Having graduated from high school about a year ago, it's spring break of your freshman year. What better way to spend it than at the beach with your best friends from high school? After an exhausting week of partying, you crash on the couch and finally get a rest.

Then your eyes slowly close... and open again.

You're back in your high school. Only, it's... odd. Different. There's not a breath of life but your own. Is anyone out there? Is this a dream and you can't wake up?

Are you going to make it out alive?

...

Hey guys! This is a bit of a smaller, more casual project that I've been working on. It's more of a interactive short story rather than a game, but hopefully it's still an interesting read. Let me know what you think, if there are any errors, or just say hi! Enjoy your journey!

-J.

*All art was created by me. Please do not use, repost, or copy. Thanks!

*Warnings: Brief mentions of drinking and smoking, implied violence, explicit language, and horror scenes; this story is for mature audiences.

Vinnie's life was rather boring. In fact, It wasn't an interesting life by any means. To a spectator, it was terrifically mundane at best. But, hey, Vinnie liked it this way. Better safe than sorry, he often said to himself late at night. Better boring than dangerous.

At least, that's what he thought.

After swerving his car into traffic, doctors say Vinnie is suicidal. Persecutors say he's insane. Killer or not, jail time or psych ward, it may be a long time before Vinnie gets to say hello, sunshine again.

...

Hey guys! This is my first published game here and I hope you enjoy. It's pretty basic--more of an interactive short story rather than a CYOA--but hopefully I can delve into the advanced editor and make something a little cooler soon. The concept was just something I came up with late at night that I thought would be pretty malleable/easy to maneuver in this format (though I don't really have any experience with law, so let me know if any of my research was off or if I need to fact-check these ideas). Please leave a rating and a comment if you're willing so I can improve on this and future games!

Happy trails,

J. 

Thank you--that's pretty much what I was going for! And thanks for the pfp compliment, pixel art is probably my favorite form of digital art (and the only one I can do lol) :)

I really like this piece! I liked your shift in tone from despairing to somewhat hopeful while still keeping it melancholic the entire time--I think that's really difficult to do well, and you succeeded in that. I also like the imagery in the the 1st stanza and then when it almost repeats towards the end. And your story is subtle enough to fit your style of writing, but still concrete to fit into the narrative poetry prompt. Great work! :)

This is an older poem that I revised slightly for this prompt, hopefully it's okay--it's about a pretty weird night I had last summer lmao. Let me know what you think! 

I spoke with a ghost named Malcolm,

Who’s been dead for thirty years,

On a kitchenette floor at midnight

Empty bottles inhibit my fears.

I talked with a ghost so friendly

As he swung crystals left to right

On safety-pin leather strands

From twitching, oil-scorched hands

Words slurring, prose polite.

The ghost neither upsets nor offends me,

Rather quite the gentleman,

He's appeared in my vision now,

The cabin’s longest denizen.

I mused with a ghost, Listen closely,

I’ve been feeling very odd,

Who is he? Who is me?

Head is slumping to a nod.

Now tell me dear ghost, Named Malcolm,

Have you ever been in love?

Then, the room turned cold,

The pendulum lost hold,

No telling, no speaking of.

Thank you so much! Yeah, I can be very bad at reading over and checking my own stuff, especially if it's not printed out--which is how I prefer to edit--so I probably wouldn't have caught those diaglogue issues (I have no idea how I would print out the whole thing, epecially since I made the very unwise decision to draft it in like, three different spots. A good note to self for next time to draft in a singular document). 

In reference to the description and the timing issues you pointed out, I started the story with a very murky grasp of what I wanted the characterization to be, so I think I'll go back to some of the first pages I drafted and kind of revise some of those details. 

Lastly, for the very linear timeline, right after I posted this I actually lurked in a couple other writing workshop threads, and I realized that linear is probably not the best way to go. I'm going to try to add some other endings too, I think that will make for a much better storyline especially for a choose your own adventure site (duh). 

Anyways, thanks again! I'm glad I had my learning curve with this short story instead of a much bigger project--though, I don't expect that this will be my last time encountering issues. Again, I am a newbie. Thank you!

Hi everyone! You probably don't know me at all because I've been lurking on here for a long time (my bad, I can be very shy sometimes lol). Anyway, the very first storygame I've drafted had turned out to be quite the long and convoluted challenge, so I promptly put that one on hold for a while now. But, since I've had a lot of time on my hands lately--I'm sure you guys can guess why--I decided to start a much shorter, beginner-friendly story. It's called "Imprint" and it's pretty much finished, I was just looking for someone with some experience on here to look it over for any grammatical errors/misspellings/edits/notes. It's pretty darn short, maybe like a twenty, twenty-five minute read? Anyway, if anyone has some spare time on their hands and would like to help a very novice writer out, let me know! Or just say hi, that's always very fun too :) Thanks!

Thank you for all your welcome messages and tips for getting started! It really means a lot, and I'll try to upload a profile picture soon too!

Hello everyone! I'm very new here, of course, and just wanted to introduce myself. This seems like a really tight-knit, awesome community and I hope I can join you all with my writing!

My name is Julie and I'm planning on taking AP Language this upcoming fall semester.  I hope that this site can make me a better writer with some extra practice and I'm excited to publish my first game soon! I'm also extremely excited to read some amazing stories--I haven't delved in too much yet, but it seems really awesome here. I posted some more stuff about myself on my profile, so if you want to check that out, go right ahead. 

So yeah, that's about it. Let me know what to expect or just say hi! I'd love to hear what you have to say and I'll likely have a few questions of my own soon. Thanks!