4.9 KiB
[RT][DC][HSF][HF][WIP] The Semi Monthly Post About Oh My! Generic Monstergirls: Now with Magic System WIKI
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Author: u/Nighzmarquls *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3vuh8w/rtdchsfhfwip_the_semi_monthly_post_about_oh_my/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2015-12-07T22:04:41
Post:
Hey folks, it's that time of month-ish where I post an update to Rational Fiction!
I've really appreciated the feedback I've been getting and amused by occasionally being the most controversial post on the subreddit.
The story starts here and continues here
if the comments are annoying you I'm also cross posting the series to SpaceBattles forum here But for the next week or so that one is going to be behind the original thread.
As always Critique, feedback and random world building comments or munchkining are welcome.
Comments:
u/Roxolan [+3] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (9 hours later)
Giving it a try. Nothing to report so far, except that I really like the way you drew what your character looks like at the same rate as s/he's discovering it herself. And that you didn't draw the eyeballs.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (10 hours later)
Thank you I am proud of that one. I am trying to keep perception a fairly consistent theme in the visual art.
With mixed results.
Glad some of them work.
u/Roxolan [+2] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (a day later)
Okay, so:
I like your art style. It rocks, and it beats the hell of my expectations for a free online quest thing. I continue to like the way you handle fog of war. I like your premise, and the weirdness. I even liked the musical number.
Buuuuut...
The seven deadly words: I am not interested in these people. I see them from the outside only, so I have to rely on their behaviour to create the attachment. The problem is that
- They're a bunch of strangers stuck in a room, so they don't exactly have heart to heart talks (initial crying aside). There are occurrences of characters discovering something that makes them emotional and then quietly going off to process it on their own. Which is totally realistic, but. Sometimes I don't even get to find out what the cause of their turmoil is.
- There's a shitton of them, competing for very limited screen time. With one line of dialog per scene, no shit I don't care about lizard-girl #7.
- What little we do get to see is... not very appealing? AFAICT they're just a bunch of interchangeable excitable kids. The occasional personality traits that do come through are pretty stereotypical.
I could get past that if there was something really interesting going on, but after that initial bit of exciting exploration, there isn't much. Some banter, some dialog that's not even banter, some news about the rest of the world (which is treated like it's happening on a different planet; I don't get this unspoken voluntary confinement thing). And there's some pieces of the puzzle they're stuck in, but so far they're mostly middle sky pieces.
I got to postcount #300, and skimmed ahead a little, but I'm going to drop it for now. I really want to like it, but it's not happening.
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (2 days later)
Thank you for the time and the critique. And that actually covers one of the biggest problems I was initially trying to avoid.
Pity I didn't quite manage it yet.
To address the presented flaws going into the future: I'm already trying to ramp up the pacing and tighten up the scenes again to focus on smaller segments of the cast.
The "exposition" chunk looks like it in hindsight went on for far too long and a lot of talk with little action has been going on.
My plan from the start was to try and keep the cast of "important" protagonists to six or seven total with dynamics between threes and twos being most of the beats.
Would you mind jumping in at a later time after I've had time to try and get the plot out if this rut and tighten the focus?
That is going to take a while since this is serial fiction but I can flag the update when it gets that far.
u/Roxolan [+2] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (2 days later)
Sure, I'd be happy to give it another go at some later point. Like I said, I want to like it.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (2 days later)
Actualy your analysis really helped remind me what situation the protagonist is in at present. I was about to "skip the middle" on something important development wise. So really thanks for that .