Player Comments on Clearstone

My first impression of this storygame was that it was quite good, with an interesting set-up and what appeared to be an admirable amount of branching. I intentionally chose to do a questionable thing fully expecting to reach a quick-death ending. To my surprise, the story kept going, and eventually I was able to redeem myself.

If the first path I read was that engaging, I was eager to see where the other branches led. And that's when I discovered all the copying and pasting.

So let's start with what I liked:

As I said, the introduction to this story was engaging. I know Shadowdrake27 mentioned in the forums he was concerned that he was writing too many words, but I think the bigger issue is the use of paragraphs. A story with good pacing shouldn't feel constrained to an arbitrary word count; if you feel inspired, and the words are contributing to the story, then go with it.

I also liked that choices were placed at key moments throughout the story, giving the reader a sense of control over the story.

However, as I explored the different options, I quickly figured out that this story had been written once, with key passages copied and pasted into the various branches, with only slight modifications for continuity purposes. So regardless of what decision I made at the very beginning of the story, I still got shot in the same place, and still wind up as mayor.

And once or twice, the copying and pasting is executed poorly. There was one page where the paragraphs were fragmented, with quite a bit of missing information. (I only knew what I was missing because I had already read it in another branch.) And then there is the bit about "Rodney." It is never explained why the "lone hero" seems to think Mad Dog Roberts is named Rodney, but nevertheless this gets repeated into multiple branches.

In short, I think the writer has a lot of potential, and this story shows promise.

This game was really quite good in terms of the writing--the prose style was well controlled, with interesting sentence structures and a good sense of dialogue sound.

The choices were also interesting and often challenging--I would have liked to see a more personality building choice a bit closer to the start of the game rather than more action-packed choices, but in this genre, I think that's forgivable!

Since the writing was solid, it was a shame to see how the paragraphing was really harming the readability. Dialogue should be broken out from description a bit more, and the big blocks of text needed to be broken up as well, at time, because they hurt the pacing. When the pace was working here it was *really* working, and when it dragged, it really dragged. Also, something weird is going on with the font--it seemed to switch several times throughout--a bit distracting.

All in all, a solid Western with a good sense of style. Totally worth a read (especially if you are a sucker for the genre like me.)

Spoiler-free review

Misleading descriptions can ruin even the best stories, and Clearstone isn’t the best of stories, but the lie of omission present in its invitation to play isn’t actually the biggest problem. Some might even look at it as an asset depending on whether you like the real story it tries to build around its description, but despite a creative spin on the old school westerns it tries to imitate there are some issues holding it back.

The clearly explained in the description premise of “with nothing but a revolver at their hip and justice in their heart a mysterious stranger walks into town ruled by a greedy tyrant” is very much accurate for the overall story, but comes with a twist: we are not that stranger, but rather one of that town’s citizens, a simple side character who ends up pulled into the conflict and has to make their own choices in a story that ultimately they’re not the hero of.

This separation between the protagonist and the actual main character of the story creates an interesting structure that will definitely prove itself to be hit or miss depending on the reader as despite the decent amount of choices and branching our impact on the larger plot is extremely limited. This means that while the player doesn’t lack agency it can at times seem like nothing they chose to do matters as the story continues down its tracks with only an occasional bump resulting from our actions. A structure like that means the bulk of the game’s complexity is centered solely on the protagonist, as everything else around him remains static, almost to the point that makes multiple playthroughs feel pointless at times.

However, playing through this storygame more than once isn’t without its merits as otherwise we run the list of losing out on the bulk of characterization for the rest of the small cast. They’re not particularly fleshed out even with the extra information, but it does bring them to a level appropriate for the scale of the story, with a few highlights and reveals only noticeable if one pays close enough attention. The protagonist, who as mentioned is more of a passenger than anything gets quite a bit of space to get fleshed out and as a result feels like the fullest person on the cast, even if the bar to clear isn’t that high.

As mentioned earlier there are plenty of choices to make and few endings to collect, with most of them differing only in regards to the life of our player character, and even there we can see a lot of common elements that happen outside our control, making the interactivity feel somewhat fake a lot of the time. Unfortunately despite this conformity there are places where the story cracks a little, and especially in the later stages of the game it becomes apparent that multiple paragraphs are directly taken from different paths without necessary alterations to make them fit smoother. There are also a few plot-holes, most of which resulting from things happening “off-screen”, but there’s also one rather severe one that can’t be brushed off as easily and can possibly ruin the image of one character.

Clearstone represents a creative spin on a classic western story with an interesting approach to interactive storytelling and some decent action along the way, but sadly it stumbles in multiple places along the way, taking away from the overall enjoyment and making it difficult to forgive it for delivering something different than promised by the misleading tags and description.

Final score: 4/8

I've always loved a good western. I think that this classifies as a good one. The story is super detailed and driven, the plot and characters are investing, and the endings are satisfying. The only problem I had was that there weren't that many choices. There were plenty of places where you could have inserted a choice but didn't.

8/10 would read again

The introduction is perfect in setting the tone and atmosphere. The fact starting from the view of a kid makes the story more thrilling and the goal direr. However, It feels with few interactivity and few overall choices.

Having recently read Inheritance House, I cannot help but compare the quality and style of the two and conclude that you're a more accomplished writer as far as westerns are concerned. Clearstone achieves the exact effect I think you were going for when writing this, the soul of a Lone Hero story, but told from a more interesting perspective.

I'll say, most of the elements of the story are a bit cliché, from the setting, to the main antagonist, to the mysterious stranger that approaches the town to wrangle up the Mad Dog's posse, but I like the small twists you put on some of them. Particularly, Sally's connection to the protagonist's father (which I wish was elaborated a little more on) was a twist that made sense and yet also raised lots of questions about this blacksmithing family.

Just as the protagonist began to buy into the legends of the mysterious cow"boy" by the end of the story, I did as well. I admire your restraint in leaving much about how this stranger is so skilled and how they keep escaping danger under wraps, because the best badasses always keep their methods a secret.

Overall, I like this Western, and I look forward to more stuff from you. 6/8

A bullet made of gold wouldn't work.