Hi All,
Some of you might remember me from the “Tales of the Deep” WIP thread I posted recently. I’m still working on it but will probably still be a little way off since there’s lots of non-intersecting story lines amounting to a few books worth of story.
So anyway, I had this one in the works as well. It’s mostly written (unless I decide to add an extra chapter or two to it). Still needs polishing. It’s a very different style to what I’m used to writing where it’s shorter, with more choices, stats and each chapter intersects rather than branching into a million different lines. I decided to finish it first as it’s actually been very helpful in teaching me how to code these stories if nothing else.
I’ve put up a demo. More will follow as I get it coded. I’d really appreciate some feedback. What do you like/hate about it. Is it too wordy, to slow. Does anything not make sense.
Any feedback on bad grammar, spelling errors, broken links or those little question mark diamond things if you see them also very appreciated. I’ve been reading over it so many times, I’m sure I’m missing things by this point and reading what I think I’ve written rather than what it actually says
It’s a clever idea, playing someone who has accidentally become a wizard because he did not believe them in the first place. (In my head, the MC is male because the phrase “alrighty then” made me think immediately of Jim Carrey. Now I’m playing Ace Ventra III: You’re a Wizard, Carrey.)
My main gripe would be that I felt railroaded the whole time. You don’t want to write in a library book? Well, you’re going to anyway. You want to learn mind control? Let’s stick with teleportation for now. You don’t want an assignment? Well tough - you get an assignment. I got told how the MP thinks and feels a lot, too.
You might avoid some of the railroading by starting later in the story with the phone call from the guild, followed by a brief explanation of the MP’s regrettable action of signing the silly looking contract in that strange puzzle book he found in the library. Postpone the choices about magic powers and elements until later, since they don’t matter yet.
No broken links that I saw. Lots of minor grammatical errors, as in any rough draft. I think the Elizabethan bit in the beginning of the book could be corrected to read:
To thee who findeth this book
A wizard thou may be
Continue reading
Make a choice
And in time thou shalt see
But I’m no expert. As for the rest of the grammar, you could either find someone who loves you enough to go through your file and make corrections, or put the story away for a few days and go back over it with fresh eyes.
Captaincharisma_Ezhi- Thanks! I’ll see what I can do, I’m thinking it needs another chapter to round some things out and make use of a few more stats and choices so I’ll try to work something in.
BabbleYaggle- Thanks for the brilliant summary! Some of your concerns will probably get addressed a bit later with what you can learn. The initial spell bit was kind of like you’d get in any primary school level stuff, learn the basics and go from there. I could try working in some options at this point though if it’s feeling too rail-roaded. Some of the choices made early on, do affect the story later in (some quite close to where I’ve coded currently). I’ll have a think about it and see if I can rework it or at least improve the options available.
nods I’ll see what I can do about changing the options, there was meant to be a bit of ordering about but I’ve probably gone overboard
Yeah about being told how the character feels. I’m not quite sure how to deal with that. Writing in the first person is not something I do very often and I’m guessing I’m slipping into “character story telling mode”. Any suggestions on how to improve that without it all starting to seem all emotionless?
Thank you for the elizabethan rewrite. I’ve been trying to work out how to make it sound less awkward. That does seem better.
Yep I’m aware there’s probably a host of grammar errors hiding out in there. I have a tendancy to read things as I think they are rather than what I’ve written when I’ve been over things, re-writing them dozens of times. I usually give it a week or so and have another look.
I’ve never written a Choice game, so I can’t speak from experience, but if I wanted to avoid telling the player how the MC feels without adding choices, I would focus on describing the things the MC encounters, rather than describing the MC’s reaction. Instead of, say, talking about “the woman’s green scaly skin, which you find unsettling,” try describing “the woman’s unsettling green, scaly skin.” That sort of reframing might help.
Regarding grammar, I find it helps to read your writing out loud. You catch more issues that way, and it helps you figure out whether something sounds good.
I think it was mentioned earlier, but having the MC’s inner thoughts, slightly take away from the story by lessening the interaction. It changes the perspective for the reader, from playing the main character to being a disassociated observer.
