Player Comments on Homework Girl

Finally, I played Homework Girl, and I can say I've read and rated this game instead of going with my hasty prose instincts on the first page and basing the rating off of that (or others' ratings) out of laziness. Here is my review of the game, and remember, don't take my opinions entirely to heart. Play the game yourself and form your opinions from there, or if you're the creator of the game reading this (which I doubt because DeadKitty's last sign of activity is in the long-dead 2024), keep on writing and stay safe.

POSITIVES:
1. Somehow, the homework is entertaining. Sure, skipping the homework itself and writing a vague sentence describing the Homework Girl just doing her homework is less difficult and has the "benefit" of sparing the reader from such agonizing tasks like arithmetic beyond the very basics (it will feel agonizing especially if said reader despises math, but I'm not actually that reader), but you put in the effort to make math questions for the homework, and the math questions feel like questions that would realistically appear in the Homework Girl's homework, for they are not simple arithmetic found in elementary school but actual math questions that challenge the mind.

2. The drawings are a nice touch to the storygame, and their hand-drawn simplicity fits Homework Girl. Glad you took the effort to draw and add images in the first place, because adding images to storygames is a harder task than simply drawing the images, and they're also a nice distraction from the prose.

3. You finished the storygame.

NEGATIVES (sorry):
1. I never cared about the characters, and only cared the slightest bit for them in the RPG battle you forced upon me. I do not think I would remember their names long after I finished the story and wrote this review, and I could not review the characters and tell you how I think about them, because I could think of nothing for the characters. They're just names to me.

2. The prose feels a bit… flavorless and simple, almost like how I'd write a story in the year you wrote Homework Girl while lacking enthusiasm for the idea and having a slightly worse imagination than I actually had at the time. English is a beautiful language with a hidden arsenal of words larger than the average vocabulary, and you can use it to great effect by stimulating the imagination and senses in more powerful ways than "Katie calls Abby and Molly over, still sweaty from their race. She holds in her hands four strips of paper." The start-of-day pages are the most blatant example of barren minimalism to the point of vagueness in this story; they are three short sentences devoid of interest and they don't give me details for the imagination. Maybe people with aphantasia would like this style a bit more.

3. The year felt like a futile addition, and I'd be completely okay if I didn't know the year the story took place in. Besides, the year disappears at times, and I don't even keep it in mind. I also do not know what the world is like in 1974 (I'm a pretty young person), so I cannot judge historical accuracy, unfortunately.

4/8, but it's an okay story.

8/8.

+ Compelling female relationships.
+ Likeable narrator.
+ Genuine
+ Extensive use of in-game variables.
+ Doing the homework was surprisingly fun.
+ Nothing is over-described. Many pages are brief and full of relevant choices, but punctuated by compelling slice-of-life scenes that bring our cast of characters to life.

Overall, exactly what I am looking for on this site.

This was good, but I got stuck in a loop on September 26th?

Overall: It’s not terrible. Definitely not the worst I’ve seen, and I’ll give you props for the hand drawn images. However, with a little more time and effort, this could be a LOT better.

Characters: there’s not a lot of individual characterization, just a lotta names.
1/8

SPAG: A few small mistakes, nothing too major
5/8

Branching: There is branching. It exists. However, the story is small no matter what. Also not a fan of the fact that I can’t tell my mom I didn’t do my homework.
3/8

Plot: There is a plot. It exists.
It’s not terribly boring, but I feel as though it could have been much, much better.
4/8

Bonuses: Drawnings! They were cute. I liked them.
+.4

Total: 3/8

**specifics… not too much to spoil**
Gotta say, I’m not a fan of the first page. It’s just information with literally no description. Three brief sentences that are completely functional and entirely uninteresting.

>Homework can wait till later.
This sentence rubs me wrong, but my main problem is “till”. “Until” is the full word, the shortening is technically “‘til”. Yes I’m pedantic

>You meet up with your friends, rocking back and forth on the swings under the midday sun. You take a seat in the mulch beside them; it stabs into your thighs, giving you splinters.
The way this is worded makes it sound (to me) as though you’re on the swings and then suddenly you’re sitting in mulch. Stabby mulch.

Is my name… Homework Girl? Gee.

Some of the dialogue is really annoying. Does Katie need THAT many “e”s?

>You enter your house. Your mom is finally home.
She asks if you've done your homework yet.
Bruh. Ma dude. A little effort goes a long way.

I could’ve handled a couple of math problems. I do not want to solve a trillion of them- some of which I can’t just plug into a calculator. No.

“Nonetheless” is one word

>Her favorite actress is a young girl she plays in Stranger Things.
It’s asking where the comma goes; the answer is nowhere. That sentence needs a semicolon or a rewrite.

On the “Nighttime” page- “anyways” isn’t a word. “Anyway” is.

I AM NOT DOING MORE MATH.

>American history has always come easy to you.
“American history always came easily to you” is better, though maybe not perfect. I’m not an expert; I just know you’re wrong :)

>Which empire was the biggest at its height?
Perhaps try “Which empire was the largest in its prime?”
Though I think this question should be scrapped in general.

What happened to my “friends”?

I’m not a fan of the word “bigger”. There are so many better, more descriptive words out there.

Can I ask my mom why she’s crying? Also, that picture gave me a startle. The all black silhouette makes me think she’s some kinda ghost or demon. Gave me the creeps. It’s well-done, just creepy.

Why didn’t I go to school
Friday??? Or ever again? Why?

This story felt so real to me. I'm in high school now, I took both the path of doing homework first and missing out on time with friends and also doing homework. The endings were fairly congruent with real life(At least for me) and this story was very personal for me. I enjoyed it very much, thank you.

There was a clear amount of effort put in this one over and above the rest of the batch of class project games it arrived with, the author even made use of variables and on page scripting. I hope they'll stick around and continue to write. (Which is the polar opposite of my usual feelings about class project games.)