What's new
By:
Choice of Mods

Join our amazing community to find Choicescript games and modifications to improve your gameplay!

Stories that left you disappointed for a reason

Gone_Dead said:
Isnt Themistrya a prison?
Click to expand...
Yup. MC can either get captured mid-escape (and then you can either persuade or fight your captor off, or... welll... you are very high up in the air so struggling is not that good; or the mages get them. I escaped together with Veyer on my first try and got captured but wiggled out of it and thus MC got washed up unconscious)

Gone_Dead said:
Do you know what the other 8 ways are?
Click to expand...
Okay, I don't know all of them, but while I tried to talk the shroud down, I tested a bunch of diff endings just for funsies and:
1. Qiqi has it and it explodes
2. Umbria gets it and it explodes
3. Veyer destroys it
4. Aeran steals it\MC gives it to him and Aeran passes it to Qiqi. Then follows scenario 1
5. Aeran breaks it over his knee
6. MC slashes it with their sword

idk other three

btw, a curious note: it exploded every time a mage tried to interact with it. But the thing was totes fine when magiani handled it
 
Ireth313 said:
Yup. MC can either get captured mid-escape (and then you can either persuade or fight your captor off, or... welll... you are very high up in the air so struggling is not that good; or the mages get them. I escaped together with Veyer on my first try and got captured but wiggled out of it and thus MC got washed up unconscious)


Okay, I don't know all of them, but while I tried to talk the shroud down, I tested a bunch of diff endings just for funsies and:
1. Qiqi has it and it explodes
2. Umbria gets it and it explodes
3. Veyer destroys it
4. Aeran steals it\MC gives it to him and Aeran passes it to Qiqi. Then follows scenario 1
5. Aeran breaks it over his knee
6. MC slashes it with their sword

idk other three

btw, a curious note: it exploded every time a mage tried to interact with it. But the thing was totes fine when magiani handled it
Click to expand...
Hmm. Watch the magic types go crazy when they find out those with magic are the odd one outs. Not that they'll accept it. Hell, Quirinus probably suspects this but consoles himself by saying magiani are the 8th sphere.
 
Gone_Dead said:
Hell, Quirinus probably suspects this but consoles himself
Click to expand...
I think he might be right here, because the dude probably is the most studied on the nature of the spheres, but wouldn't that be hillarious? I imagine local religious zealots will have a fit over it. I have a wild theory that astrials and allassar were made with a similar process or starting material and that's why mages can't use it 🤔
 
Ireth313 said:
astrials and allassar were made with a similar process or starting material
Click to expand...
That makes sense. A material or process that's as good at stopping magic as it is conducting it. I don't think those without magic are the odd one outs, I think Quirinus is right in the sense that it's a form of magic, but I also think that humans (along with possibly elves and dwarves) likely created the Astrals to even the playing field and when that didn't work created allassar/magianis. There's a whole society hidden behind a magical wall that kills humans that magianis (often linked to humans) could possibly bypass. IIRC weren't the Astrals created in war? Explains why they explode on contact with mages. The best counter to magical enemies is something or someone completely immune to magic.
 
Zombie Exodus: Save Haven Part 4. I mean, I kinda expected that JimD would use AI when I read "Tales from the Outbreak part 2" side story. But holy ****, 80% of the dialogue is just "It's not just x, it's y".

It's become an absolute chore to get through the chapters. And I feel like the NPC suddenly doesn't have character development anymore. I'm really, really disappointed.
 
Renee said:
Zombie Exodus: Save Haven Part 4. I mean, I kinda expected that JimD would use AI when I read "Tales from the Outbreak part 2" side story. But holy ****, 80% of the dialogue is just "It's not just x, it's y".

It's become an absolute chore to get through the chapters. And I feel like the NPC suddenly doesn't have character development anymore. I'm really, really disappointed.
Click to expand...
Part 4 was just empty. Nothing really happens outside a few exposition dumps and it ends on a cliffhanger.
 
ImmortalDoe said:
Are you saying you think Jim used AI? I haven't read part 4 yet (because of the reviews) but that is wild.
Click to expand...
Yep. He sure did. I read AI writings many times, and I noticed it's writing quirk.

For example, JimD writing is like this:
"Have you heard of Safe Haven? Heard it's safe. No pun intended."

"Yeah, I heard that as well. Sounds too good to be real, to be honest."

Right now, part 4 is more like this:
"Safe Have is not just a safe place, it's the last bastion of humanity against evil stuff." Said Rachel, her voice full of hope.

"I agree. We fellow survivors have to help and care each other. We aren't just a community, we are family."



Safe to say, I'm really saddened/disappointed/mad at the same time, the first time I read them.
 
