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Nothing as apparant. I'm just a lil hyper aware of moments that can be infered instead of stated since I've been working on that myself. Examples: the prince being betrothed to her, feeling her cold hands was much more impactful than saying she looked cold because her arms were crossed, and the castle coming under attack/her holding her head to a loud sound was kind of clunky.  Nit picks mostly, but I DID absolutely love the way you lead into the reveal with clues and subtley!

Thank you! That's something I've been practicing alot although you can tell, I'm still looking for the right balance of clarity to mystery

I'm a big narc about name dropping the theme the these stories but I'm also biased toward robot horror so this story definitely came out ahead. Great premise, great idea, great execution, literally. Loved it.

I think the ending was kind of too late. i was right there riding high and invested and curious and might have preferred to be left there wondering than trying to interpret the ending after the high wore off. Regardless, it was an easy read and I was gripped with pretty much no criticism through the reat of it, very enjoyable story!

Freaking awesome. I'm probably biased because machine mind horror is one of my favorite genres but this did it so cleanly and efficiently. Usually I don't like last sentence "reveals" that give away the mystery but it was all just the right balance of confusion and suspense. Might be my favorite, this jam.

I like the "point" of the story but it was a little too expositiony, even in that day to routines, felt kind of choppy and matter of fact. I don't really like when these shorts have to blurt out the theme in the last paragraphs; I would prefer the risk of missing what it is to being told, personally. I think there's a banger in here somewhere and the foundation is great. 

In a way it almost dragged at points but only because it did such a good job of putting me on edge with the whole setting. It's objectively very well done and pretty original too, even it's not my favorite brand of cosmic horror.

Very fun classic grimdark horror. If I would suggest anything its just to remove the lines where you've restated what the reader would find fairly obvious: reflecting on if he was one of those armored men. Although- having him question if his name had always been Hank had me second guessing what was obvious anyway, so well done!

I love the tone of this, very old-Disney movie esque, but I think its knee capped by being a lil wordy. Maybe it could have used a lil editing to trim some of the word fat- preferably to make more room for time with these very enjoyable characters!

I get that. I've recently come across a book that changed my perspective on adding "meaningless details" to a novel. Even though this author's extra exposition didn't really contribute to a wider plot or reveal a whole lot of backstory (although it definitely did at times) the vivid details kind of made the whole story feel like a lucid dream somehow- which really fit with the otherworldly science themes.

Some of the sentence structures are pretty clunky in here and also, I kinda feel like the exposition at the beginning robs your word count of spending time actual time with the characters. I love stories that draw heavily on the GF world mythos so I would have much rathered all the backstory implied and skip right into the moment. 

There's a lot of not-quite-neccesary additions that would be ok in a longer story (the contents of the backpack and other short expositions) but here, just distracts from an otherwise straight foward recruitment story. Great idea, could just use some editing

Glad you got it converted, that was a very rich story for the word count. Don't really have any critiques- just a solid, no nonsense bit that leaves me wanting for the whole story.

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.