Player Comments on Sterling City

Welcome to Sterling City baby! This atmospheric story game focuses on the complex and vice-ridden lives of this dark city's various inhabitants. Guess how things are going to go at your own peril, because the one thing Sterling city isn't, is predictable. She can show you the sweetest time if you treat her right or send you to an early grave if you piss her off. People flock to her arms all the same because they think she's worth it. Shit, they wouldn't be wrong.

<<SPOILERS AHEAD>>

WRITING:

Every word in the narration oozes the unique stylistic flair of a noir movie. It's remarkable how consistently this is maintained throughout the story game. I can only imagine how many line edits were done to ensure that level of consistency.

The narration POV was also done in a unique manner with the story starting in first person POV with Hugh, and then switching to what seemed to be third person POV. I thought this was a mistake until it switched back into first person POV when Hugh resurfaced, making me realize that the narration is in fact always being done from Hugh's POV. He is simultaneously a character in the story while also being an omniscient narrator. Brilliant!

One thing I really liked was how each shift in focus to a different character was used to view the city from a different angle. Each character offers a slice of their life for the reader to experience and in turn understand the city a little better.

The only problem I had was that some of these miniature storylines didn't resolve too neatly. What happened to the man raising the dead under Starline? Did James Holt ever find the rest of the money? How exactly did Joe Branch disappear? Questions left unanswered does lend to the mystery of Sterling City in a way, but even ambiguous endings can be executed in a satisfying way and it just felt like some of the plotlines missed the mark in that regard.

There were some rare SPAG errors but the majority seemed to be confined within dialogue so I assume they were intentional typos meant to convey either pretentiousness through misspelled borrowed words (booshwa -> bourgeois, on contrar madamoissele -> au contraire, mademoiselle) or stupidity (Turbo saying 82th floor). It's a nice touch that helps with characterization.

CHARACTERS:

Most of the characters only get a brief amount of time to shine considering how swiftly the story shifts focus across characters. As such, not many of the characters get opportunities to have any sort of development. I'll just focus on the ones that left an impression on me in this section.

We first start with Hugh, who immediately proves to be a force to reckon with by neutralizing two amateur hitmen while being unarmed. He then marches up to the front door of the guy who put a hit out on him and runs through his security with ease. Readers immediately get this feeling that he is unstoppable thanks to this action packed introduction. This nicely sets up the sequence in the flashback where James Holt has the option to try and rush Hugh only to get swiftly suppressed. Outside of his physicality, Hugh presents himself as a man who knows his place. He knows his strengths and his weaknesses and he uses this knowledge to carve out a place in Sterling City for himself, a sustainer of the status quo as long as the status quo suited him.

Detective Shaw mostly seems to be your stereotypical streetwise cop. One of the first encounters readers can have with him is to get mugged by a couple of wannabe thugs. His proficient deescalation of the situation serves to characterize both his experience and his merciful nature. I will say there was a nice touch of circularity in his ending with the reference to the Metallica song lyric "No one can save me but myself." He could not save himself in the end and that adds a tragic note to his story.

And finally, I'd like to talk about Holt, the deceitful yet charming rogue of the cast. The author seems to be an expert at characterizing through action and Holt's first action is to con his way into the most exclusive party that Sterling City plays host to. I was almost a bit let down that Holt let himself get captured by Hugh until I realized that his main goal was the last known location of the courier. Holt expertly extracts that information from Joe Branch by pretending to be in a position of weakness. It was a gamble that Hugh would cooperate with him of course. But considering his previously displayed love for the casino, perhaps gambling wasn't really something Holt was apprehensive about.

In general, I thought the author expertly showed the characters rather than telling the readers what they're like. If there are any aspiring authors out there, read and take notes. This is how "Show, don't tell" is done.

STRUCTURE:

Choices in this storygame mostly seem to be a way for readers to switch which character the narration is focusing on. There are a handful of choices that do influence the focus character's decisions directly but these are in the minority. A good example of this is how deciding to focus on Holt or Rachel in the Sterling Suites section leads to different endings. The only issue I have with all the focus switching is the one I mentioned earlier in the writing section with many of the plot lines feeling a bit unfinished. If a story were to have multiple plotlines, I would prefer if all the plotlines influenced each other in some way or were part of a larger overarching story. The zombie manafacturing plotline for example seems to stand completely separate from everything else, even somewhat changing the story's genre to sci-fi horror briefly. Though Rachel's plotline offered another layer to her character, it also felt somewhat out of place in the greater story. I would much rather have focused on other characters involved with Holt or Hugh to further flesh out that story.

In summary, Sterling City, while being captivating in its style and cast of characters, stubbornly holds on to many of its secrets, leaving me wanting for more, and not always in a good way. Its uniqueness certainly makes it worth your time though.

This story was really good!

I love the way you used perspective shift and internal monologues as the driving forces behind the narrative of this story.

