Amberose's Live Thoughts on Your Stories

Hey, I’d be happy too. I think I’ve read the description on another thread before. Or maybe it was simply mentioned on another thread. It was a while ago, but the name definitely rings a bell. Just thought I’d say that lol…

1 Like

@gisellec - Demigodess

Since I’ve already done a review for you, I’m sure I don’t need to express how I feel about author notes haha.

  • Director (whether he’s important or not) looks too defaultish for my taste.
  • Lol at your LGBTQ warning.
  • I noticed these are the same splashes as your other story. Nothing wrong with that, although I always have fun making everything different for each of my stories, so I guess I’m a little surprised to see someone keep it the same.
  • So since I vaguely know what this story is about, the opening scene is quite fitting I think.
  • I feel like there’s a bit of an awkward pause between each character talking. I think it’s because you’re giving them animations once they’ve said their lines, so it uses up a beat. Make sure to use ‘&’ to prevent this.
  • Christian asks for her name, but the teacher already said it when she was telling him where to sit.
  • Hmmm, nice ending to episode 1. It’s intriguing.
  • Lol, just noticed your note about the LL splashes… Although by the time you publish, you’d have them done anyway, right?
  • The way Christian tells her she’s a demigod really bothered me. He was too chill. Tbh, that’s not your fault. It’s the walking talking animations. Quite frankly, they suck. You might want to consider changing that to a scene where they can stand and actually show accurate emotions.
  • MC is very easily swayed. Me in real life being told I am a demigod would need a lot more persuading for me to believe it.

And that’s me basically up to date. It’s pretty good so far, it’s just the walking-talking scene I’d suggest changing. MC should kind of be freaking out at this point but she can’t because of the lack of emotions in the animations.

Thank you so much for this review, and I’ll be working on the points you told me to!

1 Like

lol, Maybe you have :slight_smile:

1 Like

You’re welcome

1 Like

@Ezz - Getting Out There

  • I like how this starts off. I wouldn’t be able to tell it’s your first story from the opening scene.

  • Just be careful of doing an information dump. Narrator bubbles are handy to give a back story but you don’t want to have 7 narrator bubbles in a row explaining something when you could be showing it instead.

  • The I wasn’t capitalized in “I love this place”.

  • So far, your directing has been flawless, which is why when Dave and Daisy are about to go to sleep, I would recommend using some unique angles and zooms, so you don’t have to show them “walking” on to the bed and then suddenly be laying down. Do you get what I mean?

  • Well, you probably know how I feel about author notes, but at least your author note had purpose, lol. And since you as an author has blue hair, I’m wondering if this is like a semi-autobiography?

  • For the narrator bubbles that are Daisy’s thoughts, make sure to have it as NARRATOR (DAISY) so it comes up above the bubble.

  • Oh, mrs Dinklehoff is quite the character! :smiley:

  • When Dave and Daisy go to get her clothes, Dave seems a bit too tall, like his head might hit the roof. Try scaling them a bit smaller.

  • After the picture, the fade transition seemed to flash for a second, and then it did a slower fade right after.

  • When Chris sits down on the couch, he too also looks a little big.

  • I’m not sure if you want me to go one to episode 3, since you mentioned you were still writing it, but I’m going to anyway.

  • So when Dave gets the door, he’s looking like a giant compared to the door!

  • I love that you added the lipstick and brush props!

  • I’m guessing I’m up to the bit where you’re still working on it, because there’s a few things off in the bar scene - Damien being offscreen and BG characters not being animated. Plus the wrong layers when Dave goes to get the drinks with Jack.

  • So yeah, I quite liked that. I’m interested to see what kind of twist and turns you throw in there. And even after all that, I still can’t believe that is your first story. There was virtually no errors! Great effort.

2 Likes

@Penspaperanddreams1 - Agent 99

  • So with the character avatar, my character didn’t show up? I thought this was due to the glitch though, so I tried to exit but it wouldn’t let me without customizing and then it when back to the story anyway, so I have no idea what happened there.

  • Ooh, spotlight. It’s been a while since I’ve read spotlight. I know most people hate it, but I find it alright.

  • “Hot stranger” lol.

  • Hmmm, I like how these points seem to work. I’ve only got one, but a culture point is not something you come across in just any episode story.

  • Some of your transitions look like they’re fade ins, when they should be fade outs.

  • I mean, the cheating this was kind of expected. But I like how you did it, making MC thinking she was going to get proposed to.

  • Well well well, did not see this turning into a heist!!!

  • And did not see that plot twist from Luke! I’m really enjoying this so far.

  • Police1 and Police2 are not the best display names to have hahaha. Nor is suspect 1 and suspect 2

  • Episode 2 felt on the short side, but that might just be the illusion of having a fast paced arc.

