Player Comments on An Unusual Mirror

General Recommendation: I recommend this game in general, it’s a quick adventure surrounding exploration and mysterious treasures.
Preview: What will you do with the mysterious mirror you find when exploring ancient ruins?

=SPOILERS BELOW=

General notes:
A short, fun adventure, with a wide variety of branching for its length and a simple classic CYOA plot.
Not sure why, but tonally, this game strikes me as a good game for younger audiences. It has the sense of adventures and mystery that many games geared towards children do, and the plot is reminiscent of the choose your own adventures games I played when I was younger. It’s also a good length for that audience, and has an appropriate amount of branching.
This game does well with its setting and plot, and less well with its characters. They’re all fairly one dimensional. The narrator is vague, even for the typical reader insert character, and the supporting characters are never even important enough to get names. That said, this isn’t a big problem, since the characters aren’t the focus of this game.
This game’s length is one of its strengths. It quickly brings the reader into the adventure, and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Specific notes:
-The intro works, and does a good job introducing the reader quickly to the general situation, but could use some tidying up of the language used to make it a little more grippy. No specific suggestions here, just general editing, read the sentences out loud to yourself, etc. The grunt work.
-Any particular reason you decided to make the captain nameless? I don’t think it really adds much. Similarly “the woman standing next to you” is kind of clunky, she could use a name too.
-You transition directly from the present to a reminisence, which is a good device to use on the first page, but you don’t include any kind of transitional sentence to make this switch make sense. I suggest adding some kind of transitional sentence that explains why the narrator is now thinking about her past, perhaps the captain’s doubting her ability reminds her of doubters she’s faced in the past (transitional sentence: This isn’t the first time you’ve had to deal with doubters. Back in your home village…etc.), or if the woman next to her is a friend of hers, some kind of memory of how they met/decided to go on this expedition could make the transition.
-What benefit does working for the captain provide? It seems like the narrator could do all the work herself.
-“Based on the clues you have gathered” Any examples?
-I’m surprised 5 people left. Didn’t they all know what they were getting into? If you do plan to have people leave, delivering some of the exposition surrouding the cave in their dialogue and decision to leave could improve the flow of the scene.
-I’m surprised at the inclusion of a decision to leave. The player is here to go on an adventure, they’re extremely unlikely to click that option. If you still want to include it or if it’s important that’s not an issue or anything.
-“Remember that clue we found near town” You’ve mentioned clues a lot, but haven’t described any. What are they? Are they, like, scrolls in ancient runes that the characters have decoded? Pictographs? Chinese fortune cookies?
-This is the first I’m hearing about hating the captain for his greediness. I’d recommend mentioning that detail earlier, or implying it rather than stating it. In general I’d recommend keeping the principle “show-don’t-tell” in mind when writing and editing.
-I won’t quibble with random dungeon riddles, since they’re a beloved part of the genres. If you want to go the extra mile, including some kind of explanation for why there’s a riddle here that gives an intruder a 1/3 chance of success rather than, say, a key, that would be cool. EDIT: Oh, you do explain the riddles, lol.
-If you want to have the captain be demonstrating this greedy unfair behavior, I’d suggest making it clear why the others need him so much. So far I’m not convinced he’s all that important to surviving the expedition, and his intelligence is stated, not shown. Perhaps he has some treasure map they don’t, or is the only one with enough money to fund their adventures?
-I like the detail that how you spend the money on day 1 doesn’t affect the outcome.
-I like the variety of different plots, including the detour where you can steal the mirror.
-You can probably decrease the maturity rating on this game a little.

Grammar:
A couple typos.
“To keep your life going than most residents of your village could dream of” ????
Mastery of Language:
This is where you need the most work. Your plot ideas and characters are generally solid, but your sentences come across as clunky, and are somewhat clumsy at potraying their main point and the tone you’re going for. This is something that will improve the more you practice, and can often be fixed with a thorough round of editing. I recommend getting a friend to close-read your stories and give you some sentence-restructuring advice, or try reading your sentences out loud to yourself and see what you can do to make them flow better.
“This is the kind of place that you feel like you have to whisper even though you don’t know why”. This is a good example. This is a good tonal detail about the cave’s general atmosphere, but you state it in a long-winded matter-of-fact way. Something like “he whispers, unwilling to break the heavy silence of the cave.” gets across the same information in less words in a more show-don’t-tell way.
On that note: I’d recommend working on show-don’t-tell aspects of your writing throughout, not just here. This is probably part of the reason many of your sentences come off as clunky.
I also recommend including more dialogue, much of this game is just straight text and exposition.

Branching:
Good, there’s a variety of paths the reader can take and several different endings. The branching is particularly good for a game of this length.

Player options/Fair choice:
Good. The consequences of the player’s actions are clear in advance, there are no “gotcha!” deaths.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: I got killed by the door riddle, after which I got the best ending.

WRITING ADVICE:
My biggest suggestion is a thorough round of editing. You’ve got an interesting plot, and it’s clear you know what you’re doing with your characters and concepts. The sentence structure just doesn’t flow together. This is something that will improve naturally over time with practice and effort, and I can tell you’re already on your way to doing that.

CONCLUSION: 4/8

A short story about a mysterious mirror found during an expedition. Possible spoilers, and the story is pretty short so you may as well read it yourself. Should take half an hour max, and that's if you go through most of the paths.
I'll start off with the negatives so I can end on a positive note:

I am not the "grammar guy" so I can't comment on it, but there were a few misspellings. Just glancing at the first page, I spotted two:
-most are you are convinced will contain some sort of treasure
-and will not he allowed to go on future expeditions
It's not a big deal, of course, but it shows a lack of polish and may take someone out of the story.

