Vindicta

Interesting introduction! I’m expecting quite an epic on this story just based on that page. I do like how you start out with mankind and worked your way down to caption Rogers. I’m not sure what I think of how the first page sets things up. It starts out excellent, having me feeling the salt and the sea. Then I’m talking. Then I’m reading about the history and the setting. While it’s not as strong a starting point, in this case I think if you’re going to include that history/setting information, it should be first – or maybe just put that part on the title page and leave it out of the text of the story completely.

One thing I find a bit different in this story is the dialogue. The reader is the protagonist of the story, yet they are also given a number of lines. The author is literally putting words in the mouth of the reader. I haven’t seen this done very often. It can be difficult to pull off, especially if the reader cannot really see themselves as the part in the story. I’d suggest trying to get the reader more immersed in the character before the dialogue that the reader is supposed to be saying appears, but that might just be me.

I like the attempts to include descriptions and details throughout the story. In some places the adjectives appear to be a little heavy in the story, almost as if forced into the story. And on the first page there was a conflict: at one point the ship had been taken by townsfolk near that location, yet later the salesman himself claims to have killed the pirates himself. The font also changed at one point in the story, and that is always distracting.

Overall, I found this to be a nice story with some good details. I didn’t really feel like there were any real options to choose from, each option seemed to be “continue or die” choices. However, the main story line was interesting with some nice writing, though I really didn’t get any “feels” from this story (the contest theme). Thank you for sharing this story with us.

Well, this was short but enjoyable. I love pirates and sailing and that so the setting was to my taste, and I actually found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would. It had a lot of flaws, but overall it seemed to be a pretty good game worth a play.

Alright, the first thing I noticed, which while not a major issue, was super bizarre, your description opened with "For decades, mankind traversed the world be sea." We've had sea travel we used to travel the world for far, far longer than that. Like, ridiculously longer than that. Sea travel has been around for longer than there's been a "we" to have them, for almost a million years ago when Homo Erectus first developed them. I was genuienely so confused I complained to various people online, ended up reading a bunch about sea travel and had less time to read the other entries. So you're to blame for Wibbons never getting any reviews.

The actual writing was better than I thought it'd be. The opening was fine, although I'd have rather had the details be introduced a bit more organically than just being told to me. You could've introduced the date a number of ways, be it through a dated item the character sees or even a date and location stamp at the start, or through dialogue, and your name being Rogers and you being about to obtain your own ship could've been introduced pretty easily as well, while the details of loving the water seemed kind of redundant and not worth breaking the rhythm to just tell me it.

I would've liked a bit more gore and a few more swears, given these are fucking pirates, but I've been told that's more of a swearing thing.

A small thing was your dialogue tags, which were incorrect. It's an easy mistake to make, and actually one I made in my first few games, so I'll take what the site's resident Mizal, Mizal, told me and just give you that.

"In particular there were issues with the dialogue tags.

For instance:

"The sun wishes us good luck. We'll do well in the battle." One of the Orcs near you says happily.
"Cease your superstitions, Nagrak. We might not even fight today." Another replies.

Just fyi (since it may be easiest just to give an example) these should be punctuated like so:

"The sun wishes us good luck. We'll do well in the battle," one of the Orcs near you says happily.
"Cease your superstitions, Nagrak. We might not even fight today," another replies."

So there you are. Take that into account for future games. It's weird at first, but you get used to it quickly.

I actually quite liked the development of the protagonist from naive young man with dreams of the sea to a grizzled, cruel pirate who abandons slaves to their death.

The endings were a mixed bag. Dying having not become a legend, but having served one and being content with that was actually more satisfying than it should've been, although I feel giving your life to save Blackbeard was a bit iffish, given I feel getting a heroic death for saving a monster who we help do awful things seems a bit counter-intuitive, while being caught but going "It was good while it lasted" seemed more pirate-like.

Still, overall, it was a fun and interesting game, and good fun to play. It could've been expanded, of course, with more choices and that, but it works as a self-contained story and didn't feel that much like it was hacked short due to time limits, and given the fact that one of my complaints it I would've liked more of it, I think you did a pretty good job.

Its okay

Whenever I try to do a morally correct thing in Storygames, I get punished for it.

I think this story was decent. It could have had at least some branching that doesn't end the game. I am also a bit disappointed in the direction this took. I was expecting to be some rebel pirate fighting against the us/European navy. I'll tell you why.

By the description of the story, you were saying that piracy was dying out and people were wanting safer waters. This story took place in 1716-18. Historically 1700-1730 were some of the best years for piracy. I understand that you did this so that you could put Blackbeard in your story, but the intro page would have been better written as the main character trying to make it into the history books in a world full of pirates, not that the world of piracy is fading.

5/10 I had higher expectation but the writing was fine overall

This is pure gauntlet style from beginning to end, you are given two choices every time and one ends the story, one continues it. To me it's a stretch to call this kind of thing a branching game, but the writing is quality and the story entertains (who doesn't love pirates???), so I can't bring myself to actually give it a low rating or anything.

Ericyopy is one of the more underrated authors on the site as far as talent goes, if he really went all out with a full sized story with plenty of branching he could easily be featured.

Thanks for writing this story; I enjoy that this story presents some of the history of Blackbeard. My favorite part is the lead-up to becoming a pirate.

My critiques are that by the end the plot seems repetitive. I would suggest re-reading the last few pages of the story (and the pages Free Them and Kick Him Out) as there are more noticeable grammatical errors occurring there.

I enjoyed the story, not gonna lie. Who doesn’t want to go be a pirate on the sea? I mean, I guess if you don’t want to, steer clear of this one, but still, you get my point.
Through and through, this story clicks together in my eyes, though, and there’s not too much I would change given the chance. The most glaring thing, I guess, would be the Captain’s sort of...blank slate character? I understand this is to give us as the reader for immersion in the story, but still, I enjoy when who we’re playing as has some real personality to him. Just a personal preference thing, if anything. The other minor gripe I have is with a couple minor typos and odd stylistic things I saw throughout, like with the spaced paragraphs. It’s just something that can make it a tad harder as a reader to get through the story.
It’s decently short, it’s sweet, and a fun ride throughout. You can’t go wrong picking this one up.

I thought the story was AMAZING! Pretty straight forward.