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How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Commended by JJJ-thebanisher on 9/13/2019 12:42:06 PM
Full title: How Did You Get Into Interactive Fiction, and How Did That Lead to You Finding CYS? Asked this question in the Discord but decided to post it here after Mizal suggested it. Let me regale you all with my own tale... When I was in 4th grade, I found this one CYOA book in my school library. I loved it, and proceeded to check out whatever other CYOAs they had. First really good one I read was Cave of Time, which I fell in love with, then Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey, and a few others I forget the names of. Around the same time I went looking for CYOA stories online and found Ground Zero. I loved it, so fucking much, and proceeded to make an account and rate all of EndMaster's stories an 8. JUST PLAYING! I found fucking CoG and read Choice of Zombies. Anyway, after that my interest in IF waned until about 5th grade (February 2nd, 2014), when I found my copy of Cave of Time (which I jacked from my school library btw). I reread it, thought to myself "hey, I should do this!" then wrote a short CYOA book on paper. There were like, six endings, all after only one or two choices. I went online looking for a way to get it out there, and found CYS, where I proceeded to copy my story into the editor and publish it. No clue what the word count was but I know it was a 1/8 length lol. I immediately googled the title (Return to The Cave of Time) after publishing it expecting to be instantly famous. Instead, I found that there was already an official sequel to Cave of Time. By the same name. Immediately unpublished and deleted my story. Left the site for about a week, came back, read my first actual story on it (Apocalypse Then I think it was?), decided to make a zombo game which was immediately scrapped... Then disappeared for 6 months. Came back to the site after remembering it one day and stuck around ever since. EDIT: I found the first CYOA book I ever read! Blanked on the name, but this was it.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Imagine being in the 4th grade when CoG even existed ..

I only found them through that Choice of the Dragon game when they started out because there was a thread about it here. It was pretty boring tbh but I thought it was an idea that might take off if they found better writers and did real plots.

Anyway, besides the books in the school library that everybody read, I think my first experience with branching stories was contributing to the old addventure.com site in the 90s. Then at some point later there was a brief stint at the one at littlebull the End remembers probably better than I do.

My interests in text games were more in MUDs and interactive fiction (although some people did write CYOA style games with IF tools like ADRIFT and Inform, and I always enjoyed those.) and it was only every so often I'd go searching for CYOA style games. There were always a few floating around that were just someone's personal website using html links.

At some point my searches led me to Infinite Story, and then from there to here. Although I hated you all for awhile and never wanted to interact with such retards, eventually I got used to you all. The purges of Warrior Cats, freeform RP, and other such crusades against obnoxious children obviously also helped.

Anyway I'm glad I was firmly of the mindset that I liked CYOAs before Twine came on the scene, because the corruptive nature of it, the toxic SJWs that clung to it and the utter garbage it flooded the land with as far as the eye could see, followed by CoG ruining the Int Fiction forums around the same time left a very bad taste in my mouth and without alternatives possibly would have soured me on CYOAs for good.


How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

The purges of Warrior Cats, freeform RP, and other such crusades against obnoxious children obviously also helped.

The glory days.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

To be fair, not many of us were honest enough or had enough time to do systematic RP's based on rolls.  Those that did were already on BHB.

But good God, the furries.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Oh hey, Swift's alive.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Very.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Spent those days reading so many CYOAs on this site instead of listening to lectures. I remember the furries, but left around the time the RP section of the forum was removed. Was there a reason for removing roleplay? I remember enjoying reading everyone's characters, especially when it was a game on a grander scale, like Watchers or Morgan's Liminal Academy.

Stop by here every once in awhile for the nostalgia and old faces.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Oh shit, I remember seeing you around way back in 2014 and 2015. Not sure if we ever interacted though. As for RP... Well, the reason it was removed was because most of the games were becoming low quality drivel instead of well thought out roleplays. I was a staunch defender of forum games for a while but it being nuked was a good idea in the long run I think. This is a site for CYOAs, not RPing.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

We've talked here and there on different lounge posts. 

Thanks for the answer! I agree, many of the games were very low quality so I never really bothered looking into them. There were a couple well-written gems I enjoyed being a part of. I'm disappointed that not only were the roleplaying games deleted, but also the games with a thought out system went with them. BerkaZerka's "Ant Battle" game was really cool cause everyone got together to fight in a bracket.

