Totem Force [Released!]

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2595

I’ve just tried out the play through for this game, and I have to say I absolutely love it! It’s intense when it needs to be, but not so much so that it wears out the reader, and the characters are awesome (shout to Kay for wanting to be a vet)!

First off my stats:
Darkness = 3. Will = 32. Empathy = 80. Intellect = 24.
Tot = 46.

I will admit, I got a little confused the first few times the Totem Force title screen picture came up, since it’s not something you normally see in these games. I do, however, like that you’re doing it like to a series of episodes, that is a very nice touch.

Just a couple of typos/errors I caught while playing through.

You… don’t know to drive (in your defence…

I think you meant, don’t know how to drive?

(choice) - You have to keep focussed, no time for angst
It should be focused, and this was one of the choices when you were discussing with the group what to do next after the radio tower was attacked and Sammy was found almost comatose.

The only other comment I really have about it which I liked at times, but was also distracting at times are the comments in the parentheses). I do enjoy the humour they provide, but there are times where it doesn’t feel as necessary or seems to contradict what was just said.
An example would be

Sammy literally has stars in his eyes (metaphorically, that is).

Where the two words are near antonyms, and it kind of pulled me out of the story for a bit. I think there is possibly a better way to phrase this and some others throughout the story.

Other than that, I absolutely love the game so far, and I will be waiting to see where this goes. Especially as Dragon Spectre leader of the QuadSquad (before it got a lot more people added to it) awaits her future! (I know I’m not the most original with these names, but don’t hate me :sweat_smile:.)

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2596

Thanks for the typos (although “focussed” is the traditional British spelling, but it seems to be dying out due to US influences… I generally stick with British spellings, but I might make an exception here and change it to the US version if it’s too distracting).

Aw… :disappointed: You don’t like my witty asides…

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2597

How strange, I was not aware of that. I actually grew up with the UK English, but I never saw it spelt as “focussed”. Then again, it was also Australian English to be more specific, so that may be a reason why I never saw it. Either way, it’s not really distracting, I thought it was a typo and it’s not really, so it’s fine to keep it.

I promise I do like your witty asides! It was just that one which really stood out to me. :persevere: I thought all the others were great!

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2598

As I said, it’s fallen out of favour over here, and you are the third (at least) person to flag it as a typo, so it may be better to just cede to the Americans on this one. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

So sad… :sob:

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2599

Aw, but I like your silly British spellings :disappointed: how else could I tease you about them? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Uh… I mean, yay, victory! USA, USA! :us::eagle::triumph:

(No, but really, I’m all in favor of using this style as long as you’re consistent, which you are.)

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2600

Oh no, I’m a flagger! The (at least) third one, at that! How could I? :open_mouth: Though I will agree with TSSL, I think it’s completely fine to keep it as is. I use UK spellings in my own WIP too, and I’m more interested in how this story plays out than just a word or two.

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2601

Hey, absolutely love this game! I’m a huge fan comics, anime, and especially the Power Rangers! I was just wondering about the fight with Akira. While I enjoyed the way you mixed exposition with a high stakes battle, I felt that I didn’t get enough interaction with Ryu prior to that encounter.

While I do love the ere of mystery you give him as a character, I feel a little more interaction with him (like fighting side by side with him, or fighting against him again; or even more outside of fighting and the “hostage” situation) that’d give that big reveal a larger pay off. You do give a lot of time skips in the story, maybe you can slow that down a bit and give more character interactions? Not just with Ryu, but maybe with Sammy and a couple of the others? Because while we get a good picture of most of the characters and their motivations, we don’t really get that with Ryu. Again I’m aware of the whole mystery and the big payoff in the Akira fight, but I still feel we need a little more to define Ryu and the PC’s relationship for the impact to really hit the reader. I also think we need a little more time with the PC’s other friends and I think that can be done in many ways, but one thing nagging at me is their families.

Sammy’s (and I think Anara’s as well) family needs to be more defined in the story. Like for one thing, I had no idea Sammy had gay parents. The first time the PC meets Sammy’s moms is in the crisis, and we get no real interaction or sense of their personalities during or after the crisis. I know that may sound trivial, but a good sense of who Sammy’s parents are and how he interacts with them can really help add to his character.

And then there’s Anara’s father. We know nothing about him outside him being the principal and then the twist during the crisis. After I found out it was shocking, but I’d feel itd be more shocking if again, his character were more defined in the story and the PC had some interaction with him sometime before the crisis, like maybe at the school fair or something. I feel like getting a sense of who he is (or who is alias is) as a person would make the reveal even more shocking and as devestating for the player as it is for Anara.

Now back to the visions in the Akira fight, I feel like the bulk of them should be happening while you’re fighting Akira, rather than a little during, and then the whole exposition on the twins after. Because I feel like the shift between the fighting and the literal interior struggle with Akira and Ryu should be more of a back and forth, rather than one immediately following the other. I think an interesting way to do it would be a hit on the Akira monster, than flash into the dreamscape and the picnic, then flash back to reality, fight again, dreamscape, and repeat until after you beat Akira and find out about Ryu’s big motive. It may sound a tad difficult and convoluted to write, but you seem to show a knack for jumping from one setting to the next and back with the whole near death experience after Ultimator.

This story is easily one of the best CoGs I’ve read in a long time, and I really can’t wait to see this finished! Sorry for the huge wall of critiques, but I think you really got something here and story needs to be the best it can be!

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2602

I suppose “bad boys” like my mc might have earned a trip or two to his office, but then I also reckoned that shit kind of happens/happened in the background and wasn’t really noteworthy.
In some school systems, like ours, it is only the naughty and the very high achieving kids (come to think of it with his intelligence my mc could easily be considered both) who get into frequent contact with the principal/headmaster/school director.

