i'm under professional suspicion of ADHD so yep, i feel you! but, with The Golden Rose as one of my favourite IFs, and ASOIAF as my fav book series, both known for having "endless" descriptions, it becomes clear the problem here is not our ADHD (i know that's not what you meant, just wanted to make it clear in case someone thinks that).
the difference between you and me is that i also have OCD: i don't skim, i feel like i have to read every single word 😭 so i just end up DNFing slow books altogether. which brings me to the question: has the author made any edits or got better regarding descriptions and info-dumping? i'd love to keep playing this game, but only if i know the slowness isn't forever.
so, i'm halfway through chapter 5 now and, yeah... my tip for the author would be to withhold lore until it's necessary. i know we can get excited with world building, but we gotta step back and ask ourselves if we're answering questions the readers, supposedly, must be eager to know by now, or if we're just oversharing at the cost of almost stopping the pace. as for now, different from the first chapters, it's too much information and too little actually happening. chapter 4 was a chore to get through, while chapter 5 literally lectures you on lore. if you're like me and is not that interested on elaine, there's not much to hold your attention, really.
hope the author understands i say those things out of love for the story, aaa 🫠💞 i'm very invested and looking forward to it. i've even been talking about it with my sister! lol. pls, author, don't feel unmotivated by the critics, i'd rather you ignore them all than abandoning this work
literally me kissing and holding hands with gawain, already planning how i'm gonna make galahad's heart mine 💀 i can't help but make my characters serial flirts even when they're CHILDREN, for god's sake. i feel like one of mordred's terrible caretakers, but in the love department...
i held that critic to msf until now, since i love the story, its characters and how well-written it is, but i agree with you 🫠 i didn't play chapater 4 yet, but i found myself skimming a third of the paragraphs at chapter 3: there was too much repetion of story beats, like how you'd have to tell other characters again and again the same things – i believe four different characters asked about my relationship with gawain. FOUR. and, since i wanted to be close to all of them, i had to recount things non-stop, even tho my mordred was already certain he liked gawain.
i believe the author doesn't understand yet how telling is equally important to showing, nor when to not include a scene all together. they're totally capable of developing these skills, tho, so i hope they don't read our comments as offensive. i love their attention to details on specific moments – like in the RPG between the little boys scene, my fav part of the book so far, lovely amazing – but there's only so much description of foods and festivities of unimportant npcs you can read until it gets tiresome.
hi, dear author! i'm loving the story a lot so far, but there seems to be a bug in the relationship stats – i've just began chapater four, and the stats are:
"Gawain:
You don't think much of him.
Galahad:
It's been five years since you first met, and planted the seed of doubt in his heart."
given that mordred is stated to be 11, and that his first kiss was with gawain in my gameplay, i don't believe those stats are correct, right?
there are also constant strange conjugations regarding my dragon's pronouns, like "they walks" and "they is" – i wasn't given the option to choose my dragon's sex as well, but idk if that's a bug or we just can't decide.
thank you sm for the effort put into this game, i wish it was completely released by now so i could spend my whole damn month on it 💔🫂
that was brilliant, way more than i ever expected. i'm in a loss of words.
it's a micro-scale game of thrones where you can mold your character's ideals, political inclinations, feelings and appearance to your liking, making them act exactly how you want them to, all while they still overflow with personality. the story is well-written, intriguing and engaging as hell, the choices have true consequences, the characters are interesting and the politics are believable!
it was particularly interesting for me to play, since our main character is a prince, born from a tyrant lineage, and i'm a literal socialist – if i was living this conflict, i most probably would've wanted the prince's head myself.
so, to make the most of my playthrough, i made my character very attached to his family, specially his dad and sister; a lover of politics and knowledge; not so good at fighting; an "idealist", as the game would call; and in love with the guy whose ideals were the opposite of his ♡. i wanted him to be at a constant conflict between grief, revenge and empathy, understanding and even agreeing with the other side, while also being pushed by his pain and his love for his sister to want to support her and regain power. i also made him a whore, but that's not the point.
as you can see, "making most of my playthrough" means making it the more chaotic and hard i could, lol.
and the game allowed me to do all of that!!!!!! the amount of work the devs must've put into the game for this to work, goddammit!
i have way more to say, but i'll leave it here and dwell into spoilers later – like, i loved this game sm, i HAVE to talk about it! it's a primal need!!! the thing is already 7 hours long and i wish it was even bigger!
for now, i'll be replaying the game, changing my character's personality and goals, making everything lesbian instead of gay and watching the chaos unfold <3
