Good writing, gripped me with all the little details. Always enjoy sniper stories. The central conflict was focused on the combat, personally could have used some more context about the morale conflict for the theme.
Play book
Shots Fired's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Flow & Clarity | #2 | 4.357 | 4.357 |
| Overall | #18 | 3.738 | 3.738 |
| Concept & Originality | #23 | 3.786 | 3.786 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #28 | 3.071 | 3.071 |
Ranked from 28 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Smirked at the wartykay style Plasma overheat incident and the aquila. Possibly one of the more 'tabletop honest' stories with hulking great marines in it, taking fire wise (again, pre-6th edition). Loved Simo's observations and conclusions, and the end was a good rug pull.
Submitted
Benevolentia RegulaeI'd agree with others that the story does a good job of maintaining suspense and pace with the use of present tense. It comes across as stylistically refreshing and different, and I personally think it should have been carried through to the end. Perhaps switching to past tense only for the last bit would have been an interesting way to emphasize his presumed fate?
Submitted
Pondering on SoftscalesReally, really strong piece of writing. The moral conflict of the story takes a backseat, which really holds it back, but the core actions are gripping to read. Looking forward to reading more of your work as you refine your character beats and find ways to weave theme into this great action writing.
Submitted
Record of Mourndrift WarI really liked this story. It was very evocative and your descriptive language and terse tone kept the action moving and the tension high. The use of present-tense helps immensely with this. There are one or two paragraphs towards the end where the story slips into past tense, which is grammatically and narratively jarring. Overall I liked your exploration of the theme here. I think that you might have been better served by *not* having Simo perceive any humanity in the Battle Brothers. It undercuts his complete abhorrence of them in the opening paragraphs (which might work for a longer piece, but not for something of this length - or at least, not where you aren't aiming to make that exploration the overriding theme, and this was more of a straight action piece). Instead, I would have had the Battle Brothers speak - they're silent throughout, so letting us hear their perspective to contrast to Simo's would have helped create a stronger evocation of the "there are no good guys here" vibe which I get from the story.
Thank you so much for all this feedback. I do have a habit of slipping into the wrong tense at times and that definitely backfired on me here. Additionally I have realized that I failed to inject my perspective on the story here, and that has spurred me to do some revision. I'd love to talk in detail about this but I'll leave it at that to save everyone reading a wall of text in the comments section.
Rereading my own comment, I think the tense thing came across as sharper than I meant it to sound. For a work which has to be composed in 48 hours, the occasional editing blip is to be expected.
I'm glad you found my feedback useful in any case. Let me reiterate that I did really like your work. It was very powerful, and I hope your revisions add to that strength!
Great story! really enjoyed the opening description and the sense of tension you invoked.
Submitted
The True Face
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