The raven is someone else, your actual childhood friend. Koda’s a few hundred years too late to have had a childhood with the MC. 
All the ROs can potentially die but you can indeed save them all as well as Koda.
2 Likes
Is there anyone who choose to die ? Or save themself (for a change lol…I do only have 2 arms y’know!) .
Zeer can die if he has been exposed to too much magic corruption (which will eventually kill him and prevent his soul from moving on) and ask for a merciful death so his soul can still move on.
The others will generally try their best to stay alive until a certain final battle in which all bets are off. Point them away from obviously dangerous situations and they’ll be just fine unless they try to take a sword in the chest for you.
2 Likes
You really…are hitting where it hurt the most…MY WEAKNESS ARE SHOWING!
buahahaha…Jk!
I’m weak…weak…I can’t do it…I need adult supervision! 
I can’t read a map to save my life, you want me to…p-points?!
Good…meatbag gotta be useful…nod wisely…
Heh, when I say point them away from obviously dangerous situations you can put them in (for malicious players who want them to die) mostly like:
“Why don’t you do the super creepy magic ritual with the blood and skulls and spooky candles without even figuring out what it does, just trust me it’ll be fine?”
or
“Yes, I’m sending your mercenary group to fight my enemies without armour. That war paint will totally protect you. It’s magic. Magic paint. Totally not berry juice. We’ll give a toast to your sacrifice.”
and
“Yes, you should totally fight to the death for my honour. It’ll be fun.”
What good are friends/minions for if not to be a barrier between you and the enemy? 
1 Like
if anyone fall for that…they should be renamed to JENKINS!
1 Like
So Koda isn’t a romance?
Nope, Koda won’t be a romance. Sometimes people really are just friends, after all.
4 Likes
[ Typos etc. ]
- You’ve taken on many names in your travels. Sometimes people can’t pronounced a certain name, >> pronounce
[ ?? ]
-
A pause, as if she’s trying to decide whether or not to say something. Plunging on. >> not sure if this is a writing style or a placeholder…
-
That’s the last you ever see of that face of hers, something like regret flickering on it
(And disappearing.)
That was over a month ago and you haven’t heard from her since. You even went to check up at the place she had been staying, only to find all dinner still left out and the flies taking over. (Breaking in? It’s just doing her a favour to get rid of them all. For when she eventually comes back.) >> This as well. The use of parenthesis… well, it could be artistic choice, but it can be confusing when not clearly formated.
-
#If I could change my body, I would.
*set gender “person” >> This one’s a placeholder, right? Because it seems to be the ‘androgynous looking person with binary gender’ option. -
It’s gone by the time you look up, nothing but a dark streak at the edge of your vision and the movement of air against your skin. Headed towards the source of the noise? >> By now, I suspect it’s your writing style rather than first draft placeholders. It can be interesting, but it can also be choppy. “Perhaps, headed towards the --” or “Was it headed towards the --” would be smoother.
[ Personal issues ]
-
I’ve no idea what age I am, only that I knew this ‘best friend’ for a decade and thus am older than ten at least. So I was irked when I found out I could only have a young and pretty face (“fresh-faced and sweet”). A wanderer in a world inspired by Norse myth? Ofcourse I was imagining a roughened, severe visage with a killer beard, like Sir Tristan from King Arthur.
-
Just how close are we with this friend? Even at “#You wouldn’t have it any other way”, it seems they haven’t shared their past with each other. That would indicate we’ve become friends after we were old enough to establish a past… “easy, unspoken companionship you can find over a campfire” at best and “useful” at most… makes it sound like she’s your best friend only because she’s your “Only friend”. I think it would be better to phrase the premise as such.
-
A shadow passes overhead. It’s gone by the time you look up, nothing but a dark streak at the edge of your vision and the movement of air against your skin. Headed towards the source of the noise?
#Call out
#Leave it be. It’s not too late to turn back. >> I initially didn’t choose the first choice because I didn’t want to literally “call out” and make noise like an idiot. I didn’t realise you could use a spell. Some clarification would be nice.
[Coding misc.]
