Dog Day

So not a bad storygame.

I liked the pacing. As you are on the run from the Guard after a deal gone badly wrong, it makes sense that the story is going to have a fast and panicked way of moving forward, which helped to engage the reader immediately into the plight of the main character.

ll in all, great stories have more world building, interesting characters, a long-reaching plotline. This story has none of that. But despite being written simply to have a contest entry, it does a marvelous job of giving the player a straightforward task, and gives him straightforward ways to accomplish that task, in a way that I could feasibly see happening in a medieval short story.

There were no grammar errors that I could see, and the story was very easy to understand and follow. You do a decent job describing the surroundings and death scenes as well. So if you can write well on short notice, imagine how much more you could do with a story that isn't on a deadline!

I do wish there had been a bit more branching. Deadline or not, a couple of extra choices and another short path to freedom or a gruesome death would have been well worth the effort.

All in all, I rate this a solid 5.

Before the story even starts, the author tells me not to expect anything too great. Usually when this is the case, the work feels incomplete and I end up wasting about two minutes controlling a character I genuinely could not care less about. But, lo and behold, this is actually good!
The most glaring 'flaw' of this storygame is, obviously, that it is admittedly quite short, but that doesn't immediately make it bad or not worth reading. When you judge it for what it is, and not what it could've been, this is all around a solid piece of writing that I'm glad I read (a few times). Simple setting, simple goals- don't get shot to death. I can appreciate that.

The 'edgelord' parts can be pretty quickly identified, especially if you plan on pursuing multiple different paths. It's impressive to see multiple different endings (and corpses) packed into just over three thousand words, and I'm positive that any true edgelord would join me in appreciating that. When comparing this to other short stories I've read, this one is definitely one of the few that stand out, because it's actually well written. Good descriptions (some were gross, but hey, that's to be expected!), proper spelling and grammar, and it was overall satisfying to survive. Plus, I get to kill people. Poor butcher never stood a chance.

I do wish there was more context behind the plot, but I can just cross my fingers that this gets a sequel or maybe an update, but hey, even if it doesn't, this isn't an unsatisfying read all by itself by any means. Would I like to know more about what happened after my successful escape? Sure. Is it a requirement? No, not really.

Overall, this isn't your greatest work, but it's still good and an enjoyable read (maybe not if you have a weak stomach). A fine addition to the seemingly quite new Dark Fantasy category.

While this game is very short, the variety of routes is pretty fun to read through and if you have twenty minutes to kill it’s worth your time.
First positives:
-The game is extremely non linear and has a variety of different options of what to do (hiding, fighting, getting people to distract the guards)
-The description of the gore is good
-The premise for the story is pretty simple and gets straight to the action with an interesting hook: perfect for dumbasses like me
-The game has good grammar, as far as I can tell..

Things to improve:
-While the game is non linear, it has a lot of bad endings. The only good ones I found consisted of hiding in a ton of meat hooks in some weird orc butchers, threatening a little girl to earn her silence and just trying to run away as much as possible. All the others end with your gruesome death.
-Occasionally the pace seemed really rushed, but that might just be because this is a short game.
-We get little snippets of worldbuilding, this game seems like it should be the start of a larger story. Why is your friend dead? Why did the deal go wrong? Why does the Orc speak like every British person ever? We’ll never know.
-Some of the non-gore descriptions are a little lacklustre.

The best things about this story were the world building and the fact that it starts right in the middle of the action. There isn't a lot here, but there is some charm and personality. HOWEVER, there are also some plausibility issues. For example, escaping pursuit and immediately—randomly—being stoned to death by stray street urchins. I mean, the protagonist better be Michael Jackson and those boys better be escapees from the Neverland Ranch. Otherwise, it makes no sense whatsoever.

I think that gets to the essence of this story. It straddles the boundary between interesting and fun and narratively hollow or unjustified. We don't even get a real explanation for why the protagonist is running. There are hints of a deep world scattered about, like the orc in the butcher shop secretly torturing humans in the back (presumably keeping them alive so that the meat stays as fresh as possible). And there are interesting character moments, such as the option to take a little girl hostage until pursuit passes. That was a great touch for a sketchy protagonist. The problem? What should have been the end to the prologue ends up begin the end to the story.

That moment was perfect for showing a protagonist who is willing to put a foot over the line into evil in order to save his own ass. But instead of exploring this interesting character, we get a "Now you have to escape the city, THE END."

There are some very nice things about this little world, but none of the good things are explored very much, and the bad things really shouldn't be in the story (like getting stoned to death by Michael Jackson's molestation victims).

Granted, perhaps this was one of those last-minute stories. In which case, kudos to the author for putting together something that actually has some life and personality to it. If that's the case, then kind sir, finish the story! The contest is over!

In fact, do that either way, so I can raise my rating.

no igga

very close to being better than fungus cups

I don't know what you are talking about. This was ok. When someone says not to expect anything great, I expect to see something akin to a pile of crap. This is a solid 6/10 in my book.

great game

That was short, but still fun. Like this comment! Easy pointless point!

Liked that the character is a true low down criminal it feels very raw. Did not like the loose story telling felt very disconnected sometimes. (Had to read this because the title and story reminded me of the flawed masterpiece Kane and Lynch 2: dog days),