The Knight of Gold

Disclaimer: to the author, take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional writer and only somewhat of a seasoned reviewer. To the readers, this review will contain lots of spoilers, so I suggest you read the storygame first.

I found this storygame when clicking through the top storygames of 2023 list (apparently there were only ten stories published last year with enough ratings to qualify?) and decided to glance through it. Writing and publishing this seems like the author’s only activity. As usual, I can’t resist writing a review, so here we go.

The description is short but conveys enough information about the protagonist and his goal. I suppose this is the classic ‘knight rescues a princess from a dragon’ trope, though hopefully it has an interesting twist.

As for the first page, it is a short paragraph that comes across as infodumping about the protagonist and the town. On one hand, I like the worldbuilding and how it gives readers a sense of the setting and the characters that live there. But at the same time, there’s an overuse of adjectives, which seems more like ‘telling’ than ‘showing’. To the author, this is a good start though I urge you to take a step further. Rather than telling the reader that people make a decent living selling goods and supplies, maybe show us this through a scene in the market where the protagonist is buying food from a local seller.

Let’s tackle the good part first. You created a feeling of urgency through words like “panicked” and “concerned”. Information is revealed at a good pace, first allowing the reader to observe how the man has the royal knight symbol then having a rhetorical question about whether he works for the queen. There is a mention of the queen being kidnapped despite having a hundred knights and then a cloud of smoke fills the sky.

Now, onto the constructive criticism. It’s a good technique to end a page with an unanswered question or something that piques the reader’s attention, but here, it is not necessary to put this information on a new page. This is especially true considering you have four one-link choices in a row and each page only has a short amount of text. In fact, I’d say you could combine all of these in one page.

Moving on to the part where the items can be used, I would say it is an interesting choice to have a link to the next page without using the item. I didn’t even have to use the items (which may render them useless here). Still, I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume this is like a tutorial stage of sorts, where the items would have more of a use later on.

The first actual choice is between a left path and a right path, but it’s good that there is context provided which allows the reader to make an informed decision. There’s growling sounds on one path and traps on the other. Either way, this is a gauntlet choice, where the protagonist either faces off against a bear or traverses through a cave to get to the same location: a chest with a golden key that unlocks a door.

I feel like the pacing is too abrupt here. The story reads like a summary of events as opposed to a story: we are told what happens, but never truly grounded or immersed in any scene. Simply put: there’s a good plot and sequence of events, but we’re not able to enjoy it as the story rushes along.

Another issue with this storygame is the protagonist’s characterization. Aside from being told he is a wannabe knight, there’s nothing else in terms of his personality or beliefs that is mentioned. As such, some choices where he completely abandons his quest (either before or after fighting the griffon) makes no sense whatsoever. Why would he go through all this trouble just to…leave? If he had, for instance, realized there is something greater at play, or faced off against an enemy that nearly took his life, perhaps he could be scared into leaving. But there’s nothing here. He just changes his mind and goes back for absolutely no reason.

Once again, the items don’t really matter as there’s a choice to the next page where he wins every combat. But I guess they’re a nice touch to add visuals to this game though.

Then, there’s the choice to fight the enemies, the source or the wizards. Maybe it’s just semantics, but aren’t they all the enemies? Anyway, since a wizard captured the queen, I chose to fight the wizards. Haha, there’s a dollar store version of Harry Potter with brown hair instead of black, glasses and a lightning scar. “avadi kadivi” - guess that’s a dyslexic’s version of the killing curse, I see. Jokes aside, I guess this game is shaping up to be more lolrandom than I initially thought.

Taking down the enemies, the queen is captured and the town falls into ruin. It’s a nice touch that it juxtaposes the town at the start, with peace turning into chaos and a place without crime becoming a village of anarchy. However, it does feel a bit sudden. And besides, if the protagonist chooses to go after the source, why can he suddenly defeat all his enemies in one swing? Something doesn’t seem right here.

Now, onto something I liked. There were three doors to enter, and even though only one of them was right, the game made use of delayed consequences to change the ending based on this. For instance, if the protagonist goes through the correct door without finding the one with the queen’s book, he manages to defeat the dragon. Then the queen would be rescued. Thus, the protagonist would be in blissful ignorance of the queen’s true nature and offer to help rebuild. I have a nitpick: how could he win against the dragon if he was just a wannabe knight when the real knights couldn’t even defeat it together?

The fight scene describes each action blow-by-blow, which does ground reader in the moment. Yet, to take this a step further, I recommend adding in lines of the protagonist’s observations, thoughts and strategies to increase the stakes. Using more descriptive techniques like literary devices would be helpful, as it prevents you from relying solely on adjectives for anything description related.

Finally, let’s talk about the best ending. I’ll be honest: the only reason I’m reviewing this storygame is because I read Sherb’s review and wanted to see how funny the negotiation scene with the dragon was. And the answer? Try as I might, I could not contain my laughter at all. My sister looked over to see if I was alright so I gave her a summarized version of this story and she agreed: it was unintentionally hilarious. I don’t know if the author did this on purpose, but well, let’s unpack it.

Once more, I’ll start with what I like before going into feedback for what could be improved. The plot twist with the queen was foreshadowed by her book which contained her plan to start a war and take down villages. This makes sense, given the sheer volume of enemies the protagonist would have to fight in the dragon’s lair. They could have been allies who found out about this and joined the dragon. I like how it subverts the trope of the damsel in distress and evil dragon, therefore switching the victim and antagonist in the last part of the story. Perhaps more foreshadowing about this might have been better, though.

