Player Comments on Heavenspire

Minor spoilers for the game’s structure below, none for the actual story.

Have you ever finished a piece of media, any kind of media, be it a movie, video game or book and thought “damn this would make a great *different type of media*!” That’s precisely how I felt for most of my time “playing” through Heavenspire. It’s a good, well written story, but after almost every choice I was left thinking like I got pulled away from a good book and forced to read the author’s notes for a different ending that they had at some point penned for it, but abandoned because they came up with something else.

The short story tells a tale of a Captain, who like his predecessors ends up sent away in search of salvation for his dying kingdom. It’s a simple premise that provides plenty of opportunity for twists and reveals that make the plot pull the reader in as it unfolds. The main issue of mine is that the more it pulls the reader in the more it suffers for it as the tempo of the story makes it want to move to the next place while there’s still so many things I’d love to learn about the one I’m at. It’s not so much that the pace feels rushed, but rather that in the attempt at cutting off as much fat as possible quite a bit of flesh was sacrificed in the process. Conclusions aren’t unsatisfying or illogical, but they're reached quickly and with little to no agency from the player. This same lack of agency feels like it hurts the immersion in places as we get very little to no input or even room for interpretation when it comes to “our” thoughts or actions as the protagonist.

This doesn’t make the Captain a bad character. Quite the opposite as he’s the most solid and naturally fleshed out person in the story full of good characters. Especially thanks to our insight into his journal as well as immediate thoughts thanks to the narrator, but the use of second person narration itself clashes with how defined of a person the Captain is. For anyone that manages to find commonalities between themselves and him it’s a minor issue, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most people had at least a few moments of “hey that’s not what I meant when I picked that choice”. Other characters remain just as solid. They’re established quickly and diegetically, but with some exceptions the bulk of their personality that isn’t vital to the story has been relegated to the various bad endings.

A smaller issue with the game I feel like I must point out are the endings themselves, both bad ones and proper ones. Their issues start at the way they’re reached with the choices given leading to either no changes in the story beyond flavor or directly to an ending, making the term Choose Your Own Ending much more accurate than CYOA. It’s more of a nitpick considering it is a short story which doesn’t leave much space for more expansive choices, but the actual endings aren’t excusable for the same reason. Each ending is marked whether it’s a premature bad end or an actual ending to the story, but in many places they’re all equally open to the point where they feel like there’s space for plenty more pages afterwards with a few of them literally stopping on a cliffhanger with most threads unresolved.

As much as I appreciate that what choices we go get in the second half of the game I feel like with how linear the story otherwise is we would be much better of if some of those endings got sacrificed and the now freed words used to create a few epilogues or at least resolving more things before placing “the end” at the bottom of the page. Ending things in a truly satisfying way is a tough thing in interactive stories that often ends up making those stories seem short compared to their claimed word count, but absconding from the story in this way risks frustrating the reader who ends up left with more questions than answers. At times like these I feel like I would much prefer to read Heavenspire as a standalone book that instead uses content from the various good and bad endings to create a more fleshed out story and allows the Captain to truly become a standalone character he so clearly wants to be instead of a forced player surrogate.

It’s mostly a shame because the story is so damn good that I chose to focus on the negative sides of it on top of pointing out the good stuff would require going into spoiler territory, which I won’t do because I truly believe you should read it yourself as it is worth it, even if I’d recommend adjusting one’s expectations if you’re looking for a game rather than a book.

Final score: 6/8 because I can’t give it a 5.5 and 5 would be detracting too much.

RKrallonor has already written the review to end all reviews!
I'll add my praise, to say that the story is very well written, pushing the reader into choosing between some very different paths at a few key points in the story. The characters are relatively believable, and the selection of endings I found were consistent and mostly satisfying. 'Mostly', in that I'm given a choice of action in a key moment, and then the story plays on from that choice, carrying me along with it, even though I may want to cry 'slow down! I didn't mean to go there!' But that's Ok, understood that there's only so much you can do with a CYS.
Thanks for the story!

Holy shit, a new Ninja game!

True to his namesake, this ninja silently dropped a banger of a storygame before fading back into the shadows. Seriously, when I was checking the site, I did not expect to see a new Ninja game just randomly pop up, this is so cool.

Ninja tells the story of a desperate captain sent to secure the salvation of his Kingdom, Heavenspire, by sailing until the sea ends where, according to their religion, he will fulfill a prophecy and find the ancients who will give him some way to save his country.

The writing is first class. I really love the way that Ninja takes us into this world, interlinking internal dialogue, with captain logs, and actual plot. This ends up being really effective as we get a perfect balance of the captain's inner thoughts with the actual events of the story playing out.

I also enjoyed the cast of side characters, everyone from Draven to Cedric, to Stephen, to Rose the Knife, to Calder, plays their role with aplomb.

The character work done in this story, particularly with the captain. The captain is clearly no fool, he has little faith in the ruling clergy class who callously send captain after captain every seven years, while they sit back enjoying unjust spoils. But at the same time, he accepts them for what they are and is still idealistic about saving his country.

