Player Comments on Mazkil

This was certainly a very enjoyable game, written with simple language, which I enjoyed as a non-native speaker. It is also not terribly long, so if you are looking for a quick and fun read, I heartily recommend it.

I also loved the general setting; Starting off as a small orc child, slowly growing up and then having to make a serious choice in the fight against your brother. I couldn't do it, and ended up as a warrior that beheaded the Elven princess.

As for the negatives, there were a few grammar, and plenty of spelling errors. One that specifically stood out was constantly referring to "cavalry" as "calvary". Unless the elf regiments are "an open-air representation of the crucifixion of Jesus", I think that was an error.

I'll be going back to go through the "chieftain" path now, so that's about as good of a recommendation as a game can get - I'm willing to replay it.

I really should have read the prequel before 'The Path of Death', but it was quite interesting in this order. I feel like Skyrim was a big influence on both of them, though I might be wrong. Anyway, I really enjoyed this story, though I think the sequel topped it in most ways. Onto what I liked:

Choppy, consistently packed with fast paced action, and brutally humourous. For me, that sums up this story, and it was impressively long as well. Even at a third of the size of the sequel, this took some time getting through! You've clearly put some thought into how Dagden would be different as an orc growing up in the castle compared to those like Mazkil in the Red Blades tribe and it shows in the writing. Mazkil was more brutal, savage (in insults and actions), and blood-loving than the slightly more civilised Dagden. I thought the differences were subtle enough not to force it down the reader's throat like 'hey, look at me: I can write different characters' and obvious enough to pick up on, so well balanced overall. One thing I did prefer with this one was that the health bar seemed to matter more. It actually got near to 0 a few times, making me think 'crap, better actually think about my decisions'. In 'The Path of Death' I don't think I saw that really, so that was good. You're clearly a Nirvana fan too and I'm sure there were loads of other name-based references I missed or forgot or didn't get!

Right, onto the brutal criticism aimed to instil crippling insecurity:

I thought that there weren't nearly as many characters that really stood out compared to the sequel, though that might just be more a byproduct of this one's shorter length than anything. I also noticed that you switched fonts again kind of randomly (at least you were consistent with it though!), along with some repetitions of words and grammatical mistakes (again, especially later on). Just needs proof reading a few more times really. Another thing, which I also noticed with the sequel, is that there's quite a lot of 'You do this. You do that.' Reading it out loud sounds a bit like a list, so starting sentences with qualifiers or subordinate clauses would fix that. Or talking about other characters in between.
Oh yeah, a few specific things. When I searched the ground I just kind of... died. For no reason (Unless you have some weird hatred of people looking around for stuff). There was also a bit where I chose to tell the archers to shoot instead of shielding or something, and I took a few arrows and broke a few ribs. You'd expect that'd probably bruise at the least, but the fact that I lost no health says otherwise. You've got a thing for orc characters who break ribs and just bounce right back: it happened in the sequel too!
All in all, a really great story.
7/8

Wow, I'm glad I decided to browse around the new stories list a little, I almost missed this one completely. A solid, entertaining read, lots of good action scenes and there was a LOT more content than I expected. I hadn't noticed the 7/8 length so I was half expecting it to end after the fight over who got to be chief, and there still would've been more to it than a lot of stories here.

There were a few minor issues with capitalization (you seem to like to capitalize Random Nouns on occasion) and I noticed some punctuation errors. In particular there were issues with the dialogue tags.

For instance:

"The sun wishes us good luck. We'll do well in the battle." One of the Orcs near you says happily.
"Cease your superstitions, Nagrak. We might not even fight today." Another replies.

Just fyi (since it may be easiest just to give an example) these should be punctuated like so:

"The sun wishes us good luck. We'll do well in the battle," one of the Orcs near you says happily.
"Cease your superstitions, Nagrak. We might not even fight today," another replies.

You use the period at the end of a line of dialogue only when it's not followed by a tag, and the tag itself 'he said' etc' is still a part in the middle of the overall sentence and so doesn't need to be capitalized. Even in the case of a question or exclamation mark, it would be lowercase. ("What's going on?" he asked.)

Nothing to worry too much about though, it's one of the more common mistakes I've seen people make and something I did myself for the longest time until it was pointed out to me.

Another round of proofreading wouldn't hurt (on the page Awaken, after surviving the duel with the brother, the text is chopped up like it was copy and pasted wrong) but most of the issues were small ones and more a matter of polish than anything that hurt the actual story. And the story was such a fun one, I enjoyed owning the role and picking all the most orcish options possible (Er, sorry little elf baby but I'm an orc not Spiderman... >.>) and just stomping faces in all day erry day.

I got the ending where I died after killing the elf princess on the field of battle and it was a suitably badass way to go, but I take it there were other major branches I missed?

The only thing I can think that I'd like to see added were some descriptions of the major characters, even if very basic ones. But I see you're working on another orc story, and I'm very much looking forward to it. I love when people try to tackle the idea of how an orc society would actually work, and otherwise do a little more with them than just making them mindless berserking battle fodder.

hhhhHHHHHhhHHh (me inhaling your dad's remain's /pos)

undying

Well branched. The writing was pretty good, and I enjoyed the substantial tactical decisions. It's always refreshing to see a non-human protagonist, allowing me to experience what it might be like to be an orc. One flaw is the random deaths with inadequate clues as to the outcome of choices, and the story overall could use more polish.

its great

10/10

Not bad, could use some Elvish content but overall it's not bad.

