Player Comments on A Tale of a White Lie

I’ve never been all that great at the commenting/review thing, but after reading this story, it deserve more than a simple “I liked it a lot.” A few others have given probably more in-depth reviews here, but I’ll try not to repeat what’s already been said.

First I want to say I’ve seen Thara improve a lot over the years when it comes to writing in general. There were short stories here and there which showed promise. Then there was the first major story she did which I thought was good for her first serious attempt even if it had been cut short significantly.

Next came the first proper story The Tale of the Foolish Princess. Of course I also “liked that one a lot.” I actually think that one had slightly more branching than this one, but that doesn’t really matter, I’m talking about this story A Tale of a White Lie which I liked even more.

So the branching would probably be about the only major criticism if one was to judge it from a CYOA standpoint since it’s a fairly structured gauntlet. Two choices, one continues the tale, and the other leads to a premature ending. It’s the simplest style of a CYOA, but then I use it all the time and it seems to have worked out fine.

Now typically whenever an author uses a “looping” ending that’s generally a bad thing, however Thara avoids that by still allowing for the story to end properly (If you wish it, as she would put it) by leaving that link as well. Usually she has an amusing little message in the loop back link, so it’s a good compromise and something she used before with her Princess story.

I enjoyed pretty much everything in the story. It certainly fulfilled the prompt requirement which it was based on. There’s a few more characters of note than just Ingrid, mainly her closest followers. All of them were fine as well since they served their purpose which is what they were there for. The other lands were fleshed out as much as they needed to be.

I liked the main character Ingird which is the most important thing since that’s who you’re playing as. However, there’s certainly a major reason for me liking her a lot and it’s mainly due to Ingrid reminding me a little bit of the Eternal. Or rather she reminded me of if the Eternal and Mistress had a daughter together and she got raised by the Shadow order (What a combo).

Ingrid had the dedication to her cause mixed with the sadistic streak and the religious zealotry which had a twist similar (But not the same) as the Shadows following Dendrin. The “lie” also reminded me of the Eternal’s true origin too. Again, a different lie, but one that also ended up changing the entire land’s power structure.

Besides Eternal, the story also reminded me a little of Necromancer in a couple places due to Ingrid’s drive to complete her conquests despite knowing the lie. There’s even a few endings where she can decide to opt out of completing her mission even being so close to ending it, (Or already accomplished it) which also happens in Necromancer. Of course I feel much like in Necromancer, the proper ending is her completing her mission.

If it seems like I’m praising this story because it reminds me of one of my own, that wouldn’t be a completely inaccurate assessment. I know what I like and this shows Thara was paying attention all these years.

But I’m not just giving the author head pats and telling her she’s a good girl, since I’ve seen others try to emulate something I’ve written and completely fucking failed at it. She succeeded and it still has her own unique style.

I’m proud of you and look forward to other stories you may write in the future.

So, let's get the bad stuff outta the way:

Obviously, Grammar and Proofreading are a bit of a problem, with repeating words, typos, and missing words. This is pretty inconsequential, though, but not as much in the case of some vague language being used. Lots of "They"s (ex. "They wanted them to die before [...]"), kinda made it hard for my stupid brain to understand until I read the last few and proceeding few sentences. But, y'know, this can all easily be touched up, so I won't be factoring it into my rating, because I still understand the story.

There was also a bit of... a continuity error at one point? Maybe? Spoilers ahead, but on the boat ride section where you fight the hydra, there was just this new character named "Tristan" that was just there with no previous introduction. Then after it's defeat, the next scene was... MEETING Tristan, for the first time? I'm unsure if this was supposed to be a flashback or something, but the previous and following pages didn't make it seem like that. So some clarification/correction would make that better.

Lastly, and also a bit of a minor thing, but as some have already pointed out, this story is a bit linear in nature. It's made up entirely of minor decisions, with a right answer and a wrong one. There's not really any "major" decisions to make this a truly branching story.

Now, let's talk about the good parts:

First of all, even though this is a more linear story, it's still a good story. The plot is coherent and the setting is interesting. Even though you're playing as this absolutely horrible person, the plot makes you feel like what she's doing HAD to be done. You really know how to make just an absolutely shitty world with terrible people in it.

Second, speaking of the people, the main cast were all very interesting and their personalities were distinct. By the end, you could kind of tell how each one would react before they said anything. Which some would probably call predictable, I guess, but I think it's more a matter of you really defining exactly what each character is about.

Overall, while it might not be the most "game" of storygames, the story that you told was still one that I enjoyed reading.

7/8

I liked Rodrigo.

I loved this story, and yes, it may not be as crazy-branchy as it might be, using a sort of gantlet-style willingness to trim off branches by creating a game over, but the endings it does have are great and suggest more games in this world to come.

Here's what I loved about it--the style. I could pick out Thara's style anywhere, with the combination of never shying away from hard looks at villainy (aka, it does not mince words in describing nasty stuff) but also a really light touch in the narration. The narrator is snarky and omnipresent.

