Stray Heirs: interactive romantic fantasy -- comments pleeeease?

stray

Hi guys,

I'm 4 chapters into an interactive romantic fantasy novel, and would really love some feedback on how it plays, whether I'm making stupid n00b mistakes, characters, writing, etc.

The art is lame I know -- does anyone have suggestions for free/low cost sources?

Game is here: http://strayheirs.neocities.org/

It includes mild sexual content.

Thanks in advance!

Elyne

Willy Elektrix

This is really good! The story moves very quickly and I like that I get to make choices very frequently (even if most of them don't impact the story much). I think the most satisfying parts are the dialogue sequences. I like that some of them are rather lengthy.

A few comments:

The first page should have buttons to skip ahead to the various chapters. However, I understand that this would be impossible if the chapters are not self-contained (i.e. there are variables that are carried between them)

In Chapter 2: "You feel yourself blush, remembering your daydream from just hours ago. In real life, he's far more frightening than you recalled -- and also far more magnetic. You lower your eyes to avoid meeting his."

This comment appears even if you did not actually make the choice that causes this daydream. This makes me believe that the chapters are self-contained. Is that true?

In Chaper 3: The battle with the wolves is kind of lame. The choices that are dangerous are really obvious. For instance, "hesitate", who would ever choose that? I understand that you do not want to have the player die arbitrarily, but why give them the choice at all?

stray

Thanks @Willy Elektrix! Very much appreciate the feedback -- these are all very good points. I'm glad you liked the focus on dialogue, since this is something I haven't seen done much. The chapters weren't self-contained initially, but I've just broken it up so I can link them from the front page. And I totally agree, the wolves are lame. I was re-reading it and thought the same thing. Need to provide some meaningful agency there.