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CYBERPUNK CONTEST

Today we have the honor to announce the long awaited CYPERPUNK CONTEST. Genetic engineered monkeys, cybernetic limbs, Russian robot spies, the possibilities are endless. So pick up your pen, paper or other writing devices and craft your future masterpiece. The rewards are endless; grandiose applause from two random Dutchmen and one esteemed veteran, undying internet fame and perhaps a few extra points if the administrators are favorable towards you that day.

 

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So what is CYBERPUNK?

 

I assume most of you are already a little familiar with the genre. For the degenerate gaming folk it was probably due to the latest cockroach infestation named cyberpunk 2077, for the film aficionados it was probably due to Blade Runner 2049 and for some of you it might be because of the story game CYBERMONKEY hailing from the CYS mother-site. For the upcoming participants who still haven’t gotten a clue what it is, all knowledge can still be dutifully acquired in no time. As for all holy knowledge, one must seek it in the depths of a Wikipedia article. If you type in cyberpunk you will get the following excerpt:

 

“Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech" featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.”

 

A lot of the aspects of cyberpunk can be traced back to the 1960s and 70s by the New Wave science fiction movement. Authors attempted to present a world where society coped with a constant upheaval of new technology and culture, generally with dystopian outcomes.

To summarize in layman’s terms, you have the opportunity to use super fancy laser guns while getting chased down by some crime lords and hackers.    

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So will my story meet the REQUIREMENTS?

 

You have to have a story that meets the site’s requirements. So please don’t submit your freshly baked erotic sonic fanfiction even though it might be your magnum opus. Everything else is a free-for-all as long as it fits into the cyberpunk genre. In the past, writers have added some unconventional and unique elements to the genre. One example of a Cyberpunk work that incorporated fantasy races is Shadowrun, a tabletop role-playing game. Seeing all these previous works who play around with the common genre conventions, I cannot see the purpose in restraining your own creative juices. Thus, fantasy races, fantasy worlds, more gamey story games and even fanfiction are all allowed. However, keep in mind that you probably won’t get a very high score from me if you went on to make a My Little Pony cyberpunk-themed story game. I’m still one the judges.

The two aspects which must be incorporated in your story to be considered cyberpunk are: “the lowlife and the high tech”. The dichotomy has to be here in some way or form.  

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So how do I ENTER THE CONTEST?

 

It's simple, offer you soul to Endmaster and then pledge your commitment on this thread. I'll lock your comment down so you won't be able to back down in the future. The entrance fee is 25 experience points which you'll get back if you have submitted a story that has a score of at least 4/8 and to a certain extent adheres to the other requirements. To submit your story, post a link of it on this thread. 

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So what is the DEADLINE?

 

DEADLINE: 13th of July 2021, 12:59 am EST.

 

Failing to submit your work before the deadline as a participant, grants you a place on my personal list of shame. Furthermore, you’ll get to see my bottomless pit of disappointment. You'll also never get to see your precious experience points ever again. 

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Our highly esteemed @enterpride, @hetero_malk and I, @Darius_Conwright will be the judges of the contest.

 

This contest is only possible due to our lord and saviour Endmaster whose holy fingertips granted us this masterpiece called Eternal. Check it out if you have some spare time left. I'm absolutely not paid or forced to say this. Of course I would like to thank Mizal for giving this fumbling European dipshit some guidance, that sucker really needed it. 

 

 

Good luck with writing!

EDIT: And remember ALL contest entries MUST be written with the CYS editor. No exceptions!

Thread looks great!

Now, you guys might be thinking that simple lower cased shame and disappointment from a random Dutch noob is no big deal, but let me assure you there will be no escaping the Endmaster's pit of SHAME should you claim to be joining and fail to perform. Especially since it was verified this contest was coming almost a month ago. You could've had a few weeks head start if you were smart.

This will of course, also be a potentially easy way to be freed if you're one of the many already in the pit (not that I would know anything about what that's like....) if you consider that TechNoir and CYBERMONKEY are both under 5000 words and still very well received.

I've been on this site for six years and have never joined a contest. That changes now.

and LOCKED.

You can count me in

LOCKED

LOCKED

Nah, but now it is.

>RUN PROGRAM: MOTOR FUNCTION. ACTION: SPEAK<
I would absolutely love to be in this.