This story isn’t a simple “he did this, then he did that, then afterwards he did some more of this, then he died lol”.

It’s a seamless patchwork of multiple interesting characters who live in Sterling City, the city that never sleeps. Through these characters’ adventures, we get a feel for what this city must be like. The city is no longer just an inanimate place or a geographic location; it’s virtually living and breathing right alongside its denizens. It’s harsh and unforgiving, with characters always on the move, just go go go all the time

It’s exciting. It’s dangerous and reeks of a multitude of taboos and social mores being broken all at once.

Just as life in Sterling City is quick, fleeting, and dangerously fast, so too is the reading experience. Each vignette is short and ends prematurely, switching to the next one in the time it takes me to snap my fingers and giving me whiplash. But somehow, that style works so well for this story. I hardly have time to miss the previous story and wish it was longer before I’m immediately attached to the next adventure, guns blazing, ready to go.

I thought Detective Shaw’s death scene was particularly gruesome, especially when you suddenly switch to Delilah’s perspective. The intercutting of Delilah’s perspective was good stuff, I like it. It felt like watching a movie lol. Also I think the prophet turned her into some kind of zombie or something, with the metal staples and shit. That prophet is sick in the head!

The superhero storyline was also cool. It reminded me of Watchmen. Sterling City was awesome!

This is fantastic.

This is a storygame dripping in personality. Starting off with a whiskey-drinking private eye at the strip club was a classic, almost cliched way to start the story, but it had just enough self-awareness to make it really endearing (I really loved the elaborate metaphors as to what Sterling City is).

Another really cool thing you did was not tying this to any particular era. It was reminiscent of like, 80s crime movies, but also classic pulpy detective fiction. Not tying this to a particular era (like having a Soviet-themed vigilante, people using computers, a Dave Chappelle reference, and having one of the viewpoint characters be such an archetypal 30s tough guy) almost makes the whole work feel like it's about a "city out of time", or something like that.

Your use of characters was really clever. I think it was a really solid decision to have Hugh be the only first person narrator, because every great noir antihero needs that internal monologue.

I got the ending with the vigilante superheroes beating the shit out of Trevor, and at first I thought it was a bit of an anticlimax; then, I realized it's a really clever way to end the game. It's not really a storygame about any one person, it's about a rotten ass city.

This is one of the most creative and charming storygames I've read recently. Thanks for the entertainment.

I loved the style of this. All the "this is sterling, baby." and the wittiness was awesome. It really made me feel like I was in some Noir/ Frank Sinatra inspired environment. I could really get a feel for the background and what I expected it to look like. At this point in time, I didn't go through all of the paths but I'm sure I will after I write this. I ended up finishing on Holt's escape.

I liked how it flowed from character to character, it was like Sterling itself was the main character and these are all supporting roles to make it what it is. I am just curious as to why Hugh was the only one who was in the first person? Maybe I missed something or it was just his own unique thing you wanted to do.

I was honestly walking into this thinking it was gonna be some big played up gangster-gambling-casino cliche. I was sorely mistaken. I loved the metaphors of the law and Sterling and all these different elements that make this story so great.

Overall, its a great story and I'm glad to have it recommended to me to read. You may not like the characters and you may not like the the paths you take but Sterling City is like a fine scarlet-haired woman waiting for you to give in to your desires and take her to the back room. Unfortunately for you, she's just as dangerous as she is innocent looking because after all she's Sterling City, baby.

Sterling City: pretty darn good.

I am finding it inexplicably difficult to put my thoughts about this story into words; I've been sitting and staring at "Comment on Sterling City" for about fifteen minutes. Ninja has a style of writing that is seemingly effortless. The storylines themselves are fine, twisting and converging in a sleek way that suits the setting for this story perfectly, but the real draw at least for me is the personality and swagger this story possesses.

It's similar in that aspect to TechNOIR, although in this story it's taken to an even higher degree. Ninja pumps out lines like:

“Did you prep the ‘patient’ for surgery?” one asks with a gender neutral sounding voice. You know, like it could be a fruitcake man or a lifelong smoking woman.

with shocking frequency, and it makes for a really entertaining read. I did enjoy the Shaw/human experimentation path a little bit better, I liked the horror elements and you do well to really make Shaw feel like a good dude that just happened to grow up in Sterling City.

Oddly enough, the greatest strength of this story is part of my only complaint. The certain quippy nature of the writing doesn't feel like it subsides very much when the story gets more serious, and sometimes when switching between perspectives it can be difficult to tell due to the style you use.

Obviously, I still gave it a 7/8. So, you can see how much that impacted my overall opinion of the story. Awesome work.

