"My story is about Death, which is to say nothing more than it was written by a man...all stories are about death in the end." -JRR Tolkien

If you were faced with the imminent knowledge of death, what would you think about the most? This interactive story allows you to explore the idea of an afterlife, and at the end of the road, you must face the Reaper. There may be a way to avoid him, though you might lose more than you bargained for along the way...

There are four different "afterlives" in this story, and most of these afterlives have their own "sub endings" which are dependent on your choices. There is also a secret bonus ending, wholly distinct from any of the "afterlives", though you have to make very specific choices to obtain it, and it may not be the best ending, though that of course will be entirely dependent on the perspective of the reader.

This game is a little short if you only play through it once, so multiple attempts are encouraged, though this is of course completely optional.

Entry for 2021 CYBERPUNK contest
 

As human technology improves, some things are bound to get left behind. But one, simple creation, the Desire Chip, takes this problem further than ever before, and calls the very notions of "free will" and "human nature" into question. Can people use this Chip to turn their world of nightmares and tedium into a world of bliss? Or, more importantly, should they?

A short, Choose-Your-Own adventure story with three different endings. The story involves learning the ideologies of the three main factions, then choosing which of them you support.

It is the year 2290. Two decades after Nuclear War devastated the planet, a group known as the Followers of the Apocalypse make camp underneath the Space Needle at Seattle after they discover an ancient seed bank, located at the Seattle Zoo. This seed bank will contain the seeds and plants needed to rebuild the ecosystems of this dying planet. A team of recruits has been sent to recover the seeds, but can they survive against the horrors inhabiting this long forgotten land?

Features :

-A settlement needs your help! As your team explores the Wasteland, make sure your defenders back at home base are prepared for the random attacks of increasingly dangerous monsters. Because if they breach the walls, your mission here is over.

-A "shop" system: spend Scrap Metal that you collect on new upgrades, found by your adventurers. These upgrades can include equipment, such as Pipe Rifles and Power Armour, to perks, such as an "Animal Friend" Perk.

-Explore Fallout locations, such as a new Vault, as well as find creatures and robots from that game, as well as new creatures and characters.

-This game is inspired mainly by the lore of the Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4, with some references to previous games also present.

Updates

-A few bugs were fixed, such as a problem with the scrap system.

-A "Cheat Mode" was added, for people only interested in the story and not the mechanics

-A few short descriptions were added to the "Siege" portions of the game. I would have liked to add longer descriptions, however, I don't know how to add them to the game as the link to the previous is required in order to send the player back to the page they were on.

Most children see birthdays as times of happiness; they are given presents and cakes, with their friends and family. However, in a forgotten orphanage in London, their birthday hardly represented a relief from the dreary monotony and lonliness of their normal life...until a strange figure, dressed in purple robes, delivers a message that changes everything...

It has been one year since the defeat of Lord Voldemort at the hands of Harry Potter, and Hogwarts is still recovering from the destruction and the war. But secrets lie buried beneath the ruins, in the cold and the dark. Secrets that could bring about the return of the Dark Lord himself, and confront you with the question as to whether everyone really is worthy of redemption ...

This story features

-A Wand tailored to your personality. The Wand Chooses The Wizard, not the other way around. When you are given your wand, its wood and core will be based around your personality. 

There are three properties which your wand can excel in, or be weak at  : Light Magic, Dark Magic and Potion Magic. Light and Potion Magic are taught at Hogwarts, but Dark Magic is not, so you may have to find somewhere else to learn these secrets...make sure to pay attention to its properties when you finally enter Hogwarts in order to unlock your wand's true potential.

-A Sorting Ceremony. Your House is based on your personality, but remember, the Hat always takes your opinion into account

-A Hogwarts Adventure. There is an overall story to this game, with Three Unique endings depending on the decisions you have made. In addition to this, much of the game involves you taking lessons and going on adventures, so make sure to pay attention to your Magical Aptitudes, and your magical failings...

Maturity Level - I would place this game at around PG-13, as it is mostly safe for children but has a few violent scenes, and some mentions of blood, but nothing worse than is found in the books themselves.

This text adventure is different to many others in that the focus of the game is not story, but rather exploration. You begin the game as a traveler from outside the Shire, and you travel around the game world finding out fun and interesting things about Tolkien's Shire. Much of it will be based on the lore of Tolkien, though there will be some occasional deviations.

The game is set just after Frodo and Sam leave The Shire in order to take the One Ring to Rivendell.

Maturity level: This game should be suitable for all ages, though there is one scene which very young children might find scary

This is a game set in Tolkien's "Middle Earth" universe. Thousands of years before the events of The Lord Of The Rings and the Hobbit, Beleriand existed in the Western Lands. This was a place ruled by the evil Lord Morgoth, and where men had almost no chance of long term survival. Will you be able to find your way through this land? Or will the long hand of Morgoth find its way to destroy you and everything you ever cared about?