LOCKED

Contestants so far

WizzyCat
Nightwatch
Zardoz
Cromwell

Fluttershypegasus

Matthaeus

AmusedSquid

PerforatedPenguin

TheLDMan

poison_mara

Orange

XIIIVampire

Shadowdrake27

DerPrussen

TheChef

yardbird

bilbo

Cool to see some fresh new blood potentially providing stories to the site. (And some old blood as well)

I would like to enter the contest with my 4.5K word story.

LOCKED

Would it be acceptable to use a mix of cyberpunk and steampunk? Mainly using the cyberpunk but a small section with steampunk?

As long as it feels like Cyberpunk, then in my opinion it probably is. So having steampunk elements is allowed. 

I'd like to enter.

LOCKED

I'm in

LOCKED

I love CP! I'm so excited that I've already started writing!

Just realized I overlooked a more obvious prize here, so alternately, I'll offer a redbubble gift card for some or all of the amount in case you want some merch from MHD's store.

Shipping is a real bitch in some of the crazy countries you guys live in so maybe this will help.

I'm probably an idiot for doing this, but sign me up.

I'm regretting this already

That's the spirit!

You did us all a big favour. Go get 'em tiger!

Sure, sounds like a fun time. Can I ask if there's a maximum length? Or if nothing specific, is there any general range an entry is expected to fit within?

Locked. No maximum length. The action-packed CYBERMONKEY story is around 4k words, but a decent story can be told in 10-15k words if it's not on adrenaline. Feel free to go long.

WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE


Uh, I mean, no maximum word count. And no minimum either, although generally speaking it's hard to get a decent amount of branching in anything under 10k, so that may hurt ratings unless your writing is just hellaciously stylish.

Count me in!

LOCKED

I was told contests were dying before I accepted this. What the fuck happened the last 24 hours

I'm sorry Enterpride. We're in this together now. I'm dragging you into the hellish pits of binge reading.

An excuse to be a Luddite? Sign me up.

Consider yourself signed and LOCKED

Here's some inspiration cyberpunk music to stir the creative juices

WANTED: a goddamned pair of pants

The thumbnail is probably part of Endmaster's plan to convince others to join the dark side. 

Glorious propaganda. 

Those in cyberpunk dystopias have no time for such things.

I've seen some early birds turning in their work, how is this even possible. Nevertheless, I'm pleasantly surprised. As for the procrastinators; chop, chop, chop! I'm expecting a 70.000 words long epic, 100 pages of concept art for the future movie adaptation and a picture of your adopted cat by the end of the deadline. 

I've added the appropriate edit.

Thanks. I thought about doing that, but then I didn't.

I adamantly attest my commitment to this contest.

Locked.

Are we permitted to let a friend make art?
Are we permitted to let multiple friends make art?
What about open-source contributors from out there in the wilds & civilizations of the internet?

sure, sure and sure. We really only care that your writing is decent and done with CYS.

I have reluctantly decided to join this after playing with some story ideas and getting positive feedback/good advice (thanks to those who commented on my other thread). While I fully expect to be thrown back in the pit of shame, I'll try to actually finish.

LOCKED

Time to get some Chrome!

LOCKED

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/a-metric-measurment-of-death

CHROME!

(No actual chrome included)

Let's fuckin go.  Not often do personal inspirations AND contest topics coincide, but here we are.  I'm in

LOCKED

Good to you! I'm looking forward to your entry.  

Nice, welcome back to the ring. Figured you were going to be sidelined by insane amounts of work for awhile still.

This is what I was made for isn't it? This is why I exist. All right. Let's do this.

Good LOCKED

Is it me or did your pfp get zoomed in even more?

Huh, it did!

I LIVE

YOU LIVE?!

If I fall deeper into shame don't I get banned or something since I got the time zones messed up on the graveyard one?

You're welcome to fall even deeper. You have my permission. I don't know about the others though.

Well technically terrible things are supposed to happen to the triple SHAMED, but I still like the graveyard story a lot so I would intervene to save you.

I'm actually really interested in what kind of cyberpunk story you would put out, it's not a genre I'd normally associate with your writing style.

LOCKED

Oh, well, guess that settles that!

I'm glad I started thinking up a story already haha

Contestants so far

WizzyCat
Nightwatch
Zardoz
Cromwell

Fluttershypegasus - DONE

Matthaeus

AmusedSquid

PerforatedPenguin

TheLDMan

poison_mara

Orange

XIIIVampire

Shadowdrake27

DerPrussen

TheChef

yardbird

bilbo

So with the contest being almost halfway, who has already started on their entry?

