I’m always up for a good riddle, so I’m rather curious about this game ‘o yours.
The game starts nice, with me consciously entering a dream-realm. Then, a golden claw comes from out of nowhere, ready to tear me up in the same way I’ll proceed to tear this game up.
We are presented with the Sphinx, the legendary creature known from... well, legend. It then asks the prerequisite question that it asked a certain man before, and we all know the answer to it. A nice bit of self-reference from the sphinx after answering the question correctly, which I certainly enjoyed.
It then complains that I used the internet, followed by an angry emoticon. You can understand that I was none too pleased to see this.
I am completely taken out of the game only three screens in, this has to be a new record or something.
After that, the sphinx then says “shire” and references LOTR of all things. Honestly, you have a wealth of information from all forms of media and public knowledge at your disposal to make a riddle, and you choose a subject that’s been dry and overdone? Mix things up, make us solve actual riddles instead of pop culture references.
Then, a nice paradox statement pops up. After answering it technically correctly, the game shouts WRONG ANSWER!
But wait! This was a tricksy-trick. It turned out the question was a trap, and you proceed to explain why we would be wrong either way. Nice, if not for the fact that I called the double paradox from a mile away. Also, small piece of advice, but don’t insult your players, at least not without good reason. It’s similar to Justin Bieber spitting on his fans, or that other guy who said that fans exist for him, and not otherwise.
Your next question has you complaining about your autocorrect, and giving us a none too subtle hint on yet another LOTR reference.
You then give us a 50/50 chance of death, with no form of hint or indicative logic to avoid said death. I’ll admit, I sidestepped and died.
Then, and only then are we confronted with the most blatant nonsense I have ever had the displeasure of seeing: The Lack Of A Reset Button Justification.
Your logic in this page says that you don’t want trolls getting up in your grills about why there is no reset button. Problem is, your logic in this is flawed beyond all hell. You claim that pushing a restart button would combat logic, because it would bring you back to life. You also claim the player should start a new game (the equivalent of a reset button) to experience the EXACT same game as someone else.
Though, if someone were to follow, let's say... logic, we’re not someone else. We’re still us, and nothing has changed that, therefore your own statement combats your own logic. Not including a “Restart” or “Possess someone else’s dream and experience the game again.” would change nothing, except...
Your “Plays” count on the website...
And then it dawned on me, the only reason you haven’t included that Reset button is just to force people to restart your game over and over again, which increases the Plays count on the game's webpage. You excluded that Reset just to buff your Plays count to falsify the amount of people that ACTUALLY played it.
I have to praise you for the ingenuity, it’s still a despicable act, though.
The game started at three stars, the self-referential nature of the Sphinx really had me going, then the ridiculous LOTR nonsense combined with the frankly unfunny attempts at humour dropped it a star.
The faking “Plays” would have dropped it to a final zero, a shame I cannot go lower than one star, so that’s exactly what you’ll get from me.
[Sips tea dramatically, takes deep breath.]
To be fair, if the only thing you’ve got going for your game book is Trial and Error, you’re not making a game book. You’re making a timewaster for both you and us.
Choices are nonsensical and utterly random, there is no foreshadowing or warning as to what’ll kill me, and when it’ll kill me. The bits that are supposed to be funny simply aren’t, and I daresay that’s not because of my sense of humour or lack thereof.
I maybe laughed once or twice, if only at the sheer ridiculousness of anyone having the guts to post something like this and dare call it Comedy. Some of the deaths themselves are utter nonsense. Then, the repetitiveness sets in and my mind starts to drift off as I choose “shirt” for the umpteenth time, trying to figure out what twisted form of logic the Author applied to this amalgamation of ridiculousness.
You may have noticed by now that I think that this isn’t a good game book. Even if this were meant to be a rage game, it’d be failing. I feel no rage after this, only apathy and lifelessness. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone could give 5 stars for this.
The story itself was rather dull, and the incoherence between tone and writing style really took me out of the game. The insane man's... insanity is displayed in a manner that is simply immature, and it hinges too strong on the misconceptions that have been provided to us by the media and entertainment industry over the years.
All riddles were unoriginal, and have been taken from other sources. I literally knew them from memory. If you want people to really get their minds bent, make up your own riddles.
I, myself, am a big fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, so I’m curious as to how it’ll work out.
