Game Over- Extended Edition

Game Over- Extended Edition

 

 

Todd Thorne

Sci-fi/Horror

33 pages

Teen

Warnings: Language, scary themes

   While Timmy's parents are bust fighting over their divorce, Timmy is hiding in his room, dueling his friend Jimmy through virtual reality, trying to win by making the scariest stream.

Writing Style- 4/10

   Even though this is supposed to be about the virtual reality, it isn't  discussed much and it seems to mostly focus around his parents divorce. Most of the virtual reality s also explained poorly, such as what a stream and stealing are. A little more explanation and a little more of the virtual reality would boost this a lot.

Plot- 7/10

   The part of the plot that focuses around the divorce isn't great, but the virtual reality and the dueling is fascinating and a full length story focusing on this would be great. The way he tied the stream of the virtual reality video he used in the duel to scare his friend Joshua) into the divorce was interesting's but the stream wasn't nearly as interesting as the original, alternate stream found only in the extended edition.

Originality- 3/10

   Although the dueling and everything was very original, it is completely overshadowed by the divorce. His parents fight constantly, his mom is drinking, buying things and possibly doing drugs while his father is with a woman in her 20's, taking her on expensive trips, living together and expecting a child. They both drill him about the others behavior when they are with him and otherwise don't have much to do with him, unless they're trying to prove that they're the better parent. If it were any more straight out of an After School Special, it would be completely unreadable.

Enjoyability- 4/10

   Between the divorce and the complete lack of terror in the stream for me, I had a hard time getting through this. The alternate stream was quite a bit better.

End- 4/10

   Pretty predictable. Although it doesn't explicitly tell us exactly what happens and wrap up, it leaves just enough to the imagination.

Overall- 22/50

 

The extended edition is only available on Kindle, but the standard edition is available on Smashwords.

 

Todd Thorne's website can be found here.

 

Has anyone else read Game Over? What was your opinion? Was I too harsh or too lenient?