Stories that left you disappointed for a reason

[Fuffff]

Well so far there are three chinese inspired cultivation WIPs (Aura Clash, Path of martial artist, and this one). There are probably more that I'm missing out on but Aura Clash is my favorite by far. Time for chinese cultivation to become a genre in IF as popular as mystery and drama 🗣

 

[Gone_Dead]

View attachment 22736
The moment i saw "Overpowered protagonist" I clicked ASAP

Damn, another drop in our cultivation cup. Is it good?

 

[Fuffff]

Never mind it's a**. I spoke too soon.

 

[Gone_Dead]

Never mind it's a**. I spoke too soon.

Got me excited there for a second. I'll try it anyway.

 

[Fuffff]

I can't explain, it's a funny type of bad, so bad it's good. POMA and Aura Clash remain the kings and my overall favorite WIPs so far, even though I had no idea what cultivation was before I played these two games.

On the other hand, there's a WIP that SEEMS to be good (The Dragon's Cove). I'm afraid to play it and find out it's *** like the one I just played

 

[Re336]

Hey guys, what are your opinions on Jude's IFs (We Wretched Creatures, Excellent Cadavers, O Your Heavenly Stars)?
I like her WIPs so far. Though they are really really short.

Not really a big fan of preset personality MC Epecially since lots of her MC are kind of an a**hole sometimes (I like to play as a goody two shoes, you see). But they're interesting.
And apparently, Jude likes to write party scene. All of her WIPs have a party scene.
I have mixed feelings about We Wretched Creatures because MC makes me feel miserable. Like I really want to be angry at everyone but turns out I was the a**hole all along and I deserve those bullying? If I were MC I would immediately kms. I am also not a fan of the supernatural genre. I don't know why but I feel like when the culprit is something supernatural, suddenly it doesn't feel as scary anymore. I can't feel the tension or thrill anymore. Still, it's still interesting to read about clinically insane MC lol.

Also, what do you guys know about this author? Like does she update her works often? Because I feel like I've heard Excellent Cadavers and We Wretched Creatures since years ago, turns out not much has been posted yet. Excellent Cadavers only has the prologue out. And We Wretched Creatures only has 7 episodes out (but in the author's defense, she seems to plan it to be 15 episodes? So she's like almost halfway done). I really like her works so far, but I don't know how much hope I can put into these stories I'm afraid one day she just gets bored and start a new project and abandon her previous works

 

[ADB446]

Hey guys, what are your opinions on Jude's IFs (We Wretched Creatures, Excellent Cadavers, O Your Heavenly Stars)?
I like her WIPs so far. Though they are really really short.

Not really a big fan of preset personality MC Epecially since lots of her MC are kind of an a**hole sometimes (I like to play as a goody two shoes, you see). But they're interesting.
And apparently, Jude likes to write party scene. All of her WIPs have a party scene.
I have mixed feelings about We Wretched Creatures because MC makes me feel miserable. Like I really want to be angry at everyone but turns out I was the a**hole all along and I deserve those bullying? If I were MC I would immediately kms. I am also not a fan of the supernatural genre. I don't know why but I feel like when the culprit is something supernatural, suddenly it doesn't feel as scary anymore. I can't feel the tension or thrill anymore. Still, it's still interesting to read about clinically insane MC lol.

Also, what do you guys know about this author? Like does she update her works often? Because I feel like I've heard Excellent Cadavers and We Wretched Creatures since years ago, turns out not much has been posted yet. Excellent Cadavers only has the prologue out. And We Wretched Creatures only has 7 episodes out (but in the author's defense, she seems to plan it to be 15 episodes? So she's like almost halfway done). I really like her works so far, but I don't know how much hope I can put into these stories I'm afraid one day she just gets bored and start a new project and abandon her previous works

The writing is decent, but I don't like her work for the same reason you said, I'm just not a big fan of a preset MC and minimal choices. Its no fun to me, and if I can't stand the protagonist, I won't play . Its pretty hard for me to enjoy presets in general.

 

[Fuffff]

Hey guys, what are your opinions on Jude's IFs (We Wretched Creatures, Excellent Cadavers, O Your Heavenly Stars)?
I like her WIPs so far. Though they are really really short.