Just saying i was kinda pissed when it ended i havent read anything that got my attention like this in years maybe ever... i need to find a book like this the characters were awesome everything was discriptive and it drew a really clear picture in my head... hands down very immersive ... felt like it was micheal from GTA5 of some sorts.... i really wish i could find a book this good not being able to put a finger on what year it took place allowed my imagination to picture a mix of decades combined this story made my imagination take off one of the best things about reading for me is to create that world and charcters with enough detail from the author but left the rest up to my mind.... thank you very much for writing this and im going to look for more of your work as well as look for a book like this redefined what genre of books i like thank you very much for your talent and hard work!

good story, well written

This was good, I really think you should remove some of the cuss words. If you did, this would be a 6

I played once through to the protagonist's death. Well written, but it felt too linear. May be better on areplay would be better.

Pretty good. The writing style was very noir, and the use of metaphors showed that. The perspective changes and branching paths which furthered those perspectives reminded me of Sin City. It wasn't really about any one character, it was about the city as a setting. Only real problem I had was, I guess, a bit of lack of "focus" on any one character, I suppose? The perspectives were switching pretty frequently, mostly without warning, so you couldn't really attach. I feel like that was intentional, though.

7/8. It hit all the right notes.

Talk about underrated gems: as I write this, the player rating for "Sterling City" is sitting at 5.51, a good 1.5 - 2 points below what it deserves. Maybe my 8/8 will give it a boost.

This storygame isn't for everyone. The grim, unsavory characters, the constantly shifting points of view, the various episodic subplots are bound to confuse many readers and turn them off.

But the characters! The settings! The path that I read was beyond Noir, and more into "Pulp Fiction" territory. Each POV character was deftly drawn, and each locale was richly described. This is truly good writing.

As a storygame, there seem to be enough branches to give this a good re-read value, seemingly more than the 22k word-count would imply. The story (or stories) are dark, and they might make you despair the species. But this is certainly a better story than the middling rating might lead you to believe.

Review written as I read through the story.
The narrators personality really seems to shine through on the first couple of pages, along with the kind of place they are living in. It's nice to get a decent idea of the setting and the tone from the start.

Both the first guy in the bar and Danny seem to both have distinct views of the city. The one similar thing being how much they seem to like the place. The interaction between the Senator and Danny was pretty funny.

I can't believe the guards are named Turbo and Bear. That's almost as bad as naming an orc Tumble.

Oh shit, and now you have two POV characters who are probably going to be at odds with each other. I've always found that stuff interesting. I see this has one of the most realistic interpretations of what would happen if "Go Kill Things Man" ran into "Honored Janitor"

They always make the janitor or gardener or whatever and try to stop the protagonist or whoever with hand waving and "you can't be here." It's refreshing to see the more likely event where the low level peasant having job man would just shrug and say "Huh? Guess it was nothing."

"and doesn’t scrape the splinters from his disposable chopsticks." I generally avoid people like that as well. Also I hope you weren't about to just insult Heinekens good name smh

"The empty chamber of my beloved gets filled with six more tokens of my love. I’m not a selfish man. Time to share my love with others" Is this supposed to be a metaphor for "pervert in trench coat does the big blast on unsuspecting people?"
Will lick his own balls againToday at 9:05 PM
“I’m willing to be this isn’t a place men simply wander into.” >bet

Shit man, and things just took a turn. And on Lar's choosing I decided to select the option to slay dirty dan....let's try the other option, shall we?

Wait...Rachel is a superhero!? :0 Fear not! The Red Hurricane is here! (swooshes cape). Despite how that may all sound this is legit enjoyment at finding a band of "superheroes" in this story.

"the gay angel in front of him." I really hope that was done on purpose lmao

Just started reading Holts thing, and I get the feeling this is going to end terribly for him. Also the fact that he seems to think he charmed Rachel was hilarious, as I didn't get that sense reading it from her pov.

“I’m surprised,” Holt says. “Dancing with a beautiful woman is always enjoyable, sister or no.” I'm convinced this character was inspired by Darkspawn now.

"They might as well be lapping at his balls." A self made man would lick his own balls, I should know.

If you’re looking for access to actual rooms, you need one of these.” He flashes a solid black card.

“That’ll do,” Holt says, driving his knee into the man’s stomach quickly following up with a left hook to the temple.
Well done, hotel employee.

I didnt think the playing dead thing would go well, had a funny punchline lol

Lol the mutual screwing over of the bad guy is good.

Now for something written post reading.

I'm not too fussy about my standards for what counts as a 5/8, 7/8, 8/8 etc. But this was very entertaining, and had minimal errors, and as I mentioned earlier the switching POVs were cool, but they were also done well. It was nice seeing how the characters backstories intertwined. Well. at least some of them seemed to.

It really gets multiple views of how people in this story think about the city, and everyone else as well as their relative position in this society. Well done, I really enjoyed this story. 7/8

Really enjoyed the horror elements in Sterling City especially in the human experimentation branch. The style of the writing gives the storygame a lot of personality, which makes it an interesting read.