I feel pretty safe saying this is by far the best writing I've seen from the four stories you've included. Lots of character building delivered without any actual dialogue from the characters themselves, and a backstory for Graham that indicates he has some serious self-esteem issues.
Hey, thanks! I didn't think it was all THAT good looking back on it (I think I did try to make it longer and deal with Graham finally reaching home exhausted and having his mom asking what happened, but I couldn't think of anything to happen after that), because it was written rather late at night, but I'm my own worst critic anyway. That's why I practically BEG for critique from people who've read my stuff.
After reading this, I'm tempted to include some kind of mechanic in my stories that allows the characters to die over and over again in increasingly ridiculous ways until they think their way out of their predicaments correctly. Imagine in my treatment of KQ6 Alexander getting some of the more gruesome death scenes, including the Minotaur ripping him in half, and when he finally reaches the Underworld, he slips off a ledge and into the black water below, instantly killing him and putting him back at the gate, upon which the skeleton guard will say, "You died again? I just saw you a minute ago."
Haha! Feel free to use it!
This stuff, I've gotta say, is a bit weaker. Admittedly, I might just be biased since I'm not as big a fan of QfG as I am for KQ, but it just didn't hook me that much. I don't really care that much about the characters here. It also has some of the problems you've been having for a while now, such as an overuse of exclamation marks; I counted 40.
*shrugs* Better weaker writing than awful. To be fair, this IS the first chapter, but I can see what you mean, because this is a long chapter, and I just hope I can get better. That's what rewrites are for!
Still too many exclamation points?! Crap! I thought I was getting better at those.
"I'll be boned, dad!"
Was there really no other way to phrase that?
*sigh* I searched for like thieves language/cant and a term I found for "caught/arrested" was boned. I really regret putting that line in because nobody gets it.
Ooh, you weren't kidding. At least you recognized the problems this one had and discontinued it.
*nods in agreement* Seriously, that opening line is awful. The pacing (and thusly the characterization) goes by WAY too fast, also.
If you're writing something, you probably shouldn't spoil the ending by quoting it word-for-word. Just throwing that out there.
Good point. Though that's all going off of memory from a dream. I might go for a completely different ending by the time I get to it, who knows?
Leisure Suit Larry is actually my least favorite Sierra adventure franchise, so it's just as well that I'm not invested in it. But if you're trying to do a "fix fic" by accommodating every entry in the series, and if you try to make the last couple games not steaming piles of sh*t that even MoE is laughing at, then that would be great.
*nods* It seems like (judging from the comments on Pawdugan's LP of 5) that I'm actually not alone in wishing the series stopped at 3 (like headcanoning that Larry and Patti actually got married post 3 and the rest of the games as well as the remake of 1 are just games that Larry programmed for Sierra) after we were reminded just how bad 5 was.