Not really a big fan of preset personality MC Epecially since lots of her MC are kind of an a**hole sometimes (I like to play as a goody two shoes, you see). But they're interesting.
And apparently, Jude likes to write party scene. All of her WIPs have a party scene.
I have mixed feelings about We Wretched Creatures because MC makes me feel miserable. Like I really want to be angry at everyone but turns out I was the a**hole all along and I deserve those bullying? If I were MC I would immediately kms. I am also not a fan of the supernatural genre. I don't know why but I feel like when the culprit is something supernatural, suddenly it doesn't feel as scary anymore. I can't feel the tension or thrill anymore. Still, it's still interesting to read about clinically insane MC lol.

Also, what do you guys know about this author? Like does she update her works often? Because I feel like I've heard Excellent Cadavers and We Wretched Creatures since years ago, turns out not much has been posted yet. Excellent Cadavers only has the prologue out. And We Wretched Creatures only has 7 episodes out (but in the author's defense, she seems to plan it to be 15 episodes? So she's like almost halfway done). I really like her works so far, but I don't know how much hope I can put into these stories I'm afraid one day she just gets bored and start a new project and abandon her previous works

I don't really like her stories. Wretched Creatures is a mystery game and I'm biased against mystery games. Heavenly Stars is too short and I've never played Cadavers. Tbh if she has multiple WIPs going on and hasn't updated any in years, they're all dead... RIP. I advise authors against working on multiple WIPs, just focus on a single one, or at most two.

The problem with preset-personality MCs is that, obviously, the authors dictate the personality. I played a dead WIP (forgot the name, you were a kitsune in ancient Japan?) where at the start the MC was a blank canvas and players could choose their personality. But as the story progressed if you chose something the author didn't want the MC to do, for example, killing character A, the MC would literally refuse and apologize. Never saw that WIP again.

Alongside fake choices (which are way too common across IFs), preset personality MCs are my most hated thing. I don't mind if there are some pages without dialogue choices where the MC talks a lot, AS long as their personality stays aligned with what I've been choosing throughout the story. But the moment I pick my MC to be stoic/brave and then on the next page the author writes them whimpering and crying in fear I lose it. Another gripe of mine is when there are very few options for personality and none of them align with yours. Example: Broken Fable.

In Broken Fable you are a 100000 year old badass of your choosing (Lucifer, Zeus, etc), and at the start of the story, you're confronted by an RO because you didn’t intervene in a fight where her mother died. Instead of giving choices that align with the MC’s personality, you're only given two: "I didn’t want to" and "I was scared." The latter is very bad because my MC wasn’t a coward. Scared of what??? (The lucifer MC literally killed God, btw, and in the next scene, the MC literally solos an entire group of superpowered people without any diff.) Things like that are clearly made just to keep the plot going, but it wouldn’t hurt to add an option like, "I made a promise to stay by your side even if it meant not protecting your mother," or "uhhh she was buying us time to escape." or something along those lines.

Actually, the more I think about it, Broken Fable is kind of a messed up game when it comes to romance, since you can literally romance an 18-year-old who became attached to you because you were the only person she had after her mother died. Idk, as a 10000000000 year old god, I wouldn’t want to date a kid.

 

[God]

Got me excited there for a second. I'll try it anyway.

It has potential it has the actual Xianxia feel like down to translation too lol. Just feels so incoherent, also it’s basically be super nice or just psychotic evil most of the time no middle ground. It’s like the author knows about cultivation genre and started speed running through the story because the author wants to get out of childhood. It is overpowered that most people have been looking for though. I give it like a 4 it has potential but not counting on it even ever finishing. Author already set up a Patreon first release.

 

[Glitch]

Hey guys, what are your opinions on Jude's IFs (We Wretched Creatures, Excellent Cadavers, O Your Heavenly Stars)?
I like her WIPs so far. Though they are really really short.

