AZURE – Review by ReviewAnon

By: ReviewAnon (name given by the readers)
Originally posted: 01.02.2016
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PREMISE

The world has gone to shit. All of the old world powers are pretty much dust in history, with only their technology still floating around and fueling turf wars between the surviving city-states that compose humanity. Amidst this, in one particular city-state, a cell of resistance trying to overturn the tyrannical government of their little slice of not-hell in the world has managed to steal a program called CYAN that's supposed to be able to dynamically adapt and crack any kind of code and defensive security measure.

That code would later give birth to you, who can't crack any kind of code at all. What you can do, however, is think and learn for yourself. You play the newly born AZURE, the first(?) and only(?) truly sapient Artificial Intelligence. You proceed to throw in your lot with the cell, and go on merry terrorist adventures as you get used to life.

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REVIEW pt1

Mechanics.
There isn't a lot of rolling here, but a 'mechanic' to note is that there aren't any premade prompts at all. The QM sticks almost entirely to "What do" format, and then accepts a great many - if not all - of the write-ins as they update. Typically updates can take an hour or so, but they come out with about 2-3 posts worth of content, so it's kind of a slow-burn thing. Don't go into it expecting rapid updates with bite-size content.

For those wondering, blatantly stupid write-ins are either ignored or briefly made fun of. It weeded out the few "lolsorandumb" crowd pretty quickly, and those remaining take things considerately.

There is character advancement in that you can get better at things by doing them... This... It's a thing, I guess. There's no hard or fast rules to how fast you "master" a skill, or what will contribute to mastering that skill. Just do things roughly related to this thing, and some undetermined % of mastery will be added to the total. Honestly it feels like it has little to no actual bearing on the story and could be entirely ignored (or even never included) and almost nothing would change. A little more on this in personal thoughts.

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REVIEW pt2

Plot.
The world isn't really explained or touched on, but it's kind of a dystopian thing that shifts a bit between Fallout-esque, and what seems to be cyberpunk, depending on whether you're in the wasteland or a city-state.

It should be noted that I don't use "cyberpunk" here as a buzzword. While it may be different in other city-states, the one you play in is very heavily tied to rapid and often slightly bizarre technological advancements. This eventually even extends to complete biological modifications, and one of the characters gaining a spinal-jack for AZURE to inhabit as they work on synchronizing the character's salvaged mecha-tentacle-turned-prosthetic arm. Much of the world's security is mostly automated, and run by a megacorp named Arcturus, which very literally owns and runs the city-state.

Writing.
The writing is good. Not amazing, not phenomenal, but it's solid and consistently of enjoyable quality - Which is fairly high praise, considering the varying state of quality found not just between quests, but often between posts of various QMs. Part of its consistent quality is that it never tries to be flashy or colourful; It's quite simple.

Of note is that due to the open-endedness of the "What do" prompt format, the QM's writing is often adapting to fit in most of the write-ins with as little break in verisimilitude as possible. This doesn't always succeed, as sometimes little meme-jokes are slipped into the dialogue, and this can be a little jarring early on when the AI has no prior history of doing it. It's typically done in good fun and never becomes terribly disruptive, and is IC written off as the AI's initial birth-server having been full of old movies and literal memes from 2013-14

Characters are given good development, often with aspects of their psyche and personality being implied or connotated through actions and inaction than outright spelled out.

The story is simple, and pretty straight forward.

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PERSONAL THOUGHTS pt1

It's a short quest, and it will probably end a short quest if the QM's estimations are accurate. This isn't a bad thing by any means, as there is nearly no filler involved and each thread makes notable and substantial progress. While I don't think every quest should be short, and honestly I do adore longer quests simply because it gives me more to read, this was fulfilling to read through the archive and I think being relatively short fits it really well.

Part of this is because it doesn't have the feeling of something that would keep its charm long term. You're a little AI that eventually became a little pink spider with whiskers piloted by an AI. You have some cutesie moments with your "Mom" and being weirded out by how it feels to be a fleshy meatsack, and you happen to enjoy hugs. Most of the cute moments in this are fine if taken in measure, but are the type of things that quickly lose their 'fulfilling' nature if stretched out beyond their initial novelty. Similarly, the addition of the meme or reference based jokes are often worth a laugh and/or smile, but only due to how quickly they're passed on before the novelty of it being there fades.

I do not believe that the quest in its current form would age gracefully at all if it was stretched out into a long-term story, and that the decision to cut it short while the 'taste' of it is still sweet and fun is the correct one.

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PERSONAL THOUGHTS pt2

One thing that kind of bugs me is that AZURE never fails. This is a bit of a subtle thing in the writing, but the wording of that is important: AZURE, the players, never actually seem to fail. Anything they do, they succeed at, regardless of skill. This isn't to say that no conflict or drama occurs, and that's what I found kind of interesting in the writing itself. When failure occurs, it's almost arbitrary, and caused by someone else who was far removed and/or outside of the player's control or sphere of influence. It's always presented to the player in the form of "someone else screwed up or had something bad happened to them, how do you react?" - And typically speaking, you react by fixing or saving them.

Once you catch on to this, combined with the fact that there generally aren't many actual rolls involved in the quest, some of its glamour kind of tarnishes. AZURE doesn't fail - The players don't fail. No matter what they do, they don't fail. No consequences or bad things will occur due to the player's actions. You will swoop in and fix things and save all the people.

I believe this is done by design. The playerbase stays together and in harmony as they play, and they're not afraid of trying anything. If your players are kept interested and engaged as they play, trying to succeed and rejoicing when they do, and they never realize they weren't really in any danger in the first place, then you've done your job as DM in any tabletop game; Like the old adage of how "Railroading is fine, as long as no one realizes they're on rails".

I admit that I may be looking into this a little too closely, but after some of the extremely risky (or so they seemed) operations that the players have pulled off and managed universally without any meaningful problem or hitch, it's something that's kind of dampened my enthusiasm for seeing what happens next.

I know what happens next. We succeed at something.

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CLOSING

I'll follow this quest to its end, and I'd freely recommend this to people new to quests as a great example, or those looking for some enjoyable light reading. Also to people who think "long" equates to "good". It isn't a deeply built quest, nor does it have any interesting gimmicks to it, but it is solidly handled and executed to provide simple fun for everyone involved.

There's generally a difference between "A good story" and "A fun game", and quests blur that line. Only specific kinds of people find failure to be fun or motivating, but everyone enjoys succeeding - However, a story without failure can get stale quickly. This ties a little back into why I think it's good the quest will stay relatively short. It's fun to read, and fun to play, but overall I think its enjoyment is very time-limited and depends on both the readers not getting burned out on the little quirks, and the players not getting bored with winning.

I'd be interested in hearing back from the QM themselves about some of the observations I made, as to whether I'm on the mark, completely overthinking it, or just their thoughts on the matter. It's always difficult to really know what's been done on purpose, and what just kind of happened.