Runt of the Litter

OK, honest review time. I do recommend this story--it's currently three dollars on sale, and will only be four dollars later on. If you replay it, you'll probably get your money's worth--just be aware that it is 100% text and is basically a choose-your-own-adventure novel more than it is a game. There are some stats based things involved that wouldn't really work in a straight-up printed book, but it does remind me of those types of books. I read a few when I was a kid. And I love griffins, more so than dragons, so it's great to see a story with griffins--and they're even the heroes. Kind of. First off, this story has been told before. What??? you ask. Well... it's just that it's told with dragons, who are either fighting other dragons, or, you guessed it, griffins. I'm recalling several novels about slave characters who stole their own dragon egg and strove to earn their freedom, or created their own society, etc. I believe one such series was written by Mercedes Lackey. So it's not really a new story. Having said that, I think it is mostly well written. As another reviewer said, the characters could have more depth, but your griffin is well written and frankly adorable. And it does feel like your character (and your griffin) grow throughout it. My biggest complaint is that it feels like there should be more of this story--more meat in the middle and something to carry it forward past the end. Though it was entertaining, I'm not sure this is wanting more in a good way. The story is pretty short, 150,000 words or not--those words involve all your possible outcomes, I think. I'd like to see a sequel, but I'd also like for there to have been more events and opportunities along the way in this particular story. Sadly I doubt it will be expanded upon--and I acknowledge that writing is often difficult and creating something longer while offering choices and different outcomes would be triply or quadruply difficult. I noticed a few misused words. There's a "there" where it should be "their," and a "too" where it should be "to." This could be poor editing, or it could be the issue of many modern people lacking the knowledge of which word to use in which place. And now for a lengthy nitpick/rant on world-building involving the griffins that may not bother anyone other than me: The variety and bird types used for the griffins ruins any sense of immersion for me, and it's not just that many of them are silly to visualize (Google some of the felines and birds described in the story--maybe you'll agree or maybe not). They actually pose a major world-building issue. I'm willing to shrug off my personal preference for raptor-big cat griffins if the oddball griffins in a given story/game work for the setting. These mostly don't. I get what the writer was trying to do--be original, and fill a world with what they thought of as beautiful non-standard griffins (to me, I envision them and most of them look silly--really wish there had been more standard griffin options, but to each their own), but I think they'd have been better off thinking about how they were going to work in a fight against wyrms. Diplomacy and charm aside, all griffins in the story are supposed to be fighters. Some thought should also have been put into the climates they are adapted to versus the climate they supposedly originate from. Perhaps the story should have involved magic to explain their existence/potential capacity to interbreed at all, or else had griffins originate from other lands as well. You can argue that the riders use lances and therefore the griffins' natural defenses are a moot point, but then remember, griffins apparently fight wyrms in the wild, too. Wyrms are described as being about five times the size of griffins, with armored scales. A good real-world analogy would be a swan, duck, or painted bunting fighting an alligator. Even if the birds were much larger, and even if you had several other birds helping, they'd still have difficulty winning that fight due to how they are built. Frankly it would be difficult even for an eagle or an owl. Vultures and condors would also lack the beak and claw strength for that fight. In fact, the only oddball I saw that might have worked pretty well was the parrot, but it didn't specify the species there so that's also iffy. I know there's also the cat half, but hind limbs can only make up for so much. The front end would be doing most of the fighting. The bird-cat pairings are also referred to as breeds (and may even actually be species since it's never made clear whether crossbreeding is possible between breeds)--which suggests there's a large number of each type. And they are large predators. If they are common enough for there to be many breeds, then my mind goes "NOPE!" at the logistics of keeping them all fed, thralls or no. Overall, though, yeah, I recommend the game. It's not perfect, but few novels are, and this one had the extra effort put in to try to make you feel like your choices mattered. There are some things I still haven't been able to achieve--and perhaps the "game" is too easy since I have only rarely encountered any genuine negative consequences. There are some choices that you can make that seem to lead nowhere but may originally have been meant to do so, and some of your reasons for hatching a griffin are hard or impossible to follow through with later on in dialogue choices/whatever you choose for your ending. But that's the nature of many choice-based books or games--you can only be given so many options, and to reach the ending ultimately your choice is an illusion created by the writer. But in this case it was pretty satisfying, my complaints aside.

3/5 stars My review of this game is pretty mixed, but overall I enjoyed the story so I'm not going to downvote it. The variety of gryphon breeds and personalities is a nice aspect to the game and offers some replay value. Rather than the classic eagle/lion combination, each breed consists of a different combination of a wild feline and a bird (usually large bird of prey). The breed has a small impact on your gryphon's starting stats. For example, rook/panther gryphons are intelligent and playful, where osprey/white tiger gryphons are more aggressive. The downside is that the majority of the game follows a fairly linear path. Most of the choices you make early determine the personality and reputation of your human character and your friendship with the main fledgling and thrall characters, rather than changing anything in the storyline. You are given MULTIPLE options and paths during the middle of the story when you escape with your gryphon, but it always results in you getting found out and put on trial. (Also, the council ALWAYS chooses to exile you, not matter what you say or do. This makes the choices in that chapter rather pointless.) The game has a few sentence errors and inconsistencies. (Ex: "Dustfeather crouches with his wings folded against his body and his lashing." Is his tail lashing?) These grammar errors are pretty minor and don't affect the story too much. Also, as darklordbambi pointed out, the frequent usage of the gender neutral ze/zir pronoun on random minor characters comes across as very jarring and forced on the part of the author. One character, Neeris, has a parent of unknown gender on the High Council who is often mentioned, which leads to some awkwardly phrased dialogue when they/them would work better. Overall, if you love gryphons and the idea of bonding with one I would recommend the game, just be aware that your choices are more centered around your characters than impacting the storyline.

I really enjoyed this game a lot! As someone who has always had very close and caring relationships with my own pets, it was so nice that I was able to have this in the game (:

There's no better way to chop this up other than "ka-ka-kawaii!". This brings out the animal lover in me. The only downside is I wasn't very interested in any of the companions.

Okay enough, decently written, but it's kinda short and ends with an epilogue at what feels the 1st half if not even the 1st 3rd of a book. Feels like my high school writing assignments where i started out enjoying an expansive story i had to write for an assignment then ended abruptly to meet the deadlines.

I loved this story! By the end I felt truly connected to the story and honestly I was sad to see it end. If not for the shortness or the heavy use of non-binary nouns, it would've been perfect. I give this an 8/10.