Of dreams and daemons

“Of Dreams and Daemons” by Clayfinger was a surprise entry released right in the middle of the 2025 CYS summer reading contest. At a length of 46k words, there’s a lot of material in here for readers to enjoy, and as a whole, the work is an incredibly engaging fantasy story with great character work and narrative depth. There were very few things that bothered me about this story, and as a whole, I was really thankful I got the opportunity to check this one out! While it’s at 9 ratings at the time of writing this review, I expect that by the end of this month, it will double in ratings.

I really love the way the story opens! Given that the story is about a woman with the magical power of prophetic dreams, it only makes sense that the story opens with an omen of danger. The first page was written extremely well. Right from the first sentence, “You are drowning.

Not in a sea of water, but that of flesh. Elbows, shoulders and faces are all you can see as you attempt to navigate through the intense crowd. “, the story adopts an ominous, almost claustrophobic tone. Without giving readers much time to settle in, the story instantly thrusts them into an incredibly chaotic royal parade. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the various sights and sounds that seem to overwhelm our protagonist.

But sadly, not everything is right. Amid the pomp and circumstance, a mysterious figure plots an assassination. I loved the pacing, it felt fast and frightening. And as the dream ends with flames eating everybody alive, the reader is instantly given a wonderful taste of the kind of story that is to come.

I love the heightened tensions and fast-paced atmosphere that you manage to create in just a few sentences. This first page does an excellent job of hooking the audience. One last point that I want to make before proceeding to the rest of the story is the way you wrote the flames engulfing everything. I love how you personified the fire and made it come alive. I also love how, for the tone you’re going for, you keep it detailed and dramatic without going overboard. You manage to achieve a really consistent tone that the story stays true to for the entire work. I like how right off the bat, the reader knows that this is meant to be a children’s fantasy novel, and as such, the descriptions/details of some of the more violent aspects are immersive without being too gory/traumatic.

I really like the rapid pacing of this story. After the dream sequence, the story wastes no time with lagging middle sections or any sort of drawn out descriptions. The conversations flow well, the pacing remains interesting, and we are given just enough information to pique our interest while at the same time, not being bored.

The characters shine throughout the story. I enjoyed the entire cast, everyone from Isabella to Sir Jean to Queen Astrid to King Louis to Lord Tobias, plays their part really well. This story is a complex interconnecting web of lies, political plots, secrets, and hidden agendas. I think my favorite part was how much information/detailed characterization we get about everyone. I feel like I could understand the major players’ motivations super well. I also really enjoyed how each of the major players’ character arcs slowly unfolded. By the end, it was crazy to see how all these character’s pasts interconnected, influencing their futures.

Out of all the characters, Hannah shines as the main character, the dreamer, the one who sees scary omens and can predict the future. I really love the entire concept behind the story, a magical power that doesn’t offer the user any overt strength/military advantage, but one that regardless, has the potential to shake kingdoms and overthrow monarchs. There is something so potent about knowledge, and in the wrong hands, this power could quickly turn to poison. I really like how the story explores this theme of power corrupting and turning dreams into nightmares. While Hannah is incredibly powerful, she only has the ability to envision the future, but not necessarily what it means. Which leaves a lot of room for ambiguity, and this story operates inside this gray area.

I am of course, talking about the dream Hannah has where she sees Louis murder his mother. Of course, if you play it completely straight, you’ll quickly find out that Louis was actually justified in murdering his mother, because she was involved in an assassination plot to murder his abusive father, and unfortunately, as the King of the land, he has the responsibility to administer blind and impartial justice. But, if you choose to think of Sir Jean instead of King Louis, the story branches out into you, Hannah, suspecting King Louis of foul motives.

Basically, the story is largely linear for the most part, with the major branching happening at the dream point. From there, you can either trust King Louis or suspect him. If you choose to suspect him, then you have the opportunity to play through multiple branches. I believe that this path was the most entertaining, primarily because it was the least linear, and it offered several choices as to who to trust with the knowledge that King Louis may be up to no good.

I loved the difference in outcomes when you approach either Tobias, Astrid, Louis himself, or Jean.

I kind of wish the other path branched as much, I was disappointed with how linear the story was until I reached this part. But once you start investigating your dream and verifying whether King Louis is really evil, the story becomes very interesting.

Besides the linear nature, there isn’t a whole lot that I didn’t enjoy in this story. There is a lengthy exposition/info dump during the scene where Hannah is at the royal ball and basically meets all the main characters, that could have been handled a bit more elegantly, but really, no harm no foul.

