Fake It 'Till You Make It

Disclaimer: to the author, take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional writer and only somewhat of a seasoned reviewer. To the readers, this review will contain some spoilers, so I implore you to read the storygame first.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The description intrigues me from the start. Right away, it’s written with a strong narrative voice, likely due to the first person pov. It leaves a number of unanswered questions: what lies and arrogance caused this situation? What can’t the protagonist can’t survive? It answers the latter to an extent, briefly introducing the reader to the key setting, characters and situation, yet leaving enough unsaid to hook the reader. The futility of the situation—or maybe just the protagonist’s pessimism—frames the whole situation. 

As for the story, it begins with the group’s arrival at the fortress. They attribute their success thus far to Athom, the protagonist, yet he’s hiding a secret that none of them know about. While I normally don’t like lengthy character descriptions, this one was employed really well. Paragraphs are broken into short, well-written descriptions about each character, all with impressive appearances, and then there was the protagonist’s description. I like how it ended with a line to destroy all the previous splendor surrounding his name: “The absolutely, unremarkably, normal human being.”

This makes the reality of the situation much more impactful. Here he is, standing with a group of highly-trained individuals, about to embark on a dangerous mission where he’ll most likely end up dead. Unlike the others, he’s not prepared for this. He possesses only one skill: cheating.

The protagonist’s backstory felt like an infodump, though I quickly found myself enjoying it. These details were relevant to the story, especially after the description prompted my curiosity about his situation, and therefore it retained my interest. It also provided some explanation as to how Athom got himself into this situation.

One of this story’s strengths lies in its conversational writing style. Phrases like “right?” and “you see” adds to this. There’s an informal tone too, with contractions such as “y’know”. All of these creates the impression that the protagonist is speaking directly to the reader, telling the story as it unfolds.

Like other comments have mentioned, the humor is great. I liked when he said that the other members of his party have been fighting all the monsters, but he’s there struggling to scrape off muddy leaves from his shoes. Comedic juxtaposition. 

And speaking of the characters, I like the way all of the others think only the best of Athom. They're like his own personal fanclub. This has a lot of comedic potential in the future, as this is a pretty funny dynamic. But in reality, the protagonist is a complete fraud, not even the slightest bit as skilled as the rest of them. It's only their insistence to believe in him that has enabled him to get this far.

WRITING STYLE

Some stories struggle a lot with humor, ending up with painfully unfunny scenes. Yet, this story weaves it in so naturally, it starts to become part of the writing style. I don’t think I’ve seen a better example of written comedy before. Situational irony, verbal irony…this story has it all. For instance, the running gag of how the other members of the party keep finding excuses for Athom. When he’s about to admit a partial truth, they say he’s humble and praise him incessantly; when he makes a mistake, by pushing the pull door, they think he’s testing them. The ‘magic trick’ with the detachable finger is hilarious too. Come on, how much more blind can everyone be? It’s so painfully obvious that it's starting to become a comedy, reminding me of the character dynamics between Johnny English and Bough (the latter having much more common sense and knowledge, yet still viewing the former as superior in every way). 

Throughout the story, there are lots of references to character stats. Monsters are described as ‘low leveled’. Characters can cast buffs or debuffs. This confuses me quite a bit, as I wasn’t sure if this was some sort of rpg/ dnd game rather than a fantasy story. Or is it that the protagonist is familiar with such games? While my guess is that it’s probably another type of humor, similar to breaking the fourth wall, it sort of ruins immersion slightly. 

The use of language makes it seem like the protagonist is recounting a story for the readers. He calls a random enemy ‘Bear’ and shortens his the Elite Four’s names to make it more readable (to be fair, they’re quite long and I have to use the spell ‘ctrl c’ to put them in this review). Coupled with the previously mentioned conversational writing style, this made for a great reading experience.

I’ve spoken in-depth about the comedic elements, but I’ll also mention that the prose is well-written. I like the verb-based style used to personify the power of the smoke: “The power keeps growing. The world surrounding me starts swirling, the smoke forming a vortex around me. The goo on the floor works its way up my legs, engulfing my lower body.” It’s almost rhythmic with the same start to each sentence.

