Hi everybody ! Story reviews have always helped me when Iâm working on writing something to help make it better or just have a set of extra eyes who will point out directing errors or glitches that you might not have noticed. So, I shall be doing story reviews. Iâm excited to discover new community stories.
Rules + Guidelines!
Your story has to be published. I only have an android phone to use for stories, so I have to be able to have access to your story without a share link.
Submit your request with the story title, author name, and cover image so that I can find it easily. Additionally, add you can add the description and a share link so that other people who read the thread might see your story and check it out.
I will read up to three chapters of your story, because I have a limited amount of passes. If you only want a review for 1 or 2 chapters, let me know.
Let me know if you want me to post your review in this thread or in a private message.
Let me know what tone you want the review to takeâsweet, normal, or harsh. The focus of the reviews will either be what works well, my general opinion of the story, or what I donât think works well.
If thereâs anything specific you want me to look at (could be a particular scene or branch, could be the plot line generally) or anything that you want me to ignore.
Rules TL; DR
Published stories only
Leave the storyâs name, author name, and cover.
I will read up to 3 chapters, let me know how many I should read.
Response location (this thread or PM)
Review tone (sweet, normal, harsh)
Particular things for me to look at or avoid
Just leave a comment with the relevant information and Iâll be on it as soon as I can!
Title: Video Game Champion Author: Karlon Artis Genre: Action Description: You are a gamer hoping to win the video game championship. Can you defeat your rival after a 5-year losing streak? Link:http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5634634595172352 Cover:
Hi, I just published my second story and Iâd love for a review
Name: Behind the Scenes
Genre: Romance
Author: Amelia
Style: Limelight
Link: http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5147207544274944
Plot: After years of being a struggling actress, you finally get a role that is going to change your life. Will your infamous co-star, Alec Pierce, be able to change your views on love?
Number of episodes: 3
Instagram: Ameliamason.episode
Hi!
I would love a review, be honest please And I would like to have reviewed all 3 chapters please, thanks!
Title I made the devil cry
Autor: Ć ebule
Fantasy
Thank you for doing this
So here is my story: Author: AnjitaD Title: Magicka : Master of elements Genre: Fantasy Episodes: 3(more coming soon Description: Will you and your friends able to save the world from darkness as you uncover secrets back 500 years ago ? ( MC: F, time choices points system, adventure, fantasy, mystery and action ) Style: Limelight
Link : http://episodeinteractive.com/s/5576198820528128
Ooo thanks for this thread! Hereâs my story, DM would be great
Title: Queer: The Water Thief Author: Rockified Episodes: 5 (Weekly release) Description: When a drought hits a remote village of Nigeria, you are tempted to make a life-changing decision, unveiling a world of family conflicts, crisis, and forbidden love. LL | CC | LGBT Genre: Drama & Gay Romance Labels: CC, minigames, point system, choice matters, cash mechanic. Tone: HARSH
Hey! Thank you for this threadđ
I would love a normal review tone.
You can send it in a PM.
Here is my story:
Title: the last breath
Author: ladies.episode
Genre: Drama
Chapters: 7 (on going)
Descreption: Sibel became a doctor as she dreamed of, but will she leave or continue her career after she was forced to marry a cruel Italian mafia.
IG: @ladies.episode
Link:
Title: Your Heart My Heart Genre: Drama Episodes: 3 Style: Ink Author: Lea the lion Description: Michelle has never been in love but when she meets a boy with secret past who ends up being her new classmate things start to go upside down. Will her life be the same as before? No cc, art scenes
Link
Title: Just Friends by Emma
Genre: drama/romance
Episodes: 3 released
Style: LL
Description: Returned home after 1.5 year. People are not the same, but neither are you. But everything goes down hill when last years problems reappears.
Tone: harsh, if you could take a minute to focus on you impression of the characters thatâd be great!
Hello, I would like you to review 3 chapters of my story with normal tone. I would like you to share yiur personal thoughts about my story and to be compleately honest with me. You can send me the review via PM. Title : Life in Demby Author : Megz_episode Description : The new students arrive in the university of Demby to start their new life. What will happen when the mysterious Author try to draw them into his sick, twisted GAME? Cover :
Description: Amanda had rough times in her life due to her anxiety and depression. She tries to find out who she really is and free herself from the negativity with a little help from a friend.
