Player Comments on The Tale of the Foolish Princess

I would like to start off by saying that I enjoyed this story quite a lot. While perhaps I may not be able to fully appreciate the aesthetic of it, I can definitely say that the tone and the style of the writing ticked many positive boxes for me. The main character in particular shows great promise from the first couple pages, and her subsequent development is very well executed. I found it surprisingly easy to relate to a young princess, which speaks well as to the writing prowess of the author.

The tone of the story seems to shift dramatically from one "act" to another, just as Sophia's attitude and demeanor change over the course of the events she lives through and the atrocities she both witnesses and commits herself. It is in those moments, where she questions herself and what she has to do, that the writing shines the most in my opinion. Even the death pages were written skillfully and interestingly enough that I found myself content with them, enjoying the format they were presented in as well.

Where at the beginning I felt I was made to believe I was playing something light-hearted, even childlike at points, I was instead presented with a much-appreciated mature story and darker setting, just as I expected before reading based on the category and the contest it was written for. Still, the darker elements of the story I felt were contained to small scenes and interactions with certain characters, which could be good or bad depending on who you ask. Nevertheless, I admit I personally would have liked to see more of the magic of this world. Most of its descriptions seemed to be only grazing the surface of what could have been a much more mystical and fantastical theme.

For the length, I liked the exposure most of the supporting characters got, and the little bits of development I was able to see in some of the more prominent ones. The cast was perfectly sized for the scope and length, though perhaps the "screen time" could have been a bit more even; I felt like I would have liked to see more Paul and Casper, for instance. But again, this is more of a personal thing than a genuine complaint.

As far as actual complaints go, there is not much that comes to mind. Others have already mentioned the spelling and grammar so I won't delve into it too. Besides that, I must admit the dialogues sometimes felt odd to me. I had a hard time imagining people speaking some of the lines, but then again, I think it's more a result of the aesthetic the author was pushing for. I would not necessarily call it a flaw, but it's something that jumped out at me.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this and would love to give it a second (and further) read once the author has had the opportunity to really bring it to its full glory. It made for a very enjoyable read while having dinner.

As always with my reviews, beware of spoilers, for that is my guilty pleasure and I will go out of my way to add them. Serves you right for reading this before the story!

In short, I really enjoyed the story. The start read like a fairytale, with narration that was both rosy in tone and at times felt omnipresent, only adding to that feeling of a whimsical world where everything was a bit too good. It all started off so heavily based on the accompanying tropes of the genre that I forgot I was reading a dark fantasy. I also really enjoyed the infolinks, who were all told in the same distinct voice as well. This wide breadth in the narration underlined the 3rd person omnipresence that was almost like a glass sphere through which we divined the tale of Sophia. Seriously good writing here.

The princess was sheltered, naive, and wanted to escape. And while I have to admit I died in my first two attempts of escape and let the story rest for a week, I'm glad I did pick it up again. Because while the distinct tone of the narration stayed the same as the escape progressed, it retreated more into the 3rd person limited, and made the increasingly dark undertones feel far more personal. There is something about amputations, pimping, rape, necromancing and suicides told in that highly romanticised voice that made it horrifyingly splendid. I loved the stark contrast between these two 'phases' of the story and how the darker undertones eventually even seeped into that rosy beginning and shattered any idea I had of a world full of joy and good.

This contrast is backed by a seriously good plot as well. It stretched out far longer than I had first expected with a 6-length rating. Through this length, it allowed the characters that were first introduced in that fairytale beginning to make their reappearance in the nightmare, all corrupted to fit the newly established order. Your blood tax can be paid on the right, thank you very much. While I greatly enjoyed the two twins, I felt the little not-quite-necromancer siblings could be better handled. Because I did notice the resentment of the twin's appointment at the start, giving me a lightbulb moment during the revelation, but I didn't notice many hints about the sibling meddling in dark arts, perhaps that scene could be expanded a bit in lieu of the prince's foolish romantic overtures that were later quite snowed under.

Now to become nitpicky. During the fight with the butler it's been stated magic takes a few seconds to take hold, during which a trained fighter could take down a superior mage. It's then weird Sophia could cast her spell in the mere moments before the slash of the sword by the most trained fighter in the kingdom completed its trajectory. Although, after dying to her twice at the start, I did really enjoy this final scene that felt more of a personal conclusion than the revelations of the lovers that orchestrated everything off-camera and thus didn't really feel like the antagonists as much as that damned champion.

