Searching for Sunsets

Romance isn't my genre, but I gave this story a shot regardless since it was a pretty digestible read. You play as Vincent, a party-loving prince whose royal parents put him in his place by decided he needs to grow up and get hitched. Thankfully Vincent has a few options in who he may wed, and the story revolves around his interactions with these love interests and who he chooses to keep by his side.

I found the story quite lovely, actually. I do wish the events took place over a longer period of time. As charming as the love interest are, it doesn't feel realistic for me to make a decision off such minimal interaction with them (save for Cat since he has a more established history with the protagonist). It also seriously diminishes Vincent's character development and makes it feel unnatural at times. We were just party animals - why the switch up in demeanor? No, "love at first sight" is not enough for that.

"No river's path is ever straight, Prince" is a subtle nod to Vincent's GAY!!! and HOMOSEXUAL!!! tendencies.

Also, I think a found a bug with some variable or link script. If I play through the Cat interaction in the kitchen, then go attack a bag of cow shit in a garden and go straight to the ball from there, it only gave me the "no choices available" option at the ball, as if I didn't interact with any of the three interests.

Speaking of that option anyway, I'm not a big fan of it. It shows up even if you met a love interest for Vincent, but my gripe isn't just with the link visibility - it's the concept of this choice itself. Either flesh out the path for Vincent going his own way and not choosing anyone, or ensure that Vincent is introduced to at least one interest. This kind of ties into a criticism I have of the story's branching anyway, which I'll cover later in the Writing section.

** CHARACTERS **
I do like the way the characters here are written. Each one is strongly personified and unique from the last. Obviously this is a major must-have for a dating sim-esque story, but it's nice to see that the side characters also get a good amount of attention from the author. It makes the action feel a bit more real.

The love interests are interesting in their own way. Overall I found Anastasia the most endearing, and Vincent's interactions with her are cute and wholesome. Her storyline is the least interesting of the three though, but that's because the other two have a bit more depth to them. I thought the concept of Princess Synnøve was cool, but I think her storyline could benefit from stronger worldbuilding so that I could care more about her backstory. The best choice for Vincent, in my opinion? It's pretty clearly Cat. He seems to be the most fitting match for Vincent personality-wise, being a free spirit and also having considerably more time on the page than the other two. It's evident that the author has a favorite they want to nudge in your direction.

Now onto my least favorite character: Vincent. At first I liked the attempt of writing the protagonist as a rowdy, angsty teenager, but his characterization fell apart pretty fast. He also somehow helped win a war for the kingdom and displays pretty tactical decision-making skills later on in the story, yet he simultaneously hates responsibility and wanted to hide from marriage for as long as possible. Obviously these two sentiments are not mutually exclusive, but the dichotomy is not executed well here. He just seems like a confused and confusing mess. I wish I learned a bit more about his disdain for duty and why he has such a hang up over it all. It's not a good thing that I liked reading more about the other characters than I did my own protagonist that I'm playing as.

With that being said, I still overall liked the characterization in this story. I have my issues with Vincent, but everyone else has substance to them and a fun path to read through.

** WRITING **
The prose is direct for the most part, but it has its moments of flowing like poetry. It was a genuinely charming read, and I commend the author for their command over their writing. Likewise, I liked the dialogue here too, and it flowed naturally for the most part. It definitely could be improved if supported by more details beyond dialogue.

I think the story relies too much on exposition through dialogue; when done correctly, it can be a seamless way of delivering information to the reader without overloading them, but in this case, it feels like there's more holes in my understanding of the world than there has a right to be considering the relatively short length of the story. The worldbuilding is there, but it's not that remarkable. I would've liked to learn more about the war with the Valkyrie, the likes of Princess Synnøve, and the role Vincent played.

I wish the endings were more fleshed out rather than just a paragraph each (aside from the ending for Cat, who got the best author treatment of them all like I mentioned earlier). Maybe an excerpt of the wedding, Vincent's life with his new spouse, anything to make reaching the end feel more rewarding. The author was able to execute this well with the Cat path, and I think there was a real disservice done to Anastasia and Synnøve in comparison. But hey it's Pride Month so ya know what, fuck the straighties.

