Camp Massacre: 1990

Ok, this story was an interesting one. In terms of tone foreshadowing isn’t the word – unanimous expectation of an inevitable massacre seems to be the theme throughout from the beginning. I never mind linearity much (which is good because I don’t think any of the choices really matter at all at any stage of the story) but the number of characters and the level of detail about them is very unnecessary, particularly the weirdly detailed descriptions of appearance and clothes.

Chapter 1 was literally just people walking through the camp’s entrance and took about 1,000 words and 20 pages. It might have been nice to have a bit more action a bit earlier in the story rather than just promises that something interesting will eventually happen at some distant future point to give those of us who aren’t professional fashion stylists more reasons for reading... at one point we got a detailed paragraph-long description of someone unpacking a box of tinned vegetables in a kitchen. At that stage I started hoping for a seriously deranged and successful serial killer to root for. Also, any time any character makes the smallest joke everyone roars with laughter for a couple of paragraphs.

The extreme emotions make the story a bit odd. Someone called someone a “dipface” and the person responded with an all-caps death threat (which reminded me of Trump for some reason). Then we heard a car and everyone was scared for five pages but it’s ok because it turns out to be a guy whose hair “cascades down his neck in gentle waves” so he fits right in. There were some unexpectedly fun metaphors in places but it’s a bit weird that the smallest action always seems to trigger an extreme emotional reaction from the characters, although that could just be because they’re teenagers.

I got a bit more hopeful that the inevitable massacre would happen soon when the lone adult in charge of the camp of children randomly takes off (no explanation provided), someone calls someone “old man”, this is described as “quick wit” and then someone finds the case of beer left for the unsupervised children in a basement. Then A MURDER HAPPENS (which is about 10% as long as the description of everyone having breakfast) because one of the characters finally goes to get the beers and gets killed but we cut away from all the gory detail (“oh my gosh” exclaims the character who discovers her before also getting chopped) and the moral seems to be you drink alcohol you basically deserve to be disemboweled.

We then have a 6-page hunt for a box of matches, a girl gets ready a romantic moment while the guy reads a Wolverine comic, we get foreshadowing in spades with “little did they know” used on three pages in a row, some more characters get killed (rendering all the attempts to define their individual personalities fairly pointless) but depressingly we are reminded there are still more living characters somewhere else. I tried getting them killed deliberately but the story wouldn’t let me: I got told I sucked at making choices (“whelp!”was the actual word used) and was forced to choose a route where they all live and then we got to The Final Showdown.

The incredibly stereotypical killer (who is unlike any real-life serial killer and more like the bad guy from the first Scary Movie film) and the main character have a weird conversation after which the killer falls out of a window and dies after swinging an axe at and missing, and then the writer kindly told me any review is great so here you are.

To be fair this story has good points: it is well-structured with good grammar and spelling, incredibly detailed and some stuff did eventually happen. Unfortunately, it badly needs massive editing: the pace and detail were bizarrely inconsistent, nothing really happened for the first 80% of the story and I didn’t really get the killer’s motivations beyond “I’m crazy!” This story only needed to be about half as long as it was because there wasn’t a huge amount of plot beyond cliches but a lot of detail about what everyone was wearing. I’d recommend trying short and impactful more often but for a first effort, as you took care to remind us, it’s not a bad try but it is quite a challenge just to read through in its entirety. Happily, I have a free evening and an uncluttered social life and I’m feeling generous so here’s your review and your 6/8 rating.

It looks like a bit of work went into writing this, and the story seems to have decent grammar, spelling and structure.

But dude. I got bored way before anything interesting happened and it was just linear clicking to the next page. A massacre would have been nice. I feel cheated.

Was not in the mood to pay attention much so my feedback won't be very detailed...

I didn't even finish one route though due to too much linearity and over explaining clothing details. (I actually don't mind this when its done sparingly or for just a few characters...but when your constantly doing it for everyone its impossible to get a good image of everyone due to information overload. Details need to be purposeful in some way...not every way but at least some way.)

Also there doesn't seem to be any definitive point of view character...the description says you play as Regina but the first choice I made involved Reggie doing something. Even if this was supposed to be a linear story (which it kinda is from what I played) there's too much head hopping going on too quickly.

DM me if you want me to give this another try later or if there's a specific part you want critiqued in more detail. But for now...I can say there's a decent idea here that seems to be bogged down by a lack of proper structure...and being too linear obviously.