Player Comments on Death Nature

So, it was definitely an interesting read. There were spelling and grammar mistakes and all that, but given I presume you're working on that anyway and any dumb prat can criticize that, I'd like to further focus on the choices here, because a considerable amount of them feel like they're just... not. I mean, the differences between enslaving a planet and nuking everyone doesn't really matter given I'm playing as a world-destroying slaver either way. There's just not really the room to actually change or be much of a character there. It's the same with "Don't fuck your slave because you don't want to" and "Don't fuck your slave because you don't want to and you like profits", or "Destroy the planet for lots of normal resources" or "Destroy the planet for rare resources". It just isn't actually changing anything. Obviously, the tight word limit is going to cripple any actual choice diversification you can get.

The only choice you can actually make is the one with Silva, as that's the only one that has any consequences, and it just isn't a choice. I mean, the two options, "I don't care for this" and "My only love is for profits" could literally be part of the same sentence. One doesn't negate the other, so there just really isn't an actual choice to make here. Given your limit, I think it could've been smarter to either commit to branching or, to better use your words, have the choices matter, but not lead to branching. There can be moral differences in the choices without them having to have an effect.

The level of evilness of the Worldslayer is also a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I've always held particular spite for "Over-the-top, lolz evil" villains. It just isn't realistic to have someone just be find with destroying worlds out of pure evil greed. Either they'd have more complicated reasons, or they'd at least be lying to themselves about it. Even having the Worldslayer say some bullshit about "Progress for the galaxy at large" or something of the sort could've made his evil a bit more believable.

PEW PEW PEW

This is a short fun little story about the typical Tuesday of a world conquering tyrant and his psychotic secretary. It doesn't have much in the way of content but that was stated from the beginning.

Looking down at the other comments there's been plenty of corrections to the grammar, and spelling. No need to beat a dead horse.

Mara. You're doing great and making a lot of progress. I'm enjoying your stories. Keep up the good work.

Spoilers present, so beware. I thought this was a very interesting and good game for the given limit of 1,000 words. I like that is stretched the theme of “environment” by having someone literally killing off a planet for profit! There was a good amount of choices for such a short game, but only one mattered. I have to believe this was due to the amount of words a separate branch would add. Basically every option gives you a choice to change the details of what happens slightly, until the end. The grammar and mechanics need some work, but I think it is forgivable since this is the authors second language. It was good enough that I knew what was happening.

I liked the story and the twist as the end. The whole thing about a slave falling in love with her master is good, and I love that the main character thought he was untouchable, having already destroyed the entire planet he was invading, only to be put in danger by someone he thought he had absolute control over. Unfortunately, I did not like the final choices. It felt like I was choosing between “I don’t love you” and “I love money, so I don’t love you”. I would have like to see an ending where they end up together. Choosing between “maybe I do love you” and “no, I only love money” would have made the endings more different. I also did not get why cloning came into effect when the world-ender was poisoned, but not when he was shot. It makes me wonder if the endings were different. Of course, this could be because of the lack of word-space. Either way it was an interesting story with some good misdirection: look at how he is destroying the planet, and ignore the girl in his room...bam! She tries to kill him.

I didn’t do this for every page, but I noted my grammar and sentence structure corrections for the first page:
-1st para- observing implies looking, “looking” can just be deleted here without changing anything else. This will flow better and be less words.
-3rd para- “proudly” should be “proud” with a comma after “smirk”. “53” should be “53rd”, the suffix is needed for an ordinal number (a number that tells what order it position something is in). In words this is the difference between “one” and “first” as an example (“1” vs “1st”).
-4th para- “laid” should be “lady” or “lover”. If she is just used for sex there are different words for that like “booty call” or “concubine”. More graphic words are available, but I do not wish to list them...
-5th para- delete “of level” or say “at an” (rather than “in an”) and delete “of”. “Send” should be “save” and a comma should be after slaves.

I get that this is intended for a contest with a 1000-word limit, and so by the description alone I knew I was going to be finished reading this in a matter of minutes.

A thousand words doesn't give you much room in a CYOA story, because you can burn through a lot of those words just through branching alone. There will be no room for character development or dialogue unless you sacrifice the branching. To get a satisfying amount of branching, each page has to be distilled to the most basic descriptions of motivation, choice, and consequence.

As a CYOA, this story is a bit disappointing because there are only two endings, so only the final choice in that climactic scene with Silvia matters. As a story, my ability to appreciate it is hindered by inability at times to understand what's going on.

What I can and do appreciate is the author's interest in writing and desire to receive feedback. It's abundantly clear that English is not her first language, and this will be a stumbling block for many readers. At times the syntax here is, shall we say, surreal. Pairing up with a collaborator might work wonders; one of the best ways to learn a language is to converse in it. And in this case, some basic proofreading would work wonders.