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Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
Now that the prompt's out--thanks, judges! Writing a CYOA was challenging, but enjoyable. I appreciate the crits. Thank you for the crit for last week, too, Sitting Here.

Sitting Here posted:

My grudging choice for victor....just remember that 'Mojo only has ONE nemesis in his life.

I'm not ready to fight you for that honor, Blood Queen. Yet.

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CantDecideOnAName
Jan 1, 2012

And I understand if you ask
Was this life,
was this all?
I am in! I love color. I love them all, too much to pick just one.
Color me, judges!

Noah
May 31, 2011

Come at me baby bitch
I'm in. Choose me my doom.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
CantDecideOnAName, you'll be working with Granny Smith Apple.

Noah, your fate is Mango Tango.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
In with Brown.

The Swinemaster
Dec 28, 2005

In please. Colorize me.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
Piggy Pink seems right up your alley, The Swinemaster!

Kaishai fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jul 16, 2013

Auraboks
Mar 24, 2013

...huh?
In. Can't go wrong with Gold.

CantDecideOnAName
Jan 1, 2012

And I understand if you ask
Was this life,
was this all?

Kaishai posted:

CantDecideOnAName, you'll be working with Granny Smith Apple.

I see my past comes back to haunt me again.

Squilliam Fancyson
Oct 12, 2012
I'll join in with Macaroni and Cheese.

Wungus
Mar 5, 2004

I'd love to be a part of this Thunderdome, and I'm open to any dang color.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




gently caress competition is tough around these parts. I'm in as black.

Edit: I forgot another drat comma.

Mercedes fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jul 16, 2013

Nikaer Drekin
Oct 11, 2012

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
I am IN with Unmellow Yellow.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
Whalley, Robin's Egg Blue is the color for you.

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet
I'm in with Bittersweet Shimmer.

V for Vegas
Aug 31, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Mercedes

I was hoping someone would take what was a traditionally young adult genre and re-work it into something darker. Good work on that front. Although lawyer = shark is a little trite, I was willing to see where it went.

Intro – OK start. Heavy on exposition right out of the gate, but that is kind of par for the course in CYOA stories. It sets up a young man out of law school, but it is too vague on who or what Jameson is. I was actually surprised to read in the choices that he was from the Mafia. Reading back I saw you dropped ‘Family Attorney’ in there, but after all of the heavy-handedness earlier on, that subtlety passed me by. Probably something to remember when you are writing that exposition can dull a reader’s senses. If they feel they are being spoon fed information, they will pay less attention to the text because there is precious little thinking required to extract meaning from the story. Conversely, oblique writing will make them work harder, and they will feel rewarded for joining the dots. An old saying – make a reader realise that 2 + 2 = 4 and they will love you forever.

However, having been given the option of working for the mafia, I plumped for that. I am glad I did because the two mafia trees were quite satisfying. I don’t know if you chose this deliberately as some kind of mental jujitsu, but choosing making Jameson talk first, and then going back and reading what happened if you didn’t was great. I’m not sure it would have worked the other way around. But I would say 9 times out of 10 a reader would choose the proactive choice first and that worked out really well. At the end of it, I felt there were two different Isaaks who had been changed by the experience.

Unfortunately, the LA entertainment lawyer stories felt light-on. The choice there didn’t feel that urgent, and Isaak was still Isaak at the end of it. Moreover, you throw away Jameson altogether and these stories have nothing to do with the intro. A much better choice would have been to make the 2nd limb of stories about Isaak working as a prosecutor putting Mafia types in gaol. Golden opportunity missed there.

Finally, Isaak never dies! There should always be one ending in a CYOA story where you come to a grisly end.

Kaishai

My first read through, Jimmy goes to Siberia and is left dead in the snow at the mine. Loved it!

This was a delight to read. When I set this topic I was looking forward to some more gritty interpretations of a young adult genre, but this played a straight bat and embraced the genre with gusto. It paid attention to the little details of a CYOA story that really paid off; like having two intros before you get to a decision tree, starting off with a mundane everyday scenario that quickly spirals into international trips and gruesome deaths, the double crossing character. Then you have a really good spread of outcomes: bad, bittersweet, satisfying and great. All those little details added up and got me quite nostalgic while I was reading it. After each ending I wanted to go back and see what the other line went – always a mark of a good CYOA.

Only negative mark – you only used posts from TD for your stories. I found it very amusing to see what other threads people had been posting in and for random excerpts of stories to be posted in those threads.


Cancercakes.

There was some contention amongst the judges about this piece. It was not generally liked, however I went into bat for it because I was hoping someone would play around with the structure of the stories and the decision trees. Having a link at the end of a story back to the beginning again was great. I would have liked it if you played around with that some more.

Unfortunately, while the structuring of the story was original, the writing let it down. You really needed to go over this a couple more times and revise. For example, in the intro the first exasperated ‘again’ was OK. But when you used ‘again’ again, I was the exasperated one. Using tricks like that work because they are a subtle hint at a past that happened before the story began. But going back to that well just removes the subtlety and it sticks out, destroying whatever effect it had.

