Stories that left you disappointed for a reason

[Benu]

It's called Autumn Wind: https://cogdemos.ink/play/laderyuss/autumn-winds/mygame

Just finished reading the demo, and it was awesome! Even if gender-locked, we can play as an overachieved lord of a high standing (a marquis, above everyone else except for duke and the royal of course). The scenes with the perfect MC is so hilariously over the top, it actually got a few giggles out of me. The prose is a bit confusing sometimes but otherwise it's simple enough to understand the big picture. It has built-in mod to max out skills and attributes too. It has its flaws of course, but it can easily be overlooked. It is wordy, and long, and definitely more book than gameplay.

*did I say "overachieved"? It should be over accomplished!

Really good recommendation, the pianoforte genius scene and angelic face scene had taken a laught out of me, easy going funny experience.

It got a small update yesterday, added visual cues for skill checks and a pov that ends with mc and the gang arriving at the ball.

 

[SasariRomanii]

Really good recommendation, the pianoforte genius scene and angelic face scene had taken a laught out of me, easy going funny experience.

It got a small update yesterday, added visual cues for skill checks and a pov that ends with mc and the gang arriving at the ball.

Wonder how Mary's painoforte scene will play out in this one! Especially after the London lot has been blessed by MC's mastery over the instrument just the day before. Poor Mary. The cherry on top is definitely Lizzy's POV at the end of the current demo. MC so fine she lost her precious wit on sight

Since this is a thread for bad IF, tis only mandatory to put a complain: THE ABYSSAL HAS A SNEAK PEEK FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER ON PATREON, after basically being dead, abandoned, forgotten, for like — half a year? A full year? Two years? It feels so long. And the Patreon is still active whyyyyy. I swear Authors with Patreon update slower than those without!

 

[Benu]

Wonder how Mary's painoforte scene will play out in this one! Especially after the London lot has been blessed by MC's mastery over the instrument just the day before. Poor Mary. The cherry on top is definitely Lizzy's POV at the end of the current demo. MC so fine she lost her precious wit on sight

Since this is a thread for bad IF, tis only mandatory to put a complain: THE ABYSSAL HAS A SNEAK PEEK FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER ON PATREON, after basically being dead, abandoned, forgotten, for like — half a year? A full year? Two years? It feels so long. And the Patreon is still active whyyyyy. I swear Authors with Patreon update slower than those without!

Definitly teasing Mary but offering to teach her If i can, Lizzy is going crazy with the marquess reveal and Mrs. Bennet plotting like one of those cartoon villains will always be funny to me.

Worst still is knowing chapter 3 of the abyssal will be divided in parts, i mean after so much time and you only have part 1 more or less complete? (i could be burning my tongue here and the chapter has 100k+ words but its unlikely) seriously the story hasnt even begun yet, all flashbacks (that are great ngl) and prison break.

True, few authors can manage a patreon, everyone says that its Just to support the author but most of the time It derails things up (we all know the drill), in the end of the day money speaks louder.

 

[bosslady]

I'm not sure what to think of Patreon, myself. Like yeah, some authors are making absolute bank, but for most is a hit or miss if they will get anyone to donate and if they do, I'm not sure it is enough to like quit your job and write full time (or I could be wrong, depends on where is the author located). Plus, it seems like they might feel more obligated to keep the Patreon updated (either with a private demo, or snippets or short stories) and sometimes the free readers wait a long time until the update is available to them.
I mean, yeah good for them for getting money, but I wish they could release very old stories to the public too.

 

[SasariRomanii]

Like yeah, some authors are making absolute bank, but for most is a hit or miss if they will get anyone to donate and if they do, I'm not sure it is enough to like quit your job and write full time (or I could be wrong, depends on where is the author located).

They like to say that Patreon is donation but that sounds kinda wrong? It's not a one time thing where you tip a bit of cash and done, and you can come back again later if you feel like giving some more monetary support for the author. This is a paid subscription for content access. Not only that, it's a tiered paid subscription! The more money you give per month, the better the contents you get (though the quality and consistency of the content is debatable). Don't know about anyone else but that doesn't sound like donation to me. If it is, then I guess the monthly payment for Netflix counts as donation too or is that a different thing because Netflix is a big company?