(Don't mind the hypepony casually writing something and submitting it probably as soon as the site's physical limitation lifted.)

200 whole, real words.  

Those 200 words better be the best words out of all the words around.

I think I'm doing pretty well for myself.

Let me just check my word count. 4k... Hmm.

I have 29k so far, and I haven't even finished with one ending yet. Yes, there will be more than one...

Nice! Keep up the pace!

how do you find the word count?

Hover your mouse over the play length spot in the main page of your game. Example...

Play Length ?/8
"Unknown"

You wanna hover the mouse over the question mark and the eight. It will tell you how many words are altogether in the game.

I've started, but I don't have nearly enough down for how much time is left. I'm around 2-3K words out of a planned 30K+.

Not sure if this is going to turn into an epic day where I write a ton on the deadline, or if this is going to be a 5K word story that says, "Please don't throw me in the pit of shame!"

Still got a month, you're fine.

True. I won't have to fake my death and assume an alternate identity to avoid shame for another couple weeks here...

I'm so happy to have not entered this contest. Just imagine, I could have had this light, responsibility free feeling for *every* contest...

Next contest you will surely join the struggle, right? Right?

My usual thing is to helplessly and immediately join every contest, then be miserable at my lack of progress right up until the last day. In the last hours before the deadline I will usually abandon my entry and frantically throw something tiny that barely qualifies together in 4-8 hours.

I've actually had surprising success that way in the past, but Panic Writing Mode failed to activate the last couple times and now I'm double SHAMED.

Ouch. This is why I fear contests. I am just lazy enough that I can see this happening to me.

 

I think judging contests would be similar too. It would sound all fun an exciting until I had 10 stories to read and judge. Then, everyone would want to know the winner while I read 1-2, got bored, and went to do something else for a month.

Volunteering to judge these things months in advance, both times just seemed to invite my life to go haywire right before the deadline so I didn't really get to enjoy the experience at all, just the pressure and badfeels from making people wait and not doing things the way I planned.

I'm so glad this is a problem for the Dutch now.

I can imagine. I doubt that I'd ever be asked to judge one, but it seems like it would be fun if there were a small number of participants (that finished). If things were busy in life, then it would become annoying quickly.

My recent bump gave me some of the much-needed Dutch courage. The judging will work out

Anal Porn There was once a blind man who had so fine a sense of touch that, when any animal was put into his hands, he could tell what it was merely by the feel of it. One day the cub of a wolf was put into his hands, and he was asked what it was. He felt it for some time, and then said, "Indeed, I am not sure whether it is a wolf's cub or a fox's: but this I know -- it would never do to trust it in a sheepfold."

I broke the link so we could all enjoy this fine post together.

Did the link always read as such, or was that your doing?

That smooth segue from one subject to the next is all the bot's doing.

How many peeps are almost finished?

So far just the brony is done.

If Engineered Desires wins by default I'm going to laugh until I cry.

And then I'm going to start executing people.

I don't know if I should be relieved or devastated by that prospect. 

I will end the game. Sadly between my illness and what happened in my family, I couldn't make the game I was aiming for, but still, a game is better than none. I will present. nOT PRESENTING THAT WOULD BE DISHONORABLE.

Better question--how many people have started?

I haven't made any progress recently haha.

Still got 11 days! Eleven tries to start the story all back up again.

The hyperfocus just kicked in so I'm hoping that means I won't rush the ending like I've had to do with my others

I have just a question. Is the deadline set at 12:59 pm? Usually, the limit hour is at midnight, not in the middle of the lunch break. It feels weird.

I meant midnight by that. 23:59. Small slip of the mind on my part. 

The Dutch maffia is against such things as mid-day food breaks. Should've had a proper breakfast!

Fixed the time in the OP as it was meant to be AM.

Might as well get that straight for all the people startng their stories this weekend.

You have, in fact, make shorter in 12 hours the deadline.

lol get rekt, contestants.

This is that random Dutch guy's fault for not being able to edit his own posts.

Okay, now it's fixed. He probably didn't mean for you guys to have the extra hour, but that's good for just a tiny bit more time to be panicked and miserable for the last minute scramblers.

Thank you! Americans do always save the day after all. 

Yay, just saw this. Time to cut one of my branches...

