Alien Hunter

Spoilers below.


First of all, the info dump at the start was pointless. It could easily have been incorporated into the story with a scene at the beginning in which Fredrick tries to convince his friends aliens exists. The only purpose it currently serves is to disrupt the flow of the story.

The extreme amount of unimportant detail is tiring. Why does the reader need to know what color Fredrick’s computer monitor is? It clearly had no relation to the aliens, which are the focus of the plot. With the removal of all the unnecessary detail, the first page could easily be condensed into something half the length.

There were far too many typos and grammatical errors for a story this short. I found three on the first page, and I’m sure there are more. Though the word choice was nicely varied, the sentences didn’t flow well, one reason being a lack of commas.

Don’t label the endings as good, normal, or bad. Quality writing tells the reader if the ending was good or bad. Also, having it at the top of the page, where the reader is told how good the ending is before they have the chance to read the it, will make the reader less likely to actually read through the ending.

Now, to address the biggest issue. There was one ending with an endgame link. Let a death ending end the story, instead of forcing the reader to go through path after path. The ending with the endgame link isn’t even the most successful or the one with the longest path.

Probably would have given this a 4/8 if there had been endgame links. Giving it a 2/8, and that’s generous.

While I found the story to be enjoyable in a quaint sort of way, there were quite a lot of errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Most of the endings don't even have an end game link - in fact, I think only one of them does - and that's never great. Make sure to add end game links at every ending, so that people can actually leave a score. Plus, the one ending that DID have an end game link doesn't even seem to be the 'true ending', if that makes sense.

As for what I did like, the use of description was decent, it really made me <i>feel</i> like a seclusive, financially-struggling millennial (what else is new). The branching was quite good too: I was expecting the "don't investigate" option on the first page to just lead to a dead end, but instead there were actually a few choices after that, which was a pleasant surprise. I love how telling the truth to the police solicits a bad ending, too. There's something funny about that.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned poor grammar is probably going to lower scores, as it has lowered mine. It's good practice to read over your stories before publishing them, to make sure that everything reads well. I mean, there's even a spelling mistake in the game's description ("which" should be "wish"), which leaves a bad first impression.

Anyway, good use of images, somewhat enjoyable story, decent-ish branching, but let down by poor SPaG and the lack of end game links. I doubt this story will get a rating above 3.

Decent concept.

Bad grammar.

But the worst was the forced restarts without any endgame links at actual endings.

Thoughts while playing:
NO, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE WHAT OTHER ENDINGS THERE ARE. I just want to escape. Please, help me escape this game. Stuck in a stupid timeloop. It's like groundhog day in here. Help, I need to find an exit. Stupid aliens wont let me leave. I hate this game but I will finish it to leave a rating.

The story was good in idea, but I was kind of thrown off by the spelling mistakes. A multitude of them. I also didn't like how you couldn't end the game after every ending. Meh overall

Yeah, I was about to give it a 4 out of 8, because it was a half decent read, but God please, just put an ending link for at least the normal endings.

Felt like a blast from the past. Reminded me of the storygames I farmed through from the 2000s for juicy points.

Alien Hunter is alright in some areas but could use some work in others. The spelling, tenses, and the general sentence structure/flow need some serious proofreading.

I was hoping for a little more intrigue from the alien-focused side of the story, but the story that's there is fine. My favorite ending is actually on the other side, where you take your phone into the sewers with you when your neighbors mob your house and just spend the rest of your days there lol. Kind of a fucked up neighborhood and world this is that you've created.