Player Comments on Mercenary Queen (Part 3): The Hemlock Band

Reading this before the first or second part, I was pleased to find out this would suffice as a standalone story. This storygame does some things really well and falls short during others. More specifically, the world-building and lore are the best aspects of this game. The dialogue falls short and the overall writing quality feels sub-par at best. If you embrace it for what it is, you’ll enjoy playing this game.

I’ll start with the bad so we can end with the good; kind of like eating the veggies before getting to dessert. The dialogue feels downright cheesy. Words like “milord” and “dame” are thrown into conversations that read as if written by low budget movie producers. There is a lot of “…” which makes for awkward pauses in the middle of sentences. I just imagined the pauses were made for dramatic effect, but it ends up feeling cheesier than melted cheese spread over cheese-its.

The strongest point of the storygame is without a doubt the world-building and lore. The whole thing gives you an idea of how grand it is. There are Ogre mages, groups of assassins, royal blood, Order Knights, etc. There is no part of me that doesn’t believe the world you enter is an established place with all these different groups and organizations living in harmony… as in competing against one another for power. That being said, it would be disappointing if a third part of a series did not have strong lore. In fact, it would have failed miserably if it didn’t. Still, that doesn’t take away from the good work the author put into it.

This game takes you on an interesting journey. I’m sure it would have been a lot better if I had read the first two installments first because there would be greater appreciation for the characters and their development. If you don’t go into this storygame expecting much, you will be pleasantly surprised. It’s good for what it is.

Excellent work: your writing is error-free and enjoyable to read, it's clear you have put a lot of thought into the world your characters inhabit and you know how to make interesting fantasy characters believable. This is pretty strong stuff and reads like a good CYOA adult fantasy novel.

Normally I'm against splitting into parts but I think once a story reaches 6/8 or about in length it is ok to have sequels as long as the stories make sense if read out of sequence (I'm thinking something like the Sherlock Holmes short-stories here), otherwise just as you're really getting into the story it suddenly... stops. This is a little jarring.

The story takes you so far but it could branch out more or be developed further, I enjoyed this enough to look up and read parts 1 and 2 though :) Great work and thanks for sharing.

Hey! Good job on this story game. You had very good grammar and everything seemed to match up decently.

I just need to say, I don't recommend writing your stories in multiple parts. I know you're probably very excited about publishing your work and getting feedback, but putting your story into multiple parts makes it difficult for readers to stay interested and actually make an effort to find and play all of the parts.

If you want to get feedback on your story early, I would ask members of the site to test out your game, either through the forums or through PM. I know I am more than happy to beta-test games and proofread, and I do my best to give constructive criticism.

Despite its shortness, this part of your game was decent, although there were not many choices to advance in the game, other than the battle. Your writing is very good though, and you could definitely write something really good if you put your mind to it.

What a good story! It was pretty harrowing when the city cumbled, as we all know a cumbling city is no laughing matter. I can see why Darius got excited and cummended it prematurely. And also why that was an act he proudly stands by to this day.

AWESOME SAUCE

Interesting.

The old man looks Sebastian up and down before sighing, "Well, fine, come on in. We'll hash it out. But you'll have to do me a favor first before I agree to anything."
"I am prepared," Sebastian says, "To do whatever you ask."
"Goood... Goooood. Just step into my workshop girl and let me have a look at ye...'"

Maybe it's just my imagination, or that it seems kinda out of character for Sebastion, at least what I know of her from the 30 something pages, but those 3 lines seem a little... off...

It's really good, the length was okay. I just wish it was longer though.

This was really good. I accidentally clicked four; I meant to click five. Please forgive me.

Well done.