I don't really like the flavor pages; they do not contribute anything to the story, and the fact that even the second option on the very first page is one leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Either give the reader a choice that has a value in the story, I don't. Don't give me the option to throw four things at a thief if only one is going to do anything.

The branching is pretty much as advertised. Your ending varies based on who you choose at the ball, whether or not you die at any point, or if you somehow meet none of the interests. This is predictable given the genre, but it's not too bad. Like I said before, fleshing out the endings for each love interest, and giving a more interesting ending for Vincent not choosing anyone, would make this level of branching more satisfying. Overall you get a decent amount of agency here though.

Not too much to note SPAG-wise. The author has clearly done a good job of proofreading. There are some occasional goofs with dialogue tags and spacing dialogue in general. As a word of advice, if you are incorporating a paragraph break in dialogue, you add an opening dialogue tag to the next line. For example:

"I went to their house and [some long explanation about what happened at the house]. Can you believe it?

"So there you have it, I'm not going back."

The author is talented at crafting a story with strong, poetic prose. I think trimming the flavor fat and putting a bit more emphasis on the different endings could elevate this story.

** RATING **
I feel like I sounded like a Negative Nancy throughout this review, but I actually did like this story. It's a simple but fun premise, and it was executed in a simple, fun way. The love interests are, well, interesting, and that's most of the work done for a romance story. Trim the fat, add some more meat on the bones, and you have yourself a strong medieval romance read.

It's still a solid entry in the CYS catalogue as is, especially for a first story. Nice work!

5/8.

Initial Thoughts: Fucking Gay

This was very well written. I usually have a bias against romance games, as the genre in general is not my cup of tea, but this one managed to keep my interest.

The prose was very good. Everything flowed well and the story was coherent. I liked all the options. There were plenty of endings you could get without it just being a death. I got a laugh out of the manure killing you if you don't find it satisfying to cut open. Overall though, the branching is a bit lacking in any meaningful ways except not getting a love option or dying. Even the first link is just a way to slip in an extra page.

The punctuation could have been a bit better. There is no in-between with the overuse or underuse of commas in the story, but that is something I also struggle with. The first page has a strange half paragraph break. Other than that I didn't really catch anything else.

You captured the medieval romance trope pretty well, even with the gay option. My only complaint is that the other elements of the story end pretty quickly. I would have appreciated a bit more substance between the character meeting all the romance options and suddenly over a dance at the ball they decide to marry him, especially the valkerie that tries to kill him like a week before and sticks around for some reason. If I'm going to play a love and DATING game, there had better be some dating involved so I can decide who's the best option. How am I supposed to decide who's the best for Vincent if I can only briefly meet each of them beforehand, then get stuck choosing one and only slightly getting to know them better without dancing with all of them? Like what the hell! This is a ball, for god's sake. You can dance with multiple people in the length of time it took medieval royalty to finish throwing a ball.

Overall this story is perfectly good as is, but I think it needs more meat. More drama. More DATING! 5/8

Our character: I found our character hard to understand at times. Even in the beginning of the story, you see him scoff at his parents causing his father to fume and his mother to be disappointed and near the end of the same page is the character thinking "but you’d do anything to be in their good graces again." I'm not saying I want the character to start "monologuing" or anything. But something akin to bringing our own character's reasoning to his decisions. Like what particularly does he scoff AT. Sure you could say he scoffed at the "Do you want to tarnish the honor of our entire bloodline?” line. But any normal response would be to answer the question rather then immediately scoff. Perhaps our character has had this talk many of times before and has grown to the point where he can nearly recite the exact words coming forth. Perhaps he hates his father for his strict parentage. Or perhaps he feels that his actions were so minor that they would 'hardly taint' such a high class individual such as himself. Perhaps its a combination of all three. Either way some incite over our characters actions WITHOUT the need of dialogue from other characters asking would allow us to better implant ourselves into the character's mind, especially for those who don't end up picking the option with the reasoning (the first one that comes to mind is if you choose to go to the gardens instead of the kitchen straight up, you don't get to know WHY the character feels how he feels if you dont end up reading the dialogue with Catello Russo)

