Player Comments on Z is for Zombies

I like the tutorial at the start, that’s nice to explain what’s about to happen. Some people don’t like them, but well, that’s personal opinion. I think my favorite is when reading the “instructions” is an option on the first page. But this one works for me. On to the story!

I like the start and the setup. First person works well for me in these stories. I like the waking up to immediate action. Nice introduction to the other characters. There could have been a little more there with more detailed descriptions, but at least I’ve got their names so far. I agree with mizal on the items – once upon a time, picking up items was a key part and interface on this site. These days you can use a little bit of code and automatically pick them up if you want to have items. If you do a little more scripting, you don’t even have to use items, though they can be fun at times.

I like the page length and the choices. I at least feel like my choices (like getting the gun) are having real effects on the story. I appreciate the descriptions – they make it easy for me to picture the action in the story and make me feel like I’m part of the story. Minor typo on “The Dollar Bill” page: in paragraph 4, it says, “he ribcage” and I think that should be “the ribcage.”

Nice job on the hotel and exploration. I liked wandering about and finding stuff. I’m not sure what to do with a combination of toothpaste and beans, but it sounds like fun. Another minor typo on “Done searching” page: paragraph 10, “you all train after.” I think maybe “you all trail after” might be what was meant there. The vodka page was a little confusing since I was given the vodka at the start of the page, but the story continued, and then I had to click on the vodka bottle to pick it up. That’s a great place where a script to put the bottle in your inventory would be great.

The story continues nicely with good options and details. I was confused on the page, “Stomp Em!” because my only choice was “2.” I’m not sure what that means. I liked the choice when I had to pick one person to help or the other just because it forced me to make a choice that appears to affect the story. The taser, well, doesn’t look a lot like a taser…

I also like that there are a number of different ways to go and different endings. It was a lot of fun picking different choices and then going back later and trying other choices – to me that’s one of the best parts of the choose your own story. I found it interesting that the story really kept going for awhile if you made good choices! I thought I did good, getting up to 23 skill points, but I still got a bad ending. I will certainly try again!

I highly encourage those who haven't read this to give it a go, and leave a comment.

The story surprised me a bit, as it felt rather well put together, the pacing felt decent, and the descriptions helped immerse me in the story. It was just well written, which is always nice to see.

The story did seem somewhat linear, but with that said, there are still different endings. Also the variables actually get used throughout, which made them feel meaningful.

Further, the items are also actually used, which is nice. However, I was disappointed when I found out that some items had the default image, which made me think that the author might have rushed somewhat towards the end to publish this. I'm just not sure why they got images for the earlier items but not for the later ones.

Overall, I'd say what is here is good, but could be better. As such I highly encourage the author to keep writing, for as long as they strive to keep improving, I'm sure they will end up being capable of making some really great stories.
(But to be fair, if they can continue to output work of this quality, I'd still be pretty happy).

Coolio

This was fantastic! It's not too long or too short, and I like how it starts the reader out with some action.

Using the items as one of the choices was new to me, but I really liked replaying this and discovering their value.

There are a few grammar mistakes here and there, but nothing too serious; it still reads quite well! Keep up the good writing, and thank you for an awesome story!

Very realistic zombie story

I feel like this story is a great example of a 5 out of 8 story. It was good not great. I liked what it did but it seemed to lack a certain... Spark or flare to truly be great. Definitely not a waste of time solid overall.

WOW all that and there was nothing in the farm? SERIOUSLY

Got the good Ending now still really good

Got Bad ending its okay tho cuz the story good

It's a very engaging story that's logical with minor mistakes. Skill points were creative. Every item is also used, which is good compared to all the other CYOA stories that have a crap ton of items and no use for like, 50% of these random things you pick up. Pretty good plot overall, some minor plotholes. Though, it seems like the best ending is only an extended version of the good ending. Decent overall.

Well I was shocked for the confession lol

I won, didn't I?

reminded me of my sister

Fun!

This was a well-written, fun lil story. The skill points weren't always where i would think, but it makes sense.

Really good, but sort of got stuck at one point and gave up, put VERY interesting and worth your time

Great story! The game element was pretty cool. I liked that it made you have to earn the best ending by doing everything right.
It has been a while since I actually finished the story and am now leaving a review, but from what I remember there weren't a whole lot of grammatical/spelling errors.
From what I remember the characters were fleshed out pretty well. The surviving character was the best, the other two mostly seemed to serve as red shirts, which isn't so bad saying as they both had their personalities at least.

