Player Comments on The Surprise!

Nice! This story was pretty good especially considering that it was short. But it works and kinda reminds me of a scary campfire story. In my opinion this story is terribly underrated.

This story did a good job of setting up a little bit of creepy, while still not revealing whether it was the main characters imagination or for real. The characterization was pretty good, and I think it was fairly accurate in portraying an awkward teenager. I wish that more would have been shown as to why the main character was so OCD and afraid of the dark though.

It is short, so for CYA there could have been more exploration and variety in the various paths, but what was done seemed done pretty well.

Overall, a fun, short storygame, that definitely is worth playing.

The surprise is that this is actually kinda good. I saw the length of the story is 2806 words, which is short compared to a lot of the stories here, so I was "surprised" when the story continued for a while on my first read-through.

The whole part about the 15-year-old boy with social anxieties in front of a girl at school was more or less accurate, and that whole scene was handled very well. The biggest regret is that there was no payoff to all that wonderful scene-building and character-building, because even if you decide to go to the party, the story ends abruptly on another tangent.

On my follow-up read-throughs, I think I hit all of the other endings; basically if you choose poorly, the story ends right then and there. That will probably irk some readers.

From the perspective of a storygame, there are some lost opportunities with those quick endings:

1 - What DOES happen if he confronts his fears and goes to the party? That was a hell of a set-up, and a branch in which Scott either humiliates himself or substantiates his fear would be very interesting. If you could write the scene with the girl that well, I have confidence you could "surprise" us by developing that storyline.

2 - What is up with those mommy issues? Regardless of what transpires in the garage scene, Scott has some preexisting baggage that would be worth exploring. Presumably something happened that made him that way.

3 - The garage... well, I don't want to give anything away, and I know it's part of the horror genre to never over-explain who/what the bogeyman is (so as to not ruin the potential for many, many sequels) but it's also possible to end a story too quickly. And since this is the primary ending for this story, it has lots of shock value without really addressing any of the character issues you so patiently set up for us on the preceding pages.

In regards to spelling/grammar/punctuation, I saw nothing that a good proofreader couldn't clean up in about an hour's work. Overall I enjoyed the story; I just think it ended too soon.

This story was really good! The plot was nice, and you put a lot of effort into each page. I eventually died by going to get breakfast, but this story game was a great way to spend 10 minutes.

One mistake is a missing full stop on page 1. Also, there really shouldn’t be death for refusing to go to the party. Make it so that he is forced to go anyway! No one likes dying very early in a story.

Still, this is the first decent recent storygame in quite a while. 6/8.

holy shit this is scary

Wow, my old, cringe comment I wrote when I was 12 actually got featured? Maybe that was the biggest surprise!

"I am glad by sexy boxers and legs were appreciated then."

I'm sorry, was this supposed to sound smooth. I don't recall teenagers being that cringy, hmm, perhaps maybe?

not bad