Non-threaded

Forums » The Parlor Room » Read Thread

Questions about a storygame? Thoughts on Eternal? Any other IF you're playing out there?

The Lost Realm

6 years ago
A review by request. Notes: I write this while I’m reading it, giving you a glimpse into what I’m thinking as I read it. If you don’t like what I write, that’s fine, just ignore it. I don’t intend to attack you or offend you, this is just what I’m thinking as I read along. Realize that everyone has their own opinion, and this one is just mine. Odds are that everyone else will disagree with what I write here. Also, this review is likely worth exactly what you paid for it. Most of all, remember, you asked. That said, here we go:

Year 378. Ok, I’m in some other time or place. Could be past, could be future, we’ll see. Realm’s emblem and guard duty, so I’m leaning towards a fantasy setting. Reference to kobold: okay I guessed right. We’re in a realm that’s lost. I wonder why we’re lost. Or who we’re lost from? Maybe we’ll find that out, maybe we won’t.

Ok, so the character has lost his wife. Sounds sad. I’m not sure why she would say “I’m lost” as last words. That sounds like a very strange choice for last words. Ah well. I had to read that one paragraph about the ring twice because it started with “my” wedding ring, but then mentioned that you could afford one for her. All worked out with the explanation of the grandma’s ring. This just got a little weird, but I’m thinking that was the intent. This is the second time she was presumed/assumed dead. And I buried her quickly. I’m starting to think I set something up here and that perhaps I’m a psychopath.

Memory? Ah, not my favorite kind of story, but let’s continue on. Nice description of the new girl. It worked well and I got a good picture of the princess in the rough there. Oh, and he dad’s a king. Guessed right again! (Minor typo: “a ancient land”). Wait, the realm of men is different from the lost realm? No big deal, but for some reason I thought one was basically included within the other. Minor tense change, too, in two sentences: Liliana yelled, then she “Starts crying.”

Ah, a selection. Interesting choice here. It’s a bit odd I have to pick the one that I’m not. No hints to help me choose, so hopefully this isn’t too major of a decision. I’ll suppose I’ll be a good-looking idiot.

Nice descriptions of the encounter leading up to the conversation. I had to pause just a second to figure out who was talking. I mean, it was obviously clear after I read the sentence, but when my eyes saw the quotes, I wasn’t yet sure who was talking, so that was just a pause there for me. The same happened with the second verbalization. Again, I could figure it out, but I wasn’t sure at first. I wonder if just a single “I said,” or “She said” would have eliminated those pauses in my brain. Nice description of the hug and the freezing up of Lilliana. (Tiny typo: kobold should probably be kobolds).

Nice bit with the faeries. There were a couple places in there where the wording was a bit off, somehow, but nothing that confused me. I think it was faerie being singular, plural, and male, all at the same time. At least it explained the “lost” phrase from before. The last line here strikes me as strange, as if I don’t know my own name…

Wait. I’m lost suddenly. Liliana was captured. But I thought she was killed. And I thought she was killed with you. Did you capture her? But wait, there were people who knew what they were doing so they could be captured killed or raped. So there’s a way through the forest, and it is by being captured? Or just by having sex with kobolds. I think. And wait, I’m back in the present (I think), and I’m in the lost realm. But in my memory I wasn’t, the lost realm was lost. So now I’m discovering there’s a way through the forest, but didn’t I have to come through the forest to get the wall where I’m standing? Or wait, is the forest between the lost realm and the faerie realm? And now the lost realm isn’t really lost, because I found it? I’m not going to think about it too much, I’ll just go on.

I like the description of the wyverns and their approach. I don’t like that I’m being interrupted yet again with a flashback, so I’m choosing to push the memory back. Nice brief page. I was a little confused by the voice that was clear but I couldn’t hear it. At least Byron was clear. Oh wait, he wasn’t actually clear at all. Byron should be fired. He just said he needs “someone” to light the first, but then told everyone somewhere to go other than the fire. Moron. I guess I’ll go light the fire for the idiot, even though he’ll probably yell at me later.

Good descriptions on the lighting the fire page. No problems, and it all makes sense to me. I’m going back to the battle. How do you take on a burst of speed? Was it just falling through the air and landed on the wyvern? Good descriptions of the battle and the saving by the griffon. But oh yeah, I have to go for the dive-bomb plan. Why not? Outside of the story, I wonder about the page here with just a few lines on it and a fail link. I idly wonder if this was a random choice and if I might have succeeded some times. But I failed. Wow. That was it. I’m dead and the story was over. I really feel like I made some bad choices here and there were lots longer sections in this story. I guess I just suck at choices. I think I’ll go back a little…

I retried the plan a couple times to see if there was a random chance there that I might not fail. I didn’t get anything but fails. So now I’ll let myself go back to the ramparts like a coward. Man, that’s rough that I feel so much guilt and feel like I might have made a difference. No, dammit, I couldn’t, so get over it! Now that I’m back on the wall, I’m actually kind of surprised our team is losing. In the initial descriptions, I thought there were just a few wyverns and a few kobolds. Later the ground kobolds had a few lizards or something. Once I called in the Calvary, I thought we were way out in front. And who the heck started breaking the walls apart? Did the kobolds bring cannons? But, well, we’re losing now, so oh well. I have the option to shoot arrows, but I thought I lost my bow when the griffin picked me up? Did he really drop me in the exact spot where I dropped my bow? Okay. I guess I’ll support the griffin knights.

Oh wait, I found a bow…after I decided to use a bow. Good thing that bow was there, otherwise I guess I was going to throw arrows at the wyverns. Die kobold riders! Dammit, I died again. I guess I just stink at making choices for the long term here.

A quick click-through of a few other options and I see a couple pages that have different font on them, and that’s distracting (Abandon them, for one). After a whole lot of clicking, I finally got the dive-bomb plan to work. Overall, good stuff, good story, my mind followed along without any issues throughout. I think there’s a lot more story that I haven’t seen, but that’s all I’ve got for now!

The Lost Realm

6 years ago
I'm sure Ebon will love this, especially with the way most of the rest of us have been shirking, but really you should've posted this on the story itself.

The Lost Realm

6 years ago
I didn't want to post it on the story because it's way, way too long for that page!

The Lost Realm

6 years ago

Mizal is right. I do love this. 

You go into so much detail with reviews that it makes it supremely easy to see where I went wrong, or where I could’ve clarified things. 

The font thing is some bug I ran into while copying and pasting paragraphs. I thought I found all of the pages with it on there, but I guess not. If you haven’t found a single epilogue, then  yeah, there is still quite a bit of story you haven’t read yet, 

Many thanks Ogre. These are always great to read.

The Lost Realm

6 years ago
You bet, glad to do it!

The Lost Realm

5 years ago
I used to get that with the rich text too- it's really annoying. Pretty sure switching to the basic fixes it

The Lost Realm

6 years ago
Damn, it seems I'm not that good of a proofreader, you've already found some typos I've missed. I noticed the font thing too, but thought it was intentional, now I regret not asking about it. Out of the things you found strange, the only one that was on my list was the voice thing. Great work with the review so far, maybe it'll convince Ebon to unpublish the story and fix it up sooner.

The Lost Realm

5 years ago

A tad unrelated but anyone has tips on finding the reunion ending? I can't seem to find the right combination of choices :<

The Lost Realm

5 years ago
@Ebonvasilis is taking a few days of self imposed exile from the internet for some retarded reason, but I'm sure he'll help you out if no one else can in the meantime.

Or perhaps the sight of someone discussing his story will break his will and he'll reply immediately.