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2603

Wow. That’s a lot of points. And they all make sense… and look like they’d take ages to write… :confounded:

I guess I could add some extra interactions with various characters and/or families at the festival. That seems like it’d be the perfect place for them, although it’s not a place you’d find Ryu. Out of interest, how much Ryu did you get, because you can skip quite a few of his interactions?

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2604

Hence suggesting the school fair or something, my MC was literally chained to his daughter, and that could’ve led to some fun interactions with him as well! And my MC was practically a genius, and I don’t ever really recall an actual interaction with the principal outside the big reveal.

And I think that’s weird, considering my MC was dating Anara since the school fair, and I have no idea as a reader who her father is outside of “he’s the principal.” Most of the shock I felt when the twist came was how much this was going to affect Anara, and that’s entirely because I was invested in her as a character.

If I wasn’t interested in Anara, I would have totally been like “OK, so this vague background character’s in on this too, don’t really give a f**k.” And I feel like that needs to be remedied. Because the MC and his friends are supposed to be this tight knit group, and knowing details about their supporting characters (like their families) is an important part of that, no matter how the player really goes around interacting within the story.

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2605

That was pretty much the thought that went through my head, too. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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2606

I thought Ryu was a compelling, edgy character and that I wanted to know more about him. As far as my interactions with him went, there was the tournament and the hostage situation that Akira instigated. I then met Akira at the fair, telling me to give him a chance, but then I never see either of them again until after the monsters hit and Akira went crazy. I feel like maybe fighting alongside just Ryu as an ally would help improve the dynamic between him and the character. But bottomline, I didn’t really know anything about Ryu until the visions hit.

And sorry if I’m giving too much feedback, you don’t need to stress over all of this :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:. But one thing I’d definitely like to see changed would be how the Akira fight and visions play out, again, kind of like a back and forth between the two, if it can make sense.

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2607

That’s odd. You should definitely have met them right before the party (and can get a second fight in, if you want), and Ryu even drops in to the party itself if he likes you enough. After the dream, you can visit him again at least once (if you go looking for his help in getting information on the Man), and (again, if he likes you enough), you can even get to go on a date with him on the date night. I certainly tried to build up the revelations about the twins, but I imagine if you missed some of them, it might come out of nowhere.

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2608

Okay, that makes a lot more sense! And I actually did forget about the meet up before the party. Sort of read all of this in one go (again, absolutely fantastic read :+1:). But I guess I didn’t raise his score high enough for him to drop in during the party :disappointed:.

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2609

Poor @ParrotWatcher . :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Don’t forget some of us have Chi as our “rival” instead. For example my mc has a friendly rivalry with Chi apparently centering around the drama club. So he spends the festival handcuffed to Chi instead. Anara not being somebody he used to pay too much attention to.

Now you’re getting my mc, of course he knows who she is, being in his class and the daughter of the principal and all, but he has never really paid much attention to her before.

Which is what I meant by that sort of stuff going on in the background, my mc is the same sort of near-genius intellect-wise but also has a definite attitude problem. So he has double reasons to be on the principal’s radar/watch-list.

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2610

Okay; did you get the option “Look for Ryu and Akira” in Episode 11? :thinking: (Just after Sammy’s… accident?)

Well, maybe the Mayor drops in, instead? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: (Your character won’t meet the principal until the island, though.)

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2611

Yeah I did, but those slew of choices were just a struggle for me in general :weary:.
There were a lot practical options (like finding a base, the evidence at Chi’s mom’s, etc.)

And then there was ton of character ineractions that I really wanted to get into (I regretfully chose Lani’s because I genuinely thought it was important, and I guess it kind of was, but I kinda regret that choice too).

I then chose the alone time thing because, I mean between watching my father die, seeing my home completely destroyed, I felt my MC could use a good long sulking session.

I guess it was as much of a priorities thing (or how the options were presented as priorities, like Lani) that really effected my decisions over not getting to know more about the twins.

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2612

And I feel like that is a problem with many people’s reactions with this sudden relationship between the principal and the antagonist. While it is indeed something you wouldn’t expect, the shock value of that reveal goes down heavily if you have no connection or interaction with him in any meaningful way.

I felt that way about the mayor, but to a lesser extent. Because I find out about her hand in this while tracking down her son after he gets kidnapped, and the emotional toll said kidnapping takes on her makes her far more compelling.

The vibe I’m getting from the principal is that he’s secretly a monster (not literally, but metaphorically :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:). The impact of that reveal is severely lessened if we don’t really get a gauge for his personality, regardless of who we choose to interact with.

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2613

Ah, no, that was the episode before. In this one, only Ryu, Lani, and neither are available.

Yeah, you’re certainly not going to meet the mayor before the island scene, mainly because you don’t even know Chi yet, while it certainly makes sense to have some interactions with Anara’s father before the reveal. (For @idonotlikeusernames, swap the characters.)

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2614

I’m sorry, I’m not exactly sure which one you’re referring to. Again, read this all in one go last night, didn’t get enough sleep. Gets a little hazy outside of key plot points :grimacing:.

But the thing is the mayor is a government official. If the army is getting free reign of the city in the ultimate conspiracy it can be easily inferred that she has a hand in it.

And when Chi gets kidnapped I’m like “oh s**t! How could she let this happen? How could she do this to her own child?” And I immediately assume she’s with the bad guys. But then They fuse Chi to his totem, and I find out she’s horrified and regretting every single decision she’s made, and I just feel really bad for her. To me, it played on my assumption that the politician is in with the military industrial complex, and it punishes me for my assumption by turning her son into a freak and showing me her regret.

This is just not the same to me as it is with the principal. For one, he’s a wild card in all this. There are no discernible traits about him that could even hint or throw off an assumption that he’s linked to the army on this.

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