I really enjoyed this! The 'eavesdropping' segments really gives that town or village section of a video game and adds some interesting background detail. The walkthrough-esque sections are an interesting substitution for the player-required aspects of the game and work well in keeping the overall fighting game theme.
As for story itself, I really like Aodh and Fintan and already want to 'play' BBtS 2 just so I can see where they and their friend group end up next!
Since you provide character profiles, I would consider linking directly to a fighter's profile when they first show up in a new story (or at least any stories that you consider suitable for first time readers), just to help ingrain them in our heads and especially when more than one is being introduced at once. I just recently realized Substack lets us link directly to anything we assign a header style to, so such links would save the reader some scrolling around.
Thank you for your comment, and pleased to hear that you enjoyed the story. Not sure how long you'll be waiting for story 2, but knowing people are looking forward to it will definitely help me out in writing it.
I had no idea about the 'link directly to header' option, so thanks for telling me about it. I'll look into doing something along those lines while I do other format tweaking.
Glad to see that you like the gamey parts of this story. Writing the NPC dialogue to eavesdrop on was both difficult and fun, I tried to have some of them relay useful exposition.
I've had some vague thoughts about what a sequel might be like, and it would definitely include Aodh and Fintan. Happy that you like them. Did you feel you had enough context for their relationship? With how much they have between them I'm not sure if I had enough information for readers.
I really enjoyed this! The 'eavesdropping' segments really gives that town or village section of a video game and adds some interesting background detail. The walkthrough-esque sections are an interesting substitution for the player-required aspects of the game and work well in keeping the overall fighting game theme.
As for story itself, I really like Aodh and Fintan and already want to 'play' BBtS 2 just so I can see where they and their friend group end up next!
Since you provide character profiles, I would consider linking directly to a fighter's profile when they first show up in a new story (or at least any stories that you consider suitable for first time readers), just to help ingrain them in our heads and especially when more than one is being introduced at once. I just recently realized Substack lets us link directly to anything we assign a header style to, so such links would save the reader some scrolling around.
Looking forward to story 2!
Thank you for your comment, and pleased to hear that you enjoyed the story. Not sure how long you'll be waiting for story 2, but knowing people are looking forward to it will definitely help me out in writing it.
I had no idea about the 'link directly to header' option, so thanks for telling me about it. I'll look into doing something along those lines while I do other format tweaking.
Glad to see that you like the gamey parts of this story. Writing the NPC dialogue to eavesdrop on was both difficult and fun, I tried to have some of them relay useful exposition.
I've had some vague thoughts about what a sequel might be like, and it would definitely include Aodh and Fintan. Happy that you like them. Did you feel you had enough context for their relationship? With how much they have between them I'm not sure if I had enough information for readers.