So I finished a playthrough and I am very aware that this game is still super early in development.
Things I like
1.) The concept of the story is fresh and unique. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the presence of superhumans. I really like this because I feel like the fantasy genre and the magic school trope ride off the backs of Tolkien and Harry Potter, it’s really a breathe of fresh air.
2.) The writing. The descriptions and the way the story is told are detailed and professional. The only problems with the story’s writing mostly deals with the formatting and punctuation of the sentences, which I will get into later on.
3.) The characters, as seen by your descriptions of them, are very unique and further bring in some fresh air to the story. The addition of mermaids and vampires to the cast is a unique take that really separates this from the standard wizard story.
My only gripe is that the personalities feel re-hashed from previous stories, but that’s not exactly a big deal, you’re probably working on them as I write this, and the unique species kind of offsets this issue.
Criticisms:
1.) The first page. I’m not a huge fan of stories where the first thing you see is a bunch of exposition. Although I have encountered stories where they did this well, the first page of this story feels out of place and almost feels like a placeholder for something. It feels more at home as a summary for new readers rather than a beginning line of a story. I would have preferred the story to reveal more details about the world slowly and organically.
2.) Formatting and punctuation. A lot of the pages are huge walls of text. Of course, I have nothing against long stories, but I feel like a few page breaks here and there would help the reader feel a lot less intimidated by it. Longer walls of text tend to make readers skip out on paragraphs.
Another problem with the format is dialogue, which has a lot of problems in formatting and punctuation.
This huge paragraph shows some of my problems with the dialogue.
You give Ilsa a nod and a thumbs up as the memories of the Orientation go way back to your head. “Well, the orientation was a lot of what I expected from a magic school head. Trippy office, vague advice akin to ancient mentors.” you say. Ilsa looks at you, first tilting her head then narrowing her eyes before shaking her head all out of confusion. “Where did you gain your expectations of Jabernath from?” she asks. “Some really old movies and books of poor saps pulled into grand adventures with misleading promises.” you say. “Well.” Ilsa pauses, first looking amused as she raises her shoulders before returning to her neutral stance and expression. “I can assure you this is an adventure of studying and casting spells. No dangerous tasks and peril here for you.” she says. “Oh, that’s a shame but it really would have been too much for me to hope for something exciting just because magic was going to become part of my life.” you say. “Now don’t be so pessimistic. You’re still going to see a lot of exciting things in class, on the school grounds, even your dorm and dorm mates will be brimming with magical wonder.” she says.
Whenever the speaker changes, you should create a new paragraph. It makes things a lot easier and less confusing to read. Almost every book and story does this.
“I suggest we go to the Chinese Restaurant,” says Klaus. “I heard that they have a bunch of discounts on all their items.”
“That was two months ago. I suggest we just head to the cafe instead,” Gwen interjects.
In dialogue, any sentence that ends with a period should have a comma and any piece of dialogue that follows the word said or asks is preceded by a comma. Only end dialogue with a period if the quotation is the last sentence in a line and is not followed by a “[speaker] says.” For example:
“Go to the store and buy bread,” my mom says.
My mom said, “Go to the store and buy bread.”
My mom asked, “Can you go to the store and buy bread?”
“Can you go to the store and buy bread?” my mom asks.
This story is solid so far, most of my criticisms hardly deal with the story itself and more on how it is presented.
I may give this story another review in the future because of how early it is in development. Anyways, good luck with writing, keep up the good work, and improve on its weak points.
…By the way,I found a bug,please fix it.
