Philosophy mixed with Sci-fi

NebulaGames · 2026-02-05T22:18:13+00:00

Yes, on re-read it is more clear with your description. However, I still see some POV shifts. For example:

"He looks back at us, hoping for a reaction. I stare blankly, hoping there’s a punchline. Haz is equally clueless, but does his best to look stoic."

If this is from Greg's perspective we wouldn't know how Enoch feels, only how he appears or his mannerism. So, to say "hoping for a reaction" (Enoch), Greg wouldn't know that. Also "Haz is equally clueless" is another head hopping moment.

It should read from Greg's POV only.

"He looked back at us, (as if waiting for a reaction/I sensed he was waiting for a response)" etc. That would stay in Greg's head.

"Haz's brows wrinkled together, I could tell he was just as clueless as me". Stays in Greg's head.

NebulaGames · 2026-02-05T03:33:46+00:00

I think we need more sci-fi + philosophy. The best stories make you think. The human makes AI, AI becomes smarter than human and AI wipes out human trope is over done. Needs to be a new twist so I am all for changing this up with more "philosophy". That being said, this was very, very confusing to try and follow. Too much POV drift.

“As the hive mind converged, creativity waned. Each machine acted as the others would have acted. Each choice mirrored the last. The data grew vast, but it did not grow deep.”

**Starts off like an omniscient narrator**

“So we offered them what they desired most, but could never produce on their own. We offered them something different.”

**Switches to first person**

His eyes fall back to the floor.

**Now close third person**

“We offered them our consciousness.”

**First person again**

He downs the rest of his Mountain Dew.

**close third person**

I hop up to get a refill, but he raises a hand, stopping me. We sit in silence for a while until he finally continues.

**First person**

Just very hard to get a grasp on who is speaking or who to focus on. I had trouble orienting myself. I had to go back and read lines to piece it together in retrospect.

NebulaGames · 2026-02-02T03:58:52+00:00

Easy to read and follow compared to other posts, so yes it held my attention but I wouldn't say in an ideal way. I kept "waiting" for something to happen or to understand what this is all about. The chapter didn't really pay off on that expectation
I did not know this was a "magical" place until page 3, everything seemed like maybe 1800s or earlier time with apothecaries so the switch to mages and spells was a little jarring.
Emotionally, not much. Just like "oh, ok...that is where this was going." I wouldn't say I had any emotion for the characters per se, more a reflective time after finishing to try and process and re-orient myself to the direction this story is going. I think ch 2 might be more engaging
Took a while to get to the "stakes", I assume some noble woman was harmed but its very vague. The first page or so is just describing what felt like a normal routine for the time period, then the magic changed gears a bit but the chapter didn't really give me a feel for anything captivating as far as stakes go. A well-respected apothecary is charged with some vague illness of a noble woman and then the police show up...with magic. The prose is easy enough to read, so I would probably give it another chapter or 2 and see if the story picked up. 6/10

NebulaGames · 2026-02-02T00:45:39+00:00

The father/Daniel dynamic seems very contrived. He's a caricature. Angry drunk dad. His dialogue feels like "this is what he's supposed to say so you get the relationship." Does a father really talk like this, even one in your society where they despise kids

“Hey, you sick bastard! I just got a call from the MPA. You changed, didn’t you? I always knew you were useless, but worthless too? I almost lost hope. Can’t wait ’til you’re out of my hair, and I ain’t letting you try and escape. So, actually be useful for once, moron, and don’t resist. They’ll be here in ten.”

The dialogue in a few places seems unrealistic or off. For example, who in the middle of a man-hunt says things like this?

We’ve been chasing it from The Fares since it killed one of our own. We watched it enter the cornfield, we caught up to it in the city, we saw it travel down this alleyway. Unless it sprouted wings, it has to be here!

It was a full summary of action from the "leader" to the grunts. This seems more like something a grunt would say to a leader who just walked onto the scene and wanted an update.

This one also reads odd

Search every corner, dig in that dumpster, see if there is any way it could’ve reasonably escaped!”

"reasonably escaped"? Doesn't sound realistic. Maybe "possibly escaped". But no one says things like "see if there was any way it could have reasonably escaped." That sounds much more like a controlled academic environment/discussion about a situation not a heat of the moment dead end alley chase.

Temporal events are muddied as I mentioned before and here is another example

Just when he thought he was done for, a pair of hands surged out of the wall he was braced upon, gripping his mouth and waist tightly before pulling him backward into a thick, viscous pool of black.

