11/5/2014

5/12/2025 11:12 AM

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Pre-Eminent Architect Exemplar

A Titanic Experience

You know the story and have probably seen the film; now you can experience what the disaster was really like for those who were there.

Authors Note: This story is about 90% historically accurate, every event and spoken word occurred in identical or similar form, though to prevent this becoming a comedy I had to change some of the speech (things like "I say old man, that is frightfully sporting" has become "That is very decent of you"). On the bright side you should not find Jack and Rose running around in this story :)

 

A Zombie Apocalypse

Can you survive?

American Outlaws: Bonnie and Clyde

This is a tale of Bonnie and Clyde.

American Outlaws: The Dillinger Gang

It is 1933 and America is in its fourth year of Depression. There is widespread anger at the banks and at the forces of justice. Against this backdrop the charismatic and carefree John Dillinger has emerged to lead a gang of hardened bank robbers and killers in challenging the American Government and the newly-formed FBI. You are one of his gang who rob the wealthiest banks in the country to buy the best life has to offer. The forces of justice will relentlessly pursue you and it is only by surviving deadly gunfights and high-speed chases that you will be able to stay ahead of them... Author's Note: Though the next story in this series should be Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall Gang I decided to skip forward a bit and write about a smaller group operating in a different time than my previous two stories which were set in the Old West. Dillinger was one of the closest examples of a Robin Hood type criminal that America has yet produced and I hope the reader enjoys reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

American Outlaws: The James Gang

Jesse James was a lad that killed many a man / he robbed the Glendale train / he stole from the rich and he gave to the poor / he had a hand and a heart and a brain.

It was on a Saturday night and the moon was shining bright / they robbed the Glendale train / and people did say over many miles away / it was those outlaws Frank and Jesse James!

Now the people held their breath when they heard of Jesse's death / and wondered how he'd ever come to fall / Robert Ford, it was a fact, he shot Jesse in the back / While Jesse hung a picture on the wall...

In this story your name is Bill Grey and you are an outlaw, one of a desperate gang who have chosen to live outside the law. By robbing Yankee banks you can make more money in one day than you could make in ten years of work but at the cost that thousands of lawmen and law-abiding citizens everywhere will hunt you relentlessly, not stopping until you are brought to justice Dead or Alive! By surviving deadly gunfights and eluding pursuit with the help of your fellow outlaws your objective is to escape with your ill-gotten gains and live a life of luxury!

Author's Note: This is a little gift to the site to make up for the fact that The CYS Challenge isn't even a quarter finished yet and Magellan 5 is still in the planning stage. As always with my Edutainment stories it's about 90% true but events have been edited or simplified to make the story flow more easily and be more enjoyable. Incidentally my personal feelings about Jesse James and his companions is that history has been incredibly kind to men who shot defenseless people, stole the money of their countrymen and kept it all for themselves but the things he and others like Billy the Kid, John Dillinger et al did are so remarkable it's hard to keep from admiring their pure nerve :)

American Outlaws: The Wild Bunch

They were dueling Doolin-Dalton / High or low it was the same / Easy money and faithless women / Red eye whiskey for the pain.

Go down Bill Dalton, it must be God's will / Two brothers lying dead in Coffeyville / Two voices call you from where they stood / Lay down your law books now, they're no damn good.

Better keep on moving Doolin-Dalton / Till your shadow sets you free / If you're fast and if you're lucky / you will never see that hanging tree.

With a pistol in each hand, your horse's hooves drumming beneath you, the incessant bangs and whizzes of gunshots all around you, the shouts of angry men and the screams of the injured and dying ringing in your ears you roam the towns, plains and wilderness of the American Old West with your fellow outlaws: the daring Dalton boys, the King of the Oklahoma Outlaws Bill Doolin and all the other members of The Wild Bunch.

Your mission is to get rich or die trying and if you are very clever and very lucky you might just live to enjoy your ill-gotten gains; if not... a weather-beaten cross in a dusty cemetery and your rusting pistol in a 21st century museum next to an old black and white photo of a bullet-riddled body will be your fate!

