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I liked that game a lot, rated it a 7. The story is simple, but I enjoyed the writing style a lot (and had just worked my way through several sub-par contest entries). I'd recommend it if you're feeling up to that marathon.

My first pull is: The Lonely King by Ferany

This is the author's only notable interaction with site. It was published in 2019, and is a fairly short read at only 7k words.  There is no description or detail beyond a fairly nice graphic.  It does have three commended reviews from Cricket, Gower and Shadowdrake27.  While I don't know Shadowdrake27, both Cricket and Gower are consistent and reliable reviewers.

The consensus appears to be that the story overall is well written, with some very interesting turns of phrase, but overly linear.  The opening of the story starts in media res, coming out of a drunken stupor with stolen goods in your pockets and a stranger immediately asking for help.  Initial characterization is lacking and the order that scene details are presented is unusual.  

Little about the story itself would draw me in, especially with no entry blurb.  The reviews might get me to open it, and there is just enough of a hook in the first page that, knowing it is only 7k words total, I might give it a quick read through once.

I got Ground Zero by EndMaster.

EndMaster's name if probably familiar to most of you--even if you haven't read his other games such as "Geek" and "Trash", you're probably familiar with his reviews of classic IF games such as Steve Jackson's "Sorcery" series.

The tagline "If you see a bright light duck and cover" makes me think this game might have some post-apocalyptic themes to it, possibly involving a nuclear war. The description does confirm that the game starts with a nuclear strike, but doesn't go into detail about how it proceeds from there.

The rest of the description focuses more on the mechanics of the game. It looks like a cave of time game, with 4 endings. The author warns that it can end up being quite long, with the player living a full lifetime. That certainly sounds intriguing, large-scale games are tough to pull off, but can be quite epic.

The game is commended, but it was commended by the author himself. Ordinarily that would make me suspicious, but the game is rated 6.9 out of 8, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Anyways, it's 139,983 words long and some tryhard already wrote a 2000 word review so I won't bother reading it. You all definitely should, though.

Sounds fun, I've always enjoyed judging a book by its cover.



First impressions:

It has a rather generic title, possibly written by one of those wannabe edgelord kids. The description is off-putting. You know it's going to be a bad game when the author apologizes for mistakes and hides behind the excuse of writing something for the first time. Seriously, "Its a piece of junk"? At least use proper grammar! (Or 'grammer', as the author puts it)

Not capitalizing "i"? Telling us "sometimes this story would not make sense'? Forgetting the quotation mark when saying "Dont expect much from me"? You're 14, for goodness sake! I'm sure my five year old cousin could do a better job. And it's not like he's a genius: he believes we can make candy appear using "magic". (Or maybe he's only playing along to get candy from us, and is actually super smart, but anyway, that's besides the point).

Also, the audacity to assume we're all 14 year old kids smh.

We're only given one short line of actual description: "This is a story about a sad boy named Drex with supernatural happenings around him." Surprisingly enough, it's the only sentence so far without a grammatical error!



Other stats

I'm surprised the rating isn't lower. If I'm still feeling antagonistic later, I may even click through the story later to see if it should be unpublished. The "walk in the park" part might not be accurate - I have a feeling it'll be difficult to even decipher what you're reading upon clicking the play button. The maturity description checks out given the author's age. And the tag...well, it made me laugh. It has to be satire, surely?



First page (because I'm a tryhard)

Let's see...infodump, bad grammar, telling not showing, tense switches, failed attempts at edginess (called it!). There's probably more I didn't catch at a glance. I would say that, as with a lot of new writers, this idea is creative and could result in something better, but the execution leaves much to be desired. 

But a quick look at the author's profile shows he probably won't be coming back anytime soon. 

So, will I read the rest of it? Lol no. And it's not like this thread was about reading anyway, I shouldn't have expected anyone to do that in my other thread. 

This is sounds very much like an "edgier" (by making the protagonist younger) retelling of the plot of the video game "The Darkness". Wiki summary

My second pull was Celestial Lies: Chapter One by joshdragon

Last published on 8/15/2011, 4.65 overall rating, 10746 words.

The opening blurb of this storygame is over 500 words long.  I feel I have to agree with the top reviews that that much info would probably be better served to come in the story itself.  Especially since the most common complaint about the work in the comments is that it is too focused on the fights and not enough on the story itself.  On the plus side, not only do most comments applaud the author's writing style but this is a series that actually has more than one entry.  

Reading over the long blurb does not really entice me to read the story as the summary it presents does not read as a world I can really buy into.  The first page has a decent hook and a good level of detail, quickly setting up your immediate antagonist and giving a decent feel of place and stakes right at the outset, despite my issues with the world description from the blurb.  Based on some of the reviews, it appears that the overall story is quite linear, with only one path that doesn't end with dying in combat.

This story is an interesting artifact from 12 years ago, but other than the novelty of reading one so old there isn't much about that would draw most readers in to start the game, but if they do the first page is good enough to likely get at least a couple click-throughs.

My random generated story was "Ghost House".  Although it only comes in at about 3300 words, it carries a 5 score on maturity, which sounds promising.

While the title  and maturity might make some people think, "Cool, a story about a house full of ghosts." Reading the description reverses any positive thoughts I would have about this story going in.  The title looks to be the best thing about the story. 

The first line of the description states, "A man is Trapped inside his own home, Will he ever Escape? You play the man.You are the demon, then you become a zombie." - This sounds stupid.

So, then I clicked in the story and looked at the first page.  The first page said it was the beginning, and then did not start the story but explained about using the go back button.  I dont think there is any hope for this story at this point, and wish only for a quick death and a point for my time.

My next pull is: Christmas. by Sir_Lancegalawain

Last published on 12/30/2006, 3.80 overall rate, 2761 words

Right off the bat, the first thing that jumps out of the game description is the broken image link.  This seems to link back to likely a story that Sir_Lancegalawain wrote on myadventuregame.com, which appears to be the author's preferred site.  The intro cautions readers that while this is in a quiz format, it is intended as more of a biblical education device.   The opening page is an additional explanation of the author's faith in the New James Bible and how to tell if a question is a direct quotation from the bible or not.  This information could have easily been included on the intro page to let a reader get right to the meat of the thing.

Because of the subject matter, I personally wouldn't have much interest in reading further, although there is certainly an audience for that. The age of the story and the broken image link on the intro both also play against it.  If one was on the review quest to close out the edutainment category, or devoutly religious, I could see them pushing thorough it but there doesn't seem to be much of a draw otherwise.