Splattered

Ok. What’s with the description? What motivation does anyone have to read this story at all? There are hundreds of stories on the site, all vying for the attention of the reader. And this story has one word to describe it. That’s certainly not a lot of motivation. And honestly, that combined with a 1/8 story length really make me wonder how this has survived on the site and met minimum site standards.

The first page has some potential as the reader wakes up with no knowledge of, well, anything. The setting works, but if you’re going to horror, this setting and description could really be expanded quite a bit. Here you could write about other things that the person sees as they look around. The clock stuck could take an entire paragraph that builds the suspense as the reader looks at the clock and expects it to move, but it doesn’t move. It could take minutes for the reader to realize that the clock isn’t really moving, and then they could wonder if time has stopped, if they are dreaming, or something else is going on entirely – and then the silence related to that could really build the horror aspect of the story.

There are a couple types or errors, but they do not really detract from the story. The one that really does is when the author mentions a “cluttering noise” three times in a row. Clutter is usually a group or pile of stuff that’s untidy. Cluttering is usually associated with a speech disorder. So a “cluttering noise” would be someone talking to you and talking fast? That doesn’t really make any sense. And then the cluttering noise can kill you. I’m not sure I understand what’s happening there. At the same time, there’s suddenly not a lot of options, like the author didn’t have time to finish the story here.

This story certainly has potential and the author’s capable of writing. But this story really leaves the reader wanting more – a lot more – of the story. A resolution of what’s going on and why would be very helpful. Even a simple page at the end with a news report reporting on the death of the main character of the story would at least give a little resolution and an actual ending to the story.

I really need to stop reviewing crap stories but there are just so many of them. Here are my thoughts:

- I don't really see the point of the description. Then again, I suppose you were worried about writing more than 1000 words. Is that a bit too much effort for you? I think I once sneezed, accidentally hit the keyboard with one hand, and wrote more words as a result than the pathetic 725 you squeezed out. What were you expecting? Something above a 5?

-Half of the words you actually did bless us with are along the lines of "What the hell is going on!?" Yeah... I'd like to know too. I think I missed it. Must've looked somewhere else for a second as the "plot" dashed by.

- The spelling wasn't as bad as it could have been. Don't take that as a compliment; it can always be worse. I mean, how many mistakes can you really expect in this malnourished infant of a story? Still, I noticed 'nose' instead of 'noise' and some random tense changes.

- You wrote in the whole false linearity thing with the 'listen to the door' option where you present two choices and basically it just leads to the same thing anyway. It adds nothing to the story and only puts in the pretence of choice instead of the actual thing.

- Ugh. The old '...and it was all a dream'. Tragic. Just tragic.

A rare 1/8.

Incredibly short, I would have added a few more pages to the storygame, but overall the amount of sentences on each page was satisfying.

It seemed very illogical at some points, but I suppose you threw that in with the whole "it was just a dream" cliche. Those types of storygames really bug me, because it feels like you were just too lazy to make a real ending.

The lack of branching really made me a bit miffed, as well as half the pages being end game links. I found that there really was not a lot of branching at all really, and even on the first page we have a wonderful example of this.

We have Choice A, and Choice B, but Choice B just forces us to choose Choice A. So Choice B is rather pointless, is it not?

I would have enjoyed it had you added more character development, because the characters felt quite stale. But I suppose you'd need to make it longer for that, because it's hard to grasp any emotion in a storygame as short as this.

2/8.

Bad description, too linear, 1/8 length, so 1/8 rating I’m done

... Worst ending EVER! >.<

With the word count, this looks like it took about ten minutes to write and has the painfully played out, 'but it was all a dream...' ending.

The author hasn't logged in in four years so I'll save the detailed reviews for someone who can benefit from them.

Nope.

I suppose as an initial effort it serves its purpose, but I'm not sure if you can truly consider this ultra-linear, one outcome, less than fifteen page story as a "story game".

I am not a fan of the "it was all a dream" concept, although I did see that a lot in the CYOA books of my youth, so I have to give you a pass on that. But really just seems like you churned a basic story out with no major effort or development.

It is all a dream! :-(