Very happy that there are even more members now after all these years.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Among other things, it made the people who were only here to RP go away.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Well, we can thank the Twine and COG communities for being big gay, otherwise we wouldn't have Mizal. Also lol ur old E: and yes, as 3J said, the glory days.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Re: that dragon game, I distinctly remember that in the thread everyone was trying to figure out how to fuck the other dragons.

In hindsight, that should have been a warning sign.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Oh I did see that game, I remember thinking it was dumb that very few of the choices actually felt they mattered.

Including this one, not in a I want to bang them way, but in more of a “I’m a hopeless romantic and if I can’t find this dragon love why does all of my cunning even matter!” Type way.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Oh god... I remember emailing the developers asking for them to add this only to realize that you already could but it was just a few extra paragraphs of text that amounted to literally nothing.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
They have a porn section now and innumerable furries among their population. One day someone there will make all your dreams come true.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I think there were CYOAs in my school library and I really enjoyed them and decided that I wanted to write my own.

I can't remember if I found IS or CYS first, but I'm pretty sure CYS was on page 20 of Google and my stupid 10 year old self actually was that deep into my search. I'm also pretty certain that this is my 3rdish account because I kept forgetting the password when I'd go live with my mom for the summer.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Jeez, page 20 on Google? These days if you search "choose your own adventure website", CYS is the first thing you see. Whack to think that we weren't always the best of the best in the online interactive fiction community.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

M E T E O R I C

Yeah, this was myadventuregame times just as the forum was launched, I think.

Edit: I'm guessing the insane amount of time the average user spends on here once they join probably really helps our page rank.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I forget sometimes that the site evolved from... This. Such a simpler time it seems.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Yep -- that's how it looked when I joined.

I resisted the switch to this layout until Alex went ahead and killed off the old one. Like a year after he released it.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

So when are you gonna kill this layout?

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
There's a CYS extension that pretties up the site, but 3J will kill you if you use it.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
This thread seems familiar...

Well for me I grew up in the 90's so I used to find a lot of second-hand gamebooks (mostly fighting fantasy) from the 80's in second-hand book stores. After I got to China in 2014 I got a bit bored with the no-one-speaks-English-life-is-too-short-for-me-to-learn-Chinese thing (seriously, Chinese is super difficult) so I spent more time online, browsing for online gamebooks I randomly came across this site and stayed. Things have got a lot better now (I learnt Chinese!) but I still drop by the site usually at least once a day to see what's new :)

Fun Fact: I have never joined another internet forum and don't spend much time on the internet. Don't understand "internet culture" really, just quite like this site.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Well, let me be the first to say that I'm glad us little omnidirectional vitriol-spewing gremlins managed to get you to stick around, Will.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

This is practically the sweetest thing I've ever read.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
:)

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

@fleshnblood_78 @madglee

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Thank you for sharing Chris! And thank you for re-posting here for those of us not on discord.

My story is similar. I believe the first experience I had with CYOA books is the Goosebumps series in elementary school. I do not particularly like the horror genre (funny because I read a lot of these books, and my second published story on here is a horror), but I loved being able to change the story with my decisions.The more I read those books, and re-read them for different endings, the more I wanted to find similar types of stories.

When I was in middle or high school (around 2008), several years later, my brain evolved and I got smarter. This sudden increase in intelligence allowed me to realize that if you Google anything you usually find it. A quick internet search of "Choose your adventure story" led me to chooseyourstory.com. I read several stories back then, including Necromancer and later Eternal. I Read many more, and not all were by EndMaster, but I remember those two and am reminded of them every time I see the top five story games box.

After that I completely forgot about this website and CYOA games in general. Clearly I was too cool for them in college. Last year I missed this story format, and remembered this website by name (it is pretty easy). I read a few more stories, and then made an account to try to write one. I did not get far, and got too busy to really come around much.

That takes us to the present, when I logged on the website near the fourth of July and saw the "Lone Hero Contest" posted by Mizal. I am not a huge fan of Westerns, but one long thread and 12 cowboy clips later I was motivated. I wrote a short story for the contest, but could not publish it because it was only 5-6 pages long (all of these were like 2500 word pages though). After making it into the pit of shame and losing all my hard earned points, I got some good advice and encouragement from mizal.

