WiP: Invicto (UPDATE: 11/12/2022)

The writing is great! I like the pacing.

My review of the current available build of this game.

Me: Is Good :neutral_face::+1:

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To your questionnaire at the end, the gist of what I have to say is this; not once was I confused where my MC was in the narrative, and it reads very smoothly. It’s an excellent starting demo. :grin:

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The plot is very interesting! :smiley:
Carolina is well written and likable. I don’t know about the other characters tho cuz’ i don’t interact with them much in this demo.
Character customization was fine. I suggest you add the option to customize your height.
So far, This demo was awesome!

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This is one of the best WIPs I’ve read here! Good job Whale! I tried a couple different flashbacks and I prefer asking about my friends since we get to stay in our MC’s shoes. In my opinion, the one about the Levy Prince killed the tension because I was beginning to get immersed with one character, only to be pulled away from them. The scenes of the Levy Prince were good, but it felt jarring to jump into them as I was immersing into the story. Putting them somewhere else in the story is a good option. I also liked to see the Boy getting agitated, because we weren’t meant to see that. It would be amazing if more scenes of the MC putting up a fight like that were scattered in the other route. I love the Non-binary option. I don’t like labels myself and having that option there is good. I also love to see how different sexes and genders affect the story so I’ll try those out. The way you fleshed out the MC is really good, but more options, scenes and dialogues to flesh them out would be lovely. I’ll continue this in another reply since it’s getting long and your story gave me so much to say, and I want to see it grow.

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This is really interesting, I love this kind of setting. Looking forward to future updates.

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Now we continue haha. Caroline is my favourite so far. Although, she’s the first and only one I’ve interacted with so much. She’s really cool and I find her character amazing because she protected the MC from getting in trouble. She’s also sensitive and she has an amazing relationship with Diana. I’m a sucker for family oriented characters. I’d also like more interaction with Diana if possible. A couple scenes of friction between Caroline would add more depth to the relationship. Since it’s a flashback, I think the amount of telling and showing you’re doing is balanced. The Boy is an amazing first threat. But it will get boring if our MC is dominated for too long. Some struggle, or a scene like the one where the Boy was surprised and angered was amazing, especially how the MC was oblivious to it! You could aslo write an option where the MC instigated the glitch in the visions as well. But it’s definitely good that the MC is so close to death. Tension is tight now. It would be great if you could write one where the MC doesn’t die if they say: “I’m here to kill you.” If it’s not out of character, the Boy can restrain the MC and move onto the visions. It can give us an option for a determined, action taking MC. I also like that we have options to be aggressive. So many passive characters lately in every book, show and manga I see. As always, more fleshing out of your already great characters will make the story awesome. It can be a bit hard using the 2nd POV to give a compelling MC. Wayhaven Chronicles and Samurai Of Hyuga worked around this by using the 1st person POV. Anyway, good luck and I wish you all the success. I’ll bookmark this thread and keep and eye out for more! Oh! And a human male RO if it doesn’t ruin the story you’ve planned out!

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Thank you for the feedback! I like the suggestion about being restrained if trying to kill the “kid”, and yes I am planning for MC to be able to do more than just get pwned by him obviously :smiley:

I’m glad you liked the flashback! I included it for exposition purposes but I can see how it could come across as jarring. I’ll have to ponder how to play that.

Also: all of the ROs are humans, just humans from another realm :wink:

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I have another question. Do you have/gain powers or magic, being from another realm and all?

I was pondering how spoilery the exposition here would be, but I’ll give it because I don’t think it’s too spoilery…

For the most part, most Leivyans are normal humans with an inherent affinity with/attachment to the Leviasun. Their link with it gives them a bit more intuition with one another and ability to interact with the Leivy and its technologies, and their average lifespan is about a decade or two longer than a typical American’s because the Leviasun mostly takes care of their biological needs and prevents illness/injury.

But for the most part they’re normal humans. Fidelis, Anu, and Shiloh for example have a great deal of knowledge and competence with staples of Leivyan society that would be seen as novel or even “magical” to us, but if you planted them square in the middle of Manhattan, they would be normal (albeit rather disoriented!) human beings without access to flashy magic.

The exceptions come into play when the Royal Family enters the scene. The Monarch and their heirs (usually child, grandchild, and great grandchild) do have access to abilities far beyond a normal human being. This doesn’t make them omnipotent and their abilities are much more limited when they’re outside of the Leivy. However, they’re still capable of a lot of superhuman feats of agility, strength, endurance, etc.

To compensate, many of the more skilled Leivyans who service the Royal Family make use of technology and other innovations which aid them when trying to keep up with the stuff the Monarchs can do. If I were to make an analogy, Caroline, Helga, Ishtah and Neifion are all like Superman. They were born doing the things they can do and it’s built-in.

Shiloh, Anu, Fidelis and the other Leivyans are at most kind of like Batman. Hyper competent, makes use of badass magitech, can mostly keep up with their royalty, but are more or less normal humans.

I’m currently hoping that there will be ~2 books in this universe, and I’m still plotting them and making changes, so this could change in the future. For now, I would say that I’m not sure that MC is going to be going the Superman route with inborn abilities, but they can definitely go the Batman route with the other non-Monarch Leivyan elites. :smiley:

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This is really interesting. Yay for more familial relationship representation!

Just one question, I know that this starts in the middle of things but when Caroline goes off to be a princess, is the MC aware of that or do they think she dies? Do they go with her?

Is there like a timeskip where the two of them reunite when they’re older?

Does Mila have a larger role? Is she an option for romance? I think it would be cool if she was

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Why not give the player the option of being ‘Superman’ or ‘Batman’?

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Right now, the concept for the story is a twist on being a “Chosen One” of sorts. You’re not the magic savior of mankind, you’re their normal friend who ends up getting dragged into it. I think it might defeat the concept if the MC had innate magical abilities, because the point is more that they don’t really have a role in Leivy, but make up for it hopefully with a mixture of creativity and proactiveness. That said, not being connected to the Leivy comes with its own benefits.

As for Mila, the plan was for her to be a cameo character in the beginning. She might return as a background character, but I was not planning for her to have a huge role. She mostly fleshes out Caroline’s character and helps deepen the emotional hook, showing the kinds of things Caroline left behind that she could have pursued-- like a promising relationship, for example.

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Will you be adding a change log (to let us “the reader” know what you have done in each update)?

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Is there going to be a choice with not wanting anything to do with Leivy and being angry with Caroline for dragging us into it.

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Will you be able to choose your own origin location? I’m British and was hoping i could also make my character British too.

About the change log: That’s a great idea! So yes haha.

About being pissed/resistant: Definitely.

Origin Location: The MC was canonically abandoned as a baby and grew up in a foster care system, and ended up in Florida when they were sixteen. Other than that, their background as of now is fairly open to interpretation. I’m still thinking of how to expound on the MC’s background, but they could definitely be the child of British parents (or parents from anywhere else for that matter, haha).

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Solution: Make MC a Kryptonian and then they’re the real Superman.

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Can I offer a bit of constructive criticism by definition since we’re the main character it’s kind of hard not to make us a chosen one. However if you truly want our character to be normal and just “the friend that got dragged along for the ride”. I recommend that you make it so that our character doesn’t have plot armor. I don’t mean let our character die and force the player to start completely over but put in a failed state that’ll restart the chapter instead. Or possibly have us lose something important every time we make a mistake. I feel like that would lend credence to the fact we aren’t technically the hero. For example you could have some of the characters who aren’t exactly fond of us such as the people from the leivy call us out hard when we make a mistake. I don’t know just food for thought.

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