Thank you so much for this thread! Iâd love a review of the first 3 chapters, in a normal tone. I canât wait to hear what you think!
Magicka: The Shaper of Destiny
Instagram: @episodejulianne
Description: Iris is a Shaper - a messenger of destiny sent to earth by the Fates. Sheâs never questioned her role before⊠Until she meets Thalia, a human with some unusual abilities. LGBTQ, CC, art scenes.
description: Love , laughter and drama collide in this wacky adventure with little life lessons along the way. Will the ships survive? Or will you fail to take the crazy? (the plot is memes)
This story review is entirely my own opinion and you are under no obligation to change anything about your story. The review is written with the intent of letting you know how one particular reader is seeing the story, and the content of your story is ultimately up to you.
The story cover has changed from the story cover you pictured, however it seems to be the same story and has the same author name. The new small story cover looks odd due to being entirely green. Honestly, I probably wouldnât select this story out of a lineup to read based on its cover and description.
I will first go over my ratings for the story based on the rubric that episode uses and then elaborate on those choices.
Story: 3
Choices: 2
Visuals: 2.5
Dialogue: 2.5
Story
The plot was interesting and I think that the major plot points will likely be interesting.
The particular ending of chapter 1 felt strange to me, as the moment seemed to be built around a dramatic reveal of which the significance wasnât clearly explained and consequently just felt like cutting off in the middle of a scene, rather than trying to create tension.
Choices
I canât recall any choices that affected more than a few lines of dialogue, and I only remember one choice from the first three chapters. Itâs fine to not have choices if interactivity isnât what youâre going for, however itâs worth mentioning.
Visuals
When playing the story, the directing of the story worked alright, but it didnât look particularly clean or polished. The zooms made some scenes awkward, and the placement of characters didnât always feel particularly lifelike.
My next is comes from the flashing of the rules. They flash very quickly, are hard to read, and the flashing detracts from the point of the text.
In the beginning scene, the character features a large amount of blood overlays, which appear on and off in the following scenes. I would personally prefer to only have the bruises rather than overlays that werenât there in all scenes and didnât follow the characterâs movements.
I would strongly recommend using the guide box and ensuring that your zoom locations donât cut off important parts of the scene for tablet players.
Dialogue
There were several grammar issues and a lack of punctuation in several places (although not overly frequently) where I would have thought punctuation should go. I also noticed some misspellings, the most memorable being the use of âiglueâ instead of âigloo,â the conventional spelling in English, or the word âiglu,â which seems to be the spelling from the native language. I would recommend getting someone to proofread for grammatical errors, punctuation and spelling.
Other comments
Myroslavâs character is weird, and his regression to childhood doesnât seem like a normal kind of brain damage.
I believe that you used the mosque background for a shootout, which I felt was an odd location for a fight and was never really addressed, as it didnât look like somewhere that had been being used for battle and most fights donât occur on religious premises.
I felt that the reader message saying âgood choiceâ was condescending and was unnecessary, given the secondary reader message that came after it.
Saying âdonât do drugsâ in a reader message does not really protect the story for implicit support of drug use.
Ultimately, I think your story would benefit from getting a proofreader to help with ensuring that the language is clear and correct and could potentially help to point out when the camera position isnât ideal. The plot seems interesting, however I think the story would benefit from being more polished.
I wish you the best of luck in writing your story.
Thanks, Iâll try to improve it, Iâm sorry for Wrong cover, episode rejected the original one And I changed the filter then, So I could have this cover in the meantime before I find out how much it must be changed to have It approved
@anianju - You didnât specify a review location, so itâs being broadcasted at everyone. Donât worry, though, I really enjoyed reading your story.
Master of Elements Story Review
All opinions are purely my own and are not meant to say anything authoritative about your story. You have the ultimate say in how you want your story to be read, however I hope this information will help you to know how your story reads to potential readers and help you to present the story that you want.
Iâve blurred spoilers in case anyoneâs reading through the thread to find an interesting story and donât want the plot to be revealed.
Initial Thoughts
The description doesnât really highlight the tension that exists in the story. âsecrets back 500 years agoâ doesnât pique my interest and sounds kind of vague. I think that describing the secrets somehow or hinting at their significance will help create a more intriguing story introduction.
