Winter's Tale

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Winter's Tale -- The newest Virtual Reality Fantasy RPG -- Where anything is possible! Come join us as we follow Kyle, and several of his friends from school, family, and neighbors, as they get lost in trying to find a balance between the real world, and the virtual world. How much can virtual reality affect true reality? Can friendships stand the challenge and survive in two different worlds at the same time? Can Kyle and his friends survive and conquer all the challenges they'll face in the virtual world? Will those challenges help them in any way at all in the real world? Can our hero find a date to the prom? Or will everyone be too busy playing a game to attend? Take a chance, and walk with our heros as they struggle to find the answers to all these questions, and a lot more! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Rated M[18+] for future possibly more intense content. (Already contains nudity, language, violence, and men playing women and women playing men...)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2016
Author: Darkbringer

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 3.8/ 5.0
Followers: 557
Views: 573,235

Chapters(99 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

burfRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I must admit the gender-bender tag put me off for a long time with this story, however having enjoyed the authors other story I took a deep breath made sure nobody could see me and started to read.
Thank god I did this story has an excellent storyline and great characters the balance between the VR scenes and the real world scenes are good, and the characters development is well above average.
Dont let the tags put you off, jump in and go for a great ride.
SlightRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A humorous light hearted slice of life story.
The concept is interesting, and the story looks like it has a lot of life in it (slow burn story, eg takes a while but enjoys itself on the way). Really have enjoyed it so far.
AckmanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Wow, uplifting and a fun read! not quite what i expected from the tags.... A few spelling errors but overall a good story with fast updates.
SkaalyRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
First of all: congrats for finishing the first book!
1) Great story, very enjoyable to read. A few spelling errors and once in a while a sentence that sounds and reads a bit awkward, but nothing a reader couldn't deal with.
What I am missing is a sort of timeline, sometimes, especially in the later chapters, it was hard to keep track of the time/day. You might want to introduce a sort of time-heading/header, so that the reader can keep up.
2) Interesting characters and you did a good job introducing them all into the context and the story.
BUT: the last few chapters were only about those three 'girls' running around in the dungeon. I really missed the interaction with the 3 other guys, and the parents, that seemed to be fairly important in the early parts of the story (and quite frankly I really enjoyed their antics and the way they generally interacted). So what did they do during the last few hours/days? They can't just have ignored each other...
3) You put a great deal of thought into developing your game world, BUT I am kind of missing descriptions of it. It happens very seldom that you just describe the VR world they move in. They are after all in some fantasy-themed elf-ish jungle (assumed) and a dungeon in said region, so where are the descriptions of flora and fauna and maybe fantasy-ish friendly little critters flying/walking around? there has to be more then just nut-throwing squirrels and tanglers...
4) Enjoy your free-time, and I am really looking forward to reading more chapters in the near future :)
C3rb3rusRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The story is funny and highly entertaining
ChocoboKnightRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Review at time of Chapter 29
Just loving it so far!
Style: is really enjoyable, it's got a steady pace with good visualisation and it succeeds quite well at creating natural, real sounding dialogue.
Story: isn't bad but there's really not much yet. It's character driven, and as such it's relaxed attitude leads to a slice of life kind of story.
Grammar: is decent, but there are certainly more spelling mistakes than your other work. Not sure if the spellchecker glitched out or what but it's nothing offensive.
Characters: are just the best, really the dynamic between Kyle and Sera's family is just top level. His mother also felt very much like a stern but loving mother and his friends too feel quite alive; they feel quite developed and realistic with their everyday flaws, advantages, challenges and goals.
The rest of the fiction is good, but the characters are why I'm going to keep up, and if you enjoy well conceived character driven stories then this is the cream of the crop as far as RRL goes.
Well done Darkbringer, another success. I can't wait to see where this all goes. I expect great things from William, that little go getter.
RotaRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
The story screams mediocrity and confusion.
We start off with a guy getting a beta-version console to work in a VRMMO environment for a job, which sounds pretty good at first. If you consider he won't be able to do just anything because it is for work, then the story can seem a bit lacking, but no worries because that never becomes an issue.
We get the typical, pointless and stupid as all hell choice to watch the MC create his character. MY GOD, the story hasn't event started yet, but we are already made to wait and watch what happens. That is like asking a teacher in class what Hitler did wrong DURING the war, only to be answered with "well, it all started in his childhood when he...".
