Non-threaded

Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

A place to sit back, hang out, and make monkey noises about anything you'd like.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

Hey everyone! I've been visiting CYS on and off for like, six years now (damn, just realized that), starting when I was literally eleven years old. Hence, my disgusting username and cringe-inducing storygames. I don't remember exactly how I found it; I was probably going through a phase of being obsessed with choose-your-own-adventure books and was searching for some online equivalent. 

So, I'm interested to know, how did you guys discover it? How old were you, and what drew you into it? Feel free to throw in any other relevant details about your life, I would love to get to know the community better now that I'm getting back into writing on here.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Think it was the same with me. I must've been looking up "Online Choose Your Own Adventure Games" or something like that. ^_^

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

After reading all of the CYOAs on Delight Games app and Lone Wolf from playstore I looked for CYOAs on google and landed here. Steve's Achilles was my first read and it felt like a godsent even though I don't like sci-fis because I was really addicted that time to IFs. That was back in 2014. 

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I had read a few CoG and IF games, and I was on TV-Tropes looking for more. So then I ended up finding this site and reading the original Price of Freedom, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Then I read some other stories, particularly those by AppDude. What really hooked me and kept me coming back every few months after was reading Innkeeper and Ground Zero--especially the latter.
I would've been either 14 or 15, can't remember exactly.

Then I finally made an account over a year ago. I think it was right after finally reading Eternal. Funny how I read almost all of End's other stories before his top ones.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I was digging through the CoG Forum and saw a link to this site. Clicked on it and I think I started with Dead man walking, then Ground Zero, Necromancer, then Eternal. If I remember right this was about six years ago. Started an account in the begining of this year.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
I found a really funny CYOA in based on the 3 musketeers and started writing my own on paper a long time ago. Eventually, I wrote it all up in a google doc for easier access, but at some point wondered if there was some sort of website for CYOAs. At first I found IS, but then found this place.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I used to use CYOA books and sites like this as practice when learning English when I was still a kid. I still played them as I got older and became fluent in English though. The first time I can remember using this site specifically was back in 2014. I remember reading the original Price of Freedom pretty much right before deployment when I was waiting for the train. I started playing the games on here sporadically since I finished my time in the service.

As for the forums, it's kind of a long story. I used to be a regular on Choice of Games, but eventually the staff and moderators made that site unbearable. Or maybe being banned for trivial and ludicrous things opened my eyes to just how bad it was. Anyways, my breaking point was when Jason Hill, the co owner of the company, attempted to have a public and unprofessional feud with the lovely Avery Moore. I expressed my sympathy towards Avery and we began talking. She figured I'd be a better fit over here than on CoG and, in her words, "stole me". I made an account shortly after that about five months ago. Still not sure if I'm a good fit but I'm certainly better here than there. 

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
It was June 2018. I had gotten a promotion at work and my new desk was against the wall (so no one could view my monitors). The software program my company uses for basically all our work was getting an update, so I had about half a day to rearrange my workspace for optimum productivity dick around online. I was searching for online text-based games that I could play for a bit and easily minimize for when something important came up. Stumbled upon this site, read Eternal, and felt compelled to write a positive comment with a CYS account. With my brand new account I found the Forums, witnessed a Noob's public execution, (thanked God it wasn't me), and found myself addicted to Storygames. I was drawn in by the second-person POV writing and that I could essentially play as myself in a world created by someone else.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

The site was suggested to me by my English teacher, for a place to put forth my works and get feedback on. But, I had used the site for awhile mostly as a guest for 1-2 years before that, while I was just browsing online for text adventure games; and only read story games not touching the forums. I’ve read a lot of stories here, and just wish I could transfer all those pointless points I gained as a guest. 

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I was searching DuckDuckGo since I read all the free games on CoG and Texadventures had a lot of low tier stuff, so I was on the hunt for more, higher quality reads. I stumbled on this place by accident and created an account some days after. I'm 17 and the first story I read here was (I think) Eternal.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
I found Infinite Story first while doing random searches for interactive stories as an offshoot of my interest in interactive fiction. Then Endmaster mentioned this place at some point and I made an account. The editor and what it was capable of compared to IS captured my attention immediately, although it was awhile before I would seriously use it. (My first thing published here was a demo of about 50 pages, it got a lot of feedback which was nice but oops obviously demos are bad.)

I avoided interacting with anyone back then the most part because everyone here was terrible then and I mostly read games without bothering to log in.

I of course came to regret all the time I spent not caring about points, as back then the fields were ripe with the feeble dribblings of moronic eight year olds and free points later became harder to acquire even before the dailies were removed. But it all worked out in the end obviously as now I've transcended the need for them and rule over everything the light touches.