I think she’s the only author who updates frequently and makes her updates —> public fairly quickly. Part of that probably comes down to — like you said — the preset MC — with only two personality options for interacting with the ROs, you’re basically playing as one of two predefined MC types. The personalities she puts are often on opposite ends of the spectrum: in WWC, you can choose to be either kind and shy or abrasive with a foul mouth; in OYHS, you can either be obedient or rebellious, with occasional opportunities for playful and humorous responses. Though, it's true that these options are kind of limiting in terms of roleplay. However, I sometimes appreciate when there are clear, even if few, personality choices — it means they’re easily tracked and impactful, and it also saves me the headache of creating an MC.
I think she does have a vision for where her IFs are going, and she genuinely makes an effort to research, and both her premises and characters shape up to be unique.

WWC started off strong, but over time it felt like the MC had less and less influence over the investigation, especially after Nia joined. When it was just Imre and Lorcan, we could at least choose who to investigate with — since they couldn’t stand each other — or force them to work together, keeping Crowny at the center of the story. Now, though, Crowny feels more like a background character. And when you try to push back, you realize you’re completely outmatched in the battle of witty comebacks and have nobody in your corner : one character is openly hostile toward you (at least he has a reason to be), another is manipulating you, and the third likes making decisions and talking in your stead and still treats you like you’re close friends.
Even when I play a kind Crowny — someone who hates what they’re becoming and blames it on the thing possessing them, and regretting their actions — it doesn’t seem to change much. It feels like the only interesting thing about Crowny is the fact that they're possessed (though I do enjoy when they get crazy strong); otherwise, there’s not much depth to them. I initially thought they might be gifted, but it turns out they’re not even doing well academically. Sometimes I just feel bad for them — they have no real friends, a terrible family (except for Sally, who must be protected at all costs), and they’re constantly bullied, taken advantage of, and made fun of.
I’m really looking forward to when they discover what's up with MC and realize that some things were really beyond their control. As it stands, I don’t know how the romance with Lorcan would even unfold, and I’m curious to see how Orla’s bullying of Crowny will be acknowledged, especially with everyone blaming them for her death.
What really bothered me, though, was when Imre admits he’s using the MC to provoke a reaction by inviting the bully — something that could actually lead to his death — but then the story just moves on as if nothing happened.
As for OYHS, I think it’s shaping up to be a really good IF.

 

[Re336]

I think she’s the only author who updates frequently and makes her Patreon updates —> public fairly quickly.

I'm glad to hear that!
So far, I really enjoy reading her works. Even though her MC are preset, they're at least interesting to read. Very interesting to follow through the story. I can't wait for her next update

 

[Lovecraft]

The M

Hey guys, what are your opinions on Jude's IFs (We Wretched Creatures, Excellent Cadavers, O Your Heavenly Stars)?
I like her WIPs so far. Though they are really really short.

Not really a big fan of preset personality MC Epecially since lots of her MC are kind of an a**hole sometimes (I like to play as a goody two shoes, you see). But they're interesting.
And apparently, Jude likes to write party scene. All of her WIPs have a party scene.
I have mixed feelings about We Wretched Creatures because MC makes me feel miserable. Like I really want to be angry at everyone but turns out I was the a**hole all along and I deserve those bullying? If I were MC I would immediately kms. I am also not a fan of the supernatural genre. I don't know why but I feel like when the culprit is something supernatural, suddenly it doesn't feel as scary anymore. I can't feel the tension or thrill anymore. Still, it's still interesting to read about clinically insane MC lol.

Also, what do you guys know about this author? Like does she update her works often? Because I feel like I've heard Excellent Cadavers and We Wretched Creatures since years ago, turns out not much has been posted yet. Excellent Cadavers only has the prologue out. And We Wretched Creatures only has 7 episodes out (but in the author's defense, she seems to plan it to be 15 episodes? So she's like almost halfway done). I really like her works so far, but I don't know how much hope I can put into these stories I'm afraid one day she just gets bored and start a new project and abandon her previous works

Her MCs are too passive and are frequently sidelined by other characters which I dislike but other then that her Ifs are very good

 

[yourstalkeroutside]

View attachment 22736
The moment i saw "Overpowered protagonist" I clicked ASAP

That game desperately needs an editor or at the very least a beta reader. The amount of errors in it is almost amusing. Bonus points for being new and already having a patreon.

 

[yourstalkeroutside]

Well so far there are three chinese inspired cultivation WIPs (Aura Clash, Path of martial artist, and this one). There are probably more that I'm missing out on but Aura Clash is my favorite by far. Time for chinese cultivation to become a genre in IF as popular as mystery and drama 🗣

There's also Out of the Yinshan but it isn't as action oriented as the other three at least as far as I've read.