CHARACTERS

The protagonist seems like one of those people who are funny just because of their actions and mannerisms, without even trying. This is partly due to his lack of knowledge and how he admits it every chance he gets. For example: “She might be strong, but muscles don't stop swords. At least, I don't think they do.” It’s also a recurring theme how he isn’t supposed to be there, and as such, he forgets his role and has to remind himself a number of times about how he’s meant to act and speak. He constantly struggles with taking credit for achievements that are wrongly attributed to him. Although he accepts the compliments, he points it out to the reader as if wanting to remind them how he doesn’t deserve it. This sets up the stage very nicely for the ‘moment of temptation’ plot point.

There are interesting stories behind each member of the party. From learning about Tessa’s magic, Kreon’s family history, and Ragnor’s sudden monologue, each conversation reveals more about the world and the character themself. I enjoyed the worldbuilding details sprinkled in, hinting at the magic system and some of the other settings. 

Dialogue is full of personality, too. The first enemy they encountered, funnily enough, didn’t seem to understand his own spells, having taken them from his brother. “Man, I gotta thank my bro after this!" It is this informal language that makes me wonder whether the characters are playing some sort of game, pretending to be the fantastical versions of themselves. 

I like how Gormanytara'atar’s character is foreshadowed by the meeting with his brother. Despite seeming like the more competent one, he starts begging, making the protagonist the ‘beggee’ haha. This is consistent in another path where he writes a letter and flees. In a different branch, he goes with Heavensent to ask for a pay raise—which is a really entertaining diversion—and gets characterized a bit more. He’s the only one with a realistic reaction to his siblings’ death, trying to kill the members of the protagonist’s party to avenge them. In some ways, he resembles Athom’s cowardice and feelings of being a fraud, yet like the latter, he can achieve heroism if he makes the right choices. Having a sorcerer with the same name added a bit of comedy too. His plan to use forced transfiguration to stand up to his former master signified a moment of growth for his character arc, and also showed the mistake of underestimating an enemy (or in this case, forced ally). 

And the Elite Four being siblings! I enjoyed their sibling rivalry and how they bickered with each other, such as the scene where the two sisters were both trying to kill Athom. Also, the younger sister bullying her brother felt oddly similar to my younger siblings haha. Although I enjoyed their interactions, some of their characterizations felt a bit flat and one-dimensional, as they didn’t really feel sad when their siblings were defeated; their main goal was entirely fixated on killing the protagonist and his allies. Yet, they each fulfilled a certain archetypal role: there was the cat-owner, who had extremely powerful abilities, but refused to kill the protagonist because her cats loved him too much. That was sweet, in a strange sort of way. And the older sister, Selemanne'ire, seemed like a mad scientist type of character, especially with the plot twist that she’s the reason behind the attacks on the village. 

Tessa’s emotional scene where she says she wanted to be a doctor was quite impactful. And she had to earn recognition, which is consistent with her backstory, given how she mentioned how hard she trained. I can understand that perspective: when you work so hard at what you do, but someone just comes in and pretends to be in the same position, stealing things away from you without even working hard in the first place, I can get really annoyed too. And it makes sense that she’s mad at having been tricked by him for so long.

The other members of the group are pretty funny too, especially when they don’t know how to interact normally. It feels like that comedic trope where you take a person from a medieval fantasy land and throw them into Earth. One instance was when they were talking with the little girl (who, as we know, isn’t who she appears to be from another path). Ragnor makes a comment about the moon being good for hunting because prey can’t escape; Kreon, ever the stereotype of ‘brawns over brains’, says he’s good with animals, especially at cooking them.

“These guys rely way too much on their magic and special powers.” This is partially the reason why the protagonist manages to keep up his facade for so long. He’s street smart, whereas the rest are…well, not the best at that. Due to this, he manages to get some victories by just being himself, whether that’s playing with the cats, covering an opponent’s eyes, or befriending a cowardly enemy. His successes are partly comedy, partly good characterization. 

PLOT

The plot revolves around exploring the fortress, fighting enemies, and making choices about who would fight whom and who you can or cannot trust. But it goes beyond that. The protagonist’s choices and interactions with the various characters made it truly engaging, and I found myself enjoying this story immensely (just count the number of times I used ‘enjoy’ in this review). 

