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We're not talking about plain depression, or that time you felt like committing suicide after you read Death song. No, what I want to know if any of our story games have made you cry real, genuine tears. 

Specifically:

Have any of you cried while reading any story games?

If so, what was it that made you cry at the time?

Any other comments on the subject?

Because these are likely going to be the judges...

@BerkaZerka @EndMaster @Killa_Robot @Will11 @Bucky (Assuming he isn't a mystery contestant, or too busy) 

There was that one time I was chopping onions while listening to Sarah McLachlan songs and reading at the same time but I don't think it counts.

Maybe they could get Malk to be a judge, he cries like a bitch over lots of things. Because aside from Will, pretty sure none of the judges are capable of human emotion so, entrants are going to have quite the task ahead of them.

Anyway I mostly expect to be laughing my ass off at some of the most banal mush the site has ever seen. You've almost certainly got another win on your hands tbh unless Myn joins and writes about a normal day in her life.

Nope.

The best you can hope for from me is just writing a good story with elements that I can identify as FEELS so that I can tell you tried.

Unless you somehow just write something so hilarious that I'm rolling on the floor in laughter that my eyes are watering because I can't breath due to the lulz.

But I have my doubts anyone is going to do that since that hasn't happened yet either.

I will take into consideration if your story makes others cry however. (Though only for the feels or the lulz, not because it was so shitty that it caused people to weep in disgust)

I was thinking that's the best chance I would have -- getting someone to cry from laughing -- because that's more my specialty than romantic feels...

I don't understand why Killa decided to push romance in the OP but he'll be having to read all of these so I'm content with him having dug his own grave.

Pretty sure this contest is going to bring out all the sorts of stories we were all grateful to have avoided in the actual romance contest. (Mr. Ace's aside...)

Not recently. The wibn who joined the site cried more than my current incarnation. Even then, it was only Snow (yuck, though I only shed literally one tear) and Farewell, My Childhood Self. In both instances, it was because it connected to an issue that would make me cry irl that I hadn't "gotten over" yet. I'm more moved by visuals anyway. Movies are better tearjerkers for me. Personally, I find relationships that failed and never will be repaired rather sad.

Personally, I think you can write the saddest story of all time, but none of the judges would cry unless they find some sort of relation between the story and themselves. Since EM has no tear glands, BZ is just... happy, and Killa is an actual robot, that leaves you with just Buck and Will. I won't even pretend that I know what'd make them get the FEELZ.

If Killa wants me to judge, I will be available, but I have other writing obligations from mid-May through mid-August.

Your best bet with me is too make me cry from laughing. But I am sympathetic to flawed protagonists that genuinely try to be good people at times but either fail or are otherwise scorned or cast as a villain regardless.

Ebon you might have better results asking about actual books that have made people cry. Storygames are handicapped in that area by most of our authors sucking shit.

In the meantime here's an inspirational song!

I cried about death song ngl 

Extending the topic to books, movies, and just stories in general. What would a story have to do to make you cry?

Kill Lassie.

The closest I got  to the point of crying would be the ending of 'Metro: 2033', the book. The ambience of utter hopelessness and a broken future left the 13 years old me stunned for a few minutes.

A close second would be 'im westen nichts neues'. The author had a way with words to describe the gruesome pointlessness of the trench warfare of WWI.

I'm a sucker for people having an emotional break down and admitting they need help/want something. Especially characters that are normally really stoic.

Nope, never did. Not even Death Song, because I was just annoyed my protagonist was a faggot playing music while my other protagonist did badass shit. In regards to non-storygame stuff, the only things that spring to mind is that one episode of Monk where Monk gets a kid and raises him as a Tiny Monk, but then gives him up when he realizes he shouldn't turn a kid into a Tiny Monk. There's probably other shit, but that's all I can think of now.

The Royal Tenenbaums... The scene near the end when Ben Stiller's character breaks down crying and says, "I've been having a really hard time," and Gene Hackman (who plays his father) hugs him and says, "I know, son."

