Amberose's Live Thoughts on Your Stories

Hi @amberose,
I was wondering if your story reviews were still open! It would be great if you could review my story, Silent Killer, which is unfinished and currently at 4 episodes. Please let me know!
Thanks,
Rohit

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Yep, I still am reviewing

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Awesome to hear! Would you please review my story?

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Is a link to my story, and the first chapter is finished, but I’ve just started on the second one. I worked really hard on it, and I hope you like it! :slight_smile:

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Hey Amber, I would love your opinion please
Title: Bailey Files!
Author: Kate
Chapters: Mystery
Style: Limelight
Instagram: @katie36_episode
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5751048917811200
**Description:**A collection of short stories based on crime solving mysteries

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@whirlwinder Silent Killer

  • GAH! Please not an author note to start with :weary:

  • Your actual intro scene was really strong but I’m not a huge fan of the default looks/outfits for characters

  • Uh, so Gabe… is too default-looking in my opinion. It’s really hard for me to see him as a love interest which made Iris’s random attraction to him feel odd

  • When Iris gets the text message, she disappeared from the screen and then appeared in a different spot. Was that meant to happen?

  • Spotting at the party was on point

  • That flashback scene was very well directed. I liked the adding of the rain effect, but I think at the end of that scene something glitched because Iris seemed to pop out of nowhere again.

  • I am seeing a lot of default characters now :no_mouth:

  • Ok, I know episode 1 was short but it was actually a perfect cliff hanger to end on

  • So when Iris is laying down after the drama, the speechbubble is really high up on the screen

  • I kind of don’t buy this backstory for Iris. I’m not a fan of gang stories so that’s probably why, but the whole being forced to kill someone to prove she’s strong seems so far fetched. Though I can see you setting it up for the plot too so I guess it’s rather important.

  • When Johnny does the shot instead, because of their placements, it looks like he’s shooting Iris and her dad. Id recommend spot directing if you feel confident enough. It will improve the scene

  • Oh damn! He ended up shooting the dad anyway!

  • Alright so with this scene where Iris is running through the house, I think you might need to test it out on the app. I’m not sure what’s causing it- if it’s your coding or a glitch, but it’s like the new backgrounds don’t reset when she moves rooms so it starts halfway in the middle. In the dining room, Iris ran into the Balck background so it kind of confused me. Then out of no where a new background appeared. And then after a second delay the assassin jumped in. Was he supposed to walk in or pop up like magic?

  • I’m not sure if you’re aware that the background you’re using has a table overlay but it really distracts from Sable’s entrance so I would suggest replacing it

  • Be careful with your probs too. Sable holds it throughout the next scene too

  • In the flashback, Sable and Dad are both looking forward when they kiss. You need one of them to be doing the rear kiss animation to make it look like their lips are touching.

  • The TV looked awesome.

  • Well, I know I started this review with the author note comment and now I can see this is something you do every episode. I just strongly advise against it. They tend to become irrelevant if you do them every episode too

  • I like how you directed the first phone call with Kiki.

  • The second phone call she has seems off? I think it’s because there’s an overlay in Dave’s background?

  • I’ve noticed that in episode 4, your choices are becoming more frequent and feel more important. That’s a really great improvement because there weren’t that many at the start I noticed.

Ok so I’ve just finished it and I know you said your episodes were short, but they weren’t actually all that bad. I do think you need to change up the appearances of some of your characters to make them feel more unique however. There was a few directing errors, but nothing super major. Overall it’s not really my type of story and that’s purely because it’s a gang-story and I find them so hard to believe that I can’t immerse myself into it. Lol, But it’s a strong theme amongst most of the community on the app, so I think if you were to polish some of the directing, it wouldn’t be long before it took off.

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Thank you SO MUCH @amberrose for the review. I really really appreciate it. Haha some other reviewers also mentioned that people HATE the default characters so I will try to change something up a little bit. I was actually ALSO thinking of changing Gabe’s looks over the weekend. Very excited to hear that you loved the intro! I’m stopping the author thing from now on, just playing the cover and the “Theme song” per se. I’ve been hearing nothing but good words about the introduction lol. I actually changed that last minute, originally it was something pretty erratic and boring. For the spot directing those glitches actually don’t appear when I preview the story, so I don’t know what’s going on with that, maybe those are glitches. The black background in the chase scene was intended to make it look like a dark room or something, or maybe artistically and vaguely represent her slight fear. I still can’t figure out how to fix the other spot directing errors. Most of the time I’ve tried but failed at fixing those errors, so I’ve let them be or pretended to ignore them. But now, thanks to your feedback, I will be able to fix some of the other errors that I didn’t even notice, let alone ignore them. Episode 5 is coming soon so I hope you’ll be able to review that. It’s quite a lot more exciting than the first few!
Thank you so much for your review @amberose!

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I’m glad that helped. I’m not sure what device you test your story on but if you solely rely on the web previewer, just be warned that sometimes it misses some glitches that appear in the app so it’s always good to do at least one run through on the app

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@Addivi101 - Lost Dimensions

  • I feel like the beginning is an author’s note and I’m torn between urging you to cut it or telling you to leave it because I liked the changing of outfits at the end

  • There seemed to be a glitch at the beginning where I saw the overlays trying to get into position…? And I think your start button wasn’t right in the center

  • Ok, the beginning intrigues me… I have a weird thing that’s nagging me though and that every character is standing screen center when they faint. It’s such a weird thing for me to fixate on but idk, it’s sticking out to me. I just feel like a variation between them all would look a bit more exciting.