It would've been over with seven hours ago if I hadn't edited, but NOW you get to stay up all night and scramble. You're welcome.

In that case, thank you:p

Original deadline was for 12:59pm on the 12th, which would've been lunchtime for EST. He didn't intend it that way though so I changed it till after midnight.

You disappoint me, hobbit.

....cat?

You disappoint me, short hairy creature.

Deadline soon

Contestants so far

WizzyCat - DONE
Nightwatch - SHAME
Zardoz - DONE
Cromwell - DONE

Fluttershypegasus - DONE

Matthaeus - SHAME

AmusedSquid - SHAME

PerforatedPenguin - SHAME

TheLDMan - SHAME

poison_mara - DONE

Orange - SHAME

XIIIVampire - SHAME

Shadowdrake27 - SHAME

DerPrussen - DONE

TheChef - SHAME

yardbird - SHAME

bilbo - SHAME

Deadline sooner

Deadline soonest.

One last evening lads. Onwards, for glory and country! Or was that the wrong genre?

Me showing up with my last minute entry of 110,000 words of brilliance and stunting on you h*es.

 

 

 

 

 

JK, yeah we all know I suck and all my work will never be done. I did join the contest (in my mind) so expect it from me in a couple months...maybe. Probably not...

locked. Welcome to the shame pit

Shall I provide a link once I am finished?

It's customary

>RUN PROGRAM: KRYSIS...<

 KRYSIS

The game has arrived, and let me know when something is broken, missing, or when there are misspellings. Hope you enjoy.

This is the true value of contests. Even if they're a total flop *as* a contest and 80% of contestants wallow in stressed out misery for a month or two and then ultimately produce nothing anyway, there's usually at least one major game added to the site that wouldn't have been otherwise. And that makes everyone's suffering not only just entertaining, but also worthwhile.

.....this is all assuming you didn't screw it up in some major way, and don't plan to yank it down immediately after judging before anyone really gets a chance to read it.

Edit: well formatting is generally considered a major thing, whooooops....an easily fixable one though.

I published already with a cover full of orthography errors. But hey, not Shame for me.

@Cromwell

For future reference, you might benefit from this article, and learning to use $DEST: https://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=46

You story word count appears to be about 50% copy and pasting, that seems incredibly tedious and painful and could be avoided in your next game with some simple scripting.

I did it, I published a storygame with two minutes left. Since I'm a sappy dipshit, I feel like doing a self-reflection, but I'll save it for the morning. Right now, I am going to pass out. I love writing. Peace.

Linky

I'm sorry but this post is too wholesome for the theme.

But damn, you wanna talk about squeaking in juuuust under the wire...

And that's time, no further entries will be accepted.

The SHAME pit really is going to feast tonight.

Well bilbo and Orange managed to get Triple SHAMED. Great success!

Well that's annoying, they've been around too long to ban, but neither are ever around and doing things enough to force into any kind of entertaining punishment.

If I had my way in the latter I'd make them co author a story with fluttershy. They'd all be good for each other.


Meanwhile I've never been so happy about my decision to not enter a contest for once lol.

I knew I shouldn't have entered... but hey, now I get to hangout in the shame pit again...

Next time we should do something together. You are awesome

Thanks Mara! I'm just not motivated right now.

I will always be here to help you. You are a great writer

I'm finishing the story the right way. Sorry:/ I will get it posted hopefully by the time school starts and I get busy again.

I'm considering whether to throw all you guys who just got SHAMED some kind of life raft.

I saw Peng (RIP) do a self-reflection in the Grimdark contest, and thought that it was a good idea. Maybe it can even become a CYStian tradition, who knows?

When I first joined the contest, I didn't even have an idea in mind, I just knew that I wanted to finally publish something after being a total shitter for 5 years and being a slightly more useful shitter for the last year. I thought a contest would be good motivation, especially because I enjoy sci-fi, and after reading CYBERMONKEY I was in a cyberpunky groove.

