Player Comments on The Emerald Mirror

Again, I like the writing style of this storygame but this chapter isn't a complete story in itself. A story needs a beginning, a middle and an end: set the story in the beginning; conflict in the middle; and resolution at the end. You've left us hanging before you've even finished the beginning and moved onto the middle. I don't think that's a very good way of telling this story. If you think about published series of books, for most of them each individual book will be a complete story. At the very least all of them will be more complete of a story than this one. It is possible to do this and simultaneously have a bigger overarching plot that leaves the reader in suspense.

The way choices are used in this storygame works for the most part and I can see why you decided to give them very few consequences for a series of storygames, because multiple endings would be a pain. But I do think the "Follow the blood" choice, aside from the choice itself being out of the blue since you previously made no mention of blood, is a bit arbitrary. You click on it and the game ends, but then you miss out on all the other clues/things you see. It just feels like some readers won't find out as much about the story for no real reason. Oh, and two kids find a corpse but immediately carry on dusting books and trying on goggles instead of telling an adult or otherwise freaking out? Come on now.

Having said all of this, it's clear that you can write well. Your descriptive writing sets a vivid scene and you're doing a good job of setting up a story even if you haven't got to the meat of the story yet. Please just get to the meat of the story (and preferably the ending as well) next time you publish a story, rather than splitting it into multiple chapters. Proofreading wouldn't hurt, either.

Hi MJ,

The writing here was very good overall, though you did have a few spelling mistakes and some awkward phrasing here and there, as well as a few other small issues. (using the wrong word in a couple of places such as swapping 'molecule' for 'monocle')

While exploring the mansion there was a choice 'follow the blood' which was a little confusing since there hadn't been any blood mentioned yet. A sentence like 'You see some odd splotches on the floor.' with a choice to examine them more closely might be a better way of handling this.

I can PM you some more specific examples if you'd like...the story was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it, but it would be even better with a little polishing.

Though I agree with Will that it might work better as a single story than as separate 'chapters'. The title, for instance, would make more sense; I kept waiting for the forest to show up! :D

Yes. Just yes.

Omg this was awesome I loved this

Excellent writing and a nice story that reminds me a bit of the Narnia series :) My one criticism would be not to release this story in chapters but finish all of it and release it as one completed story. If you can maintain the level of quality in the first chapter through all the book the complete story will be a very, very good read :D