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.

"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!

Here are the results of the 2025 Summer Reading Contest! It was a tough battle, with 31 contestants and a high quality and quantity of reviews being produced in the busiest time of the year, but ultimately, only one can emerge on top.

Individual Scores

Category 1: The Winners!

To probably no one’s surprise, the winner is @Cat2002116. Congratulations, Cat! Your commitment to writing an insane amount of high-quality reviews is truly impressive (and if I’m being honest, somewhat frightening). Cat has scored 247 points and written 90 reviews during the duration of this contest! 
 

Next, in second place, we have @RKrallonor. Well done, RK! You’ve consistently written amazing, high-effort reviews, and this has not gone unnoticed by your fellow competitors, who voted for you as the best reviewer thus far in Week 7’s mini challenge. You’ve ended up with a point total of 187.5.



In third place, we have @CavusRex. Kudos, Cavus! You’ve had a very inspiring journey from starting as an ex-Cogite to becoming a valued member of our site. You scored 91.5 points in the contest.



Category 2: The Almost-Winners

IcePrincess earned a total of 84 points (which was only 1 review of an 8-length storygame from overtaking Cavus). She did very well throughout as a consistent reviewer and definitely earned fourth place.



Fluxion came fifth with 76.5 points. Despite being the victim of many betrayals and backstabbing plots, he secured his spot at fifth place.



Category 3: Persistent Reviewers

Benholman: He is a very strong reviewer, having came third in the previous review contest. While he may have lost motivation partway through, he managed to finish with 48 points in sixth place.



Mousecore: They started off really strong in June, winning the first mini challenge, only to disappear for a bit and reappear just in time to secure seventh place with 46 points (yes, just 2 points from Ben).



Liminal: He had a strong start, seemed to slow down in July (I wonder if RK leaving his team had anything to do with that?) and returned with more reviews in August, taking eighth place with 41.5 points. 



Shadowdrake: After having a very productive month in June writing reviews and winning mini challenges, he decided to just…stop writing reviews? Well, it seems he only needed one month to beat out the remaining contestants and place in ninth with 28 points.



Clayfinger: Choosing to review exclusively 6 and 7 length storygames seems to be a strategy that paid off for Clayfinger, as he takes tenth place—earning 24.5 points with only four new reviews.



Category 4: Congrats, You Avoided Shame!

Yellowcake: When he first joined, he was a force to be reckoned with, instantly winning a mini challenge even against more experienced peers, but it's a shame he later disappeared (pun intended). He scored 18 points and ended up in 11th. 

Mizal: Well, it seems she kept to her word to do exactly one (1) review. However, she accumulated a total of 14 points due to her past reviews being featured.

Fresh: She gained a pulse in June and reviewed two storygames, yet still managed to place in the upper 50% of participants.

Prominent: Writing one review was enough to save him from shame. Sadly, I don’t think it’s a performance worthy of attracting the attention of the penguin paparazzi.

Milton: The founder of the CYS Gazette, despite being busy with the newsletter, was able to score 7.5 points. 

Anthraxus: He single-handedly carried his team (while managing to play Rimworld!), having contributed 7.5 points, while the other two members of Mercer Gang ended up shamed.

Ace: He waited until the very last minute to write a long review of As Ink, saving himself from shame and scoring 7 points. Whether it was perfectionism or just procrastination, I’ll let you be the judge of.

Jster: Just like many other members, he was only really around for June. It makes me wonder whether the next review contest should be limited to one month or two at most.

Yummyfood: He took the opposite strategy from Clayfinger, reviewing only short games mostly in June, and ended up with 5.5 points.

Category 5: So, It Seems You Very Narrowly Avoided Shame

Stargirl: While she may have been the last person to join the contest, she certainly didn’t finish last, having scored three points and triumphing over her nemesis Bezro.

Suranna: She ended the contest with two points. Well, at least she took the effort to write a second review when the first one already guaranteed her safety from the Pit. 

