Player Comments on A Blaze of Glory: Chapter One

This could've been a lot better but at least it wasn't worse. A lot of these pages felt like gigantic info dumps, which I know is common in fantasy but this had no flavor to make it digestible. It was just an overwhelming amount of world building that, while making a world that has potential to be something interesting, was uninteresting to read through given how little connection we had to anything within the world itself. We've all read about orcs and elves and other fantasy creatures- but why should we care about yours? This also was made a bit more hard to get through with the run-on sentences as you tried to pack as much information into as little words as possible. While there are moments here that I enjoyed, there aren't enough for me to be drawn into the world and feel that suspension of disbelief that I've felt in other stories on this platform.

However, my biggest complaint are the characters. They may have those moments of potential where they could be interesting but for the most part they are bland. They seem to be in the story simply as plot devices and the main character doesn't have much personality either. Similarly to the world itself, I find no reason to feel attached to these characters.

That being said, I can tell you care about this story and that is a great thing. Despite the critique there is tons of potential for a good story here, you just need to hone your craft a bit! Best of luck to you, if you ever see this.

While there are occasional glimpses of an interesting story, a great deal falls flat. While the overall quality can be improved with grammar and spelling corrections, the deeper problems with this storygame mean a lot more than simple proofreading is needed to bring "A Blaze of Glory" up to par.

Numerous aspects of the plot either feel rushed or created on the spot. Examples include the Orb of Death's history and powers, Bren's takeover in the foreign lands, his background with the Commander, Danny's expertise on the battlefield, the Commander's curse, and the demons.

A nasty side effect is that character development is rushed and is unbelievable as a result. For example, a couple of pages could have easily been squeezed in where Danny decides for or against helping the madman that just enslaved his entire village. A few sections like those would easily help ABoG's pace and characterization.

As noted previously, the game feels more like a railroad than a series of choices due to how linear it is. Rather than resetting and feeling a sense of failure, I'm more inclined to simply press "Go Back" just so I can get to the end. Part of the ingenuity in the CYS / CYOA genre is that you can potentially take multiple paths that converge back into the main storyline, but I feel that we're missing out on a lot of potential for "A Blaze of Glory" due to the absence of that very mechanic.

Overall I'd be glad to return to "A Blaze of Glory" if it gets its much-needed update, but it needs a great deal of world-building and choice before I would consider it finished.

I liked how creative you were with the world and the politics, and I enjoyed the dramatic scenes ("weapon... in your heart!" etc.) regardless of how cheesy they were. You definitely have potential.

Having said that, there's a lot you could improve on. Your writing shows a clear lack of editing. Multiple times I saw unneeded spaces (after an opening quotation mark for instance), spelling errors ("yourtself" instead of "yourself" etc.) and the absence of a space between two words.

You've also written some confusing sentences, like "Strangely, Bren had a plan...". Why is it strange that Bren has a plan? If he's conquered the Western Federation multiple times he must be at least somewhat capable of planning ahead. Bren was also relying on Danny, who has no experience in war strategy whatsoever, to lead an entire army into an ambush, and he doesn't entertain the possibility that Ice will split his army up at all.

My biggest gripe with this story is how linear it is. There's no option in Danny's storyline to side with Andrew instead of Bren. There's only one possible way of getting through each campaign, and all three of the campaigns are identical - just from a different point of view.

Nevertheless, I can see you've put some effort into this and I like that. Good luck with your Warden series.

Very good and intriguing story

OKay I guess

There's definitely effort put into it. A lot of the grammar leaves something to be desired. The overuse of ellipses, capitalizations, and multiple exclaimation points in a row can be a little jarring. Which comes to the main issue with this sequence, is that so much information is blurted at the reader. It's almost exclusively all show and no tell. Let's see the emotions in the characters without them being explicitly stated. Let's see features of the land without just telling them like a nature documentary. Decently average.

Wow <3

The idea of the story was good, and I liked the concept of being able to play the story from different characters perspectives. The downside to this though, is that now there is only really one way you can have your story go, because it has to be the same story as the other characters.

