Player Comments on Leech: The initiation

Well, you asked for feedback, so here goes!

The first sentence of the story sort of threw me off. I get what you’re going for, and I appreciate jumping right into action. But I was lost. When I read about “another one,” I thought that was me. I had no idea of the setting, so I didn’t know what was happening. But then I read that I couldn’t stop myself. From dying? What? Oh, after I re-read the first paragraph more than once, I understood what was happening, but initially it just wasn’t clear to me.

I liked the setup of the second sentence, but I wasn’t a fan of jumping out of the story and addressing the reader. Sometimes I like that, but it didn’t work for me here. I’m guessing “Seen” really was supposed to be “Seeing.” The switch to a narrator is jarring. I wonder if the entire first page wouldn’t work better from a narrator point of view. Either way, I’d suggest going with all narrator-point-of-view or first person. I do like that I’ve got four choices on the first page.

I read about abilities next. I like the narrator point of view there, with one exception: it mentioned “our bodies.” Wait, does that mean that the narrator of the story is also a vampire? I had no idea. Was I supposed to know that? Then the last sentence seems rather specific. It talks about getting home and how far away that is. Where I am? Why do I need to get home? Why aren’t I already home? Now I’m confused because I don’t actually know where I am, or why I’m not home, or why I suddenly feel the need to get home. What’s going on? I picked “Go Home” because suddenly I feel like I need to get there for some reason…

That page starts with, “Finally.” Okay, so I needed to get home. Apparently there was some need here, some driving force. I don’t know what that was, but here I am. Now I start reminiscing. What? I guess I wasn’t in a hurry. What I’m getting at here is pacing: is there a need to move? Are you trying to keep the reader excited and moving forward at this point? I kind of felt like it, but I’m not sure why. And then when I got to the destination, there was no need to actually hurry. So I guess I’m suggesting that the pacing is not apparent. If I need to hurry, why do I need to hurry and what is the climax? If I don’t need to hurry, why did I feel like I did need to hurry?

I appreciate the backstory, but again it shifts between the narrator view and first person. I take off my coat, but then the narrator takes over. Would flashbacks be more useful here? Maybe me seeing through my own eyes what happened, with lots of action? And what was up with Santa? I get that you’re going for humor there, but if that’s the case, I’d be more consistent – have the narrator involved throughout the entire story with snide comments throughout. So hopefully that helps – I don’t want to fill up this entire page with my one comment! Have fun, and keep writing!

I feel this shows that you could actually do something awesome with vampires, if you cared to put some time and effort into it.

You are right about the obnoxious humor - the narrator style needs to go (unless you're playing a Malkavian I suppose, but still...).

Also ditch the Intro (or Chapters) template and put out a complete story. This one stopped right when it was getting good, which, rather than make me want for more, really just annoyed the crap out of me.

You also mentioned the spelling/grammar mistakes left over from writing this back when. What's the hurry that you couldn't edit it as you copy/pasted in all the pages?

You lost some points for the issues above, but I still rated higher than the majority of first games that folks generally post here.

Being that you are more mature now (hopefully) and likely better skilled as a writer, I really would like to see something like this (in a longer format) from you again. Pretty sure you could get much higher ratings and even a Commendation.

Good luck~

Oooo. Please continue! I absolutely LOVE this story!!!

Unlike the others, I quite enjoyed your humor. However, I still rated 1/8 for not being a complete or even semi-complete story.

Pretty good vampire story with lots of lovely choices, especially near the beginning. There's some grammar issues but that can be overlooked in lieu of the story and characters. I think the length is good for what it is, especially with the amount of links on each page, but we could have a bit more closure on the endings maybe.

Pretty good, a few spelling errors but a good story overall. The character was interesting the author called me leech a few more times than necessary but I feel like this is a story I could've vibed with when I was super into the werewolf-vampire thing especially since I preferred it to go down like this. I'd like to see more characters of different supernatural backgrounds in the future though. Other than that keep on keeping on.

Its a pretty good story. But I gave it a lower rating because it abruptly ends, the narration style is interesting tho. Sounds like it could be a nice story.
But just write the whole damn thing, because multi-chapter series like this never do well here.

This has potential, keep writing.

Man, if you know the spelling and grammar are bad, clean it up before you post it. Putting a spotlight on the story's failings doesn't make them magically okay, it just makes it obvious the issue is laziness rather than simple ignorance.

We don't get a lot of horror stories, and rarely very decent ones, but this one would have potential if you polished it up and also picked a tone and stuck with it. Author asides are rarely ever actually funny.