The City and the Tower

Alright, first of all, I was surprised and intrigued with the setting. The world before Babel is certainly nothing I have seen explored to any real extent in fiction, so congratulations on being a pioneer Betaband. All in all, I would say I enjoyed the characters and setting, but there simply wasn’t enough length for a full story to blossom. On to the details.

SPOILERS

First, you definitely captured the idea of living in the stone/bronzish age that the story took place in. Using cubits in regular speech was an inspired touch. The lack of amenities and luxury even in a city where they can afford to build an enormous tower just because they can was all captured and displayed before the first choice.

Ack being the strong, green farm boy works very well as the reader also has virtually zero knowledge of how Babel operates. The other characters, notably your rope pulling crew also have unique personalities even though the story is very short.

There were a few issues I had with the story other than length, however. One is the fact that it seemed as if the tower was being built entirely out of stone when the traditional reading implies that the invention of the brick is what made the tower possible. That’s not to say, of course, that much of it couldn’t be stone, but that might need to be addressed.

The other is the ending where the woman at the brothel murders you. It seems like there needs to be a reason, or at least a build up.

Last, there were a few typos scattered throughout. None of them are especially bad, but the frequency is distracting in a story this short.

I loved the premise, and I hope you get time to expand it later.

This was a good story game as well as an unconventional approach to the story of the Tower of Babel.

Much of the fascination of the Tower of Babel lies in its inherent structure, how it was built by a race of people speaking the same language, and how once the tower was completed, the people lost their ability to communicate with one another.

The descriptions were strong, I thought you had an engaging storytelling voice, and I really like how you built up to events rather than rush it.

You capture the feeling of living in a Bronze Age society, the life of a regular able bodied young man very well. I loved the way you described the bar, the shops, even the uniforms that the workers would wear. All of that really added to the immersion. You also convey the struggles and physical exertion involved in being a rope puller well. I like how you added a fully fleshed out cast of characters and we get to meet the main character's crew.

All that to say, you start off with an incredibly strong beginning, but the ending sort of fizzles out. It honestly feels like you had a lot more planned out, but you prematurely stopped.

I did like the succubus ending, but this story game is a classic example of unrealized potential, and for that I'm giving it a 4/8, because there's clear effort and potential, but the potential isn't realized.

I liked the originality of the setting and the story, though it was a bit linear with the occasional typo. I thought the main character was interesting though and the story was fairly decent, a good read.

I found many grammar mistakes and punctuation errors, and you paragraphs were not spaced well. Overall theres an interesting premise, but you may want to fix these things and re-publish it.

Decent story 5/8

bad formatting-1

Overall I give this an 4/8 (Thats a little generous).

Overall recommendation: Go on ahead and read it, you won’t regret it, even if it doesn’t bring enlightenment.
There are a few cases of awkward phrasing, but overall it looks like there was a lot of proofreading done here. Usually the problem is the opposite, but I see quite a few missing commas.
I do like that the main character’s name is Ack. It seems fitting for the chaotic kind of being he is.
It takes a few pages before any choice links pop up, but they’re most certainly there. There’s quite a few different ways to end this story, which is great.
It’s really a very short story, but then again you didn’t have much time to finish it, and you mentioned it’s only half of what you had planned.

Overall rating: 5/8. A very libreal take on the tower of babble.

It's... a story I suppose. A story that definitely wasn't proofread enough, but still a story. I did like the idea, but I think it needs more of everything.

Enjoyable, though short.

The character was great, I found myself interested in him immediately. It was interesting to help Ack investigate his new world in the city, and I would have loved to journey more with him. The branching was decent, especially for a short storygame, and there were several different endings available.

Overall, enjoyable and worth a read.

I found the game fairly enjoyable. It starts off with a clear goal: find a job in an unfamiliar city.

I had a problem with the paragraph spacing. Five spaces in between paragraphs is far too many. It felt like the only purpose was to make the story feel longer.

There were also occasional typos, though nothing that interferes with the overall story. One example is when you find the woman again, one closing quotation mark is replaced with a colon.

I rated this a 4/8, though that might be a bit harsh. Competently written and somewhat interesting, but could be longer and have more creative endings.