Looking at threads this seems to be atypical, but I am grateful. That prompted me to finish my first story game (Clearstone) which was supposed to be in the lone hero contest. I then did some research and read more story games. I even updated a second game I had made to practice using variables and links. The story was started a year ago and published recently (Inheritance House). As a disclaimer I wrote 90% of the story without having an ending in mind, then had to go back and update everything to match my ending when I found a good monster for it.

Now I am working on a story that (hopefully) is actually good to contribute non-crap to the site. I will continue this work (Dark Master) after I read all of your stories and sleep. 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I don't know what you did exactly to tick Endmaster off and lose the points, but it's pretty rare to make a full recovery from that and it was gratifying to see you skyrocket into a worthwhile newbie and prove that I was right and he was wrong. (It so rarely works out that way...)

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Hell, I don't even remember either. Normally I have a good memory, but there gets to be a point where you're just penalizing and banning so many people, it all just sort of blurs together.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Lol I guess I will be more careful, I don’t wanna be on the banned side of that blur.

Also thank you Mizal, I am glad I am not a huge disappointment to you lol.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

That's awesome, I remember reading CYOAs as far back as probably 5th grade, and Cave of Time was one of the ones that really intrigued me too.  I can't remember any of the other ones, but I remember going down that entire section of the school library, picking them up and reading through them.  Past Cave of Time I can't remember the other ones I read by name but I do remember some kind of haunted house related one.  We had basically the same introduction to CYOAs lol.

I didn't find CYS til like freshman year of high school though, after reading Choice of the Dragon and deciding there had to be better stuff out there.  Ground Zero is also (somehow) one of the first stories I stumbled across and still my favorite.  I created an account then and wrote some shitty stuff that never got published.  Now I'm back with higher standards for writing so hopefully it goes better lol.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I found this place before Infinite Story, but at the time it was too civilized and I wasn't ready for that sort of commitment right after giving up trolling.

So I went to IS instead where things were a bit less restrictive and quieter.

Later on I wandered back over here when March invited me and eventually as IS started to become more and more of a ghost town, and this place became more fun, I was hanging out here on a more permanent basis.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Some Chef guy told me about this cool website with a bunch of creative writing. Instantly liked it. 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I remember reading a Garth Nix CYOA in a book of short stories. It was really funny and he wrote it when he was 19. It was inspired by the 3 musketeers and was a strangely light diversion from his usually darker work. That night at 15, I started writing my own by hand. I did 25 pages back to back before converting it to a google doc. Left it for years, came back to it, then one day searched up CYOA. Found IS, then this place.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Pretty sure it was the zombie survival game. I searched for a zombie survival quiz or something and it popped up in my searches. I skulked for a while then did a few writing contests. End of story (or one of the endings anyway).

In hindsight, my parents thought choose your story books were satanic so I never read any. I don't remember why, they thought most things were satanic at one point or another. But yeah, Iliked this site and didn't let them know I was on it.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I wasn’t really into Interactive Fiction before joining the site. The software we use at work was being updated, so I was web-browsing looking for games that didn’t look like games if someone glanced at my screen. Ended up here, read Eternal, and felt compelled to create an account to comment on its greatness. I think around that time Rogues was published and some noob got collectively shit on by the community, so it seemed like a worthwhile place to hang out.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

In fifth grade I came across my first CYOA book, I think it was the one about the black cat in a mansion or something. After I moved on to middle school, none of the teachers had any COYA books, but the school did hand out computers for every student. I looked online for a COYA story site, and I came across CoG. And of course, it was blocked by the school. So I scrolled down and found CYS. (I swear this site has been blocked at least five times but then I think one of the teachers kept needing to use it lol.)

 

EDIT: the book was "The Mystery of Chimney Rock." (I tried to put in the img but I broke the page lol)

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Thanks for all the comments folks, it's nice hearing about how you all found this place. Also, 3J commended my original post. Thank you 3J, very cool.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Thanks for sparking this discussion :)

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
When I was younger I loved the physical copy CYOA books, such as Journey Under The Sea. When I was in sixth grade, my friend showed me this site, where I read Necromancer and then forgot about it completely. I rediscovered this site in 8th grade through a different friend, read Eternal and got hooked, and now here I am.

TLDR: I discovered the site through EndMaster’s stories and then got hooked through EndMaster’s stories.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I followed the trail of omnidirectional vitriol.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

What type of pokemon you are? As certainly you are super effective against Sam

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
It's less of a trail and more of a machine gun turret defending the walls of our sweet castle. Like the castle has gargoyles and iron spikes festooned with the corpses of our enemies, and a necromancer running the library and everything, it's pretty awesome.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Do you think I will find how to enter the castle some day?

