Mission Mindless

I enjoyed it. It was a decent storygame with lots of branching. Most importantly, it kept me entertained. I do have a few criticisms, but take everything I say with a grain of salt as I’m quite literally a small child.

First, I noticed that in the description of the game you repeat the word “mission” three sentences in a row. It would be better to open up a thesaurus (or google) and find a synonym so you don’t have to recycle the same word over and over again. You also did it in the very first sentence of the game by using the word “just” twice. If you change the wording slightly, then you can get away with one.

Now, you did have some good descriptions in the game that really brought the scenes to life, such as: “Dazzling chandeliers seem to drip from the ceiling like a diamond necklace.” On the other hand, sometimes you would just tell us about what was happening instead of showing it. There were also a few instances where your descriptions didn’t actually describe anything. You told us our outfits were “the fanciest disguises that were ever made on this planet.” What exactly does that look like? What classifies as a fancy disguise?

This one might just be me, but some of the wording felt like it was meant to be funny and instead broke immersion. Want to know what else broke immersion? “‘Told ya. Nothing comes in and nothing comes out without them,’ Agent Andrews gestured, ‘noticing.’” This sentence is technically grammatically correct, but it reads so awkwardly. I get what you were trying to say. I just despise how clunky it is.

You had a lot of unnecessary words. The above sentence is an example of this. Instead of saying “nothing comes in and nothing comes out” you could’ve said “nothing comes in or out”. It’s just a small detail, but you want to make your writing more concise.

When you’re cooking with Callie she says “it’s too easy these days now that they blocked them extra passages.” In the path with Lady Anne, you take underground passages with lots of twists and turns to get there. Unless I’m missing something, aren’t those the extra passages and shouldn’t they be blocked off?

Also, when you sneak into the kitchen by the staff passageways the head chef doesn’t immediately call for his guards. He lets you work for a little bit first. However, when you escape from Lady Anne, he immediately calls for his guards. If he (apparently) knew who you were both times, why doesn’t he have the same reaction when you show up?

Overall, I liked it. Congrats for publishing something that’s readable. :)

Disclaimer: to the author, take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional writer and only somewhat of a seasoned reviewer. To the readers, this review will contain some spoilers, so I implore you to read the storygame first.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I like the use of a letter format in the description. It's entertaining and summarizes the call to adventure pretty well (the humor in the brackets is amusing too). Then there's a brief warning that might foreshadow a future conflict. Let's see if I can find the 14 endings.

From the first page, this story tells us a summary of the mission (arresting a corrupt scientist) and the stakes (he has a brainwashing gas explosive to use on political leaders). The prose is simple and straight to the point. I like the time and locations at the start—it reminds me of spy movies.

We also get to question a doctor about this, who gives some information about a Gala where the crime would occur. Although I like the implication that he cannot be trusted, which mirrors the description, perhaps providing a bit more information for the first choice would be helpful. Especially where there's a clear right and wrong answer, it would be good to know some details, e.g. body language, the other agent’s thoughts on the matter, or the choice to question him more before deciding.

CHARACTERS

The main characters, the protagonist and Agent Andrews, don't seem to have memorable personalities. They appear as blank-slate agents with one goal: to complete their mission. In a plot-driven story, this doesn't matter much as the focus is on the mission as opposed to the characters, yet for future works (if you have writing projects outside of school work, for instance), I'd suggest the author create characters with stronger personalities and more internal conflict.

Despite that, the side characters were fun to read about. Most of them were archetypes, but they served their role in the story without distracting from the main mission. One particularly amusing one was the head chef, with a comical accent, who if you trusted would have led to your capture. Lady Anne's betrayal was also well foreshadowed, given how she introduced herself and made the agents follow her around for a suspiciously long time. And based on all these paths, the other plot twist is set up nicely too.

PLOT

This story uses the cave-of-time style of branching. It was interesting to see all the different ways of carrying out the mission. Choosing who to trust appeared to be a recurring theme—each time you failed, it'll be due to trusting someone.

I caught a slight error: in the scene where the agents choose to take Cook Callie with them, the ending mentioned “you wonder how it would've been different if you just trusted Agent Andrews's judgement”. Yet, in the prior scene, it was Agent Andrews’ idea to bring the cook, whereas the protagonist was the one who protested.