Being thrust into a new world that's far beyond his ken, the captain struggles with choosing to adapt and compromise on his morals, or remain rigid, steadfastly sticking to his guiding principles. People around the captain are oftentimes much more powerful, and try to use the captain, so he has to stay clear and avoid becoming a pawn in other people's schemes. The characters in this story are remarkably selfish and self-interested, and it was a treat to navigate all these existing political quagmires and swamps, trying desperately to succeed in our mission while allying with the person who is most likely to let us be. This story gave me the impression of a big fish in a small pond slowly leaving his pond and seeing what the larger world was like. I really like how the main character was able to thrive even in a world that's so harsh and unforgiving, even in the face of so much hostility and difficulty. The encounter with Jack's ship is a perfect microcosm for this overall theme because of how we confronted the ship armed with guns and cannons with more traditional weaponry, and yet still managed to win. Repeatedly the main character is confronted by enemies more powerful and with more influence, making the challenges feel real and significant.

The captain is fighting battles on two battlefronts: one in the physical world and one in his mind. The captain faces actual physical challenges, as well as mental obstacles because each of the encounters often present him with choices that he has to make. That's one of the main reasons why I like Ninja's writing in this story so much: not only does our main character grapple with tribal folk, corsairs, and witches, but he also has to make difficult choices. At times, the main character benefits by compromising on his morals(like when he chooses to take a drink with Rose), and other times, the story abruptly ends(if the main character decides to become the king of the island). The captain intrinsically links his morals with the success of his mission because of his deep convictions that he is heaven sent, and that his faith will unerringly guide him to victory, yet in private(captain logs and inner thoughts), he feels doubt at times.

The game encourages the main character to embrace flexibility and thoughtfulness in his belief system. For instance, if he chooses to punish the crew, Draven later betrays him. The character is a disciplined and ruthless man, but as time passes, he is often forced to adapt, but does find happiness, especially with Kaylith. I did find their pairing initially to be a little unbelievable, as she goes from threatening his life because he used her training dummy, to joining him in his quest because she desires a change from Rose. It gets more believable after Kaylith joins you on your mission, but there's this death scene where you choose to "do nothing" in the library, and for some inexplicable reason, you think of Kaylith's name. I say inexplicable because it felt that there wasn't enough time for the feelings to fully develop between the pair at that point in the story. But this is just a nitpick, because I really enjoyed their romance looking at the text from a whole, it's just that the development of the pair in the beginning felt a little forced.

I didn't expect to see such a great representation of a man driven by faith yet struggling at times to reconcile events that challenge his faith and force him to introspect, but this game really delivered on that front!

The branching at key points is really well done, even if the story is somewhat linear. Some choices don't really impact the flow and direction of the story(for instance, choosing between bow and dagger when attacking Jack's ship). For the most part, the story follows the structure where there's a right choice and a wrong choice, but at key junctions, the story branches(choosing to ally with Rose or Calder. One thing that bothered me slightly was the illusion of choice at times, like in the library where you could either go to the library directly or visit Kaylith first, because that branch serves to have Kaylith provide her perspective(granted we do get a little more dialogue between Kaylith and the MC so that's good), but storywise, it doesn't change the story much. But I think that might be a nitpick, because it is a choice at the end, whether to go in without talking to Kaylith, or after talking to her and getting her perspective. I did really like that scene, as I did pretty much all the story.

Yet the actual branching that appears at key points in the story is really well done! The main character is forced with impossible choices, especially the end. The ending is truly remarkable, as the benevolent ancient healers are slowly revealed to be cannibalistic demons who get their magical strength from the bodies of thousands. And in a stunningly well done moralistic dilemma, the main character is forced to decide whether his mission, trumps the needs of thousands, or to doom Heavenspire to continue to repeatedly wait every 7 years before another captain sets out on a doomed mission so that he doesn't have to kill thousands. Either outcome results in a forced compromise that really fits the tone of the story and is thematically consistent. I really hated that I had to use thousands of natives at Seaglade in order to save Heavenspire(the irony of the name Afterlife is brilliant, since the people forced to endure as slaves getting the life drained out of them don't make it to afterlife, instead they're stuck in a hellish limbo), but it was unfortunately a necessary price in this branch to secure Heavenspire's future. Yet the alternative isn't much better; when you refuse to cooperate with the ancients, you kill 2 of them and are basically forced give up on your mission and to never return to Heavenspire, instead setting out to hunt the last of the witches while the corrupt priesthood continues to send captains out to sea.

The pacing in this story is really good. I felt that it was fast paced, and really moving. In the beginning, everything gets established, and we basically learn about the world we're thrust in, but after that, it's go, go go. The violence in particular is really well written. The story doesn't hold back on the violence, and I really like how you write battles.

Overall, this is an amazing pirate adventure that also doubles as an in-depth character study into the psyche of a determined yet desperate man who's faced with a series of obstacles, and forced to realize that there's so much out there that he doesn't know about. As he journeys on, in search for Heavenspire's salvation, he is repeatedly confronted with things that challenge his beliefs and force him to consider whether his mission is really the right thing to do. I give this story an 8/8, I really enjoyed it and it was quite profound and brilliant!

While there were not as many choices as I usually like, the choices that were there were mostly very meaningful.
I really enjoyed the captain's POV, the logs, the internal debate and how that affected the choices available. The side characters felt important as well, not just like NPCs with loop dialogue.
I find this story thought provoking, enjoyable, and well done.

I’ve never enjoyed reading a short story more than reading this one. My first choose your adventure - I can’t wait to read more of ninjas work :)

I’ve never enjoyed reading a short story more than reading this one. My first choose your adventure - I can’t wait to read more of ninjas work :)