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
We can put you in charge of our Armada.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I first read CYOA books in elementary school. My teacher had a bookshelf we could borrow from, and I remember taking a good number of them before running out and going to the library for more. Only a few stand out- one about insectoid aliens that try to take over the polluted Earth, another about some kind of space vampires. The library, though, had Give Yourself Goosebumps, which stuck in my memory a lot more. The one in the wax museum, the one with the mad scientists, and the one where you explored a classic haunted house.

I stumbled on CYS in middle school, read and was in awe of Ground Zero, came back a couple years later, read and was in awe of Eternal (which only had the "Beg" path at that point), and then left again for a while. When I came back, Eternal had all three paths and I was in awe all over again. Tried off and on to write something myself but never finished anything until the Ballad contest. Since then it's been off and on, usually coming back every few months to play a few games and revisit old favorites. 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I stumbled on CYS in middle school

Whoa, you signed up in 2011. That's way earlier than I was expecting. I wonder how many people are signing up this year but won't be active until 2023 or later.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Well, I wrangled two friends of mine into joining and they have yet to do much of anything, I'll be sure to remind them to go write something in 2023.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

LOL.

Set a reminder in your phone, I look forward to their first stories.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Well, as for my story, I actually stumpled upon Cog before CYS one or two years ago. In that time, I didn't even know what is a Choose your own adventure book but I was really hooked to it as soon as I read the first ever story in the page. Personally, I found a lot of great stories in there but my best picks would be The Great Tournament and all of the other works by Philip Kempton. As for CYS, I just found this website recently when I surfed the web for another CYOA types of community. And here I am, just stand around and read everything catch my eyes. So yeah, that's that...

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Eheehee, hasn't this been up before? It doesn't matter, now let me sing you MY tale~! Or perhaps not, as my excellent singing voice is extremely difficult to convey over the stiffness of Arial font size 13  on a blippy computer monitor....

I really liked telling stories as a kid. In fact, I told my sister bedtime stories aaaall the way up until I moved out! Back then, though, I had this CYOA book about time travel. There was a part where you gto stuck in a time loop, so you had to bounce between pages 26 and 72 forever and there was another part where you convinced the natives you were magic shint God man by taking pictures with your terribly outdated camera flip phone! Not to be that guy, I mean I myself had a terribly outdated camera flip phone all the way up until college...But! To be that guy! I can't play anime waifu rythm games on a snappy-cracky flip phone, huh!

  Final, I had discovered.....THE INTERNET. So hip. So cool. At a young age I was very interested in the idea of making games (even though I had almost no video games as a child) so I googled "choose your own adventure games" in the magical search bar at the local library. Boom! Easy! Also, there was lots of Warrior Cats at the time! Also, Earthbound (i've got a better handle on my ADHD now, huhu)!

  It's been forever, hasn't it? I mean, I made this back when I was using puddlebunni as my internet name. Now I go by kalechips, and before that it was motionjames... I've really been here for a while, I think. Also, I'm still using the original tan/beigey theme with the suspicious looking man at the top. Is that normal?

  In all this time i've only published one story. Well, two, if you count that Warrior Cats fuck-off shitpost, but lets say one. Even if I don't post here, CYS has been an integral part of my development as a game dev. It's probably my favorite little chasm of the internet. :))

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Not sure how I got into CYOA books, but I really liked them. So one day I just wanted to read online choose your own adventure stories, so that's what I searched up on google, and CYS was one of the fourth or fifth things the popped up, so I clicked on it. 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Commended by EndMaster on 9/14/2019 6:55:32 PM

I was a young reader and writer and had only recently discovered CYOAs online. . .

1

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This place was too charming, so I did come back a couple months later and actually join! :~)

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

That's a really charming drawing! ( *u*) It really is!

Back in the drew I think I drew a bunch of CYStians, back when steve was thing. I should try it again.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Wasn't that the old castle shown in IS?

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

This topic came up a couple months ago. But I'll share my story again:

I was a fan of the original CYOA books way back when. I won't exactly say how long ago that was, but it was the last time we had a celebrity for president. Anyway, not only was I an avid reader/collector of the damn things, I wrote a bunch of them, too. By "write" I mean printing out my stories, by hand, in pencil, on paper. I also drew the illustrations and made covers. From about the fifth to eighth grades, I completed seven books, left two more half-finished, and had a diagram in progress for what would have been a tenth book.

