Vicious Moles of Nature

I'd like to start by saying that I enjoyed this. It was interesting and different with multiple endings and choices on every page.

The grammar was good though the writing of the dialogue felt overly formal. Having a bunch of farmers speak so formally to each other in the dialogue just feels strange. On that same note, every character has the same speech mannerisms. Every line of dialogue is in the exact same style of speech, none of the characters seem to have any individuality in that department. A few minor changes to some characters' vocabularies and level of formality would have brought much needed life to the characters. As it stands, they all feel very flat and their only real differentiating factors dialogue wise are their names, physical description, and where they appear in the story. Take that away and it would feel as if you are talking to the same side character at every turn. Which is actually going to be my suggestion to fix this. I actually do this myself whenever I notice my own characters are too similar in their speech patterns. Write out some dialogue between them, then delete all other lines. If you can't tell the characters are different people by the way they speak and it feels like someone is having a conversation with themselves, then that gives you a starting point to work from on individualizing them. It isn't wrong to have two characters with similar speech patterns, but they shouldn't be exactly the same and you definitely don't want every single character to speak the exact same way. There was one path where this was actually achieved with Ophelia. Her speech mannerism took on some individuality and I was thrilled to see that for all of two pages before an abrupt end. I didn't see it anywhere else with any other characters.

That's my only major complaint, besides that that the first ending I got described the moles as having "vaginal maws". I don't know what the fuck a vaginal maw is, but I then spent the rest of my time reading other choices and endings picturing these moles having toothy mouth vaginas. That may have been the author's goal, but I can think of scarier ways to describe a monster's mouth. A mouth vagina is less scary and more of just a moment of being flabbergasted while questioning everything you know about moles and hoohas.

Besides the vaginal maws, the actual storytelling and descriptions of the setting are beautifully done. Zero complaints there, only praise.

I got all 8 of the endings and I felt that the story had good pacing across all the branches for the most part. It was well thought out and well written, especially for a shorter story. But, all of the endings were abrupt unfortunately and made my choices feel a bit empty. All paths lead to a quick end with little explanation, which was a shame. Every time I got interested in the story, and the pacing of it made it feel like the path would go on for a bit, it would just suddenly end.

I really wanted to rate this a 7, but the flatness of the characters brings me to rate it a 6. Good job overall. I think with some work on character development and less abrupt endings this story could have easily been a 7 or 8. The author clearly has a lot of talent and Bill's ability to weave a story is fantastic. It's too bad the same attention to detail wasn't put into something as basic as character dialogue to further give them personality and life outside of their name and appearance.

I just want to start off by saying amazing job on the title page. You consistently add these to the start of your storygames, and they really help create the feel that you’re reading a physical book. I also want to say that I’ve never read Hamlet (or any adaptation of it), so this review is just my experience with this story alone. Alright, let’s get to the actual story now.

As soon as I saw the Hamlet excerpt at the beginning it was easy to see where the “tragic misinterpretation” came from. I could already tell that the story would be entertaining, and began looking forward to what laughs horrors I would be experiencing soon. Bill’s style of writing drew me in immediately and kept me interested the entire time I was reading. Just as Mizal said, it’s incredible how much attention Bill pays to the little details, utilizing the ability to make even cows sound intriguing. Something I really enjoyed when reading was the satirical undertone of the horror story. When the moles are first introduced, they are described as “vicious mole-beasts that live underground, coming up to feed only when the nights are freezing,'' which is not the way a true horror story would describe is “terrifying monsters”. Instead, it’s written more as a parody on the horror genre, and how stories attempt to create beasts out of common creatures.

One thing that I didn’t enjoy about the story were the path lengths. The paths and pages were written so that it seemed like they would continue on for a while, building on the story and adding more plot. Instead, the choices would lead to an interesting scene of events, but then the story would just end. No resolution, no epilogue, one of the characters would speak (seemingly leading to another choice), and then I would be hit with the end game link. This was only an issue for me because I felt that a lot of the paths had so much potential, and it just wasn’t quite reached in the short amount of time it took to finish.

Mizal already pointed out the few typos/grammar errors, so I’m not going to bother doing it again. I wasn’t able to find any more, and I find it incredible that the story was published and only two grammatical errors were found. Vicious Moles of Nature was written extremely well, and the lack of grammar and typing mistakes definitely shows that.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading Vicious Moles of Nature, although I hadn’t read Hamlet to understand the parody. It was a nice short read, filled with great storytelling and an interesting plot. You have yet to publish a less-than-amazing storygame Bill, and I’m excited to see whatever you put out next.

First, you really need to be careful of phrases like 'his mother and former girlfriend'. On CYS, that is known as false advertising. Also, just so you know, every time I've seen this since it's been published I read the damn name as 'Hammie Dankster' and was sorely disappointed when I realized this was not the case.

The story itself from page one does its job making me sympathize and even get angry on behalf of the MC. Even though the title picture and description made it obvious that moles were going to be a threat in more than the allegorical sense, the shift from the more 'grounded reality' to the horror elements as I came up to the first choice made me almost regretful, at that point I was all caught up in Ham's family troubles and uncertainty and wanting to see how that all developed.

The way the story progresses though, there's so much realism and the small details Bill has a knack for--everything down to the small wisps of snow still lingering on the grass to the orange glow of a distant city on the horizon, to the humming of cars somewhere off on the highway at night--all build this completely believable setting and situation where everything is our familiar normal reality, except that you just HAPPEN to be on the trail of legendary truck-sized moles, and no one can stop with the Hamlet references.

"Compared to watching football with Claude, then yeah, this shit kicks ass." Made me laugh.

The way Seymour is described is just one of many examples of just straight up fantastic writing in here. What a great way to tell you everything you need to know about a character in three simple sentences.

On the whole I preferred the branches where you went out investigating alone for the horror atmosphere, and for sort of reminding me of the movie Tremors (not to say that having your group picked off one by one every time you turn around isn't a classic...) but of course the inspiration of this story being what it is, gotta follow the trail to where the references are thick and goofy.

In the end I couldn't find any actual 'happy' ending, and I really would've liked a confrontation with the uncle or for it to be revealed what happened to the dad, but then again it's Hamlet and a horror, mere survival a couple of times is realistically more than anyone could have hoped for. It was a fascinating little adventure though that really explored the depths of how gross and creepy star nosed moles are.


TYPOS:
Of course, this is assuming that your assumptions are correct, and that they have deoured your dogs.

Gertrude watches politely from the porch, as if she is having a hard time seeing what the issue is, but wants to feign interest anyway if this is important to you, he only child.

This is the version of Hamlet I never knew I needed.

It's well-written. The moles are very cute, but I don't know whether they are very terrifying?

Does the ending mean that Uncle-Father never returns? Way to little choices. Too simple.

It was a fun--and dangerous--adventure in the wilderness.

There was a Hamlet parody here, and a potentially lethal hunt, and both bits had interesting elements (and often witty moments in the Hamlet bit!) I expect exciting wilderness adventure from Bill, and this game serves it up.

My one significant gripe: I didn't think the Hamlet part felt like it fit with the game, feeling more like an overlay than an integral part of the structure. There were times I felt it distracted from the game, with certain bits in there strictly for a pun, which is fine--Shakespeare loved his puns too--but I wasn't sure it fit the overall atmosphere of the game.