The Elder Scrolls : Shadows of The Princes

Yeah, the reviews are right on this one. It's very empty. I also get the struggle of semi open world stuff, it's hard to write, hard to plan and even harder to execute well. Either you will leave lots of stuff optional, making it easier for players, but having to deal with the sad fact that they don't even get to read a sliver of the full content, or forcing them to complete every quest, but then it kind of defeats the purpose of making it open world in the first place.

But I have to tell you, it was rather frustrating to find the ending link and epilogue. The library of all things? I would rather have it that the player immediately gets send to the epilogue or is given an object that does the same thing, when they complete a number of preset quests.


One tip for the map; games have maps so people don't get lost. Why doesn't the map have roads or names of cities and places, so that you know which locations are linked with each other.

You spent so little time with the mostly not recurring characters in quests and the quests are so short, that it's rather difficult to care about anything. Perhaps an elder scrolls fan likes it more than me since I don't have any familiarity with the source material.

Also another problem is that you give players too much character customization. It's all well and good if you're a big game developer, but having so many races and abilities just makes the customization surface level at best or negligible at most.

I suggest to limit yourself, let the players pick between two or three races and tween or three skills. (I noticed that your latest star wars fanfic actually improved on these rpg aspects, so kudos to that)

All around, surface level fun and entertainment, not good, but not awful.

So just to be up front, for me the biggest problem with this game was that it wasn't three or four times bigger. It just needed more of everything: more locations, more people to talk to, more involved quests, more freedom.

The Elder Scrolls are all about freedom and exploration (and sure, even in the official games they don't always meet this goal...) but here we got this great set up for an epic plot, only to have it play out in a way that ultimately felt pretty small.

You start off as a prisoner and create your character in classic Elder Scrolls manner, with a vision revealing you have some significant destiny, but when you wash up on the beach you have one town to visit, one quest giver to talk to. The only places you can go are related to the main quest and each one has a single decision point.

There are also, I have to point out, quite a few typos and some grammatical issues scattered around, even on the first page. Although I think my favorite "what the heck happened to this sentence" moment was, "Small crustacenas with mean looking face, called Dwarf Dreguhs, scuttle past you and into the ocean." I'll just bundle the rest of these together in a PM rather than clutter up the review.

I know I'm being critical of this, but I commended it because I actually really do love, in concept, the kinds of games this author makes. Assuming the typos are cleaned up this is a very worthy addition to the site, BUT...like with most of flutter's games it leaves me wishing he'd taken just a little more time to properly flesh it out.

The quest you're initially presented with is genuinely epic and world changing and cool, but then you just go directly to the shrines and do it. It's that easy. There's no distractions or side quests along the way, no need to prepare, no question of whether you're good enough, no unexpected complications or twists. It leaves you wondering why the world had to wait so long when it seems like anyone could do this at any time, with minimal effort.

The skills do add an element of strategy, and I found a simple combo that let me complete all the quests once I knew what they were. (Although the first time I did not appreciate being forced to do obviously evil shit simply because I didn't have the required skill for the good choices...being able to try anyway and fail would have been preferable and added a little of that much needed freedom.)


I know this review has a lot of criticism, but I did enjoy this. I just find myself wishing once again that you would really push yourself and go all out on one of these. Maybe next time you think you're ready to publish, stop yourself, take it to the forum and ask for advice on what people would like to see more of.

Before I begin let me just say this author pops out stories like every month at this point and in a rare occurrence they're alright, not great or bad just alright. The main things holding this story back is the clunky RPG elements and the short quests especially the short quests. The main problems with those two things is the fact they're never fleshed out in a well mannered fashion instead they felt incomplete to me likely due to how quickly this author makes his/her stories. The RPG element was confusing to me since sometimes I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go next or where I was. Then we have the short quests which took the most away from the story like you would start one then you would get a choice afterwards and then it ends, instead I think the author should of had you going around the island collecting items of interest to complete the quest while also building the world of Betony too.

After those problems everything else is fine the author clearly knows what they're doing when it comes to writing (Didn't see any grammar mistakes) and he/she builds a somewhat engaging plot. Overall the author just needs to slow down since they're making engaging plots but just aren't taking the time to flesh them out and add those little details that bring a good story to life.

Choices For my play through
Race- Breton
skills
-speech
-mysticism
-melee? or blades? (can't remember what it was called)

You clearly show your deep knowledge of The Elder Scrolls lore by dropping a bunch of tiny details like Bretons inhabiting New Wayrest, the use of wood elf cannibalism , the way some reappearing characters act and talk that make it feel like its within universe. I really liked how the Sheogorath ending was basiclly

One of my first problems is kinda insignificant but it bothered me and that is you used a map of Betnikh from ESO in some of your slides, It kinda threw off my immersion a little bit (if I wasn't such a nerd the map would be pretty cool but I recognized it).

It's good, I love Skyrim but the quests should have been longer.

Lockpicking and destruction seem like the most important skills.

I liked the story, and the quests were good even though they were completed a little too easily and quickly. However, I wish there had been more in the town square. I also wish we knew what the main characters backstory was such as what they were accused of, whether or not they were guilty or innocent, and what the minimum and maximum sentence was for their crime(s.) I would also have liked to know if the main character just stayed on the island the rest of their life or if they went to other places such as where they came from, where they were when they got arrested, and where ever they were trying to go before all of this happened. It would have also been nice if someone could complete all the quests on a single playthrough. Also, did the main character ever see the orc gard again, what was his story, and why was he imprisoned before. Also, for people that don't know, maybe talk about why one gold is accepted over the other. Overall, keep writing, and for your next game, maybe expand it out with more information about the characters, the world, and everything that it's possible to do, for example, are there other colleges besides the bards college, and if so, do they charge 25 or more coins in order to visit them.

There seems to be some infinite loops if you don't start off with Lockpicking right away. Other than that, it was a decent game. Your writing and creativity are impressive enough that a longer more choice heavy game could really get you some higher ratings. Good Luck~