 

[SasariRomanii]

Post by @fateunwritten-if

💬 4 🔁 12 ❤️ 111 · While you are right, regarding the absolute shitty behaviour of some toxic anons towards IF authors, keep in mind that nsfw asks are pretty normal for those who include such ele…

www.tumblr.com

Nah, lady. We're absolutely buying products here. Those being your stories whether it be the main story or the little side stories. This is a market not charity. Authors should stop pretending otherwise and get down from their fake a55 moral high-ground and feeble idealism.

Even if I can kinda spare a bit of sympathy for her, she just keeps having these big L takes that she should really refrain from social media altogether. Like girl, this is the internet. What do you expect?

 

[SasariRomanii]

Delulu delulu

Also, "he" from where? They don't know the identity of this anon, the person could be a woman. It's not just guys who criticize them... or are they not aware that the majority of people who care enough to follow them and their stories are women? These authors are out of touch. Most of them don't even know that most readers prefer to read IFs via mobile phone and that's why the Twine format they're using is such a pain. F8cking hypocrites, I swear; "Don't assume someone's gender, except that anyone who disagrees or criticize us must automatically be men!"

 

[Fuffff]

sorry if this has been discussed before but do we know what games have confirmed AI usage? (where the author has confirmed it themselves)

I can’t stand AI tbh, I find it so soulless. As for writers that have English as their second language, I can understand the appeal of using AI for editing and grammar but I hope it doesn’t become a widespread thing

100% Confirmed: Echoes of Olympus,Dragons' Covenant, and Heroes and Heretics. I don't think many authors would admit they use AI so kudos to them for at least confessing (The author of Heroes and Heretics didn't even confess)

One I'm almost sure used AI: Project Variant (pretty sure the story got deleted too)

An IF I find weird: Shadows of Halcyon.

The problem with the author of D'C is that (if I remember correctly), he said he translated the words from his language straight up into English, which ended up in a slop of gptisms. A better idea would have been to use GPT to correct his grammar without changing every word.

An example would be: go to GPT, write a random sentence, and just tell GPT to fix the grammar, it'll fix it without changing the sentence.

 

[Lovecraft]

Wait project variant got deleted? Damm I really liked that one

100% Confirmed: Echoes of Olympus,Dragons' Covenant, and Heroes and Heretics. I don't think many authors would admit they use AI so kudos to them for at least confessing (The author of Heroes and Heretics didn't even confess)

One I'm almost sure used AI: Project Variant (pretty sure the story got deleted too)

An IF I find weird: Shadows of Halcyon.

The problem with the author of D'C is that (if I remember correctly), he said he translated the words from his language straight up into English, which ended up in a slop of gptisms. A better idea would have been to use GPT to correct his grammar without changing every word.

An example would be: go to GPT, write a random sentence, and just tell GPT to fix the grammar, it'll fix it without changing the sentence.

 

[SasariRomanii]

Damn. The Abyssal Song is full of either unimportant or false choices, isn't it? It even manages to feel more railroady than Whiskey Four and SoH. Somehow. Which shouldn't be possible, but here we are.

There are lots of passages where meaningful choices can be implemented but nonononono — that is too much work.

Also, I keep forgetting that we're in the demon realm and that everyone is a demon. Aside from fancy eye/hair colors (that is a basic feature for a fantasy world) and demon forms, there's nothing distinct about them.

The story is enjoyable, the writing is passable (though there's something tedious about it), and the romance options are not annoying so... yeay, I guess?

Despite having a sanity meter that should be important, it is almost impossible to achieve very low sanity without the help of mod. I modded my sanity to be about 25 percent at the start of the game and it goes up to 55.

Come on now. I want to be unhinged!

There's barely anything happening when MC's sanity is low, either. Where's the consequences? We're already on Chapter 6, for heaven's sake. And why can't we slap the sh8t out of... uhh... Gary? Gerald? Who's that demon boy that got MC arrested again?? Idk. Unimportant.

 

[seneya]

Damn. The Abyssal Song is full of either unimportant or false choices, isn't it?

Because the main choice is who you are going to romance, silly. Who cares about anything else? (I'm only half-joking btw, which is fine, I kinda accepted most popular games revolve around romance nowadays)

Come on now. I want to be unhinged!

