Play book
A Mother's Vengence's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Concept & Originality | #13 | 3.944 | 3.944 |
| Flow & Clarity | #15 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.648 | 3.648 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #26 | 3.222 | 3.222 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
This was a great read! As others have noted, it's impressive to see how a few lines of lore across a few army books lead to this story.
As far as concept and originality go, I see a basis from other universes that have helped build OPR, but it deviates enough for an enjoyable read. If I understood correctly (it's been a long work week and not a lot of sleep), The Silver Queen was a High Elf, and the Golden King a human. I think if anything, I want to see more of your universe's lore. Admittedly, it's hard to expect that from 1000 words!
Flow and clarity was great, I have no comments here.
I saw two themes emerge as unconventional weapons: knowledge, and companionship. Curious if you intended both to serve in that theme, or if was a happy coincidence.
Thanks for submitting this story to the jam for us to read!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read with such a busy schedule (not an easy feat!).
Yes, the SQ for the story in this context as presented is a high elf (running from the Robot Legions she may have had a hand in AI development....) and the GQ is human from around the late neolithic early Chalcolithic era (so primitive, but developing). You hit square upon two of the main themes, the lesser ones include two sides of apathy with her using/developing Mankind for her own ends (from the selfishness of keeping him alive with the gene programs at other expense since she is suffering from emotional loss due to eternal-ish life that he staves off) to the creation of Custodes/Brothers/Sisters and the human sphere infrastructure as a tool for revenge against the Legions for her past (mistakes?) and his sacrifice for her, and lastly their possible repeating hubris in OPR history with Man being unleashed (which ultimately endangers her own people and maybe lets loose Havoc entities into OPR), and of course, the crazy things love makes you do despite yourself sometimes (both nobily and selfishly).
Definitely, a lot of possibilities to pull threads on and an aspect I want to explore in the future differently (hopefully) for the Robot Legions is all the different directions a rampant A.I. can go (why wouldn't it explore ALL possible combinations?) that isn't just the usual terminate/exterminate all organics or borgify.
Anyway, it's proving to be a lot of fun and it's great there were so many submissions that can really broaden OPR into its own thing (after all its primary source is VERY VERY derivative in areas, yet builds a whole unique universe from it).
This is now my official headcanon for the GK and GQ!
So glad you enjoyed it, that is extremely high praise and very appreciated!
This is pretty impressive giving so much lore to the OPR universe with such a limited word budget, i like your take on the universe!
Thank you, I like how the OPR background so far is very familiar, but at the same time not so restrictive that it allows many interpretations!
wow. that was amazing! well written and a interesting take on the grimdark lore
Thank you, I was thinking the same for so many of the submissions - the Jackals I think are now getting really fleshed out by some of the stories that blend very well together.
Well-written and concise writing style.
Thank you, the word count was strict, but ultimately I think a less is more approach worked out ok.
It's a tricky thing to carry off a story spanning thousands of years in a sharply limited word count, and I appreciate the adroitness with which you pulled it off.
What I really liked was how, with only the paragraph or so of lore in the OPR army books as a guide, you've managed to put a very compelling and wholly coherent spin on the ideas and imagery from the setting that inspired Grimdark Future - very well done.
Thank you for your kind words! Having been very familiar with the source material I was looking for a way to separate it from said source while also keeping it very close LOL; I didn't expect to find that hook in the Sisters and Elf Fleet OPR lore in particular.
Wow, I thought this was quite well written
Thank you, I am very happy you enjoyed the story, I know it had a lot of description versus action and that doesn't usually read well (to much "tell" and not enough "show").