Need feedback on a Choose Your Own Adventure Game

[Avery_Moore]

Hi guys! So I've written a short Choose Your Own Adventure Game set in Ancient Rome, and would be really great if I could get some feedback on it. I'm planning a sequel and it would be great to get some ideas on how I could improve. Also if anybody could let me know if they find any mistakes or bugs or other things that could be improved in the game, I'd really appreciate it.

Here's the synopsis:

You are ten years old when you first feel the weight of shackles around your wrists. In a matter of hours, your whole world is turned upside down as you and your brother are dragged away from your home in Greece to work as slaves in the Roman Empire. Now you must struggle for survival. Every decision you make will affect your future. Your life, the life of your brother and the lives of your friends are in your hands.

Begin your journey as a child, and make heartbreaking choices that will shape the adult you will become. But be careful. An act of kindness might come back to haunt you, and a thoughtless word could earn you some powerful enemies. A split second decision will determine who lives and who dies. Will you sell your soul to win your freedom, or sacrifice everything for the people you love? Will you even live long enough to see the sun rise?

And here's the link. (Sorry, it's not actually on scribblehub, because that doesn't have all the tech and stuff I need for CYOA stories. Hope that's okay.) ^_^

 

[Lukha]

Hi guys! So I've written a short Choose Your Own Adventure Game set in Ancient Rome, and would be really great if I could get some feedback on it. I'm planning a sequel and it would be great to get some ideas on how I could improve. Also if anybody could let me know if they find any mistakes or bugs or other things that could be improved in the game, I'd really appreciate it.

Here's the synopsis:

You are ten years old when you first feel the weight of shackles around your wrists. In a matter of hours, your whole world is turned upside down as you and your brother are dragged away from your home in Greece to work as slaves in the Roman Empire. Now you must struggle for survival. Every decision you make will affect your future. Your life, the life of your brother and the lives of your friends are in your hands.

Begin your journey as a child, and make heartbreaking choices that will shape the adult you will become. But be careful. An act of kindness might come back to haunt you, and a thoughtless word could earn you some powerful enemies. A split second decision will determine who lives and who dies. Will you sell your soul to win your freedom, or sacrifice everything for the people you love? Will you even live long enough to see the sun rise?

And here's the link. (Sorry, it's not actually on scribblehub, because that doesn't have all the tech and stuff I need for CYOA stories. Hope that's okay.) ^_^

Hi, so I read through the first part of it which seemed kind of like a prologue when the MC is first awakened and asked questions by their younger brother. Overall, I think CYOA stories are super interesting and very fun! In regards to the writing, I find that you have a very solid style and that it's pretty simple, and there's not an overuse of descriptors; which is nice because you're playing from a first-person perspective and not getting bombarded with details can help me focus more on the actual story itself!

The only real issue I had was that a lot of your sentences were a bit long and felt just a tad awkward. Commas are basically used to break between two sentences that are related to each other, and for me, I always take a pause before continuing reading. So when there's a long list of commas in a single sentence, I feel that the sentence can be broken up to achieve the same kind of feeling but with better flow.

Here's two examples of where I think the flow is a bit choppy and awkward due to the comma.

Spoiler

1. "He’s still here," a voice tells you, the owner of the voice repeatedly shaking your shoulder, trying to rouse you from your sleep.

2. You spent hours just sitting next to your mother, looking down at the baby, admiring how tiny he was, presenting him with toys whenever he cried and asking your mother how much longer it would be before you were allowed to hold him.

What you could maybe do is break it up or use words to combine the ideas to have a better flow. You do have short sentences in your writing as well, and although having variety in sentence lengths is nice, it should also be done carefully because the flow of a story can be affected (especially if you read aloud in your head like I do).

Possible fixes to the two sentences above:

Spoiler

1. "He's still here," a voice tells you. The owner of the voice repeatedly shakes your shoulder, trying to rouse you from your sleep. (Example of a break.)

2. You spent hours sitting next to your mother while looking down at the baby, admiring how tiny he was as you presented him with toys whenever he cried and asking your mother how much longer it would be before you were allowed to hold him. (Using word to combine ideas)

Another thing to point out is that in the second sentence, it's a bit of a run on as well. To improve this sentence, what I'd do is combine similar ideas. For example, when you're looking down at the baby, it'll be the same act as admiring how tiny he was (because you are still looking down at him). So to make it easier to read, you can change the sentence to take out one or the other and it should still keep the sentence meaning the same. In this way, you can keep the commas in and separate them as you have, but it won't be too awkward because you're listing three things you did in relations to the baby instead of having four different things (I feel like lists in three read better than four in terms of flow).

2. You spent hours sitting next to your mother while admiring how tiny the baby was, presenting him with toys whenever he cried, and asking how your mother how much longer it would be before you were allowed to hold him.

But overall, I find that you have a really nice solid writing style and it's really an interesting CYOA so far! Hope this helps.

 

[Avery_Moore]

Thanks so much for the feedback! I completely agree, using too many commas is easily my biggest writing sin. Will definitely work on it with the sequels.