Review
Grammar
There are a lot of errors in your story. In fact, the first line in the story didn’t make any sense! Other errors including missing full stops at the end of sentences, verbs that were conjugated incorrectly, and awkward phrasing. I mostly understood your story, though some errors were severe enough to be confusing. I think you should get a proof reader for your story – there are a large range of errors, but that can be fixed!
Directing
Your directing was pretty clean. I did notice a couple of spot directing errors, for example, when the king goes to meet the elf king, he glides to that position. Characters also occasionally popped onscreen, but that can be fixed by using ‘&’ instead of ‘@.’ Some scenes ended abruptly, especially in the first episode, but again, that can be fixed with more transitions. Also, when you were zooming between Helena and Raven, I noticed that it took a moment to zoom between them – this can be fixed by changing it to @zoom on x y z to a% in 0, rather than 1, or 2, etc.
When Raven is narrating, you can use NARRATOR (RAVEN) so that the bubble shows her name, rather than it being blank. At first, until later into the story, I had no idea who was narrating.
Despite some of the directing errors, I really liked your use of overlays and thought they were effective for the most part.
Plot
I mean this in the least offensive way, but I don’t completely understand the plot of your story. I found the beginning a little confusing because it was a huge exposition dump. From what I’ve gathered, it’s about two women who go on missions in the middle of a war between kingdoms. That and Helena has a boyfriend who, after suffering brain damage, has regressed to a childlike state.
This is a very interesting concept, and I think your story has potential, but there is way too much telling instead of showing. Episode is a visual storytelling app – and I think you should utilise that to its full potential! For example, in the beginning, there was a LOT of narration, which felt unnecessary to me.
Instead of this narration, you could show the king struggling with selecting his successor – his sons could be seen arguing onscreen about it, whilst he looks on with a concerned face. That’s just one way of communicating this plot point to your readers without telling us it through narration. I personally find narration very boring and usually skip out on episodes that have a lot of it.
I honestly didn’t find the cliffhanger at the end of episode 2 that interesting, but I think with some well-placed zooms, some slightly better narration of Raven’s thoughts (just a little more descriptive) and perhaps a more interactive fight scene, it would be a lot more interesting.
The dialogue between characters sounded quite strange. It was definitely partly because of the grammatical errors, but it also often didn’t feel meaningful. I think having someone proof-read would help, because whilst I understood that Helena and Raven are meant to be good friends, their dialogue felt pretty stiff and robotic at points.
I thought the pacing of your episode was good for the most part. Occasionally it was a little too fast, but it most of the time, it moved at a solid speed.
All in all, your plot has so much potential! It just needs a touch-up for spelling/grammar, and more showing, rather than telling.
Choices
There weren’t many choices in the two episodes I played, which is why I didn’t play a third one - I prefer stories that are highly interactive.
Of the choices that did appear in the story, most of them were black and white and it was clear which was the right answer. I’ve said it before in this thread, but I strongly prefer greyer choices, as well as choices that help you develop the main character’s personality!
To improve, I suggest you add more choices – but not choices that have no impact. When adding a choice, ask yourself questions like this: how does this affect the story? Why am I including this choice? How will other characters react to it?
That will help you include much better choices.
Diversity
All of your main characters are white, so there’s no real racial/ethnic diversity in your story. I don’t know if there are LGBT characters/relationship in your episode, but so far, the only relationship featured is a heterosexual one. Your story isn’t very diverse at the moment.
I think your story would benefit from more diversity, but it’s up to you whether you want to include it. As I said earlier, diversity isn’t necessarily just racial/ethnic, it can be having characters from different classes, characters who are/aren’t disabled, etc.
Also, just a quick heads up: do not put Afro-textured hair on white characters. I’m sure you didn’t mean any harm, but I personally found it offensive. The character in question I’m talking about is the master character, who was white, but had the ‘Dreads Braided’ hairstyle. I strongly recommend that you change her hairstyle.
Characters
Raven: She’s the main character(?), and a heroin addict. I don’t know much about her, other than she’s pretty dedicated to her job and thinks it’s important to be strong. I also know that she resents how time-consuming her job is and is pretty confident. In spite of her confidence, she is shown to be compassionate, feeling terrible about the people she kills and praying for forgiveness. I have mixed feelings about her drug addiction – I can tell you’re trying not to glorify substance abuse, but heroin is shown to make her better at her job, which (to me) is kind of glorifying it. I would be interested in seeing her overcome her addiction, as well as seeing more of how it affects her job performance and her relationship with other characters. With some more fleshing out, Raven will be a really great main character.
Helena: I could tell she’s sort of the sarcastic, funny best friend to Raven and seems to be pretty good at her job, too. She isn’t just sarcastic, though, she can also be supportive and level-headed, as shown by her disapproval of Raven’s substance abuse. Her relationship with Myroslav also revealed she’s interested in having a future outside of her work and values commitment. I honestly think she’s a little more fleshed out than Raven, the main character, and I hope she gets developed even further.
Overall, I think your story has interesting elements and is worth reading. I don’t think you should revamp it completely, but I definitely think some parts of it could do with a revamp (e.g. toning down the narration, fixing grammatical errors, introducing a more diverse cast, etc.)