The problem with those pre-internet, hand-printed stories I had labored so hard to create was that it was difficult to share them. I think maybe my mother, a handful of teachers, and at least one of my friends were probably the only people who ever saw them. And yet I would spend months at a time working on one...

So eventually I outgrew the whole thing, went to college, never noticed when the original CYOA series went out of print in the late 1990s, graduated from college, and then by a serendipitous chain of events became the proud owner of a series of hiking guidebooks for the Adirondack Park. That led to a variety of other writing projects — some of them paid gigs, much of it unpaid, but almost all of it focused on outdoor recreation and wilderness management in the Adirondacks.

So flash forward to February 2019. A guidebook that I finished writing the previous year was due to be released in May, but I was kind of bored with guidebooks; a failed relationship needs to be replaced with an engrossing project; and I have been kicking around all these story ideas in my head that I have no idea what to do with.

Then I remembered that the CYOA series that I loved as a kid was partially resurrected a few years ago, and wouldn't it be freaking awesome if my next book was a CYOA? I know that approaching a publisher with an unsolicited manuscript is the absolute worst thing one could do. But just to prove to myself I could still work in this format, I wrote Marooned on Giri Minor anyway, and then started on an early version of Secret of the Grass Planet... when I learned, rather abruptly, that the publisher had no interest in even meeting with me.

There was the official reason this particular gatekeeper gave me, and there is what I suspect is the real, unspoken reason, neither of which I'll go into here. But I was worried that if I stopped writing now, I'd never pick the project up again; and I didn't want a repeat of thirty years ago, when basically I was writing CYOAs for my own nerdy amusement.

When I was conducting my internet searches on the subject of CYOA in general, this website kept getting ranked fairly highly by Google, not far below CYOA.com, actually. So rather than dwell in my frustration, I decided it would be healthier to just publish Giri Minor here, rather than let it become some forgotten file on my external hard drive. I expanded Grass Planet well beyond my original concept and published that one in July. My third story is coming along much more slowly...

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

That is awesome, and I am excited to read your series. It is next on my list!

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I'd actually forgotten about that thread at the time I suggested making this one to Chris. It wasn't until Will posted that I remembered it, lol. Oh well, the other one was made by some strangely ancient random anime avatar'd noob I didn't recognize, we can make this the official one. And there's been a few new members join since the last thread.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I remember finding a couple of CYOA books in the library in middle school.  I forget the name of them, but one was like this cool spy thing and the other one was about hanging around an alien spaceship or something.

Never had anything to do with them until college, I just looked up "choose your own adventure stories", found a couple inferior sites before stumbling onto CYS.  Lurked for a bit and read GZ and Eternal, a few others too before making an account.  

 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Eternal.  Enough said.

And to answer for Malkalack, since I doubt he'll be on here of his own volition for a good bit : he followed me in from a gaming forum.  Better writer than I was at the time, so I gave him a chance to join a community that could help him grow.

I actually regret it to this day.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Why do you regret it?

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

He became like a younger, less tolerable Drakilian lol

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
He's actually improved quite a bit by now. And he may be entering the Battle in Ancient Ruins contest over on IS in exchange for the return of his account.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Intriguing.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I came over here because of a thread on CoG about sevenish years ago that praised Endmaster's writing.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Just saw this, but this is a tale.

An 11 year old turtle was obsessed with Naruto, so he went online looking for stories. Then he came across the first and the last of the ninja. That lead me to discover this site, and then make on the cys most wanted list, but hey, we all want to be wanted right?

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Don't worry Jefftheturtle/MrAce/Serpent, your secret is safe with me.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Fucking hell, Melissa's story brought you here? That explains everything really.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Ah, yes. The story of how I joined CYS.
It's a long story.
It all began with my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Captain Flint (the IV). He started his life as a poor boy, but eventually he-
blah, blah, blah, plot twist, long story.
And that is how I ended up, proclaiming with a loud voice, "I, Marcus Fletcher, hereby declare"-
Oh.
Oh riiiiight.
The story of how we joined CYS, not...uh.
Oh.