Was the first time Ben's character broke through his neurosis (of disaster preparedness) and admitted the pain he was going through after his wife's death, and also the first time his father showed him tenderness (which was the main part that got me). 

Happy tears every time I see it.

Wes Anderson movies are always kind of sad. Grand Budapest Hotel usually bums me out, even though I've seen the thing at least a dozen times at htis point 

The scene in monsters inc where Sully leaves Boo in her room at the end made me shed a few tears.

I was under the impression that cartoons were completely cheating. This is an outrage.

In that case, I nominate the first few minutes of Up.

If you don't cry in the first few minutes of Up you have no soul. But any visual medium with music attached orchestrated for ultimate feels has an advantage that text that can be read anywhere with any kind of distractions around can't match. See also: Mufasa's death.

From what I've read, Ebon's style can come close to matching it. It is very cinematic. He knows how to evoke emotions. He specifically describes what you are sensing externally, what you are feeling internally, and what you thinking at a particular moment. It literally forces you to experience it.

I am trying to put that in my game, but I don't have the talent. :-/

I mean pick up most books and they do the same thing. Any competently written novel with likeable characters the reader's given time to identify with and then bad things happening to them can evoke The Sads or other strong emotions.

But movies and games come equipped with more ways to make immersion an automatic process. Reading on either hand requires a deliberate act of shutting yourself off from outside distractions and letting yourself get absorbed by the events of a story to the point you forget you're reading a story.

That last bit is the most difficult. I don't think I've ever really gotten into a storygame beyond 'ok this is pretty entertainingly/competently written, I can see what they're going for' because there frankly aren't too many authors writing online at any kind of professional level, and obviously a professional editor isn't part of the equation at any point. There's always going to be some sloppy or clumsy bit to trip on and make the seams show no matter how good a story might be compared to the internet's usual.

I think you are implying that we are not the world's greatest authors. You are sadlier mistakingly than I thought.

Don't worry, now that I'm not entering contests I've been freed from deadlines to show you all what true greatness is. I hope the demonstration provided by my future epics will be an edifying experience.

Ooo... 13 months into my epic!

It is edifying in the sense that it is so bad.

It shows you what is possible.

Thanks for the nice words Ikiriakos!

While I know Death Song gets brought up a lot, there’s scenes in other stories of mine where I think the feels are there a lot more than Death Song. Really I found things like the innkeeper not managing to save Eliza or the Experimental Shelter epilogue in Ground Zero to be more emotional.

Hell, I had Decena getting killed in both paths where she makes an appearance in Eternal, but I kept her around and expanded her role a little longer due to feeling a bit sorry for her character as I was writing her. So she got at least a “semi-happy” ending in one path. And my favorite ending is where he ends up with Alison.

Really though I’d say Suzy’s Strange Saga had the most feels though. Especially with a few of the epilogues.

Alison’s death was sad.

I mostly brought up Death Song because everyone says it's sad etc. Personally, I didn't really feel at all depressed, sad, what have you when I read it. It didn't really evoke emotion for me until he played for the necromancers wife, and even then it wasn't enough to cause tears.

Eternal, when before the death god, on the other hand, came closer. Not enough to draw tears either mind you, but the thought of reaching a ceiling where the eternal could no longer progress made me kinda sad.

This is going to sound dumb but I got a little choked up at the end of The Lego Movie when I first watched it when I was 12 or so. It's the scene where the dad and the son reconcile. Mostly it was because I never really had a close relationship with my dad and probably never will, and that depresses me.

As for stories on the site, pussy Chris from 2014 cried reading Snow. More recently I reread Death Song and the true ending made me shed a tear or two, and, not going to lie, the "epilogue" for the Wasteland Bastard path in Ground Zero is really sad to me as well.

Your Lego moment is similar to my Royal Tenenbaum's one... Long-standing relationship-oriented wish = happy/sad tears when we see it fulfilled for others?

I cannot say that I ever have.

Yes, I have read "Through Time."