Branching was great here. Each path led to different encounters and scenarios. Even though the characters the protagonist would meet remain largely the same, his interactions with them differ accordingly. And I notice a lot of effort put into all the scenes, including those with premature death. The build-up towards the final confrontation was written superbly. It starts off with weaker enemies, followed by slightly stronger ones, all the while with the constant reminder that the protagonist is not supposed to be there. With each battle, and possibly scenes where his allies are knocked out, Athom fears the moment he would have to face Demonix.

Let’s talk about the protagonist’s arc. He started off relying heavily on his teammates, knowing that in an actual fight, at best, he’ll die immediately or at worst, be revealed as a fraud. I like that he’s self aware, knowing his only power comes from people fearing his title, Heavensent. But when some of his teammates are knocked out, he’s forced to enter the fight. It is a nice twist that he manages to overpower the lady whose power was to copy others just because he doesn’t have any powers of his own. This ties into the street smart vs magic smart conflict. Even after that, there are continuous reminders of how weak the protagonist is  compared to his teammates. I liked this line: “Honestly, where would all these heroes and villains be without magic? I grew up my whole life without magic, and look at me! I've turned out just fine. Mostly. Somewhat.”

The nullification part was very funny: “I point my palms at Demonix and try to think null thoughts”. Everytime the protagonist tries to do something, the plot armor kicks in…until it doesn’t. This prevents it from being predictable while raising the stakes. Sometimes, it’s not very clear which choices will lead to death and which wouldn’t, but this makes sense given the nature of the storygame. Even the protagonist doesn’t know if he’ll survive or what the best choice is. To some extent, it’s a game of chance

The plot twist about Demonix was foreshadowed through the existence of necromancers and the fear everyone had of his smoke. Then, he’s offered a choice: accept or reject the smoke. This is the moment of temptation; the difference between a corruption and redemption arc. One thing I love about this is how well established the protagonist’s personality is, in order to make this a tempting choice. He has wanted a sense of belonging and purpose his whole life. He enjoyed all the power that being the Heavensent brought, even though it was born from a lie. And now, he can keep that power. So of course he’s tempted. And he has the current Demonix—a parallel, another man striving for greatness, even using a fake name too. He could eliminate his weakness forever, just like the one before him, known as a formidable foe before he was slain by his hand. Well, only partly by his hand— more like slightly— okay, fine, it was a group effort and he was the freeloader. 

The happy ending (16) is my favorite, as it showed his character arc very well. First, he relied on his teammates; then, he fought reluctantly because he had to; next, he chose to go into battle triumphantly; and finally, he resisted temptation. In the last scene, he admits the truth to the others and overcomes his misbelief. 

There were other noteworthy endings, like the sewer one. It was a metaphor for him ending up back where he started, with nothing, except that it ended up in the rest of his party’s death. This shows the devastating effect such a significant lie can have. The heroic ones were amazing too. Like the line: “I meet his gaze, defiant. Since when did I get so invested in this whole thing?” Here, he became the person he was pretending to be the entire time! Unfortunately, in some branches, it was a little too late.

The story is so massive that I almost missed the other path. There’s a branch where he befriends Gormanytara'atar, who became the new hero and saved everyone. I chuckled a lot at how him revealing his real name caused his old team to think he was a fake, but not in the way he initially believed. Classic miscommunication. I found the nonchalant “I’m also bleeding to death by the way” funny too. And the leaf pun makes me want to leaf a good review. Honestly, everything in this story is funny, I probably don’t have to point it all out. 

Okay, one more funny line I liked: "Hey, he has a name, you know," I snap back. "It's Grahame. I think." I started laughing so much at this, my sister thought I had gone mad.

Another detail I appreciated was the protagonist’s description of the ‘real’ Heavensent: “Their leader, the real Heavensent, stands menacingly behind her comrades, resting her hands on her sword like a deadly walking stick. She must be saving her strength for Demonix.” She’s literally doing the same thing as the protagonist did, pretending to hold the same title, yet he sees her as the real deal, just like his teammates were fooled by him. Oh, the scene where they ‘fight’ each other doing their “weird spinny-circle ritual” was good. I suspect if I hadn’t already read the other path, it would have been a nice plot twist. And them working together was an epic scene too, with double the members fighting Demonix. Too bad neither ending gave them what they truly wanted: a sense of belonging, a home. 