My renewed interest in early 2016 came thanks to a shitty browser game full of corrupt admins and degenerate players who just wanted to hang around doing ERP all the time instead of playing the actual game. Getting fed up with them ruining everything led to me needing a new place to help work through the lingering phone addiction a year of that game had created. Then Breezy came after me with that call-out thread and shortly after that all the Kiel stuff started happening, I became emotionally addicted to a new form of drama and the rest is history.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I was actually ten years old! I came in with the Warrior Cats fans, unfortunately. I think I was looking for Warrior Cat fanfiction...I’m not sure. I joined officially a few months later, so it’ll be my sixth anniversary in September. It definitely took some coaching from other senior members for me to join the community, and I’ve matured a lot under their wing (lol, if you could call it that, more like influence). It’s been a long time! My username is a result of my budding emo phase. 

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I got a message at CoG last winter about the disgusting abuse being tossed around this site in the mean girls locker room, and I went to check it, not believing that it could in fact be as loathsome as indicated.  I figured that a place like that could only benefit from my distributing sweetness and light, so I leaped into the discord at the height of the most recent rancor between the sites in January.

Serving as ambassador, ensuring that there is no miscommunication, I was content to be an example of a CoGite, to answer questions and defuse conflict.

 

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Read that as 'disturbing sweetness and light'.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

"I was content to be an example of a CoGite, to answer questions and defuse conflict."

Well two out of three ain't bad.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I was a fan of the original CYOA books way back when. I won't exactly say how long ago that was, but it was the last time we had a celebrity for president. Anyway, not only was I an avid reader/collector of the damn things, I wrote a bunch of them, too. By "write" I mean printing out my stories, by hand, in pencil, on paper. I also drew the illustrations and made covers. From about the fifth to eighth grades, I completed seven books, left two more half-finished, and had a diagram in progress for what would have been a tenth book.

In the year 1986, Bantam Books, which published the CYOA series, held a story-writing contest in which the winning author would get his/her story published as an actual book. Even though I was writing my own stories at the time, I remember being very much aware how inexperienced I was, so I never entered the contest. Now if they had held another one a few years later, that might have been different...

The problem with those pre-internet, hand-printed stories I had labored so hard to create was that it was difficult to share them. I think maybe my mother, a handful of teachers, and at least one of my friends are probably the only people who ever saw them. And yet I would spend months at a time working on one...

So eventually I outgrew the whole thing, went to college, never noticed when the original CYOA series went out of print, graduated from college, and then by a serendipitous chain of events became the proud owner of a series of hiking guidebooks for the Adirondack Park. That led to a variety of other writing projects--some of them paid gigs, much of it unpaid, but almost all of it focused on outdoor recreation and wilderness management in the Adirondacks.

So flash forward to February 2019. A guidebook that I finished writing the previous year is due to be released in May, but I'm kind of bored with guidebooks, a failed relationship needs to be replaced with an engrossing project, and I have been kicking around all these story ideas in my head that I have no idea what to do with.

Then I remembered that the CYOA series that I loved as a kid was partially resurrected a few years ago, and wouldn't it be freaking awesome if my next book was a CYOA? I know that approaching a publisher with an unsolicited manuscript is the absolute worst thing one could do. But just to prove to myself I could still work in this format, I wrote Marooned on Giri Minor anyway, and then started on an early version of Secret of the Grass Planet... when I learned, rather abruptly, that the publisher had no interest in even meeting with me.

There was the official reason this particular gatekeeper gave me, and there is what I suspect is the real, unspoken reason, neither of which I'll go into here. But I was worried that if I stopped writing now, I'd never pick the project up again; and I didn't want a repeat of thirty years ago, when basically I was writing CYOAs for my own nerdy amusement.

When I was conducting my internet searches on the subject of CYOA in general, this website kept getting ranked fairly highly by Google, not far below CYOA.com, actually. So rather than dwell in my frustration, I decided it would be healthier to just publish Giri Minor here, rather than let it become some forgotten file on my external hard drive.

And for what it's worth--and for those who care--I had no idea that sites like CoG even existed until after I started reviewing some of the threads on this forum. But it didn't take me long to figure out that I'm a generation or two too old for CoG. I mean really, if I want to read a story about cyborg warfare or some stupid thing, then it stands to reason I'm not interested in the option to have a gay romance along the way, right? Is that really a choice I need to consciously make? Nor do I see the point in questioning what my gender is... because the answer to that question is actually quite self-evident every time I pee.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Banned for 1000 years.
Reason: Hateful opinions going against community values.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

Could we make it 5000? At my age, the first 1000 is almost over, and I could really use the down time to get some writing done...

