The Main Character here is... you! Seriously though, you play as yourself, but (surprise!) you wake up with total amnesia! You must navigate your way through an abandoned city, trying to piece together who you are, why you are here, and where here is. This game is set in the staring city and the surrounding area. This is set in present time (I suppose if you're reading this in 30 years, you can assume the book is set in 2012). Though you don't have any reason to go explore, you don't have any reason NOT to either; you will begin wandering, but before long you may be running, hiding, or fighting for your life. The objectives are to find out who you are, where you are and what happened to you. Keep in mind that clues are everywhere and even the smallest piece of information could be relevant later on.

Each time you unlock a piece of your memory, there will be a vague description of what information you remember. It is vague because you are supposed to imagine that you are remembering events that happened in your own life. Imagination is key!

Good luck and have fun!

This is, first and foremost, a test of the advanced story creator. However, if I like the story I may refine and continue it. I will leave it open for previewing because, hey, if you want to play it I won't stop you.

In this game, you are a Pit Fighter, one who fights in arenas to amuse rich and sadistic benefactors. In particular, you are a person who is worthless. All you have in your life is the Pit. Play through combat encounters as your personalized fantasy "hero."

Okay, you're still not being very specific. We can't help you if you don't know what you want help with. 

That said, I can sort of guess as to what you might be struggling with. I'm assuming that when you get the idea for a story game, you just start writing it with little planning (could be an incorrect assumption, but I don't have much information to work with). Don't do this. Planning and pre-writing is essential to creating a thoroughly coherent game (for most people; it seems, in my other thread "Your Writing Process?," that some just sort of dive in and it works out well enough). 

What I do is make sure I know, roughly, what the beginning, middle, and end of the story should look like. Of course, a story game will have many ends. Thankfully, most story games have two or three real/good/perfect ends, so try to structure your story the same way. NOTE, this is just something to help you keep on track with your ideas. This method probably would work with a massive story encompassing many, many smaller stories in the vein of Endmaster's Necromancer (I just can't help but bring that story up, can I?), but I feel those types of stories are the exception (if a very impressive exception).

Take a look at the thread I started to give you a couple different perspectives on the writing process. Almost everyone did something different, and it was very educational. Hope this helped!

What was difficult about it? Could you give us some more details?

Loving the conversation thus far, everyone! Has really got me wanting to write! 

I think I'm going to start writing one of my many story ideas now. I already have the basic pre-writing done, and I think I'll start trying to write without mapping out any of the specific branches/pages beforehand. What I have written is a general overview of the story, a beginning/middle/end(s) structure, main themes, and then random notes on the back story. We'll see how this goes with that much pre-writing!

That makes a lot more sense to do the one-day-challenge for fun. It sounds like something entertaining, and that I may even try in the future (looking at a rather small-scale game, of course).

Regarding your comment on ass-pulling in order to reach an achieved ending, that's why it's good to work out an idea of the middle section of the story that leads from the beginning to the end. That way you have an idea of how that ending will be achieved. Of course, since we're talking about story games, it gets a little more complicated than that, but it's still possible to map things out vaguely and accommodate for multiple endings.

Exactly, Mr. Robot. I try to avoid pulling of the ass and plotting of the holes. Haha. 

Well, that's a fun way to look at it! I'll really have to give that a try. Thanks for the constructive feedback.

That is... huh. Part of that I can relate to and another part, not at all. 

I understand the idea of planning backfiring because you already know how it's going to end. This used to happen to me as well. Part of writing, for me, used to be "discovering" where my story was going as I wrote it. However, I quickly realized that my stories suffered because of it. For me, neither extreme works. I can't write a story that I feel is really good without any planning whatsoever, but I would also never try to plan every little thing out. I reconcile with my old self by defining things rather vaguely; for example, I'll define a broad beginning, middle, and end, but the way each section actually plays out is left up to me as I write (this is for non-story games, I should note). This way I can write something structured and coherent, with potent foreshadowing and a feeling of unity. 

The things I don't understand are trying to write a story game in a single day (!) and knowing nothing about your characters/ghosts before you start writing. I just can't imagine not having at least a notion of the characters you're going to be using before you start; of course, as I said before, the main character in story games is a different beast altogether, in which case I'm actively attempting to have him/her be shaped by the reader.

You get the idea, Fireplay!

Just to be clear, it's not as if I was directly suggesting that you should take characters/ideas/situations from books you read and use them (though that seems to be exactly what Ford does with anime...). Reading other peoples' works can be beneficial in many different ways, such as inspiring you to write, expanding your horizons, exposing you to new styles of writing, etc. It is important to immerse yourself in your craft. To me, saying you don't like reading as a writer is like saying you don't like watching anime as an anime writer (to borrow from Ford again). It just doesn't make sense to me.

Haha, alright then, Ford. I'm not trying to get into an argument or anything. I just know that many famous authors are also avid readers and I doubt that's a coincidence. That said, do whatever works for you. I'm glad you've found a process that compliments your creative style.

Ah, so you're more of a minimalist, then. I used to be able to write this way but in recent years I've found writing without organization usually degrades rather quickly...

Thanks for your reply, Killa Robot!