Scum

Well this had a lot of potential and it was a good attempt, but it fell short of what I was looking for when this was assigned to you for the contest.

Still, I always like a story with a villain protagonist so I didn’t hate it, it was just more of a case that this story could have went in all sorts of directions.

And that was the main problem I had with it, so many pages are linked in a linear fashion so it doesn’t really feel like there is much choice and that’s a major flaw for a CYOA. Might have even been better to shorten the amount of paths you had set and focus on a couple with more choices.

I didn’t really have too much of a problem with anything else concerning the story. Some of the characters probably could have been fleshed out a bit more, but they were fine in the scheme of things.

Personally I’d like to see you go back to this one and rework some of it. Add more choices, fix things, etc. Long shot that’s going to happen, but as I said the story has a lot more potential than just its current form.

Bonny and Clyde ending.

I enjoyed reading this, and the amount of options and word count is really 'impressive.'(to quote Steve)

This being said, there are a few glaring things to be improved upon.

1.Choices: There were a fair amount of choices, and the choices made meant something in the grand scope of the story. There was so much constantly going on, that I found myself wanting choices more often. Like I felt that there were a lot of choices that I should have been able to make, but I wasn't. It didn't necessarily take away from the story, but it definitely could have made it better.

2. Characters: I feel like this area was lacking quite a bit. I found myself not really caring about any of the characters aside from my self. Fleshing them out would significantly boost your story.

3: General Writing: Among my criticisms, this is perhaps the one you should take the most from imo. There were a ton of sentences that could have been cut down a size, and, as a result, the flow of the story was often interrupted. Saying sentences out loud would help a ton in this regard. If it doesn't sound right out loud, then it doesn't read right when read. Also, try and make sure to cut out the irrelevant parts of the pages. I often found myself reading things that didn't contribute anything. If these things had been better, then your story would have increased several notches.

To some it all up. It was good, but it could be significantly better.

Well, this was an interesting storygame. It's clear you put the effort in with a very impressive 50k in little over a month, which is a very impressive feat. For the amount of quantity you were spurning out, it holds an impressive quality. The actual story and setting seemed pretty interesting, I've always had a preference for the less than moral protagonists and conventional villains. Thankfully, EndMaster's prompt seemed to give a fairly good setting for you, rather than some brutal joke on his part and at your expense. The world seemed cool, although things like the various aliens could've used far more description, since all I knew was from the earlier briefing they weren't humanoid, and from the description that they were seven foot and blue. The actual amount of content in the whole thing was very impressive, with what I think was three solid branches breaking off from the very start of the game, which was a very ballsy choice and meant you practically had a few smaller games shoved into one. Still, despite and perhaps because of this there was also quite a bit lacking in choice in some of the paths, even meaningless choice or choice that would lead to death, and even at bits that felt like they deserved them, like sticking with Alyssa and getting sent on a suicide mission for it, with several stretches of like seven or eight links without choices, but given time shortages and how quickly you let the game branch out at the start, that seems understandable. Still, adding a few meaningless or death choices would've at least made it seem a bit less railroad-y.

My favorite path was definitely the pirate path. I liked trying to convince the pirate captain that my murdering of the other captain was justified, that was one of the cooler parts of the game.

I feel you try far too hard to tread the whole edgy line. Like, there isn't swearing for dramatic effect, or even swearing because people swear, but at point's it seems like there's just swearing for swearing's sake. Now, I love swearing, but there's a point where you're trying a bit too hard. Like, evil, scumbag characters don't need to impart that they're evil and scum with every single sentence, they can have elements besides that, but in this, it seemed rather than trying to create a three-dimensional protagonist who was a scumbag, you just went hard with the scum element, making the protagonist more of just a cunt rather than a likable villain.

There also tended to be a fair bit of sentences that kind of just ran on as you tried to impart a lot of information that a lot of times, wasn't even relevant, like with "Fuck that, you weren't about to get sucked into the vacuum of space if those aliens got a lucky shot in the hull like in the case of the U.S.S Panther which was the first ship of your fleet to have fallen." The sentence doesn't flow the best, and I feel most of it isn't even imparting information I need. I don't need to know the U.S.S Panther was the first ship to go, I don't even need to know the aliens need a lucky shot to take the ship down, if anything, that seems counter-intuitive, as the situation is supposed to be going to shit, but the enemy needing lucky shots seems like it's in our favor. Anyhow, just an example. There was also some very weird phrasing I didn't understand. Like, getting up from your "manned seat" confused the shit out of me. Aren't all seats manned? What other purpose for a seat is there?

Anyhow, it was a cool game, and a very enjoyable setting. My endings were Natives, Filthy Spy and A Pirates Life for me.

Ultimately, I thought it was a pretty interesting game, although there was perhaps too much of a focus on length and word count over other things, and a few flaws, but nothing that can't be worked on. I'm not sure how well it fitted the prompt, given that I think the longest path of a Native doesn't even have the colony until the end, and you're not really a villain, just kind of an edgy native hero, and in the other option, you really only ran from pirates until the end where you decided to mess with the colony, but that's for the judges. I liked the game, I thought it was cool and an interesting setting, and it's good competition to face off against in this big contest. Well done on this, hopefully it'll do well for you in the contest.

Got the "A Pirate's Life For Me" ending. I liked it.

"Scum" has an interesting story and could have been a pretty cool game, but it fell short in a lot of ways.

First, the grammar. There is a notice in the story description as I write this saying the grammar will be revised someday. I sure hope so, because it was a major problem. The story was not unreadable, but there were a lot parts where it was hard to follow everything that was going on. Sure, most stories have parts where I'll need to slow down to understand it all, but when such a large portion is like that and all because of grammar issues, it really takes away from the fun of reading.
There were also some long stretches of dialogue that were a bit hard to follow. A "you said" or "he said" after every few exchanges makes things a lot easier to keep track of.

Additionally, there was one part in which you are given a choice between a cell by yourself and with others. No matter what you choose, you end up reading the same end where you (Whoop, spoilers for the faggots who read reviews before stories!) wind up in the cell alone and killing yourself. Guessing there was a copy and pasting error there.

The setting is cool, and the story was interesting to me. I also liked some of the wording, such as the, "pudgy skin" of the lizard. It was fun to see all the directions that the story could go too. There was a nice variety of endings and branches, and it was nice to see other factions you could have met being referenced. (The first ending I got was the Natives end, by the way)
I also liked the main character and found him amusing, from him being upset about having to share a roll of toilet paper to his excitement at learning alien sign language.
There were also quite a few funny lines in the narration.

"You were going to become a anal sex slave, you were already calling it. Something was penetrating your asshole by the end of day."
This line amused me quite a bit.


The story itself is interesting, and I would really like to see a revised version. Just fixing the grammar and the copy-paste error would improve the story considerably.
However, as it is, it's not the sci-fi I would recommend.

My ending was shock and awe. The plot of the story was interesting, however, the style of the narrative feel rushed and is really linear. Sometimes the main character contradicts himself. I liked the natives' politics and overall design. They are same time alien and credible, and the npc are fleshed out even if the description is not very detailed.

My favourite character was Alissa who seems very interesting but there is not really dialogue with her or choices to how to deal with her. And that is my major criticism. Linearity is barely interactive and feels like you have no agency over anything happening.

It feels unpolished, but. have great potential if someday you polish it.

Surprisingly good. Liked the plot. Wished an epilogue was available.

Forgot to mention, my first ending was Native

It’s one in many storygames of this genre, and it doesn’t do anything to stand out. It’s very well-written, but there’s not much else to be said about it. 5/8

I got the shock and awe ending, accidentally clicked the wrong rating, will go and correct.