Player Comments on Seven Days

This was alright. For a first story, it is better than some other things written on this site. However, there are some blaring issues that make it hard to enjoy this as much as one could.
To start, there are several grammatical errors. I noticed a few spelling errors while reading. There were also many places where reading it aloud would have improved on comma placements and the like. It was honestly a bit hard to get through. Yet, I did play this to as much completion as possible. Which brings me to my next point. For those who have yet to play the game, I'd suggest not continuing on unless you've either played the game or don't want to anymore. I obtained four different endings.
To begin, there are several inconsistencies with the endings. I'll be using Dennis as an example. In one ending, he is some random scientist you and Allaine happen to know that helped develop this cure. Allaine is also one of our friends in this ending. Meanwhile, in another ending, Allaine is our sister and a scientist I believe is Dennis is our father. When were we suddenly not related to either of them? Why did their relationship with us change with an alteration of choices? There is also another ending which Allaine is our partner. At least, that's what I'm inferring from the way that ending is written. That and that earlier in that route, we get kissed by an apparition of someone I believe is Allaine. We never get a clear description of her, so it's hard to tell.
Continuing on the topic of inconsistencies, I'm incredibly confused about the dog. In one route, we have to obtain something from the dog, but we can't do it the same day or we'll just get a little bracelet. But somehow, if we wait until the next day, suddenly the dog has the item we need progress in it's mouth? How did that get there? Did Allaine somehow wrestle it into it's mouth while the fog was out? It doesn't make any sense, in my opinion.
And the supposed "cure". For some reason, there are several different ways Ellan could have gotten into that alley. One way told in the story was that Ellan wasn't able to keep up with "a young woman and middle-aged man", who I can guarantee you is Allaine and Dennis, running to a barn. Because of this, Ellan injects the experimental cure into his arm and promptly passes out onto the ground, getting swallowed by the fog. I'm wondering about why they felt the need to drag him to that alley and continue with the experiment when him surviving the fog after injecting himself the first time around should have been enough evidence. Why did they have to keep up with this elaborate plan? The fact that they told him to actively avoid the fog also undermines the whole point of the experiment. There was also him actually going crazy if you failed and the fog got to him. From this, we can conclude that the cure, in fact, does not work. From this, it did also feel like every wrong option was an immediate visit from the fog. Was there seriously no other threat? If so, why couldn't there have been another threat? Maybe some gang trying to survive or something could have been a nice addition, as the only three characters we really get to "know" are Ellan, Allaine, and Dennis.
There was also the case of the metal door thing on the first day. I ran into that almost immediately, and yet it seems like (despite it almost having this air of importance) it does not influence the endings in the slightest. Why was it called dangerous? Why was it not touched on more? It felt like a huge plot point. Which is why I avoided it on my first playthrough. I felt like if I avoided it, I could keep some of the lore a secret from myself. At least, until the end. That was before I realized how inconsistent the story is with it's timeline. I was still so hopeful that the door would reveal something, that this was just a nightmare. That the inconsistencies were Ellan's fault, that he's a bit too squirrel-brained to be able to come up with consistent thoughts.
And yet, the best I get for my optimism is a corpse.
Literally.
It is not touched on why this room is dangerous. It does not touch on how this corpse got here. It does not touch on how the person died. That was like a slap to the face and felt incredibly underwhelming.
And the clues! They weren't even clues! At best, they felt like a mother trying to guide their toddler to the front door of the daycare they were going to be left at for the next 9 hours. At worst, the story was demanding we go a particular way, or face certain death. The choices felt more like a helping hand that we didn't ask for and could never refuse, because the only times we got options was where Ellan didn't get guidance from himself or Allaine or instances where one choice kills, the other is purely something to forward plot.
I also had a thought while playing through this. If the fog makes you a suicidal maniac, why not use gas masks to filter the air and prevent that? I'm sure the scientists would have had some on hand, so why did nobody think of that? Did they test that before and it didn't work, so they decided to try something else and never mentioned it?
Now, I will reward you for the creativity. This is a wonderful idea, and with a few tweaks to the overall story, how it's executed, and the consequences for making a mistake, this would be a wonderful story. Sadly, the grammatical errors, inconsistencies, and lack of attention placed on the most important parts of the story take away from the enjoyability of this. It was also incredibly short, not really for it's amount of pages but for the reading. I don't believe that is too much of an issue though, as, again, this is your first story.
My apologies for the long review, though I had a lot of gripes about this that I felt I needed to write down.
Overall, I give this about a 3/8. This is mostly because the concept is interesting, but there's just too much wrong with it for me to give it a score of anything higher.

