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I'm a fan of story games and I've always considered making one of my own, but recently I finally decided to make one, there's just one little problem. I have no idea what to do. I'm a great story teller, and I count myself a decent writer, with no shortage of ideas, but I've never tried writing a storygame before so if anyone could offer any suggestions, that would be immensely appreciated.

I haven't made a story game, but these articles should help:

http://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=70

http://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=57

Typical Aman - making it hard for everyone haha!

Clickable Links:
http://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=70
http://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=57

Bah! No one needs clickable links. Anyways, I'm too lazy to figure out how to make them. 

Also, we forgot to say this, Welcome to the site! (referring to the new user, not you BZ. As much as you believe the world to revolve around you)

Thank you both for the links, although I confess I used the clickable one.

I'm guessing the part you have trouble with is the multiple paths and choices, given you see yourself decent at the story/writing part.

Couple things I've found useful:

• Have a rough idea of how you want the story to go. Keep in mind the actions of the player still needs to affect the story, but the changes won't make the story a completely new one, just lead them down different paths. You can still have an idea of how you want it to begin and end.

• Break it into chapters, both literally in the editor and in the story itself. Almost all of EndMaster's stories (usually regarded as the best author here), follow this format. It's a great way of keeping the story organized, and when you have many branching paths, each where the player may know different things, keeping track of all it becomes quite hard. Worth noting that there can be multiple parallel chapters (and there usually are). For example you'd probably start with one Chapter 1. Then two-three Chapter 2s depending on how big the choices you let them have affect the story. Then four-nine Chapter 3s, etc. How many depends on how long you make them really, but don't get too overly ambitions, 3-4 unique paths (with diverging failure paths) is usually plenty.

Some more obvious, but useful ones:

• Make choices directly relate to their outcomes. It's fine if you want to throw in a twist, and have their action have some sort of unforeseen consequence or something, but if you make an option that says "Stab the guy", and my guy trips or otherwise does something stupid for no reason and fails at it, it's just gonna piss off the reader.
• Less options with meaningful choices, are better than more choices with little meaning.
• Flow charts can be helpful to keep yourself organized, you may also want to write notes.
• You don't need items or variables or scripting to make a good storygame, so unless you find a need don't concern yourself too much with them. Don't use them for the sake of using them is all I'm saying.

Good luck!

Thank you for the advice, however I have some more questions, I've noticed a few games that most people seem to call advanced storygames, I'm guessing this is because of the option to "use" items or abilities, however to be honest, I've always found this to be immensely annoying as it always ends up being a somewhat random choice to see which works and which doesn't, but I'm not sure how others would react, would this be something good to implement or something bad? Also, I've read and completed a good deal of endmaster's story games, no need to tell me that he's considers the best, I'd actually been a member here for a couple of months, it's just that this is the first time I've decided to well, do something other than read a storygame

It depends on the type of story you want to write. Do you want to make it such that the player can only choose how they want the story to go, or do you want them to be able to affect the story in some way if items are available to them? Like in fighting fantasy, a certain page might say 'If you have a bronze key, turn to the page with the same number as it. if not, turn to page 196.' 

EDIT: Or you might want to just create a storyline, then write it out and have two choices at each page, so one choice usually leads to 'GAME OVER YOU LOSE' and one leads to continuing the story.

You don't need to use items to make a fun story. A fun story is something with an engaging plot, a Protagonist you can care about, and choices that seem to make a difference in where the game goes.

One method of writing a story game is to plot out each choice point and then fill in the middle parts. Another is to just write till you get to a choice and then take each path as it comes, going out to the next choice, and so on...

Either way, good luck (and don't get too close to Aman's mustache - I hear it has fleas)   ^_^

My last point answers that lol. You don't need anything fancy in your story if you don't want it there, though it is recommended you upgrade to the advanced editor, because it's a nicer editor overall (again, you can ignore the additional features or even disable them).

It's not a good or bad thing to implement, just your preference and how you plan to execute the story.

Well, I've just started the game, and just so I can be sure, does a story about two twins who are polar opposites and grow up to become something close to avatars of good and evil sound like too much of a cliche?

Nope. Cliches are fun too!

If done well, with something refreshing and not totally predictable, I would say that could be great.