I loved this story! The mystery was so intriguing, the love triangle was really compelling, and it was so interesting to see how the story changes depending on the choices you make. King Louis in particular could either be warm and kind, or cold and menacing, and that shift in character across the different branches took my breath away. I also loved the integration of magical technology that sort of allowed King Louis to be on equal footing with the demons. The fight scenes were cool, but the mystery/investigation was the heart of the story. Ultimately, this story is about Hannah’s journey, exploring and understanding the full depth of her powers, and what impact they have on the entire land. It’s about a search for truth, and who can Hannah really trust in a Kingdom filled with dangerous power players on their own quests for revenge.

I give this story an 8/8, I really enjoyed it! My personal favorite ending was the one where Hannah and Sir Jean get together, emigrate to Albritton, and change their names, because we find out that they are actually Ignis and Aero’s parents. I loved the Ignis and Aero story, so seeing this connection made my heart melt. This story is a must read for readers looking for a more age-appropriate fantasy that nevertheless still contains dark themes, complex ideas, and intricate narrative arcs with some wonderful and well thought out world building built in to the foundation of this tale.

Well, this was an interesting game. I liked the premise of the game and the idea. It’s basically about someone who has prophetic dreams and has to do something to try to prevent terrible dreams from coming true. It’s a fun story—certainly worth a read—but I thought the execution fell flat in certain places. I’d say this story is a 5/8 but could easily be a 6/8 with some minor improvements to remove distracting issues that happened throughout the story. Please read the story for yourself before continuing because there are spoilers below.

I thought your writing had some good basics with a few big issues. Please keep in mind that I liked the story overall and am not trying to be critical. This is all meant to help you improve. I’ll start with some grammar notes.

My grammar is rusty, but I think that semi colon is misused in the first paragraph. It basically replaces a period, but I think you need a comma in that location. Very minor, but it seems like you are trying really hard to make this first paragraph have fancy grammar and it’s a little too forced. Perhaps I’m over thinking it though. Either way, you can brush up on grammar with Gower’s guides in the help and info tab. They are really good and more accurate than I am. Overall, your grammar was fine for this story. It was never terrible but I don’t think it was particularly great either.

Super minor comment for page 15 is that single quotes are only used (I believe) when you have a quote within a quote. Normal quotes can be used for where you talk about the “temple.” Single quotes are used in the following example: She said, “I heard that he said, ‘This is just an example’ yesterday”.

Next I’ll mention the tense shifting…

You change tense of page 4.1 from present to past. This is jarring. I know you said it was an issue before, so I’ll just point it out. It’s only for like 2 paragraphs before switching back. Wow, you change tense a lot on page 5.2. It’s a really noticeable problem, unless Hannah is in the present, while the king is in the past, and this is a story about two timelines coming together? It switches every paragraph. However, I’m gong to stop tracking it for the purposes of this review.

- Page 4.1 is very awkward at the end. The “imperial” rides away… then it says “Just before leaving though” and we go back in time about 5 seconds and hear about a bunch of stuff that happened before he left. That’s so strange. I think it would be better to just tell that sequence chronologically rather than have a mini flash back on the spot.

Lots of repetition. Consider changing up sentence structure. For example, second page 1st paragraph all of the sentences start with “You”. However, repetition became a big issue in a couple of ways throughout the story.

Here are a few notes I made on the repetition. I found things around page 6 to be boring. A lot of repeated descriptions of things that we already know that are long-winded and repetitive… making them boring. 6.2 reads like, “There is an old man, who is old. This old man looks old. He walks old. He dresses old—not bad—just old old. From this you are able to deduce that he may be old. Now that you know he is old, he opens his old mouth and talks in an old voice.” It was a struggle to get through.

The narrator had a strong voice. This isn’t bad if it’s intentional, but usually the goal is to have the narrator sort of blend into the background. At the end of the second page the narrator is talking to the reader. I’m going to exaggerate and paraphrase to make a point. However, the last paragraph was an info dump where the narrator just tells us what the character is like and how a normal day goes rather than let us experience it for ourselves. If you want to make the narrator more subtle, don’t explain all that. If it’s needed info have the character wake up, then have the landlord barge in and say something like, “Oh, you are awake! Normally you sleep in, so I was coming to forcibly wake you up!” This lets us experience that and find out from dialog rather than have the narrator tell us everything. It’s classic showing vs telling. What’s crazy if you sort of do this on the next page anyway…

The narrator announces things that are implied. This just means they are unnecessary. Like saying “it’s over” after you stor the madman. It’s possible to just continue and let the reader think “oh good thing it’s over.” It’s the classic showing not telling. The worth thing that can happen is when an author tells the reader things but doesn’t show them those things… you don’t have that problem. You do both, so you just need to be confident enough in your writing to not tell us obvious things that we “saw” happen. This is a common issue so I won’t keep repeating it.

