With a fat deadline, a very open prompt, AND bribery, I really did pull out all the stops I could think of to encourage a decent amount of stories off of the heels of summertime apathy- you lot had me sweating at the end there. Regardless, this could've gone waaay worse, I'm perfectly happy with around a 50% submit rate, and the first-tier bonus incentive has officially had its conditions met!
Now, let's go ahead and get the rankings out there;
1. Re-election Campaign, by Orange
2. Fey Light, by Fluxion
3. Rainbow-1, by Fabrikant
4. Yet Another World-Ending Scenario, by fresh_out_the_oven
5. Fleeing the Forest, by benholman44
6. GOL'BURGER, by MiltonManThing
7. Ignis and Aero, by Clayfinger
8. Falsely Accused, by RKrallonor
9. Into the Darkness, by Cat2002116
10. Scapegoat, by sitelung
11. It Happened At the Waffle House, by Petros
DQ. Witness, by Anthraxus
Orange for some time now has been one of those really good writers who will place highly in contests, but never quite at the top of the mountain; not for lack of contest-winner-worthy stories, mind you, BITKC for example would have been good enough to win most contests.
She really locked in this time around with an extremely high effort showing (it's a FAKE 100k but regardless), I would say Re-election Campaign hovers comfortably around the 7-8 mark, making it the winner of Sherbet's Summer Synergy Contest. Congratulations to the resident bear.
Fey Light trails not too far behind- Fluxion's stories tend to be really cool, even if they force me to turn the CYS chrome extension off. Fey Light feels like solid evidence that Flux is going to win a contest one of these days though, not if, but when. A really great and, well, grimdark addition to the site.
Another high effort storygame, Rainbow-1, takes our third-place spot. This one is already pretty underrated, but that might change once I actually go and rate it myself; absolutely one of the better 'first storygames' I've seen in my time on CYS- Fabrikant will go far, with a bit more proofreading.
Fresh got locked in pretty late in the contest through trickery and cruel tactics (I don't remember who did it exactly) but had an impressive and humorous showing regardless.
As for Ben's story, well, this was probably my personal favorite piece of his writing that he's contributed to the site so far. Do with that what you will.
This contest followed a recent theme, where while there wasn't an abundance of storygames, almost everything that got submitted IS solid (so don't feel too bad if you placed low). You could make a case that everything outside of the bottom two is at least a five; Ignis and Aero, GOL'BURGER, Falsely Accused, Scapegoat, and Into the Darkness make for a very respectable midcard in this contest, with most of these writers making their storygame debut here. And hey, props to Clayfinger for showing up early- and hey, props to Cat2005920357390582235235236347856 for coming after Darius's title. I will not say what that title is.
Petros is lucky he's funny. Waffle House having 14 ratings while Fey Light has 2 is criminal, though, I may have to overload his engine with molten cheese for that. I may have to kill him.
Witness was an unfinished storygame, lacking real endings, and leaving me fairly disappointed, but that didn't stop me from reading what was there. And what is there is fine, I'm sure it would be a solid short story if it had more time in the oven; but naturally, it doesn't quite meet minimum site standards, and for that reason, I am out.
I have amassed a google doc of more in-depth thoughts on most of these, which will hopefully some day be translated into a bunch of featured comments (assuming you people keep your stories up; if you don't, I may have to kill you).
Thanks for your participation in the Summer's End Synergy Contest, points will be handed out soon!