Red Mirror

The cover art on the description page really tripped me out. I left the page open on my monitor and every so often I would sense movement, but it would be gone by the time I looked. It took me a while to realize that it moves, which for a while made me consider if this actually was some dystopian reality.

Anyway the story is pretty decent. It’s not the best, but certainly not the worst. I would recommend giving it a read. I didn’t hate it, it was kind of whatever for me. I’d say the more you like the primese the better it’d be for you.

Starting with the branching, it was decent. For a story of its length it did a good job on the branching. A little bit of looping back, 4 ending isn’t the worst number. I feel like 4 endings is the smallest passable number, assuming it comes from 2 pairs of choices.

The writing is decent. The grammar wasn’t the worst thing ever. The writing style felt like it was trying pretty hard to be descriptive, which isn’t that bad of a thing.

Honestly I’m not too sure what to say about the game. It’s more so a thing that exists, I doubt I’ll remember it much. But still, it’s passable. I’m not sure what advice to give on it, as I don’t really have much to say about it. More length and time to be attached to the story could’ve helped. Either way I’m glad to see the progress made with mastery of the language.

The writer has successfully used sensory description to show rather than tell the physical world of the story. Her use of language is far from stale and even inventive. It does not rely on cliches and familiar phrases, concepts and sentimentality. I used a screen reader to play through this game. I closed my eyes and listened to an appropriate soundscape. I had a pretty good time! I recommend the experience.

The editing is a bit of a problem. I didn’t notice it so much when I listened to it, but reading it myself there were moderate errors that distracted from the text. Quotation marks, spacing, and so on. There were a few places where sentences were twisted up, like a cigarette offering you a coworker instead of the other way around. There are several awkward sentences with unclear meanings.

Depending on the path, the narrative can be hard to follow, but I like the themes and the author's efforts to explore them. I would also like the praise the characterization. The author quickly establishes characters, their motivations, orientation to the world, and shows them taking action in proportion to their situation. It’s not perfect, but it’s really promising. Great job! If the author ever updates the story, and cleans up the editing, I’d like to be notified so I can raise my score!

I got the ending in which I apparently detonated? The setting was an interesting one, and I see the obvious measures taken to make this something that’s uniquely told. I don't think it’s the easiest thing to make a story in which the main theme from my interpretation is being oppressed by an inhuman force.

There's some issues with grammar, certain sentences missing quotations, but the story is one that is to the point at the end of the day.

I think I did like the aspect of the main character feeling like the one that was most human at times in comparison to the other characters she can interact with.

While I was writing this, I got a totally different ending that was pretty triumphant. It was given to me when using a whole different sort of choices, so I think there's decent branching as well.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read, Mara.

Very confusing, not always in the best way!
Certainly very grimy, sleazy, dark.
I was getting the idea of the plot by the end of it, though.
Could have benefitted from a lot of careful editing. Wasn't clear very often who was talking, or even if they were talking or thinking. "This is how you use speech marks."
But overall, I'd say the story contained some sharp writing and shows some promise.

The game was delightfull