I like how the cover shows all the characters, although they havenât been introduced into the story at this point. However, the characters take up very little of the space on the cover and look like giants standing on a mountainhilltop. The wind affect also looks a little bit cartoon-ish because of the dark outline around the affect, although thatâs a stylistic choice.
Plot
The story seems really interesting!
I enjoy the mind control of the characters, although the exact reasoning/logic behind it hasnât been explained yet.
In the first few episodes, the actual plot moves quite slowly, and it seems as if the inciting incident seems to have been the dark lordâs notice of the special type of magic.
I think that the ending of episode 1 landed at an excellent point for the story and definitely made me want to read more of the story.
Directing
The directing in the story looks really nice and really clean!
At one point, the story switched into spotlight for several lines of casual dialogue, which was very weird considering that scene had started in cinematic format, ended in cinematic format, and spotlight wasnât used anywhere else in the story. It wasnât that the characters were on the phone or anything that might suit that style well, so Iâm curious what was happening with that scene.
The customization template zooms in whenever a specific section is chosen, which made it really annoying to use to find new traits, and the pauses in between the moments made it hard to quickly try on new facial features, which werenât blocked by the text and didnât need a pause to be seen.
While the directing looks good, some of the overlays had a dark background, which made them look slightly weird. In the image below, one of the overlays has created an obvious dark section on the lower half of the character.
I didnât like the introduction to the story for a few different reasons. The first of these reasons is that I didnât enjoy being forced to tap on one specific icon several times in a row. Iâm fine with options that only have one choice for interactivity reasons, such as viewing messages on a phone, but this felt excessive by the first episode and I wasnât excited to see it return in all of the future ones. Additionally, the scenes after each of these were incredibly short and didnât even show the magic or describe some lore around them, which is what I was expecting when I first was tapping on them.
There are a lot of timed choices in the story, which I felt were unnecessarily stressful.
The choices seemed to be definitively good or bad, which I feel is why many were timed, however I personally prefer having options that are a little bit more ambiguous and let me go on parallel paths, affecting the characterâs personality and actions, rather than merely progressing towards a good or bad ending.
At one point, the choices were just labelled as excuses 1-3, which is a pet peeve of mine, since it feels more random than actually being given a choice. The only way this would be a choice is if I remembered which option I picked and redid the choice. I would strongly recommend replacing these with a short description of the excuse, such as âcollecting applesâ so that readers can feel like theyâre making a choice. (Additionally, I always think about whether or not all of the options lead to the same dialogue because thereâs no way to tell whether or not the dialogue resulted from your choice without replaying.
Miscellaneous
In the customization, thereâs an option labelled âwhatâs your name?â I clicked on it and no name was prompted, so I restarted the story to see what would happen otherwise. The story worked fine without giving a name, so I would personally appreciate that section telling the default name of the character just in case readers donât want to come up with one.
If the ghost, Ani, could stop Vayu, why did she spend so much time chasing him around without stopping him?
When she blushes after first seeing Avatar undressing, the blush is at a weird angle relative to her face, so I think it should be rotated so that it lined up more naturally with her cheeks.
When she is saying âbreathe inâ and âbreathe outâ, she breathes each time she says either one of those lines. Since that isnât how people tend to breathe when thinking that, Iâd prefer if she would start the breathe animation when she said breathe in and do nothing on the breathe out line, since I think it would look more natural.
I didnât notice any spelling, grammar, or directing issues while playing through the story.
This is very personal, but I wasnât a fan of the outfit options for the main character.
You said that you got your images from google, so make sure to only use images that are free for commercial use.
Final Thoughts
I really liked your story and I thought that the plotline was really promising. There are a few things that I would recommend making minor changes to, however it overall works very well and was very interesting.
Good luck in the contest and good luck writing the rest of your story!
Thank you so much for this lovely feedback and review . Sure I will correct the minor mistakes but introduction is really important for the story, it slowly slowly reveals the story concept and also âsecrets back 500 years agoâ this is because in further episodes the main character will learn her past life and also the secrets of her past life, during the journey she will also makes friends and in the end of the story whether she will defend dark lord or not depending upon how much point you have gain .