For End Master's Manifest Destiny Contest.

"Welcome to the experiment. A man is dead, and you have to find his killer. There will be a list of rules in your room once this briefing is over, but all you really need to know is this: There are five of you, but only one can solve the mystery. You will be given five days. Each night, one of you will die - no more, no less.

Ready? Even if you're not, it doesn't matter. You're in my world now."
 

This is also a War on Intfiction contribution.

Note: Aside from a few references to Dreamtruder characters/ events, this storygame is a standalone.

It is my first time writing a mystery storygame on this site, so I would appreciate if you could leave feedback on whether this mystery was too easy/ difficult to solve. If you find yourself stuck, don't hesitate to message me directly. That being said, do not feel discouraged if you are bewildered at first; as you progress further in the game, the clues and secrets would make everything clearer. Eventually, the secrets you find would allow you to make sense of most clues except a few, and these would point to the killer.

Make use of the notebook, which would keep track of the information you gained from the interviews and the secrets you may find out. Also, check the item descriptions of all the objects since some of these would have to be 'used' in order to access some clues.

Once you've solved the mystery, there are 3 possible endings you could get. Only one of these actually results in returning back to the 'real world'. If you're looking for this 'true ending', it requires you to play through the last of the five days rather than just skipping to the end and guessing the answer.

Good luck surviving the Halloween experiment!

Beneath the seas, hidden from the Ones Above, our society goes about our normal, routinely lives. I cannot help but feel bored with all that is going on, until I find the letter. A letter that sends me on a journey to deliver a magical item to the group of people that have been villainized over the years, the letter that challenges everything I thought I knew. But which side is on the side of good? How can I break out of the only world I have ever known? Should I join the heroic villains or the villainous hero? I have finally gotten the adventure I always needed, but not exactly the one I wanted.

(Edit - note from the author: I'll be going through the process of fixing any bugs/ problems in this storygame soon, like the inescapable loops, so apologies for those who encounter these or any other issues caused by the upcoming changes).

Note: This game was created for Camelon's break contest. During the part where a specialist is assigned to the breakers, there are three different paths (Lawbreaker, Breaker of People and Breaker and Enterer). Due to time constraints, for those who would like to know, Breaker of People is the longest path, followed by Lawbreaker and Breaker and Enterer, but aside from the epilogues, it all leads to the same chapter 5. As before, feel free to comment or message me if you encounter any issues or problems that I should fix.

For EndMaster's Edutainment Contest

You are Kassandria North, a barrister who has been abducted by an alien!

Act as an advocate in the galaxy's central hub of justice. Deal with challenging clients, cross-examine alien witnesses, and do what it takes to win your case. 
 

Could a planet built on the foundations of equity and law truly exist?

This storygame features 5 court cases (plus a bonus one!) and you will earn a profile badge if you complete them all.

Disclaimer: While this storygame is based on the English legal system, many creative liberties have been taken. This is not intended to be a replacement for legal advice. Moreover, the English law is dynamic and evolves as societal norms change, hence the concepts presented in this storygame may eventually become outdated.

Constellaris Court | Trailer

"The delicate balance between the dream world and the real world is disrupted. You intruded and messed up the dream of an innocent. By talking about this with an Unknowing, the possibility of the dreamstage being unveiled is now greater than ever. The Jury has made a decision - we have no choice but to send you to The Jungle..."

Life was hard, balancing work and relaxation. Then the nightmares came, and all I ever wanted was to be free of them. Yet, I never accounted for this - finding out the truth about the dream world, exploring the vast plane of the imagination...only to be whisked away to the longest nightmare ever. 

Think a jungle's bad? Try a fictional jungle, where literally anything can happen, and the most creative minds have conspired to give you a hard time.

Note: This game was created for Mizal's 'Welcome to the Jungle' contest. There are several epilogues, and while the main one is the normal Dreamtruder path, others include Dream director, Dreamcaster, Dreamediator, and Dreamhero. Fancy a challenge? Try completing the Jungle challenge without picking up any dreampowers - it's possible, but requires a bit of thinking and planning ahead. Also, for some items, click the 'use' button as a link would not be provided (if this is the case, it would be specified in the object description)

Since this would be my first published storygame, I am still relatively new to this. Feel free to message me or spam the comments if you encounter any issues, have any suggestions for improvement, or just have something you want to say.

Enjoy!

A quest doomed from the start. A man with an unwavering yet unusual moral compass. A daughter in the darkest depths of the night sky.