 

[Parallax]

I don't really like her stories. Wretched Creatures is a mystery game and I'm biased against mystery games. Heavenly Stars is too short and I've never played Cadavers. Tbh if she has multiple WIPs going on and hasn't updated any in years, they're all dead... RIP. I advise authors against working on multiple WIPs, just focus on a single one, or at most two.

The problem with preset-personality MCs is that, obviously, the authors dictate the personality. I played a dead WIP (forgot the name, you were a kitsune in ancient Japan?) where at the start the MC was a blank canvas and players could choose their personality. But as the story progressed if you chose something the author didn't want the MC to do, for example, killing character A, the MC would literally refuse and apologize. Never saw that WIP again.

Alongside fake choices (which are way too common across IFs), preset personality MCs are my most hated thing. I don't mind if there are some pages without dialogue choices where the MC talks a lot, AS long as their personality stays aligned with what I've been choosing throughout the story. But the moment I pick my MC to be stoic/brave and then on the next page the author writes them whimpering and crying in fear I lose it. Another gripe of mine is when there are very few options for personality and none of them align with yours. Example: Broken Fable.

In Broken Fable you are a 100000 year old badass of your choosing (Lucifer, Zeus, etc), and at the start of the story, you're confronted by an RO because you didn’t intervene in a fight where her mother died. Instead of giving choices that align with the MC’s personality, you're only given two: "I didn’t want to" and "I was scared." The latter is very bad because my MC wasn’t a coward. Scared of what??? (The lucifer MC literally killed God, btw, and in the next scene, the MC literally solos an entire group of superpowered people without any diff.) Things like that are clearly made just to keep the plot going, but it wouldn’t hurt to add an option like, "I made a promise to stay by your side even if it meant not protecting your mother," or "uhhh she was buying us time to escape." or something along those lines.

Actually, the more I think about it, Broken Fable is kind of a messed up game when it comes to romance, since you can literally romance an 18-year-old who became attached to you because you were the only person she had after her mother died. Idk, as a 10000000000 year old god, I wouldn’t want to date a kid.

I think I agree with everything you said. That's probably why I don't play any new IFs these days nor games like The King's Hound, Wretched Creatures, or A Tale of Crowns.

Btw. Has anyone played The Sovereign's Ring? It has some annoying things that you mentioned @Fuffff, in certain scenes. There is some potential though.

Spoiler

Unless you want to play MC who isn't interested in the throne. The plot seems a bit pointless to me then. Like... You can just throw the ring away, who's to stop you. Or give it to one of your brothers. End of story. The ring is not magical (as far as I know) and has no any powers that would force us somehow to keep it and continue the game of thrones.

 

[Fuffff]

I think I agree with everything you said. That's probably why I don't play any new IFs these days nor games like The King's Hound, Wretched Creatures, or A Tale of Crowns.

Btw. Has anyone played The Sovereign's Ring? It has some annoying things that you mentioned @Fuffff, in certain scenes. There is some potential though.

Spoiler

Unless you want to play MC who isn't interested in the throne. The plot seems a bit pointless to me then. Like... You can just throw the ring away, who's to stop you. Or give it to one of your brothers. End of story. The ring is not magical (as far as I know) and has no any powers that would force us somehow to keep it and continue the game of thrones.

The story is a bit slow for me. I've played so many games where you're a child in the prologue and the same prologue seems to go on forever, so I tend to avoid WIPs like this. But it has potential and is well-written

 

[BiscuitB]

Sometimes I just feel bad for them — they have no real friends, a terrible family (except for Sally, who must be protected at all costs), and they’re constantly bullied, taken advantage of, and made fun of.

Pretty much feel the same it's like a constant sob story for MC, your parents don't love you, your brother barely tolerates you. Your other brother Sally is so over protective but for me it's like are they protecting me or protecting everybody else. No matter what happens somehow it feels like MC is to blame their bullied at school, at home. Like their basically a "freak" (not my choice of words). Like you can tell you did something that cause Orla to truly hate you, but your still not explained what and everyone keep avoiding it which is massively frustrating. (please take into account that I'm not read the last two chapter as it's hard to deal feeling like a piece of ****, and not having any control when your trying to be the nice character)

 

[tk3012]

I don't usually comment on IF here, but I do spend a lot of time looking at this thread and I agree with quite a few of its opinions. But, honestly, today I need to vent and release all my frustration and disgust at so many things I'm seeing in IF lately, that I don't even know where to start.