  • I liked what you did with the coffee overlay. It made it believable

  • The camera shake seemed strange to me but now I feel like it’s something you’re doing as a sign or motif and it kind of works

  • I know you said episode 1 was done but it was a bit too short for me. I think you need just a bit more added to make it something that will really entice your readers. Because overall I found it slightly intriguing but it probably wouldn’t be enough to quite hook me.

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Hi Amberose, thank you for this! Please, be brutally honest, I’m really trying to improve.

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Hello! :relaxed: I would like your opinion on the beginning of my story, please.

Title: Duchess
Author: monalla
Chapters: only 2 done, yet
Style: LL
Cover:


Link: Duchess

[Chapter 2 and the description aren’t proofreaded, yet so sorry for the mistakes.] Thank you!

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You’ve really been doing this for over a year!! That is so impressive not the time frame but how many people you help on the forums.

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Thanks for the thread!

Here’s mine…

Title: Shado
Author: Roy
Description: After tragedy, Roy returns to civilization a changed women. She begins her crusade, determined to put things right, with the help of her trusted people,waging a one-woman on crime
Instagram : roy_episode
Style: Ink
Chapters: 5 and ongoing
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5108744574074880

Shado_S9_posterThumb_cEh8zzozgE

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Thank you :slight_smile: I can’t believe it’s been more than a year :exploding_head:

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@Katie36 - Bailey Files!

  • Love the backstory with showing all the family members. Good use of spotlight

  • Oh, bit short for episode one. It felt more like a prologue than an episode.

  • When Briana and Courtney leave the salon, I think they need to be brought forward a layer

  • I liked your outfit game with the tappables but just be wary that when I take off the outfit to try a different one, the one I was wearing doesn’t go back on the mannequin

  • Briana and Tommy are at the wrong layers when they kiss :grimacing:

  • I love the backgrounds in Tommy and Briana’s home. They’re so personalised.

  • Use of overlays is great. Especially how you’ve done the the police briefing scene

  • Episode 2 was a great length but it felt like an abrupt ending to the episode itself? I’ve also noticed that there hasn’t been many choices yet either

  • Loved how you did that menu in episode 3.

  • The headlights of that car pulling up at the river looked really great

  • I think the swimming scene was really great but you might actually want to make the water overlay a bit more transparent and put Quinn behind it so that it looks like she is under water?

  • Good on you, using the CPR animations appropriately!

  • I felt the same way about ending of episode 3 as I did about 2. It’s perfect length, just abrupt.

  • The DNA searching/fingerprint scanner turned out great!

  • Why do I feel like Jules is poisoning Detective Jones?

  • Oh yikes! I wasn’t expecting that stair case tumble. Very well directed :slight_smile:

  • I appreciate you giving the option to skip that scene with the blood. Very thoughtful I watched the scene and I thought it was very creative

  • So my first guess was “water” and my second was “Water” - the first one was wrong but the second one was correct. Maybe add a reader message to say that it must start with a capital letter

  • Oof and now I’m stuck on the time. There’s too many ways to guess a time and too many variations. I think I’m going to have to end the review here and beg for you to give me the password lol

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Wow what a great review Amber. Definitely have taken notice of everything. 2pm was the time,

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Glad I could help. And 2pm written exactly like that? No spaces or :00 at the end?

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Yes exactly written like that :wink:

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Hey If your still doing reviews i would be honoured if you could review my story!
My story:- AW:Imprinted
Cover:-


Link:-http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6475926547529728
About-In a world were Vampires and Werewolves are in an eternal war, But they have a mutual enemy, The witches. What happens when a wolf imprint’s on one?

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@Zey - Bio-Hysteria

  • Okay, I really love the way you introduced CC into the story. It felt really on theme. There was only two issues- 1. You said if I was baffled to write “Amanda”, but then for the last name you wrote ‘baffles’ so I think that was a typo. The other issue might not actually be a big issue to you. Depends on how you look at it. Basically I selected “This is perfect” without changing anything and now I’m playing without a face :sweat_smile: I do this a lot to test dressing games and so I did it with the CC. I’m sure not everyone will be as silly as me though, but I’m just saying it’s possible for people to play your story without even adding a face :grimacing:

  • Ah, so straight away I can see there’s a definite divide on the train scene. It’s amazing you can convey that just be clothing choices.

  • I found the backstory quite interesting. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into it

  • Love the way you got the blood to appear on Nash’s clothes during that fight

  • Episode one was a great length, but you only had one choice from memory. It’s not so bad, but I noticed you’re entering the contest so if you have time or can think of places to add in more choices, it might be worth doing as I believe they do take into consideration how much choices affect the plot when it comes to judging.

  • When the hologram appears in that first scene in episode 2, the woman is behind the couch (and Nash) for a beat, before she moves to the correct layer.

  • Aww Roman and Nash are cute. I ship.

  • The mission idea is cool. I’ll be keen to see how difficult it gets as the story progresses

  • Oooh so was I kidnapped in the attack?

  • Saw a light flickering when Nash pulls up to Odyr :eyes: That was cool

  • Ooh. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my choices already had an impact… Because now I am alone lol. But it’s what I deserve.

  • I love how futuristic it felt getting dressed.

  • The punching bag I caught a glimpse of didn’t quite rotate fast enough to look real… Unless you wanted it to look slow mo, I’d change the timing.

  • There’s a typo: “I’Id”. It’s said by a character without a display name :grimacing:

  • I am left feeling confused at the end of episode 3 but I feel like that was supposed to be that way, right?

Now you did have a few typos throughout that you may want to get a proofreader to go through and adjust for you. They didn’t distract from the plot, but I believe they count as a small change so you can fix them and it won’t disqualify you. Overall I found your story quite intriguing. Action is probably my least favourite genre, but this had enough thought provoking ideas to keep me personally interested so it’s a really good balance in my eyes :slight_smile: Good luck in the contest!

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