I did some planning, but as always, I had beginning and ending in mind, with no idea on what happens in the middle. So, I wrote out the beginning with pretty consistent writing sessions for about a week, and got around 6k words done. After that, I completely stopped writing, played Valheim, worked, and sat on my ass. Then, when the deadline was a week away, I began working seriously, trying to write 2k every day. Unfortunately, I didn't plan for the days when I would end up hanging out with friends or ripping a bong and be unable to do any work (I learned the hard way that it's impossible to write while you're high, at least for me). It led to me having to write 5k on the day of the deadline, and as people in the discord can attest, I lost my fucking mind. However, when I finished and hit publish, I felt a wave of euphoria: I finished my first storygame! My personal goal before the contest was to not get thrown in the shame pit, and I succeeded. Sure, I had to cut out about 10 pages of content and only finished with minutes until the deadline, but nonetheless, I wrote 17k words, and I think that a couple of scenes in there are pretty good, and the story itself is pretty unique and cool. Another issue is that, due to the immense lack of time, I tried to do something interesting with very few words in each epilogue, leaving more to the imagination of the reader and fundamentally breaking the "show, don't tell" rule. I'm not sure if that worked, so my apologies.

Unfortunately, I still had to cut a lot of content, so this contest really taught me a lesson about work ethic. Consistency is very important in writing, and in my next project I hope to take that seriously. I wanted to create a branch-and-bottleneck from the beginning, but I ended up having to cut some very interesting parts and making it much more linear than I intended. If you pay attention, it's pretty obvious where there should be additional choices. Speaking of, I tried using scripting and variables for the first time, since my WIP cave of time doesn't really use those, and I think (key word here, since I didn't actually have time to proofread) that led to some more variety that can maybe give you two more-or-less different playthroughs, if you just pick polar opposite options in each one. There was supposed to be more though.

Interestingly enough, I don't feel burnt out. Yesterday night, as I was lying in bed, practically shuddering from that last-minute frenzy of writing, I had a new idea. My next story is going to be Halo fanfic, with intersparsed work on the 100k (so far, that's 1/4 done).

Now this is the part where I beg you to read my storygame, and please give me whatever juicy feedback you can. While I appreciate a 5 and *monkey noises*, that won't help me improve, and I want to do just that. Hopefully I'll finish my 20k fanfic by the end of my summer vacation (about a month left), and that will be a more complete experience than this one. Who knows, if people enjoy this story enough, I'll unpublish it, spend a couple days banging out the extra planned arcs, and republish a complete story. Just read it please; I worked so hard on it.

Ah, since I'm the one who did the write-up and stuff, I would like to thank everyone for their hard work participating!  

I would like to thank everyone who kept track of the contestants and kept the thread alive and well. Things would be a lot more tedious without their contributions. Although some people willfully forgot about the deadline, there were also some splendid entries submitted! It was fun reading through each of them. 

The winner will be announced as soon as possible. The Dutch are busy folk you know. 

Congratulations on the ones who finished, nothing but shame for those that didn't. Especially the two that should be banned. In the meanwhile I'll try to fit the reading in between the beach cocktails and lounge ports.

For those of us who are pretty unfinished, should we publish the work-in-progress or should we "allow sneak preview" & provide the numerical suffix for the storyID which would allow readers to preview our story?

If it's not finished, you can just put it on sneak peak mode and post a link of it if you want to. 

Oki! I just posted the sneak peek with link!
Please let me know if the appearance/formatting is not allowed.

Holy shit  this is so cool! So you're also planning to install mini games. This a hell of a big project you're working on, looking forward seeing this finished

Thank you so much! I didn't know if the format/color (or games!) would put people off.
After losing hope of submitting it in time, I became excited to at least finish my first interactive story.

There is that new contest now which accepts any kind of sci fi game...

CYBER-RESULTS/NEWSLETTER

---------------------- MESSAGE INCOMING -------------------------

Dear members of CYStia,

Joyous news will be shared to all of the denizens in this mesmerizing summer day. Blood, sweat and tears were felt throughout the whole world as the competitors for the neon-lit throne rolled up their sleeves and sharpened their laser swords for the upcoming battle. Many warriors of the written word have fallen during the bloody two month long war, their bodies buried in the pits of shame, but many old and new talents have persevered and risen out of the ashes. Six entries have been submitted as offerings, though only one will be crowned as the king of the cyberpunk contest.

After many days of deliberation and binge reading, we are glad to announce Wizzycat has beaten all the other candidates and taken it duly earned title as the winner of the CYBERPUNK 2021 contest. Wizzycat’s story “FAILsafe” has the vibe and the attitude, the wittiness and a well-written visceral torture scene as one of the judges had described to me. It’s a solid work and a great read overall. Give it a look if you haven’t had the time to.

