How to Nurture and Care for your Princess

The author has a truly tremendous voice and that's not a compliment to be given out lightly. There are a number of proficient writers on this website, but it's much rarer to find one who can write in a unique and interesting fashion. To me, it's the difference between a tedious read and an enjoyable one. Clearly, SkyTenshi is a promising writer and there is great potential for amazing storygames here. The dialogue is well-written, the characters are intelligible, and I find myself quickly invested in the plot. From the first page, SkyTenshi is able to force me to care.

And that is where the compliments end. This storygame was utterly disappointing. When an author has an excellent voice, they have certain obligations that other authors don't have to worry about. They owe their readers characters, settings, plots, and branches that are worthy of their voice. As a reader, I am never too disappointed to find an End Game link in the work of a novice, but an author like SkyTenshi should take their story more seriously. Premature endings are not acceptable for writers of this calibre. I feel cheated by this incomplete entry and botched story. There was so much potential to flesh out other paths and not doing so is barbaric, ridiculous and downright unsavory.

This story will be a shoe-in for a commendation just as soon as the author FINISHES IT. I really look forward to that moment, and until then, SkyTenshi should feel the same sense of incompleteness that she has deliberately bestowed upon the rest of us.

This was well written, although it felt quite rushed. The writing itself was quite good, although it did lack detail at certain parts. I understand that you had to cram together whatever you had, though, seeing as the deadline for this contest entry is, well, tomorrow.

The plot is extremely linear, there's a couple different endings, but all of them are essentially the same and there's nothing that really sets them apart from each other.

There was very little character development as well, again probably due to the time constraints. I didn't see much that made the characters unique, or events that caused them to change and develop in some way, with the possible exception of the princess, who at least is able to gain some empowerment.

Overall it was an okay read, but it definitely needs a lot more plot and revising for this to be above average. Unless, of course, you plan to simply let this story fester in the garbage bin for average writings. I'm betting on the latter, you Aussies always were a lazy bunch, that's why we sent you to that death trap of a continent to begin with.

Anyways, 4/8. Do better.

I was a little confused at the end before I got it. Some of the transitions of settings and time could have a little more detail or something that makes it just a slightly more noticeable change. Not sure off that's doable. Overall it's got the charm of a fairytale but also some of the cliche that comes with it. Not bad.

Weird, I'd been thinking I already reviewed this one. Must've started one and then decided to wait till after the contest.

Sky, your stuff has a really entertaining style and voice, but man oh man can I see the places where this one suffered from being rushed. I'll be sitting there happily reading along, and then come to choice link and suddenly the story skips forward. It can feel choppy and disjointed. I realize you were in a rush, but I feel like a quick explanatory paragraph tacked on here and there as a band-aid would have helped smooth some of the transitions until you had time to revisit this.

And I really do hope you pick this up again some day and flesh it out and polish it more now that there's no deadline pressuring you. It's just a fun story with fun characters and I wish you'd do more with it.

Your grammar is well, and the plot is somewhat interesting, but you gloss over almost all the details. It almost feels like you had this idea, but decided to write a summary of the idea rather than the actual idea itself. If you could put in some hardships, go into detail on the plot, and put in some character depth, you would have a pretty good storygame. As it stands, it is very linear, only branching off on the end, and has some abrupt changes in the plot. For example, you give a choice not to marry, then another choice to marry or not marry, and if you choose to not marry twice, you still end up being married. You could quite easily lead to having her run off to the forest as a way of escaping Knaus and not marrying him, but you don't have that as an option. It would make the story a little less linear, and writing the changes in the plot that would stem from that, like if you get captured because Alistar doesn't help you, would be very easy. Give it your all. You never know what you might produce.

It reminded me of a good book that liked reading some years back.

It was fun! Neat idea.