In conclusion, this was a witty, entertaining read. It definitely deserves a much higher rating so I hope mine will bump it up slightly. To the author, this was amazing, and I look forward to reading your future works if you ever publish anything else. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much when reading a story, so thank you.

Do you like dry humor? Do you like reading competently written stories? Do you like Dungeons and Dragons? Are you a "cave of time" branching style fan? If the answer to any of those questions was yes, read this goddamn amazing story and ignore the advertised play length.

There are many different endings and you DON'T HAVE TO READ THEM ALL AT ONCE. Read through one path, or two, or however many you want, but just start reading this game already. I can only assume that's the reason it flew under the radar because committing yourself to read an almost 60K word story can be quite difficult, at times. That is also the reason why this is the second-to-last contest story I've read, the last one of course being Mystic's goddamn novel. Hell, I basically knew I'd like it given the prompt and the comments that exist so far, and it still took me too long to get around to it.

This is one criminally underrated game. I can only hope that the ratings will improve as it gets closer and closer to 50, because god damn, this deserves an average rating way better than 5. In fact, summing up all of the scores and dividing them yields an average of 6.14, almost a full number higher than what it is right now. I know that the way CYS ranking works is dark magic, valuing members with a lot of points over random noobs, but it's still quite unbalanced.

Let's start discussing the actual game though, now that the meta stuff is out of the way:

I was sold on the very first page, because of the one thing this game does extremely well: Humor deftly woven into the story. This story will not make you laugh by using one-off jokes shoved straight into your face and awaiting your response. No, it is a very consistent stream of "dry" jokes and humorous dialogue, reminding me of the movie Airplane. I suppose I may be subjectively hyping this story up too much, as it just happens to be the specific type of humor that I like... But simply due to the law of large numbers, I assume most people will have a joke or two land for them.

To give a couple of examples (I heavily recommend skipping this section until you play through, even more than the story spoilers lmao):

// begin comedy spoilers

-The fortress of Dark Lord Demonix, the king of evil, destroyer of cities, and all-around Bad Dude™.
Immediately you can see that the story does not take itself seriously, not even a little bit. And I love it.
-"'Athom Aetherium'. That's not even my real name. My real name is Paul."
That line was just so god damn hilarious to me, just this dude dead-ass being called Paul in the middle of varied fantasy names. And speaking of the names...
-Bearenbudge'erren, Quissto'nestlinkite, Gormanytara'atar, Selemanne'ire, aka the Elite Four (was that a pokemon reference?) are also funny because of how fucking absurd their names are. Even the author gives up calling them by the given names, due to obvious reasons, opting to go for nicknames such as "bear" instead. Again, that was hilarious and is the type of "out of your face" humor you can expect in the story.
- "The reason the prophecy was spread... The reason I ended up in this situation... It's all because of this one woman's twisted obsession with her own bowels!?"
This is such a god damn absurd line, and something I would expect to see in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, or even my own game (which has been commented many times as being "surreal".
- "I'll... I-I'll, uh, fire a Hyper Death Laser Beam at you!" responded to with: "That's advanced magic. No wonder you've neglected a weapon."
How can you not love this line? Again, it's not the humor that will make you go "ha ha funny joke". It's the humor that is funny because it is so absurd.

//end comedy spoilers

It'd be a crime not to mention the party banter and the way characters (usually) are constantly amazed by "Athom's" genius scheming and amazing powers. If you enjoyed this storygame, I heavily recommend the collection of "Overlord" light novels by Kugane Maruyama. It has a ton of D&D influence, just as this game does. The main character over there is extremely overpowered, but that's not the god damn point anyway. And if you're a weeb without much time to spare, there's also an anime.

The branching is excellent, almost every single choice leads you down an entirely different path. The "proper" choices are usually obvious if you put yourself in the proper state of mind for the story. Of-fucking-course choosing to play with the deadly kitties was the right choice, and of course you have to go 1v1 the deadly copy-cat member of the elite four, since if she copies you she will end up powerless.