"But perhaps he underestimated just how passionate she was going to be about said business.

Still, what promise to be had."

That's primo Thara narration--things like that, or the narrator looking over the reader's shoulder and commenting on the nature of bodily fluids in the first page or so. It's what I enjoyed about Foolish Princess, and the thing I most enjoy here. Theme wise, I don't know that I agree with the other comment that says Ingrid's characterization is flat in the middle; I saw that more as rage shading into a growing numbness. Do I think that another month spent on this to develop some of the pruned branches would be well spent. I do. There were definitely some "bad ends" that I really wanted to be developed into real branches. But that's such a minor quibble. Well, well worth a read.

Fantastic story. I was captivated from beginning to end.

I think this is the first of story I've read by Thara, a person I've only previously known as the apple-obsessed favourite of End who does a lot of good around the site. This story was well-written and quite focused, which I like, the characters were interesting, the world immersive and I also enjoyed the little twists in the story. This story was very good and Thara should definitely write more if she has the time as she has a good narrative voice - an enjoyable read :)

This story game was alright. My only issue was that 50% of the links lead to death.

Great story and well worth reading!

I truly enjoyed reading this story, and it was easy to jump into the world with Ingrid and the supporting characters. The narrative was well written, and although I noticed some things that further proofreading might have fixed, none of this distracted from the story.

I liked the concept of her entire life being formed by the lie, and enjoyed the ending where she seemed aware of this the whole time but used it to her advantage.

As has been mentioned, the branching could have been more extensive, since this felt like in most places there was only one choice to advance the story. However, it was a good story, and did not disappoint.

Overall, great story, well written, and definitely recommended.

intriguing, had my brain active.

Bravo!

After reading every word of this story, I can confidently say it is very well suited to my tastes. Objectively it has a decent number of issues, which I will discuss in a minute, but I really, really enjoyed it. I’m a sucker for the medieval fantasy setting, the thing I value most is strong characters (which is the story's strongest point) and I also love villain protagonists. If these apply to you or you just like the primase I’d say give it a read. It is a really strong addition to the site and I had a great time reading it. I’ll also be spoiling it in its entirety in this review.

So I’d say the biggest issue with this story is the branching. There is no meaningful choice in this story that leads to another path. Every choice leads to either an ending or continuing the story. At the end there are four choices that all lead to separate endings, but I don’t really count that as branching.

Part of me is kind of glad for that, I do like reading every word in stories, but on the other hand lack of real branching is a huge drawback. I don’t think this story would’ve worked as well as it did by cutting it into different paths though. The way it’s told now feels sort of complete, almost like it was meant to be more of a novela than a storygame.

I will say I liked the addition of the go back button on the ending pages. My browser won’t go back on its own, it reloads the storygame, so that made my experience a lot easier. I also found those links to be really funny.

Going off of branching, another problem was spelling and grammar. There were a decent number of errors in that regard. But I don’t really mind personally. This is a really long story and it was made for a contest so that’s bound to happen. It also just doesn’t really bug me in general.

Now my only issue with the characterization is in the middle of the story Ingrid doesn’t really feel like she is developing as a character. It feels like she is slowly becoming less of a character than at the start of the story. Towards the end I feel like we get great characterization again, but in the middle she just feels more flat than at the beginning or the end, like she isn’t making any progress in her character. Not to say she is actually flat, far from it, just more so in that section.

Now onto things I like, and I’ll start with the characters. Specifically Rodrigo. Man he is such a good character. I really liked the fact that the story waited until near the end to reveal the thing about his father. I don’t know what really to say about him, he’s just done so well.

Nadia is pretty great too. I’m disappointed her and Tristain never got together, and it’s my head canon they did. In my opinion, the advance magic ending is the canon one. I like gathering knowledge, so I guess it’s natural that’s the way I want the empire to go toward. It was also a nice touch Ingrid teaching common people to read once she took over.

The mentor is a strange character. Pretty well done, but I can’t decide if I want to like him or not. The ending where he mind controls Ingrid legitimately terrified me. Thinking about how she was being reduced to that girl she was at the start. I don’t trust him in the main path because of that at all. I understand he probably needed to be shown that she had the power to lead to be able to follow her, but still.

Ingrid is amazing too. I liked how killing becomes so normal to her, and how she knows it’s wrong but doesn’t feel any different. And towards the end starts to resent her lack of emotion toward it. I don’t know how much I buy the jump between the girl at the start and Ingrid at the beginning of the story, but her training with her mentor explains that away pretty well. I found it strange how her sadism showed up most at the start and then not much after that. I assume that was just a case of the start of the story being stronger than the middle.

All in all I really liked this story. I definitely rated it higher based on personal taste, but I think it’s worth a read. It isn’t your usual cave of time story, but it is an entertaining read.