A great concept in fleshing out ideas for the faction (and loved the notes at the end.) The flow is a little rough, but I think on the second or third pass it clicks. The idea of the Robots being "Uplifters" and having an entity (and perhaps more) within them questioning the tenets is pretty neat.
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Catechism of the Wraiths's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Concept & Originality | #9 | 4.227 | 4.227 |
| Overall | #23 | 3.561 | 3.561 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #25 | 3.318 | 3.318 |
| Flow & Clarity | #29 | 3.136 | 3.136 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Loved the concept, indifferent about the execution. Your core idea of trying to put a fresh spin on a faction pays off in spades though, and will definitely stick with me, even if the story itself probably won't.
Submitted
Record of Mourndrift WarIn truth feel the same about the story, as the jam and writing proved more an exercise to share ideas for expanding on divergent lore than to do justice to theme in the very short time I had to work with. Seeing several good entries that also bring fresh perspectives, so hoping some of these sentiments stick even if the individual stories do not get continuation
It was a little confusing to follow at times and the links to the theme may have been lost to me, I still enjoyed what I was reading, the internal dialogue between the two personalities was fascinating.
Submitted
Shots FiredLove this take on the Robot Legions. The idea of an entity firm in its beliefs shown the truth of the matter after what is probably eons of obedience to Robot Legion Transcendance. I'd love to see how this changes the protagonist's dealings with non-Robots as well as those Robots still conforming to the current 'version' of RL OS...
Submitted
Benevolentia Regulaethanks for the added notes, definitely agree that there is room to explore and move away from the source material. Your take matches fairly close to another story idea I had for RL and waiting for a chance to write about., so it is great to see a different perspective and descriptive adjectives.
Submitted
Are We the Bad Guys?I appreciate that you shared your notes and some insights into your writing process, and I'll take those into account in my comments.
I found the flow of the story a little hard to follow at times. You could literally double the story's length and still fit within the word count limit, so, especially when you're trying to evoke a very alien mindset and perspective, I would add a line or two that helps clarify what's going on - without "breaking character", naturally.
That said, I always appreciate when writers try and depart from the ideas and lore of the "source" franchise and play with what makes the OPR lore unique, and I like how you explore the Robot Legions' unique psychology. I think again you could benefit from more of a back-and-forth here - I would have appreciated seeing Kali a little further along in the development of her heterodox philosophy, rather than the very initial stages. I think that might have worked better as an exploration of the theme by setting up a dialogue about different modes of 'good' and their contrasting evils.
The flow and context definitely suffered due to having the time between two World Cup matches to do some research and submit an entry, closing out knowing I had just edged past the 500 word minimum. Felt I could get away with it by having readers fill in some of the blanks but after revisiting it a few days later it’s all quite rough. Thanks for reading, though!
Thank you for writing! I did enjoy the work and, let me add that the titular Catechism as a central motif was a good choice. I think that's what made me curious to see both where Kali's thoughts develop, and to further explore the idea of a robotic civilization with a "religious" central theme - it's an unusual worldbuilding choice, and therefore quite compelling.
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