Player Comments on Shifter

It’s nice to see that Avo doesn’t only write on the forums! Saying in your intro that you got lazy and short on time 2 weeks before the actual deadline does say to the reader “I didn’t put much effort into finishing this story so you shouldn’t either” 😊 Anyway, moving past that I like the disclaimer that we can’t actually move things with our minds – there’s a wasted lifetime of effort right there! :D I dare to dream though and prefer to believe in magic.

I love the way I literally roll out of bed in the mornings. There’s a ton of exposition on page one coupled with some of the biggest spacing between sentences I’ve ever seen – you could literally draw a cartoon strip after each line. I feel this could do with a fair bit of editing but the basic premise and science behind it is original and technically edutainment, even if I’m pretty much an elementalist or air bender or whatever. You have succeeded in making chemistry reasonably interesting though, which is more than my science teacher ever managed.

It got dark real quick when I was thinking about my life (this was probably the best written part) and the badges with pictures are a nice touch. You’re getting the hang of items and variables pretty well which bodes well for your future stories 😊 It seems a bit harsh that I’ve decided to kill my teacher because she’s not great at teaching but hey, I’m a teen and hormones gonna hormone. I love the idea that I go from “I’m planning first-degree murder” to “Oh look, a colourful thing!” And, of course, there’s a bunny girl that comes out of it who decides to break the fourth wall like she’s fricking Deadpool.

I don’t love the ending to be honest. I’m guessing you weren’t really sure how to end this so you went for… random? This might be a failure at the planning stage (were you making it up as you went along?) or, as you say, you might have just run out of steam and / or lost interest. I’m glad your imaginary people reassure you but I’m not sure if the real-life judges will be as forgiving and decide that the effort you put in is enough to keep you out of the Pit of Shame.

Personally, I think you made a good amount of effort but you need to practice your planning: know your endings, edit a bit more (though your spelling and pronunciation were good and the branching was fair) and avoid the kind of endings that it makes readers difficult to forgive you for :D I’ll give you 4/8, mostly for effort and also for a fairly original and well-explored idea. This is a big improvement on your last story though and I think you’re on the right track. Editing and planning are probably the next steps to master.

So.. I was going to make a detailed review, but it seems like this storygame is unfinished. I'd recommend unpublishing it and finishing the story up. There are still 15 more days for the contest's deadline so you should be able to at least reach some sort of resolution that isn't "I gave up so here's the rating page". People have been shamed despite submitting an entry before if said entry didn't meet site standards. Being unfinished is definitely a big red flag for that.

While we are here, I might as well also recommend that you reread your pages aloud to see if there are SPAG issues. Things like word omissions and confusions between 'your/you're' and 'their/they're' can be resolved by this. You could also try using grammar checker tools online.

I really hope that you give this story some more attention. The concept of magic through manipulation of atoms is actually quite neat and imaginative. It reminded me of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' movie which I remember enjoying quite a bit when I first watched it. I also liked the exercises the protagonist was made to go through to realize the magnitude of the number of atoms he would have to shift to deal with a small object. This definitely has potential.

This is a lot better than your last attempts, Avo! You're making a lot of progress. I'll come back and give you a more detailed review later, you deserve it. Off the top of my head, though, mostly grammatical issues. See you with a proper review in two to three business days! ^_^ Or weeks. Or months. Or years. Eventually. At some point.

It fun but it needs more choices and I didn’t understand it that much

Anyone who tries to tell me I can't move objects with my mind in real life gets their game rated 1/8.

Just to let people know, it's colored text (black) which I'm aware can cause issues