WIP: The Heavenly Path: Ascendant Soul (61 Realms Cultivation Epic)

[Ominking1]

I’ve begun work on my new game, **The Heavenly Path: Ascendant Soul**. In it, you play a mortal who experiences a sudden, violent primordial lineage awakening after a brush with death involving an orthodox cultivator and a spiritual beast. Your ultimate goal is to defy the heavens and march up a massive hierarchy of 61 unique realms of existence.

Currently, it’s about 4 Chapters done, and I plan on updating it regularly as I build out this epic.

To play the demo, go here:

https://cogdemos.ink/play/tajay-gordon/the-heavenly-path-ascendant-soul/mygame

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### Synopsis

Sixty-one realms of existence tower above you. Will you ascend to the peak of the universe, or will your bones dissolve into the dirt of the mortal plains?

### Current Features

* **61 Realms / 9 Layers:** A massive, rock-solid progression framework.

* **Deep Stats:** Track Comprehension, Determination, Ruthlessness, Internal Qi, and External Body strength.

* **MC Dialogue Added:** Fully interactive dialogue options starting in Chapter 3 and 4 as you enter the cutthroat Blackstone Outpost!

To all readers.

### Game Details

* **Genre:** High Fantasy, Cultivation (Xianxia)

* **Protagonist:** Gender-choice (Play as Male, Female, or Non-binary)

-–

### Author’s Note

This is my very first time writing a story, and I am incredibly excited to share it with you all! I really hope you enjoy playing through these early chapters. I would be genuinely glad to receive your feedback, thoughts, and critiques so I can improve and make this world as deep and amazing as possible. And I am also a bit nervous so please forgive me. And the mistakes.

I am using AI assistance to help brainstorm cultivation lore that i am not sure of, and helping me to structurally format error-free ChoiceScript code for this work-in-progress demo because it’s my first time.

[eloise_writes]

Cool idea!

You should give a disclaimer about the AI use, though. Most readers like to know if the game they’re playing is made with it.

[Ominking1]

Oh thank you very much I forgot to add it thank you very much. I will add it immediately.

[Jonathan_Michaelson]

A New Xianxia? Interesting. How many words does it have so far?

[MeltingPenguins]

if you need help with human curated research and coding, let us know.
Ai is never advisable for either as it doesn’t know what it is putting together, halucinating a lot of nonsense more and more

that said: godspeed.
also funny how many cultivation stories are popping up but I’m not complaining

[Ominking1]

I clock it at roughly 2,300 to 2,400 words total currently.

[Ominking1]

Thank you I appreciate it and I apologize.

[MeltingPenguins]

No worries. It’s just the thing with AI: It’s programmed to appear knowledgeable and confident tricking us into thinking that its output is worthwhile let alone correct.

[Ominking1]

Indeed well said.

[Ominking1]

Wow, thank you so much for the 6 likes Likes and the amazing comments on my first day! To celebrate, I wanted to share the official opening cover art for The Heavenly Path: Ascendant Soul. This is the vibe of the divine heights your character will be aiming for!"

I would really appreciate your Throught’s and your feedbacks and and don’t worry updates coming before the end of week. I am currently in the process of finishing up chapter’s 3-4 add 5,000 words.

[aethernano]

Interesting concept, gonna read it now =)

Though if I may comment on the ai assistance. As a newbie writer myself, I forbid myself using any ai assistance when it comes to coding or writing. I admit I used ai but only for cover art. Everything else I try to do it myself. Learning to code and write. It’s difficult to do it all at once but you have so much more benefit if you learn it yourself instead of using a crutch like ai.

Anyways, I’m gonna dive into the story =D

Feedback on statscreen

First of all, you forgot to write your name as the author, right now the author’s name is author

For example, my project startup.txt starts with this:

*title Might or Magic
*author Aethernano

*scene_list

Second; The immortal ascension profile, identity and lineage and the rest of the information could use some polish for readability. If you input empty rows between text, it will create a new alinea.

For example:

[b]IMMORTAL ASCENSION PROFILE:[/b]

[b]Identity and Lineage[/b]

Name: “something”

Gender: “something”

etc.

Third: You need to have created variables in startup.txt to input these variables in the statscreen. You start the startup.txt with title, author name, then scenelist after scenelist you create the variables like name, gender etc. Like so:

*title something

*author aethernano

*scene_list

(indentation)startup

(indentation)something

*create name “”

*create gender “”

etc.

With the create command you create the variables and if you have text variables like names or gender you can replace those with the $!{name} for capitalization or ${name} without.

