Player Comments on Your Fate Like Clockwork

Your Fate Like Clockwork is a looping corridor of twists, turns, expansive world building and a nearly incomprehensible lore; despite all of this, it manages to run like clockwork!

The amount of detail given to this small town is an iron clad testament to the skillful writing and colorful world building. From the start, the existence of one nervous, illiterate guard tells us this place is either a nothing shabby-town of sorts, or in ruin. The large but empty streets, the closed off shops, and the existence of the grand but abandoned castle set in stone the picture for us; this was obviously once a bustling medieval city fallen to ruin. Our protagonist themselves, intelligent and observant, gives us enough feedback to fill in any blanks. This isn't just present in the opening though, this perfect blend of narrator show and protagonist tell is present throughout the story.

The story itself is way better than it should be; this game is essentially a two part, in depth novel, with part one being the town and part two being the castle. Both of these parts build up well. In the town this build up in plot is mostly linear; you start by being introduced to the woman who called you here, and begin your investigation. As you gain more insight and discover the clues, the climax rapidly approaches as the town itself turns against you in an action packed escape scene. The castle area is a little less straight forward; one can go from a seemingly mundane hallway to fighting an unholy monster in the flip of a page! The lore expeditions here are heavy handed as well, but with the bits and pieces gathered in the town, you'll be happy to discover more in depth bits of information. Overall, the pacing in this second section is wildly different from how it's structured in the first, but I think this is a good decision on the authors part, and effectively stops the second act from feeling like a slog.

If I had one major criticism, it's the characters throughout the story. The town basically feels like an investigation with the occasional NPC. The castle is just a march to the antagonist, with no side characters present in the slightest. You basically get three other secondary characters, a smithy, a priest, and a doctor. Depending on how you play, you can uncover more information on their relevance to the plot, or lack there of, but it's mostly unsatisfying, and replaying for these bits was the least fun part of this experience. I do realize, considering the plot, that this may have been intentional, but it stuck out to me nonetheless.

Overall I rated this a 7 out of 8, and If this is a taste of what's to come from you as an author on this site, then i look forward to following your journey. Best of luck!

Jesus Christ!

I was not prepared for this story. I need to pause for a little and come back to it a bit later, perhaps while I'm not eating breakfast.

Otherwise this story has been amazing! If I hadn't read a comment before I started, I would not have suspected that this was a first attempt. The worldbuilding is top-notch, the storyline is captivating, every paragraph is incredibly descriptive, and the gore certainly hasn't disappointed me. I feel like this story being my first jump into this site's horror genre is going to make other stories a bit weak by comparison.

I did catch a few minor spelling mistakes. The one I saw the most is the second storey overhang bit. The correct spelling would be second story.

10/10 will come back to this again when my stomach has settled more. Great job readwithjeremy. I wait hopefully for more brilliantly written Storygames like this one!

There's a surprising degree of polish for a first effort. One wouldn't imagine that this is apparently a writer's first attempt at the cyoa genre.

What is here is some rather remarkable world building, along with some tense action scenes that are quite descriptive. When you're hunting otherworldly threats, it makes sense for the choices to not be straightforward, but require a degree of the reader paying close attention on whether or not they should attempt at being brave/foolhardy and moving forward to the threat, or smartly deciding it better to play it safe and return with more tools to overcome their situation. However being someone that is cautious and apprehensive might also not be the best choice to make, depending on the situation. I feel this gives every choice some heft to it in terms of consequence or reward.

Also the writer is surprisingly open to criticism and concessions that aren't even mandatory for one to make. However with that might I feel that this story is one that is worthy of being played through multiple times.

I certainly do not think that one time is not enough to see all that this story-game is worth. I definitely will be returning for a second, third, and even fourth play-through. Time would tell if more read throughs are necessary. :)

Wow.

One of the best stories I've seen on this site. The plot enraptured me, surprising me at every turn. The characters were well written, the world well built. I firmly believe this story is as close to perfection as it gets. If I were to point out any "issues", I would say that the layout of the words made it hard to read, but that's just me nitpicking. Thank you Jeremy, for this wonderful work of art!!

My goodness, there's a lot of content here. Every time I thought I was nearing the end, there would just be more and more to do, thanks in part to the "reinstate" feature. The detail is vivid and interesting, not at all too wordy in my opinion, although I understand that it may be a problem to some. I enjoyed the atmosphere created, and the worldbuilding is very good too. Plus, there's loads more stuff to this storygame that I still haven't even read. So I'd better get to it!

Wow that was very fun and a definite premise you have, I like where the story is headed (even though I could not beat it). This is one of the better stories I have see on cys so kudos!

Love the story line, and it's so vividly described that it really gets you immersed in the story.

Interesting deep story, but honestly a little bit too confusing and wordy to really follow. I had to stop the story multiple times to even get through it once and when I did, it was very hard to follow. A great idea with incredible inspiration at points, but ultimately a little too hard to follow to really be enjoyable.

The level of depth and intricacy from the very first choice you'll make is just simply brilliant. I have done one full blind playthrough of it, but I will soon do a few more.