Hey Alex
Here’s my live thoughts/notes as I went through your story…
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First of all, my advice to anyone will always be to not apologize for it being your first story and for english not being your first language!
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I noticed at first, the narration was third person, as if it was telling the story, but then it started using first person. So I know this would be a pain to change now, but I think if all the narration bubbles are supposed to be MC’s “thoughts” or “voice over” then it’s worth going the extra length to attach the MC’s name to the narration bubble.
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Now I’m noticing the narration bubble is switching from first to third person, so I definitely think it’s worth putting MC’s name whenever it’s a first person sentence.
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I like the overlay you’re using for the FATE scenes. I think it’s an overlay? It looks like you’ve got your own custom filters, so it stands out compared to other stories
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So does MC want to go on FATE as a guest or she wants to get a job there? Because I feel like the latter makes more sense with her goals in life
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I think I’ve actually seen another review of your story, and someone said you made the choices obvious for which was good and bad. I must say that I agree. I get that it’s supposed to be that way though, but maybe including some not so obvious good-vs-bad choices in addition to the obvious ones would help the story and kind of add an level of mystery to the reader. Especially if you go from having two obvious choices to a blurred lines kind of choice, I think it could really make the reader think about what to pick and they would anticipate the outcome.
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When the character puts on her lipstick, add the prop lipstick. It’s only a small thing, but looks so much better when she does
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Actually, know getting up to the choice where I can beg for the interview or get angry-- I think that choice isn’t so obvious with the good vs bad debate. Because personally if someone begged for an interview at my office, it would be just as damaging to them as if they got angry at me
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Another painful task I would recommend you do is add background characters to the club scene. Especially because the ones in the background are all black shadows, so they don’t really look like episode characters, so you don’t get the impression of a packed club. One thing I did in my story, was I actually downloaded the club background, and placed screen shots of characters doing dance poses and wearing club outfits into the background and re-uploaded it as a new background (I’m sorry if I worded this complicatedly), so when it came time for the scene, I only had to code in 4 or 5 characters and the club looked packed. It saved me trying to work out layers and creating all the background characters, and so if that was the reason you didn’t put BG characters in, I would suggest trying i this way to see if it works for you.
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Mini game was harder than I expected lol
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I really like that when you steal the phone, the background you used doesn’t include dates and times. I personal pet peeve is when a phone says like 13 Jan, 2014. So whether you were aware of not included a date stamp or not, I liked that you didn’t
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Good length for your first episode and I feel like you covered a lot to set up the plot which is exactly what the first episode needs
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So I chose to be a bitch and cancel the appointment, and now as a start episode 2 I am wondering how different it would have been if I just showed up at 8. I assume I would have still learnt this information, just a different way? But I think that’s really good that I can tell there’s already 2 different paths
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Just careful with looping animations, because that was 7 speechbubbles in a row that had sit arms crossed loop. So maybe add a different one for the 4th and 7th line, just to switch it up.
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I like that you went to the effort to show the computer screen and the password required screen
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Ok, so I thought the idea of her favorite coffee being the password was a bit unrealistic, but in saying that you did catch me off guard and I’m cursing myself for not remembering
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The way you lead up to choices reminds me of the guide episode sent everyone when gem choices got around to everyone, so that’s a really good way to word it.
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Now as I’m getting on to episode 3, I’m feeling like all the “evil” answers are the better ones. I don’t know if you’ve made the transition on purpose, or if I’'m just imagining it, but I like it anyway
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It’s very well thought out how you give the Mr Fox a backstory that links to why he’s running his business the way that he is.
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I think the proposal is a little random. Just because, with the choices I’ve made, I never had a romantic moment with him.
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Also I’m a little confused, because I chose to expose him? So did I not expose him because of my points? Or was that an error?
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Anyway, I played your bonus scene and I loved that when Mr Fox shows the tape, I’m wearing the outfit I chose! A lot of people forget to do that in flashbacks.
So overall I have 2 questions… 1. Why was it limited customization. I generally don’t like customization anyway, but I didn’t think there was an obvious reason for the limit, other than one time Brian complimented my eye color.
2. Why was the show called FATE? I get your story was called FATE, because that was the show name, but why was that?
And my last kind of note is that if you’re not too attached to the H&V in the title, take it out. Before I started writing my own stories, I thought all contest entries were different episodes in the same series so I avoided them like the plague because there was just too many! So I think getting rid of the H&V would attract more readers