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Does anyone remember the old "Kings Quest" games? Or the Journeyman Project series? I know I do. Those were great memories growing up. It was one of those times where me and both my big brothers would all gather around the same computer to solve the puzzles together. It made me really happy, especially when I found something before they did.

Alas, I was a timid thing when it came to death scenes back then. I had some bizarre issue with skeletons (no idea why.) And Dune's close up of a rotting protagonist had left me a little scarred... yet ironically, I loved most of the deaths of those two series. Why? Well...

Their sarcasm, puns, and cheerful pokes at the player to let them know that the writers didn't take themselves too seriously, (nor should the player) was actually kind of a consolation for failing a challenging puzzle. It was almost fun, finding out the next gag...

I realize this is a long intro, but it's like this: My narration tends to be snarky or sarcastic, and yes, on the rare occasion, punny. I like to poke fun at my characters and occasionally, my readers. It's all in good fun and with good will... but, question is, how far is too far?

Mind you, I would never go to the lengths of "You find yourself in a room" (a text based adventure game, it's on Kongregate. Very dark, I enjoyed it, but yeah... do NOT play if you are easily offended. It gets to the point where you're being treated like something worth -less- than crap by your narrator. He even freaking chops off your hands with a BUZZSAW just because he can't stand the fact that you exist. Well, and that you're human, because he's a human-hating AI. )

I? Playful teasing. And the occasional... "was that -really- the best you could do?" jab. But that's usually if you're -obviously- not really trying, are choosing something suicidal, or are trying to -cheat-. So... what do you guys think? I'm still going to be me, and snarky, but I'll know to put warnings up depending on the response, and I may use the feedback for future stories.

I tend to enjoy the snarky comments, as long as it isnt like this dreadful storygame:

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/twilight-of-apocalypse~3a-pt-1

In which you are called stupid for picking logical choices. I actually enjoy games that mock the player for making stupid choices, like in: http://chooseyourstory.com/story/survive-the-zombies.

Thank you for the feedback, noted. I can't remember a time I've poked fun at someone or a good / intelligent answer or action. I may jest about the situation itself -anyway- (cuz I'm laughing at myself here, too) but mocking the reader in that scenario would be stupid.

I played a lot of those old Sierra games as well as the Infocom text adventures so I'm familiar with their sarcastic tone at times.

How much is too much? Well depends on the story and the audience really.

If the story is meant to be more humorous and over the top in nature then you can get away with more mocking of the reader.

In my experience you can put up all the warnings on a story you like and most won't even pay attention to such things and then go get offended despite being warned ahead of time. Not saying you shouldn't still put them up though, since you're at least making the attempt to warn people and the fault is on the reader if they went and read it anyway.

Also the quality of the writing helps. Going into a detailed description of the readers wonderful failure along with the mocking is a lot better than just giving a one sentence page of "You died. You're a fucktard! LOL!" description.

Most of the old school CYOA books and some of the old computer text games were good at making the losing descriptions or situations fun enough to make you want to see all the different ways you could die sometimes.

Ahhh... advice from EndMaster? I'm honored.

"Most of the old school CYOA books and some of the old computer text games were good at making the losing descriptions or situations fun enough to make you want to see all the different ways you could die sometimes."

Exactly what I'm going for at this point. That definitely wasn't the plan when I started. It -was- intended to be a horror genre story, but it's leaned pretty heavily toward the comedy side of things now that I'm close to finishing. (This, of course, makes some of the humor fairly dark. =P Kinda like some your stories, actually. I tip my hat to you in that regard, though, I can't claim to match your sense for it. Nor do I try.)

I must confess, it's grown a mind of its own at this point, rebelling against the serious tone I wanted in the beginning...but I'm pretty fond of my little story monster. It is now a bizarre mesh of horror, tragedy, romance, humor, supernatural, and a liiittle sci-fi. A serious plot... with seriously random plot-twists. I no longer have a clear picture of how it will be received. In the end, all I can say is that I hope my readers have at least half, (if not far more,) as much fun playing as I did writing.

That must really annoy you that people disregard warnings and then complain about the very things you said were included in the story.  I'd probably be facepalming myself.

And I loved those old Sierra deaths.  Even though they were snarky, they made dying at least worth a few smiles, which made it easier to keep trying again.

I played that game. Lol.