Solstice

I will prelude this review by saying that while a lot of elements of Solstice were not what I personally prefer, it is a fine story and probably better than the average on this site. Now I'll get on with it.

The branching style is very linear. The ending you receive is based entirely off how many points you earn by making the correct choices. This makes it bothersome if you are somebody like me who likes to read every page and ending, but if you are not like that, you might enjoy the challenge of attempting to earn a perfect score. Personally, I wish I would have gotten the perfect score sooner so I wouldn't have had to read the story more than twice to see the alternate pages, as that required a lot of clicking through pages I had already read.

Solstice was fighting an uphill battle for my attention from the start, as I have a hard time getting into stories that start off at school (What school has its own maintained graveyard anyway? Something weird was going on there, and I don't just mean Magdalena.) However, the writing was not dull, and the first person worked out all right, I thought. The sentences do almost all follow the same pattern, which can make things a little choppy. It was entertaining to have what the shaving cream prank was revealed, and pretty cool to reread and see the part with the watch and the tree. (If you get a perfect score the first time around, I would recommend going back and trying the other choices anyway if you have the patience, if just for the one part.)

For the most part, this was an enjoyable story, and if you are one of those faggots who read reviews before stories and you like school-based stories or those with ambiguously paranormal activity, or you're just flat-out bored and looking for a decent, clean, quick read, check this out.

P.S. TRIGGER WARNING FOR WANTON WASTE OF VEGETABLES

Starting out reading, I’m trying to get a feel for where I am. It felt like present-day, but when I read about the tombstone that lasted hundreds of years, now it sounds like either fantasy setting or future setting. A minor potential typo on “The Graveyard” page: “the Maples.” Is the soft breeze blowing through maple trees? If so, that should be lower case, I believe. But if it is blowing through sometime called “the Maples,” then I’m not sure what that is now. Another minor type is “m’amm,” I think that should be “ma’am.”

I like the first page, but it leaves me with questions. There are some good descriptions to help set the mood, but there’s not enough for me to understand what’s going on. Someone is walking through the graveyard. Then they hear bells. So I’m guessing the school is next to the graveyard. And apparently there’s an old lady that hangs out in the graveyard next to the school, too. I guess it was attempted to be repaired with an explanation at the end, but it was still a bit unclear.

I’m confused again with the rush to the schoolhouse. The bells stopped and the character knew they were late…but they were early. Is this their first day at the school? I mean they were expecting to be late, but suddenly they were early. Not a huge deal, but a bit confusing. And then again in the next section – one moment the person was the only person in the room, but the next moment the instructor was talking to the class. The story is good, but it feels like there’s some transitions and sections just missing while I read along.

There are choices at times in the story, and they do appear to have an effect on the story. However, there were also a number of pages with no choices. I like the relationships option and appreciate those effects on the story. I like the building and changing of those relationships as the story progresses. Overall it is a nice story, thank you for sharing it here.

A well written story about school. This one felt more 'school' to me than any other in the contest. The characters felt real and believable and the setting seemed very tangible. Good entry. My only nitpick is that many of the choices didn't really have consequences and so it felt less like interactive fiction and more like just fiction.

So, let's start with the setting. A boarding school with an adjacent graveyard seems interesting, and if this is your actual school, congratulations! You're living the dream of every '90s to early '00s goth kid!

On a more serious note, branching was very linear, and outside of the instructions at the end, there was no real way to determine how to get a perfect score. I also find it odd how the protagonist is planning to go to England. WHY is he planning to go there. Is he English? Has family there? That could have been expanded on.

The writing style itself was good. A lot of first person narratives tend to be very cringy, this one does it in a decent way. The story plot, while at times very bland, was written decently and has no major errors that I can see. Grammar was good, no errors I'm aware of. The relationship choices was also an interesting mechanic I don't see in many games, it was probably the one thing in your story that stood out.

My final rating is a five. While this story definitely was not the best, it certainly wasn't the worst. Good job.

pretty good i guess.

Heartfelt and wonderful to read.

I really liked the elements you included.It was very enjoyable.

I liked this game. It was enjoyable to read. I'm pretty sure Mag was dead. It would of been cool to continue the story with the character coming back.

You got a nom on the nomnom scale. Your writing is good, and after reading your story it just kind of made me sad and reflex on my own life. The only spelling error i found was that you wrote hare, instead of here? Keep up the good work! Oh to find out the full description of the nomnom scale, look at my profile if you're curious.
Conversion Chart:
yuk!=0-1 stars
eh!=1-1.9 stars
meh...=2-2.9 stars
nom=3-3.9 stars
nomnom=4-4.9 stars
nomnomnom!=5-6 stars

Noice