So my story is a short one.
Back when I was a wimpy 6th grader, (cause now I'm a 7th grader, and that's not wimpy at all) I randomly decided to make my own Choose Your Own Adventure Story. I had recently started really liking them, so I went onto Google Slides and started writing one. I used hyperlinks as my choices, and those lead to different slides. It was a simple thing, simply a discussion between a speaker and yourself. However, it turns out that the speaker is actually a psychotic person, and this leads to several different endings. You can become friends, die, be locked up, and other...things...
I think in total I had about...8? endings, and I was quite impressed with myself.
That got me thinking.
What if there was a place online that had a collection of CYOA stories, and what if I could make them too! I could be cool and write stories!
So I looked up "choose your own adventure online".
And I stumbled across this site. It was actually the first result. But there was also a second one. Infinite-Story. I looked at both of them, and it didn't take me long to decide that CYS was better. However, I had a hard time deciding whether or not I actually wanted to make an account. But I did. And I'm really happy I did.
The first story I ever read on this website was "Innocence Lost".
Even though I'm still a newb (or noob, or n00b, or newby, or nooby, or whatever weird terms people have), even though I don't really write on here very much, (I've been very busy writing non-CYOA stories, and making my character go insane by killing his little wolf puppy friend, but that's a story for another time. And also murdering fictional people. Lots of that. Also another story for another time.) I honestly really enjoy this site. This place has made me laugh...and well, really just laugh.
This little corner of the internet is amazing, and I really hope it stays that way.
(I mean, it's not perfect. Nothing is. Don't let that go to your heads.)

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Nah, man. It's perfect and has gotten to our heads now. You've unleashed a monster.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Back in the early 80's, I was aware of computer games by looking through my older brother's computer magazines. Probably my earliest awareness of Interactive Fiction. Then around 1984 my aunt sent me a birthday present of two Choose Your Own Adventure Books: Space Patrol, and Trouble on Planet Earth. I was in love and quickly started seeking out more CYOA books from the library. Around this time I was also getting increasingly interested in Dungeons and Dragons and so I soon came across TSR Hobbies' line of Endless Quest books (which were based on several TSR rpg games, but mostly D&D) and began reading all of those too. From there I went on to Joe Deavers' Lonewolf gamebooks. These were pretty much my sources of IF, and throughout the 90's I would find old copies of these books and purchase them.

Around the same time, I was interested in laserdisc games. I'd always gotten my ass handed to me trying to play Dragon's Lair (a BEAUTIFUL cartoon that makes for a TERRIBLE game) but the games where you pointed a plastic gun at the screen and shot at "actors" were fairly playable.  I wasted a ton of quarters on Mad Dog II, although when I finally got to the end of the game Mad Dog ALWAYS killed me!  A few years back I found DVDs of the lasergame Who Shot Johnny Rock?, a hardboiled detective game from the company that had put out the Mad Dog games. Gameplay for that on my home computer sucked because I only had a lousy mouse, which isn't a very good controller for a shoot-em game.

But the game got me to thinking about interactive fiction games and eventually I found the Infinite Story site. I signed up for that but never got around to writing anything for it. Then I stumbled onto Choose Your Story. My degree is in English (for whatever that's worth) and I'd taken creative writing classes when I was in college in the 90's. I've written several stories, some published in a now-defunct zine. I figured with that kind of a background, I might try my hand at a CYOA. So I wrote The Dolls' Quest. Now I'm slowly plowing through a second one-- which will hopefully be finished before the year's up. Writing can be fun at times, but usually it's a pain in the ass. But I shall persist. :)  Here are some of the sources of my inspiration for pursuing this medium.         

Image result for space patrol choose your own adventure images    Image result for Trouble on Planet Earth choose your own adventure images     Image result for Return to Endless Quest images   Image result for Return to Endless Quest images   Image result for Lonewolf gamebooks images  Image result for Who Shot Johnny Rock? images

                           

 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I had found a couple of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books throughout my time in Elementary School. The first path I ever completed for a cyoa game was a historical one about the Vietnam War. At the end I was blown up by friendly mortar fire. I was 7. Later I played a few more historical ones as well as one of my favorites about a colony on mars.

I was in 6th grade when I found this site. I typed in cyoa sites and started scrolling. Choice of Games was blocked on my school iPad but for some reason infinite story wasn’t. I quickly grew tired of how garbage and unfinished most of the stories on infinite story were (I was young and retarded( I still am), it’s not my fault I couldn’t find the top rated page). So I kept on scrolling. 3 pages in and I found this site. One of the first stories I read was Eternal, in which I spooned a guy’s eye out and hatefucked a svelk. I was 11. I’ve had a few nasty failures of accounts that were all butchered in the occasional round ups and mass executions of middle schoolers (thank god), I’m now in high school and have learned from my mistakes (hopefully). Now excuse me while I go back to procrastinating on Spanish.

