Player Comments on The Lost Expedition (1)

As always, I will offer my opinions on the good and the bad. The bad is always longer because my goal is to help improve your storytelling.

The Good: Good idea and execution. Concise plot and excellent pacing; the story moved along briskly and I felt engaged the whole time. Interesting obstacles and results.

The Bad: First: the civilized explorer making himself a god to the natives theme is pretty worn out. It was fun to play it as a story game, but it felt unoriginal.
Second: the payoff of the decisions was unsatisfying because there was very little way to predict how things would turn out. It was less decision making and more chance.
Third: although this was interesting as a game, as a story it lies flat on the page. The key to making your stories come to life is the characters, man. The details! A lot of your descriptions of setting are -great-, but the characters are blank. If there are no relatable characters then the reader merely clicks through for the results. The key is to make me interested in what happens to the people in the story, not just seeing if I can "win." Who is the protagonist? Besides the lump of exposition at the beginning, he shows no personality throughout the story. The exception is the final scene where he loses his patience. That was good! But the reader has little emotional context. Is it uncharacteristic? Par for the course? It's boring for me to see the character snap at somebody if I have no idea whether that is normal or not. As a suggestion, I would also introduce some personalities to the party of explorers so the reader gives a damn whether or not they die.
Fourth: As I said your descriptions are good, but some are anachronistic. Don't use 21st century terminology to describe something in a story in the 18th century. The example that comes to mind is "eyes like x-rays," but I know there were others.

Conclusion: I rated it a 5/8. I have been dying for a good pre-modern explorer story, and this one is not bad. To be honest it felt half-baked and this should not have been published without the next part included, but kudos for completing this much.
For all its flaws, I enjoyed playing and I hope you continue to produce.

Cheers,
Due

I liked it. The story itself was a bit predictable once I realized fully where the plot was going. The grammar was decent. The way it was written could have been a bit better though.

6/10

Super good. Eager to read the sequel.

THIS IS AMAZING

Good one! Can’t wait for the sequel

This game was fun. You used a lot of detail and it was never boring.

I thought that it was quite well made as it sucks you into an adventure

Interesting! I was a little wary based on the comments, but it was much better than I thought it would be. The whole trek part, making decisions on where to go and how to cross obstacles, was awesome. No complaints there.

I do wish that there more defined characters. Even just one of your fellow explorers who had least had a name would be great. There were a few small punctuation/grammar errors, I think, but other than that this was a very well thought-out game.

can not wait for pt 2. very well done!

It was pretty good. It had errors(everybody has at least one) but overall impression is good.

I rated a 4. Overall, I found the story uninteresting and fairly boring, and noticed a couple of grammar mistakes. However, I do see your writing potential and I think that if you write some more stories and getting better at creating interesting narratives, you could write some great historical fiction. I look forward to playing/reading more of your work, and hopefully seeing you improve over time.

Amazing can't wait for the next

The use of the editor was simple, which I liked. The story and description of the plot was very nice. I did feel like the choices I had did not weight too horrible consequences, which is ok for a game like this.

Nicely written! I didn't notice any mistakes in spelling or grammar. I'm pretty happy with my results as well.
DAYS is 21.
EXPLORERS is 27.
SUPPLIES is 18.

6/8 I liked the writing a lot. Also the choices were well thought out and were not instant death. Choices mattered but didn't stop you from enjoying the game. I look forward to part 2

Good a did liked it a lot. Had to think about my choices and plan ahead witch is something not to many story games make you do.

Nice story i'll be waiting for the next part

Fine, I guess.

A very good time. Entertaining with great grammar and sentence structure. Fun story, with straight forward choices. I look forward to the sequel, Thanks!

This story is exceptionally well written, and very interesting. I hope you get around to writing a sequel.

It is pretty good just super short

31 and 9 supplies with 18 explorers, cool

I can see why this is featured. Not one grammar mistake, Great plot, overall great story! I wish that there were more stories like this on CYS.

We played this on our podcast and had a fun time! Good story, not too hard and plenty of surprises. Looking forward to Donovan's Curse!
http://www.8cn.tv/content/snakes-piranhas-and-magical-joint-go-your-own-way-e12

well done

Excellent story, I didn't like a little sentence at the start but overall I enjoyed it, top points from me. :)

Hurry up and get the sequel done now! :)

Very interesting and well written. I must say though, there are a few writing errors, and it would be cool if you could implement a sort of system of trust, that when it goes to 0, your men overpower you, and it's game over.

I'm going to be waiting for the second one, but don't feel rushed, because you are. Not.

Enjoyed. The grammar could do a little polishing up, specifically during dialogue, but all in all it was a great storygame. Both consequences and rewards for actions, and a nice, good story. Very well done.

That was great

Well done.