Author's Note: Following the (for me) surprisingly positive feedback on The James Gang I've decided to write the next story I had planned in that series, putting The CYS Challenge and Magellan 5 on hold for now. With a new cast of larger-than-life characters, more epic gunfights and daring robberies like it's predecessor this is the sort of story too unbelievable for fiction and absolutely incredible for being true! I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

Battlefield Commander: Ancient Warfare

In this story game you become a commander from ancient times, leading your brave warriors into the greatest battles in history! Ranging from Ancient China to Carthage, Greece and Rome this story gives the reader the chance to command in over thirty battles in ten different campaigns to see if their decisions can win glory on the battlefield or merely consign themselves to an anonymous grave! The reader will fight alongside some of history's greatest commanders like Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus of Epirus and Bai Qi, the Human Butcher, in their quest to become the greatest general of them all! Let the fight begin! Author's Note: This is the long overdue and far more ambitious sequel The Trojan War, if it proves popular I will follow it with a sequel (or two) based, initially, on the rise and fall of Rome. I hope the reader enjoys the game aspect of this and good luck gaining the highest score possible! The Campaigns are best played in order and I've tried to include a mixture of countries and cultures in the selection of battles but naturally these are just my choices of ones I think might be interesting... :)

Battlefield Commander: The Trojan War

In this story game you become a commander from ancient times, leading your brave warriors into the greatest battles of history! Your decisions will determine whether you and your men live or die as you fight with and against the greatest and worst commanders the world has ever known! Let the fight begin!

Author's Note: This is basically a test story-game to see if I can figure out the mechanics of this site well enough to deliver a respectable war simulation...

Climbing Beyond The Clouds

Can you be the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest?

Custer's Last Stand

Re-live the story of Custer's Last Stand, the famous tragedy where Colonel Custer and hundreds of his men were surrounded and massacred by thousands of Sioux, who won the greatest victory in their losing struggle for freedom and independence. Play as either an American soldier or a Native American warrior and experience what really happened on that terrible summer's day many years ago. Will you live or die on the blood-soaked banks of the Little Bighorn River? (For my 30th story I thought I would write this one in my favourite genre...)

Detective 1: Blacksea Island

The first in a new series of stories featuring the teenage amateur detective Susan Knox as the reader's character. Set in open world locations where the reader is free to choose where to look for clues, who to interview, what to ask and where the correct suspect, motive and murder method must be identified within a set time limit, this first story is set on the mysterious and notorious Blacksea Island whose history of insanity and death holds the secret to the unusual death of Knox's best friend...

I hope the reader enjoys my latest story.

Note: This story includes a few cases of naughty words (for example one of these words rhymes with "bunt", "punt" and "hunt" and isn't "runt") so those with delicate sensibilities, easily offended eyes or a nervous disposition should avoid this story to avoid mental distress, disorders or damaging derangements of dangerous and diabolical dimensions.

Finally I estimate this story would take roughly one hour to complete, give or take, and the reader might benefit from making notes or a map of the island, depending how good their memory is :)

Detective 2: Han Island

Susan Knox returns to solve another mystery! Travelling to the beautiful yet mysterious Island of Han in the heart of the South China Sea the young detective faces another challenge: solving the mysteries surrounding a five-year-old "suicide" amidst rumours of pirate gold. Playable as a stand-alone adventure, the reader must use all their intelligence and logic if they are to uncover the secrets that lie amidst the tangled web of massacres, insanity, skeletons, pirate treasure and, at their heart, a promising life cut tragically short, that make up the history of Han Island. Good Luck!

El Paso

Inspired by Red Dead Redemption this open-world adventure transports you to the exciting and dangerous world of the Wild West. With a wide range of activities, characters, gunfights, locations, weapons and much more available your fate is entirely in your hands: will you survive and prosper to earn a legendary reputation as a deadly Gunfighter of the Old West or will a bullet, a shallow grave and a long-forgotten, lonely, wooden cross be your fate? This is the first story in the Gunfighter series, I have checked it carefully but if readers notice any broken links or anything not working as it should please notify me so I can fix it. This story is a bit long so, like a computer game, you might want to save and come back to it from time to time. I made the map deliberately small so I can test all the features and make sure they work well, if all is good I will make larger worlds in the future. Enjoy!

HOW NOT TO WRITE- A Pokemon Adventure - Part 1 - Chapter I - Section A: The Beginning of the Start

Rule 1: Unless your story is at least 100 pages long you shouldn't divide it into parts and pay some attention to choosing the correct Maturity, Difficulty and Tags for your story.

As I happen to be on holiday for the first time in about 900 years I've managed to write a little story game offering some examples I've brainstormed or seen recently in badly-written stories of how not to write. Like it's older cousin, The Land of Bad Writing, this story uses examples of bad writing as a way of showing how not to write and I don't have any one story in mind particularly in writing this, just practitioners of bad writing in general.

