Updated 4/20 - Mages of the Empire - WIP

Here’s another prospective, potential Hosted Game by an amateur writer. This one is written by a guy named Crotale.

In a world where about 2% of the population is born with the ability to do magic, anyone who wants to learn serious magic has to join the Petrarch Empire’s organized Mage Corps.

If you want to build bridges and throw fireballs instead of heal colds and light campfires, you have to join the magical military of the most powerful army of the world.

Too bad for you, you joined up right on the cusp of the first serious threat to the Empire in 1500 years.

Pick a specialty, learn as much as you can… Try not to die when the war breaks out.

The story currently sits at about 14k words per playthrough and covers the first semester until just before the practical final exam called a Field Exercise.

I would like to know what people think of my work so far. I have ideas for the rest of the plot, but I need to know if this seems worth continuing.

Thanks for reading!

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44457577/MagesOfTheEmpire_April20.html

Old Version Link In Case Anyone Wants It: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44457577/MagesOfTheEmpire.html

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This is interesting, I do like the characters so far they seem a colourful bunch. I am really like to imagine what this conflict would effect them, will they change for the better or worse.

Irregular at Magic High… have you seen or read the anime series?

I like it! Although I am hungering for a romance add-in.

@tlud romance probably will not be added in for a while. I have vague plans for romance initiation during training camp and continuation of existing romance during military campaigns.
@Zeta_Voidis I saw a few episodes of that series, but I can’t say it had much direct influince on this story. I was actually thinking mostly about Cataphrak’s Sabres of Infinity and some Mecha Ace while writing out the plot.
@Specter good, a colorful bunch was exactly what I was going for. Any specific comments about my characters?

Hey, found an incomplete sentence:
“Now would be a good time to talk to his You promised Payton you would talk to Nat for him”

Missing a capital letter here:
“a trio of armed guards come barrelling around the corner!”
*barreling instead of barrelling

I only brought it up because of the base similarities I found to the series.

As for my opinion of the demo, I get that you want to show how mages have diverse skill sets but the impressive number makes it really off putting in my opinion.

I’ll hold off on saying whether or not this will be a problem until I play through future demo updates.

Story-wise however the premise is interesting, but I find the initial introduction a little weak.

For example with the choice when the MC discovers what kind of magic he can use, it just skips right to the next scene after the fact.

It would have been more personal if you added a follow up as to what happened after each situation as a child.

I know it seems small, but sometimes the small things can make a big difference in a story.

The fact that I have too many stats was a big worry to me as well. It makes it much more gamey and much less of a story. I think I still want skill levels in all five colors of magic, but perhaps I should rethink giving percentages for all the magic and make them flat numbers, like 0 - noob, 1 - novice, up to 10 - expert. What do you think of that idea?

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seems pretty good so far, cant wait for more. but i think you need option for balanced study of magic. essentially instead of red,blue etc just have option to study magic in all branches.

@Crotale, its not even in Beta for **** sake :slight_smile: let the author works for while, THEN check if it works or if your system works better. Check choice of Kung Fu, it worked well there. I think what gives the illusion of to many stats, is Personality stats(Body vs mind) and skills stats(Magic) many games have one or other but not many have both, you just need to notice personality isnt skill but personality while magic is skill you improve.

Um… I’m the author?

Should be fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.

This is pretty good, I like what you have so far.

There is a few continuity errors. I knew the RCs name after he attacked me, and in one of the choices I knew that Eric had psychological trauma despite not talking with Payton about it. I did talk to Payton, but said ‘I’ll tell Nat you want to talk, but I can’t make any promises.’ I didn’t read anything about Eric having trauma.

I also think you should probably mention how much it cost for certain things. Either in the text before the choice or in the choice with brackets around it. Specifically I wanted to know how much the tutoring would cost me.

Could you elaborate on knowing the RC’s name? I’m pretty sure I explicitly tell it to you early on.

A promising game, but with so many stats to worry about it would be really helpful if the game would tell us what the percentages mean practically.

This is a school where someone is hoping to get the education for the career of their choice, what stats are required for a job as a combat mage? What are the requirements for graduating period?

Say I want a raw power build who wants to be a combat mage- The background history really emphasizes specialization. So should I just keep studying red magic? If I wanted to supplement my skills with black or green magic, how much attention can I afford to give to these other arts?

Since this is a militarized school for magic, perhaps it would be better to rate the various skills along the lines of a school grade, with a section of the stat screen listing what the graduation requirements are for various jobs? Helpful, and in character.

You do, I missed it. My bad

Interesting thoughts stsword. I’ll consider these ideas.

What would you think of giving people ‘class’ ratings like - class 3 is below average, class 6 skill is pretty strong, class 10 is ‘you’re basically merlin.’ And I give some career requirements along the lines of ‘class 7 red skill, class 6 capacity recommended for applicants’?

Most impressive. Can’t wait for more.

well, Crotale, since that is basically my suggestion I’m all for it. lol

Love your WIP. Magic is a wonderful world to read about and I enjoyed the colour shield game. I noticed that Nat/Nathan is sometimes referred to as he, him, his then sometimes she and her. Great work so far. Keep it up :smile:

Yeah, Nat changes from Nathan to Natalia based on the player’s choice of gender. They’ll always be opposite gender. I’ll have to dig through the dialog to find where I went wrong, so some surrounding text of where you found these mistakes would be helpful.