Really, the only true complaint I can muster is that after the start, it all was one long branch where the only options were to either die or continue the story. I preferred even the 'fake' choices of the start where it either rejoined immediately (like during the prince's question) or after a few moments (like with the artsy siblings). It cheapened a bit the feeling of, for example, doing something cool as walking in and bitchslapping the magical nuke when I tried to reach different branches.

But I can't fault it. Precisely because it was a single branch like this, it allowed the plot to really shine through without cheapening on anything that made it quite the way it was. And that plot was rosegold.

This story was much longer than I anticipate, and I applaud this. It was basically a full life story with a lot of characters, events, and failure (at least for me).

Overall, the story isn't that dark in terms of content, which is fine. The darkest thing is that there are conversations and mentions of rape and incest, but these aren't really focused on or elaborated much. It's not particularly violent either. It's more of a dark fantasy in terms of your morals and actions.
I will say that it gets darker as it progresses, which is a good thematic effect.

On the topic of grammar, this story has random tense changes present as well. It's jarring, it should be avoided at all costs, but it's not a dramatic error. Additionally, some of the sentences are run-ons. I think that you attempted to create this sort of sophisticated, noble tone that reflects the main character, and in some places it works, but in others it ends up in weird phrasing, like "whom" being used as a subject.

Spoiler zone: I like that you start the story as a sheltered princess who doesn't really understand what's really going on. I like that there are hints given about what's really happening, like when the twins are forced to attend to some economic matter while you fool around with Holt. They later mention this and I thought, "Hey, I noticed that, cool!" The story becomes darker in tone as Sophia becomes more evil, starting out almost like a fairytale, but then ending with a double suicide and the realization that the king is actually an incest-pedo. A pretty stark contrast, just as contrasting as pathetic, overly-dependent-on-Juliette Sophia compared to merciless queen Sophia.

The formatting is actually really unique, and this is a good example of how to use the storygame medium well. When you die, the narration changes to be condescending, encouraging you to take back your choice and continue on. The optional backstory links are also included at specific relevant moments, where they help you make decisions. This is another bonus with the formatting that helps make some of the decisions easier if you just read a little more. There are also trends between the choices, where choices later in the story mirror those earlier in the story, which once again, helps you make the correct decisions.

In summary, what this story lacks in overall writing, it makes up for with a fairly deep plot and good structure, and is definitely worth an hour or two of your time!

I loved this story! The characters were well-written, the world-building was fantastic, and the plot was incredibly immersive! This has become one of my new favorite stories on this site.

I will admit, I was confused and stumbling around, trying to cause havoc and get the cannon ending, and got two less amazing endings before I got one that makes me happy. This is a very good work, some typos I believe, but nothing major, if removed, it will only be made better, if not, no damage dealt. The links to information are nice to have, and the story itself is sad, happy, interesting and funny. Thank you for this work.

It was an enjoyable read. I couldn't believe that we could only hire two low grade mages and for them to just end up dying to a shitty spell.

Well written and engaging. I like the mechanic of getting to redo a bad decision. In this way I can read and enjoy the different outcomes. Great work.

Yes queen

Excellent storytelling, definitely one of the best works published this year. Well deserving of its time as a featured storygame. Good work!

An astonishingly good and flawless tale that made me feel every emotion.

On the positive side, there was lots of worldbuilding and the writing itself seemed very polished. On the minus side, it read more like a novel, where I could do nothing but keep hitting 'continue' many times in a row.

I'm sorry to say that there were still enough errors in grammar and awkward sentences that I found myself frequently distracted. Hopefully the next round of corrections will smooth things out for future readers.

It was a more substantial story than I was expecting. The deaths seemed a little arbitrary at times, but I liked the way you addressed the reader and provided the option to retry. I liked two of the actual endings I found, one being a little more ambiguous, but very charming.

Last but not least, I really liked the butler.

I did really like it. There's much to say I guess. It was not exactly that grimdark to be honest. I didn't exactly feel the dread and emptiness and existential crises in my heart after I had read it. The tone was dark, but it had so many hammy moments and characters sprinkled throughout it, that it never became as dark. Howeveras a storygame it is fucking entertaining. God, the hammy moments are gold.

I certainly love the fact that each family member you have to beat has some screws loose. After your younger siblings' defeat I kept wondering how you were going to one-up that, psycho puppet masters and all. Surprise double whammy incest it is. I remember laughing out loud when I read that part.

