The Siberian

The story setting is thoroughly explained in the description, but to summarize: The protagonist, a member of the Koyotep tribe living in Siberia will have to choose between tradition and practicality for his own survival.

I have to start with one of the two things I loved the most reading: the celebration atmosphere aka the starting page. Not having unnecessarily "over-the-top flowery" descriptions, made the passages smoother and more fun to read. Through it, the reader is given a snapshot of the tribe's life, showing how humans manage to thrive and adapt even in the harshest conditions, while also showing the importance of religion for them.

As can easily be deduced by the presence of shamans in this page, the tribe practices the shamanism religion, or, if the names are anything to go by: Tengrism, basically spirit worship. It is here, where the interesting clash between religion (tradition) and logic (practicality) is presented in the form of argument between two characters (choices): Bato and Suren.

Obviously, Bato symbolizes the logical and practical side of humanity while Nergui and Suren symbolize the stubborn and somewhat religious fanatic side. But, it could also be said, that these two also represent the atheists and religious people today. The choice made between them is the crucial moment which decides how the story moves forward and ends (in current version).

In the second part of the story, the boys have to pass the Hunter's Challenge, to be considered men. There is a purpose to it, besides testing their skills, which would be gathering resources for the tribe. Depending on the reader's interpretation, the story holds fantasy elements considering the dangerous wolf. And it is here where the choice the reader decides to make regarding the near-death character, in spite of the path chosen before, which will decide their survival.

The biggest problem I had, was the inevitable death of a certain character during the Hunter's Challenge. While I understand the possible intention behind it being character development, the endings it leads to felt unsatisfying.

As for the other endings: They are numerous, their titles are funny but besides the only "good ending" reached prior to the Hunter's Challenge, the others can be considered bad endings.

Overall Rating 5/8

It's somewhat funny that you can reach such a favorable ending so quickly, but I suppose that's the nature of the beast of contests and deadlines.

However, what you have here is a story that's certainly not one I would regard as poorly written. Nope, because in the Siberian, you're given an interesting array of characters that you can choose to either follow on their paths that might be self-destructive, or be one that upholds tradition if you want.

Say, a character like Bato, being the one the character that questions the 'old and tired' ways of the leaders of listening to the spiritual sides of nature and basing their decisions on that, but he does it so abrasively. That's kind of his one character trait because the story doesn’t have much time to flesh him out. I think with everything, the religion, the spirits, where they live, it could have been done a great deal of more fleshing out, but what is present, I find to be passable.

There's even twists and turns, they happen quickly, but they are there. Still, there's a feeling of this being made from the skeleton of something that could have been larger, because you are told of your relationship of this friend, without having really experienced any of it.

However, for a short story-game, it's one that is well-written and I found myself concluding it having felt the entire experience was one that was enjoyable.

So, kudos there, Yummyfood.

Time for the proper review I promised.

The beginning was nice and descriptive, creating a vivid mental picture without overdoing the detail. I wasn’t hooked, but I did enjoy it. Felt a bit like you were showing off all the research you did, lol.

Paragraphs could be split up a bit more, they got a bit too long on some pages. Especially the first page, you don’t want to discourage readers with long chunks of text.

I like the themes Suren is bringing up about religion. It helps to tie everything together and create a sense of a larger world.

I laughed a lot more than I should have at the complete deadpan delivery of “So the wolf ate you. That’s unfortunate.” The less descriptive sections were probably due to running out of time, but I find them funny in contrast with the rich detail of everything else.

The dialogue feels a bit stifled and overly formal at times, not being delivered with much emotion. This is a problem I struggle with as well, so I have absolutely no idea how to fix it.

There was a lot of telling in place of showing. Take “his face turns red with anger” as an example. His face is turning red, his voice is rising, and his calm demeanor has just faded away. It’s simple for the reader to connect the dots that he’s angry, you don’t need to specify it. As well as “With Suren’s outburst, you can sense the depth of his belief in the spiritual path.” It’s painfully obvious that that’s the case already, he just spent a paragraph talking about how people who anger the spirits are in the wrong.

You did well in that aspect in some areas though. Nergui was portrayed as calm and respectful through his actions and not spelling it out for the reader, which I liked.

Almost every paragraph started with “you” or “as” on some specific pages. Might be nice to have some variety, though it isn’t a huge problem, seeing as it didn’t break my immersion.

Choosing Bato, who is against the spiritual path, lead to only bad endings.This probably has some deeper meaning aside from the surface level “religion = good” that I’m too retarded to understand. Sad that there’s no way you can save him from the wolf and still survive Suren.

A good amount of branching, though I felt there was a bit too much re-branching in places. It can be chalked up to last-minute contest panic.

In all, it’s an enjoyable way to spend a bit of time. I recommend it to anyone wanting something short and sweet.

Dont read this if you don't want spoilers: There's not much choice in the ending. No matter what you do, one or both of the main characters dies.

Very detailed. I could imagine the surroundings around me.

The Siberian...This was my first time reading anything on here. I was impressed by the many different choices of story one could read. Very impressive! Good Job! Your bravery for writing, and putting your story out there is more than I could have done. Who knows, maybe one day I can be as confident as you!

An interesting setting and some development with the characters but it would have been better if the story arcs had been finished and the whole thing expanded a bit more. The problem with the competitions is writing to a deadline so it can be useful to fully plan a story and then write it in your own time. Some good writing here but plenty of potential for further development as well.

I’ll give this a proper review later, but the fact you had one space at the beginning of some paragraph but not others annoyed me a lot more than it should have.

Otherwise, it was good, though some pages were very clearly rushed.

Good Story

I fucked up that wolf, hell yeah.