I shared this on the Discord, but we'll be going on hiatus for a few months at least. I'm falling a bit behind on my Uni exams, and I have to prioritize those over the project. We'll still be working on new content, but not as quickly as I'd like. The Patreon's currently paused as well.
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I wanted to share my review here, in case anyone wants to add to or contest any of my points. I finished Build 1.5 last night, and I was pleasantly surprised by all the improvements compared to Build 1. There are a lot of positives with the rewrites, but also quite a few negatives, the latter of which I wanted to explore in detail in case they can help with your future updates. SPOILERS AHEAD.
For the positives: overall, the story has definitely leveled up a notch since the first build. Character interactions feel more natural, the motivations behind each character's actions are a lot clearer, and the MC's personality and background feel a lot more defined, and a lot less annoying, than they used to be. Skjold's route in particular, which I hadn't tried in my first playthrough of the game, feels very promising to me despite the rocky start, and it sets up Calder's appearance toward the end of the build much better than Fraisier's did. Overall, Skjold's route intrigued me enough to make me feel like continuing the novel come next update, and speak positively of the new Build to anyone interested in trying it out.
However, there are still some negatives worth mentioning. Here are the four main issues I find with the novel as is:
- As one of my friends put it, the pacing still feels "impatient", especially during the more "tense" action sequences. Both during the reactor meltdown in the intro, and the chase sequence in Fraisier's route, the narrator spends hefty amounts of time setting up both necessary and unnecessary context, describing the environments and people around the MC... taking away from the tension. The purpose of a fast-paced sequence is to focus solely on what's right in front of us, to preserve speed and momentum, but we can't do that and explain what's going on around us at the same time. Specifically on the intro: it's good to get context on the MC's starting world, his relationships with his colleagues, and the security mechanisms of the room he locks himself in, but because we get all that information at the same time as a reactor meltdown, a lot of that is immediately lost on the reader, and ultimately feels unimportant to what's going on. Had the novel started, for example, with the protagonist working on the device the day earlier alongside his colleagues, spending some time discussing who they are, what they're doing, why they're doing it, etc. before it all goes downhill that very night, there wouldn't have been a need to explain all that during the tense rush to the reactor room, and the pacing would've drastically improved. Regardless of what you decide to do, I seriously suggest separating the action-packed sequences, from the long-winded descriptions about unrelated stuff that accompany them.
- The exposition dumps on the city and the history behind it, in both routes, come across as a bit forced. Here you have this suspicious fellow in strange clothes, belonging to a species no one can identify, whose origins they can't pinpoint, and whose very tale sounds absolutely incomprehensible, and the thing Fraisier and Skjold focus on the most during their interactions with him, rather than try to assess all that, is... share background information on the city and their roles in it. To a stranger/spy they don't know if they can trust yet. It really does feel like both the MC and the route characters' priorities are a bit mixed up: everyone's more preoccupied with learning/explaining more about the city and its history than in figuring out who the MC is, where he's from, and if he's even from their world at all, which consequently leads to the MC taking an inordinate amount of time to realize and come to terms with the fact he's even in another world at all.
- Aside from the novel's many typos, which other people have already pointed out, some of the writing in the new build feels needlessly overcomplicated. Some sentences take 20 words to explain what could've been said in 4, often through the usage of multiple conflicting verbs one after another, which make some of the narration and dialogue feel almost incomprehensible to the reader. For example, see the image below: Fraisier's trying so hard to say "I like how the wolves rebuilt our city, but I don't like the way they rule it", that he ends up saying the very opposite of that. This is particularly noticeable during the aforementioned action sequences, where this sort of dialogue/narration feels especially jarring.
- Lastly, I'll mention the voice the MC hears at various points during his journey. It is, by far, the thing I disliked the most in the entire novel. There are two reasons why: for starters, it makes fun of the MC, his actions, and his predicament, which is fine, but it does so without any charm and without any weight to its presence, making it feel more like an annoying fly that is hard to take seriously than a lurking threat. Its sudden appearance in Skjold's route, and the way it laughs at the end, felt especially bad to read through, while its behavior in Fraisier's was substantially better (also because it chose to speak when the MC was already alone, instead of bothering him in the middle of his conversation with Skjold). Another reason why it's hard to take it seriously is that the voice will be surprised by the protagonist's actions regardless of whether they go with Fraisier or with Skjold: if he goes with the fox, it'll say it expected the MC to cower before the guards, while if he submits, it'll say it expected him to run away with the outlaw. While this might be to encourage the player to try out the other route, this is incredibly inconsistent characterization for both the voice and the MC. Ultimately, all it does is muddle the MC's personality, making it feel as though the player's choice was fundamentally wrong or out of character no matter what they choose. Which is weird, because aside from the voice's remarks, the MC's personality feels very coherent regardless of what route you're on, making you question where it's even coming from with these assumptions. I can't be the only one who feels like the single biggest threat to the narrative you're trying to weave here, is that voice adding an unnecessary meta layer to the MC's quest which is ultimately pointless at this stage in his journey.
I sincerely apologize if the above critiques feel harsh, but I felt it important not to mince my words and go in as much detail as possible for the sake of the novel. While it might seem like I have a negative opinion of the novel so far, I really was pleasantly surprised by all the improvements over the original upload, and I'm genuinely looking forward to the next chapter in the MC's tale. All I wanted was to draw attention to some problems which, in the long run, might dissuade new readers from trying out your game, or hamper their enjoyment with the story and the writing. Regardless, I wish the Cleaved team good luck in their efforts, and eagerly await their next update.