The first thing I noticed is that the physical appearance of the character is described almost immediately, in a sort of checklist-y fashion. Hair is named, then the beard is described, they eyes are portrayed, the noses presented, the skin colour described, and clothing as well. While I’m not against this form of presenting a character, I believe it to be better to weave their physical properties into the narrative. If he’s looking at something intently, describe his eyes. If the wind rushes past his head, describe the hair as the story itself interacts with it. If his nose is itchy, describe the thing. This'll introduce your character in a more natural way.
Minor gripes aside, I see a common mistake a lot of writers make (myself included). It’s called the Info-Dump, a section of text where you present the reader/player with a large amount of information that they can’t possible comprehend. Try and pace the information you provide a bit more, it’ll help people understand the story more easily and become more invested in the story itself. Don’t forget, just because the story makes sense to you as the writer, doesn’t mean it’ll inherently make sense to the readers/players. Make sure to take that into account when writing.
Occasionally, the writing has a lacking capital letters at the start of sentences. I also noticed that your periods, commas and question marks are placed outside of the brackets of speech. For example.
“And how is Riegan standing as of late”? = “And how is Riegan standing as of late?”
The writing itself is well done, though certain chunks of text make it difficult to keep track of who is saying what exactly. You could put a break between every time a new character starts speaking. This’ll help the layout become easier on the eyes for the reader/player.
Overall, very well written, but the minor errors break the immersion enough for it to be jarring. If you improve on the points I've mentioned, I'm certain this'll get some pretty neat scores.
In general, not very good. Made me laugh a few times, but there was nothing "AWESOME AND AMAZING" about it. Better luck next time, I guess.
This game is, without a doubt, the most glorious, unimaginably epic, and flawlessly immaculate piece of trash I've found here thus far.
I mean, really? All you did was upload the template from Quest and call it a day? At least put some effort into it.
Well, this kind of gamebook is my thing, so I’ll give you my two cents.
Right off the bat, the story says I have the option to “Ambush the hidden assassin?” even though there was no suggestion or reference that the hiding individual was indeed an assassin, and not just a highwayman or something.
Utilising common sense, I decided to then attack this assassin pre-emptively, by summoning icebolts... Yes, apparently, we’ve crawled into the skin of a wizard, and we didn’t even know it. Funny, how that works, might want to reference that somewhere. The assassin then blocks the icebolt, sets it on fire, and hurls it back at you. The basic law of thermodynamics prevents ice from catching fire, so I’m interested as to what laws of nature your story follows. If indeed you meant to say that the icebolt melted, and the assassin threw a fireball in return, that would make much more sense.
We are then met with Sajamar, the rogue wizard. The only option is to murder this man in cold blood by using a spoken curse called “abradekadava”, which bears a stupid amount of similarity to Abrakedabra, or Avada Kedavra. It does not flow well on the tongue. Also, why does this particular spell need to be cast through speech, even though the icebolt was cast from silence? And why the heck didn’t we get to use this spell from the get-go?
I then decided to loot the assassin/wizard/rogue/person that I didn’t particularly know, that ended with me arriving in Balut, happy to have killed some guy I don’t particularly know. The story then abruptly ended with me going greedy with power and becoming Sauron (no, really). The game itself then says I got the Lord of the Rings ending, which is just plain uninspired at best.
To add, +90% of the lines begin with the word “You”. Put some variety into your text. It’s also rather short, I’ve taken longer to write this review than actually played your gamebook.
I would rate it two stars, if only for the effort put into it. The ending, though, dropped the score a whole star, not because it ended bad, but because it was poorly ended.
I'm going to be a bit harsh, this would have received at least four stars if my choices had actually done anything other than rub it in my face that I apparently made the wrong choice according to the author.
The moral choice concept only works if both choices can be equally considered and carry both consequences and respective rewards. Instead, all we are presented with is ONE way to do everything, and that is the way the author strongarms us into following. Deviating from the chosen path only slightly is grounds to be confronted with a very silly and abrupt ending telling us that we chose poorly, and should choose EXACTLY how the author tells us.
Which raises the question: What's the point of giving us a moral choice in the first place if we technically don't get a say in what we choose? The author forces the choice on us, which more or less beats the purpose of choice as a whole. If this were more worked out, it would've been four stars. But as it is now, I can't give more than two for it.
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