Player Comments on The Lottery

Purpose: I've never read "The Lottery" myself, but this story got me interested. I'm definitely going to look it up and read it, and I think that is a testimony to good fanfiction. it's a bit difficult to judge purpose on this one as it is pretty clearly a school assignment, but I think for what it is it's pretty effective. It got me interested in the original story, and I'm sure your teacher will be very proud!

Writing/Grammar: It definitely looks like you did your proofreading! (A low bar for sure, but sadly something that stands out here among creative writing assignments. The paragraphs were a bit short at times and a few pieces of dialogue came off as awkward to me, but overall I thought it was quite well-written. I liked the inclusion of paragraphs from the original story and they were a good device for setting up the game, but sometimes the quotes felt a bit long. As a rule, you generally don't want any page to be more quote than original writing. Even though there were three different authors here, it was cohesive enough to feel like it was written by one person. Overall, pretty good!

Plot: It's hard to say much about the plot here since it comes from another story - a pretty frequent issue with fanfiction. But in your description, you say you want to put the reader inside of the story and I think you were moderately successful here. Some parts of it felt a bit rushed (like the turning left path), but I think it gave a good general idea of what was happening in the world. As someone who hasn't read the story before though, it did feel very surface-level. I felt I had to piece together a lot of what was going on for myself at times.

Setting: The setting here also seems to suffer a bit from fanfiction-itis. I'm sure it's a very creepy and engaging setting, but I feel like the authors were at times working off of the assumption that the reader already knew the setting. Because of this, there wasn't a whole lot of description. I think it would really help bring readers into the story if they had a bit more background or description of the place they are in, especially for those who are just being introduced to it.

Characters: I think the characters here mainly suffer from the game being so short. Who exactly am I here? A boy - head of my household(?) because my father died, and presumably I draw for my family in the Lottery? It's a good perspective to start from, but the problem is I didn't know any of this as I was making decisions. This is all I know, and I was only able to piece it together by playing through all of the branches. You have the choice to go left - essentially abandoning your sister to die - long before you have any idea that you not being at the lottery would even matter, or that going to this other town means never going back. Because of the timing, I couldn't grow attached to or see things through the character's eyes as well because I have no clue what's going on with him. As for the other characters, nobody really gets more than a mention here. I can't really judge characters off of a passing mention, but I feel like if they got a bit more time dedicated to them the fact that their lives are in danger would be more impactful.

Branching: Short and sweet on this one - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You have five distinct endings that tie into the original work. It did feel a bit rushed, but that could very well just be because the story itself is so short. One thing I really liked was that almost every choice you made actually meant something in the story. It didn't fall into the linear story trap, and for a first game, it was really impressive!

Conclusion: 4/8 - This was a fun little read! I think your teacher will be very proud of what you three came up with here. As a teacher myself, I would be happy to see something like this from my students. It's definitely simple and I would love to see it more fleshed out someday, but as a school assignment, I think it is quite well done. I hope you all continue to write in the future!

Does not follow EndMaster's guide for a good Pokemon game

I don't know if The Lottery was really meant to be turned into a storygame. It kind of misses the message.

Not long enough to, maybe, garner a higher rating.

If the original concept didn't exist, I'd probably give this a 6/8 for innovation, but that's not the case and it's hard to judge how much is original or not without having seen the first story, so I'm rating 4/8 though the story as it stands is interesting enough to be worth reading (also in part due to its brevity). When I was playing, I liked how everything led back to the ridiculous reality of being required to participate in a raffle to get stoned. The original concept and the drawing work out in this story. I also thought I'd like to try and escape, so I think expanding the story should work in that direction (providing character development on your friends and your favorite hang outs, letting the player decide who to trust to keep you hidden or where else you can hide and what happens next). My favorite fork for escape is currently the one where you get turned in by your own family member, so those kinds of interactions -- but with more depth -- are what I'd give a better rating for. Some true escapes and a developing plot as you escape (like being missing for multiple days, and how the town responds) could also be worked in.

It's got the bones of The Lottery, but I was hoping for a bit more meat. If it's set in the place of The Lottery, it would be better to build more suspense by letting the pacing go farther apart. If this is your first storygame, fair enough, but it's something you'd like to return to again, I'd like to see what other quirks a society that involves human sacrifice would do.

Not a masterpiece, but at least the grammar's on point and the vocabulary is concise. That's pretty good for any beginning writer.

I remember reading this story as a child for English class. It was a fun and dark little story that caught my attention and slightly an interest in literature that had dark undertones. I am glad to see it was adapted into a CYS game. The endings tie into the original which is a nice touch and the lack of length is perfectly justifiable because it is simply a short story. It is a good story overall but some of the writing felt a bit rushed(the turn left scene especially).5/8

Solid little story.

It's a pretty good read, it just a bit shorter that what I'd like

The run off to another town option feels a little abrupt and underwritten compared to the rest, and raises a few questions: I don't see how it's remotely the protag's fault that his sister was murdered by other adults based on random luck of the draw, and if there's other towns that know of the Lottery but are against it it seems like something would be done.

For a school project this has surprisingly good writing though. It's very short so there isn't a while lot to say about it, but generally when we get these they lack the basic effort and grammatical understanding to remain published on the site.

I've never read the Lottery but I know what it's about. For people who don't, you should explain more about what's going on. And it would be interesting to delve more into the psychology of the character and the towns people.

The writing was fine but some parts felt rushed. But I think you all deserve a good grade for this.

“But a few days later, you discover that Mary, your little sister, was selected during the lottery. She is dead.

And it is your fault.”

Seriously? Just by choosing to go left?

Besides that, this was an okay story. Not good or bad, but just okay. I’ll save the detailed reviews for people who know how to write them.

3/8.