Man, this was a really epic story. I really enjoyed the two branching paths I took. The path of a Chieftain was really cool to experience, yet the path of a mercenary in the Royal Army also has its own appeal. This is one of my favourites so far!

Not bad

-very many choices
-many endings
-interesting characters
-not too easy
-fairly long
10/10

Nice.

Solid story and I got to a few different endings. Are there any official wins or epilogues?

A great history

I'm sad that I only had the one way to become chieftain, but other than that I had loads of fun reading this!

"Is there more killing to be had?"
This was fun. I read it because I figured playing as an orc would be fun, and Mazkil the Undying did not disappoint.
There were a fair amount of proofreading errors that got a little distracting sometimes and often made the dialogue more awkward than it would have otherwise been, but it could have been worse.
I completed the Mazkil the Undying paths and am off to be a chieftain now.

Sees an enemy:

HACK, SWING, BEHEAD, HACK, HACK, SWING, HEADBUT, THROWING AXE, BEAT TO A PULP!!!!!!

I like it

was very fun to play through multiple times, although i do wish the plot wasnt so linear

Thank you for letting Mazkil marry a guy.

"Dag Ironsoul, your husband, carries two small children towards you; A five year old and a three year old, both strong Orcs.

"Mazkil! Gruzub and Mazkil Jr miss you."

You smile as you pick up your children. You look out through the open Main Hall and smile. You've saved the Red Blades and made your own future. The World is in your hands."

Orcs live a good life it seems. ;)

Cool

This is a fun action adventure with some decent depth and an author who clearly respects and fleshed out their own material. Not overly long nor overly short, this would make a great epic if it was lengthened while maintaining the same quality. As others have noticed there are some errors in spelling and convention, but nothing so heinous that you ever have trouble understanding the authors clear intent. A solid breadth of choices and possible outcomes, this story is very reminiscent of a well done choose your own adventure book from when I was a kid, with some slightly more adult twists.

Great story! It's nice to read a CYOA with so many branching paths. In my first playthrough, my Mazkil became a soldier for the human Empire, made an epic, battle of Thermopylae-esque last stand against the Elves, and ended up becoming a legend. In my second playthrough, Mazkil became Chieftain of the Red Blades, separated his Tribe from the Human Empire as much as possible, and joined the other Chieftains in a war against the Humans that resulted in a complete route for their army, and independence for the Orcs.

Also: nice warhammer 40k reference in the second storyline, lol: Gorgutz of the Evil suns wishes you a merry WAAAGHmas!

My favorite ending was when we crippled the elf army when we were supposed to die quickly.

And another story tops the charts...

Once again, Steve's Story Factory has churned out a product worthy of good ratings, and that is exactly what I shall give you. Many word errors, but they weren't enough to significantly lower the experience. It's hard to be concerned about correct spelling in the middle of a battle, beheading enemies with massive sword swipes...

Immersive with the bloody spectacular action and with an acceptable storyline and choices, you've helped to complete my day.

Cents you shall be showered in. 6/8.

This has been a fun game to play. I have played many stories in the past, but this has turned out to be very detailed. Aside from the spelling errors in the game, I got a lot from the plot, the action sceens were great, and the spelling didn't take away from the story.

well yet another good story with many typos. overall a good read.

Yay I got the march of progress ending

Absolutely loved this story, it took forever to finish and it was worth it.

Nicely written and thrilling, what more to say? Also, I gave my life to cripple the opposing army. DEATH TO THE ELVES!

It was great. I can, I saw, and I conquered.

Good story, well written with only a few spelling/grammar errors. only thing I'd suggest is more character development for most of the supporting cast, but other then that a good solid story.

Though it had a few mistakes here and there, it gave what was promised. I had a lot of fun going through it.

An epic story. Very enjoyable!

Good shit mayne. Expand on this and the Empire of Man :P

I tried out all the endings! This was so cool!! :)
Great storygame!

Very well written.

Very good, I liked the commander gameplay the best. The story was well written and I liked how it went.

Keep up the good work :)

I didn't like it as much as much as the sequel/spinoff (necromancer version), but it was still great none the less! I hope you make more of these :)

This is one of the best stories I've read on here in a really long time.

This was a great game. 7/8.

This is a true masterpiece. Keep it up.

A few typos but pretty good story!

Great, well spun tale. Thank you!

Didn't die once. I got children..??

Great Tale. Well Done.

The multiple possible storylines make for a good game, and the combat system works well. My only suggestion for improvement is to have more choices that have more than two options. A lot of choices feel like "do this, or don't do this," and don't leave a lot of room for creativity or individual ways of doing things.
Still, it's nice to see a game from the point of view of an orc! Good game!

Call me SIR Mazkil, goddamnit!

That was great. A little shorter than I expected but it was still a good length. I liked the branching story lines and you're a very good writer.

It's a good start for your writing career. Keep up the work and soon you'll be excellent writing stories!

good game

Uh huh... I'm not sure why Will11 and Ogre11 would EVER give such a short comment, nor why EndMaster of all people would ever do this... wtf...

Well, I knew the Hive Mind was going to come about any day. The Warrior Cats was the only thing preventing us from combining to become a Hive Mind. Without the Warrior Cats, we are one.

WTF are these comments...

Great game!

I liked it a lot.

I liked it a lot.

I liked it a lot.

I liked it a lot.

I liked it a lot.

I liked it a lot.