- You probably know this, but you can still use *fake_choice when you add things like *set under the options. Pointing it out just incase.
All in all, it’s clear you have a bigger picture all planned out, but the incompletness does turn people off upon playing the wip. Even if your working process is non linear, the presentation should be if you don’t want to confuse people.
The prose was nice, but again, with so little fast paced excitement and the lack of information, it ends up being just that; prose. Not knowing what’s going on, the player becomes a bit impatient with the long winded narrative.
I loved the auroch though. And I like the atmosphere. I’m curious how this will turn out.
1 Like
You’re right, that is a bit confusing at times so I’ll remove the parenthesis. And yes, that would be my writing style - I’ll try and add more filler to make it smoother like you noted.
It is a placeholder, yep, but you can choose whether it means you’re just androgynous looking but cisgender or intersex and choosing a binary gender.
Yes - Your age is meant to seem ambiguous and revealed only later because of how spoilery it is: you are over five hundred years old and one of the rare half-fae, hence the unnaturally young and pretty face from your heritage at the start. I’ll add an option to express your attitude about it after the initial gender selection and after changing your appearance with the custom appearance option. You can definitely end up looking more grizzled and worn like you feel after transformation with the custom appearance option, I’ll definitely add facial hair, scars and the general feeling you inspire and how people react to it.
Yeah, I might edit the summary to better reflect the differences in relationship with her, I’m currently in the midst of working on elaborating on the beginning with her and giving options to choose how you feel about her and this whole thing.
Fixed, thanks.
Thanks for all the feedback, I’ve got a lot to chew on and work on. Others have mentioned the incompleteness so I’ll take the link down temporarily while I fix the flow and give a more solid first chapter.
2 Likes
Oh, that explains a lot. And yes, that would be lovely.
1 Like
is there a demo?
There is a demo, though it’s temporarily down while I rework the start.
3 Likes
9 September update - The demo is up again now, I’ve listened to feedback and now there’s a lot more to establish your relationship with Koda in the prologue which ends right now when you black out. I’ve also added more character information in the meantime. Also, not sure if I’m missing something but I no longer see the button to edit my initial post, hm.
8 Likes
Alrighty. Managed to get the initial post edited and all. I haven’t quite figured out how to get the images working in Dashingdon though they work perfectly fine when I try it outside of Dashingdon.
But here’s a map of the world - or at least what’s left of the world nowadays. The game takes place in the northern forests of New Hellenstross.
I’m hoping to get more feedback on the flow of it now. Forgot to mention it but gore settings (none/some/all) have been added, there will be eventually be descriptions of things such as the fabled viking blood eagle torture and eye gore on the highest setting and a more disneyfied telling of this story on the lowest. That might rate a mature rating for the highest setting I believe, I’m not sure how it’s handled when you can choose what you’re comfortable with seeing.
9 Likes
Oh wow. Your writing is so, so beautiful, I can’t seem to find the right words to express how much I like it; there’s just something about it that resonates deeply with me and my love for all things Norse.
It’s not all about the atmosphere, though, I also like how you’re handling the choice mechanics–pretty sure it’s the first time a CYOA game asked me how much blood I can tolerate and did so without breaking the forth wall. And we generally have a lot of options to pick from, which is downright impressive since coding all of that must’ve been a bitch.
Also [x2], I like your concept art, it’s really really really cool.
Now, time for some (hopefully) helpful feedback.
In my first playthrough I picked the “I feel like everything’s going to go wrong” option and nothing felt amiss, I didn’t even notice the transition from choice text to the rest of the scene–my MC just seemed appropriately anxious.
But when I tried guilt-tripping Koda–
She goes still. It looks like you hit a nerve from the way her face falters. “No. Don’t say such things.”
“It’s the natural consequences of your actions. Did you even think about what would happen to me?”
To her credit, Koda does look ashamed. Then she shakes her head. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Is that really everything you’re taking with you? Did you remember to bring those herbs the healer gave you?” Your lips pull themselves into a frown. She’s been a fellow wanderer for years upon years on the road, she knows how to pack.