I think your descriptions of the powers can be a little more detailed. I also noticed that for the mind control & communication could possibly be split up into separate power choices to avoid overpowering, unless you were going for a Charles Xavier from X-men vibe.
I was also curious about how you were going to mix the elemental powers with the specialized magic. Overall I am interested to see where you take this, since magical stories are my favorite.
Why is there not more of this? I really like the idea already, I wonder is the main character Caucasian or is that just the way the alien saw all humans?
@TechDragon610 Is right in wizardry terms it’s transmutation I finished the demo it sounds interesting I would have liked more choices than just as @BabbleYaggle Said I felt railroaded by the writing style I mean it’s an interesting concept but the game isn’t really all that diverse in choices or ideas also if you want help I’m pretty good with magical and mythical creature lore. Question time are you planning on finishing this? On a scale of 1-10 how commited are you to this game? What creatures do you plan on implementing? Will there only be tasks to train you, or will ther be an acadamey after you complete your tasks kind like trials to get into the school? What other types of magic will you be implementing?
@TechDragon610 Thanks for the feedback. Reading further in the book actually gains you something else further in the story. (Just not recognising the alien woman). Just didn’t want to make you all powerful from a few mins of reading right away
You’re right transmution would probably be the more correct term in this case.
@ BabbleYaggle Thanks, that actually helps. I’ll see what I can do with some rephrasing and see whether you guys think that improves it.
@ FairyGhoul Thanks for the feedback. I’m thinking I’m going to have to make this one longer than I was planning to put more options and detail into it. I was just making the description a quick almost “throwaway” kind of line to keep the story moving since I figured everyone knew what it was already. More description needed though you think from the sounds of it?
I think I’ll probably be ok with the combined powers at the moment since it’s only a study area, not a complete mastery of it and were’ down at basic level at the moment. But if the story seems to be getting a bit over the top I’ll defintiely start splitting things up.
@Nikki Whoops my bad, I can see that might be taken the wrong way. I’ll find another description.
@Generikb Thanks for the feedback and offer of help Ok so I think I’ve gone a bit from one extreme to the other. I’ve got a second project going which is much larger called Tales of the Deep which splits into so many directions that it’s been worked on for a long time and is looking like taking me longer again to finish.
This one was meant to be more simple and linear but it’s sounding like people aren’t liking it as it’s too linear so it’ll need a bit of rewriting to hopefully add a bit more choice in there. I’m also thinking it’s going to need another chapter or two to round it out a bit further.
At the moment just up to the end of training. If people like it I might follow it up with one that reaches past that. I am trying not to turn it into one like my first project so it does get done in a timely manner so in that respect I am keen to get it finished. I’ve got a draft (minus the extra chapters) written up, just takes me a while to code it as I’m still learning (and keep messing up the tabs). At the moment, there’s brownies, familars, unicorns, bunyips in there. As I said, may be adding a few more things though.
@ fox_vixen Thanks for picking that up (You’re right, I’ll fix it )
By the way, will gender effect gameplay later on or will it just be social changes? (I.e, a certain gender having a slightly higher learning rate for magic X, but the opposite gender gets the same boost for magic Y)
Last name Emrys… all I can think of is Merlin lol.
Anyway I love what you have so far. Your writing style is fluent. I also like achievements. I noticed in your stat menu that you have some of the stats with with an underscore to make it display. If you add text after the name of the variable it will show up as plain text. Also, with the opposed percent bar, you only need to make one variable in the startup.txt. Hope that helps a little with the visual aspect of your WiP.
@Silverstone Thanks so much! And thank you for the advice for the stats, I’m still trying to work out some of the coding. I’ll see if I can go and fix them
Hi All, wondering if anyone can help me with some coding. I have an apposing pair in the stats that start out 50/50, If I type
*set a 40
*set b 60
it’ll change the stat.
If I just write *set a -10 nothing happens. Do I have to also write *set b +10 to make it work, or is there something else I should be doing?
Also I’m trying to work out where to write “text” to get the stats to display without the underscore (Can’t seem to get it to work).
Sorry forgive me sounding like I have no idea what I’m doing (because I kind of don’t ) How do you get opposed pairs to show correctly then when you’re setting it up?
