Witness

I do have to say that this storygame would get a much higher rating from me if it was actually finished. There was a lot of potential to it, but sadly, as I'm sure the author is aware, it needs some work.

I did feel like some of the descriptions of the atmosphere at night were really good, although they were let down by the story slipping between past and present tense. I wasn't very clear if the gang members outside the store were related to the attempted kidnapping of Renee or not. I feel like it would have added an interesting touch if the two events had been connected in some way, even though it probably wouldn't have been very realistic.

Even the pages that were finished, I think that a lot of them summarised the events too much. I couldn't really engage with the player character that much; I wasn't even sure what gender the main character was. And the only character I could comfortably name at the end of the storygame was Philip...and Renee, who didn't have any actual lines of dialogue.

I definitely think this storygame had a lot of potential, and I would really like to see the finished piece if/when it's done.

Just a quick addendum. I realize this is a story by Anthraxus. I'm just kinda retarded. That's all. Sorry Anthrax

So, as the author says in the description, this story has definitely been left unfinished, and obviously the ratings will suffer for that, but on the other hand there are a few things done very well in the story. The unfortunate downside is of course that not many things are done in the story.

There will be spoilers throughout this review, though I have no doubt that Milton will take this down soon to work on it or remove it depending on his mood.

So my impression is that this was intended to be a rather short story in the first place as the focused events usually only take about an evening and night, even on the more fleshed out paths. That seems to be a good choice based on the subject matter and allows the action or emotion that is actually fleshed out to shine pretty well. The initial confrontation at the bodega and the 911 call at the later assault come to mind.

Characters in this story seem to be rather flat and shallow, though for the most part, there isn't actually anything wrong with that given the length of the storygame. The standout of this issue is the protagonist. To me, short stories about intense events are most interesting when we get to have a glimpse of how the experience may change the character. We don't get much of that here, and I think the story suffers a bit for it.

The setting is good. It's recognizably New York even to me (a proud Arkansan) even without the specific place names. It's hard to speak of it as "worldbuilding" is difficult when the city concretely exists, but you did a great job of fleshing out the short glimpses we did see.

Now, the plot was fairly straightforward, but it is a bit samey down several of the paths. Because of the brevity, I also was not able to really feel stakes
or investment in a real sense. The premise itself is sound.

All in all. I basically need it to be longer and more fleshed out to make my decision. I'm sure you already knew that

This story seems to be about "couple of young black guys" starting trouble at a convenience store. I couldn't really figure out the plot based on the couple of branches I tried, and one of the variables seems to have been incorrectly used, as the word "ELSE" and two percentage signs are just sitting in the middle of one page.

I'd say the author is correct in that this story is incomplete. But it's short, so that wins it a point in this review.