  • I feel like… if these tappable overlays become a thing, you could totally add an overlay of the red baseball cap so people can actually get clues.

  • When Cassidy’s calling, one of the lines she says does not have a capital “I” I tapped too quick before I could copy the line, but it was the second dialogue in their conversation I believe.

  • MC seems to be totally ok with her new circumstances all of a sudden. If it were me, I’d still be demanding answers!

  • The beginning of episode 4 threw me off. I was so confused. Am I watching the sneak peak for elemental?

  • I have a tendency to be an idiot when it comes to writing in answers, so I was just doing stupid answers not realizing it was a password. Haha.

  • Wait wait wait. Episode 4 was just a sneak peak? I have to say, that’s not cool. I thought it was going to move on to the actual episode…

1 Like

Thank you so much for your comments!!

You make some great points, and it makes me super happy to read you cannot tell it is my first story.

I am definitely going to try and change the things you pointed out (If I can figure out how, lol)
Scaling is definitely an issue, since you keep mentioning people are giants haha.

Reading your comment about Mrs. dinklehoff seriously made me laugh out loud and so happy haha.

It’s not really auto biographic, But her character definitely has me wrtitten all over it, and some stuff are kind of inspired by things that have happened to me.

Thanks again! Your review is super helpful and put a smile on my face! xx

edit: @amberose , do you happen to have an idea for the angles and zooming in the bedscene you were talking about? I have no idea how to best handle this…

Aw I’m glad I could help.

For the bed scene, if it were me, maybe zoom in on the legs, have them do tinker_loop_rear or whatever it’s called right beside the bed so it looks like they’re getting the sheets ready. Then have them lie down and at the same time cut your zoom again to them lying down.

1 Like

Hi, I’m a bit new to all this, so I’d just like to know if I’m on the right track. Sorry there’s not more content to look at, I just want to know if I’ve kinda got the basics down before I go any farther with this.

Style - Limelight
Genre: - Drama
Author - HannahTeresa
Title - Bloodlines
Description - As 18 year-old Alyssa Patel struggles with her father’s second marriage, an ancient calling reveals that her new family is not only more than human, but also on the brink of war.

Only one episode, and I’m debating on whether or not to make it longer. No cover yet, unfortunately.

Link - http://episodeinteractive.com/s/6663565548584960

1 Like

Hey there!

Thanks for making this thread! :blush:

A few days ago I published my first story. I would appreciate it if you read it and give me your genuine feedback. :nerd_face:

I’m working on this story about a year and a half and now I’m revamping the episodes before publishing, so any recommendations/improvements are more than welcome!

Thank you in advance.

P.S: English isn’t my first language, but I’m trying my best.

Title: Different Worlds
Author: dkr_episodes
Genre: Rom-Com
Description: That sassy mouth of yours, puts you in more trouble than you thought. Especially since Gabe Milinghton, a sexy jerk, has set his eyes on you. This ain’t be good, honey.
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5829240774459392

1 Like

@southampton23 - Tokyo Underground

  • I love how your splashes fit the theme of your story.

  • What a great intro! I have always wanted to see a type of “Let’s rewind and find out” story, so I really enjoyed that.

  • I see a lot of default BG characters, some which you have changed a few features of and some which are just plain default. It bothers me, but not enough to stop reading.

  • When Azana opens the door, you need to scale her smaller so she looks like she’s actually close to the door.

  • I like how you’re doing your character intros.

  • Nice map!

  • I liked the ending of episode 1, and your sounds so far have been on point.

  • Just so you know, your splash for the Olympus story is zoomed in and in grey from the ending of episode 1 though. Same with your IG splash.

  • At the beginning of episode 2, the plane passenger appears in the scene, after the transition.

  • If I were to guess, I’d say you wrote this a while ago, because the dresses at the party are not the mot glamorous ones LL has to offer anymore. Hahaha.

  • I don’t know if this is a result of the new speech bubble styles, but there are a lot of speechbubbles that point to the wrong person. I think the new speechbubbles have the wrong default positions tbh, so may not have to worry about it because I think episode is fixing this.

  • After showing the front page, Azana is still doing the kiss rear animation for a second in the bar.

  • This isn’t a big deal, but I notice with outfit choices, sometimes you have both words starting with a capital and sometimes not. Like this:
    Something Cute
    Something casual
    Something dressy
    So it might look better to make that all consistent.

  • The ghost (?) overlay of that girl appeared in the bedroom in the bottom left corner for a second when it first opened the bedroom scene.

  • I feel like I’m mostly pointing out the occasional error, so I just want to assure you I’m actually enjoying it, I just don’t have any speculations to comment yet, so I don’t want you to think I’m only focusing on the errors.

  • Edward when hugging his mum, is stuck on a talking looping animation.

