Player Comments on In the Field

I felt the story lacked depth and a greater meaning. Also, the most interesting aspects of the story were left unexplored.

How did the Germans learn of D-Day?

In history they were utterly convinced that the landing would be at Calais, headed by Patton. The false intelligence and fake inflatable army the Allies used worked to perfection, so this could have been an awesome opportunity to explore a shocking mole operation or Benedict Arnold level betrayal within the Allied ranks. But sadly, we just get the generic, "someone told them" that forces a plot artificially.

How did the Allies manage to muster a force 15x greater than the already colossal D-Day invasion - AFTER - losing every single man and machinery save one?

Nothing about that is really plausible. But having the D-Day invasion fail and having the player try to help win the war regardless would have been an interesting concept if it was done more believably.

What happened to the paratroopers that dropped behind enemy lines?

Surely they would have had some impact on the story.

Overall, it wasn't a bad attempt for a first story. And the writing was competent. But the lack of meaning and the failure to maintain suspension of disbelief makes the story lackluster.

Alright, this was a good first attempt. Your phrasing is clumsy for now, the Ending where your father gives you a medal a month after being captured made no sense, and you spent too much time focusing on the toys of war instead of bringing out the lack of meaning of it / other issues (when you're in the trenches I presume your mind is more occupied with staying alive than profiling all the toys being used against you). That said, this was a competent story, and there was a fair bit of variation between the choices that were offered.

When you mentioned this was alternate history, I was looking forward to seeing the larger impacts of your tweaks. Unfortunately all I could find was the Germans being forewarned, and a larger invasion later. Not really much to work with, but if you expand the premise later I'd be interested in reading more.

The cannibal and gift from soldier pages were nicely written, and so I do believe that with practice and polish you will become a capable writer. Onwards and upwards!

Pretty crazy to read about the Nazi's learning of the invasion of Normandy. It's not too shock and awe or anything - just a bland "they knew somehow".

I didn't read all the paths because I refuse to surrender to Nazis. Fuck 'em.

Overall, not a bad short story. I feel there was a huge opportunity wasted here, but as the author noted it was their first story and an entry for a contest - so timeline may have been an issue. It doesn't excuse the less than 5k word count. I also feel like the first half of the story could have all been condensed down instead of 5-10 pages of no choices and just info dumps.

I’m sorry but you lost me when the first page title is AAAAHHHH!!! and the the first sentence is the Germans “ were fucking prophets” like that explains how they knew about the invasion in Normandy.

I can’t take this story seriously even if it’s about war because it looks like it was written by some kid who saw the saving private Ryan beach scene one too many times.

World War 2 alternate history is some of the most interesting fiction there is and so many different things that could’ve been done but were scrapped and somehow it’s not alternate history since the invasion succeeds anyway.

I mean you could’ve had a team of spies try to assassinate hitler because the invasion failed but no we get another rehashing of the omaha beach scene. I guess the writing was fairly competent just not particularly convincing if you were trying to get me to react a certain way.

The choices at the end seemed more like life and death rather than branching paths. If you’re into a more linear story and want to get through it quick, play this one.

Intriguing...

This was pretty decently written. I couldn't see any grammatical errors, the violence of war was clearly portrayed, and the plot, though quite lacking in complexity and depth, still had its not-too-many details fleshed out.

What bothers me, is that there was so much room for expansion. The author could have branched out into more subplots which would keep readers clicking the links. But this WAS a contest entry, and it's quite pressurizing to churn out a passably fair storygame with enough length to not make it seem like one's mother's recipe.

And for that I still salute the author. You managed to not only submit your contest story (which also appears to be your first story, by the way), it's also not completely bad as well!

You managed to entertain me more than homework. 4/8.

It's cool. I like it.

I don't regret reading this but I also don't feel to have gained anything. The story is quite short, to me it doesn't explore the brutality of war and the horrors of the Beach landindgs. Perhaps the author should watch Saving Private Ryan

It's fine... would have been better if it was longer.

Well, I enjoyed playing this, not counting the 5 single-link pages that the reader is forced to go through at the start. You had some good writing going on and some decent descriptions about each scene. Some of the capital letters were a bit annoying (most notably the first page is literally entitled "AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!") but can look past that.

On my first playthrough I went full cannibal and killed the enemy soldier who blundered into my man-eat-man feast. Which is why, when I played it a second time...and the same guy actually spared me and gave me food...it left me feeling quite appreciative of such a decision. I can applaud you for the kind of choices you gave to the reader, as it was certainly something which kept me replaying it to try out all the different options.

Overall, it's fairly short but that works for this kind of storygame. I didn't find it to be too heavy (despite the type of content, which wasn't that graphic), and if anything it's taught me that surrendering to Germans is never a good move.