It isn't truly over until all hope is lost.

'Good and evil, heroes and villains… they are all fantasies created by the world. There are only two types of people: the people you care about, and the people you don’t.'

Arnold Cyzila's best life may have been long since over, but he would do anything to save his daughter from the clutches of her confinement. Even stealing an airplane, killing the innocent, and entering a dangerous world where death is almost guaranteed. 

[Warning: There are some mentions of murder, deaths and several dark themes, so if those things make you uncomfortable, perhaps it is better not to read this story.]

Note: I initially did not plan on joining this contest, yet I'm glad I did since it has motivated me to publish a new storygame. It is related to Dreamtruder in a way… well, you’ll see. While this story may not be as long as my previous two, it was interesting to write a shorter project. 

Just like all my other storygames, commenting and rating this story are both highly welcomed and appreciated. Also, as I have used quite a lot of variables in several fight scenes, let me know if you ever encounter a page where there are no visible links. 

Lastly, there are a few different epilogues but the 'main' one would be an epilogue which mirrors the start of the story (you'll know it when you see it). There are three possible ways to reach that. Even though I may consider it to be the true ending, it is not a typical happy ending.

For EndMaster's Prompt Contest

Prompt: A story involving an old Oriental style setting
 

A simple quest for revenge turns into a deadly competition.

The Shi Empires, governed by the Ten Emperors, appear to be undefeatable. But Liu Longyi's desire to avenge Mother tranports her to four deadly battles, marked by the sudden appearance of a chaos deity.

As she battles competitors for the throne, Liu Longyi learns the truth about the mighty Shi Empires, along with the most closely guarded secret of Yue Palace. 

Author's Notes:

1. This story makes use of delayed consequences, so replaying would grant different outcomes, even if they aren't always visible at first.
2. There are some instances of violent and slightly mature content, so reader's discretion is advised.
3. If you prefer to read the storygame in the same browser, you could click the title page instead of the 'play' button.

Hope you enjoy the storygame!

For EndMaster's Prompt Contest 2

Prompt: A story involving fairies in some way


 

"Save your breath. We both know how this story ends."

As a spellsinger from an illustrious family, Aubrynne Spelwinter has always sought greatness. Yet, in an attempt to shatter a notorious curse, she becomes one of its casters.

In seven days, the curse will take effect. However, Aubrynne's mission leads to an unlikely alliance with the Cursed King, with whom she races against the clock to save her kingdom from conquests and faceless enemies.

Author's notes: 

1. There are 5 epilogues and it'll be obvious which the 'main' one is. 
2. This is a retelling of a classic fairytale, Sleeping Beauty, although aside from a few plot points, it features unique characters, settings, and narratives.
3. If you prefer to read the storygame in the same browser, you could click the title page instead of the 'play' button.

Hope you enjoy the storygame!

Link to video trailer: https://imgur.com/9T3UWTW

For End Master's Prompt Contest 4

Prompt: A story about being a collector of very rare exotic things and/or unique things

Link to a video trailer

Bly’therra of the Illusions

Genie of the Lamp • Collector of Souls • The Sly Shapeshifter 

Ever since she was shackled to her lamp, Bly'therra wants nothing more than to reclaim her freedom. This leads her to strike an ambitious bargain: in three days, she must grant three wishes to the Sultan's future heir and collect his soul.


Zasper Aldaricus

Son of the Sultan • Master of Disguise • The Traitorous Thief

As the fourth son of the Sultan, Zasper desires to prove himself worthy by winning his father's title. To do this, he has to compete against his brothers to form an unbreakable alliance with a neighboring kingdom. 


Author's Notes:

1. This storygame features two points of views. The choices you make in one point of view can—and will—affect the other story. 
2. Although this is a retelling of Aladdin, the plot, characters, and overall narratives deviate from the original tale. 
3. If you prefer to read the storygame in the same browser, you could click the title page instead of the 'play' button.

Hope you enjoy the storygame! 

If you don't like letters, extremely short stories or cliched moral lessons, don't read this. I found it when I was browsing through the old storygames I had created a long time ago. If I'm not mistaken, this was made for Mizal's Tiny 'Topias jam although I never really thought it was good enough to add to the thread. I don't think I'll publish this, but it's completed if anyone happens to browse my profile and wants to read it.

On a dark and chilly night, you visit the Skeleton to ask for hints in order to solve the mystery of 'A Hunted and Haunted Halloween'.