You'll be unhinged when the plot tells you to, but only so that ROs can coddle you about it and be all ~drama~.

Sorry, feeling vicious today.

 

[clover]

Press Play is the only one I would recommend from the celebrity IFs category. It's not toxic (yet), the author doesn't seem to favors one character, and the MC is well written. One of the problems with this story might be that it will be too linear. But for now it's early stage. We'll see.

Really loved the IF but had to force myself to drop it because of the author's behaviour on Tumblr.

 

[bosslady]

Oook now I gotta know what happened. The only thing that made me raise my eyebrows at that author was an ask about how the ROs would react if MC made some grand gesture and all the reactions felt very insulting? Like they look at the MC as dumb or something. Only for them to drop in the tags "I don't like grand gestures, can you tell?"

Yeah, like sure, whatever, but why the characters have the same reaction as you?? All of them, even the Linc (the simp I think?)
OK, I think I remember the gesture: MC sitting outside the RO's house while blasting love songs out of a boombox.

 

[Lovecraft]

Oook now I gotta know what happened. The only thing that made me raise my eyebrows at that author was an ask about how the ROs would react if mc made some grand gesture and all the reactions felt very insulting? Like they look at the MC as dumb or something. Only for them to drop in the tags "I don't like grand gestures, can you tell?"

Yeah, like sure, whatever, but why the characters have the same reaction as you??

That seems like a really condescending and rude reply to a normal question why did she even answer the ask then ?

 

[seneya]

The only thing that made me raise my eyebrows at that author was an ask about how the ROs would react if mc made some grand gesture and all the reactions felt very insulting? Like they look at the MC as dumb or something. Only for them to drop in the tags "I don't like grand gestures, can you tell?"

I think I remember the author making a post (?), or a comment maybe, stating she disliked asks that focus on insignificant RO details? when it's not what matters, or what the story is meant to be about (but take this with a grain of salt, I'm not gonna sort through the blog to find/re-read stuff)
I think that, to a degree, the author might be a bit, uh, what's the word? Disdainful? Of some of her readers.
And, to a degree, I get her, as it seems she is trying to write a serious story about mental health, only for people to go all ~tee hee~
But, well, she can just not answer the asks she dislikes, and make it clear that she doesn't accept certain types of asks.

 

[clover]

She tends to take everything as an attack. Like I would understand if someone was being rude yk? But She responds aggressively/condescendingly to even questions about the story itself. (No, i am not talking about mundane RO asks that don't contribute to anything.)

 

[clover]

Also, why do authors get so pissed when someone dislikes a character of theirs? I have seen COUNTLESS authors and fans jump up to defend the non existent honour of their favourites like relax samantha take it as a compliment. It means your characters sound real/convincing enough

 

[SasariRomanii]

Another case of author who should be mindful of any sort of interactions. Knowing Liza is on the spectrum (legitimately diagnosed by experts, she revealed the fact a long time ago on the CoG forum when Such Happy Campers is still being worked) and struggles with socializing, and clearly hasn't find a way to sort of regulate her symptoms (don't know what other word to use) — it's really not a good idea to put up a Tumblr page with an open ask. Just like the Fateunwritten author.

These authors often form some sort of parasocial relationship with their readers and are prone to vent. Like how Fate posted about her awful childhood experience, on TUMBLR of all places, the site that's literally infamous for its degeneracy and abundance of PDF FILES, and then be shocked when most people don't gaf and even become more vicious towards her. This kind of ignorance is dangerous for themselves as proven by their own grievances that are shown for all to see.

 

[ADB446]

Also, why do authors get so pissed when someone dislikes a character of theirs? I have seen COUNTLESS authors and fans jump up to defend the non existent honour of their favourites like relax samantha take it as a compliment. It means your characters sound real/convincing enough

I'm not a big fan of this either and Press Play author, and a lot of others do this quite often. I appreciate when authors allow you to dislike/form your own opinions on a character without making you feel guilty about it . I really just don't like Zima. I get the nuance of their character, but I don't like them as a person .

 

[kecap asin]

Every single npc in we wretched creature is so infuriating. I love tragedy, but holy hell i cannot stand every interaction there.
I feel like every single problem that it has, just there to spice the story a bit and never gonna be brought up again. And the fact that they were so nonchalant about anything.