The Tales of Erenel

You've done it again Will, another wonderfully written story-game has been added to the site! I wasn’t planning on writing a review yet because not all “tales” have been added, but I ended up enjoying “The Barrow of Blood” so much I just needed to comment on it! ^^

To start off, I really enjoyed the option to choose between "tales" at the start! I thought that was a neat feature, it feels like you’re picking your own adventure! The tale “The Barrow of blood” started off a little slow, you get a brief introduction to what the tale entails and an introduction to the protagonist Robin. I liked the little summary at the start of each tale, the readers get a little intro to the tale they’re about to play, and can pick and choose between which tale sounds the best to them!

SPOILERS!

Moving on to your characters now, I really enjoyed Robin’s character. He’s a good blank slate for the reader to project themselves onto throughout the adventure, he’s not too bland, so he’s boring, but also blank enough for the readers to envision themselves as. The other characters are also well rounded and interesting! For example there is the old man, while he isn’t an exactly round character he still is very interesting! You start to question his intention behind the riddles and his origin. The knights also all have unique and compelling personalities which made the adventure with them a lot more enjoyable! The knights are also characterized subtly, Especially when Shia was dying, even though she was fed vampire blood she spat it out. This specific part showcases Shia’s noble and heroic character quite well; choosing to die instead of becoming a vampire.

The item feature was something I also enjoyed! Getting to pick up your treasures and having items to heal your health really makes it feel like a RPG! I noticed one issue when using the items though. On page 139 even if you choose to use the bow and quivers; you return to the page before and the only way to proceed is to let the others do the fighting. I’m not exactly sure if this was intentional or not though! I also found it funny how there was an option to attack almost everything, though I was kind of bummed I couldn’t beat up the mules.

The story itself is easy to understand and engaging, with minimum SPaG errors! The foreshadowing at the start with the bats in the cabin was a nice detail when we later learn it was vampires terrorizing the villagers. The vampires are also interesting, you learn that Soran and Lucilla are close, with Lucilla becoming angry at Soran’s death. This gets you to question the humanity of the vampires, adding a bit of depth to their characters. Lucilla also mentions her “plans” which hints at future appearances in the next tale!

The only things I really had qualms about were some fantasy cliches and troupes, an example would be Bron at the start of the story. With him being the grumpy, mean character; it was a little bit cliche, but overall it worked quite well! The last thing I wanted to mention was that Lucilla calls the male vampire “Soran”, but on page 169 he’s called Soren. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not but thought I should let you know! ^^

All in all, this was written incredibly well, and this definitely is a successful start into the fantasy genre! Keep this up Will, I am looking forward to the future tales in this series!

Review for The Ship of Death:


Good:


1. Ballads

2. Vocabulary

3. The splitting up of the party into two in the beginning was done well


Bad:


1. On page 106, if you use the Reminder, you’re brought back to the same page with no more Reminder, but still no page links or any way to proceed.

2. Using Sling on the bats leaves the bat fight and just goes straight to the knights fight


A few things that can be improved, but were not necessarily mistakes:


1. I would have liked to have gotten to know Roe more. It felt like he died before he really got established as a character.

2. A boss fight to end the episode would have been nice. It’s just not the same fighting against a horde of enemies versus going up against a big bad, like the two vampires in the previous episode.

3. The battles are simple. All of the melee weapons performed exactly the same in combat that I could see, reducing weapon choice to a purely cosmetic matter. There was also no item use that happens without prompting, so there’s no room for unprompted creative use of hidden item mechanics to defeat enemies or alternate encounter outcomes (there were opportunities to do that, like using the Lantern at the tapestry or giving an inventory item away to a NPC in need or something like that).

These are a great addition to the fantasy category and I love the idea.

pretty good storyline!

That was fun.


Good:

1. The writing is good, in particular the exemplary pacing and very good plotting.

2. I’m enjoying this story more than Will’s edutainment fare, probably because I like fantasy more than edutainment.

3. Good replay value.


Bad:

1. The writing could always use more polish, especially in minor word choice and SPAG errors.

2. Some cliche generic fantasy elements here and there.


This is one of the better fantasy stories on the site so far, and I look forward to reading future installments.