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hallo i'm new obvs

1: are curse words allowed? i mean i barely use them, but like if, for example, my character wakes up to being eaten by an alligator, they can at least say "oh sh*t" without the censor, right?

2: how do the ratings work?? like what exactly does "you must be this tall to play mean"??

3: and what if i make a story in which the MC just never dies, like a cartoon character? does that count as difficulty rating 1: no possible way to lose?

fuck you

oh

well thank you! i guess it means curse words are allowed

We like to get right to the point around here.

Anyway, for the other two questions:

2: This is just the maturity rating which is from 1-7. A one meaning it's wholesome and full of family hugs, while a seven means its grimdark and if there's a family hug, you're probably doing it while naked with your sister. Just try to use common sense when you're assigning the rating to whatever you're creating.

While it says there's an "8" level, there actually isn't. At least not technically. If you've got a story that's pushing the limits of degeneracy (And I'd advise you NOT to do that unless you know what the hell you're doing) then give it a 7 and slap an extra warning on the front page.

Of course this won't actually stop anyone from reading it who isn't supposed to, but it at least makes it look like you made the effort.

3: If you make a story where the main character never actually dies, it still depends on the endings. You could still "lose" without actually dying. There's examples of stories like that around here. The difficulty level is sort of arbitrary, usually I just take into consideration how many death/shitty endings a story has and assign the level accordingly.

oh wow
ok thank you!

I think others have pretty well covered this, but just adding a reminder for any of our more edgy members that we don't usually allow any extreme racial language on the forum. That and the no NSFW images rule is about it for censorship, although mods still have discretion in other situations.

(No NSFW imagery in storygames either of course, that's the quickest way to get banned.)

Really you could've answered the language question yourself by browsing some of the other games here. I still recommend you do that, especially the higher rated ones. Doing some reading and checking out the comments on things will give you an idea of reader expectations as far as formatting and quality, and maybe some ideas of different branching styles and what the more advanced features on the editor are capable of.

ohh yeah
ofc ofc

yep! i'll definitely take a look around at some of the stories

thanks again!

1. Speech is more or less unrestricted here. You can call someone a faggot or retard, no one will care.

 

2. 1/8 = Appropriate for all ages. It would have no potentially objectionable content.

    2/8 = Comparable to a G movie rating.

    3/8 = Somewhere between G and PG.

    4/8 = Around PG.

    5/8 = PG-13 or so. You start getting into the milder side of violence and some gore here.

    6/8 = Between PG-13 and R. Would have vividly described and a lot of gore.

    7/8 = Equivalent to R. Definitely has extreme violence, likely to have sexual violence as well.

    8/8 = Not allowed, as it would be breaking most of the rules on the site.

 

3. Difficulty is pointless. Give it whatever you want.

well ok thanks!

Difficulty matters more if you're making a game reliant on puzzles and inventory and the like. Which the editor is capable of, but it doesn't often get utilized that way because the preference has just really shifted to narrative focused games that readers can just click through over the years.

You might choose to base the difficulty on how rare "good" endings are, but really that one is all pretty subjective anyway so just pick whatever.

ohh okok
makes sense
ty!