Aside from minor misspellings, your prose was pleasant to read. It was kind of light on branching, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment. I also like the fact that even the unofficial death endings were written with a lot of detail.

This was much better than the title page made it appear. There are some pretty brutal outcomes but nothing over the top, it's all handled tastefully.

Hard work is its own reward. I think it’s very obvious that the writer put in the work here. The characters have rhetorical meat on their bones, the description is more than skin deep, and the world suggests depth of its own. Obviously the writer intended to keep her word choice fresh. Usually she succeeds. The writing tone wants to be sophisticated, but never achieves this for long. It’s excessively wordy. I feel like this is the major sin. It isn’t that there are occasionally wordy sentences, it’s entire pages. Quality character and narrative are present, truly, but it’s rarely communicated with concise language. I wonder if “writing something long” wasn’t at least a side objective here.

I think this is a good storygame and I’m confident brevity would improve the pacing. I read some paragraphs that left me scratching my head. Sometimes the first sentence said it all and the rest was redundancy, other times wandering paragraphs could have been a sentence or two. Some sentences were just needlessly convoluted. For example, “It wasn't an action that didn't have a set precedent.”

What? Do you mean “It was an action with precedence.” or “this scene wasn’t uncommon”

The first page alone could probably contain all the same elements of information at 3/4th the length. I know this sounds very nit-picky and that’s because the big problem with the story isn’t a rudimentary one. This writing is above that. Most sentences in isolation are fine, but long sentence after long sentence page after page weakens the writing.

If this writer wants to improve, then it’s time for the difficult stuff. Write every word, every sentence, and every paragraph with intent. Oh, and read the whole thing out loud before publishing it.

I'm not really sure if I got the true end in the end. I'm assuming I did, given everything was explained and wrapped up neatly, but its a rather somber ending.

Anyway, as far as feedback goes, it was a solid 6/8. You clearly had a vision of what you wanted this to be, but the execution wasn't always there. I had a pretty hard time following the beginning few pages where you went on a lot of tangents and created allusions. They weren't bad by any means, its just the entry to the story has to get you into the characters and plot right away, and while it did serve the purpose, it did feel a bit heavy upfront.

I wasn't a fan of the structure. I don't think the story ever branched too far away from a single core route. Even some earlier decisions I thought would lead to different routes were revealed in later conversations with characters to be dead ends (nice touch btw).

Characters were okay. Protagonist is typical sheltered girl turns into raging murderer. I felt that first kill could have been made more impactful, especially with the ending reveal that you were the normal one. Rest of them are largely forgettable and just serve to move the plot forward; which is fine, they played their part.

Plot wise its edgy, as expected. Themes were dark, although you alluded to them more than described, making it a little lacking on the edge overall.

Got all three endings (I think, if it's the Travelling Queen, the figurehead, and the Foolish-No-More) in a single run, thanks to your looping back on deaths and epilogues. It's plenty convenient to have those options even with roll-back buttons at the top of the CYS browser.

As for the writing itself, I do like the snappy and short dialogue between the characters, but the length of the story (really, the lack of it thereof) does tend to make the characters same-speakey at times. Under the constraints of a contest, the quality of the writing is otherwise easy to process. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

That being said, the amount of endings whopping to a total of 3 does seem quite limited compared to the amount of potential that those three endings in of themselves represent, so if you do ever bother go back and build upon this story, I could see each ending become a path unto themselves. Good stuff, and it could be even better if the siblings you fought against weren't offed within a choice or two.

A minor gripe I have are the somewhat random deaths (rejecting 4 strangely clothed kids would be my go-to reaction), but even so the roll-back buttons help a lot. Another minor gripe is the distinct lack of edge in a dark-fantasy contest, but the subtlety and fridge-horrors are pretty fun to find between the lines. Great work!

Incest more like wincest, although I guess it’s fine if you say no chromo. Play as a prick of a princess in this political decision making game where any decision could lead to your demise.

Positives:
-Even though there were quite a few bad endings, they felt fun to play through due to how much I hated the player character.
-Goddamn there is a lot of branching in this story, I got the bad ending and also the okay ending but I’m going to play through it again to get the good ending when I have more time.
-The worldbuilding in the ‘information’ sections was really interesting and if you play through the story I advise you read them. Clearly a lot of time has gone into making sure the world feels fleshed out and exciting. I particularly liked learning how the kingdom was run.