The plot was a bit rushed, and you had quite a few spelling and grammatical issues. But if this was longer and more detailed, and if you changed it somehow so that you could have multiple ways to go, and fixed the spelling/grammar issues, than it would be a very good story.

I mean, the writing is okay. For starters you have three mini stories when you could have done one big one. If you had done that you might have some actual branching. You make it look like you do, but you clearly don't. It's three gauntlets or at least that's what I saw.

I gave it a 3. It's very meh and while it has intresting ideas, there was no point in the campaign thing

Could use some spelling fixes, but other than that its pretty good.

it was okay

I really like the concept and idea of this game where you get to play the same game trice from three perspectives, so for that innovation, I'm giving the game a 6! Now I would like to share a short game theme :

They say to pass this game all six of us must compete to win this ring...

#2 the stage was set in a vast enclosed room, with many corridors leading down long roads
after taking turns after turns, the place to me looks like a maze
it was over half an hour into the game that i hear footsteps ahead
i rushed forward and was shocked, as the figure ahead of me turned, and I stared at my own face
something then hit me from behind, and i was rendered unconscious

#4 i woke up with a cracking pain shocking my brain
feeling the back of my head, there was a lump, so I conclude:
i was attacked and taken by surprise in an ambush from behind
i searched the room some more, and even more corridors came into view
confirming my presumption that i am trapped in a maze
after endless hours of walking into dead ends,
bumping my head into more walls
finally a new discovery!
as i pushed that last wall with both hands
triggering the opening of a door
i walked inside and saw a gold ring placed in a glass case
Victory at last! Yet as I place my hand on the glass case
a strong electric current of maximum voltage shook me to the core, and i was unconscious again

#1 i was first to enter the room, yet why is it that I had been walking in circles going nowhere for hours
is this all just a joke?
And the game is actually a trap
to murder us all in an enclosed room with no exit?
i saw two bodies on the floor, both of them appear to be attacked from behind
as they lay face-down with a lump at the back of their head.
I did not bother to check their belongings, and I already began to regret this
as I overcome with hunger and thirst and wonder the consequence of lying on the floor to take a short nap...

#3 What is the meaning of this? A person looking exactly like me is sleeping on the floor
? Is it just an illusion or am I actually fighting against myself?
I hit two people from behind without getting a look at their faces
yet now that I recall, they appear to be of the same size and height as myself.
Could it be that this is also a part of the game?
A psychological battle of fighting against myself?
What is my chance of winning after that thief stole my wooden baseball bat
while I let down my guard using both hands to explore and examine the cracking on the walls?

#5 And finally at last, I can get that ring with this wood baseball bat!
i shall shatter that glass case that was also wired with electric barbs on the side of its metal casting.
I win this game at last!
And yet, what is this paper note that is also attached to the ring?
As I opened and read it I am shocked to see what was printed on the note:
"Congratulations for winning the ring! Yet, there are six of you, so the condition for winning is for all six of you to find and acquire the ring. Now you must go back and help the rest of you to escape the room. I hope you left them alive; otherwise, you would also be left to die. The exit would not open unless all six of you place your rings onto the secret door where you came in at the same time to activate and open it."

Ok,

This was one of the first storygames I played when I came to the site, Loved this.

It was too short and the story was too forced. Each page basically only ever had 2 options, the one and only path that continued the story, or death. It only took me a few minutes to finish one of the campaigns, then when I go to continue on the next one its just the exact same thing from a slightly different point of view. Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing but there was no change to the thought process of the narrator. The other issue is the dialog wasn't consistent between the campaigns, as if changing the point of view changed what was said.

I thought the prologue was pretty good; I liked the way you started off, but there were places where you used almost too much info to explain the situation -- and too many commas slow everything down.

Also, Bren is WAY too sane to in here. With the way you described his insanity, what you wrote made it sound like he was completely fine. Seemed just a little off. Andrew I think could've been explained in the field a little more, as well. For example, you said only that his men were attacking, but it sounded like it was head-on. Wouldn't an experienced military man at least notice in the back of his mind that something was off about the whole situation?

