The Greasy Smell of Gun Oil...

This is one I've been meaning to get to for awhile. It's a nicely tense story and for the most part realistic (which I guess makes sense if it was inspired by real events). Nadine in particular was a well written character, I felt I got a better sense of who she was in even the short section she was in than even the protagonist herself.

There were a few spots, most noticeably on the first page where the sentences could have been tightened up. Nothing too obviously wrong in the technical sense but just the way they were phrased was a bit clumsy, I think because of the switching back and forth between past and present tense while establishing the backstory.

Just a couple of examples and suggestions:

Your imagination sees him lurking in every dark corner since you heard he was released 2 days ago. // You've imagined him lurking in every dark corner

You love the way they make you feel so secure when he hugged you. // You loved the way they made you feel so secure

Your anxiety has been better while you are at work, // Your anxiety is better when you're at work


Other than that, my only issues with this were the same as Mayana's. A couple of parts are lacking in consistency, most notably near the beginning when the ex is or isn't in the house depending on whether you make a phone call to the neighbor from the driveway. If instead you'd only had him there if you'd gone out for drinks and then come home, it would make more sense since he'd have had more time to sneak in after the neighbors went to bed.

I was disappointed too that paying the guy to beat him up just looped back to the motel path, I was expecting at least an interesting game over from what was the most obviously questionable choice you could make.

I'm with Maya too in that I don't think just talking to him should've been accepted as fixing the problem. In the beginning it was established the two of you had patched things up before only to have it lead to this, and nothing about this guy who flat out murdered you on other paths says he's going to be able to be rational the next time he starts drinking.

Since we weren't allowed to make any choices regarding the use of the gun and the protag apparently defaulted to all the wrong ones, I'm going with my first ending of knocking him out with the lamp as the canon best one.

Anyhow, overall I enjoyed this and I hope you continue to write and participate with the site. Feel free to drop by the Writing Workshop on the forum if you have any questions or want feedback on anything for your next project.

I planned to review this a few days ago, but I kept doing other, less important things. I really need to do it now, because this story looks just so sad and lonely, sitting here with no feedback. I hope someone who’s better at writing reviews eventually takes pity on it. It’s not a bad story, you just published it at the wrong time.

The title is a bit unusual. I’m sure most of us are smart enough to know that oil is greasy. Why is there an ellipsis at the end? There is only one ending where you kill your ex with a gun, how come you chose this title? It is a very unique one at least, noone's going to mistake your story with some other one.

I like your style. You manage to tell all the important information in only a few words. It would certainly be nice to know more about the characters, since right now we don’t even get to meet the protagonist before we have to sympathize with her, but not every story has to be an epic.

I found only a few small mistakes, like <You'd had a restraining order out against him before.>, where I’m almost sure it should’ve been you’ve, or a missing in after ended in the description. One thing I find annoying is your overuse of ellipses. There is no need to put them in all the titles and choices, they have to be used very sparingly.

Some of the choices don’t make sense. For example, if you choose to go home at the start and go directly to the house, you stay safe, but if you call Mr. Lipinski and enter the house afterwards, then your ex is there. Some choices don’t make a difference at all and seem to only be there to make the readers feel as if they have options, like taking a shower in the hotel (although that option does enable calling Mr. Lipinski, something that for some reason wasn’t possible before).

The ending where you call your ex and talk it out is meant to be the best one, but I can’t help but feel that was the wrong choice. Sure, it is the most reasonable one, but it seems less so when I also know all the other outcomes. If this man could kill you before, do you really think some nice words are going to stop him now?

Alright, I’ll stop complaining about the flaws now. This was a good short story, and you obviously have talent. I would love to read another story from you, or perhaps even an updated, longer version of this one. Keep writing!

it ok

This game trash. Stop making games forever.

This story hasn't received near enough attention, I wish I had time to amend that properly! Thanks for taking the time to add it to the site. It's a good addition.

Not only is this a medium for you to develop a valuable and personally rewarding skill, writing, but you provide also a benefit to us as readers and site members.

Whenever it happens that someone drops a worthwhile effort into the pool that slips under the radar, I fear that the writer will feel the work was all for not, and that certainly isn't the case. It's a good idea to draw from real events that inspire you, or haunt you. Even while doing so you managed to provide, from what my two times through seemed to show, differentiated endings, and that's good, more than many games on the site have managed.

Please keep developing your skills as a writer.

This was interesting. The prose is not perfect, but the story was certainly engaging and you had my attention.

This is surprisingly well-written. I'll post a more in-depth review once I have access to a computer again.