Okay, I’ll really stop pointing this out after this, but to make a point, when someone references “The Arsonist” I immediately knew who he was talking about. Saying “you assume that was the madman…” is really not necessary. I agree, so I can gloss over that, but it’s repetitive and boring. You could make the story shorter and flow better by removing it. As it is right now, it’s like you either don’t trust your writing or assume I’m a moron. Maybe you do both of these things (and maybe you are half right: I’m not the brightest!) but you don’t need to do that. This is just an example of that I’m talking about above.

Second person narratives can be tricky. By having the reader the be main character, and by having the narrator speaking directly to them, it can easily make the voice of the narration contradict what the reader thinks/feels. You say things like “You think…” or “you feel…” or “you want…” a lot. Sometimes this can be glossed over because it’s repetitive… you already made me feel that way so you don’t have to say it, but when you do, I just agree and move on. However, on page 25.3 you end with the line “You realize that you want to believe him.” I took issue with this because I don’t have the same connection to Jean that you seem to think I do.

There hasn’t been enough time and interaction for me to know Jean well enough to care that much what he thinks, personally. I think you, as the author, know this character very well and care a lot about him. I would encourage you to go back and look at what actual information we have on Jean at this point… we don’t know anything personal and mostly that he is a special class of knight. He needs more “screen time” and more conversations where he opens up for the reader to get attached. I can tell he is a love interest of the main character in your story, as is the king (I assume), but so far the attachment isn’t there for the reader.

Page 15.3 is strange to me. I’m bewildered that the main character wants to rush to the estate to fight the daemons. She at first wants to go straight there with just jean… who is still injured… then later insists on going with the band of imperial knights. Why though? She doesn’t want to lose anything else but what is she losing? I think this is another example that there is supposed to be a love connection between Jean and the main character. However, I still don’t feel that connection for myself.

Romance can be a hard element… but if the main character is in love with Jean I didn’t pick up on that naturally. Even the alchemists interjection seems strange… it makes more sense because his personality is more eccentric though. The man character and Jean don’t have this excuse. All of this character development seems rushed.

There are hardly any choices. I’m at page 8 wondering if there are choices in this story at all. This doesn’t take away from the story itself, but it is strange for a choose your adventure story. I’m just pointing it out so you are aware though.

Page 9 finally has a choice, but it seems like the illusion of choice just changing some background info. So far, we haven’t had anything impact the story. However, there is obviously coding that maybe changes things down the road. It doesn’t change how linear this story is/feels.

Page 25.3 references a decision; however, I never made a decision. This might be a good spot for a choice. It isn’t bad as written, but it’s very strange to point out a choice the character makes in a choose your own adventure when the reader isn’t given a choice. I think it would be better to not mention the “choice” and just say “your thoughts are interrupted by…” or something similar.

Page 8. Why do these people wait to be called and then announce their attack by insulting the king? Action is very hard to do right in writing, and I won’t pretend to be an expert, but strategy is a real thing. These are either hilariously bad assassins or they have some reason for talking first.

8.3 again, why does this daemon talk in the middle of fighting all the knights? If he is so powerful that he doesn’t have to focus on fighting… why not just murder everyone and go? Also, I found it really cringy that the guy mentioned the name of daemon he was and complained about it. This whole fight scene seems like it is meant to be scary/creepy but it’s actually more funny. Like a fight scene from the mask, if you have seen that old move.

Magic isn’t explained, and doesn’t need to be, but I’m noting on 8.1 that the main character seemed to be gifted with magic. She can sense all of the knights… yet she couldn’t sense the invaders? This seems to be an inconsistent thing. I’m hoping it’s explained at some level later that the main character is magical but not trained… but wanted to note this thought because it was fishy enough to make me question the magic in this world.

Page 6.2 is where I noticed this. A mirror is not common to the main character, but hair dye is? Do they have hair dye in this word that seems to be fantasy in a medieval like setting? It seemed strange to point out this old Nobel man dyed his hair. I’m not even sure what this detail even accomplishes.


