The Masked Mirror - WIP (Playtest Available)

[RGH]

Most heroes’ tales begin with a prophecy, a kidnapped princess, or perhaps a social-rejection sob story. It’s just the same thing over and over; you wonder how people don’t get sick of it. Such are the stereotypes–you’re not sure where yours falls into category, but it begins with you walking out of your house naked and consequently getting yourself exiled.

Playtest link: click here!

Greetings, fellow forum members! I, personally, have not been a member of the CoG forum for long, but I have always wanted to make my own ChoiceScript game and now here it is: the Masked Mirror. At first, I wasn’t planning on having this game beta tested at all, but after lurking in the forums for a bit I’ve decided that beta testing would be good for my game, since I don’t have much prior experience.

I’m open to constructive criticism and any ideas or suggestions you’d want to contribute. Also, I’d appreciate it if you alert me to any errors, especially grammatical ones. Some advice would also be greatly appreciated! I’ve been trying to work in a sneakier way for the player to give their gender, and I’ve also been trying to figure out which stats to incorporate into the game right now. My files are a bit of a mess as of the moment, because of all the unused stats and variables.

This game’s world is divided among 8 clans, and the PC belongs to one called the Clan of the Seers. They’re just an orphan with little to no influence on the world around them, until they get framed for stealing the Seers’ Source of Power, which gives the Clan its unique Abilities. They set off on an adventure that one day becomes a grand tale, but for now they’ll focus on staying in the Clan Elder’s good graces and getting the Source back. On your adventure, there will be six ROs, and that fact has been making me cry on the inside because three of them are gender flippable, and the codes are making my eyes bleed. You actually meet the first flippable in Chapter One, and I think some of the pronouns aren’t properly capitalized, though I’ve tried to fix them. Please let me know if there are any of those blasted things left!

tldr; this is my first game. Feedback is grandly appreciated!

[Eiwynn]

Welcome to the community - your WiP sounds fun.

Feedback after I read it on break.

[Eiwynn]

I encountered an indent error when choosing the “Charming” alternative at being chained up.

One general observation: Your writing is very good but your structure has long blocks of texts … many of the customers that buy these games are on mobile, so you may want to break the pages into smaller bits.

[Jenna_V]

Gender flag issues:

Another child (you think his name is Milo) whispers to her angrily,
“what are you thinking?! He already agreed, don’t annoy him. He won’t
wanna play anymore!”

(Emphasis mine. I’m playing a female character.)

“She was the Elder’s prodigal, young guard, having made it into the
Elite Squad at the age of eighteen. Skilled and fair-faced as she was,
not many favored him, and the people did not trust him–”

It’s not clear in the context if the “him” is referring to the Elder or is a gender flag problem.

[ParrotWatcher]

It looks like a good start. There are a few confusing terms, that probably need to be explained more thoroughly.

My main complaint would be this:

Maybe there’s a way out of this?

• “I’ll give you the Jar.”

• “I’m not telling you anything.”

I think I’ve written before on avoiding instant-death choices, especially when neither seems like an obviously terrible choice. If the only way the story can continue is by picking the first option, why does the second option even exist? I will admit, I liked the “death” scene (it’s not too dissimilar from my own), but I shouldn’t have to replay the entire story just because I made a single mistake.

There was also this:

“Nice try, North,” Dmitri says with a smile. “But I know you don’t have the Jar.”

I never once claimed to have it…

[RGH]

Thanks for the advice! I’ll work on that soon
I actually thought they were too short, because I happen to be on PC. Thanks for letting me know!

[RGH]

My mistake! That’s a gender flag problem in both situations, sorry! I’ll fix it up immediately

[RGH]

Thank you for the advice! This version is a bit rough at the moment, I admit, so thanks again for the feedback. Regarding the terms, I’ve been thinking of providing a little glossary page on the stats screen or perhaps a simplified, fairy-tale version of the basic info at the start which the PC dreams about, or something along those lines. I’m still working on a way to explain the terms without breaking immersion.

About the instant death: you’re right. I think I have a way to amend that now.

The second observation, on the other hand: I seem to have chosen the wrong words. “But I know you can’t find the Jar,” probably would have been better. Since the PC was bluffing their way through the trial, everyone is supposed to think the PC knows where the jar is. Not Dem, though. I should probably change that bit of dialogue, thanks for alerting me about it!

[RGH]

Hello again! I’ve tried checking out that indent error you were talking about, and I haven’t received an error.

“Charming, but a criminal nonetheless,” the Elder tuts. “You can’t hide behind a silver tongue.”

Is this the part you meant? If so, I tried testing it and it didn’t prompt me with an error.

[Eiwynn]

Ya, it gave me an error on like line 348ish I’m multi-tasking so I clicked before I could stop myself from doing so.

I also got an undefined variable error when I went through and chose another option on that same choice.

Did you do a quick-test? and compile it?

[RGH]

I’ve fixed the variable issue, but I’m still looking for the charming error. I did compile it, but embarrassingly I forgot to do a quick-test. It’s quite late where I live, and unfortunately I’m a bit sleepy so it’s made me a bit scatterbrained

I’m working on it right now-- hopefully I’ll get it fixed.

[Eiwynn]

No worries. Your WiP is doing just fine. You should have seen my first mess of a WiP.

[RGH]

Thanks! I’m glad you think so.

[RGH]

TEENSY WEENSY UPDATE!! Minor and embarrassingly game-stopping bugs fixed!

• Gender flag issues fixed
• Variable issues fixed
• Mysterious Charming issue fixed (I think)

Quicktest has been performed and the game should function properly now. If not, I will be thoroughly embarrassed.

[Jenna_V]

More gender flags:

“Her-her aura is gone!”

“Could it be?”

“Did he just fade?”

And

“Stand by, Priscilla,” the Elder told the woman in a whisper, though you
could hear them. “This child will not be able to give the location of
the Jar if he is dead.”

Also, with regard to the instant death choice, if the “Give them the Jar” choice was the only one that progressed the story, I’d prefer it if there were just different flavors of that choice that raised different stats–Naive for continuing to protest your innocence but ultimately relenting, Aware for seeing that there was only one way to escape alive, etc.)–rather than having one “right” choice that allows you to continue and one wrong one that requires either replaying the story or ending it. I just ended it, because it’s what my character would’ve done-- game over, on to the next one. I feel like that’s probably not the response you were hoping to evoke.

[RGH]

Aaaah!! More gender flags! Those ones should be fixed now ;u;

Ah, thank you for the suggestion. Couldn’t have said it better myself! The extra options should be available in the next major update.

[RGH]

if anyone experienced that *page_breaks error, shhh my child. it has been fixed.

[Curious_Boy]

sounds interesting, will playtest it tomorrow… coz i need to go to bed soon, cant keep my eyes out XD too tired for the day~

[RGH]

Thanks for your consideration! owo

[Nexus]

I thought your wip very promising and funny to play, but I found some gender swaps when you choose the gender is the npc characters, like the Elder’s guard when I already chose a female character always show up as a male.
Aside from that I liked it.