Player Comments on The Second Battle of Bull Run

Usually the school projects we get here are uh, not great, so this one was kind of refreshing. It definitely could've used more description and detail, we're often just briefly told that major things happened. More time could've been spent in the beginning especially, describing the camp and setting the scene. But aside from all the classic 'show, don't tell' advice, the writing itself is solid in all the technical aspects like grammar and punctuation and so on.

The "diary" entry on the first page made me chuckle and there were other details that were reminders of what a fun person John Pope was (more to read about than to live with for sure...) but there were a good number of options for more logical actions too, and some that were just fun. (The Traitor/Martyr choices were kind of wtf in the way they came out of nowhere but something about the whole scenario of having Stonewall Jackson just walk into your tent was amusing enough I didn't mind...)

I know the author just did this for a school project but I wouldn't mind at all seeing more stories from them, whether they stick to historical stuff or have other stories they want to tell, I'd say they've got a lot of potential here.

Many others have tried and failed to do school projects here. I hope they take note of this because as you can see, it's quite easy to avoid having your story taken down really. If you want to hit that publish button, all you have to do is not suck.

I like this, its pretty short and sweet

A Fitting End To A Civil War Veteran

It was very, very good. I'm not all too good with history, and I liked this.
I got the Martyr, Hero, and Traitor endings. I got the Martyr and Traitor ones because I wanted to test everything- the Hero was the one I really chose. Big oof on that one- I died....

Uh, so I died in the end?

Some storygames are short but sweet. This one was short and stale. Stale in the sense that there was nothing much tasty to capture my attention. It's not about what your topic is, but how you present it.

It's competently written in the technical aspect. The main issue is with your storytelling; it's not immersing enough. It's about epic battles in the American Civil War, right? Flesh out its parts even more, especially the battles.

It's got a few shortcomings, but it's certainly more fun than homework. I'll give you a humble 4/8, and I hope you make better ones than this. Cheers.

Damn, Gorgeous! Loved reading it! Make more content pls.

10/10

This was a pretty good story. It was short, but still got information through about the actual battle. My only main criticism is that the Union lost that battle horribly. Maybe you could give an option to play as a confederate or union soldier? 5/8

This was a good story, but a few questions.
The second battle? What about the first one?
Also, someone without any prior knowledge on the American civil war may have some trouble following along. For example: Who is Stonewall?

It would be good for readers to have a short backstory explaining who all the characters are. I know this was for your history project, but it doesn’t seem like you spent enough time on it.

You wrote it like a journal, and yet it is written in second person. The journal part probably isn’t such a great idea, considering the fact that close to every story on CYS is in second person.

Also, in the titles for the pages, you capitalize only about half the words that you should have. For example: “Prepare Defenses and sit and wait until Stonewall attacks”. A quick lesson in grammar: when writing a title, you need to capitalize all words except for “and”, “the”, “of”, etc.

Also, you mentioned letters in your story, when telegraphs exist and are used in that time period by the Union. This one statement basically makes your story inaccurate, and therefore probably doesn’t belong in Edutainment. Not that anyone would use a story like this to study for their history test.

And one more question: Who is the main character? Are they a lowly major? Or are they a brigadier general? This makes a big difference, you know.