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Doing the required thread for this contest. I selected option 1:

"In 100,000 B.C.E., a boy from a Neanderthal tribe meets a homo sapien girl for the first time, changing the fate of their tribes for all time . . . for better or worse."

I'm not sure how detailed I need to be for this, but at least in this first post I'll give a solid run down of what to expect in the story. As for progress, I started today and so far I have one paragraph and a basic rough draft of a synopsis:

"A Neanderthal boy is sent on a perilous mission to rescue kidnapped members of his tribe from the clutches of the evil Ghost People, whose magic far surpasses that of his own people. Countless horrors lie in wait in the dark reaches of this untamed land, but none so terrible as the Ghost People themselves, who, while individually weaker than members of his own tribe, wield clever magic subtle enough to subdue and humiliate even the mighty mammoth, the most powerful of all creatures."

That synopsis (and the story, most likely) is going to change, but basically this will be about Homo sapiens (The Ghost People) subjugating Homo neanderthalensis (The People of the River) for the purpose of breeding super humans in order to drive Homo neanderthalensis to extinction. Why would they do this? Because neanderthals are competition and food is scarce in the cold, mountainous Northern regions. Not to mention the threat they pose because they are physically superior.

I guess it's a tried and true trope, but essentially you're going to meet a Homo sapien girl and, well, what happens from there I haven't decided yet, but I'm sure it's going to involve some sort of catharsis and reconciliation regarding the war being waged between the two types of Homos.

Note: "magic" in this case = technology. Neanderthals were not stupid, but much of their brain power was dedicated to managing their larger physical bodies and massive eyes, among other things. They had less dedicated hardware for the things we Homo sapiens take for granted, including more complex social interactions, perhaps abstract thought, etc. Not to mention Homo sapiens came from a more hospitable climate, and thus were far more numerous, which has multiple advantages, including cultural ones.

As a result, in this story, the Neanderthals are going to be at a large intellectual disadvantage, even though they are much stronger physically. Not sure where I'm going to go with that, but I am sure it will feature in the story at some point. Perhaps I will feature this with fire. Neanderthals certainly could control fire, but in this story I think I might have this particular tribe doing it "the old fashioned way," as in, getting fire from a natural fire and keeping it alive, as no doubt the first humans did. Maybe the Homo sapiens will have that technology and the Neanderthals will steal it. Not sure.

Anyway, that is the first update.

Well, looking at the other threads I guess I way over did this. Anyway, got about a page done and the character motivation for the main story.

Watch Quest For Fire for further inspiration.

Or read the Clan of the Cave Bear for inspirational caveman rape.

It's actually a little weird now to think back on how super into these tales of caveman rape women were in the 80s. Though I guess there's really just tons of rape in the first one and the rest is tons of consensual cave man sex with wilderness survival stuff.

I read these in junior high.

I think I'm going to go ahead and stick with the Homo sapiens raping the Homo neanderthalensis for plot purposes.

There's a Bones episode called the Archaeologist in the Cocoon that deals with an ancient case of mixing between Neanderthals and homo sapiens.  It's the eleventh episode of the eight season.

Second weekly update:

Got a few pages in, and think I'm going to go with a background picture to set the mood. Would this be considered too obnoxious? The font color over it will be black.

I like it.

Thanks.

Second week update #1.

Got the first two main paths started. I did watch Quest For fire like Endmaster suggested, and it made me a bit sad. It seems my initial idea about one tribe hording a fire because they don't know how to create it has already been done in that film. Fortunately the fire aspect isn't a huge portion of the story, so I'm not taking it out. It's a pretty cool film though, but I do not like how the humans walked like they just became bipedal, or the simplistic language. I find both of those hard to believe since hominids had been upright and had language for several million years by then. But the film is pretty cool.

Well, depending on when the film was produced, they might not have had as much information on pre-historical man.  Even though history itself doesn't change, our understanding of it does.

It came out in 1981, though it's probably still one of the more accurate portrayals of prehistoric days. Not that there are many movies in that setting.

I still say he should've read the Clan of the Cave Bear books. (also wtf Google just informed me there's a sixth one published in 2011...author must have needed some cash.)

but did you know a prehistoric Aryan supermodel invented the flint sparking method of creating fire as well as animal domestication, and was the first to figure out that semen was involved in the baby making process? Also as part of her hobby as being the greatest healer to ever live she was the first human to ever to figure out how to stitch up a wound as well as wrap a broken arm in a cast. Oh, and did I mention the Heimlich Maneuver?

All of humanity owes Ayla so much, and the only reward she ever got in her lifetime was her hot Aryan boyfriend and his comically large penis.

e: invented the spear thrower too. How could I forget!

Second week update #2.

I haven't made much headway on the story, but I did figure out some scripting, after hours of reading and trial/error. I was able to make using an item lead to two different pages depending on a variable, with each page having two possible outcomes, while still making it so the item can only be used on two specific pages.

It was pretty tricky, but what it entailed was making a duplicate "dummy" item that cannot be used at all (it's only function is to be visible in your inventory and have a description of the item), then performing an item state switch with the "real" item at the pages where the item can actually be used, then using the script that Killa Robot gave me in the Advanced Editor forum, all the while doing a random number calculation before hand, which then determined a variable, itself adding variable specific text and functioning as a trigger limited by the Stop Sign things.

Whew! That was a lot of work for something that is probably really easy with the proper scripting knowledge.

Third week update #1

I have to admit, this is harder than I thought. The permutations keep increasing, and I'm not even trying to make an overly complicated choose your own adventure. The other stuff I was working on prior was pretty simple by comparison (a tutorial game and a short story collection).

Anyhow, I have the first major act just about finished. All that's left is the middle and final act, which I think, if I'm not too busy, I can finish at the end of this week or early next.

Well I believe I'm finished. Just doing some last minute polishing.

Yay!  Congrats.

Thanks. But in truth I am not really sure how good this story is. Still, this was a fun exercise. Just got to read through it and make sure there are no grievous errors. I'm sure I've screwed up some part of the items/variables, but hopefully the judges cut me some slack given my inexperience. ;)

Some of my images don't seem to be loading, but I think it's just a temporary problem with the image hosting sight.

For the images, you might want to re-insert them into the pages. When you edit a page and save, any images will go away and you have to add them again.

Thanks. But it's really odd. The images are now all working. I think it might have been the hosting site after all. I guess from time to time the images won't be there.