Edit: Stuff

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
The first CYS I read was the genie one. Can't remember how old I was at the time, but it had to be in elementary school. It was an alright book, but I've always been a fan of games that let my choices affect the ending. As to this site, I was searching for more games that fit that format and I came upon Necromancer.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I think the first CYOA I can recall is Journey to the Year 3000. I think there was one about medieval times as well, sort of Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but with options. I'm not sure if that was CYOA brand.

I took some game design classes in college and used to play around with Inform7, a language based coding language that lets you build connected rooms with choices, so has some similar function.

Every few years I'll browse the internet for some choose your own adventure type games as I find them interesting, but it's hard to find anything good or that doesn't have almost pure luck based choices. I came across this site while browsing recently and saved it for later as it looked to have a better curated selection than most.

And then I noticed a contest (battle in ancient ruins) that fit with a story I impulsively decided to write a couple of weeks ago, and since Nanowrimo doesn't start until November I thought it might be interesting to try writing it out as an adventure game for now. So far it's going well (I have 15,000+ words) but I can imagine it's going to get pretty gnarly keeping track of everything soon as IS doesn't have a good visual representation of where everything is in the story. I might need to pull out some index cards. I'm not normally impulsive, at all, so for me this is my version of living dangerously I guess.

And the Tally-Ho thread is amazing! I have to keep checking back to keep up with that.

 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
It was a complicated journey involving TV-Tropes, being unable to focus on my video lectures without doing something else at the same time, "Swamp Castle," the IF "Violet," and The Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost. Anyway, I am glad I am here now and that I waited until the Villain Season to ever take a look at the forum and make an account. Love you guys. No homo.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Have you read the great tournament and life of a mercenary too?  It's a continuation of swamp castle.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
I read the Great Tournament shortly after it came out. Played through it a couple times, but that was it. I didn't like it as much as Swamp Castle, and it wasn't something I could play five times in a row. Didn't read the Life of a Mercenary because I don't spend money on reading, and I am too lazy to pirate when I have all of CYS available for free.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Life of a mercenary is available for free on hosted games I think. Then there's great tournament 2 that's come out too. 

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Oh yeah, Great Tournament 2 was the one that cost money. In any case, I'm not as interested in it as I was in Swamp Castle.
Have a lot of reading to do here before the end of the year.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

The site was suggested to me by my English teacher, for a place to put forth my works and get feedback on. But, I had used the site for awhile mostly as a guest for 1-2 years before that, while I was just browsing online for text adventure games; and only read story games not touching the forums. I’ve read a lot of stories here, and just wish I could transfer all those pointless points I gained as a guest. 

The first interactive fiction I read was the wizards choice by delight games and I just got hooked on those thanks to Sam Landstorm's amazing writing. So I kept searching online for more of the same, and came across CoG.  Big fan of swamp castle and the following trilogy, but I never used the forums. Then came CYS, and the first one that I read here was I think one of madglee's school based stories,  I can't remember the name but it's the one with time travel and where you're in the garden of Eden with dinosaurs or something. I enjoyed that and kept reading stuff. Became addicted to endmasters style of writing, but I never used the forums yet.  

Then coincidentally, a few years later,  my English teacher back in highschool just mentioned this site to me, and to post something on the creative corner, so that's how I made my account.

And well I clearly don't regret it! I love spending time on this site and sharing my writing with y'all and, beneath all the vile sarcasm and 'omnidirectional vitriol' and 'two minutes of hate', I'm just happy to have an identity in this community.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

I got into interactive fiction initially in primary school thanks to a combination of the old fighting fantasy books and also the odd text adventure game on the Commodore (Marvello's Tower iirc). I then focused more on console gaming for the next several years and mostly wrote short stories or fan-fiction. Then I stumbled upon CoG thanks to Choice of the Dragon and Choice of the Vampire which I enjoyed and Choice of Romance which wasn't. I started writing my own choicescript game back then but also began looking for other interactive fiction and found Endmaster's stuff, which I enjoyed dispite it being a lot darker than I normally liked.

