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What's an appropriate amount of side quests to have based on the length of a storygame? I could have a side quest for EVERY possible choice or setting change, but that seems too much to me. Although I enjoy making side quests and easter eggs, I'm not sure how spammy or how rare they should occur. Should I pack a thousand easter eggs in every page or have a single optional side-quest for every few chapters?

I would suggest finishing the main storygame, and then embellishing with the optional stuff. Don't put it in as you go, you'll just slow yourself down and possibly burn out on the project before you finish.

Seems tricky that way for me personally.

I actually plot the chapter, guide the routes, and then write one route in full along with the side-quests right there and then. >_>

Along with Morgans suggestion I warn that you make sure to stay within the easter egg area that you want. If you want EE's that your friends will know about but none of us will understand then do so, vise versa as well. But combing/making to many of them can make a story feel messy if not done right.

Side Quests? I don't mind those if they add to the world or give you something that could be unexpectedly(not randomly) useful for us players later on.

Easter eggs are annoying when their existence is blatantly obvious to anyone playing the game, yet they only have meaning to a select few people.

Make them hidden, like how Berka did it on his zombie story. Where some of them were a hit/miss depending on your choices and/or blink&you miss them types.

Easter eggs that are few and far between are generally the best.

I'm not sure if they count as Easter Eggs, but the multiple different paths and special endings included in Kiel_Farran's 'A Game of Life and Death' were what kept me coming back to the game and replaying it over and over. The promise of hidden epilogues made me really pay attention to every detail and explore every corner of the game in hopes of finding something new.

That's the point of including Easter eggs and side quests, imho, to keep the players engaged. So your best bet is to include a few fairly obvious Easter Eggs to let the players know that they're there and a few not-so-obvious ones that are there for the player determined to figure out every inch of the game. Probably one every couple pages is enough to keep the players reading carefully if they want to find them.

Side quests are probably a lot of work, so I think an optional one every few chapters is more than enough, depending on how elaborate they are.

I'm of the opinion that you can never have too much optional content, but the amount of effort it would take to make it would be insane, so I guess it comes down to how much effort you want to invest in something that's not really crucial to the story itself.

That's my two cents, anyway.

Easter Eggs are references to some outside stuff, not endings.  :P

Gotcha, thanks, swift :)

I stand by my point that they should be included mostly as motivation for players to replay the game and pay attention to details though.

The easter egg was the idea that I was planning on referencing popular books, stories, movies, or having my storygame cross over into another for a brief moment. For example I could reference star wars, or I could reference one of EndMaster's stories (unlikely that I'll reference a storygame, but it could happen), or I could reference a popular work of literature. I could make the story have relation to human history - like causing a war or inspiring adventures. Stuff that most people would get.

As for side quests, I was thinking special items or history explaining why things are the way that they are in the setting. If you do this and that in the right order, a door opens and you release a plague among a village you were visiting. Stuff like that, which can be referenced later by someone else as "Wow did you hear about that one village that was ravaged by a plague?" - I think side quests bring a bit of irony or comedic purpose.

There's a difference between an Easter Egg and just a reference to something.

Also, unobtrusive references are okay, but I personally dislike it when I'm reading something and I'm thinking "why is everyone in this medieval fantasy village named after characters from Star Wars?"

Lol! For the storygame that I'm making, a reference like that would actually work :P although that's a bit too much of a contrast between settings xD