When you turn on the TV to watch a sports match, you see the players come out and start playing, you DON'T see what they had for breakfast and how much traffic they went through to reach the location. The same concept is even more important in stories because nobody cares about anything except where the actual story is. If you take this story to a publisher, they would maybe get a few paragraphs into the first chapter before crossing it off the list and moving to the next submission.
Now to put things into perspective and scale, we have now passed 70 chapters, or the authors "book 1". At 70 chapters you would assume the story has progressed quite a bit right? Unfortunately not. The Ingame content still has the MC in the middle of god knows where, with things that barely qualify as clothing. Oh sure, there are now two friends with her, and they have just cleared and captured a dungeon, but that is it.
70 chapters... really? I could understand this if it were seven chapters, but 70?
Alternatively, there is the real-world aspect that has repeatedly gotten in the way of story progression and served to grind things to a halt. We meet a limited family and friends circle that while interesting and with their quirks... seem to have more things going on than the MC. So why aren't we reading t
overpaladaRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
I really liked the premise of the story , the fact that the MC gained a exclusive beginning in the VR was really interesting and i really hoped that the writer would explore it and even maybe the interaction with other players because of it , but right now the story lost complete focus switching the from the VR to the real world and his dealing with childhood friend i mean i don't mind a little of real life since we can understand the MC and his friends but this story transformed in a ROM COM the only thing missing is the tsundere with twin tails
KinkoRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
Well it isn't my habit to shoot down a novel. But when we do a summary we more or less have the contents in the stories.
But in this one we have lesser game life element than RL contents. Here I say " Gne ? Why there are more than 30 chapter on slice of life, where we clearly don't give a damn that Sera was moving naked in her house for the Nth time."
Or another exemple, does the information that Kyle going to take a sandwich with mayonaise really more important than the following of a quest in the game. Plus the autor clearly describe the scene, where we can think he will descibe the character thought about the game or a focus on the quest. No it's just the mc going to break a bread, if they were a description of him taking a dump that will be the same things.
That a bit sad, because the (Vrmmo) stories his great, taking a sudden turn of event, chased outside of a lavish life and drop in a forest between nowhere. With a characters having the battlepower of a clam, that was interresting. I have no comment on the grammar and so on ( and i don't think i have a word on it *cough*). The dialogue a bit surreal... swearing for a no and a yes isn't really pleasant for the eyes, but we can deal with it.
Very seriously, i know the autor like to develop the characters, but to make a pass on the (i think) the main stories, just for 30+ chain of chapters only for "characters building"... herm sorry but i pass.
Summaries : interresting, bit funny, char totaly crazy. But very disapointing.
Little ice.
cynzfireflyRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
A Critical Analysis of Winter's Tale (up to Ch. 57)
Introduction
A tale of friends joining in on the action of a freshly released virtual reality game is nothing new but I am quite impressed with the innovative ideas and plot. My first thought is that "this story shows a lot of promise.... I will keep a look out for this fiction to see how it goes". My next thought is that "the story's progression is quite slow but very steady and flows well..." Let's see both the well done and poorly written parts in an objective lens cap, shall we? Personal opinions will be clearly stated, making it easy to identify the things that are personal and not a part of good and bad writing.
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Style - 3.5/5
With style being one of essential parts of writing, it's easy to write something and slowly forget to return to how the original writing form is. In a literary hamburger, the style of writing is the condiments such as ketchup and mustard; it enhances the flavors of the story and characters when done well. In this case, Winter's Tale is fairly good at staying sequential, keeping the story flowing and easy to follow. Overall, the style is well done and remains so throughout the story.
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The narrator of the story is done in Third-Person Omniscient, perfect for telling the tale between the group of friends and keeping each of them lively and "fresh". Not to be outdone, the tone set by the narrator is informal and light, making the story "bounce" along and not stumble from accidental plot shifts that shouldn't belong.
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The narrative tone is an extension of the writer's voice, making it a necessary part of all fiction writing. This is shown through the use of syntax, diction, tone and subject matter. Because the subject matter and syntax are rather confusing and complex, I shall omit it from the review as not even well-known published writers are guilt-free.
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The diction is kept informal throughout the story with no abrupt change in formality that often