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You start in a dark room. Nothing is on your person except a lighter and a mysterious poem. You have no memory of your life before this, nor do you know where you currently reside, only distant memories to vague to comprehend. The poem has two parts, one fairly different than the other, but both vital to solving the puzzle. I plan on doing five stages for this game, each progressively harder than the last. These riddles will not be for the faint of heart, nor for those he lack the ability to  think outside the box.

Obviously, it will be more game than story, mostly because I think a good story would be too time consuming if I am to make  a decent game. I'm not too good at creating good plots in short time periods.

I think your idea has a lot of potential, there's definitely a lot of ways it can be interpreted (with the Dark Room on Youtube being the most memorable for me). To be honest I'll probably be very frustrated when I try to 'win' your game, but that's a compliment to the richness of the puzzle! 

Anyway, I'm keen to play your game once the competition is all wrapped up, and have some chocolate ready for the challenge, heh.

Sounds like a challenge. I love riddles that aren't for the feint of heart, lol. ;)

1/5 puzzles completed.

The initial production of the riddle was quick, but the making of the 442 links was very time consuming. I'm hoping to  use the same pages, just with different variables. If this doesn't work, I might shorten the amount of puzzles to 3 instead of 5.

442 links? Are you sure this isn't soemthing that could have been achieved with scripting instead? Anyway, looking forward to this puzzle, which could quite possibly be the most complex out of all the ones for the contest.

I asked in  the advanced editor forum, but the told  me this was the only way. I'm glad I didn't have to make 442 pages though, which would make the amount of links exponentialy. Good thing there's variables!

I admire your commitment to this storygame. Good luck!

All you needed was 27 links (a link per letter + 1 more). After that you could have used scripting and some variables.

The additional link would have been the reset/move forward one depending on if they solved it or not.

Well, too late now, I'm already almost done. I've already written everything out, I just need to make the variables work.

2/5 puzzles complete

Luckily, the pages I used for answering the first one can be used to answer the second one, and all of them for that matter. Thus, all 5 puzzles will (most  likely) be made. The second puzzle borrowed some ideas  from the first, but it has its own challenges too. I would put the puzzles up, but I don't want to spoil the "fun" before I publish it.

Sounds good! And know what you mean about not wanting to share too much... I'm sooo excited that I actually made a decent puzzle! It's my first actual storygame to be published, but I don't wanna give away the surprise lol. Well, good luck again! Can't wait to play yours... :)

3/5 riddles complete.

It seems I'm ahead of schedule, but this is good because the weekend is almost over. I will likely be progressing much slower after today. The third riddle is shorter than the second, but  I think it will throw people off. This is especially due to a callback to the first riddle. I  think I might finish the game  today, but I'll wait to publish it so I can check to make sure everything works (or doesn't work in the case of getting a wrong answer), and maybe expand on the actual story a bit. If I don't finish it today, I think I'll at least be pretty close.

4/5 riddles created

This one, although still using a poem, is far different than the other three. It will throw you off more than the last one will. I'm not going to rush the fifth one. I am going to make even better than the first and second ones. It will be so difficult, you'll have no idea how  to solve  it. I'm also  hoping to make it creepy, and the ending very bleak and hopeless.

5/5 riddles complete. 

Now I just need to wrap it up with a interesting ending, make the variables all work, and expand slightly on the story, and then I will  be done!

Wow, that was fast. I wish I could be that efficient!

Does anyone want to test it for me? I don't know if you'll get past the first riddle, but I could PM the link to the first person that is interested. Remember, it should be playable, but I'm still planning on improving the writing.

Are we allowed to have the games tested? This is my first contest, so I'm not certain on the rules...

I don't see why not. All it would do is help with the quality of storygames published.

Yeah but it may give an unfair advantage to those who get a really good editor

Negative is pretty much already doing it, by publishing to see reactions and unpublishing to fix errors--granted, that does come with the risk of getting bad ratings, but so does inviting people to beta-test, apparently.

I just wasn't sure if it was okay or not... I'm gonna try to spend the few days editting mine as soon as I get done. Shouldn't be more than a day or two more. Or not....

I have a hypothetical question: If my game were to contain small tidbits of a foreign language, would I add the foreign language tag, or would that be for full  stories in a language other than english?

I'm pretty sure it would only be for storygames written fully (or at least mostly) in another language. If you want to be sure I'd PM or tag a mod.

I am currently having my friends test the game, and so far, none have been able to figure it out without being guided. I can only hope you people will do better. (Actually, I'm hoping the opposite. Hehehe.) Anyway, the game seems to work so far, and I've corrected a few errors, one of which was a really bad mistake, and I will likely publish tomorrow.

It has been published.