That is another major strength of this story, which was expected I suppose given the length - You constantly find out more and more information about various stuff, that you may not even happen across on another path. And despite there being so many different endings, the story is extremely consistent throughout the different paths. So to get the most out of this story, definitely read it all the way through (again, probably in chunks though, reading is like a fart - if you force yourself to do it, it'll usually be shit).

//begin story spoilers

The first ending I got (while obviously taking care to pick "correct" choices) was The Hero Ending (18). I actually thought it was a pretty decent ending overall, despite the fact that you die in it, but you defeat the evil Demonix and can consider yourself a hero. The only thing I was sad about was poor Kreon, he was a good friend, despite being naked.

But then, going through the other endings, I figured out that I actually probably only delayed the great evil, given that Demonix isn't the actual big bad evil guy. Rather it is the mysterious "smoke" which probably fucked off to god knows where and found another host. Hopefully, it hit a fish or something, and the river was forever terrorized, leaving the rest of the world safe.

//end story spoilers

One thing I do have to admit, however, is that despite obviously having nothing but praise for the story so far, I've only read "half" of it, aka the paths where you don't split up. I was kinda spoiled from the other comments that I will join up with the "dead" party when I do split up, and am very much looking forward to meeting those new characters. I just don't feel like forcing myself to do it right now because it's fucking 3:55 AM and I have been typing this goddamn review for nearly 45 minutes, it is still not done, and I have work in the morning. But I WILL be coming back at some point, that is for sure.

And if I may talk about the "other party" for a second, I find it curious that all of the endings I got so far have been numbered as the "later" ones (14-25 I believe). Does that mean you originally wrote the paths with the other party first?

I can only hope that I will get the answer to the sentence "Also, Demonix's monster attacks ceased for some reason. I still don't exactly know why he started them." in the other paths, but even if I don't, I suppose I can figure out the answer given what I've read so far. I'd just like it definitely confirmed and spelled out because I'm a "sallow vulturine turbofaggot who wants to follow a dude through his whole fucking life unambiguously like any trashy soap opera" according to Sent.

If I have any negatives, and I do, they are not major ones.

For starters, the mastery of language could be better in a few places. I've spotted a couple of examples of very fragmented and awkward descriptions and phrasings. And if *I* noticed something like that, given that I've got major issues with that myself, I can only assume the high-brow judges that read this were harsh on the story for that reason. The grammar and proofreading were top tier though. I've only managed to spot a single typo in this piece, and given the length that is quite impressive. Nobody should rate this less than a minimum of 5 for those two reasons alone (the length and the editing).

Another negative has already been mentioned by Ugilick which is the extreme "genericness" of the setting and the characters. Descriptions are kept to a minimum, and I fucking love you for it subjectively, but other readers will want more. The characters are mostly caricatures, and you know what will happen with every single one of those: We've got the classic hot support elven female mage, the brutish barbarian, the agile tielfing (rogue??), and the "fearless leader". Of the elite 4, Bear was the least interesting by far (and I wonder why the fuck he didn't just keep all of you stuck in that forcefield until he got backup), but the other three were extremely fun imo. The overpowered little girl with the deadly kitties, the coward which is actually extremely op, and the goddamn psychopath copycat all did their part in making this story work. They are extremely predictable, but as mentioned this story does not take itself seriously, so I actually believe it to be a strength of sorts - the game leans on its genericness and absurdity and makes it work, but I am aware that may be extremely subjective.

I've noticed that the author has been missing from the site for over a month, and I dearly hope he wasn't discouraged by the lukewarm reception to this, frankly, amazing story. You're not the one that is wrong here Ryboi, it's everyone else!

Conclusion: Read this god damn game right now. It will make you laugh and even if it doesn't it's rather competently written. Reading it is surely a better use of your time than reading some shitty fan-fiction or whatever else you would otherwise.

My biggest question is what the hell is the deal with all of these low ratings? This story is really, really good. I think the prompt is the most interesting one in the contest, and it was put to good use too. I hope this story isn’t overlooked, because so far it seems to have been. I’d recommend reading it almost no matter what. There’s 25 endings, which I got all of, and if you only want a shorter story I think the average path length is like 5-10k. Whether you’re looking for a quick story or one with tons of choices this story is a great choice.