  • Chip needs to be moved back a layer when he comes into Azala’s room and watches her on the computer.

  • There’s been a few transitions that have been kind of jumpy. May want to check that all fade out transitions are at the end of scenes and that the fade in ones are used for opening up a scene.

  • I loved your motorbike scene. Perfect animation for the steering!

  • Where I’m up to now, there’s a lot of characters entering/exiting to and from sides but going to a spot placement. So they’re really small when they’re in place, but enter/exit at default size. It would look better if you placed them at the right size of screen and just had them walk to and from the spots.

  • There’s also been a few scene changes where it starts of zoomed in on the wrong spot and then adjusts itself.

  • The shooting scene was amaaaaazing!

  • The same overlay thing that happened with the ghost, happened again with the hospital room overlay. I think what might be happening is you haven’t swapped all your “@” commands to “&” commands. Just make sure you check over and have all directing and spot placements with “&” before the scene starts.

  • I’m thinking the “bad guy” could be Edward’s dad maybe.

  • I’m also thinking James isn’t dead, because we got to customize him and he hasn’t been too heavily featured yet so that’s why I’m thinking there’s still more there.

  • Idk if you’d want to go back and change this or not, but since there now is LL police uniforms, you have that option now.

  • I’m laughing at Edward’s mini author/narrator note. I feel like it’s kind of making fun of author notes, but also kind of accurate ahahaha.

  • Ooh, Glitch Girl reference.

  • That dartboard though…

  • I really liked how you did that plane crash.

  • Claps for the crawling through the vent!!! Thank goodness for that animation release.

  • Ok, so I’m up to date now. I kinda stopped writing so many notes towards the end because I already figured out what to say in a little paragraph, so…

Your story was great, really interesting. It was nice to see something in the drama genre that wasn’t relying on romance for the drama. There were a few errors scattered throughout your episodes. They weren’t bad enough that I think anyone would stop reading, so you could get away with leaving them. However, if you want to make your episodes perfect, the top three errors I kept seeing were:

  1. Transitions - fading out when it should have been a fade in or a double transition as if it were written in the script twice.
  2. Overlays showing up in the scene for a split second then going into place. Check that all things are placed with “&” before fading a scene in.
  3. Having sentences with random capital letters - For example, I don’t Understand! You need To tell him… I just wanted to Let You know… (these are just random examples). I noticed this particular error in the more recent episodes.

But yeah, overall it was a really good story. Can’t imagine why the readers from your other story haven’t all checked this one out too :thinking:

2 Likes

@HannahTeresa - Bloodlines

Hey Hannah!

This sound super interesting, so I’m excited to read.

  • TW: Domestic Violence… What it TW?
  • I thought it was good you included some class content - a lot of people use a school as a convenient way to have characters all be in the same place, but with Lyss having her dream it made the class scene feel significant.
  • I think you need Ruby to faces right a bit earlier than when she actually did.
  • Your legal jargon was good.
  • I suggest scaling Lyss and her dad smaller when they’re behind the desk at the court room.
  • Well, I’m not sure if that’s where your planning on ending episode 1 or if that’s just me catching up, but it was a bit short. If you think about the content, not enough happened yet.

Anyway, it looks like you’re on the right track :slightly_smiling_face: So keep it up

2 Likes

Could you review my story? I’m so curious to see what you think of it lol.
Here are the details…

Title: From This Day Forward
Author name: goth.gaia
Style: INK
Genre: Romance
Description: After your disastrous wedding day, you decide to start fresh: new city, new you, no drama- or so you hoped. Will you say “I do” to the chaos or leave it at the altar? CC
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5073385564536832
Small cover:

Large cover:

I published 6 episodes (more to come), but don’t feel like you have to read them all. Thank you! :two_hearts:

1 Like

Aww thank you so much @amberose

I will definitely work on fixing the errors and I’m really glad you liked the story. Thanks for reading it all the way through :+1::hugs:

1 Like

@dkr_episodes - Different Worlds

This looks like something I would definitely read if I cam across it in the app. Don’t take this the wrong way, but your description makes me think this will be on more of a cliche side of the scales. I’m actually kind of glad at that though, because I feel like lately I’ve been reading a lot of heavy stuff, so I really need this change of pace.

  • In saying that though, I think the last line of your description should be This ain’t gonna be good, honey. Or if that uses too many characters, This can’t be good, honey.

  • I don’t like the pilot episodes excuse being used right at the beginning. That’s sort of a deterrent and makes me expect the first three episodes to be short with no choices.

  • I like how you actually started the story with the plane window.

  • Nice animated intro.

  • Is it just me or did all the people at the airport have black hair? Lol

  • I feel like so far your directing is really advanced. You can tell you’ve been working on this for a long time.

  • I love love love that she’s not getting a fancy apartment for once. Sick of episode characters getting handed million dollar apartments. Hahaha.