As far as Danny, if I were in a situation where a really good friend of mine had disappeared for 20 years, then just popped up suddenly with no in-between communication, I'd either be really angry that I'd had no indication that he/she was alive, or I'd be just in complete shock both from the fact that he/she is actually in front of me now and that they've just so happened to loose their mind along the way. I mean, I'd be devastated! What I'm trying to say is that there's a lot of emotion in this type of storyline that you didn't really account for.

Profanity note; it's not necessary.

Thank you for your time.

It wasn't bad, but you could make it longer
-Icestar

Not bad

An interesting story from different points of view. However, this story could be have ben mach broader and longer, exploring the different parts of the world, involving the different species etc.

I enjoyed sections of the story and I genuinely believe that Kronnland is fertile soil for a damn good storygame. Unfortuanetly I just wasn't that enthusiastic about this story. For one it felt far too linear which could have worked if you mentioned that it was primarily a story not a game. The part that bugged me the most however was the plot seemed a bit to fast paced.
Despite my criticism I did enjoy sections of the story so I give it 5/8

It's a cool game with much story. I liked it.

Very Creative, 6/8.

Sorry for the gramamr, dudes :)

I gave it a 6 I think I got the second or first best answer, because I chose and completed Danny's choice. Good game:)

Not awful... but not necessarily fascinating... I'll give it a 5.

Fun I guess...

I liked it

WTF is this shit? one of the worst game in the fking history. no plot, mo detail, no story, no character development, no nothing, this is just shit. PIECE OF SHIT.

4/8

great.

the game was nice enough, but some of the writing was bad and I prefure games with not so much suddan death. nice game though.

The spelling and grammar was atrocious, the plot felt very contrived and all of the characters were ill-explained. I felt a serious disconnect from the story because it was too rushed. You need to harness your creativity in order to write a cohesive piece of fiction. Also, mechanistically it was poor (too few choices and you broke the third wall multiple times) and the character motivation didn't make sense either. You're creative but you need to harness it, and most of all, you need to spend a much greater amount of time on the basics of prose.

Seems like it was written by a young person but besides the spelling it was ok fun. Oh, and the ships apparently travel warpspeed ;)

Although it is short and dotted with spelling errors, it is a nice plot.

nice story man :)

I rated this a seven. It's not the absolute best and I've played better, but I did enjoy this. I liked the 3 different perspectives. I felt that it was a bit lacking though. There needs to be more plot, and more than two different choices would be nice. Items would add to the game, but not entirely necessary. Main problem was the plot, it needed more details, more explanation. More character development and such. the story didn't make a whole lot of sense, and you're thrown into this conflict without knowing very much. work a bit more on developing a clear, concise story. You left the reader grasping at straws trying to understand why everything was happening. Nice effort though!

Gheata, be happy.

It was fun, good writing

Cool game! I loved playing all the different stories! There were only a few spelling errors in there, but other than that it was awesome!

It seems hastily written. A quick proofread/spellcheck would make a big difference. The dialogue seemed contrived at times. Other than that, it's fine, I give it a 5/8.

Nice !!!

People, stop complaining about "only two coices". There are too many hcoices, as there are three equally long campaigns.

Its pretty obvious that you have this really cool story in your head that you think about a lot. And that story, if explained right is probably really cool. But you are in too much of a rush to tell it and aren't doing it justice.

It didn't really make a whole lot of sense, some spelling mistakes. Didn't like the story. Not good in my opinion.

Cool....ony two choices hurts though...6/8...

It was good for a first story, but it can use some improvement. It was too bad that almost all of the pages had only two choices, with one of them leading to the death of the character. Your story also could have used some more elaborate pages, with more dialogue etc. But, like I just said, it was definitely not a bad first story ;)

It was really choppy but I get the gist of it so well done for a first story.

It was a short and had a few spelling mistakes but it was a good story so congrats for making your first story

Good Job. Not an epic like HP or GZ or anything like that, but definately of higher quality than a lot of the stories. 6/8

So good!

kinda confusing

A great interesting game. It actually made sense but I still lost =( Anyways I can't wait for the Warden Series. I rated it a 6