Things to improve:
-I couldn’t find any spelling mistakes but very occasionally some of the tense would change for like a sentence or so. Also you wrote ‘ands’ instead of ‘and’ right near the start of the story.
-I’d maybe consider putting some of the bone worldbuilding information into show not tell. Sometimes it was marginally annoying to be told how the princess felt about people or things, when it would’ve been more fun to figure it out for myself.

Overall this is an incredibly fun read, but it definitely takes a lot of time to get through (took me around an hour and a half to get most of the endings) so put an afternoon aside for it. It’s honestly a fascinating story with an interesting prose that makes me want to read more of the authors work.

(The fact that Thara is holding me at gunpoint in the discord does not change my opinions in anyway, please send help. I’m begging you).

I liked this story. It has gauntlet-style branching and follows one major plotline. The characters are given enough personality to sometimes predict their next move.

There are some spoilers below.

There's some room for improvement with the mechanical side of the writing. Some choices didn't have much information to base a guess off of (like the one that led to night gnomes). Two of the choices at the beginning didn't have any effect on the rest of the game, but they seemed important the way they were set up. One idea I have is to make whether Caspar saves you or not (if you end up imprisoned) based on how you treat him, and generally having a couple innocuous choices at the beginning affect the long-term outcomes. That would be satisfying and even add some replayability.

The story was pretty decent to me. I liked some of the neat touches, like the permanent rose wilting spell. I'd definitely read another story by you.

I did like this storygame, but I kept running into typos and grammatical issues that distracted from the plot.

Even in places where there may be technically nothing wrong with the grammar, some sentences are just phrased so strangely I had to read them a couple of times to follow what was happening.

The scene beginning with "With an early advantage given to Sophia's group, there's plenty of more dead men of her sister than hers." for instance, it's a battle between two armies which could easily have been a cool scene, but instead the next couple of paragraphs dodge around the events in a difficult to follow way.

I liked the plot and the characters however, the "children" were creepy and unexpected, and Juliette was awesome. All the allies I wound up with were likeable people and the choice of a third person point of view made them more interesting, as the story could sometimes star them doing things on their own.

You could never start a anime story without a BATH scene, very pog.

The info at the beginning didn't feel like a info dump and even though it was pretty one way through in the beginning I love the branching out that happens later on in the story. Honestly Sophia and some parts in this story really give me some black lagoon vibes in particular when it comes to the character development of both main characters which I enjoy a lot along with the entire atmosphere of the story as it gets darker themed almost immediately.

Also what else that really shines is the dialogue between characters which also corelates in the tension of the story getting bigger as the story gets into it's later parts, which I wasn't expecting some of the endings I got either, but I liked them.

The whole essence and the main theme of the story I would say to me is corruption and that concept in itself is explored heavily in many different areas and from almost every character.

Didn't really find much grammar mistakes either so the time you took to fix all the typos really shows through this read-through.

Overall for the length that it was, the optional info that can be sought at the beginning, and the entire atmosphere and world of this story really make it all blend together into a solid work that I enjoyed reading.

The story didn't grab me immediately. The first few pages were rather dull and I found myself struggling to read it. But I decided to power through and once I got to the point where Sophia and Juliette ran away from the Palace, I was hooked. The style isn't usually what I like, being more of a fan of the Hemingway style of being blunt and straight to the point, but I guess I learned to love it as time went on.

There's a decent amount of branching to be found though I was a bit disappointed to find that a lot of choices would lead to a death, even if it was fitting for this type of story. I suppose I would've liked more paths to go down and explore but I understand this was written for a contest and as such there was a hard time limit imposed upon you. Still, I enjoyed what was there.

The characters were all enjoyable, my favorite being the mercenary leader Paul, mostly because he's pretty much who the protagonist would be if I wrote this type of story, lol. I wasn't sure that I would enjoy Sophia as a protagonist at first, but as she developed over the course of the story I found myself enjoying playing as her more and more. Watching her go from a naive, sheltered princess to a ruthless queen was great.

Overall this is a strong story and one I would gladly recommend to any new readers. 7/8

I really love this story. The atmosphere is great and the scenes are dynamic. Sometimes, however, it feels rather linear as most of the choices lead directly to a death scene, well planned but miss certain ilusion of choice. Sophia as character has a very interesting evolution same her dialogue with many characters Jul specially from a posh delicate flower to become a warrior queen hardened by the battle.

Maybe the lore bits could be less obvious and frequent but skip them make the story flow better and they are no really needed to understand the characters and the situation.

Maybe my favourite scene is slapping Roy the description and Roy response are really great and really realistic.

