4/1/2023

11/7/2025 8:46 AM

446

2

1 win / 2 losses

Architect of Avon

“This is the ending all stories must eventually reach:
silence around an empty stage.”

—Unknown

Lazarus Cage

They want to keep you bound in the dark, but you won't let them. You will get out, fight and flee, fail and die, then try again and again...

Nautilus

Grudges must always be the first to die when a storm arrives.

After years away you return home to your dying father, but will you be able to get your brother to forgive you for leaving? And will you step up to the challenge to inherit your father's most prized possession?

Written as part of the 2023 Spring/Summer Contest: Gone Fishin' it is a game with a much bigger focus on story than gameplay, but still there is a decent amount of endings and variation for something this short.

If being older (which by the way late 20s is not old or even older you self proclaimed zoomer) was the problem half of us would've been put to the sword centuries ago. This is just RK looking out for an actual 12 year old. A bigger problem than your alleged age is something you should have been aware of even before you made this thread, and that's that this is not the time (5 minutes after creating your account) and less importantly place (a forum for readers and writers of primarily interactive fiction) for doing it. If you're looking specifically for a place to find some roleplaying buddies shoving yourself into a DND community or something similar would've been a better and less insensitive choice. Meanwhile if you actually wanted to become part of this community, though why anyone would want to do that is beyond me, doing things like actually reading storygames, participating in existing events like many various contests or smaller things done by other longstanding members, or just writing something yourself since you technically started on that anyway would've been a better idea. Setting up camp in the Lounge with a thread about roleplay is something that could get a pass from a noob showing some interest in the actual purpose of the site (Hi Avo, how you doing these days?). Not doing so makes you virtually indistinguishable from a bot, or an alt of someone who for whatever reason has nothing better to do than be a recurring annoyance. Your intentions might be pure, and even if you happen to have poor social skills if you're at an age where you got bills to pay you should know better.

It has been forever but I played the VN on my PSP (if you need a reference to how long ago that was) and enjoyed it quite a bit, but never tried the anime because of the general adaptation issues that have always existed with anime. Said issue is that most adaptations are made for the purpose of promoting the original be it manga or visual novel so they're not given the time and budget to full and properly adapt a piece of work. This is the stories often feel abridged or downright cut and rewritten at a random point in case of mangas (Manga Fuuka vs Anime Fuuka are barely the same past the premise and first few bits) and kind of squished or melted together from different routes (Clannad is like that, but Grisaia no Kajitsu and Tsukihime are probably the biggest examples of it I can immediately recall). There are exeptions to this but they usually come from adapting something that's been finished for a while (Fate/Stay Night) or something that's built in a way that allows a 1-2 cour long adaptation without altering the core story (Boku no Hero Academia, Amagami SS etc) Either way hope this small bit of info helps.

I mean getting the highest possible score should be something special. It's not really on me that we've started following the IGN school of reviewing where anything that can be called a storygame is at least a 6 or a 7 because somewhere out there in the world exist incoherent 500 word ramblings and those deserve 1-2 ratings. I am kind of hoping Eyes on a moon of blandness was just an outlier I stumbled on, but the odds of Bill getting an 8 aren't that high. Sherb is a different matter of course given the only thing that bumped As Ink down to a 7 aside from character nitpicks was the rather messy spread of content.

I feel like the main problem I had with it in terms of enjoyment is that I went in expecting something completely different. It wouldn't affect the final score if I was aware what the actual premise is, but I did need to put it aside and come back a few days later to actually complete it fully with a proper mindset. Overall I also think this shorter and more unique type of story works better with End's style than a much larger epic like Rogues.

I did consider Reborn for October, but the main reason I didn't is it would be the 4th Sherb game and I wanted to try something else plus I felt like having an opinion about End's work while having read only one of his games was somewhat unfair, even if as it slowly turns out his games are pretty close to being all the same. For November I was planning to go with Mizal's recommendation since it's also on theme of me giving second chances, but I might read Reborn for December as finale to this series of reviews since I also believe there is a chance for it to get an 8 based on what I've seen from Sherb (As Ink was the second closest to it so far after all).

Happy Halloween everybody. Given I post these reviews on the last day of the month and that this month it meant doing so on Halloween I wanted to do something suitable for the occasion and review a horror game. Unfortunately (for me) I decided I wasn't going to take the easy path and pick something from Sherb who's a safe bet to me at this point, and instead I reached for another of Endmaster's stories with the dart landing on Alpha Wolf. Did I hate it? No. Did I love it? Also no. Did it make me change my mind about End's writing? Also (unsurprisingly) no. But I will give End props for being only the second person I encountered that didn't forget Frankenstein made two monsters in the original so that's something I guess.

It wasn't a thing when I was a kid because of how religious the older generations are, but today and especially in cities it's more normal. There's even a few houses that get decorated for the ocassion in my neighborhood.

I'm doing pretty much the same thing I've done all week which is struggling to not die of boredom at work till 10PM. At least is saves me from having to chase kids off my front door this time around. I do need to finalize a review for this month so I'll probably do that as well.

That also works I guess. But also taking a DELETE FROM ... WHERE ... engraved axe to over half the database entries would be more in style for at least some people in power here. Still a thread feels like the most reasonable, if boring approach.

Assuming the site tracks data like when the game was last accessed, or maybe just using the author's last active timestamp one could write a script that automatically purges unpublished games that weren't touched in the last 3-5 years. Considering how old the site is I doubt there'd be more to it than some basic SQL, but that's just me making an educated guess.