The biggest achievement of this story is the branching. It has 25 different endings that all seem distinct from each other, and it branches into a lot of different places. One thing that’s good to note is how consistent the game is between branches. There are details that make a lot more sense once playing through other branches, like the other party being dead if you stay together. It’s great to see a story game that embraces what it means to be a story game like this one does, because that’s hard to do.

This comes with the drawback of having less of an overarching narrative, but that’s a tradeoff and doing both leads to less branches. Like how there are 13 epilogues in Eternal, but thirteen times the words. The more you want to tell a complete and long narrative you have to either write way more words or cut down the branches. I’m not sure which style I prefer, but it’s refreshing to see so many paths in a storygame for a change.

The writing is well done too, sprinkling in humor with epic battle scenes. I’m surprised at the sheer number of fight scenes in this story, as at least for me they are extremely challenging to write well.

I will say that toward the end of going through all the paths it did become a little dull, which I don’t blame on the story, but simply me reading all of the paths. There’s so many words and so many different paths that it’s inevitable that that’d happen.

I liked the characters, they were a lot more pronounced in the stay together path, which makes sense. Tessa is my favorite, but all of the party is good. Not the biggest fan of the demon sorcerer guy, kind of ironic that I forget his name, but that’s probably just me.

All in all this game is really good, and deserves considerable consideration as winner of the contest. I haven’t finished reading all of the stories yet, so we’ll see, but this story is a great testament to what story games were originally made to be, a guy thrown into a situation and makes tons of choices that influence that situation. I still love the more focused, less branch heavy story games, but this was a nice departure from that and I’d like to see more stories of this kind in the future.

This was quite fun: well written with engaging characters, a good sense of humour and interesting situations. The branching seems quite impressive and I am surprised at the low rating. This story should be in the 6/8 area rather than 5/8 but this will probably pick up with time, meanwhile great work :)

10/10 very funny and endearing, I loved the characters and Paul was great :)

Only found the runaway ending so far, but I already know I'll love going through the rest of it. Excellent story.

Well written, fun, engaging, good selection of options, funny at points, nice action, likable characters, etc. Very noice

"Yeah. That's, um, the magic of comedy."

This is a comedy first, and a fantasy adventure second. The characters make up an amusing party, their banter, attitudes, and actions play into the jokes. The minmaxed melee types have an excuse, but the caster? For shame! The comedy hits consistently. This is certainly a great first storygame, and I suspect the author has done quite a bit of writing in the past.

The story has a very narrow focus and takes every opportunity to deliver on it. It does so with a variety of paths and outcomes. Tonal contrast is used quite a bit to emphasize to what degree the protag is in over his head. The story features some gruesome ideas, and interesting character building details. Some characters stood out way above the rest, specifically their motivations and backgrounds. Others were merely archetypes. The most underwhelming character for me is generic “Overpowered Little Girl.” Maybe I missed some endings that do something interesting with the character.

“This whole place has pretty uninspired interior design”

This story has been told before. The lucky thief fumbles fantastically forward. The setting is generic high fantasy. The surroundings are a basic BBEG castle in nondescript swamp/mountain/lava “bad-guy” terrain. I would like the world to feel more lived in, and less like a one shot where the setting is especially non-essential.

What I’m asking for is tough though. The story is already a little on the long side. It would have to be achieved through concise prose, and charming details here and there. There are already some, but they don’t really achieve what I’m looking for. The setting feels very lonely...and empty.

“...as long as nothing tries to push us into that lava, we're gonna be a-ok.”

As mentioned, the banter between characters is great and well paced. I don’t really care for them using rpg terms like “buff and debuff,” because I feel it takes the reader out of the story, but it’s done with consistency. Consistency goes a long way. The dialogue and Interactions are measured and sensible. The facts of the story don’t really change depending on which of the many paths the reader takes. They are internally consistent. Even though the narrative is silly, it plays by its own rules. There are no troublesome jumps in logic as the protag fumbles his way through the story. That’s something I look for, and something I very rarely get to enjoy.

Excellent, excellent work.