  • And you used the servant’s bedroom! I had a feeling you would.

  • Agatha and crying girl should actually switch places when it does the rear angle.

  • I think it’s good characterization having Jen “snap” at everyone. It really gives her the sassy mouth that you mentioned in the description.

  • I don’t like when people apologize for English not being their first language. It’s not something to be sorry about! It’s actually amazing that you’ve written a whole episode in english - that’s hard enough even when it is your first language - so you should be proud!

  • Change BGWOMAN4’s display name so we don’t see that when they’re at the supermarket.

  • An opportunity for choices in episode 2… What job does Jen want? You could let the reader test out 3 jobs before she realizes she’s bad at all of them and then she ends up at the coffee shop.

  • I liked that you used a filter for the flashback.

  • The principal scene was great directing for the most part, but there were a couple of times the desk overlay was missing.

  • Getting a new roommate seemed a little too convenient for the sake of the plot. You loose points on realism there because a landlord can’t give someone a new roommate. Maybe you could add a few lines of Jen saying “You can’t give me a roommate” and then the landlord could be all money hungry and he just wants to get more income and that could be why he’s forcing her to accept the roommate?

  • You sure know how to drag out the roommate reveal ahaha.

  • I loved when she was explaining the new roommate to Iris, that you had it zoomed to her face the same percentage in the past and present. It’s a small detail, but it looks good.

  • I loved getting to see Jen at work. And that she wasn’t just magically could at her job. Her characterization is literally so good.

  • I would suggest changing BG character display names though.

  • I know you had he end of the shush command when Gabe meets Noah, but then yoou zoomed in on Noah, and I saw Gabe’s hand stick out like he was doing the shush animation again. You can probably leave the second shush out and he’ll still be doing it… (unless you changed backgrounds, I couldn’t tell tbh, but if that’s the case just zoom more closer on Noah)

  • I hate that cafeteria background because spot placing is so annoying with the tables and chair everywhere. You did an alright job with it, but some characters did look like they were standing on chairs or they were too small.

  • That video was great. It’s amazing that you can make it look like Noah was filming with only the tools episode’s given you.

  • I’m starting to think this will be a long story and will sort of end up being almost like prank wars between Jen and Gabe. It’s like they’re always going to be trying to beat each other at something until they eventually get together (I assume?)

Well, I must say… that was really good. Your episodes were long (so you should really get rid of that first author note), your characters were developed, your directing was out of this world. I can totally tell you’ve put so much time into this. There was just the right amount of funny moments. If there was one thing you could do for improvement, it would be to make the background characters less backgroundish. Give them names, and change up some of the default clothing. But yeah, I am glad I am one of your first readers because I get to watch this take off, which I’m sure it will.

2 Likes

You’re welcome. Glad I could help and look forward to reading more episodes too :smile:

1 Like

Hey, there I would like you to read my story. I am having some issues. In the writer portal, I had to work much on speech bubbles because they were directed to the point of the person that was not speaking etc so I changed that. If I read my story on the app the text is to close with the faces of my persons, I don’t know if that is only with me. Secondly, at one point a man and a boy are fighting the older man only gets a bruised face, at last, I see it so in my writer portal but on my app he has it in the beginning already, I think that is really strange. It is also my first story, I am Dutch so my English is not that perfect and coding I never did in my entire life.

_posterThumb_IqelHw1zay

_posterImage_UyYDVqx6C7

thanks

1 Like

Thank you! Great to have another pair of eyes on this… I’ve been staring at the frames entirely too long lol.

“TW” is a “Trigger Warning” to those who might find content traumatic. Domestic violence situations are a bit of a touchy subject for some people, but I suppose the warning screen is enough.
Shifting chapter 2 content over to chapter 1 and introducing some characters earlier than they were previously scheduled to.
Added extras to the school scenes and more sound effects overall.
Cut scale of Lyss and Dad in court, as well as their scale at the present day house.
Cut Heather’s scale as well.
Raised Ricardo’s scale.
Adjusted Ruby’s animations to become less jerky during her intro conversation.
Still trying to force the camera to follow Dad into the next zone when he walks over to Lyss… will get it right eventually.

1 Like

Thank you so much for your time and your review!

WOW! I must say your comments was on point and very detailed! I’m gonna work on your comments. I love being criticised because that’s the only way to get better. So THANK YOU VERY MUUUUCH for this!!!

One tiny question though. When I was writing the scene about her new roommate and the discussion she had with the landlord, I was trying to show that he’s trying to convince her take Noah as her roommate by being extremely confident but when this didn’t work, they agreed to make her a discount on the rent in order to convince her. Do you think this wasn’t clear enough and I have to change the dialogue a bit?

Thank you in advance!

1 Like