CYBER-COMMENTARY

If you are also curious about my individual commentary of the other stories and my trash taste in general, you can find it in this little section. I’m overjoyed that no one had dared to insert ponies or their original anthropomorphic animals into their works.   

Engineered desires by fluttershypegasus: It’s a little bare bones, probably due to the time constraints. With a bit of polish and some proofreading, it would be a enjoyable short story. I would say that I would like to know more about the two factions before I have to make such an important choice.

A Metric Measurment of Death by DerPrussen: The sentences and story were easy to follow which is always something that should be praised. However like engineered desires, I smell some cut corners. Many scissor snipping noises have been heard while I breezed through it.  

Gig: blast damage days by Zardoz: There was some effort shown though like the entries above, it just feels not entirely complete.

Sylicon Lipstic by poison_mara: An overall good read. I also like the torture scenes. However, it took some time for me to get used to the prose due to its gratuitous use of questionable word choices and metaphors.

KRYSIS by Cromwell: I genuinely thought that you had written a whole epic, though some people have pointed out that half of it was copy pasted. I felt a little betrayed after finding this. However, I still want to compliment you for writing about the types of food people eat in your setting and the open world style beginning.

CYBER-CONCLUSION

And so, the CYBERPUNK 2021 contest run by a deranged degenerate Dutch noob has officially ended. Thank you again all for your enthusiasm and hard work.

Enterpride and Malk had really helped me in the judging process. Their experience and support had really made my day. If something about the contest organization should warrant an applause it would be these two wonderful folks.

Rejoice or whine about the results denizens!

CONGRATULATIONS WIZZY AND ALL JUDGES

Congrats to Wiz and to all contestants except fluttershy.

And a big thanks to the judges for reading all these so I don't have to!

Here's my unfiltered scorecard, ranked and everything. Congratulations to everyone who finished his or her piece.

Engineered desires, (3) - There was nothing to engage the reader with and read more like an abstract (what if we could hack our brain), than an interesting story. Moreover, it was almost proslethysing and thus stands in stark contrast with the genre it's supposed to be in. Also, why the fuck would you turn in a rushed piece when you've still got thirty days left, although you could call that being the true winner of a contest.

Gig. (4) - While the action and suspense made it better than the previous entrant, the endings felt too rushed and the language too disjointed to really enjoy it as it stands. While I can ignore the many mistakes, the plain language read as if a drunk told a too good to be true story.

Metric measurement of death (4) - A broken link seems to be in line with the short rushed atmosphere this piece radiates. However, unlike the other two, I could enjoy the writing and the action, especially on the barber path. Nothing bad, but nothing too good either. A pretty solid middle-hitter designed to stay out of the pit.

3rd place: Krisis (5) While the effort is clearly present, the lack of paragraphs and a weak opening bounced me off the story. And while I appreciate the sandbox start the game, the complete lack of narrative made all descriptions, names and factions overbearing.

2nd place: Sylicon Lipstic (5) With the language used being low-bearing fruit, weighing the ranking down, the explicit torture scene and detailed cyberpunk setting pulled this story up towards the five out of eight. As always with Mara's stories, you encounter things you never thought of before, like booths of brainsex (are the nostrils artificially widened, or is it VR?) and deepthroating eels.

1st place: FAILsafe (6) With an engaging story, good dialogue, and a visceral torture scene, this entry ends solidly at the very top. A good enjoyable read well within the cyberpunk genre.

Congratulations, WizzyCat, and everyone who submitted a story! I'm looking forward to reading the new storygames when I get the chance to.

I honestly didn't expect that, but thanks a lot! Also, Malk, please share your thoughts and feedback (if you want to), because you kind of kicked this off and were a judge.

Also, I once again ask you to read my story!

Malk: "Sorry, all my votes went to CYBERMONKEY."

Well done all who managed to avoid the shame!

And congrats Wizzy :)

Congratulations to Wizzy!
In spite of the mass shaming, it was still really nice to get a handful of new storygames out of this contest. Looking forward to the next one!

There was a contest?

Uh.. I mean... congrats, @WizzyCat! Nicely done.

I thought to myself "hey Cyclonis, wasn't that cyberpunk thing on CYS over this week?" so I came over here to see how it ended.

With a whimper, it turned out.

