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Sword of the Slayer

by S. Andrew Swann

Fantasy
2019

Web Site

(based on 2 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

Fight monsters and free the ancient city with your enchanted talking sword!

You’re a common orphan scraping a living on the streets of Targas Adur—a city older than memory, full of dark corners and darker magics, ruled by a merciless Sorcerer King, Demorgon. While exploring one of those dark corners, you stumble upon...the sword, an ancient weapon of power. And it can talk, in a voice only you can hear.

"Sword of the Slayer" is 185,000-word interactive fantasy novel by S. Andrew Swann, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Dark creatures do as Demorgon bids, and his royal guard keeps order with an iron fist. All gods and temples are suppressed except for his own Dark Tabernacle. But with the re-emergence of the sword, Demorgon’s power may be waning. Evil monsters invade the city, and sections of Targas Adur have fallen to their influence. It’s up to you to slay them.

You must train yourself in sword-fighting to protect the ones you love, as you battle the demons of Targas Adur, including the dread White Wyrm. Thrust into the role of monster-slayer, you find yourself the focus of decadent nobles who want to return to power, devoted monks who want to see the gods return to the city, and—most troubling—you now have the attention of the Sorcerer King himself.

Will you become a foe of the monsters, a threat to Sorcerer King’s regime, or a hope for the forces trying to bring down his rule? Or will you give yourself over to the sword, losing control of your mind and body?

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, or asexual
• Rise from the gutter to the highest level of power
• Support the gods, the nobles, or a rival sorcerer for the rule of the ancient city
• Bring back the gods or fight the Great White Wyrm when you enter the Dark Tabernacle
• Make allies in your quest to free the city
• Protect your childhood friend, and your swordsman trainer from capture and death
• Face monsters of all sorts, up to the Sorcerer King himself
• Save your place before a chapter and you can return to that point after the story’s end and try a different set of choices

An enchanted sword. An ancient evil. A hero waits.


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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Classic fantasy with monster slaying, encounters, dungeon, February 23, 2021
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 2 hours

Honestly, I got into "text-based games" with paper-based Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks and fantasy CYOA books. Even years later, that stuff really appeals to me (like the Sorcery series, the parser game Heroes, the twine game Tavern Crawler, etc.).

So when I say I love this game, that's the background I'm coming from. This reminds me so much of the 'intelligent weapon' rules from AD&D 1E, where you'd have a legendary weapon with intelligence that has a benefit and a drawback, etc.

You find an intelligent magic sword and swear an oath to train in swordsmanship. You find a mentor and start attacking monsters, eventually coming to the attention of Demorgon (with a name very similar to the AD&D 1E demon Demogorgon), as well as several others.

The stats are generally easy to understand, although each fight seemed to have an option to attack quickly, hide, or defend, and that didn't seem directly connected to any visible stat.

The characters are admittedly not too fleshed out. There are about five or six factions, and each needed to have like 50% more text included to be more interesting. I've worked in the last year on expanding my own choicescript game, and I think S. Andrew Swann would benefit a lot from that (even 10K more), although I think he's got a different contract he's working on. I was personally okay with this, as the AD&D modules I compared it too have similar levels of detail for side characters.

I was definitely looking forward to playing this. I'm familiar with Swann as author of one of the most popular pages on the SCP wiki (with his name on it, 'S. Andrew Swann's Proposal'), and I'm so glad this wasn't disappointing.

Finally, a lot of steam reviews suggest the ending is fixed for you to win. I wish! I had to replay the final chapter 4 times to actually survive. I'm so glad he added a save feature, which works beautifully. Very happy with this game, and I plan on replaying it.

At 180K words and with a lot of branches, it does feel shorter than some other choicescript games, but satisfying.

I received a review copy of this game.

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