Okay, I’ve read as much as I’m going to at this point and I’m already certain who won this thing. Sort of figured they’d win given how enthusiastic they were from the start of it, though there were a few times where they had some competition.
Anyway, let’s get the winner out of the way first.
Malk won.
His story hit all the major things I was looking for as far as the theme and I was interested enough to go through every path/choice he wrote. So he succeeded in being the most entertaining.
As they say, if you aren’t first, you’re last, so everyone else doesn’t matter, however if we’re looking at who came the closest to giving him competition it would have been Ninja, Thara and the biggest dark horse in race Celicni.
Ninja’s was solid all around, but Malk just had that extra “edge” with the grimdark. He was still leading until I read Malk’s though.
Thara’s story was another one where I actually read every path, and while she loaded up on the incest and even had some surprise sex, the story still felt a little light in the grimdark. But as a father I’m still proud of her major writing accomplishment.
Now we come to Celicni who MIGHT have actually won since he hit every point with the theme and the whole story was entertaining. (Read through all his paths too) However he did one fatal flaw that dropped him which is he put fucking “retry links” instead of just letting a death ending end the story proper.
Nothing is more annoying than looping back to the beginning rather than just having the end link. At the very least if you’re going to do something like that at least also have the end link there. (Like what Thara did)
Despite him doing that, I still rated him pretty high which says a lot given how much I dislike seeing the other thing done. Like I said, had he not done that and maybe added a few more things, he could have even beaten Malk.
Moving down to the next “level” would be Wibbons, Enter, and North.
As much as everyone was telling me Wibbon’s story sucked a lot, I actually didn’t mind it. Whether Wibbons is a closet pedo or not is completely still up for debate, but the wendigo licking a little girl seemed in character for it, so I didn’t think too much more of it. It was grimdark in a fairy tale way, but not enough to come close to winning though.
Enter and North’s both had similar issues. Mainly I got to the point where my eyes started glazing over while reading them.
With Enter’s, part of it might have been more his font and background style he chose because it all started running together and I kept having to reread parts. I played through enough of the paths to get the general idea that you were being tortured in hell. While certainly grimdark, the torture alone just wasn’t entertaining me. It's sort of like A Serbian Film vs. The Devil's Rejects. Obviously ASF is more hardcore, but TDR is more entertaining due to the character interaction. I dunno, guess it needed more humor or something.
With North’s, well it just wasn’t doing it at all for me. Didn’t feel grimdark enough in theme, wasn’t engaged or entertained either. Just got bored to the point where I was clicking through to an ending. I actually did go back through some other choices to see if I missed a better path, but a lot of choices eventually reconnected to a familiar path, or at leas the ones I picked did.
Now I imagine if Mizal and/or Berka was the judge North might have very well won this one. They weren’t though so North gets a higher than average rating since he obviously put a bunch of work into it, but that’s it.
Next level would be Peng, Chris, and Mara
Peng and Chris both had the same issue. They didn’t write enough. Now obviously word count doesn’t mean much to me most of the time (Just look at North) but the advantage of having a larger story is you’ve put more stuff into it that can potentially further entertain.
The short amount that Peng and Chris wrote was actually pretty entertaining, but it just wasn’t enough to come close to winning.
As for Mara, well I know she put effort into this. Just wasn’t what I was looking for though. Honestly I just kept getting confused to as what exactly was supposed to be going on.
I think the main problem is she kept using CYS member names as characters in the story and while I know everyone is supposed to be different, it just feels like some sort of weird CYS fanfiction.
Finally the last three, Mystic, Corgi and Flutter
Well Mystic’s I guess was on the darker side, but unless I missed something, hers was set in the present day and I just wasn’t feeling any sort of fantasy what with modern guns and planes being around. Wasn’t what I was looking for in general.
This is another story where if Mizal or Berka had been the judges, she probably would have scored way higher (Berka usually likes more gamey stats too) but it was my contest, so she didn’t.
Corgi’s was just more of a straight fantasy story and it was sort of on the mundane side of things. Not much more to say on that one.
Finally Flutter, well she did about as best she could given that it was basically MLP fanfic with the serial numbers filed off. Better than being SHAMED at least.
Anyway here’s the ratings
The Unravelling of Order by fluttershypegasus - 4
The Book and Devil's Altar by ninjapitka - 8
The Liar by PerforatedPenguin - 5
Dog Day by Chris113022 - 5
Messiah for Hire by poison_mara - 5
Fall to Hopelessness by Mystic_Warrior - 5
The Scary Night by WouldntItBeNice - 6
Vincha by Celicni - 7
Brimstone by Enterpride - 6
Silent Spire by corgi213 - 5
The Tale of The Foolish Princess by TharaApples - 8
Winter, After the Harvest by hetero_malk - 8
Goldbird and Whispers of Snow by Northwind - 6
Anyway, I’ll get around to commending, featuring, and giving points sometime soon. (Unless someone beats me to it)