If you find yourself stuck while trying to complete A Hunted and Haunted Halloween, this is the guide for you! Since it is a walkthrough, there are bound to be spoilers, so I recommend reading the storygame before referring to this.

Do let me know if you find any inconsistencies between the storygame and this walkthrough. As this would remain unpublished, I should be able to fix errors rather quickly.

That's all from me. Enjoy!

Everyone has already pretty much summed up my thoughts but this is a great illustration of how downright dystopian the reliance on AI has become. Like, you couldn't even read or form your own reaction to members' posts without the use of AI? No, you had to feed it everyone's posts to create whatever distorted summary this is, to tell you what you did was bad in all aspects (morally, intellectually, creatively- oh wait you have to actually possess a mind for that) while of course adding its own pro-AI spin on things.

Honestly I despise how normalised AI has become. I'm pretty vexed because I've recently seen an author I used to admire promote an AI platform for writers which 'enhances' their work. I mean, sure, maybe automating checking for sentence length variance and the ratio of sticky words to non-glue works could be useful, but you stop honouring your craft once you let AI rephrase your work and paste that version in. That author started off by being 'inspired' by the AI suggestions and rewriting them, but as the video progressed, more and more of the AI suggestions were copied and pasted directly into the manuscript. The more often this is done, the less an author thinks about what words to put on the page and outsources their creativity to a bot.

At its core, what is writing but rearranging words to tell a story? To communicate human messages of hope, of loss, of triumph against the odds? AI isn't actually 'thinking' or 'intelligence'. It works by predicting patterns based on the information it is fed, so if you ask it to create a liminal horror (like in Mizal's post), it will point out the most common things featured in such stories and embed it into your writing. The same happens with the words written. When it 'edits' or 'enhances', it looks at how those words tend to be used in other stories, leading to passages that are generic at best or painfully garbled garbage at worst. A lot of times, its corrections don't make sense or it would try to correct you if you break a writing rule even if that was done to create a specific intended effect (my siblings unfortunately fell into AI using ways and having to edit their AI-edited work to remove traces of AI is... well, they're lucky I love them). 

Another issue is the difference between valuing the process and the end result. In a world so driven by outcomes, so many people miss that the importance of creating art isn't to have a flawless creation in front of you. Humans are trained to look for shortcuts and minimising effort which only makes AI all the more dangerous. That's why 'convenience' and 'accessibility' tend to be used as justifications to get rid of the learning curve that comes with creating any form of 'good' art. I get that automating tasks like assembly line work or dishwashing could be useful for society. But what is the point of reducing creative writing to its end product? It's not like there's a shortage of stories in the world or that a long-suffering reader would be denied the pleasure of reading something great were it not for AI (chances are if it's AI written, it wouldn't be that good anyway). . 

Alright, rant over, I have better things to do. Also I find it so baffling that the AI response goes from 'don't use AI on anything you write' to 'hey i need to be useful, let me pretend to be a human to fool that site and contradict my own earlier advice in the process'. 

If this is the case, that means even the ideas behind the story were not TR's, and his claim about writing a first draft is a lie (unless he has mind-melded with the AI and thinks only in averages and pattern recognition). 

All of these are fork foods (or in the case of the last two, a combination of fork and knife).

I'm genuinely confused @TypedRooster

Two days ago, you had 600 words. You've said this will be a 'fairly large' project and went so far as to dismiss Clay's ideas about starting small. Now, you're giving yourself until tomorrow to finish the story, which means there'll be a limit of 4 days, maybe 5 if we're accounting for different timezones.

Even if you write 5k a day (which is doubtful - for reference, I've only managed two 5k days in a row), at most that will only be 20-25k words total. Not to mention the fact that you had no idea how to structure this story a couple days ago so you couldn't have had a solid plan to start with.

I'm going to agree with Wildblue here that it has to be bait.

Edit: oh this is my 1111th post apparently.

He has more than 1500 points (just imagine I put Sherb's gif here).

I'm guessing Cyclonis as the only one in this thread who fits the description, unless I've missed someone.

It was mostly because you're online and have actively participated in the thread, otherwise I would've guessed Ace for the Aceism (though he doesn't seem like the type to hate smart watches either). 

I'm getting thrown off by the misspelling of immediatly, hmm. I'll randomly guess Fabrikant.

I'll assign you These Shackled Souls, so the deadline should be 19th February.  

Congratulations Malk! Long live your legacy.