I'm not doubting you, but a big part of me just can't believe it. Jim is one of the og IF writers, he has so much to lose if he's found using AI.

And yeah, his writing has always been to the point, without a lot of flourishing, so if part 4 suddenly reads differently it'll jump out. I'll read the entire game to compare.
 
yourstalkeroutside said:
often linked to humans
Click to expand...
I think that's why MC can't actually be full-on Melusine of Aedra. It also seems like shrouds are connected to astrials somehow? Given that it's neither the first astrial nor shroud Aeran has seen.

Btw, guys, question of the week: now that Amy has uploaded a public version of ch5 is it bug-free? Contemplating if I want to waste a couple hours getting through ch 1-4 to see what my choices actually amounted to (and not have my MC yearn for August mandatorily)
 
I’ve been playing through Bastard of Camelot recently, and it was honestly nice at first, with the attention that went into creating a proper childhood arc for the main character... until it didn't stop, and it quickly went from nice details to filler. The last straw was realizing that, instead of actually advancing the story, I'm being given an option to make love eyes at dragons (still a kid, btw) and have Elaine and her issues crammed down my throat—though I didn't notice it at first because I was actually following through on romancing her—with the story making an attempt to turn you into some kind of NTR fiend.

I feel that the author overestimates how much work is actually reasonable to get done and ends up sidetracking with things like rewrites or dragon lovers, leaving it in this awkward state of eternal childhood where you can only have so much stakes and character development during what is supposed to be a prologue. Sword of Rhivenia is an example of a childhood arc being given attention without feeling like the childhood stage will outlive me (although longer childhood arcs in general don't mesh well with the episodic nature of most IFs). Also, a personal issue of mine was Morgan somehow getting away with just about everything she does, even when it's obvious (like the poisoning or her flaunting her relationship in public), and it doesn't really help solidify an image of a secretive, cunning character in my mind.
 
spacestation said:
I’ve been playing through Bastard of Camelot recently, and it was honestly nice at first, with the attention that went into creating a proper childhood arc for the main character... until it didn't stop, and it quickly went from nice details to filler. The last straw was realizing that, instead of actually advancing the story, I'm being given an option to make love eyes at dragons (still a kid, btw) and have Elaine and her issues crammed down my throat—though I didn't notice it at first because I was actually following through on romancing her—with the story making an attempt to turn you into some kind of NTR fiend.

I feel that the author overestimates how much work is actually reasonable to get done and ends up sidetracking with things like rewrites or dragon lovers, leaving it in this awkward state of eternal childhood where you can only have so much stakes and character development during what is supposed to be a prologue. Sword of Rhivenia is an example of a childhood arc being given attention without feeling like the childhood stage will outlive me (although longer childhood arcs in general don't mesh well with the episodic nature of most IFs). Also, a personal issue of mine was Morgan somehow getting away with just about everything she does, even when it's obvious (like the poisoning or her flaunting her relationship in public), and it doesn't really help solidify an image of a secretive, cunning character in my mind.
Click to expand...
It's pretty clear Llama doesn't have an outline or isn't sticking to one. As a Gawain romancer, Elaine is the worst. The NTR vibes only come from the forced crush and there's really no way to reject her or be uninterested without being kinda rude. 90% of the choices when you meet her is romance options, with the equivalent of an Episode free choice as your 'platonic' or 'uninterested' options. Until she 'fixed' it by just making duplicates of the romantic choices not give romance points but don't change anything else. With combined with chapter 5 taking forever to finish (the wedding plot is more than one chapter btw) and all the rewrites, BoC is just a giant pile of wasted potential.
 
There's two LIs (re)introduced in Chapter 5 and Nimue only gets 5 seconds of screen time (even if you deliberately pick her scenes) while you're forced to entertain (read: drool over) Elanie for half the chapter.
 
Ireth313 said:
I think that's why MC can't actually be full-on Melusine of Aedra. It also seems like shrouds are connected to astrials somehow? Given that it's neither the first astrial nor shroud Aeran has seen.

Btw, guys, question of the week: now that Amy has uploaded a public version of ch5 is it bug-free? Contemplating if I want to waste a couple hours getting through ch 1-4 to see what my choices actually amounted to (and not have my MC yearn for August mandatorily)
Click to expand...
I finally had the time to sit and play through it and it's sorta bug-free? At least nothing stopping you from progressing (at least if you play 1-4 yourself dunno about the chapter skip option but considering Amy's lack of care/beta-reading with her coding it wouldn't surprise me if it was still broken). You may have to adjust some stats manually in order to actually see non-romantic relationship stuff with August (like I looked at the code for one of the chapter five scenes for them and the threshold to get the romantic version of it was a stupidly low 1 romance point).