Page 12 how big is the carriage? It’s compared to two things that we don’t know the size of… one is “the carriages at the imperial castle” and the other is “a carriage of respectable size”. For descriptions of fantasy items you can compare them to things in the real world because they are for the reader not the characters. You could give the size with a measurement (feet, meters, etc.) or—as an example— you could compare it to a car or how much room the crackers have. “The carriage was smaller than the ones at the imperial castle, which were the size of a mini van, but just large enough to hold the three of you as long as you held your breath and pressed against Jean’s shoulder to make just enough room for Enri.”

The queen admitting to killing her husband is really cringey. Maybe that’s what you are going for… but it was so sudden and without reason that it just made me wonder why. The queen seems like a plot device rather than a character. The king killing his mom and uncle seems really out of left field. Maybe more is explained on different branches but this whole scene seems strange and rushed.

Main character marrying the king seems to come from left field. I feel like the romance was even less built up than with the knight (Jean?). However, there is a year gap that could explain that.

Sorry if this is too much or poorly written/structured. I wanted to get this review done today and I’m very tired with a lot of notes. I hope something in here helps!

I enjoyed this quite a bit! The writing is tight and kept me engaged enough to keep me coming back on my lunch breaks at work to see what happened next. This is a game where nothing feels wasted. The pacing is reasonably swift without feeling rushed, allowing for an entire self-contained story to be told in the span of an hour or two. This would be a good game to play through in the span of a Saturday afternoon, maybe two for those intent on achieving every ending. All said and done, this is quite a solid game and is worth a bit of time.

Spoilers beyond this point for those who care.

I think there is enough intrigue throughout the story to keep things interesting. Jean and Louis both make for fun characters. I especially liked seeing how Louis acts depending on what path the player takes. Seeing him switch between charming and charismatic to merciless and cold makes his character feel alive in a way that wouldn't have been possible without that contrast. I got the sense that he makes for quite a competent king, willing to treat his subjects with respect, but still able to do what needs to be done. The old quote about rulers needing to choose between being loved and feared comes to mind. It's better to have both, but when push comes to shove, fear is more important. Jean is also charming in his own way; a stand-up, hardworking man with chivalry coming out of his ear-holes. I didn't fully pick up on the fact that these two were set up to be two points of a love triangle until the queen ending, so I initially thought Jean was the sole love interest due to the way he treats Hannah throughout the story.

Speaking of love triangles, this story reads more or less like something you might find in the YA Dystopia section at Barnes and Noble, except it's set in a fantasy universe. I think the closest comparison would be Shadow and Bone, based on my limited experience reading those sorts of books. This isn't a con per se, but it isn't exactly a pro either. I personally am someone who enjoys that style of writing up to a very limited point. It's like eating plain potato chips. Not a bad snack, and lots of people like them, but I'm not sure I could handle eating them all the time. This has more to do with personal preference for me, though, hence what I said above about this being neither pro nor con. Lots of people read this sort of thing exclusively, so I'm hesitant to judge it completely.

One of the main reasons I feel this way, aside from the love triangle, is the worldbuilding. The setting is servicable. It does its job, and there's nothing exactly wrong with it. However, I didn't see anything particularly unique about it either. The main area I see this is in the magic system. Again, it's not bad, but it doesn't have much to make it stand out from the rest. Lots of people write stories about mage-knights who can shoot elemental magic from their hands. Not saying that's the only thing at play here, but it does seem to be what a lot of this system boils down to. I will grant that I can tell that there was still some thought put into the mechanics of the system based on the alchemist's ramblings, which I do appreciate. (I love a decent hard-magic system.)

In any case, I don't want to spend too much time bashing this story. From what I saw, there seems to be quite a variety of endings packed into a relatively short space. There aren't a lot of choice points in the game, but that means that every decision you make resonates across the whole game. Personally, I believe that is the best way to make a traditional story game, because false choices honestly sometimes feel worse than a long string of text walls. The story is certainly prioritized over the game here, which I think is a respectable choice.

All that to say, this is a decently satisfying game for those looking for something fun to fill a few hours. If you like YA style, or at least want something in a fantasy setting, then this is probably a good game for you.

I would probably have given this storygame six stars, but although it was an easy read and I was able to explore a lot of the endings, there were some issues that did detract from my overall enjoyment of this.

I thought that the start was really strong, with the dream that Hannah has and the idea that she'd had multiple dreams and some of them had come true and others hadn't and she wasn't sure why, but...the problem with the dreams, and with a lot of the rest of the story, was that there was too much information dumping. As an example - the plague that went through the kingdom could have been referenced before it became immediately relevant to the plot. When it's brought up, Hannah immediately reflects that she remembers it, and I was given a whole monologue about how it affected people...when the after-effects of the plague could have been shown through character interactions much earlier on. The same about Hannah's past and the dream she has warning her away from becoming a mistress - I would have liked to see this explored in the story, perhaps with an interaction with Isabella and Vincent.

