How To Bring an End to Things?

IMPRESSION #1: Epilogue: Bringing an End to the Age of Gods (Read the afterword too)

I relate to the afterword partially. Literately just because the game I'm currently working on is way too big. We'll see how that goes though.

Sadly I can't critique this too deeply as a first impression due to being quite a bit sleep deprived now. But given that I got a satisfying ending after doing some reading this at least felt complete. Generic praise but I liked how I started by picking to be a necromancer then slowly was shown why that wasn't a good idea and was able to seemingly undo that. Its kinda cool.

Prose was um...I guess not my style but noting came off as bad. There was one paragraph that had I instead of you that stuck out but that's pretty darn minor (though its cool to see that you write with I as default in some scenes).

I will say...and this might have more to do with not paying 100% attention...but there seemed to be a lot going on that didn't really have much to do with your progression or helped too much with immersion. Some pages did the latter well...others didn't. What I actually mean is that there were a lot of characters that seemed to just kinda be there...I kept being told they were important...but it was hard to really parse what that meant in the context of the story.

Like I get that the Gods are...well Gods and all but...because there was so many of them all being presented about equaly regardless of what you did...I stopped keeping track of them as individuals. I'm not sure if that was the point...or if there even was a point to that...but it seemed a bit unfocused. Not all the time mind you...but most of the time...maybe like half.

I will say this though. I'm very impressed you wrote this in one day...even if it took you the whole day! Perhaps that's just my issue though with not being able to write that much that quickly though.

Fundamentally I would have a much easier time critiquing this if I knew what exactly you were trying to go for. I think that would be useful in general I feel. Like if I said "this scene is boring" it would mean nothing if the scene was not meant to be entertaining on a shallow level. Or "This prose is overly dense" when that's the point of said prose.

But yeah...I did think the pages leading up to the ending were satisfying...felt like it was tying what it set up together...even if it happened near the end. To be expected of a story of this size...especially if its written in one day!

May come back to this...who knows! Found this entertaining enough I suppose! ;)

This certainly isn't Darius's best work, having been made in a day, but it could be a good contender for one of his best works if it was a lot longer. I'm not sure why Darius didn't just keep what was written already and publish it unfinished. Surely he wouldn't have gotten shamed for having 50k words already written. It would've been a better entry than this thing anyway.

Well regardless this story is definitely just what he had originally planned condensed into less than 10k words. There's character information that isn't relevant or needed and the magic system is so complex that it doesn't make sense to be in this short of a story.

I did like Darius's portrayal of Necromancy though. The idea that the protagonist wants everyone to see that Necromancy can be used for good, rather than what we usually see in other storygames on the site, evil, is rather cute and wholesome.

I also enjoyed how one of the choices you could make in a later part of the story depending on one you made in the past. I originally thought you had just missed the choice due the time constraints but was pleasantly surprised when I went back to see the different options.

I can't really see anything bad with the story itself, other than the plot being pushed too tight together and the fact that the writing is a little choppy and odd. But those things are probably just due to the word constraint.

Overall the story was fine Darius, but I really think you should take this down and finish writing what you had originally planned. Or heed Cel's advice and stick to writing gay stuff. Whatever works best for you. ;)

My first playthrough I got Epilogue 2. I really enjoyed the way you write kids. I think it’s really easy to characterize them as TOO childish, and veer into corny territory. You really sold me on him being a young student of magic, especially in the thought processes like praying to Nachalo so he would become powerful enough to not have to use magic circles anymore! (It was also a nice touch mentioning his son complaining about learning the fundamentals of magic … it really brought everything… shall we say… full circle, hehe). Also was Alyosha named after Alyssa/Alyona?

I’m not going to be too nitpicky about grammar and spelling since you basically wrote the whole thing in a day per the afterword! But some things I noticed:

- Paragraph 6 of “‘We’re Here.’ Your Teacher Said” - vile should be spelled vial in this context
- Paragraphs 9 & 13 of “The House of Nachalo” - Point of view changes from third to first person… don’t think this was intentional.
- Paragraph 16 of the first Epilogue - Reconned should be reckon (unless there was reconnaissance being done that I didn’t pick up on!)

Overall, I enjoyed this, and would love to see the Expanded Vision as it were. :^)

There’s not much in the way of branching paths here, but the prose is still good.

Though it’s a little short, the mythology and world-building kept me engaged and wanting more. The world here is creative, and I’d be interested in what a sequel would look like.

Alright story.

>So I settled with this one which is planned and written in one day.

I can tell. Stick to writing gay stuff, Darius.