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Love to see a clever sense of humor in these jams. What a hilarious after-the-credits concept, even if there were a few repeated points (the swarms, the birdman, Irridia's concerns) I very much enjoyed the tone-even though I was sitting here shouting "Fire! Fire!" like Beavis. 

I think the only criticisms I could lend are a few hiccups where the same word ends up too close to itself (though ending, then starting a sentence, placed in a place) but that's about it because this was wildly immersive. Very aesthetic and maybe its just my bias for mad inventor villians but I would love to see this story expanded on. I was not expecting that conclusion but I'll always prefer a subtle approach to the theme than something overt, so high scores

One of my favorite nit picks to give is when information is implied subtlety but then stated outright anyway. You didn't  have to carify that the Queen was the princess's mother 😉 Other than a couple of those moments like reiterating how characters felt when it's fairly obvious, I really enjoyed this. I was kind of suprised to catch myself hooked on a mystery I hadn't even clued in on yet. Very well done

Cons first: the way you're using italicized prophecy, you probably could've saved lots of wordage by shortcutting the inconsequential stuff like repeating that he touched something right after explaing that he touched something in prophecy- skipping straight to describing how it felt, right or wrong, works. There's a few of those, but also, your story is a perfect example of how to build a story around a theme without stating out right. Even though you did  in the end😅 That said, story was freaking great. Probably one of my favorite in jam history as far as use of theme goes. 

Can you repost this exported as a PDF? My device can't open odt

I think you could have taken out the first "act." The second part is so much better and I don't think I gathered much more from it than you could have implied later. I say think because I've missed any deeper meaning behind the ending if present, but I would still take "I missed it" over "it's too overt." I do really like how well youve entrenched this story in the GF mythos though. It's very a straightward tale and it works great

I did not, but I noticed the mistake and looked it up and decided it was actually perfect, thanks lol

This was very well written and a fun exercise in tension. My only feedback would be the last paragraph wasn't needed. We definitely knew what was up without you having to explain it, well done

Great entry! By the second attempt I was shedding off the confusion and putting it together. I really liked how you handled the theme too, very original- I would have liked to put together what did the trick in the end, but I guess I didn't sniff that out exactly

I can get into the tone really well and I think you laid out the theme spectacularly although it might have been a little easier to read without some of technical information 

Love your approach to the theme. Very plainly and well executed 

I actually started with how I wanted to work in theme. I think I just tried to keep it so obscure that none of it came out coherent. I definitely want to make a revised version that focuses less on the "where" and more on the "why"

Thanks for the feedback! I figured a lot of stories in this jam were going to use the theme in similar ways so I tried to use a really obscure example- maybe too obscure. I definitely want to back and do a revision edition!

Thanks for the feedback! I figured a lot of stories in this jam were going to use the theme in similar ways so I tried to use a really obscure example- maybe too obscure. I definitely want to back and do a revision edition!

The theme tie in could have been executed a little more crisper but... this! This is the kind of fundamental fleshing out of lore that OPR needs to thrive! And I'll accept nothing less than this quality, either. It was dramatic, so grim, hopeless, so dark and stuffed with that "I have to know what happened" energy that lore overviews will never reproduce. 

Very gripping pursuit, even with the word count, it was easy to stay engaged, hoping for the Count. Great submission!

Great submission! I haven't come across many journal style entries yet this jam. Double points for showcasing the entire disaster in fewer words than most of us could write a quick encounter (me included)

Freaking 5-A. I'm a total sap for Fear and Loathing quantities of metaphors and junk stuffed into stories (especially short ones) and your ability to hand wave really complex ideas with a couple short sentences is very commendable. Mixing and matching races isn't very popular in the Grimdark genre for good reason but I think you really put together an interesting set of characters here!

A fun little encounter. You had me hooked during the ambush but it then kinda lost the tenseness of the moment. Also, I really like it when stories work the theme in without having characters say it outloud but it was a good submission!

I think you have a future in Hollywood screen writing.

I'm not anything that resembles someone who knows what they're talking about with writing but if I had to try to come up with some kind of feedback for this I would start with this: When you're looking over your own words for hours, sometimes the grammer makes more sense to you than it does for a first-reader- especially if you're not writing in your native language. Try to take a step back when you're trying to form a complex idea and describe in the simplest possible terms. Also, I can tell you had a message you wanted to make and had a Point A (planet name) and a Point B (enemy is defeat) but you should try to flesh those "everything at the wall" thoughts out according to the "themes" and main ideas you want to showcase.
If you want non-babbling advice from actual writers on how to avoid "and then, and then" syndrome, check some video essays on different story structures. This is very imaginative and I'm sure with some studies on story telling you could come up with something truly great

Grimdark confusion is one of my safest spaces, very well executed mysterious mad scientist! 

Very fun folktale! I very much enjoy well written stories like this that tie in the lore to the game

The story was a little slow in the middle for its word count but I like it overall. I think it could have done without the last line or maybe a remix that doesn't spell the theme-tie in out so blatantly but it was a fun little adventure. 