I did find both Jean and Louis to be interesting characters, which was good, since both of them are so integral to the different paths. I also liked the fact that Hannah had visions relevant to the different paths. However, I would have liked the reason behind that to be deeper than just whichever love interest she ultimately chooses.

I also would have really liked more choice here. There was very little impact Hannah's actions actually had on the story outside of the initial vision. I was disappointed that nothing seemed to really happen with her extra ability in regards to the daemons...and in the alleyway, I feel like having at least one choice. Even if both of them led to bad endings, Hannah doing something instead of just freezing and letting events unfold would have been much better.

I found eight of the nine endings (I'm not sure which one I missed), and I did really like the fact that each of the paths revealed more of what had happened. I also liked that those considered 'bad' all had reasons for what they were doing...well, except for the daemons, of course.

One thing I really struggled with while reading was the fact that you kept switching between past and present tense, and sometimes in the same sentence. It happened so much that it kept throwing me out of the story.

I did enjoy reading this storygame, and I liked the fact that one of the endings tied into one of your other stories. If you're planning to make this part of a wider verse, I think that would be pretty awesome.

Spoiler-free review

Oftentimes for a story to make sense, or even exist, the reader needs to occasionally suspend their disbelief in regards to things they really shouldn’t have to do that for. Meanwhile, Of dreams and daemons scoffs at those stories as it gives them its own signature look of superiority while providing a very tight story built on a very strong internal logic that maintains its integrity throughout the somewhat lacking branching while rewarding multiple playthroughs.

The fairly interesting, if somewhat tropey premise has us assume the role of Hanna – a seemingly mundane girl harboring a power unlike anything her magical world has ever seen before – as she gets pulled into a world of secrets, grudges and betrayals that puts her on a collision course with more than one prince charming in the process. Even though the game uses multiple tropes to build the foundations of its story they’re all executed very well and backed by some of the strongest character work and dialogue possible. The extremely vivid characters quickly create a full, living world around them as they interact with each other and the protagonist. Each person’s base personality is established quickly and diegetically, with plenty of space left for future reveals that will surely surprise on first encounter while at the same time making sense in hindsight.

Only one character stood out from the otherwise greatly realized cast and that’s the protagonist herself. At no point did I hate, or was even indifferent towards Hannah, but amidst the otherwise extremely consistent in their beliefs and decisions characters she stands out as somewhat underdeveloped. This wouldn’t be as much of an issue if she was supposed to be a blank slate character for the reader to assume the role of, but she’s anything but as she shows plenty of personality throughout the story, and even manages to justify the player’s decisions after they make them. Despite that she feels somewhat generic as she sits in this strange middle ground that a lot of protagonists for a story as linear as this tends to end up in.

And despite the notable word count and plenty of endings the story feels quite linear in multiple places, with no other choices but to keep pressing continue as the story unfolds on its own until it decides to offer the reader a single choice before going back to ignoring the fact it’s a CYOA as it barrels down towards an ending. The stories sprawling from those few choices are really good and full of character as well as little nods only noticeable after playing through the other branches that add to the fun, but with the exception of one specific choice all others can be boiled down to choosing your own ending. At least the endings available are varied and very much worth experiencing as they can add new context to other branches while providing twists sure to catch at least some readers off guard.

A few false choices throughout the story could help both with the overly long linear sections, and with establishing Hannah as a more fleshed out person. However, beyond the long, invariable chunks of the story and a slightly uncertain of what she’s supposed to be protagonist there is very little to actually note about this storygame in terms of objective negatives. A few SPAG issues exist, but they’re mostly minor typos, or things that can easily be treated as intentional choices in language for the sake of the setting, and the pacing is well managed, with only a single small lull in the story that can’t truly be hanged over the author’s head as it warrants its own existence by fulfilling its purpose without actually overstaying its welcome.

As I delved deeper and deeper into Of dreams and daemons I really wanted to give it that perfect score, but just as it is consistent about its great aspect, so it is about its flaws. It’s still a great story worth reading, and I’m sure many will fall in love with it and its characters, but it won’t quite be able to reach favorite status unless one comes into it purely to experience a story as a bystander rather than an active participant.

Final score: 6.5/8

🖤🖤🖤🖤 amazing!