Player Comments on Vampirium: The Count

Okay. I'll try not to repeat what the other comments have said, but I do have some thoughts on this.
First with the praise! I like this game and think a lot of it was well written, or has good potential to be well written if some more work were put in. The trailer to 'Ashes: Bloodlines' sounds much more promising, though it also has some tense swapping and mistakes, as I spotted in this story. I can tell that your ability to write, which would already be good description-wise with a bit more revision, has improved since you've written this.

However, there are a few things to improve on. The first page is vital. It's what sets the mood, genre, and general feeling of any story, especially in the CYOA genre. Whenever I see mistakes on the first page, I can instantly tell the story needs much more work and it kills a lot of excitement in anticipation of more errors. I repeatedly came across strange phrasing and similar words! A few examples:
- 'rebegin' would be better as 'start again' or something like that.
- 'Birds fly overhead the wet trees.' I feel that it's a strange observation that doesn't really add much to the atmosphere.
- 'With that [the 10,000 gold you're being offered], you could travel to your home Nevai and start a tavern' What? Like... you're rich enough to buy a home but too poor to get to it? I don't know what's going on there.
- '"We are ambused, halt enemy!" he shrieks.' a combination between 'ambushed' and 'abused' perhaps? If so, I commend you for your ingenuity. If not, you might want to quickly address the fairly numerous mistakes this is just one example of, as well as the comma splice in this excerpt. The dialogue just sounds a bit janky.
- 'This blade adds to your attack strength in combat.' Some things are best left to the imagination.
- With Johhny the potion guy or whatever, it says: "...with one last blow", though it was definitely the first blow as the character hadn't attacked before then.
- '...a single overlarge bat swoops down on you.' Might be better as 'overly large', or just 'enormous' etc.
- 'what daya say?"'
- 'You laugh wearily and wickedly tell it that you'll rip it off if it doesn't runs off, which it can't since its legs are crushed due to the fall. He starts crying and praying for his life.' To be honest, I love everything about this. Man, I do have to say that this did stir up some emotion in my cold, black heart. I know this is supposed to be the criticism section, but I'd like to say I enjoyed the poor little character and thought it was well written. Just read through it all to make sure it flows and doesn't repeat the same words in close proximity.

There were also some strange transitions between scenes. For example:'The man bows you and the wizard before kneeling down.

"Pretty neat, eh?"

So, the next day you and Icus proceed into the Blackwood forests...' I personally think that's quite a weak way to transition. Something that would sound more natural is:'With that, you bid the wizard farewell and part ways.'

I could also use the count's diary even though I don't know where the hell I got it from. Evidently, there was an option that leads you to it that I didn't pick. Either way, I'd suggest creating items and an inventory, or if you can't be bothered then just script in variables to keep track of what the character does and doesn't have and put in link restrictions when they can be used. Or if you can't be bothered to do that, just cut out the diary. Or if you can't be bothered to do that, just leave it.

You did say 'Sorry for any errors you encounter.' in the author's note, but why not just run through the 4000 words and resolve them? It wouldn't take too long! With some editing, this could be a really good storygame! Despite everything, I'm pretty amazed you wrote it on a phone, let alone a bloody Nokia.

Oh yeah. One last thing: I see you have numbers, so I'm guessing you've formatted this in the classic CYOA style you find in books. Because of the wonders of technology, linking renders that obsolete so it would look better cutting those out. All in all, a decent story.
4/8

First off: You are insane for writing this on a phone.

As for my actual review, the writing here is definitely above average for the site, but I was disappointed at the number of errors I kept running into. Missing or misspelled words, dialogue tag errors, and so on. I guess I just don't really see the point of copying an old story over to post it as a new story unless you're going to make an attempt to address some of the issues and improve it in some way.

Bucky covered a lot of this already, but the first few sentences, especially when dealing with awkward phrasing like 'It is slightly raining.' can be the kind of thing having a reader immediately adjusting their expectations of a story downwards. Really, really cannot overemphasize how important the first line, first paragraph, basically the entire first page are for any story.

The story itself was a fun little dungeon crawl that reminded me of some of the old school CYOA books, if obviously a lot shorter. Though the thing with copying over the text minus the scripting is more obvious in some places than in others - the fight with the goblin for instance, the player is told not to underestimate him, then immediately wins on the next line without even needing to click anything.