I've decided to base this story on Pokemon for no other reason than the fact Fan Fiction requires less creativity than most other styles of writing and because Pokemon reminds me of when I was a little Will11 and I, my ten brothers (all coincidently called Will as well) and my nine sisters (the Wilmas 1 to 9) would gather behind the nuclear waste and anthrax testing facility in the woods outside our little trailer park called Asbetos to trade black market Pokemon cards for Plutonium with a mixture of Gypsies, Elves and the Dutch... basically I'm writing about Pokemon because I'm feeling a little Nostalgic today :D

(Rule 1.5: Don't write lengthy and pointless descriptions offering fake autobiographies to your readers).

Hunting the Alphabet Killer

The clues are always there, it is just a case of searching and thinking hard enough... Continuing my experimental grim and gritty approach to detective stories I've scribbled this real life mystery. Written in the style of Hunting the Ripper it is worth mentioning this story is based on true events and people (some of whom are still alive) with about 90% accuracy and as it concerns the hunt for a serial child killer and rapist obviously it is not suitable reading for some, though I have tried to deal tactfully with some of the more unpleasant subject matter. Disclaimer over. As always, thankyou for taking the time to read my stories.

Hunting the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper is dead / Jack the Ripper is dead / He's lying on his bed / Bleeding through his head / Jack the Ripper is dead" - A Victorian Children's Skipping Rope Song.

Death stalks the fog-shrouded streets of London as prostitutes are killed and mutilated in the darkness of the night... As a Private Detective working alongside Scotland Yard you will be faced with the most challenging adversary of your career, a man who's very name has become a byword for terror: Jack the Ripper. Are you smart enough to catch him?

BEWARE: This game is 200+ pages long and will take about 30-60 minutes to read through. Do not read if operating heavy machinery, juggling chainsaws or entertaining small children.

Author's Note: This story will require some thinking and the reader might want to make notes, though with a bit of cleverness and logic readers should be able to correctly identify the real Ripper. About 95% of the information in this story is historically accurate.  Finally as you'd probably guess a story about hunting someone who killed and mutilated prostitutes is not a feel-good family comedy, if you are under 13 I don't recommend that you read this. Certainly do not google "Jack the Ripper victims" if you suffer from nightmares :D

Magellan 1: Race into the Great Unknown

For hundreds of years your people have lived on The Three Islands completely surrounded by a vast impenetrable reef. Scientific advances and large amounts of gunpowder has finally allowed your people to breach this reef in two places, making accessible for the first time a vast unexplored world beyond your country's borders. The ten greatest sea captains of The Three Islands have been summoned by the King to take part in a great race: to be the first to sail around an unexplored world!
You are one of these Captains and an exciting adventure into the unknown awaits you!

Author's Note: My first foray into Fantasy for teenage readers! Inspired by the incredible first voyage around the world by Ferdinand Magellan if this story isn't universally detested it will be the first of a five-part series of adventures! I hope you enjoy it and as always, thank you for taking the time to read the semi-literate scribbles I like to call my writing :)

Magellan 2: Fight for Beliefs

The Great Reef has been breached and your people are pouring out into a vast new world: a world of opportunities, adventure... and danger.

Explorers and traders establishing new colonies on the islands discovered by you and your fellow sea-farers have come into conflict with warlike and deadly Natives and blood has been shed. In response Queen Anne-Marie has assembled a vast War Fleet to sail out to meet with these Natives and establish land ownership by diplomacy or force. As a member of this great expedition you will travel once more into an unknown and dangerous world in the greatest undertaking in your people's history... do you have what it takes?

Author's Note: This story can be read by itself but useful background information is provided by reading Magellan 1: Race into the Great Unknown first. In an effort to try to respond to the feedback of readers I have specifically tried to create a greater interaction between the strong-willed and unique personalities of you and your fellow Captains and also changed the main character's name from Cleo to Leo to make him more... manly. I hope you enjoy reading this :)

Magellan 3: Journey to New Horizons

As you country continue to expand beyond the borders of the Great Reef into the largely unknown world of Magellan worrying news arrives: Tobias Cuthrew, the greatest sailor your people have known, has vanished while on a voyage of exploration into the West. Once more your hard-hearted monarch Queen Anne-Marie demands your services, this time to lead an expedition to find your missing comrade. But is there more to this mission that meets the eye?

Author's Note: As always thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my stories and a larger thank you to the CYOA community at large for giving me a reason to write them in the first place :) I have specifically tried to make this story less linear than the last, with four main story branches.

Magellan 4: Search for Original Ideas

Betrayed by your Queen and hunted by her allies the situation looks bleak for you and your small band of allies. But opposition to tyranny takes many forms and from small beginnings and a few great ideas is it possible you could gain the weapons you need to defeat your enemies while simultaneously protecting your defenseless allies from the vengeance of your foes? Requiring all your ingenuity you are about to embark on the greatest fight of your career!