I rated a 2 only because of a bug at the end that prevents you from winning. Whether I give the taser to Chloe or not, Chloe leaves in the morning because she doesn’t trust me even though the page immediately after I give the taser says that Chloe feels we’re a great team and really trusts me.

good

This was definitely one of the better zombie stories that I have read on here. It really had a story, and I like the system that it had. I still believe that there could be more details in the story, but this was still a really good story where my choices mattered, and they lead me to my ending, which was the community. I think that a sequel might be in order as the apocalypse is not over, but still with so many bad zombie games, it's really nice to see a good one that got me attached to the characters. Good work!

This is a fun game.

Your humor is zany and the stripper fight was by far my favorite part of the game. If anything, I would go funny/zany many more times throughout the game. It's really a hard skill to pull off and you nailed it.

I also liked that I had the option to "freeze" during the fights LOL

The rest of the game was a little "normal" in the sense that it was really good but nothing amazing happened. Nothing stood out (compared to other zombie books) although I was entertained.

I think there must have been a way to use my cigarettes to placate the dude by the fire, but I wasn't able to make it work. :-(

Great work on this overall! Again, I will definitely remember that fight... I hope you have more stuff like that coming! :D

Zombie apocalypses aren't a genre I can ever get too excited about anymore and with two being posted at once I hadn't been paying much attention, so I appreciate Zake giving me the heads up on this one.

This story was way better than expected and I genuinely enjoyed it. True it doesn't really break new ground in terms of plot, you've got your group of survivors avoiding zombies while scavenging and having things going wrong, but the writing itself and the pacing is good, characters are decent if a bit slim on development and overall this stays entertaining throughout.

There were some punctuation issues, mostly the usual ones with dialogue tags:

"Wh-What?" You say sleepily.
"I can't believe this place was ever a hotel." She responds.

etc.

(In the interests of not repeating myself, please see my recent forum post here: chooseyourstory.com/forums/creative-corner/message/24120#803321)

And I would have preferred to have items just placed in my inventory automatically. Not a huge fan of having to juggle a lot of items in general of course, that if nothing else will guarantee I don't bother playing a game on mobile, but in that case just a single line of scripting copy and pasted around would save readers a lot of clicking.

The last minor issue on the technical side was just some slight annoyance while reading because most of the 'paragraphs' are just a line or two long, and comparatively the gaps between them are huge. It's a slightly painful amount of white space although I'm guessing it's caused by the author using the Rich Text Editor.


Aside from that, just some random notes I jotted down while reading:


Wouldn't someone climbing up a staircase have their head and then body become visible, in that order, before their foot is seen on the top step?

Okay baiting the zombie strippers into fighting each other seems like it should NOT have worked but it was still freaking hilarious...

The doors are missing on two of the rooms, revealing in with a caved in roof and the other with fallen dresser blocking the entrance. // did you mean revealing one?


...when the was vodka found in the hotel my first thought was of how useful it would be as a disinfectant. Getting drunk on the other hand when you have to be able to act quickly and not make noise to survive seems almost suicidally stupid. Characters seemed a little dumb for not considering any of this.

Nick never notices his gun is missing?


Seems like there should've been a bit more reaction to Nick dying than 'damn now I have to tell the others'. I may have missed it but I didn't see much establishing that he and Alexa were a couple, for that matter. And, honestly who hides a zombie bite in a freakin zombie apocalypse in an enclosed space with friends?

...uh, being bludgeoned to death with a bat is kind of an awful way to die? It's been established the group has at least one knife and there's even the gun if you want to take the risk of the noise. There are in fact lots of ways to kill someone who isn't fighting back even just using normal household items that would be much more humane than multiple attempts smashing their skull in with a blunt object.

You debate on whether or not to wake her and eventually decide to wake her up. // reduntant wording

"I know there are people living in the country and a lot of them have farming and fishing. // farming and fishing is more something a person DOES rather than HAS.

What is a taser going to do against a zombie?

"Is there room on the coat, the floor is killing my back."


And hey, while I'm glad it worked out on for these guys, in the real life event of societal collapse I'd actually advise AGAINST cutting through another person's field and then charging straight toward the first farmer you see, they might get the wrong idea and also have guns. Just sort of lounging around outside without a weapon in a situation any looter or rapist or zombie could walk right up on you in itself seems a bit impractical, but happy ending achieved so no worries I guess.

Although I apparently didn't get the happiest ending possible. I ended up with 33 skill points (which probably should have been just score points so they'd display with the comment) and with a good relationship with Chloe, but I must have missed something. Didn't go back clicking through all possibilities, but it didn't seem possible to save the other two so I'm wondering what I missed.

Hi all. If anyone notices any issues with the story please feel free to message me so I can fix them!