The Dark sorceror

I remember my first attempts at writing some interactive fiction. I was 16, still inexperienced when it came to speaking English, still not that great at writing. I had Quest opened on my dying laptop and a dream of taking the world by storm with the best text-based story everyone ever read. Naturally, that didn't happen (the world of interactive fiction reopened to me years later), but I was convinced I was making something great; many beginners have this in common. That usually leads to one of two outcomes: either someone gently guides them down from their high, or someone shoots them down with a ballistic missile. I will attempt to do the first. No guarantees though, my head hurts and I slept rather terribly.

What's The Dark sorceror (which I'll abbreviate to TDS from now on) about? There's a haunted house with a haunted bracelet, which summons the titular Dark sorceror. If you answer his riddles three, you're free. If not, he obliterates you with a spell. That's it. Fairly simple.

I know that the writer's assurance that it's an AI free text is true because AI wouldn't make that many typos. It also tends to describe things a little bit more. TDS doesn't bother with descriptions of anything. While I hate the "show don't tell" advice being thrown around, this game really only tells and never shows. We're told we're scared. We're told we're getting obliterated. As someone who still struggles with descriptions, I get the need to say what's happening instead of "wasting time" on "pointless talk", but descriptions handle the atmosphere and allow for better immersion. Tell us what the bracelet feels like on our arm, how it's unnaturally cold, or how it's uncannily warm like another human being would be, or how it feels like someone grabbed your arm and wouldn't want to let go, or just about anything. Tell us how the sorceror appears slowly in the darkness, or how he forms from the dust in the air, or something. That'd really help.

The other thing is the riddles. They're... easy. Generic. Overdone at this point, really. Including riddles is a longstanding IF tradition and can be done well, but when they're this trivial, they might as well not be there. I'd suggest either replacing that bit or removing it altogether in favor of some other form of interactive trial. Maybe we could try and run from the sorceror? Find something to pry the bracelet off of our arm, or cut it off, or melt it, or exorcise the spirit of the sorceror from it? This way, we'd utilize the setting of a mysterious old house, and have an opportunity to explore it beyond the singular bracelet we find.

And another thing is the choices we're given. They're not choices at all. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE bad end choices, or "empty" choices which are no choice at all... but they're not done well here, I think. We have NO real incentive to walk into the old house, outside of being bored. I don't know about you, but I don't want to walk into old houses alone, even if I'm bored. If you choose to leave and not enter the house, you get an ending which tell us we avoid all the problems that'd come from visiting the house. If the only thing in there is trouble, then turning back is the only logical decision, isn't it? You have to behave irrationally, or at least irresponsibly, to walk into the house. And once we're there, oh look, there's a bracelet, won't you put it on? You feel like you should wear it! We're given a choice to put it on or leave (somehow, despite being told that we can't leave the house). If we leave, we get an avalanche of voices telling us to put it on, resist somehow, and go back home (which, again, we were told isn't possible).

The thing about writing choices is that you need to know what the choices are doing for your story. If you don't want your reader to turn around and leave, then don't give them a choice to turn around and leave. You can do that. The inciting incident is walking into the house; it needs to happen, or else the plot won't happen, so for me, including this choice is pointless. Same goes for the "answer the riddles or die" choice; is the protagonist suicidal to the point of not even wanting to try? Are they so staunchly opposed to riddles that they'd rather die than to answer them? And as someone who loves fake choices, or illusion of choice, or all that fun stuff, I think choosing to leave the bracelet could be a great opportunity for a fake choice: the voices speak to you, tell you to put it on, and what other choice do you have but to put it on? You can resist (choose to leave), but it's been already decided the moment you looked at it, the moment you touched it.

This whole game feels very much like a beginner's first game. I think that's good. I think it's still better than anything AI could output just because it's clear to me that someone at least tried to put out a story of some kind out there. The nice thing about games written by humans is that humans can always get better, and I sincerely hope this is what's going to happen here.

Also, piece of advice: for the love of all gods, don't say your work is "the best" or "better than anything else". This isn't something an author determines. It can be the most brilliant thing you ever wrote. You may be proud of it, hell, I hope you are because making and publishing your first IF can be a little scary. But you cannot go around saying it's the best thing forever because it just makes you look a little silly when people don't agree with you. Good luck with everything from now on.