Story: The actual story is a pretty premise admittedly. The descriptions were adequate and got the point across well enough and the dialogue was much the same way. It started out with a exposition filled dialogue exchange between our protagonist and his parents about his partying habits. One of the first things I've noticed is how a decent bit of it is streamlined, which isn't inherently a bad thing as long as there aren't any decisions that don't lead to anywhere without providing SOME sort of progression or background info. I've only discovered one such example of that during my time playing. SPOILER: During the decision, to chase after the thief, You are given a variety of different options of how to handle it. I chose the one option that a "immature prince who doesnt really care about his nobility status and would rather party" would choose. Which was to basically say "screw it, I'm going back to sleep" but the game basically said "YOU CAN'T DO THAT! YOU GOTTA TELL SOMEONE" when the main character hardly changed at all. At most, he hit a bag of literal doo-doo with a shovel and that's suddenly suppose to change his whole outlook on his position as a noble? Even on the other route I took where he met with the blind harpist, he didn't seem to change himself as much as he just got a crush on the girl after a rather humorous scene of him accidentally covering himself with shit. I would've enjoyed a more natural progression instead of sudden one.

Overall: Despite my qualms with character progression. Not a bad story by any means, its descriptions were adequate some of the scenes were decently funny and for a first story? I think its actually pretty good. I can definitely see it being brushed into a pretty decent story if more writting was given to expand the characters, world and story a little more. Overall, its no academy award winner but its not bad at all.

PART #3:

Ending: Wedding - Anastasia

I was a little taken aback by how quick the buildup to the ballroom scene was given how much emphasis you put on tracking the murderer was before. The assassin leaves and then a week passes and this whole story shifts rather quickly.

I suppose this would have been fine, the scene itself flows well enough all things considered. But then it all just ends somewhat abruptly. Granted, I can't complain too much, I did get the outcome I was hoping for...but...idk...I suppose I was expecting just a little bit more than what happened.

Of course, I realize what more realistically is going on now that I've read more (and saw even more unclickable links! Even one that said "no option available"...like...that totally is something you could have programed in if you wanted to...but I'll let that slide (for now)).

I'm going to guess that your story opens up a decent amount from the beginning, maybe not a whole lot, but enough to feel like you have a sense of agency from the start...but each of those branches I imagine aren't very long in of themselves.

If that's the case, it might have been better to have at least some of your routes be more thematically relevant to what your story is about rather than just random choices that only effect the story in the moment.

For example...in just this route I took, I was given a problem and then given a potential solution to that problem that wasn't solve immediately...then a distraction with some life or death circumstances...then you so happen to find the one thing your looking for in the one place it would make the most sense to find it...and then the story ends...because the "problem" is now resolved...

Do you see the problem with this? Things seem to happen sequentially but they don't necessarily lead into each other. I'm not saying your story needs to be motivated by your MC's actions...I would be fine with a more passive plot if the character dynamics were more in depth...but as it stands...you have interesting set dressing that just kind of happens in the way you expect it to happen (I liked the detail of jewels when you described the other Princess for example, there's a lot of little details like that that didn't need to be there but helped kept me invested in the story! Definitely do more of that! :O)

Basically what I'm saying is...instead of structuring your story like "this happened and then this happened ect." structure it like "this happened because of this, which then led to this other thing happening as a result of this other thing ect." ...basically...think about your cause and effect...the why and your how...and try to structure your story around those ideas! (its a lot harder to do it this way, but I do think its more rewarding to write story that feels like its events are purposeful in this regard! :O)

Anyways, I do still like what you've been writing regardless. idk if/when I should switch to more specific advice regarding word choice and whatnot, but I hope your other paths have as much insight as this one! (I did complain that it ended too quickly but that was more of a gut reaction. I can totally see how it being somewhat sudden was kind of the point of the ending. Basically it being a tried and true "happy ending" in the traditional sense, no nonsense of fluff, just straight to the point essentially! :D)

(How much of your writing this story is intentional along with what I've pointed out so far?! I'm really curious now! :O lol :P)

See ya next time again! :D

Cheers! ;)

FIRST IMPRESSION #2

Ending: Candelabrum

Well I can't say I got much further. Still, I was probably more self conscious of minor spag errors this time, but the story did such a good job keeping me invested I quickly ended up forgetting about them as the positives easily outweighed the negatives (though I still got them in the back of my mind so I'll bring them up in more detail when I attempt to give an overall/more in depth review of this storygame! :O).