Likewise, because my imagination is blind, I do not require detailed descriptions of... basically anything. But I know people usually like at least a little detail, so they can imagine the scene in their head. Lucky bastards. So I suppose a bit more effort put into descriptions of the characters wouldn't hurt.

The main character was a bit bland in my opinion. I read through all (or at the very least most) of the paths, and the only thing I know about the character is that she is a woman, and that she constantly gets screwed over by her sexist captain. Now, with the story being as short as it is, there was obviously not a lot of time to fully flesh her out, but at least give me something other than "you're a woman and your doctor dad supports you financially".

Finally, I felt some of the choices were meaningless or, rather, lacked in execution. At the very beginning, when you are supposed to solve the "riddle" you can either solve it, or stay quiet. If you solve it correctly the captain will praise your intelligence, then be his usual asshole self and take ninety percent of the loot, while giving you the mirror as a reward. If you remain quiet, the captain will not give you the mirror, but will also, for whatever reason, praise your intelligence, despite the fact you did nothing.
Similarly, the choice of whether to give the money to the poor or spend it on yourself seems to matter very little, mainly on the very next page. The "best" ending was the exact same, with me having a shitload of money, no matter what I did with the first treasure chest. Now I guess you can argue that the later treasures I found made me so rich that the first chest was irrelevant, but I still would have liked an acknowledgement of the choice.

But enough with being a negative Nancy, let's go over the things I liked:

I fully expected the first choice of heading back home to result in an instant game over, but things actually progressed onwards. As far as I can tell, you can also reach the best ending this way. You will find your way to the mirror eventually, and I like it.

I loved how fucking arrogant and stupid the captain was when he was showing off his house, even if it was a bit unrealistic. Dumb characters always make me laugh.

The mirror was intriguing, despite the fact it ended up just being a glorified treasure map. I enjoyed the story and did not skip over parts, so it was entertaining enough. It did not overstay its welcome.

The plot progressed fast enough, without filler scenes.

Overall while it could have been better, it also could have been a lot worse (as demonstrated by a lot of the stories on the site). I actually wanted to see all the other endings, rather than just getting my free point. The short length made it easily digestible, and despite the fact I listed it as a negative, I subjectively loved that there weren't endless paragraphs explaining every inch of the character's clothes. No regret for reading through.

The most important thing is, of course, that you are miles above the worthless slugs that will end up in the shame pit.

very good storygame. the writing and plot was awesome.

Well... maybe not better than Reeses but still deserving of a 7 in my opinion. I really enjoyed this one.

Best ending, yay.

I was a bit hasty moving through this so I'd like to apologize for any oversights on my part. Usually I like to start with positives: The story is fully operational, I didn't find too many editing mistakes, you followed your prompt closely, and you clearly tried to tell your story as tightly as possible while allowing for branching.

Now, I did not like that the reader is dropped into the world with such scarce texture to hold onto. That the protag lives in a desert does not excuse barren world building and blank characters. Those two things are very important to me, and as such, I had a terrible time engaging with the narrative. The narrative itself is fine, if somewhat underutilized.

There are already some exceptionally good reviews here (The benefits of finishing first), so I won't spend much more time here, I'm trying to get to all the contest entries today, but I've got to talk about this door riddle. Spoilers: Not next to green (Perfectly clear, only rules out the middle, leaving only green itself and the 2 stone) If X2 (I don't like that you used the operator symbol here) Then not 4 (We already knew not 4, its adjacent to green, but what was meant was, "when doubled is not 4")

This is gonna kill a lot of players on their first go.

Anyway, great job finishing, and publishing first! I'd like to see an even better story next time.

These are a few notes I made when I read through your story
-It starts on an infodump, admittingly it is short enough and gets the point across just fine.
- I actually like the fact that you were able to choose to not do the adventure at the start of the story, but that the story doesn't immediately cut off to the bad ending. It's nice!
-One tiny nitpick. How is the protagonist able to read a note that is 2,600 years old? I don't know, wouldn't the paper rot away or is it some fancy schmanzy wizard paper. Languages kind of change over time, so I am colored suprised that the protagonist is able to read it.
- I like that there are multiple ways of obtaining the mirror, though the latter half doesn't have as much branching as the first part.
- I kind of find it very funny that the mirror would treat a thief the same as a person who had rightfully earned the mirror by going through the dungeon. It's a little odd in my opinion.
- By the time you are very much friggin rich because of that mirror, wouldn't the captain be smart enough to link the mirror theft with your sudden wealth? It's weird that this part is left unexplored since I have the feeling that although the captain is pretty much a jerk, he is not an idiot.
- I think it is a bummer that the story doesn't have much dialogue or more interplay with the protagonist and the captain. I think it would have been more interesting if there was more focus on their conflict: who would be the owner of the mirror?
- In general I find the whole dungeon delving a little lackluster and the puzzle too. Well, at least you didn't force me to solve it hahah like in Puzzleland.
-I think that you improved on the prose; I've read your other works, there is a noticeable improvement.
-Even though there is not much of dialogue present there, there is also sadly a lack of proper environment description to set a good atmosphere. You know, the setting is pretty cool and all, a desert town, a mysterious dungeon and such. I think readers would appreciate it if you invested a little more effort in your descriptions. The most egregious example is I think the page "Follow the arrow". There are stairs, dungeons, ancient and rooms, but those are all a little generic words that give me not much information how the thing would look like.
- I kind of like that the ending is a little omnimous, very fun.

This was a decently fun story! There's a respectable number of choices to make and endings to reach, and while the writing isn't super-duper great, it's redeemed by a charming voice that keeps it from ever getting to be too boring. 5/8!