Fourth: If you have multiple categories of stats, I personally would split it into multiple choice menu’s where every choice goes back to the mainmenu so that it seems you stay in the mainmenu.

Example:

*label screen_mainmenu
*choice
	#Trivial
		*stat_chart
			text Name
			text Surname
			text Gender
			text Class

		*if received_necklace
			*stat_chart
			*set AmuletInscribed true
			*temp title "necklace_inscription"
			*if AmuletInscribed
				*set title "Necklace Inscription"
				*stat_chart
					text necklace_inscription ${title}
		*goto screen_mainmenu
	#Skills
		*stat_chart
			percent Strength
			percent Agility
			percent Intelligence
			percent Charisma
		*if KnowsAboutMagic
			*stat_chart
				percent Magic
		*goto screen_mainmenu
	#Alignment
		*stat_chart	
			opposed_pair Lawful
				Chaotic
			opposed_pair Good
				Evil
		*goto screen_mainmenu
	#Vocabulary
		*goto vocabulary
	#Scrolls of knowledge
		*goto knowledge_menu
	
	

with choice trivial, skills and alignment, you stay in the mainmenu choice menu. With the other 2 choices, the reader jumps to another label with different choices. You could prolly do this with the gosub command as well.

Lastly; the ruthlessness and the determination stat should in my opinion be an opposed pair stat. Ruthlessness vs compassion for example or determination vs indecisive or something.

[david125655]

Very nice, more cultivation cyoas other than POMA, Dao Ascension, and .- ..- .-. .- / -.-. .-.. .- … … very nice.

[david125655]

I would honestly recommend you read the myriad of chinese cultivation novels to get your inspiration juices, but I get it.

Edit: here is a guide for choicescript:

ChoiceScript Full Tutorial (finished!)

Link: ChoiceScript Interactive Tutorial (edited to link to new domain) I’ve lashed together basically everything you could want from a ChoiceScript Tutorial. It has a guided page-by-page tutorial, as well as a “Chapter List” page for easy navigation. It has examples of all the different commands, along with appropriate ways to use them, and common mistakes that can end up breaking the game. There’s even pictures accompanying some examples. It has pages that help out with Quicktest and Randomte…

[Ominking1]

@david125655 Thank you I will definitely do.

[Ominking1]

@aethernano I really appreciate your comment.

[aethernano]

some thougts about the story

are the realms mentioned in the intro physical realms? (kingdoms, empires etc.) or are they cultivation realms? (golden core, nascent soul etc.)

If you meant physical realms, could you elaborate a little more so that the text implies to physical locations?

If you meant cultivation realms, in my opinion I would hide the amount of realms total since cultivators who just start out shouldn’t know about how many realms there are in total.

As a player, it’s nice to know about such details but for immersion? I would hide it, give us bread crumbs instead of the whole bread all at once

About the background selection for mc:
You can choose between 3 paths; body cultivation, mind and soul cultivation and ruthlessness but… what is ruthlessness? I know ruthlessness dao, but that’s more a train of thought or ideology than actual cultivation. So how does this path differ from the body and soul cultivation paths?

Name of mc
I would like to see some multiple choice selection besides the custom name.
Also if I make a mistake with writing a name, I would like to see a confirmation and a option to go back and write it again;

for example:

*label naming
"Oh what a beautiful ${gender_kid}" you mother says tenderly. She looks at you with a tired smile.

"Your name will be..."

*choice
	#Neill
		*set Name "Neill"
		*goto family
	#Isabella
		*set Name "Isabella"
		*goto family
	#Aether
		*set Name "Aether"
		*goto family
	#Eww, these names suck!
		Author: I know, my naming sense is bad, DIY =P
		*label input_name

		What is your name?
		*input_text Name

		*comment check capitalization
		*if ("${Name}" != "$!{Name}")

			Your name is $!{Name}, right?

			*choice
				#Yes
					*set Name "$!{Name}"
					*goto family
				#No, you should pronounce it like this:
					*goto input_name

FYI I learned this by studying the code of “choice of the dragon” in the choice script tutorial

[Jonathan_Taylor]

i can’t seem to get past chapter 2. it loads endlessly

[Ominking1]

Sorry about that it’s because chapter 2 is finished and chapter 3 is not done yet.

[Ominking1]

I apologize through but it will take some time to fix everything so the updates will be push back a while.

[aethernano]

Create a label at the end of your code with this:

*label end_of_content

end of content, see you next update!

*ending

Then you end up with a play again button without infinite load. And after every update you can simply jump back to that label to end it. Or if you want to use it through multiple text files, you could make a new text file with this and instead of using the goto command, you use goto_scene input_name_for_ending_txt_file