Nautilus

The introduction is very strong- it’s wordy, descriptive, and informative, setting up the reader for the rest of the story nicely; as well as the main conflict, which is a pretty interesting one. Two brothers with conflicting views and values, reunited in the midst of a loved one’s health crisis- it was enough to make me immediately curious about the ways this could unfold, which is obviously really good for branching stories.

The focus of the story is in its characters moreso than the setting or fishing contest itself. You’re introduced to them quickly and they’re also quick to establish their personalities.

The Protagonist: One benefit of the first handful of choices being dialogue options is that you can effectively shape the main character’s personality a bit. You quickly get the impression that you’re playing as a bit of a flake- would it be so hard to answer one letter in eight years? Gosh.

The Brother: Angry and bitter, and perhaps with a right to be, is the brother. Like I already said, I find his conflict with the protagonist to be very interesting, and whether or not his hateful attitude is justified depends on the choices you make, really. He does raise a pretty good point early on about the timing of the protagonist’s return and how he probably just wants to inherit the family ship, especially because you have a choice to immediately prove him right. He’s probably the best character, I found him to be a pleasant and honorable opponent once we were out on the water.

The Father: A very withered and boney fellow indeed, I like how the father’s forgiving personality contrasts that of the brother’s. I do wonder if he’s forgiving by nature, or if him knowing he’s at the end of his rope has anything to do with it. He’s also clearly out of his mind because the method he suggests for deciding who gets to inherit the Nautilus is such a recipe for a good ol’ brotherly murder.

The description is very accurate in saying that this is a lot more story than game. Each playthrough is a pretty good length, with the ending sequences really being where most of the true branching is.

Miscellaneous Good Things:
-The greatest KAE/CYS crossover storygame of all time!

-The (already mentioned) descriptions are nice, particularly the ones in the introduction that detailed the watery horizon and weathered fishing town.

-An appreciated variety of endings!

Miscellaneous Bad Things:

-CavusRex is allergic to commas.

Overall, this was a good entrant into the Gone Fishin’ contest (was that seriously 5 months ago!?), and I hope to see more from you in the future!

Ah yes, the ol "offhandedly mentioned two suns", a classic. Nothing more succinct when you want to quickly and easily establish that your historical seeming setting is actually not.

The baseline prose quality is as expected for a guy that's a part of multiple IF communities and working to overthrow CoG. Only a few typos, the most noticeable being the doubled first line on the “I regret many things, but not leaving" page.

The story itself starts out promising, but just sort of feels like it's lacking some oomph. Many choices only effect a small bit of dialogue, and they all start looping once you get out to sea, or sometimes leading to identical pages in addition to identical outcomes. There's basically only two endings once you set out to sea, with some very slight variation in how you get there. From the setup it really had seemed like there'd be more dramatic places to steer this story.


Also, nitpicking perhaps, but it's a fantasy setting, and I'm just not really seeing any reason WHY it's a fantasy setting. Nothing happens here that wouldn't fit the (much less crowded) real world categories besides a few offhand mentions of non necessary background info and yes, the two suns.

Anyway, this was published so early I know the deadline wasn't a factor, so maybe the inspiration well just ran dry. But it's still a pretty solid and decent little piece and far and away the only passable thing that's ever come from the land of KAE.

Ah boats... I do like boats. As boat stories go this one was pretty good, though the story was quite short and didn't seem to develop significantly, I think this could have been taken in a lot more directions. The characters and their relationship were interesting but I think this story could have been expanded on. A good read.

Not bad! The writing was pretty good, and the story was interesting enough. Though, the endings felt a bit rushed, especially with the dialogue.

Ah yes, in a dramatic scene where I choose to betray my own brother, %%CHOICE%=%2%% is the perfect choice of words to match the situation.

The rest was good though. 5/8.

Good story nicely written. No big SPAG issues, although I did catch a few words that were obviously intended to be other things, but the misspelling still almost worked (i.e. now for not).

The relationship between the brothers was interesting to explore and bringing the opening parable back at the end rounds out the story nicely.

Solid writing overall with decent branching and endings, Nautilus does well on developing themes of family, guilt, and fishing in just 9k words. There were some odd sounding bits here and there, but nothing stuck with me that I needed to point out. All in all, an enjoyable quick read.