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

Pretty much the same as Cricket, was bouncing around CoG & Chyoa (Chyoo back then) and did a google search for choose your own adventure books & came across CYS & have been here since

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
I see you were lying in the other thread when you claimed to not be a degenerate.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

nope i'm still a Menace mizal laugh

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

If you were hanging out at Chyoo AKA "The porn CYOA site" and CoG AKA "The faggot CYOA site", you are most certainly a degenerate.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Weird, I haven't heard of Chyoo before... What does the second O stand for? Choose your own orgasm?

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
....yes.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I think most of those folks formed their own new porn CYOA site due to Chyoo having been abandoned by its admins and not updating it anymore. (A common problem with CYOA sites in general)

Last time I heard any update was Stryker going on about how the new site for the literary perverts had a few very well written stories. Not really too surprising though since for some reason you get a lot of the more dedicated writers just REALLY into their porn stories and want to describe every last fucking detail. (Just like some of the better game modders all seem to be dedicated to sex mod sites for some reason)

He pointed me in the direction of one he thought I'd like, but I never bothered to even check it out mainly due to it sounding like it was anime inspired.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
STDs... Gotta Catch Em All! ^_^

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Stryker: "Yes, I do hang out on this porn site, but only for the anime-based literature."

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

Been here since I was also 11, lying about my age not once but twice (said I was 13, then said I was 12, recently owned up to being 11 when I first joined). I had just written a choose your own adventure all by myself and, being an 11 year old, thought it was the best thing ever and I had to share it with everyone. It was a fan-sequel to The Cave of Time, the first of the CYOA line. Googled "choose your own adventure websites" or something like that, found this site, translated the story from paper to site. When I published it I instantly googled the title to see if I was famous (remember, I was a dumb little babbah). Thing was, there was already a sequel with the exact same title. So I immediately unpublished and deleted the game then disappeared for a few months. Came back, the rest is history.

Also, this is my fourth account! Well, technically my third, but I've made four accounts that I've used for several months or so at a time. Still don't know why I got banned on my original account, like yeah I was an annoying goofball kid but I wasn't doing anything actively malicious.

EDIT: Fuck me I've wasted half a decade of my life on this website.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I was really into the Goosebumps "Choose-Your-Scare" series as a kid and some of the other CYOA titles. I was searching for an online equivalent and, like many others here, found CoG and some other flash or internet games. One of the major ones that hooked me when I was around 10(ish) was Alter Ego and around the same time I found this site. Spent a little time as a guest, spent a little time under two different accounts, izfan123, where I wrote two really shitty storygames but talked a little with Fergie and 3J because they were my idols back then, lol, and another named evilzcreation which I don't think I did anything with, probably just lost the password to izfan123 or just hated the name (ironic, considering I dislike the latter as well). Then we have this account which got banned and I believe I had two other accounts after this, but now we have Slasher again.

EDIT: One of the first stories I read was LOVESICK by EndMaster, where I remember crying because I was like "I just fucked my mom, I don't want to do that, I'm so sorry mom" and I think it traumatized me for a few weeks after I finished it, lmao.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
I thought it was your sister that you fucked in LOVE SICK :/

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

You can fuck either or have a threesome, but it was the mom scene that really got to me.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Weird, you'd think I'd remember having a threesome with my mom and my sister. :p

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
You're thinking of Repression, hun.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Oh! That's why I don't remember it... I should really play that game sometime. Incest for everyone! ^_^

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
W I N C E S T

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

Ah, thanks for letting me know. I guess the name slipped my mind compared to the mother-fucking, lol.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I really should make a master list of all story incest for people’s research purposes.

And lol Slasher, you had a bunch of opportunities in the mom fucking arc to actually stop yourself before re-enacting Odepius Rex.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Really tempted to edit in, "And that is why I grew up to hate my penis. Thanks Endmaster!" at the end of Slasher's post...

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

Another reason why I only have daughters.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Oh hey Slasher is back. And he brings such a great quote and mental image with him.

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Everyone on CoG complained about how bad CYS was and how everyone here was an evil Nazi

Given how aggressively boring most CoGites are, I figured this place would probably be better than that shit hole and stuck around

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago
Get an avatar already you fag

How did you find CYS?

4 years ago

I've always been a nerd when it comes to reading - specifically stuff like Red Rising, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc - but it was something like 2015 when I just became super invested in CYOA. So I hopped onto the disgusting Dell laptop that I had at the time and went searching around for some sites that provided opportunities to write and play online CYOA stories. This is the first site that came up, and after a few playthroughs of the Achilles storygames and a few stories from the Endverse, I fell in love with the site.

And uh, yeah. That's about it. Got my formal account registered maybe a year ago and have been working on a few projects that haven't gotten off the ground yet. Really interested in getting things moving again.