What would you change in Sky Lord?

[CharlesX]

Short of writing an entirely new\different book or not greenlighting Sky Lord's publication, what would you change in Sky Lord?
   Most things about the book are sucky - the writing, the gameplay difficulty, the railroading and absence of development and variation, even the continuity\role in the FF canon. My own main bugbear is the difficulty, I feel like you should have more shields and your opponents fewer. I think the rating thing doesn't work, and is unnecessarily complicated, and should be done away with.
  The one point Sky Lord has in its favour is its originality, but other sci-fi FF such as Space Assassin and even Star Strider were miles better both in terms of originality and other things.

[bloodbeasthandler]

You've said yourself what some of the the problems are.
They run throughout the book and they are absolutely fundamental to the book's problems. 
It's like saying 'Apart from the beginning the middle and the end, what was the best bit of the book?' 

Humour is harder to do than it seems, especially in the written word. 
Humorous sci-fi is possible. Look at Douglas Adams with Hitchiker's Guide. 
Is Sky Lord saveable? Maybe if it read more like Hitchiker's, and had some clever humour in there like a bit of satire, poking some fun at tropes and cliches in pop culture of the time, aiming for a more adult and 'knowing' audience?  

[petch]

Oct 30, 2021 18:32:01 GMT CharlesX said:

  The one point Sky Lord has in its favour is its originality, but other sci-fi FF such as Space Assassin and even Star Strider were miles better both in terms of originality and other things.

I actually like Sky Lord a fair bit more than either of them, but nonetheless if I could only change one thing, the pitch/roll/yaw battle has gotta go. Not just because it's rubbish, but also because it makes me feel stupid in the same way Only Connect questions often do, where I still don't understand it even after it's been explained to me (see here).

[peasantscribbler]

There are four pseudo-mazes, and each is pretty frustrating in its own way. I would take out at least two of these pseudo-mazes. I would be fine with reducing the number of sections. Otherwise, I wouldn't make any changes.

[a moderator]

Making Combat-Weapon Clashes less unbalanced would be a step in the right direction.

[vastariner]

I wonder whether it would have come out any better with a more serious tone of writing, rather than the sub-sixth level "comedy" stylings therein. Spectral Stalkers did that light-heartedness much better - and had the most spooky moment in all of FF (obtaining the clown paperweight thing).

[kieran]

1. Explain what some of the terms thrown out there mean and what potential risks they entail. For instance at one stage, you can be asked if you want to "risk shadow maneuvers " but you're not told what they are or why they are risky. Similarly, right at the start, you're asked if you want to light warp or time warp and informed that both carry their own dangers. The book is peppered with examples like this.

2. There's no need to explain the "Wodewick" joke.

3. The pitch-yaw-roll part would be better if you were told what the aim was - that would make it an interesting mathematical puzzle at least.

4. There's waaaay too many abrupt instant deaths - stuff like the Bric and Brac encounter needs removed or made fairer. Maybe a lot of the instant deaths could just cause Stamina loss instead.

5. Your ship should start with higher Shields to make space combat less dangerous.

6. Explain what exactly happens when you throw your items at the orange blob and why some of them prove more effective than others.

[nathanh]

For quick fixes, rebalance ship combat to be playable, and cut out the random instant deaths. That would make the book playable.

For more extreme benefits, cut out all the journey to the baddie's base, and expand that portion. I like the later sections of this book, it's just getting there is both too difficult and too dumb.

[philsadler]

I would change all of the words.