Still, this doesn’t change how comedic the final confrontation is. The protagonist walks up to the dragon and asks whether the queen provoked it. Then, the dragon agrees, saying that she took away its riches and baby. That’s all well and good, until the protagonist says, “There's nothing I can do to help you find your baby again, because I don't know where it could be”. Come on, now, there’s a dragon that injured and killed many knights. If you’re going to negotiate, at least offer to help look for it (since he offered his village to help rebuild the queen’s territory in the other branch, can’t he do the same here?)

But the funniest part? He just takes the queen’s crown, declares himself the new royalty, and promises to never let something like that happen again. Yeah, problem solved. I mean, if it were that easy to be the ruler, I don’t know why the dragon—or even a power-hungry knight—doesn’t do that in the first place.

That’s not all, though. The dragon actually listens. Why, if I were a dragon, I’d laugh in his face before killing him (or perhaps keeping him around as the court jester if I were in a forgiving mood). But this dragon, the same fearsome beast that got past a hundred guards, commanding an entire army of wizards and trolls, simply nods and leaves. Oh, and not even to find its child; it leaves to find its treasure. Because who cares about children when you have money, right? And it leaves without getting revenge, or killing the queen, or even asking the protagonist for help with this quest. Seriously, at least get this wannabe royalty to sign a contract stating he won’t attack the neighboring kingdoms or something.

The hilarity of him usurping the queen by taking her crown is nearly rivaled by the rest of the ending: he goes on to announce to the rest of the kingdom that he’s now in power. They just accept it. The reason? He picked up a gold sword he found lying on the floor. This, combined with him defeating the dragon with words (read: randomly declaring himself a good ruler which somehow convinced it to leave) means a majority of the people support his reign. He’s even worshiped as a hero.

All in all, this storygame made me laugh so much, especially at the ‘best ending’. That means I enjoyed it, I guess. But aside from some weak execution at parts and a few unrealistic outcomes, it was not the worst first attempt at writing a storygame. This story had a mostly coherent plot, a central conflict and even a refreshing plot twist, which is more than a number of noobs can accomplish.

Spoilers ahead.

So, there's a pretty massive problem with this storygame. I'm going to try not to be too harsh since this was a first attempt, but... unless I completely missed something, the main conflict of this story sort of just changed halfway through. We open with hearing that the queen has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, then all of a sudden she's being held hostage in her castle... by a dragon. There was zero mention of a dragon (other than the storygame description) until after the escapade to find the golden sword (which was originally mentioned as being a set of enchanted armor, by the way...)

There are three important characters here- the protagonist, the queen, and the dragon.
•The protagonist is mostly pretty bare, which is pretty forgivable, especially with a story this short. There's the obvious heroism to be noted, though there's one thing that really annoys me. The best ending in the game is dedicated to the protagonist becoming the new monarch and displaying a capacity for leadership, yet in another ending you're punished for fighting the monsters invading the kingdom and things fall into ruin because there's no leader... so I guess our protag was just sitting in a ditch pushing berries up his nose for that one?
•I would have liked it if the plot twist with the queen actually lead somewhere if you defeated the dragon. She's apparently planning this massive betrayal, yet there's zero mention of that if you take the other path.
•The dragon is quite bland, but at least it has a motive. I felt like the negotiation with the dragon was almost comedic with how simple and short it was. This dragon came in and killed a hundred knights and has the queen held hostage, and then decides to trust the protagonist and skedaddle after about a four-second conversation (without even getting back what was stolen from it!)

The spelling and grammar are mostly alright, but a round of proofreading still would have helped. I didn't see errors often, but there were definitely a few, such as this one on the second page...
"You notice that the man's uniform and how he has the royal knight symbol on his armor."

My consensus here is that this game isn't terrible or anything, but there's also nothing to set it apart. Don't know if there's much else you could have done with this particular plot given the length, though.

On a more positive note, it's cool to see that you went ahead and did something with the items system. It was nothing fancy and didn't really need to be, though it was cool to see the protagonist's inventory.

This scores in the 2-3 range for me. I hope you continue to write, I'd like to see what you could do with more words.

5/8
This was very interesting to play.

This was a pretty straight-forward and short story, although there is a weird jump where the villain changes from a sorcerer to a dragon. Fine for what it is :)

This was a light, breezy little game. It almost was too short, but it had a sense of fun. I did find typos throughout and also some instances of awkward syntax (like you decided one word for a sentence but then forgot to take the original out). Getting past that, though, the game has a nice combat system. I like how the reader is given the option for choosing to use either the sword or the shield in different parts of a battle with an enemy. I was (SPOILERS!) annoyed that my character takes the Queen's crown and decides to be the new monarch after a heartfelt conversation with the dragon. I'd rather that choice have been offered me instead of having it put into my character's mind by the author. But this still a fun game and I hope you do a lot more to flesh it out and expand on the characters, the story, and world. :)

A few grammar errors but the main plot line was good. A pleasant read. I was surprised that the protagonist declared him/herself the new ruler in one ending. A bit presumptive and unexplained (surely there are other candidates, right?).
Overall well-written.

nice very cool until the beer killed me

Short but not bad as far as spelling and grammar goes. It's also got some choices that have consequences, and while the twist you can discover isn't difficult to find and not the most surprising in the universe, it was pretty good.
This story mops the floor with the majority of 2k word noobs first story type games. Good job.

I dub thee Sir or Madam T_Maymay, don't get too craycray now as the young'ns say.