When I read the title, I rolled my eyes. I figured there would be tens of cheap stories making use of "weapon range" as an excuse to write action-scene dribble for this jam. Maybe so but there's just so much personality oozing out of this grunt sandwich that it can't help but bullseye the target audience.  Good effect.

Freaking great short. I'm usually a huge cynic for any "generic guard doing war" stories because of how easy it is to write meaningless action words but this character has some actual motivation behind them- actual consequences living or dying. 

This is a really gripping and emotional story! You did a great job building everything with a slow burn and a believable change of heart. The editing errors interrupted the pace pretty badly but I really really liked this submission

This was a fun waylay but your opening scene is actually a good teaching moment to showcase how redundancy can happen in writing: "sands of the ground beneath him" and "high walls surrounding him" and "aliens cheering/in a language he couldn't understand" and "inside the cage, slamming against the cage walls" and "tall, lean muscular, towering, 7 foot tall" - There's tons of these lines everywhere. Don't be afraid to use the short or incomplete descriptions of things and let the reader finish painting the picture with the rest of the text. 

I really like the idea of a monster of a man calling an enemy a monster, that sentence alone makes sure that I know whatever it is, its big. 

Very enjoyable little chase scene. I will always appreciate subtle uses of the theme!

Great entry. Very impressed at how short you were able to make this story while keeping it mysterious and gripping. 

Absolutely love your writing here. Very worthwhile descriptions to put you in the moment. Maybe I missed some deeper meanings, but the theme did seemed a little bit ham fisted. Still, this is setting the bar high for my expectations of this jam!

It forces you to save as a Draft before you can edit it to be public

Accurate, I left my original submission on the wrong conputer and had to scramble with some 3 hours left to revise an idea I made a couple years ago. Glad I was able to submit anything but I can't wait for future jams!

Fun mission! I would like to express that you are objectively correct using the verbiage "Caster(1)" without the +

The language addresses terrain placement, not unit capture rules. "Accessible" meaning that since players may be able to place terrain or objectives competitively, and that objectives may be placed in a way that prevents vehicles/monsters from reaching them, they absolutely cannot be placed in any way that any infantry type unit would not be able to reach the objective. Thanks for the clarification. 

I could nitpick on the handling of ranks and format of some of the dialog but my main feedback would be that the start and middle was way too detailed for the amount that was actually happening to forward the story. Personally I was into it, because I'm a sucker for tactical jargon and realistic military settings in scifi, but from a story perspective, the limited word count could hav ebeen used more efficiently. On the whole, it was fun to read =)

Hey translating that high from your mind to the reader's is the whole art =)

First of all, thank you for not uploading the mood board haha. This was a great little tale, well done, I don't really have many actual criticisms apart from a few lines where maybe you repeat what the reader just put together. Personally, I didn't like the ending, I would have liked to see the gunner be just as caught of guard by something as the pilot was by the competence of the gunner- so she doesn't start AND end the story bored. (Maybe the pilot's experience that intel is always wrong inspired him to keep one more trick up his sleeve? Again, personal taste) Well done, regardless. Fun, if short, encounter! Edit: I especially liked the line ~the crew was as ramshackle as the ship~ That was strong enough in and of itself that you could have cut alot of other lines!

I'll be honest, this feels like a first draft stream of consciousness piece. Sure, some of my favorite grimdark fictions are based on the casual moments in a wild setting, but feels like a single (drawn out) scene in a scooby doo play. The character's races are very artificial and have no bearing on who they are/what they want. The most climactic moment is a character using a piece of tuba to physically hit a ghost in the shin- which only creates more questions. My main advice though is to make sure your characters have motivation- our heroes have "nothing better to do" than to wander around the bandhall and we have no idea what the Elf Spirit was after except maybe it was a little frisky for some reason (The roles are reversed haha).  With that in mind, you clearly have the capacity to be a great writer, and I'm eager to see what you bring to the next jam!

Really great myth story, this is the stuff that campfire tales are made of! As far the writing, I would always suggest that if you're going to use physical descriptions of a character (especially as the first paragraph) then you need to bring that back around by the end. Without a word limit, or with some editing, theres a great place in this story for that... I don't like the way the ending is written at all, it feels really rushed and just flat out tells the reader how it ends. I think if you could have described him like you did at first, but show how his appearance changes to the undead thing he becomes that would have been MUCH stronger. Other than that, I would nitpick on stuff like telling us that he "sort of" believes in the supernatural, or how the demon's appearance shifts the pace. Still one of the more engaging stories in my que so far! I'll probably be plagiarizing this tale next time I go camping =)

I do enjoy the "zoomed out" telling of this story- its much easier to fit more "happenings" in a story like this than one that tries to break into back and forth dialog. That being said, it still suffers a little bit (although less than I would have expected) from telling not showing- especially at the end. Maybe you could have woven in more threads of 'unspoken drama?' Still, as short as it was, it was a VERY easy read and that goes a long way. I advise not using paragraph indents in this format but well done =)