Petros: His only new featured review was on the now-taken down storygame, Story A, hence we don’t know if it was written or just featured during the contest, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Due to previously written reviews, he ended the contest with 2 points.

Bezro: Considering he only wanted to join the contest to avoid shame (why?), I suppose it’s to be expected that he scored 1.5 points, having written a second review once he found out that past reviews alone would not be counted.

Goodnight_a: She wrote a single review of a 2-length storygame, earning 1 point (and that’s really all it takes to avoid shame).

DarkSoul: Their only review on a 7-length storygame was taken down so they’re ending the contest with 0 points. However, the review appears to be feature-worthy under normal circumstances and it was likely just the high volume of featured comments on that storygame which led to it being unfeatured, so they avoid shame.

The Shamed

EndMaster, these are the souls that have been reaped for your taking. The Pit will hold them until they are deemed worthy to rise again.

Darius_Conwright: I really did not want to shame him, especially after how he almost won the previous reading contest and was the reason I was inspired to write as many reviews as I did. But the rules are the rules, and he failed to write a single new review throughout the three months of this contest. 

Corgi213: Again, I did not want to do this, but it seems his last featured review was written in 2018. 

Enterpride: It is such a shame that under the number of featured reviews, his tracking table will forever bear the words ‘none yet lol’.

UnscapableDeath: Unfortunately, they failed to understand the requirements of the contest. While they wrote a decent number of reviews, none of them were featured, and as such, they ended the contest with no points.

NotSoSpecial: They’re not so special in that they made the same mistake as Unscapable—writing reviews, but having none of them featured.

Psychopath_Kage1129: It appears that the stress of being unable to convince us that she doesn’t like Bezro was too great and she had left the site ever since.

Here’s the TL;DR version for those of you who are short on time.

(The chart really puts in perspective just how many points our winners scored in comparison to their competitors).

Team Scores

The Winners

Unless you’ve been blatantly ignoring this thread, you already know who the winning team is: The Bakers. They won by a large margin of 446.5 points. Congratulations to Cat, RK and IcePrincess! Honestly, I couldn’t have thought of a more deserving group. All three have placed near the top individually, and many times, needed to carry the dead weight of their other members. 

Next up, we have the Final Draft with 190 points! It’s a controversial ‘win’ but I guess this is just the nature of the game, so to make things a little fairer, Will and I have decided to award the next team a second-place tie with the Final Draft.
 

In second place, we have The Review Bored with 170.5 points! Well done to Cavus and Mousecore. (I’d add Yellowcake, but I’m not sure how worthy of congratulations they are for having lucked out with the last minute shuffle). The Review Bored had been a frontrunner from the start, so it’s good to see they’ve kept up momentum until the very end. Guess one could say they weren’t too bored of the contest, after all.
 

Finally, in third place, we have The Resistance! Fluxion faced obstacles at every turn, but in true antihero fashion, did not end up defeated. I guess DarkSoul was there too, taking up space or something.  The funny thing is that this team ended with 160.5 points, so if it were not for that final strengthen card or maybe the traitorous select card, The Resistance would have won.
 

The Non Winners

The Worst was, in fact, not the worst, earning 98 points and taking fourth/fifth place (who’s still counting?). I guess they’ve proven that first impressions of a team are not always the most accurate and non-motivational team names may sometimes have motivational power.

Grill Night and the Newbies placed directly after them with 97 points. Yep, it’s that close, with only a 1 point difference between the two teams. If there were prizes for fourth and fifth, I’m sure they'd be really annoyed for not having written just one more review.

Penguin Paparazzi was next, with 38.5 points. Quite a large gap between this and the previous team.

Team 3 is Fucked, ironically enough, was not fucked (except maybe their one member who ended up shamed). They ended the contest with 19.5 points, in large part due to past reviews getting featured. I’ll probably end up no longer counting previously-written reviews for the next contest.