Author's Note: This fourth installment of the series is a bit longer and more difficult than its predecessors but it ties up quite a few loose threads ready for a big finish in Magellan 5. Thanks for everyone's feedback and support so far! Please be aware teenage readers and those of a low maturity this story is a bit more X Rated than earlier stories in the series as the relationship between Leo and Naomi is... improving :). Homophobes should probably steer clear of this story too :)

Mutiny on the Bounty

In 1787 the HMS Bounty left England with a crew of 46 men to sail to Tahiti, pick up breadfruit trees, transport them to colonies in Jamaica and return to England. This seemingly innocent voyage would result in an incredible series of events including a mutiny by murderous pirates, incredible open boat voyages, shipwrecks, bloody battles with natives, trials, executions and suffering that would leave most of the original crew dead. This is the true story of the Mutiny on the Bounty.

Serious Crimes Investigation

In SCI you are the leader of a team of elite detectives in a violent and dangerous city where you must solve tough and challenging crimes from bank robberies to murders (single, mass and serial), prison escapes, the Mafia and more mundane crimes such as robberies and drug dealing. Inspired by amazing real life cases this story pits you against some of the most evil, smartest and toughest criminals to ever terrorize the streets of urban America...

This story is inspired by CSI (I've never actually seen it but I feel I like the name and the concept :) ) and the cases are adapted from true crimes with some names and details changed. I've decided to make this a stand-alone story and I hope you enjoy it and, as always, thank you for taking the time to read my scribblings.

Sins of the Father

This is a classic whodunit for those readers who feel like solving a little murder mystery. Ten people are sleeping in a locked house overnight, by dawn one of them is dead. Called in to investigate you must carefully search the crime scene, interview the suspects and find the clues to determine who the killer is before time runs out but beware: almost everyone has something to hide and to discover the murderer you must dig deep into the secrets that hide behind the closed doors, faded photographs and old memories of every family home. Are you clever enough to solve the Graves Mystery of Hanging Hill House?

The Donner Party

In this story-game you become a member of the Donner Party.
The Donner Party were a group of about 90 men, women and children who tried traveling to their new homes in California by an unfamiliar route across the Salt Lake Desert of Utah and the Sierra Nevada Mountains but met with enough misfortunes and suffering to kill half the group and leave the remainder scarred for the rest of their lives...

The Land of Bad Writing

You knew you should not have eaten and drank so much on Christmas Day, a troubled sleep leads to a nightmare where you find yourself trapped in the worst place imaginable: The Land of Bad Writing! Will you ever escape?

Authors Note: I should point out I have assumed about twenty different author's voices to give the worst examples of bad writing as possible as a guide of how not to write. If you want to know what my usual style is like message me or read my other story-games. It is also worth pointing out this story-game isn't aimed at anyone's stories in particular but practitioners of bad writing in general.

The Lost Expedition Part 1

You are a Victorian Adventurer, a man who explores dangerous places and does dangerous things for the thrill of it. Following your recent expeditions in Africa you have been invited to the island of Marco, recently claimed by the British Government. Landing in the port of Victoria on the east side of the island you soon learn why you are there: a party of fifty men led by a certain Captain Donovan have vanished on an exploration expedition into the unknown jungle interior.
Your assignment is to find him and learn what has befallen his men, though you will be lucky if you too do not vanish from sight and knowledge beneath those deadly trees...

Author's Note: As this is the first story game I will have posted I am only posting half of it while I get used to the scripting etc. If it is not universally despised I will post the sequel Donovan's Curse (2) as soon as I have written it.

The Lost Expedition Part 2

You are a Victorian Adventurer, a man who explores dangerous places and does dangerous things for the thrill of it. Following a month of searching the deadly island of Marco you have found the remnants of the lost expedition of Captain William Donovan, a renegade officer who seems to enjoy his role as adopted chief of the local Yantu Natives. You and your men now find yourself at the mercy of these dangerous and war-loving warriors... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author's Note: This is the sequel to The Lost Expedition (1), the first story-game I wrote on this site over two years ago, and my entry into the January 2017 Wilderness themed competition. I think everything I've done in these Lost Expedition stories I've done bigger and better in the Magellan stories but I'm glad Bucky's competition has given me the motivation to finish this little two-part adventure. To get the most out of this story I recommend you read The Lost Expedition (1), first, though this can be read as a stand-alone adventure.

The Reign of Terror

You are an amateur detective plunged into the heart of the 1920's Oklahoma oil boom, where one by one native Osage men and women are being brutally murdered. As more and more are slain you find yourself increasingly alone in a desperate world of shadows, unsure who to trust, not even knowing if you will be the next to fall... This is a remarkable and true story of murder, conspiracy, and insatiable greed. Do you dare to experience the Reign of Terror?

