Player Comments on The Marchwarden

General Recommendation: A short game about dealing with your empire’s expansion into a new region of space.
Preview: Can you successfully integrate the system you’ve been put in charge of into the empire?

=SPOILERS BELOW=

General notes:
The biggest thing that jumps out about this story is the unclear description. I never felt like I had enough information to be entirely sure of what was going on, and the story moved at such a lightning-fast pace that I wasn’t sure what had already happened either. Many descriptions were vague and could have meant multiple different things.
The pace and barebones description made the story feel much more game-y than story-y, which isn’t necessarily an issue. I’m not certain it works well with what you were going for, however, as what little worldbuilding there is is intriguing, and decisions are strategy-based rather than stat-based.
Giving the narrator another character to talk to could go a long way in this game. It would break up the bland summary paragraphs, and give the narrator an actual personality, while reducing the jarring nature of the game’s fast pace and lengthening the story.
I like the way the end of the game is symmetrical on all the branches: How you’ve behaved over the past few years will impact how you fare in the inevitable attack. This does a good job of showing the player how their decisions have affected the outcome of the game, and adds replay value.
General reaction to this game: Meh. It’s got some interesting concepts and politics going on, but the execution and actual writing is too bland and flavorless to really hold my attention. There’s not enough detail for me to grow to care about what happens to the narrator or the system they’re trying to defend.

Specific notes:
-“You wake up in your bed” is never a great way to begin a story.
-Lol, “secretary to the secretary”
-Making the introductory letter clearer might help you show-not-tell, and avoid the need for a summary of the planet’s situation in the next paragraph. Actually, presenting the entire first scene as a dialogue between two characters could go a long way there too, and help with characterization.
-Wild cat miners? Does that mean a catlike inhuman species, or humans who mine wild cats?
-This story has a very fast pace, a year passes after my first link click.
-Calling the attackers “the enemey” instead of refering to them by their name is distracting.

Grammar:
“Looking over the orders that sent you here.” Is a sentence fragment. The grammar is generally good, though there's a couple typos.
Mastery of Language:
Not good, not bad, just generally bland. Everything is told directly to the player, without any flavor or character. There’s no issues, though.

Branching:
Good. This game has five endings, which is pretty good for its length.

Player Options/fair choice:
Good. Consequences are reasonable, and the player is given a variety of different options.

WRITING ADVICE:
If you plan on revisiting this, fleshing out what you have would go a long way. Give the narrator a personality, some other characters to talk to and bounce ideas off of. Show actual scenes between characters; have the reader meet and talk to the warlord they’re considering hiring.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
I got the ending where you successfully make the new region loyal to the empire.

CONCLUSION: An intereating concept, but the writing itself is only functional and not actually enjoyable to read.

Cute little game, first and foremost i like that you have so many options and such and that this game is really heavily focused on the policy making aspect. (Most kings and lords wouldn't be prancing around swining swords after all.)

The way how the game explains to you the context behind your options before you make your decision, makes the gameplay a lot more enjoyable. I found myself in the beginning really carefully considering the longterm consequences of each decision.

The prose is nice, there are a few spelling mistakes, but I don't get a headache from reading it. The frequent paragraph breaks make it nice to read.

The bones of the plot are there, but I think what the game is most missing is a heart or rather: "Why the should I care about the fate of that planet?" No answers were sadly given to me.

There are not really characters the player can interact with or bounce their ideas off. No ruler really rules alone, even in authocratic forms of government there are always some keys of power you had to manage. In history there were advisors, clergy, lower nobility and ministers and all sorts of people whose continued favor is vital for a person to stay in power. Perhaps it would make the story more dynamic if all these considerations and possible choices were presented by two of your advisors who both argue with each other how to proceed and such. A lot of information and the weight of it all can thus be conveyed through their body language and dialogue.

There was also a lot of telling instead of showing in a lot of parts of the story. When the story tells you about the invasion of the barbarian space horde, it feels like reading a history textbook. It would be nice to see if one could see the reactions of other people to know how terrifying they are or have a scene where the ruler comes to see the effect of a small skirmish in the border region. Now, they honestly don't come off as very threatening.

All in all, it was still a fun and light read! I hope to read more of the author again.

That was a nice brief foray into the outer fringes of civilisation. Thanks! I like the simple, clear choices and that you weren't too ruthless trying to kill off your readers at any less-than-ideal move!
There were one or two typos but I expect you're aware of that, since this was published some time ago (eg 'scraping' or 'scrapping' the Xeno hulls).

It was a good story. I played through it a couple times. It seems like to me you copied and pasted the expensive peace ending and renamed it the peace and prosperity ending. Otherwise all the endings I found I was content with.

Although this game was a little short, I found it enjoyable. The choices given were substantial, which allowed for vastly different paths.

However, I personally would have enjoyed it more with a bit more "fleshing out" of the characters and narrative. I would have liked a bit more development down the branch of each of the initial paths, and perhaps a bit more exploration of the tension of bringing empirical law to a sector not used to it.

Overall, I found this game fun and would have liked to see more.

I really, really liked the idea here. Honestly, this is a cool structure for a game, and I think it could be revised into a game four times longer. There's stuff here to expand, and I want to play that expanded game.

This game does a lot with very little--a few choices and a few pages set up a few interesting choices. It's a neat, macro-level look at large-scale administration. These are big, meaty choices. You aren't, like, picking out what color eyes you have here.

However, I could feel the tremendous rush on every page, and that's painful, because I could tell how much potential was here. I don't think I need to go into the microlevel stuff--proofreading will catch it. You know, apostrophes, consistent tense, whatever. You know I'll go over that stuff with you, Derp, if you want to polish it.

But the main thing: I want more work on the prose. More showing rather than telling ("it only takes one example to show the locals what happens if a citizen of the empire is attacked." -- I want to see that example) and more interesting sentences ("They're immediately deployed to almost always their local zones of influence"; "Waking one day you find a new report a Xenos fleet has arrived in system.") But you know, that's me, I care too much about sentence structure.

Choice wise, the "Planatary Marine" path needed another choice to balance the additional choices the other ones got.

I think my favorite parts, other than the neat idea and fearlessly big choices, were the moments of dry wit that I hear in there sometimes--like When the Xenos fleet arrives marauding: "You object to their plan. You violently object to their plan." I smiled at that.

I enjoyed it. I want more. That's probably a good sign.

I quite liked the concept, but I found a lot of the descriptions somewhat bland and confusing. There aren't really any interesting characters or compelling moments. However, I think that this story could improve a lot if a little more time had been put into it. There were a lot of branches for a storygame composed in such little time and, I think it was an interesting political spin on the whole Lords of the Land thing. Enjoyable overall.

Had the author spent more time on this, it could have been pretty neat. In terms of character development or immersion, there's every little here. However, somehow I kept going back to read what happened if I chose different paths, and that counts for something. It means the author has an interesting premise, and while there isn't much dialogue or convoluted plot, there's still the appeal of building your little station in the vastness of space.

This kind of reminds me of an old-school computer game, where you build up your civilization and army, and the watch as your resources do battle against the enemy. Sure, you don't have any control during combat, but the choices you made building your army help decide the outcome.

So, I'd say it's an interesting premise, but had more time been spent on it to better flesh it out, it could have been much better.

Fun little game. Lots of options, which is always nice. I liked the varied number of different kinds of endings.