-Spoilers-
It was a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The choices didn't feel like they mattered all that much, however they didn't lead to immediate, unexplained death, so that scores points in the game's favor. The game had the feeling of being abandoned which was good. It was written well enough to feel lonely.
There was one point where the narrator starts calling the note-leaver a girl even though there's no indication of the write's identity. Also it doesn't explain how she was out leaving notes and was fine within the deadly fog (though you could assume she's hiding). Also she expects her brother's exposure to the fog to indicate the cure worked, but she also tells him to avoid the fog rendering the test useless.
He also takes very easily to her because of a gut feeling when she openly admits that she left him without his memories and probably to die in a killer mist with no actual proof the cure they were testing wouldn't hurt him.
Either way, game had a good feeling to it, but the story itself could be brushed up.

I've seen much worse in first attempts. I took a few excerpts from the story to help show how you can strengthen your writing.

"Clues had been laid out around him as if someone was asking to be found."

Any time you find yourself using a form of "be" or "was" stop and re-write the sentence. These are passive forms, and you want your sentences to be active. Consider something like... Clues lay strewn across the floor, taunting him.

"He had traveled to all sorts of places but to no avail."

In almost (I'm going to stress almost) every case, you can go back through your writing and eliminate every usage of the word "had." Had adds an unnecessary disjoint before the verb and distances the subject from the action. Also, try to find stronger nouns and (verbs, but in this case nouns.) "All sorts of places," is very vague. What sorts of places are we talking about? Venice, Italy? The Great Wall of China? Napoleon's grave?

"Confused and puzzled, Ellan left the convenience store with a clouded mind."

Confused and puzzled show the same state of being. Strong writing is crisp, and avoids unnecessary words, so one of them can be cut. In this case, I would argue both could be cut since the rest of the sentence indicates that she is perplexed.

You had some faulty grammar mixed in their too, which more thorough editing could fix. Overall, it was not bad, but not particularly good either. However, you displayed talent, and I think you will do much better next time. Good luck.

Alright so what to say about this story.

First off I want to say that for a first attempt, this is pretty good, and honestly nailed a lot of stuff right which is kind of suprising since it takes a few tries from people before they come up with a story that is good.

I think what really brought down this story is the way you structured it, the writing is there, and it shows, it's just the way you did it that seems to be a big gripe.

Not only that but the choices are super linear in some areas which doesn't really help a lot, given for what it was there could have been a lot more added.

Lastly, the grammar was something that didn't even seem to have a major look through, and could have been fixed even a little for more fluidity.

decent, but rough execution.

This was an interesting story, and it has potential.

I'll begin with the bad: despite the editing, there were still faults in the writing. Technical things, such as an 'i' not being capitalized, tense changes, a few spelling issues. But also more important things. A lot of information, especially in the beginning, was repeated, which oftentimes made reading the story a drag.

I also have the point out the ending. It felt rushed, all crammed in one scene, and this was the part where the writing was at its worse: bad spelling and capitilization, run on sentences, and a very cliché line at the end. It all happens so quickly.

The story also felt rather linear. I also feel that it misses out on the potential to be a great mystery and puzzle game; the choices had nearly no consequence, the main character knows the right answer, meaning readers aren't allowed to figure the puzzles out, and the clues were straightforward. If the clues were something you had to figure out, that would be awesome and cool. Figuring out what happened to the city should have been handled in a slower way, though I do appreciate the fact that you gave clues to what happened instead of just info-dumping. All in all, it felt like you were nudging the readers to the ending you wanted, instead of the ending they chose.

The story was also spare on details. Not to the extent of some of the stories, but it felt too bare bones for me. Add detail. That's one of the most important things: the protagonist has to be in the moment. You have to see the world through their eyes, not through the eyes of a narrator who simply summarizes what happens.

Now for the good. The story wasn't bad when it came to writing - compared to a lot of stories on the site it was actually pretty good. And despite the faults, I did feel for Ellan, I did feel the grief he felt when he realized the whole world had crumbled around him and he could not remember how, the despair knowing that maybe he was all alone, maybe the clues were of his doing and he was chasing nothing but a dream.

And I liked the concept. It was interesting and it had tons of potential.

The story was also long enough that I cared what happened, so that things were fleshed out, and the scenes were detailed enough that it wasn't just pure summary.

Keep on writing.

4/8.

This game didn't make a lot of sense at first, but as you play it you begin to get a sense of the kind of atmosphere pervading it. It was a bit surprising like that, especially when you read about the fog and all these people dying.

All in all, this wasn't bad at all. There were quite a few plotholes and lack of explanations, but it felt more like a survival game than anything else. I wouldn't put this in the Mystery/Puzzle genre.

Was more story than game. Needs to be fleshed out a lot more. Confusing with grammar issues. :(

Cool! I liked the idea of a killer fog, although it could branch out a bit more...

fine but not that good

Hmm, if I inhaled the fog I turned craisy, but if I didn't sientist automaticly asumed cure worked? why? If I never inhaled it they can't know that, can they?

great concept! the ending leads to a ton of possibilities which you should take advantage of should you decide to make a sequel. great job!

