates in the Book One discussion thread until I make the move to create a thread for Book Two.
Hi @anon12679161 . 
It means a lot that you gave my book a try, and Iām grateful that you enjoyed it. I also like how you mention the ending set up; I had that ending envisioned from the start, especially how it eerily mirrors the arrival into town. I will keep in mind what you said while working on Book Two.
Thank you all for the support and thoughts! Iām getting to see/learn new icons/usernames I havenāt seen before, so I appreciate you taking the time to experience and try my book. Could you please consider leaving a review/rating on the platform you downloaded TFS: Book One from, if you enjoyed your travels in Fernweh? No pressure or worries; it just helps both me and the series out. 
9 Likes
Only thing that bothered me I wish the MC had more chances to actually speak their mind in some social situations. Like I really hate Rubyās mom and the only option to defy her and actually talk back ended with her dismissing you and the MC failing to say anything. If there was just one choice to talk back then it would have been beyond satisfying to actually see the MC do it and insult her behavior
2 Likes
Iām glad that I tried this & not missed it, was very entertaining. my focus in reading or playing games of choice is mostly always mainly the romance aspect but this managed to get me equally interested in the story if not more.
the ominousness and dread always persisted throughout reading even if little at times. for the part of the fight with the dryad, I chose instant death but for some reason made me feel really bad when it was dyingā¦ even though that creature cruelly killed many othersā¦ so knowing it might probably be just ācorruptedā and thatās not actually itās true nature is good
liked all the love interests tbh but mostly in this order:
-James<3 I can imagine a big guy always taking the lead and being protective
-Mal, I still donāt know the full name but loved the interactions with him, he seems a bit of a bad boy lol (heās also mysteriously hot)
-Reese & Becket both (not forgetting Alek which seemed close to being a RO)
-Silas wasnāt exactly my type but still liked him
will definitely read book 2, thank you
6 Likes
@lacunafiction I have posted several times on the TFS discussion thread and just found this announcement thread as I was searching around. I want to thank you for sharing the world of Fernweh with us. I love the game. I have played through several times and have many more visits to Fernweh planned.
The LI characters are real and each has a distinctive personality: the lovable Bee (one of my favs, supportive, loyal, kind); the solemn, dependable Jay (the brooding silent type is so attractive); the suave, funny, carefree R (who, once you get to know him, has so much more depth than what appears on the surface); the taciturn, artistic, academic S (you must pay attention to his actions over his words); and the surprise LI (Iāll let new players find this one). In addition, there are a host of supporting characters who are colorful and fun to learn about/interact with.
I enjoyed how the author left subtle hints/clues about the mysteries in Fernweh and about the monster at the end. I realize that there are still plot points left to discover and that not all was revealed in the first book, but I appreciate this approach and look forward to the next. It feels like there is an overarching mystery, which I prefer.
I enjoy Aelsaās writing style and her use of descriptions which made me feel immersed in the world of Fernweh. I canāt wait for Book 2! Congrats!
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Bloody brilliantā¦ i got Ruby and Janeās romance route and Mals route. Definitely looking firward to book 2. Kudos
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@Frieza I will keep this in mind for Book Two! Thank you for reading. Iām excited for you to encounter Ms. Verner again in Book Two; you might be surprised by some of the tense exchanges I have planned.
@plasticdoll I love to hear that the creeping dread kept a gentle hold of you throughout the story, even when interacting with the characters or sharing a lighter moment. My hope was to make readers kind of question things or be slightly on edge. Thatās a really great catch about the tree creature, and the manner in which it dies was meant to inspire a bit of hesitation or second-guessing in some players, while others might just feel itās a fair end to something that caused suffering. The way you performed the kill (instant, drawn-out, mercy, etc.) will come up again near the start of Book Two; Iām so glad it made an impression!
Itās cool you liked the ROs; I agree with you 110% about J giving off a protector vibe and just wanting to try and shield those around them by shouldering everything. And, I can confirm that Mal would take āmysteriously hotā as a compliment; they like being enigmatic. 
Thank you for taking the time to give TFS a try.
Hi @ChiggerCat! Itās been nice seeing you in the discussion thread. Thank you for the congratulations, and I really enjoyed reading your takes on the characters in addition to how you see their different sides/depths. Itās really important to me that they feel real; both in the gradual build of the relationships/reconnecting, but also in how they will change over the course of the series or even within a standalone book as a reader uncovers more about them. (e.g. what Rās playdate can tell you about R that is then reinforced by Chapter 9, etc.) Weaving the hints was closer to spinning a web with how they are strung throughout the chapters to create a bigger picture; I hope readers enjoy re-evaluating and/or scrutinizing all of the foreshadowing that I baked into this book. Some hints even link to future books. 
@Emily-katie_Smith Thank you! Iām excited that youāre looking forward to Book Two, and I love hearing which routes you tread along in Book Two. There will be a lot in store for all of them, but Iām looking forward to write a highly variable scene that is very tailored for JR. (Hint: It involves a family dinner.)
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