One very obvious flaw I'll point out now though. One of the links was blackened out. Was this done on purpose? You have an earlier post in the forums saying you were trying to incorporated delayed based consequences into your storygame (or something similar anyways), so did I not have the right condition for it? Did you consider hiding the choice? Or did you want the reader to know that they missed a potential path so they could potentially try to make different choices to unlock it in a future playthrough?! :O

I also notice you blend the MC's thought process with brief descriptions of events in weird ways sometimes. Not sure if this is good or bad, but its certainly an interesting writing choice nevertheless. (I would go back and reread the section I'm thinking about to give you better critique, but I don't really wanna do that in the comment box right now! lol :P) (I'll keep a note of it though! ;))

I'll be excited to find out if the reason the candles killed me is due to taking too long to throw the right item at the assassin or due to the candle having flames! (I know its technically both, but I'm curious if its variable dependent or not, since I tried to throw the stool first before picking the candle thing...)

Don't worry though, the more I familiarize myself with your story, the easier it will be to solely focus on the grammar stuff, but the way the story is progressing is still intriguing and entertaining in its own right! :O

Till next time! :D

Cheers! ;)

IMPRESSION #1:

First Ending: Turn Left

Ok, I don't normally do this whole impression thing consistently due to it taking a lot of effort BUT I was pretty hooked to this story from the get go!

This is a very simple straight forward middle ages story involving royalty (maybe fantasy elements get introduced later? I'm not sure). It might be bias on my end, since I'm trying to write a similar story but I don't get the impression that the prose is so overly simplistic to the point of feeling overly amateurish. Its clear some level of thought was put into these scenes and you didn't just write the first thing that came to your mind while writing it (or maybe you did and your just really good at it! lol :P).

In any case, your hook is strong because you quickly establish what the MC's desires are and what his dilemma is in relation to that desire. We are then given a slight twist in the narrative when the MC meets the girl who sings like a siren (I'll call her sword girl for now!). The conversation flows very naturally, both between the characters and how we follow both the narration and the MC's thoughts...hinting at possible follow ups with MC and sword girl without outright confirming anything.

So already you've successfully used two instances of a "Dramatic Impass" to add suspense and potential investment in your story...and they potentially tie into each other? That's already very good story telling right there!

From there we get a slight diversion with the special sword theft, which I unfortunately got killed during, which was a little unexpected but I suppose its good set up for potential other paths...a sort of "don't expect this to be easy" kind of thing (plus I imagine this sort of thing was somewhat common in the middle ages anyways so I can't complain too much (assuming that's how you justified it! lol :P).

Anyways, I'll do my best to keep tracking my thoughts as I get more endings, or at least more endings where I have significantly more to say than before!

This is already inspiring me to go through with writing my fantasy story ideas, knowing that I could write something of similar (or possibly better! :O) quality if I really put my mind to it and committed the effort to do so! (which I'm sure you did when you wrote this! :O)

Thanks for the story! I'm really enjoying it so far! Will (hopefully) update on what I think of it more soon! Cheers! :D

Like another reader mentioned, it was difficult following character emotions at time. The word choice in the beginning argument with the parents seemed a little dramatic.

But it was an enjoyable story that deserves more attention. Thank you for sharing.

This story was cute and well written. It's a lot better than many first-time stories. I found the writing to be quite charming. Thank you for this story.

I’m going to give this story a 5, but it’s not very well polished.

Good: some of the sentences were well-crafted, some romance parts were emotionally resonant, there was some branching

Bad: punctuation, more telling than showing than there should have been, some of the branches received less attention than others, too much randomness and lack of player agency in things like deaths and what happens after each player choice- like, there’s not enough logical relationship between the information that I’m given about each choice and what happens in the story if I pick that choice

It's alright. I do love a story about being a spoiled prince, and it's not bad for a first Storygame.