Player Comments on Alpha Centauri

You still haven’t written the walkthrough of my game you promised 2 months ago; 1/8.

Just kidding, I gave it a 3 because that’s what it actually deserves. I’m not writing a proper review because I don’t feel like it. Anyway, congratulations on finishing your contest entry!

First of all I have to note that the Latin is wrong on the title page. The term is "In Medias Res" and not "In Media Res"--accusative adjective.

Second, oh man, that font. That bold. That lack of spacing and paragraphing. My aged eyes. I was hurled backward, turning a double gainer over the back of my desk chair as I threw myself away from the screen to get away from it.

That's all peripheral, though. To the point: sentences like "Well once our ship crashed the second time, and yes I mean two separate ships that both crashed, the engine exploded" do not bode well for a reader's understanding. The use, or lack of use, of commas is idiosyncratic. I would highly recommend going back to fundamentals, and spending a little time working on sentence and paragraph structure. It will help you so much, because you clearly have a story to tell, but the microlevel of basic prose writing is getting in your way.

Story-wise--I wasn't crazy about the choice structure. Giving me a list of characters--a who's who and then making me pick one right away wasn't compelling to me. I would rather meet people in the story rather than have information dryly dumped at the start. I want to know why I am choosing people. I want to know the characters in other words. All in all, the story felt a bit rushed. I suspect a full rewrite could unearth an authentically good yarn here, though, since you have a nominally interesting cast of characters here to work with.