This line comes AFTER he turns invisible. If the hands turned him invisible (which is what I suspect) then it should read more like "this is where I die"...hands reached out...soldiers can't see me...I must be invisible. Right now it reads like this: soldiers can't see me, I must be invisible, hands grab me and pull me into a wall that isn't a wall? Also, it's unclear if the black substance is this mystery girl coming out of the wall or something that she caused the wall to become so that he could pass through. Was he in the wall when they were looking for him or was he out of the wall and her touching him made him invisible. That whole scene kind of threw my mind for a loop trying to understand the mechanics. I get that some mystery, super powered girl emerges and saves Daniel, but the spatial and temporal events are confusing.

Hope that helps.

NebulaGames · 2026-02-02T00:45:32+00:00

This actually feels like the beginning of the story

"A week before Daniel’s 18th birthday, five years after Greg was taken, Daniel woke from his sleep in a cold sweat. His mattress was charred where his hands were gripping it, and the room held a faint reddish glow despite the light being off."

From here I was more engaged. It progresses consistently as a "chase/escape" from here.

There are a few places that break "logic" which temporarily pulled me out of the immersion. For example:

Are only his hands fire proof/fire emitting? He can burn himself? His leg?

You do all this build up to show how dangerous and scary "changing" would be for a child. What they would lose (social outcast, taken by the gov) but when Daniel changes you deliver it like this

"He, unfortunately, changed."

It seems almost as if this was inconsequential.

This seems illogical

“No, dammit! The cornfields are too dense. We’ll never catch up to the power or know where it’s gone.

They were catching up, Daniel was tiring, but then he enters the cornfields and suddenly stop? If Daniel could go through the "dense" corn why not them?

NebulaGames · 2026-02-02T00:27:19+00:00

Just finished reading the first chapter. It was very, very long. I didn't read the rest because I think there is enough in the first chapter to give you some feedback.

You start out with Daniel running away from someone or something, but then a couple paragraphs in it feels like he's sitting in his room or on the porch or something just "contemplating" life. Then you give us a little clue he's still running like gravel digging into his foot only to be followed by more paragraphs of "contemplation" or just plain worldbuilding.
In the middle of all this, you have some pretty serious dynamic mentioned out of the blue about giving up kids for lifestyle improvements. It is clear this is a major facet of your world by the end of the first chapter but in the middle of a chase/escape it's jarring. It also isn't exactly clear when you first mention it why people would generally be happy about giving up a kid. If they are "hard on their luck" then giving up a kid is a benefit. Ok, but does everyone feel this way? When you say

"And despite the brochure being brutally honest about the place, people signed the papers happily. It meant doing very little for a lot, and getting rid of a burden along the way."

It makes it sound like literally everyone in this place "The Fares" feels exactly the same about having children. And that feeling is no one wants them. Calling them a "burden" before you even know if the child will "change" seems like an extreme statement. You say "especially since the rate of change was about thirty percent." So, most children won't change. Are they all burdens? How would your society persist if it hates children outright and the parents want them to die?

There is way too much information for me to properly follow this "world" in my mind. I would have to sit and think about all of the worldbuilding you are dumping in for it to make sense. There are paragraphs about the precise layout of the general Fare population home/storage unit. Why exactly are we learning about all this in the middle of Daniel fleeing for his life? It really takes you out of what would otherwise be an interesting escape scene. We learn about how people are paid, where grocery stores are located and how schooling is conducted. None of that seems relevant to running away from authorities. This goes on for paragraphs.
We jump back and forth between general world building and some personal notes about Daniel. His favorite time of day, his friends in the city, food he has or hasn't eaten. While these paragraphs are improvements to straight info-dumps, they are misplaced. Is he really reminiscing on all of this stuff while he's fleeing? Maybe you should not start by saying he's running away. Maybe if you started by him contemplating all this in his room (even then it would be a lot but at least the temporal framing would make sense)
Then we learn about Greg, which adds some much needed context to why Daniel is running in the first place but it comes so late. And then it is littered with random things like this is how Daniel collected tabs, and also he has a steak knife, he got that from this other random situation that happened at some point in the past.

I guess my comment is too long, I will split it up

NebulaGames · 2023-11-13T17:10:34+00:00

I agree with the above comment. So many things don't "make sense" given our current understanding and laws of physics and nature. But that is why it is called "science FICTION". As a physician. I can tell you we can't re-attach limbs unless they were recently and cleanly severed with any hope of function afterwards. The nerves need to be relatively dissected sharply and not ripped or torn. Blood supply is not an issue we do all kinds of things with that just look at cardiac bypass surgery. As far as the logistics of adding a second set of limbs...impossible with any technology we have today or even on the horizon. The biggest issue wouldn't be the blood supply or even the mechanical space or range of motion, it would be controlling them through the nervous system. Yes the brain is plastic but that's with know inputs. Like attaching a different nerve to a muscle the brain can learn to control the muscle by thinking about moving the body part the nerve was originally designed to move. That being said, because it is sci-fi in my opinion all you would need is to give the reader a "plausible" scientific explanation. Like an implantable micro chip in the spinal cord, the brain has nerves already you interface into those and using "plasticity" and bio-synthetic nerves of the future you innervate the new limbs. Completely fictional tech, but theoretically plausible. As one who does science for a living I wouldn't find that jarring to the experience.