Also it's very, very clear she desperately needs someone to go through and find her bugs and maybe also sit down with her and make her make a master list of her variables with what they track listed/described for her to reference as she codes; like if you look at the code for her side story/pov extras in comparison to the main game she changes the variables between them (such as using sromance interchangeably for both Sebastian and Seven when in the main game she uses sev_romance/seb_romance or having sevenpast as a variable in one and spast in a different one) that probably contributes significantly to the bugs. For the main game itself it's rather clear to see (and I wouldn't be surprised if she's calling the wrong variables elsewhere that I just haven't caught) when you write for UW/SV as at least for the UW side (I haven't checked for the SV-writing side) it'll switch between thinking your writing for SV and then the very next page correctly call up reactions/flavour text for UW before going back to thinking your writing the song for SV rinse and repeat until the challenge is over.

And rereading the beginning I'm amazed she still has MC and O having the exact same convo right after the other because she added it without seeming to bother to check how it flowed with what was already there:

1780967381401.png
1780967497912.png
 
Last edited:
yourstalkeroutside said:
It's pretty clear Llama doesn't have an outline or isn't sticking to one. As a Gawain romancer, Elaine is the worst. The NTR vibes only come from the forced crush and there's really no way to reject her or be uninterested without being kinda rude. 90% of the choices when you meet her is romance options, with the equivalent of an Episode free choice as your 'platonic' or 'uninterested' options. Until she 'fixed' it by just making duplicates of the romantic choices not give romance points but don't change anything else. With combined with chapter 5 taking forever to finish (the wedding plot is more than one chapter btw) and all the rewrites, BoC is just a giant pile of wasted potential.
Click to expand...
Really? I thought the story felt decently planned—or at least planned well enough to say the rewrite is a waste of time. I think it fell victim to the 'WIP IF curse': the author originally had a strong idea of the story and its purpose, but she spent too much time deliberating over her own work. Consequently, she ends up adjusting the plan or wanting something else out of the childhood arc by the time the next episode comes out, which creates a bloated story that feels a bit directionless. It would do Bastard of Camelot a lot of good if, instead of adding to past episodes, the future ones were trimmed down so a complete story could be delivered one day—which could then be refined into the story she wants, if necessary.
 
spacestation said:
Really? I thought the story felt decently planned—or at least planned well enough to say the rewrite is a waste of time. I think it fell victim to the 'WIP IF curse': the author originally had a strong idea of the story and its purpose, but she spent too much time deliberating over her own work. Consequently, she ends up adjusting the plan or wanting something else out of the childhood arc by the time the next episode comes out, which creates a bloated story that feels a bit directionless. It would do Bastard of Camelot a lot of good if, instead of adding to past episodes, the future ones were trimmed down so a complete story could be delivered one day—which could then be refined into the story she wants, if necessary.
Click to expand...
Why I say it's lacking an outline or at least not sticking to one is how unbalanced (for lack of a better word) it is. Let's use chapter 5 as an example. 90% of the chapter is filler. Running around with Elaine does nothing to advance the story, instead it comes across as a pantser trying to pad their word count because they thought the original scenes were too short, a scene iirc had 3 variations of the same choice and there were 4 unique choices. It constantly feels like Llama writes based on vibes rather than a plan. The constant rewrites a symptom of her lack of direction, rather than the cause. She doesn't know how to continue chapter 5, that's why it's taking so long to finish. If she had an outline, she would've been much further along because she would've had an idea of where she wanted the chapter to go instead of making the chapter 90% doing random stuff with Elaine. Random ideas that she thinks sounds cool (dragon romance etc) gets the priority, because it's the new shiny and it's easier to create new ideas for on the spot.

I first realised this when she added a scene from what was originally a Patreon story into the main story (when you confront Galahad after the duel) and announced another rewrite while Chapter 5 had stayed in the same spot it was at the time (ending with the dance). It just felt like a desperate attempt to generate new ideas and keep engagement while keeping content generating for Patreon. Dragon Friend romance confirmed it for me. Especially when BoC had 7 planned LIs (3 of which only introduced as an adult, Galahad and Gawain having different variations to their romance route) before that rewrite. BoC had 3 rewrites before the tarot scene came out, and that update lasted 6 seconds.

You know when you're writing, and you reread your story after writing it, you want to add, remove and reword things because you had a very good idea at that very moment and because the current scene or chapter is giving you writer's block? This is Llama writing BoC in a nutshell. Outlines are supposed to help with that by giving you a clear idea of what you wanted for the story direction, thus helping you write what you need to be focusing on instead of relying on what ever ideas pop in your head.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top