De Milite Inprudenti

Holy shit, Brad actually wrote a storygame? And it's short enough that I just had to read it as soon as I saw it.

Well, it's short and sweet, filled with humor. The big baddie being the narrator is also quite interesting, and enjoyable. He's got a lot of personality, and I really enjoyed that part of the game.

The part that I DIDN'T enjoy was... the choices? Some of them seem totally random, like how the fuck am I supposed to know whether going left or right will let me survive the climb?

That's one example. Another was the stupid fucking maze that I got so lost in I eventually just went back to the beginning with the back button and went for the riddles instead.

I probably would have tanked the score hard for those things, but the actual writing was very enjoyable. You didn't fail to not disappoint, Brad!

Overall, the game's length is fine for what it is and I think making it longer would've hurt the game. It's clear that Knarr'ator is narrating the game and doesn't want the player to succeed.

I found the maze to be a clever little addition. You'd be lucky to get through it by randomly clicking directions and without a way to see what choices take you where, that's what you'd have to do. I mapped the maze out and it seems like you intended there to be two routes? One route goes through all of the choice clusters and the other skips a cluster until the second to last cluster. I don't know if the pattern it had followed until that point is intentional or not, but it feels like it is.

Personally, the options that loop back to previous clusters could be better balanced. The second cluster gets looped back to by four options, not including the options that loop back to themselves, while two others get looped to once and another is looped to twice.

Not quite enlightening, but definitely better than a Reese's Cup.

The first thing I want to point out about the storygame is the use of the dragon as the narrator. That was such a unique concept, and it really helps he storygame seem much more interesting. It was a very fun read, and is most definitely the best dragon-based game on the site.

The writing itself was very good, but sometimes it did feel a little weak at some points. I think there is a mistake as well, where you go through the hall of skulls and it takes you to the page after passing the lava pit. The whole storygame is basically climax, so it's very action-packed, but it just lacks everything else that makes a good storygame. It doesn't feel complete.

It was a little short as well, and it didn't hold up to its true potential. There was only a few characters with hardly and development, and each choice is basically a guess, rather than a calculated decision. I have high hopes for that other dragon game that I see you're working on. You did a good job with the use of the advanced editor.

There was no spelling or grammar mistakes that I noticed, and the only other stake was the one I had mentioned earlier about the hall of skulls and the lava pit. An enjoyable read. 5/8

That's a funny one. I'm from the land of Sci-fi, and we don't see many dragons up there. So this was refreshing.
I'm just glad there was a back button or I wouldn't have made it.

Very intriguing story! I danced quite a bit with this story in middle school, but I thought that I would come back to it. Certainly fun and had me in laughs at times.

Fun and amusing. Enjoyed the humor and thought that the story was very complete even with its short length.

It was preety fun. Really enjoyed it. The story could've used a bit more descriptive ending. Also, SPOILER ALERT, is there any way to beat the maze of twisty little passages. Another thing is that the rock climbing part felt pretty random.

This was a fun little story. The idea of the narrator being the dragon you're supposed to fight is a unique idea. As short as this story is, it is still very cleverly done - sometime I'd wish there was more detail, but then again information being spared makes sense under the context of the story being told to you by the antagonist. I like the appearance of this game as well with the background color and the different fonts.

I will say that for a storygame that feels very action-packed and climactic throughout the story, the ending feels anything but. If I choose to harass the Knarr'ator with his greatest weakness, double negatives, the dragon will simply up and leave, ending the story abruptly. Again, I understand this aspect given the context, but it still feels a little dissatisfying regardless.

I still enjoyed this game for its cleverness and humor despite its length. 5/8.

I was very close to giving this a score of 8/8. It's short, sweet, and really very amusing.

My only concern was that I wasn't sure if I had reached a real ending or not, as the end page seemed a little abrupt.

Overall, I had a real fun time with this!

WARNING: Spoilers Ahead

I really like the writing style. I agree with other commentators that having the antagonist as the narrator is rather unique. I enjoyed the play on words with the dragon’s name (Knarr’ator), and the quips he made at the player character often had me chuckling. (For example: his over-exaggeration of the difficulty of the riddle was funny, given that any answer was deemed ‘correct’). I also loved how there were several fourth wall elements throughout the story. The dragon’s extreme annoyance at the use of double negatives in literature was clever.

I liked how you changed the background colour, and the fonts you used for both the titles and the main text. I did find a few minor typos. For example, on the page where you encountered a second dragon, you wrote: “You look up to see that standing before you is none other than wyvern.” Since wyvern is a type of dragon (and not the character’s name), it should read as “a wyvern”. Also, after this character told you the Knarr’ator’s weakness, the antagonist says “…What. Okay, c’mon now; don’t listen to him.” There should have been a question mark after ‘what’.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. I do agree with other readers that it might have been better if it were longer, though I’m not sure that would really fit with the premise of the game. I also would have liked to see a few more endings. It would’ve been interesting to find an ending where we can make peace with the antagonist, for example. In a way, the good endings felt unsatisfactory because they resulted in the story suddenly ending. (For example, annoying the Knarr’ator with double negatives causes him to refuse to continue telling the story, and slaying the dragon causes him to remark how you’ve cut the tale short). Though I did think these were clever, since nothing good can come from destroying a story’s narrator, I wish there was some way to feel like I ‘succeeded’.