(If you enjoy this storygame and wish to know more of the true life history, I recommend David Grann's book Killers of the Flower Moon.)

The Screaming Skull

In this medium-length Whodunnit you assume the role of a professional Detective having to solve a crime with a difference: not only do you need to identify the perpetrator of a brutal and gruesome crime but you also need to identify the victim too... In this one I've deliberately gone for a more grim and gritty "true crime" sort of thing than my usual stories so if you suffer from a delicate nervous constitution or are just a bit of a wuss then probably this story is not for you :)

The Spanish Armada

The year is 1588. King Philip II, Catholic head of a vast Spanish Empire that stretches across the Americas and much of Europe, is poised to invade little England with a vast fleet of 130 ships and 55,000 men, only the little English fleet stands in his path... In this story you play the role of Martin Bertendona, one of the ten Squadron commanders in the Fleet. With deadly challenges and difficult decisions you will do well just to survive, let alone avoid the dangers of either capture or imprisonment in these dangerous times... This is my 20th story game, a personal milestone, but one of my shortest yet coming in at around 40 pages. It is not my entry for the 2019 competition, I am still working on that, just a little story I threw together when I had a few days off work combining my twin loves of history and people having unpleasant experiences at sea :D I hope you enjoy it.

Some easy to follow, ten step advice that could help you improve your story writing!

Dude… Ok, I’ll put in my two cents worth. Your post is an opinion not a fact, and it is a very strange opinion to have about someone you don’t actually know in real life. If I went to a psychologist and told them I’ve just accused a stranger of wanking to pain he is not going to tell me I have a healthy, normal mentality and invite me to babysit his small children. Malk has hardly even posted anything for the last month so I’m not sure where the basis for your strongly-held beliefs come from apart from a recurring loop in your head that seems to say “Malk bad, Malk bad”. Malk’s been around for 10+ years (in fact, I think he was one of the first to welcome me to the site) and interacted with probably thousands of individuals in that time and you are the only one of them to form this opinion (thought I accept it may be possible that some of those who Malk has spoken to might consider him a wanker...). Absolutely no one agrees with your ideas though, as in 0. You spent a month posting countless posts about leaving (and still haven't) and arguing your point and convinced nobody (and, incidentally, I think people were incredibly patient with you sucking up so much of their time while resolutely ignoring every single thing they said). Now, either you are right in your baseless beliefs about Malk being the Antichrist (though tbh, I would have thought End seemed the more obvious candidate) and the hundred or so people who have seen your post are wrong or, which is statistically more likely, it is possible that you are the one not perceiving things accurately and the other 99% of people are correct. If you have an opinion that is different to every other person’s who you interact with you really need to explore the foundations that opinion is based on and seriously consider the likelihood that it is erroneous. If you can accept the possibility that your ideas may be wrong then you need to give serious thought as to why you have these opinions because posting the things you do on a website about writing multiple-choice adventures is not a normal thing to do (even for this site) and for people who don’t know your history who are they more likely to believe: the guy who hosts a reading group and helps run the site or someone yelling warnings about claiming to know the sexual fantasies of a stranger? Which person comes across as the one to avoid? You used to be someone who wrote decent stories and interacted normally with others, now you’re the guy who makes random and wild accusations leading to you being banned every time you make an alt account. You might want to give some thought to the mental steps that took you on that journey and seriously consider if it is a rabbit hole you want to keep going down or whether you should reconsider where all this started from and where it would be healthier to go with it. Also, it might be healthier to leave the internet alone for a bit and do something a bit different, like going outside. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity so it might be good to mix things up a bit and try some new hobbies, it might make you feel a lot happier in general (though do try to keep it legal...).

I like to be different :) My friend painted eggs with her daughter, bought chocolate eggs and hid them around the house, I think that was a bit more Eastery.

Happy Easter! I forgot it was Easter until a Russian friend reminded me and gave me some cake, so I went out for BBQ then I had a chill night at home with Mrs Will11 and watched the lesbian comedy Bottoms (which was very good). Pretty typical day tbh :)

Haha, I was wondering :D

Happy 10 year cys birthday :)

This is a really good edition this week, I think the interviews are especially interesting :) One teeny tiny question though... who's Aethel? :D

Keeps me permanently happy :D

Hanging out with friends, watching funny stuff, reading a good book, writing, drinking, smoking, playing an immersive computer or video game, treating yourself to nice food, some intensive exercise, having a bath... those are the ones that come to mind.

Fantastic work, as usual, and great interviews :D

A fun little site, thanks for sharing :)