Hi guys. Got a lot on at the moment, so haven't had a chance to join the discussions :) Anyhow, a few words, and a few opinions:
Yes, most of my stories have only a handful of links in them. Though Ulysses had up to 6 on some pages, the Captured and Mechanised Assault Unit stories only had about two links on the occasional page. Mostly because I think up a linear story and plot from beginning to end, and then try to add a bit of interactivity to it, rather than branching off lots of ideas toward different endings as I go. Though MAU did have two end branches of plot, still not much interaction for a game book website, I know.
As for being "more concise", or "writing less on my pages", I'm afraid I never worked out the art of writing brief, tending toward the ever increasingly verbose, and always blab on and on to get across whatever I'm trying to say, because I can't think of easier ways to say it, so I'm afraid it's just my writing style. I'm used to writing linear stories, so I still find making choices that branch the plot off in different directions difficult, but hope my 'game book' stories will improve as I write more of them.
With the competition date having drawn near, and not much free time, I decided to just publish Captured and MAU as they were, without spending more time adding branching off paths to them. 'Captured' wasn't written as a 'win a competition' story anyhow, just a short idea I had that I wanted to write during some free time I had, so you can ignore that one if you like :)
I'd probably say the better stories were Necromancer, Equilibrium, Mechanised Assault Unit, Terra Proxima, and Ducky Park, in no particular order of importance.
I've never liked the idea of 'point a pencil at a chart' random number systems. It's too easy to point at the number you want, and the story was made to be played on a computer, not just meant for it to be printed - stabbing a pencil at a computer screen has never been a good idea. However, there was plenty of content and choices in the story.
I liked the constant forward flow of Equilibrium, it had a sort of 'action action action' feel to it when I read it.
Ducky Park was a fresh story of humour. So much seriousness on this website.
Necromancer and Ducky Park were harder for me to read, as I'm one of those people who finds reading stories that are full of strong coarse language everywhere to be off-putting and offensive. However, I acknowledge that Necromancer was a Maturity Level 7 story. As for Necromancer, I've always thought such language out of place in fantasy style stories, associating that sort of thing more with 'modern genre' or 'a ragtag group of rough military soldiers' than fantasy literature, so it was a stumbling block for me when reading it. Anyhow, I won't go into a debate on swearing, as people of different cultures/backgrounds/religions all have different views on such things. However, Necromancer was well written, good choices, and nice length. I liked having the "what sort of world is this" section so that the reader could get an idea of the setting the story took place in, before commencing with the story.