I'd like to point out that English is not my first language, so please ignore anything. I just really need to get all my disgust out there.

I want to start by saying that lately there seems to be some collective outbreak among IF authors, where they all seem to have come to the consensus that cheating ROs is interesting and cool. I'm an avid reader of romance and fantasy, so I'm always looking for IF that has both, but I have no problem reading IF that only has one. The point is that now, everyone I meet seems to be normalizing an unfaithful RO simply because they do. Because, seriously, honest question, who looks at an RO like this and says "That's the one I want"?
I refuse to think that there are people who like this kind of RO.
An example of my pure dislike for one of this type is the R in that recent IF "You can't stop your love from dying", which I'm not even sure is the right name, but you've probably caught who it is. Whom I have a deep dislike for. Since he cheats on the MC and doesn't mind saying so when they find out, because after all, *** for him isn't love, so he's not cheating. And to make matters worse, from what I've seen, R and the MC are still together.

And R manages to be the combo of the "******* who thinks he's right and MC is a drama queen" + "the infidel". Which to me is as if they'd stuck Milo and Seven in a pot and he'd come out. And I don't think I need to tell you how much I hate both of them and their entire IF, because, frankly, we'd be here for hours just stating the obvious that has already been stated by yourselves, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

Which brings me to the next point, which all these ROs have in common:
Authors with characters who make you want to rinse your mouth out with bleach, yet the authors try at all costs to justify their actions.

I remember seeing someone's comment here, saying that just because someone wrote about an unfaithful character, it didn't mean that the author agreed with the character's attitudes. Which I agree with, after all, it's not because you write an IF that has violence, for example, that you agree with it. BUT IN THIS CASE, it's impossible not to think that these authors like the attitudes they write about. Because the extent to which they justify their characters' actions is unbelievable.
I already hate the fact that characters like that are ROs, but it gets even worse when the author himself knows that the character's attitudes are bad and that their character is horrible, but they want to give me at all costs a justification for them being like that, when no matter what you tell me, they're horrible. Stop wanting to put flowers on their head as if they were an angel.

Not to mention the fact that any complaint you make against their beloved character, they'll go straight to rudeness and ignorance with you. Which we already know the authors of Infamous, Night market and CoAaF (which, despite the fact that the damn king isn't an RO, falls into the same category as sympathizing with characters that are impossible to sympathize with) love to do.
And to add to my disgust, they don't put a single warning on the IF page about this kind of thing. And so I go blindly to IF about it, and come away with the urge to wash my eyes out with bleach and throw my cell phone at the wall.
If you're going to make characters like this, let me know in advance on the IF page, so I can save myself the time of reading garbage like this. And by that I mean, preferably, ON IF ITSELF. I can't stand reading IFs like this anymore, only to go to tumblr to find out that I'm definitely not the target audience, because the authors refuse to put it on IF. A perfect example of this, again, is R. I only found out that he cheated on the MC because I decided to take a look at the author's tumblr, which at least freed me from the eventual anger that I would get if I continued reading this bomb. Which unfortunately didn't happen with Night market, where I only found out about Milo's forced polygamy when I was well into IF, which gives me a headache just remembering it.

That's what I wanted to get off my chest.

Of course, there are other things like WIP authors who never update, but still have Patreon active, and keep saying every month that they haven't abandoned IF, just to give readers hope and keep them giving money. Wayfarer and KOE for me are other separate issues, because they're both good, but Wayfarer has the issue of impossible schedules to be done alone and KOE doing rewrites of things he didn't need because they were already good as they were.

Oh, and there are also those who like to torture and put as much trauma as possible on the MC, which you won't be able to choose how to deal with, or even do anything about. If it's meant to be a revenge IF, I WANT VENGEANCE, not therapy with some NPC that makes me want to give up on revenge if it's not a decision I choose myself.

Anyway, that's it