Ok

Sorry this review took so long, but I've been busy and things have been ... kind bad. I wasn't able to focus. So. Let's see ... this isn't a bad first try, but I'd also say it's not as gripping or as passionate as some of the things I've seen you write. Let's start at the beginning:

>>"Ellan woke up on the seventh day."

The idea of the first page is and always should be to grab the reader's attention. First impressions are, admittedly, huge. Sure, there are people who will read past the first page even if they're uninterested in the content, but not everyone will give you that chance, so it's pretty important.

Throwing us right in the middle of a character's life is not a bad tactic, but you really need to use it to your best advantage.

I realize you made the first sentence its own paragraph for emphasis, but him waking up is not the most dramatic thing in the world, so it's a bit odd to emphasize, but ok. I can't say I understand why you made "He was all alone as always" its own paragraph. You could've just linked them together in one paragraph, really, because that tells us 'this is your character, this is the beginning of their day, and they are tragically, hopelessly lonely.' The emphasis is you telling us to 'let that information sink in for a bit.' It's also a bit simple as a start.

You should put a comma after 'alone.' You should also put a comma after 'For the last seven days,' and it should really be 'another' living soul, rather than 'a' living soul, unless you're suggesting that Ellan is not alive or has no soul.

Honestly, you space out a LOT of your sentences and it seems like you're trying to use that emphasis technique way, way too much. Reign in your paragraph creation, man. The first page of necromancer might be a good contrast. (Also, I'd avoid starting that last sentence with 'But' or link it to the previous sentence due to its context. Actually, in a nut shell, some of the wording / grammar / spelling / punctuation need a bit of polishing.)

Unfortunately, moving on in your story shows me that your pages -are- a bit bare-boned at times, and like you're trying to hide it with the spacing, which ... isn't working, really. You could stand to add more description of the world around Ellan, his feelings, the effort that he's going to, so on. The main thing I feel I'm missing are his thoughts.

I mean, if you were treating the game like 'this is you, you're doing this,' then you could ease back on how "we" are responding to the world and focus more on vividly creating the world with multiple options so that we're deciding what our response is. But you're playing this out more like a story with an established character who we just happen to be in control of and ... well, I'd like to get to know the guy a little better.

So far, I've seen only a couple sentences of dialogue and no other -substantial- characters for us to latch onto, so we've got to be invested in this guy and his problems, and ... even if you can't tell us much about his life before now, we need to understand him in the moment. The clearer you make the picture of your world and characters, the more of a chance you give us to get invested in it.

Come to think of it, I'm kind of bothered by the fact that the woman you meet says "Oh, Ellan i've been searching for you! Help me, let's find some shelter." and ... that's it. You don't give her a name, he doesn't acknowledge who she is, and if he doesn't know, he doesn't act confused or anything that she knows him ... she's just there. ?_? It's kind of weird.

If she had a name and you two actually talked, I'd ... probably care more about her, but see, when you have side characters, if you give them no name, no back-story, no distinct personality, and not much dialogue, and no real established connection to the protagonist, they feel like props, basically, or furniture. Sure, it's sad if they get killed, but ... it's hard to be sad when I'm still wondering, "who the hell was that, anyway?"

The ending with the fog was a very good kind of disturbing, but it still felt ... lacking. I mean, the transformation happened pretty quickly, I had no insight into his thoughts during it, and I'm genuinely curious as to how you would use your right hand to snap off your left arm, but you don't explain. xD

It's just ... a very short scene for a very dramatic, horrifying moment and I would've liked to have seen more. I -have- done a descent into madness scene before and I drew that out as long as I could, trying to display the torment of someone giving into bloodlust and insanity.

Wow. Very good for a first story. It clearly conveyed the message of curiosity and loneliness, ever-growing as time passed. My only complaints were that you should work on using pronouns to reduce redundancy and also proofread to eliminate some grammatical errors. It was also slightly linear. My last complaint is that it was fairly short.

4/8, I enjoyed this, but I feel like it could have been more fleshed out.

Pretty good

THAT WAS AWESOME. Seriously, make a second one. Continue the story. That was awesome. 8/8

It was very good. I enjoyed it a lot!

This is a good game since its your first one, I enjoyed it.

It's original in a sort of Memento way, well written and a very good first effort. I look forward to seeing more.

It's okay. Grammar is just fine (could be better). Story is pretty good. About average. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, though, it was a relatively good storygame. 5/8

A great game suprisingly! A little short, but the grammar was good. The plot and choices made sense. The timeline thing was awesome. All in all, a great game, I hope for a sequel.

This was very detailed. I loved it! The only thing it needed was a bit of revising and few spaces before the choices. Otherwise, you would have shined!