I liked the baboon heart reveal, and the narrator. I also liked that you switched up the choices so that a passive response was a good response the first time, but then a more aggressive choice was better the second time. But in the end the stories got a bit ‘video-gamey’. Certainly not to any hereticMIND levels, but there was a lot of running down corridors fighting identikit henchmen. Contrary to Mercedes, all of your endings were bad endings involving death. Although you really made a rod for your own back with this because there are no relationships in the story to riff off. Maybe one good ending, living a life amongst a tribe of baboons would have been an option.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




I wanna thank all the judges again for their crits! Making me a better writer one insult at a time :-)

Jagermonster
May 7, 2005

Hey - NIZE HAT!
I distinctly remember when Purple Mountain's Majesty was added and thinking it was the most ridiculous name for a color. In with that.

toanoradian
May 30, 2011


The happiest waffligator
In. I want to go with Prussian blue, but turns out it's not there anymore. So give me one, judges.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.

toanoradian posted:

In. I want to go with Prussian blue, but turns out it's not there anymore. So give me one, judges.

Discontinued colors are acceptable, so you get a choice: you can stick with Prussian Blue, or you can accept Atomic Tangerine.

Edited to add: Thank you for the crit, V for Vegas!

Kaishai fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jul 16, 2013

toanoradian
May 30, 2011


The happiest waffligator

Kaishai posted:

Discontinued colors are acceptable, so you get a choice: you can stick with Prussian Blue, or you can accept Atomic Tangerine.

Edited to add: Thank you for the crit, V for Vegas!

Geez, both are renamed colours! I'll stick with Prussian blue then, thank you very much.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









In, with a :toxx: since I missed the last one. Judges: assign me a colour.

Requiring a toxx if you failed to submit for your previous round seems like a good 'dome rule actually.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.

sebmojo posted:

In, with a :toxx: since I missed the last one. Judges: assign me a colour.

You may be able to do justice to Periwinkle, so it's yours.

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 7, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
Razzamatazz me, suckers

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
In with Antique Brass.

Umbilical Lotus
Nov 13, 2005

OH NO!!!! AXE CUT YOU!!!!
I'm actually in this time, I swear it you guys.

I've got Wild Blue Yonder.

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




I will be judging, but don't feel that means you need to pander to my capricious whims. Having said that; in honour of the delicious orange cake I just baked last night, FLASH RULE the next person to sign up gets to write us all a story that significantly involves food.

Symptomless Coma
Mar 30, 2007
for shock value

Chairchucker posted:

I will be judging, but don't feel that means you need to pander to my capricious whims. Having said that; in honour of the delicious orange cake I just baked last night, FLASH RULE the next person to sign up gets to write us all a story that significantly involves food.

in with

SneezeOfTheDecade
Feb 6, 2011

gettin' covid all
over your posts
I'm in (and new to the thread; hi!). Color me up!

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.

Besesoth posted:

I'm in (and new to the thread; hi!). Color me up!

Welcome! I look forward to seeing what you do with Key Lime Pearl.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
I was a brat and picked Brown, can I change it to the more fun shade of Vivid Tangerine?

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.

Sitting Here posted:

I was a brat and picked Brown, can I change it to the more fun shade of Vivid Tangerine?

Yup. This goes for anyone: until sign-ups close, you can switch your colors around with gleeful abandon.

Unless your color was judge-bestowed, of course, in which case you ain't getting out of it that easily.

Kaishai fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Jul 16, 2013

CantDecideOnAName
Jan 1, 2012

And I understand if you ask
Was this life,
was this all?
Dammit!

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
I love Granny Smith apples, just so you know. I'm expecting great things. :colbert:

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




I feel foolish for asking, but it's driving me nuts.

While reading the CYOA's, I would sometimes scroll through the page, just to see where the author chose to edit their post. On one page, one of you judges were doing a crit and gave a link that was super awesome (I think the link was given on account of grammar) and helpful and I wanted to read more but I forgot to bookmark it.

I've been looking for far too long and I'm getting frustrated. Does anyone know which website I'm looking for?

Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




Kaishai posted:

I love Granny Smith apples, just so you know. I'm expecting great things. :colbert:

Wow, that is some outrageously bad taste in apples my fellow judge has.

Umbilical Lotus
Nov 13, 2005

OH NO!!!! AXE CUT YOU!!!!

Chairchucker posted:

Wow, that is some outrageously bad taste in apples my fellow judge has.

If they name a crayon Red Delicious, the kiddies will get all the wrong ideas.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Mercedes posted:

I feel foolish for asking, but it's driving me nuts.

While reading the CYOA's, I would sometimes scroll through the page, just to see where the author chose to edit their post. On one page, one of you judges were doing a crit and gave a link that was super awesome (I think the link was given on account of grammar) and helpful and I wanted to read more but I forgot to bookmark it.

I've been looking for far too long and I'm getting frustrated. Does anyone know which website I'm looking for?

One of the judges from this week or just someone who judged in a previous week? Can you remember more detail about the link? Kaishai had judged quite a few times and has a lot of bookmarked grammar links, just to throw that out there.

higgz
Dec 25, 2012
Hi,
I'd like to try my hand at this with white.

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Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




systran posted:

One of the judges from this week or just someone who judged in a previous week? Can you remember more detail about the link? Kaishai had judged quite a few times and has a lot of bookmarked grammar links, just to throw that out there.

It was Kaishai! Thanks so much systran. The website is here if anyone else is curious.

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