I found CYS there but didn't join at first as was busy focusing on choicescript and the CoG forums. I have since released my game a few years back and am still working on the follow up as well as several other concepts that have stuttered and suffering a few personal issues which really knocked my writing.

I finally joined CYS thanks to Gower's competition and wanting to be cordial with fellow writers and increasing the pool of IF writers I can discuss things with can only be a good thing,

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Thank my Creative Writing/ French teacher Madame Dougherty.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

What's her favorite story on the site?

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Well I am rather new here. Just found this thread and thought yeah I will tell my story.

So there was one day when I became bored. I had nothing to do really, and nothing to read at home. So I started browsing the internet for some fan-fiction and landed on Wattpad. I don't know if that website is known to you but it basically is the same as here except for normal stories nothing with choices, or at least not focused on that. I started reading some stuff there starting with Skyrim fan-fiction because it's one of my favorite games. I did that for a while whenever I was bored. After I read quite some of the ones I found good there were no stories there that I got really into or those were stories that weren't finished. (Something that is sadly quite common on Wattpad).

After that I went on to search for WC stuff. I know how people think of that here but I'm just telling my story here so no complaints about that please. I am a fan of the books. I mean the real ones that got published, and I feel no shame about that.

I will carry on though. So I again started reading and found that many authors there did a very good job about writing those. (just an example if you like: https://www.wattpad.com/39126671-sandclan%27s-destiny-book-1-a-flame-is-lit). Again though I found that sadly many of the best writers never finished there work. I got pretty fed up with that until one day I found a CYOA book there. On Wattpad that is quite tiring to read since you have to skip all the pages in between.

After I found this story I thought, "Hey why not search for CYOA stories instead."

I googled a little and one day found this site. First story I read was "Necromancer" from Endmaster and I was hooked to this website ever since.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Aww, this is so wholesome. To think even someone who started out reading Warrior Cat fanfiction on Wattpad can be cured by Endmaster's death aura.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

Hello. So... I was always an avid reader,ever since i learned how to do it, and to this day its still my favourite form of escapism. One day i stumbled upon an book, yet it was also a game. I was amazed,to be able to live through the story,not just witness it... That day a passion was born. I think i own most gamebooks wich were published in my native language,or at least those pre 2000. Then one day,the books ran out. I searched for another library,one wich wouldnt be limited by being physicall,and on the 8 page of google search,i found this lovely site. My first storygame here was Eternal, cementing my stay here. I mostly lurk,since i dont think i have anything worthwhile to contribute, but i am toying with the idea of writing something to repay back to the site. So maybe someday,ill get grilled to oblivion :D anyways,thank you all(especially EndMaster) for this wealth of stories. Oh and sorry for any grammar errors

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
So what is your native language? Have you really been lurking for five years or did you just wander back in that and decide to introduce yourself?

Your grammar is pretty good, I wouldn't have noticed you were ESL. But, spaces after commas, capitalizing proper nouns and using apostrophes I'm pretty sure are not just English things. This is a writing site so I'm just gonna tell you now, people are going to notice if you're not putting any care into your typing, when you're posting or especially when you're writing.

This is such a deja vu moment too, I feel like I just had this conversation with someone else who typed exactly like you do...

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

My native language is Czech and Slovak, though I use Czech for the most part. I am really lurking here for 5 years. I just dont ever comment or join conversations online, since I dont see the point (who cares about random people's opinion). We dont use apostostrophes at all, youre right on the other things. On my defense, Im typing this on a phone while at work. I will try my best to use correct typing on this site from now on. I will struggle with the apostrophes though. 

Thank you for your quick reply, it has made my day. I was a bit afraid that I would get ridiculated.

 

PS: sorry for the overuse of the word I (am), the budding writer in me will work on that.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago
Welcome, and your grammar compared with mine, it is top notch. So don't be shy away from posting.

How Did You Find CYS?

4 years ago

You can always ask Gower grammar questions, or consult the guides (located here, I believe, it's hard to make links on my phone: http://http://chooseyourstory.com/help/.com/help/). Thanks for sharing your story!

Side note, apostrophes are used anytime you combine two words (you + are = you're), or anytime you are showing ownership (Micro's story was a good one). The one exception to the rule (that I can think of off the top of my head) is "its." It's means "it is" (follows the rule), and its shows ownership (this contradicts the rule). If this confuses you just ignore it, apostrophes are not often used, and people can figure what what you are saying without them in most cases.