Player Comments on World: One - Emerald Skies

I went into this game with fairly low expectations as the author his/herself openly admitted to this being part of a series, but this storygame still managed to fall short of those low expectations.

Now, it does give you what's advertised. It's a sightseeing storygame that's more story than it is game. The concept itself wasn't a very good one, in my opinion. For all I know the author could intend to make the finished product more than simple sightseeing assuming s/he ever continues this.

The grammar and punctuation are okay, but the writing itself is, at times, what I would describe as dry. There isn't anything that sticks out nor is there much that holds interest. Given that, I was hoping that I could just kill myself in the game and jump straight to the review, but unfortunately, the author thought ahead of me and instead of letting you end the game when you die, you're forced to start the whole thing over again. Seriously. That's no better than there being a dead link.

So, I said that it's more story than game but that's not saying much because nothing happens in the story. It gives you the illusion of choice, but you'll soon realize that the choices will inevitably bring you back to other choices until you pick the "right" one. Oh, and I didn't notice any humor in the game aside from that Ronald McDonald reference that I didn't find amusing. It was just random and unnecessary.

The biggest problem I have with this is that it doesn't seem like it's part of a series, more that it's part of a story. It's like the author couldn't wait to get some feedback for what was written and published something that is incomplete, and, quite frankly, not good. The general rule-of-thumb is that any storygame that's part of a series should be able to work as a standalone and this storygame fails to do that.

If it was feedback you were looking for, keep in mind that there are plenty of people on-site that would be willing to review your storygame before you publish it. All you need to do is ask.

My final verdict is a 2/8.

I do not appreciate you calling me a lunatic

The world (what we see of it) seems interesting enough: free-floating "asteroids" in a weightless sky-ream...somewhere between worlds of the movie Flash Gordon and the smoke ring weightless environment of Larry Niven's The Integral Trees. But I did find some of the descriptions a little vague and confusing in places. Might want to consider revising some of the descriptions to make them more concrete. Also, the tenses keep changing from Present Tense to Past Tense. Maybe I just need to play the storygame some more, but the world seemed a bit underdeveloped. I'd like to get more of a sense of this world. Still, this might be promising. Just flesh it out more...and be consistent with your tenses.

The Good: I thought there was a good amount of creativity on display here. Your capacity for expression seems to be pretty strong and I was able to paint a vivid, surreal picture in my minds eye with the details provided.

The Bad: This is not a completed entry, even if it's part of a series. Most of the choices are inconsequential, basically spinning you in circles until you go back down the designated path. Even the game overs still send you right back to the beginning. When you do make it to the ending, it's only a sign-off. I'd recommend taking a look at the plot structure for a standard story and making sure that each story you write at least satisfies that.

The Ugly: With the scene you painted, all the fun visuals, interesting subjects, and situations are basically tossed into the garbage. Nothing of interest exists beyond a surface level. Likely, this is a result of just being an incomplete snippet of your overall story. This is why it's important to have every entry of a series be developed enough that it wouldn't need to lean on any other source.

I liked reading this and I hope that you put some more time into this series to develop an interesting CYOA. I look forward to see what comes next.

This was a pretty neat world. I look forward to reading more.

It's a decent setting, the problem is that this is nothing more than a short introduction. Even if you're going to publish a series, every storygame should be able to stand on its own. And if I judge this on its own, there isn't much my character can do at all and the structure itself is very linear. You also should pay more attention to your verbs, you keep switching between past and present.