Player Comments on The Siberian

The opening page of this storygame immediately caught my attention, and I was intrigued by the information given about the tribe in that initial scene.

This storygame was quite short, and I think it would have been really great if it had been made longer. I liked the fact that there was the option to go one of two paths, although I was a bit surprised that choosing to talk to the shaman immediately has the player character going the shaman route, instead of the hunter one. Plus, in comparison to most of the other paths, that one was surprisingly short and more of a summary than a truly satisfying ending.

It sort of felt like there was no 'good' ending to this storygame, and I would have liked there to be a middle ground and be able to effectively say to Suren and Bato, 'I agree with both of your points.' Perhaps it wouldn't have made a difference, but no matter which choice is made (to side with Bato or to side with Suren), most of the endings were still the same.

I didn't really like Suren after reaching the ending where he kills the player character, especially because I couldn't understand why the spirits had marked Bato for death. This comes back to my thoughts about none of the endings really being considered 'good' ones (and one of the ending links even says 'another lame ending'), since the only ending where the player character can save Bato means the player character is then killed by Suren.

I would have liked to see more of the spirits than just the wolf, who was apparently an 'evil' spirit (although the explanation of the spirit didn't really strike me as 'evil'), since I assume that there are also good spirits as well as evil ones.

Really, I would have liked more of this story. More of the characters and the storyline, and more ability to explore the world and make choices that had more of an impact, especially since one of the choices I did come across wasn't really a choice at all - in one of the paths, choosing to ignore the screaming just results in the player character going to see the source of the screaming anyway.

I did enjoy this storygame for what it was, and if it does get expanded upon, I'd definitely be interested in revisiting this world.

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.

Ah cool, I don’t think I’ve read any of Yummyfood’s stories before 😊 It’s a pretty unique setting, weirdly enough my knowledge of Siberian tribes circa 800BC is a little rusty so if Yummy wants to stretch the truth a bit I think I might just give him a pass :D I do imagine it wasn’t all fun and games though, which is why it’s nice to see we start with a party. Yummy’s descriptions here are good and he creates an apparently authentic atmosphere with some nice quirky phrases (are badgers traditionally grumpy?).

I’m respectful to fogies so I bow (don’t annoy the spirits Bato!). I’m always up for slaughtering animals though I do feel this whole hunting thing might be a bit easier if I had an AK-47. I certainly do seem to have a grudge against the local deer population. I’m not a fan of Bato but it does seem a bit harsh to leave him to be eaten by wolves. It’s a bit random I was supposed to let Bato die and the sudden ending where Suren killed me completely caught me off-guard. That was unexpected.

This was a pretty good story. I don’t know if it was specific to Siberia three thousand years ago as much as to hunter-gatherer societies generally and I think it showed their lives pretty well. A bit more depth on the whole animalism / spiritual beliefs might have made the ending less of a blind-side. Overall though I thought this was a good read: it was well-written and structured without SPAG errors and dealt with an original setting in an interesting way. Good work.

This was a tough story to review, because there are many things I liked about the story and the way that Yummy chose to approach the subject, but taken as a whole, it just didn't work for me.

I enjoyed the first page. It's very atmospheric, and I love how your detailed and descriptive writing, engaging multiple senses. The way you describe the smells of the cooking meat weaving together was a particularly clever writing choice, and I like your prose. When I close my eyes, I can see the bonfires, the animals, and even hear the melodies. I enjoy long, accumulating sentences, that utilize complex sentence structure and multiple clauses, so right away, I felt a certain sense of rhythm when reading your story. Essentially, this page does an excellent job of setting the scene of a comfortable bonfire, surrounded by the people you love. There's a cozy atmosphere built here, and it's good scene setting for what is to come.

I think the topic that this storygame is trying to tackle, Koyotep shamans, sounds really cool! And I love the way you set up Nergui. Honestly, I don't have many complaints about the first page. You set the scene, create a picture with 250 words, and then introduce the first plot point of the story. We find out that Nergui is a respected shaman, and being a clueless kid, we have a variety of options for actions to do, that will presumably set the stage for who we later become, and our attitude towards shamanism. Overall, not bad.

From there, the story moves towards setting up the attitudes of our friends towards shamanism, and we have a choice to make. Do we side with Bato or Nergui and Suren?

I think your characterization could use a bit more work, because I felt that the way you used dialogue to almost spoon-feed us the character's viewpoints pulled me out of the story. I think, without really seeing them as friends, just hurling us into Bato, your friend(who we know is your friend because the story told us) says this, and Suren(who we also know is your friend) said that, and now you have to choose is a bit jarring. Give us a bit more exposition, maybe a few scenes of friendly banter between Bato, Suren, and you where their views on the world and their personalities are indirectly revealed. Because as it is, the dialogue just feels a bit stilted, unnatural and abrupt. Almost like you needed them to say this to set the dichotomy up, and so they said it, but although that works well in setting the theme up, it just feels a bit awkward.

Still, I like the idea you're trying to explore here, which is that of a young hunter who's forced to make up his mind, considering the arguments of both sides and adopting a world view. That has a lot of potential, and I think the arguments that Bato uses, about how you shouldn't trust something you can't see with your own eyes, do have some merit.

This page sets up an interesting dichotomy that hopefully pays off soon.

From there, depending on which party you choose to support, and which party you choose to offend, you have a brief discussion with them, then head to bed. Suren gives a good set of arguments if you choose Bato, and I thought the way you articulated these thoughts and sentiments were well-reasoned. I just have some trouble believing that children, who are supposedly friends, would talk like this amongst each other. So, in that respect, it felt more like you want to deliver a piece of information through dialogue, and so the character is saying it, rather than writing dialogue that shows 2 people actually interacting how real people talk, you know, with a sense of verisimilitude.

But still, we get an interesting branching point. We either go onto become a hunter or a shaman, and I can't wait to see how these 2 paths diverge, and what happens.

The story jumps ahead to the hunter’s challenge. From there, there are quite a few choices offered, mostly on how we react to a wolf attack on Bato, a funeral scene, then a variety of death scenes. I like that Yummy has a good 5 or 6 endings here, but the endings are abrupt, rushed, and often don't flow well from the previous page. For example, Suren, your friend inexplicably kills you, and the reason that the story offers isn't very good rationale. Honestly, I mean, I'm glad the story did somewhat explain why Suren did this, but this action was very out of character, and it just wasn't convincing that Suren would act like that. I feel like setting a bit more up, and maybe giving us a bit more insight into Suren's actions would have been much more ideal. Or at least creating a bit more buildup, that doesn't feel like the tree branch attack and subsequent death came out of nowhere.

And even in the hunting page, before the endings, there's a heavy reliance on summary and telling that I found a little frustrating, because I couldn't feel the writing. I think the same amount of effort that was there in the beginning wasn't there towards the end, and thus, things happen quickly and wrap themselves up within a few sentences. What should be a thrilling scene, like fighting a wolf who is an evil spirit, is wrapped up quickly. But, to be fair, there is a level of writing that shows that any lack of detail is not because of Yummy's skill, because the prose is still of great quality, but only because he ran out of time to really flesh out the scenes.

I think this is actually a really cool idea, and the way Yummy writes is awesome! I actually liked the language used, and the few pages that were there showed a level of effort that puts this well above the typical noob story, but at the same time, I found it difficult to fully like the story because I was constantly reminded that this story had the potential to be much better than it actually is.

Unfortunately, none of the endings really felt conclusive, and ultimately, I think Yummy can undoubtedly do a lot better.

it is nice I would like to know more about what the shaman is teaching

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.