Anyway, I feel like this has potential if you want to seriously revisit it to expand or give it some polish, at the moment it's just hard to get excited about a direct copy and paste.

I have to say, I was disappointed that the story didn't live up to the hype in the comments. It wasn't a "bad" story, but it was far and away from awe inspiring.

There were craft issues, weak writing, and general errors right from the opening page.

Excerpt:
The sky is ashen black. It is slightly raining. You enter the shady bar and scan the surroundings.
///
You're starting off the story with passive voice. This is supposed to be your big hook to draw in the reader. But this is pretty mundane and doesn't really create much in the way of imagery. "The shady bar," has to be one of the most generic cliches in writing.

Excerpt:
The windows here are closed tight and darkness prevails, the only source of light being a lantern dangling from the roof. You find yourself an empty chair and sit. A shabby man approaches you and put a jar of ale on your table.
///
More passive voice and more generic imagery. If you ask ten different people to describe a "shabby man," you'll probably get ten different depictions. The more vivid and clear you can paint your story and its characters, the better your writing will be.

Excerpt:
"Long time since your last visit." the man, the innkeeper says.
///
You consistently write your dialogue incorrectly. You should be using a comma in cases like this, not a period. Grammatically, it should read...

"Long time since your last visit," the innkeeper says.

Excerpt:
"Any work?" you ask.
///
This is written correctly, since it's not a statement.

Excerpt:
"I've heard Yako, the wizard, is searching for an employer. You should visit him once, although he has warned that it would be a perilous task." he replys while wiping the spoils on your table.
///
Read this out loud. Does this really sound like natural dialogue? No one talks like this. Also, another instance of incorrect grammar with your dialogue. And it's generally considered a bad idea to tag dialogue with anything other than "said" or "asked." They are less intrusive, and you should be showing the tone of the dialogue threw actions, not telling us. Grammatically, it should read..

"... although he has warned that it would be a perilous task," he says while wiping the spoils on your table.

Although, I'd eliminate the tag entirely, such as...

The innkeeper rubs down the bar with a filth covered rag. "I've heard Yako, the wizard, is searching for an employer. You should visit him once, although he has warned that it would be a perilous task."

Oh, and he's searching for an "employee" or something along those lines. The wizard is the employer.

I'm pretty amazed that you could write this on a phone. That sounds like an unbelievably horrifying endeavor. But from a grammatical and craft standpoint, this story could still use a lot of work.

This was a pretty good game not as good as DS (Dungeon Stompage) but I like the story.

the best story game I've played

The writing is quite bad. You can find a couple of errors, and there is a lot of skipping in the narration.
There seem to be at least 4 Endings, but I only managed to get 3 out of them with multipe tries.
You always get the same 3 choices at the boss-battle, no matter what you've doinge before, and it's always the same outcome.
There was one part in the story, when I thought there could be a new twist, but it went nowhere in the end...

VERY FUN

THE END
YOU'VE ACHIEVED THE BEST ENDING

wELL THAT WAS SHORT... LIKE THE PREQUEL STORY THOUGH...

I liked this one.

This needs a tremendous amount of polish, but was an otherwise fine old fashioned Adventure Game tromp. The page numbers on the links were quite unwanted. Were it a physical book they would be more warranted. However, the best option should not always be, or nearly always be, the next sequential page. That's a serious flaw.

Lol, writing on a phone is a nightmare. Thanks for the comments!

Great writing.

A bit linear. Got the best ending. A good start, but needs some more meat on the bones.

Well I got the best ending in my first play through. I'd consider republishing this story after cleaning up the spelling and grammar (Not on a phone this time) if I were you. You've got a good writing style.

Your writing in this story is fantastic, or by my standards a higher level than I could achieve :D There are good uses of story branches here and exploratory paths but I think this could have been taken further into a longer story, also many of the Items referenced could have been improved by using them as Items with the Advanced Settings Concept. I also found the things like Author's Note, Trailer etc as hints of how the story could have been developed; as it is it is fantastic but with development it could have been feature-worthy. This was definitely very enjoyable and I am glad you published this, I can only say I am looking forward to your next story-game :D 7/8