The Razing of Nipthm

General Recommendation: Yeah, I recommend this game. It’s fun and a little surreal, taking the player in completely new and unexpected directions, with a light sense of humor.
Preview: The mustached fiend Raoul has brought the wrath of notorious gang AimFire to your planet! How will you survive?

=SPOILERS BELOW=

General notes:
The narrator’s voice immediately comes through, from the very first paragraph. The story is told in a conversational tone, that welcomes the reader into this strange world without being overly casual.
The sense of humor of this story is what makes it work. The setting is ridiculous, the plot is ridiculous, the antagonist is ridiculous, and they all work very well together. The humor is never dwelt on, which lets it be an entertaining feature of the story rather than trying to hit the reader over the head with it. Raoul’s mustache midgit cult is inherantly funny, but the story never waves him around saying “look how funny this is!”, instead letting Raoul speak for himself and remain a legitimately threatening antagonist. The narration across all the branches is entertaining, and the death endings each have a short and amusing anecdote about what happens to the narrator.
The plot is very meandering, you start out on a mission to kill Raoul, then you join him, then you buy a plane ticket to go study martial arts off-world. I was completely unable to tell what was going to happen next at any time, making the read genuinely fun and unpredictable.
Of note is the fact that this game was written in two days. It’s well over 10,000 words, making this impressive on its own, but the quality of the humor and plot is also quite impressive considering this deadline. Kudos.

Specific notes:
-The introductory paragraph does a good job setting the tone. It’s immediately clear that this is a futuristic society, but the focus is on the narrator and their character.
-Lol, I like the names Hereish and Thereish.
-Lol, “This can only mean one thing: Midgits.”
-Lol, “ECONOMY. Raoul, that cheap ass!”
-Sumbich the martial arts expert is an amusing name.
-Pfft you can die by choking on a fortune cookie.
-I find it amusing that killing Brent or not has utterly no effect on the plot. F.

Grammar:
There’s a number of grammar issues.
Mastery of Language:
The sentences are a little choppy, which makes sense since this game was written in such a short period of time. It could use another editing round to make the reading flow a little more neatly.

Branching:
There’s a fair amount of branching for the game’s length, with a path where you can join Raoul, fight Raoul, or completely leave and become a martial arts expert. It’s impressive how many options this game has, considering how quickly it was written.

Player Options/fair choice:
Good. The consequences of actions are well-foreshadowed.

WRITING ADVICE:
Could’ve used a proofread.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
I got the ending where you shoot Raoul and are beat to death by the midgits.

CONCLUSION: An short and entertaining game with a fun sense of humor about a weird series of events in a sci-fi world.

This is a pretty fun storygame. It’s entertaining and has more choices than you’d expect considering the timeframe it was written in. Writing nearly 14,000 words in two days is impressive, and luckily The Razing of Nipthm does not sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity. It’s quite well written, although I think some routes have a bit more effort put into them than others.

The writing doesn’t take itself too seriously and maintains a good balance of humor and plot (I especially found the recurring torment of the mustache to be entertaining.) While it does take a couple of clicks in order to reach any actual choices that don’t lead to an end game link, I ultimately wasn’t too bothered by it thanks to the later branching. I’d encourage readers to explore the different options they have, because the story doesn’t take too long to read, and each page is pretty consistently enjoyable. This story also succeeds in building a pretty decent setting, with interesting details about the world we live in and the dangers that come with it.

There are a few errors here and there, but less than I would expect from something that was written so quickly. Nothing some proofreading wouldn’t fix, but also nothing so major that it hurts the reading experience too badly.

I’d say this one is pretty above average, it’s funny and doesn’t overstay its welcome. If this is what you can write in the span of just two days, then any future storygames from you are something to look out for. Nice work.

Well, this was certainly entertaining. You don't have to worry about that aspect, Night. At least in my opinion, I found this story-game to have quite a number of branches. Ultimately that's what I feel is important for a CYOA game at the end of the day, for there to be choices, and for those choices to be able to change the story. Those changes can be minimal to radical, and this game does not have a shortage of either.

You can of course fulfill the original mission that you're set out to do, or you can get into gambling, become some sort of martial arts practitioner, or even leave for another planet entirely. What I liked about this story-game is that it seems like although it is quite short, there's freedom and agency that's here as well. Also, it's written well and that's always welcomed.

I guess a gripe is that although there's more than one or two epilogues, not all of them are written equally when it comes to terms of quality. That's not to say that the writing takes a dive, but that some of the endings are more blurb-like than others. I figure that such a thing was the case because of time constraints perhaps? Still some of the endings range from satisfying to even hilarious. So hats off on that front, Night.

This left me wanting to see more from you in terms of writing in all honesty. So good work on this.

This one was a surprisingly enjoyable read. I wasn’t expecting how much development was given for the martial arts pathways, not that I’m complaining about that at all. It seemed the real heart of the story was in those sections, and I wonder what could have been if that became the focus of the story instead of the attempt to kill Raoul. The tones clashed a little bit, but I was still entertained by the pulp and underground midget operations. I think the story could have been served by either leaning harder into the strange world of Nipthm or the struggle of learning martial arts, not by trying to do both.

It wasn't the most interesting story, but it was pretty good, more or less.

Raoul's stache was one of the most funny recurring jokes! He's the man, the legend.

The story is definetely entertaining!