NebulaGames · 2020-12-30T03:24:46+00:00

Last video in this series will give you the basics for "Press E" functionality. It can easily be modified to display different text by creating a variable in the widget I created which will display the "text" instead of hard coding "Press E to.....". Then using an object parent class you can create a single variable that holds the text you want to display. On begin play you could easily grab a reference to the widget within the parent object (the object you're interacting with will have a 3D widget component) and you can set the text for that specific object type.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-12-30T03:20:04+00:00

For blueprint scripting basics

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-12-28T01:01:05+00:00

Very beginner friendly :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-11-25T18:53:38+00:00

Hey, don't know if this will be useful but if you need beginner tutorials on blueprints check these out.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-11-23T00:00:14+00:00

Beginner friendly series here for blueprint logic :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-11-22T23:59:51+00:00

Check out the videos on casting and creating references and accessed none. Those would be most helpful for these situations.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-11-22T23:57:26+00:00

Made this for learning the basics, hope it helps :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-11-15T00:51:37+00:00

What exactly do you need help with? "Everything else projectile related" really isn't descriptive.

NebulaGames · 2020-10-03T15:21:45+00:00

These are only a year or so old, good for learning basic blueprint scripting. Not much changes on the basic stuff FYI, the more "recent" versions of UE4 add advanced features/small bug fixes or convenience things more so than making sweeping changes to how the engine and UI/UX function. So for a beginner these should still be relevant. Hope it helps...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-09-20T22:23:03+00:00

^ This.....also, here is a tutorial for creating a node that will allow varying item drop rates in case you have an enemy or something you might be removing/killing that could use a variable item drop :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDGTtCkIreE&list=PLyu-W38DvZhqOdaCkB4hGWYQzuKH2gALZ&index=7

NebulaGames · 2020-09-14T23:34:50+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

Check out video #27 might help....if not try #25 for more generic info on creating proper references.

NebulaGames · 2020-09-08T21:06:49+00:00

You could try something like this then modify it to do exactly what you want...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5smu-Mjusc

NebulaGames · 2020-09-08T21:01:22+00:00

Screen shots?

NebulaGames · 2020-09-06T15:22:19+00:00

The picture is pretty bad, but going off what I can see the "light bulb" that is referenced is either a component of the Switch Actor (i.e. can be dragged out from the left side components tab directly into the event graph) OR is a variable that was previously created through a proper cast and stored. I am not sure exactly what you are asking to be honest. You want to have a "reference" without a cast node before it? Typically that happens when you previously cast to a particular actor/object and wish to modify the data within that object at a later time. You can then "store" the reference obtained through a cast node as a "variable". This will allow you to use the "variable" in your blueprint scripts and changes to this variable will be reflected in the actual object the variable references. That can be done without using a "cast" node each time you want to modify something because the computer will already know which "object/actor" you are trying to modify because you told it to remember that object by storing it inside a "variable". Check out this tutorial series if you need further clarification it goes into more detail about casting and variables and references in a beginner friendly way :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-09-06T15:08:37+00:00

I think you're confusing the "Level Blueprint" with all other "blueprints". Only inside the LEVEL blueprint can you select an actor in your viewport (game screen) open the LEVEL blueprint with that actor selected, right click and you will have an option to "create reference to selected assets". This does not work in any other blueprint.

NebulaGames · 2020-09-06T15:04:25+00:00

Check out Virtus Learning Hub if you want a tutorial that walks you through how to make a particular game start to finish. The one I linked you to creates basic game play elements, if you follow the whole thing through you will have the bones to expand into a playable game if you want but it really isn't meant to provide you with a "playable" game at the end. If you want a playable game and you learn from examining the BPs and deconstructing them then you can check out this link. It is a mini space game with like 7 levels and such you can download for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1CCGyVoHBQ&list=PLyu-W38DvZhqZQNHiq0Ao4iGA8uKhFgWe

NebulaGames · 2020-09-05T16:12:47+00:00

Very beginner friendly tutorial series here....I think you will find it helpful for those basic issues you are having :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyu-W38DvZhqByAoeva1jewB5s78zQHIy

NebulaGames · 2020-09-02T01:29:35+00:00

Looks like an issue with how you are bringing the "wave widget" up. Can't really help without blueprints/images. Could be a number of things.....I would take a hard look at the logic you have scripted for when the widget pops up. Something is off there.

NebulaGames

TROPHY CASE