–suddenly it was much more obvious. A bit abrupt, imo. I think Koda’s answer needs to be acknowledged in some way. For example, if MC considers her a real friend, it would be logical for them to be at least a little hurt by her saying that their ‘condition’ doesn’t matter (which obviously isn’t what she meant, but that’s where my mind would go in a situation like this). Or if they’re travelling together out of pure necessity, MC might be annoyed at her for essentially ditching them to do god knows what.
Picking other options leads to similar results (excluding being resigned and feeling nothing, since in those cases not saying anything actually makes sense). It’s not a huge deal, honestly, but it makes the dialog seem a bit unnatural to me. I think answering even with a simple “Fine.” could smooth out the transition considerably.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that down the line we have an option to ask Koda to go with her and she never explicitly tells us not to. So what’s stopping MC from following her immediately? From player’s point of view, staying behind doesn’t make any sense, especially if previous to that we were picking very emotional options. It would’ve been nice to know MC’s reasoning.
Aaand that’s enough nitpicking from me.
TL;DR: you’re amazing, I’m in love with your writing, keep up the great work!
1 Like
Oh, the coding isn’t a problem for me, I actually find it quite pared down compared to working on building stuff in javascript and making websites etc. It’s more writing out every single little option and trying to make them all add something meaningful. Adds up quickly!
And yeah, you’re right with the guilt-tripping one. I should definitely take into account Koda’s relationship with you in her answer and add a line instead of something generic.
Aaand I kinda completely forgot to have Koda deal with telling the MC not to follow her immediately, good spot! I’m going to have that lead into a proper argument and you either trying to follow or not and then realising you’ve somehow lost her trail because you can’t sense her aura for some reason. Which is weird since it means either 1. out of range, 2. dead or 3. her aura is messing up.
Thanks very much for your feedback, it makes me happy to hear people like my little project!
1 Like
haven’t started replaying yet, but there’s an sm plugin error. Perhaps you forgot to add *sm_init?
Ok I’mma go play now
Just a little bump to keep this thread alive - Progress is being made but I’ve been trying to keep it all to one big coherent update rather than a lot of little edits.
In the meantime here’s a little translated excerpt of a famous poem into the Godsong conlang I made.
And a little preview of what’s to come:
12 Likes
UPDATE - 1 Dec 2019
What’s been added?
— CHARACTER CREATION
----Character creator should be pretty much finished.
----Custom appearance origins should now be calculated and you can now select your own cultural origin.
— MECHANICS
----Corruption mechanic implemented.
----Mementos system implemented, more detailed descriptions for the first time looking at a memento in the menu will come later.
----Stat/personality trait changes added - Will need to be rebalanced at a later stage.
— PROLOGUE
----Additions to Koda reaction dialogue in prologue. Added option to follow Koda. Koda can now become and remain angry at you.
----Option of going through the ruins via following the path instead of going into the woods.
----Dream sequence (Speak with a Northern god) added. Currently only Odin and Thor are available. Loki, Heimdallr and Freyja to be added in a later update. Can declare your allegiance to a pantheon or if you’re questioning the gods, this can still be established later on or changed.
----Earliest realisations of who the mysterious raven creature is are available, as well as the lead up to the fight. Actual fight mechanics are still in the works.
----Can go after the raven creature or the crumpled figure (huldra). Can meet the Wild Hunt or try and lead them off the Huldra lady’s trail.
Still some missing content to finish in the prologue but things should still flow decently and make sense. No meeting Loki this update sadly since I wanted to get this update out but the next one perhaps. Plus your own dog in the future since I’m a sucker for animals.
Question: Would people be interested in a Folklore mode that gives codex entries and commentary on the real folklore things were inspired by instead of the in-universe lore?
I’ve learnt a lot about folklore and myths in my research and I figure maybe some people would be interested in the actual lore I based my fictional version on.
Feedback:
Is Koda too much of a brat/unlikeable? Do you feel like you have sufficient choice to express yourself with?
In the character creator: Is the selection of curse words/favourite expression - are they too strong or strange?
18 Likes