At times, this story uses ‘telling’ more than ‘showing’, which is alright when delivering information quickly, but to create more immersion, it may be better to slow down pacing and ground the reader in a few key scenes. Still, there were other moments where through the focus on dialogue, description and internal narration, immersion was quite well done.

I enjoyed the victory scene. After the many different ways the mission could go wrong, choosing the right path felt rewarding.

Overall, I found the story to be quite entertaining. It's a short and fun read that doesn't require much of a time commitment.

Final Rating: 5/8
Initial thoughts: I hope you got a good grade

***Spoilers***

I did enjoy reading this. It's a decent length, had some real effort put into it, and was fun to go through. The writing was good, as I would expect from an ELA student hoping for a somewhat decent grade.

The plot was interesting from the start. The main protagonist (You) and their secret agent partner are trying to stop a chemical weapon from exploding at a high profile party in Georgia. Pretty simple. The dialogue is alright. A bit stiff but the accents and agent vibe are pulled off properly. The infodumps are a bit clearly separated from the rest of the story. A more natural flow of giving the reader information without breaking immersion can be tricky.

The structuring was pretty good too. The nice details with the bold and underline, the red and green for mission fails and successes, the different fonts, all were well utilized. The paragraph length and spacing could have been a bit better, but nothing to truly complain about. It could use some more branching too. There is only on success path, which makes it feel slightly linear.

The grammar was great. I did notice some inconsistency with capitalization in some spots.

Overall I would say it is a nice quick read that is definitely more worthy of reading than other school projects that have found their way onto the site. A good idea in the future would be to note in the description itself that it is an assignment rather than the comments.

Not enough choices, kept getting on a path that would auto lose the game for me. Not bad writing, please add more paths

Quite a decent story. You could expand on it into the past and the future to have yourself a spy thriller. There weren't any particular errors in grammar that I noticed either. Good effort.

Thank you so much for the WONDERFUL, detailed, and SUPER helpful feedback!

Oh no! I'm a bad secret agent. I clicked literally every link in this story before I found a MISSION SUCCESS. Campy and fun, but short (even if you are the worst secret agent ever known to mankind).

Nice & punchy storygame! love the accents 😂

Just wish there were more ways to get mission success!

Pretty straight forward story so there's not much to say...

You nailed the "agent" vibe pretty well I'd say...the decorated "Mission Failed" and "Mission Successful" with red and green colors really added to it. Having a countdown timer at the time really helped sell the tension of the story too!

Prose was basic but a bit dodgy at times. Characters at times sounded a bit robotic or like they were regurgitating information to make up for a lack of explanation from the narration...or sometimes the narration seemed slightly inconsistent at times. (And no this isn't because of the agent vibe...its in spite of that lol) Mainly that Agent Andrews...while I'm glad he's in the story...seemed to be reduced to exposition that didn't always feel natural...sometimes it did though which was nice!

Based on your disclaimer...it seemed your story structure was limited by this storygame being made for an assignment? If so that's a shame...but its also an impressive feat given said constraints! Haha!

Needless to say things fit together pretty logically...can't think of any plot holes off the top of my head. Also liked how going to a place at a later time didn't result in the same thing from before...that kind of realism/attention to detail is appreciated!

Also liked how you could solve part of the case but not all of it...leaving you to fail the mission in different ways if you didn't do the full objective.

Carrying over information from failed routes didn't seem to help much in finding the right one...though I could see an attempt for you to guide the player in the aftermath reflection of said failures...which basically just amounted to "Don't trust anyone!". That advice didn't solve the case for you but it did help put you on the right track...sort of anyways...haha!

I did all the Gala route before the rest of the story...was a bit miffed that I couldn't find a way to deactivate the bomb...but I suppose that red herring was just a hint of things to come. Making it clear that the bomb is only half the problem...and that you really want to go after the culprit himself!

Cool enough game I guess...I gave it a 5 for competency and hope you continue to write something better/cooler/more fun in the future! (aka don't let this review deter your efforts...this was a fun read!)

Cheers! ;)

DISCLAIMER:
This was created for an ELA project (on very little time.)
There's only one way to succeed right now (due to the project requirements.)
In the future, I may add endings or create a sequel game...