The writing is so good and the adventure is so railroady, this feels more like a book than an adventure. The idea is nice, you respect the theme and the inspirations even if you flirt with parody, but there’s no room for players to do different things or deviate from the script, and you started from a map with more paths than the ones you used. Keep this writing style and turn it into a pointcrawl for a real banger (or maybe flesh out another 100-200 pages and go full novel, the ideas and skills are there anyways).
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Thank you for your kind words. I’m just delighted to have people read my stuff.
The idea I had for writing it was what if you only had tie-in media and had to guess at what the original story was, so events unfolding in such a prescribed way was kind of baked into the bit. I absolutely think this adventure needs a bit of “yes, and . . .” with the players ideas to make the story feel alive. The origin story of the Chicken Lord only exists when you make it up on the spot. It's almost quantum mechanical.
As railroady as it is (and I mean, you don’t even get to name your own ship), I do stand by that this one could make some converts of new players. It’s an easy going, zany adventure, and a rigid structure can keep it from going too off the rails, even if saying that feels a little too on the nose.
Also, I checked out The Hidden Empire. That is a lot of adventure to pack into 3 pages. It could run a campaign. I love all the detail and think it would be a really fun. Nicely done.