I had the idea for the story a couple of months ago but never really got around to it until now. After writing it I planned to write more but I realised after I was done that I didn't enjoy writing it. The story just became too bleak, more so even than something like my Fallout story, so really I just wanted to get it over with which is why it was rushed. I totally get why many people didn't think this story was good, but quite a few people seemed to think it was decent, or at least didn't think it was totally irredeemable, so ultimately I don't regret publishing it, though there's probably a lesson there about not straying too far from what I'm familiar with...

4.00

2.91

I honestly thought that more entries would be submitted, but this was surprisingly manageable. All things considered, now I really have a lingering itch to join the next contest haha. Whatever the theme is, count me in. My monkey brain still says that a shiny trophy would be nice. SHINY.

Alright, I've put been able to put my feedback into a more manageable format and clean it up a bit for public consumption. Here we go, in no particular order...

FAILsafe was my choice for winner. It wasn't perfect, and the linearity in particular was a bit grating; being locked into certain choices based on my invisible morality stat was not ideal. The invisible morality stat was a real problem, especially with how easy it is to break; when I was chasing other paths, I managed to discover a scenario where both endings were available which I don't think was meant to happen. Also I'd be remiss if I didn't mention dialogue punctuation. C'mon man.

Even still, it had what I was looking for in a winner. Good vibes, an attitude, and fun characters. I mightily aprpeciated how Wizzy essentially just made a cyberpunk Lethal Weapon movie. Good shit, Wizzy, looking forward to your epic game.

Engineered Desires was very cyber, but suffered from a terminal lack of punk. Moreover, it wasn't really a story, per se, it felt like a Wikipedia summary of someone else's story. It had a real didactic tone that felt preachy, at times.

Gig: Blast Damage Days suffered from pretty severe syntax issues. Severe syntax issues were a real common thread in this contest. Also, it was a pretty paint-by-numbers story; if you played any of the side-quests in Cyberpunk 2077, you've played Gig: Blast Damage Days. It is a fanfiction, though, so perhaps it deserves kudos for accurately aping what it is playing in the universe of. Not a bad entry for a first time.

Metric Measurement of Death likely would have won if DerPrussen didn't get his story wiped by a hostile netrunner intrusion and have to restart. It painted its crapsack world pretty well, even if the crapsack world is a well-worn cyberpunk trope at this point. Also, I actually liked the action; I like maybe 1/10 of the action I read on CYS. Unfortunately it was pretty obviously incomplete. Please bully Derp into writing a longer game.

Silicon Desires was a respectable length and had the most bonkers worldbuilding of any entry. Unfortunately, it too was plagued by severe syntax issues, to the point where the plot was not totally clear to me throughout. This, coupled with the odd vignette-ish format, made it a pretty confusing read for me. The author is ESL, though, and should be commended for a solid effort nonetheless; Mara's English is way better than my Spanish.

KRYSIS terrified me when I saw its 100k word count. After poking around, a bit, I saw that it was an inflated wordcount made longer by copy/pasting. I didn't fault Cromwell for this, because it's entirely possible that he was just highly unfamiliar with the editor, which can be pretty difficult to navigate.

Despite the obvious amount of work put into KRYSIS, I couldn't give it the win. It too was plagued by the syntactical issues that a lot of people suffered from. Also, for a work of its length, the characters were pretty thin. I'm hard-pressed to remember the name of a single side-character. Ideally, for an epic-length CYS game, you want some memorable characters for the audience to remember for. Also, I personally am not a fan of exposition dumps, but I recognize they have their place.

Everyone who submitted something should give themselves a mighty pat on the back, and everyone in the Cyberspace InfoPit of Shame will be ravaged by hostile I.C.E. until they produce a contest entry. Good show, everyone. Had a lot of fun reading these. And a big sexy congratulations to WizzyCat for winning this thing.

I think the real difference between boring dystopia and cyberpunk is some flair and mohawks. I do hope we get more cyberpunk in the future, because it's a good genre, but rather sparse in terms of content (and this contest didn't help very much, unfortunately). Also, I'm going to the beach, and I'll have plenty of time to write in between college bullshit, so my rewrite will hopefully be done in a week. Basically, I'm just adding everything that I cut, so there should be a bit more branching and a couple extra epilogues sprinkled in.

I'm kinda upset with myself more for not entering this, but I just haven't been in a great place mentally for writing for awhile now, and I've been feeling tired a lot.

Absolutely could've fucking smoked all but two of the entrants though. (Those two are just a "probably".)