Team 5 scored 5 points! No, that was a lie, they actually scored 8, but could you imagine how perfect that would have been?

Mercer Gang ended up with 7.5 points, all contributed by Anthraxus. Their other two members ended up shamed, making them the most-shamed team. It’s a pity that even Ogre’s Mercer Gang storygame wasn’t enough to save them from their apathy. 

The Thug Shakers finished with 5.5 points, but considering they had only two members who were enemies and joined the contest very late, this is somewhat justifiable. 

Other Stuff

For those of you who are interested, here are the individual spreadsheets and here are the team ones. It also shows how consistency tends to pay off rather than short-term reviewing sprees (though both of these techniques are, of course, more favourable than waiting until the last minute to review).

Once again, thank you to everyone who contributed to this contest, whether as a participant, a mod, or a Mini Challenge judge. I am also extremely grateful to @Will11 for running this contest with me; it has been a pleasure working with you. This reading contest would not have been as successful as it was without all of you. Although the contest may be over, for the glory of CYStia, I hope you will continue to read, rate and review storygames!
 

It's alright, we've already added those so there is no need to trouble yourself with it, unless you'd like to double check the figures.

Oh, I somehow missed that. Thanks for letting me know! Updating the table now.

Ogre awarded you two points for week 11's mini challenge.

Unfortunately, the cards only affect team points. Individual points are made up of written reviews and occasionally points won from challenges. Congrats on being back in top 3.

An Update (Spoiler: it's getting very competitive now)

As the competition is coming to an end, Will and I spent hours noting down and cross-checking every single storygame for each competitor. Turns out a lot of the stated points were inaccurate, whether due to past reviews getting unfeatured, people not factoring in previously written reviews, or not adding the points they've won from Mini Challenges to their overall totals. (Mods, if you unfeature any reviews in the next few days, please let us know). 

So ignore EVERYTHING you thought you knew from the previous leaderboard. Here's the newly updated member scores, which even include some people who haven't posted in the tracking sheet:



There are a few caveats which you can see from the main leaderboard post. Still, the main thing to note is this: there's only a 10 points difference between 3rd and 5th place (which is essentially one review of an 8 length storygame). Some of the ranks are very close too, like the 1 point difference between 9th and 10th place. And even if you're not planning on making top 10, surely there's at least one person who is ranked above you now that you want to score better than...right?

Oh, and some of you with points may still end up shamed if you haven't written any new reviews during the duration of this contest. Don't say I didn't warn you :)

1. Option 1 seems to be the only one without longterm negative impact to mood, so I'm voting for that.
2. I'm not falling for that, not after last game. Vote A.
3. I was initially going to vote for End, but seeing as he hasn't been converted to Cystianity yet and we don't want to spread the wrong ideoligion, I'll vote for Fresh. She seems to be doing the most conversion attempts so far and has the highest social skill.

One final week. This is your last chance to ascend the leaderboard and earn prizes.

For those of you who need a little more motivation, here's a reminder of what is at stake:

• Will's trophy: the official gold smiley-face endorsement that can never be removed from your profile, forever showcasing your victory over your competitors!
• MHD's artwork: a personalised masterpiece crafted by the multi-talented artist of CYStia, depicting (almost) anything you desire.
• A lot of shiny points: we're being very generous with these so it's best to make the most of it while you still can. 

Even if you don't think you can win, for each review you write, you will gain pointless points depending on storygame length! Only one more week before you can go back to lurking and being unproductive.

As for those of you who are still yet to write a single featured review, the Pit of Shame is waiting. Consider this your official warning. @corgi213 @Darius_Conwright @enterpride @Mizal @MrAce321 @NotSoSpecial @Petros @UnscapeableDeath 

Edit: past reviews cannot save you from shame.

Please track your reviews for the final Mini Challenge of this contest as a response to this post.

Why are you responding to yourself?