If this story gets expanded, adding content to the choices that now are all direct gameover could be an 8 in my book.

I got trapped in Hell so I suppose I can make a comment. In short, I would like to praise the lore. The info dumps are OPTIONAL but worth the read. They really make the world feel real and even a little alive. Especially the Rose Kingdom informative page. It really paints a clear picture of the world and what sort of situation the princess finds herself in. Additionally, the grammar is near flawless. Still a bit odd in some places but nothing that was particularly bad enough to stick in my mind.

Now for the characters...

Just good job. They were 3-demensional and felt like the choices affected how they felt about the character. Very, very well done.

I must admit I'm not much into this kind of story on my own time... but I think this is definitely something I will read a few more times just to see what else can happen.

As for the ending(s)... they always felt satisfying and natural. Not every story I have read, even the good ones, had natural feeling endings- but this one did.

Overall, definitely worth the read- especially if you are into the genre.

A well structured story with good characters, definitely worth finding the time to read it.

Now, to go a bit more in depth, so beware of light spoilers.

I like the narrator voice, as it both has a character of its own, which stops the reading from becoming stale, and isn't restricted just to the protagonist, as is often the case. Being able to see the thoughts of some other characters is used enough to benefit the story without making it hard to follow.

The characters are also a strong point, which is good, as the plot is driven by them. I think they're well handled, and the confrontations between the groups make for a good read, which brings me to the next point.

Escalation.

The story didn't exactly go where I was expecting, but I consider this a good thing. I don't think what comes later undermines the earlier sections either, which would've been my one possible complaint.

Tension remains even after earlier victories, which helps keep the reader engaged, mainly because the threat isn't just the same thing over and over again, thanks to the escalation I mentioned, but the threats also aren't a simple increasing of scale either. Things stay interesting!

However, from what I noticed, this storygame doesn't seem to branch much.

With that said, the 'fail' endings aren't shoehorned in, they're written as proper continuations based on the choices that just happen to end in death. As such, they do add to the overall story, which is what you'd want.

I do wonder if more endings could've been longer, even if still ending relatively soon. But ultimately this is a good sign, as it shows I would've liked to read more.

But for my last point, I wish to say that the final conclusion was satisfying. Things got resolved, questions were answered, and characters developed.

What more could a reader ask for?

I really hate to mention spelling and grammar right away, but it must be addressed. Frankly, there are many, and unfortunately, there are many in the beginning of the story. As I am learning and discovering the setting, I'm thrown off by visuals errors that are easily fixed with proofreading. I'll chalk it up to the contest deadline. Spelling and grammar doesn't have to be perfect, but when it detracts from the story, then it's a problem. I will say, it gets better further into the story. Tense shifting is also something to watch out for. I had a "cononondrum" whether to rate lower because of it, although I ended up "overlooking" spelling and grammar when it came to rating.

Ok, now that's out of the way. Let's get into the good parts. The story has an intriguing main character. Sophia is not the typical rejected Cinderella (although she does have a couple of sisters she doesn't get along with, an understatement to say the least) or a firstborn boss bitch. She's a weird mix of both ends of the spectrum, being royalty, and certainly treated as such as a child, but being eighteenth out of twenty-five siblings doesn't put her high on the totem pole. The struggles that we're shown initially are uniquely felt. And like every good princess, she has a trusty handmaiden.

Also, there were quite a few options in the beginning for background history. They were spaced out well, and I was glad an info dump wasn't forced, especially when the opening isn't jumping right into action. There's even one on the first END GAME link. Cool little thing to include as there is some worth to exploring links.

I also really like the "rebuke" option when it comes to END GAME links. Those of us that have been on the site know the difference between and actual story ending and a dead end. New users often have the tendancy to think the first END GAME link they encounter is the absolute ending. So, creative link to include. Mad props.

There is a cool readability element when the author describes a character. The events in the story seem to halt, like they're frozen in time, while a new character is being introduced by first (and often last name). I imagine it like an interview scene from The Office or Parks and Rec. It's like a cutscene that fits nicely within the context, all attention suddenly shifting towards one character.

The cover art fits the story's theme well. Both the dialogue and character's reactions are anime-y. There's an abundant usage of "..." and getting cut-off mid--

While the opening is linear (more of a prologue, really), choices later on are deeply felt as if they matter. No sudden death, lazy "branching" is found. The author has a good grasp on the branching element of storygames. Certainly an impressive story and entry for the contest.