This game includes

-Multiple unique endings, entirely dependent on the choices you make throughout the story. One of these endings is unambiguously a "bad ending"; the others have varying degrees of "good" and "bad" in them, and it is up to the player to decide which of these is the "best" ending.

-A 'deity' system; there are higher powers observing your decisions. Each time you make a significant choice, you will gain or lose favour with these higher powers. This will greatly impact your experience.

-An experience system: taking some options, usually sidequests, will grant you EXP. Certain actions in the game require a certain amount of EXP to perform. If you do not have the right amount of EXP, you can sometimes try the action anyway, but it's much less likely to work.

-A semi-open world, and a class system; it is advised you gain experience by exploring the wide lands of Beleriand, and that you make sure to pay attention to the class you chose at the start of the story.

-Leveled areas : Some parts of the map will be harder to survive on low levels. Pay attention to the lore, and to context clues, to decide whether you are ready to enter such areas.

This is a large-ish game and I have run through it multiple times to check for bugs. I believe I have ironed them out, though it's possible some have slipped through the cracks. Please report any bugs, such as any areas that don't let you proceed or end the game, in the comments. If I have made any truly serious mistakes with the game, I will make sure to update it ASAP.

Author's Note: This game does not require you to have read or be familiar with all of Tolkien's works, though I have tried to align it with the themes and ideas laid out in his books. However, please be aware there will be a few liberties taken with the source material, as I have my own spin on certain ideas of Middle Earth.

Optional Hints: In order to get a good ending, you do not have to do ALL the sidequests, but it is strongly advised you at least attempt one or two of them if you want to have any hope of getting a decent ending. You of course can attempt all the sidequests if you'd like to.

Entry for MadHattersDaughter's 2023 "fairy tale" competition

Winter. You're cold, you're lost and what's worse, you don't even have a decent pair of walking boots. But a map lying by the side of the road might very well be the helo you need...until you discover something that doesn't quite make any sense...

"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds"-JRR Tolkien

As you travel on your adventure, you will meet a collection of tales and characters. Can all their fates be drastically changed, or destroyed, by your intervention, or are some set in stone? As you discover answers, and decide who to trust and who to listen to, the decisions will greatly affect the tone, the places, the characters and the stories that you find yourself in. But no matter what road you walk, the end of your journey will take you to a place where you know, deep down, you must go, no matter how hard you try to fight it...

Maturity rating: Whilst parts of the stories are toned down in some extremely rare and specific cases, the majority of the darker elements have been left untouched. The stories have not been sugar coated but nor have they been made more gruesome than they were originally. As such, I would give this story a PG-13 rating at its very worst.

A pony finds a mysterious, unopenable Crystal Chest. With little idea as to what it is, they travel to Equestria in order to find somepony who can open it and discover what it is.

Meanwhile, something sinister is happening in Northern Equestria. The Crystal Empire is on total lockdown, with nopony being able to get in or out. What could have caused this mysterious event? Is it related somehow to whatever lies in the Chest? To find out, you must travel the lands of Equestria, meeting friends and enemies along the way, and discovering lore about the world you have found yourself in. And when you find out the answer to the mystery, your decisions on how to deal with the sinister, powerful forces arrayed against you will affect the whole of Equestria for a long time to come...

This game features - 

- An RPG stat/perk system. Much of this game is focused on Skill Checks. There are 6 game stats which you can affect, plus a choice of optional perks that will allows you to bypass some areas. It is advised that you spec heavily into 3-4 stats of your choice, as the majority of Skill Checks will be reasonably high.

-An XP system. A few areas will require your character to be more experienced. XP can be increased through passing skill checks, exploring and interacting with the world, reading books and by completing quests.

-There are three side quests, though there are FAR more unmarked, misc. quests and explorable areas, as well as a main quest. The main quest can be completed in six different, unique ways.

-Seven distinct endings, dependent on the choices you make.

This game was inspired by Interplay/Bethesda/Bioware games such as Fallout and Knight Of The Old Republic, which allowed you to explore areas based on your level, and pass skill checks. There was also some inspiration from the game "Eastshade". There's no real combat mechanics in this game and an extremely small amount of violence, not because I am neccessarily against violence in games but because I think that violence has really been done to death (no pun intended) in recent times and that games and stories are capable of a lot more than that.

Author's note : While I tried to include a lot of optional content here, you can still power through the main quest and ignore everything if you really want to. This is not reccommended, as doing the main quest with low XP makes it less likely that you will reach a "good" ending, though it is still possible to do so. Also, there is a single encounter in the entire game that can kill your character if you are not prepared for it, however, this is in an entirely optional area. 

You don't have to be familiar with My Little Pony in order to play this and I have tried to accomodate people who are unfamiliar with it. However it does reference many events in the series so if for whatever reason you don't want to know what happens in the TV Series, due to spoilers or whatever else, maybe this game isn't for you. I've done my best to filter out bugs, and goen through each possible playthrough of the main quest, but I can't guarantee that it's 100% bug free.

EDIT :Some minor bug fixes have been made since the release based on feedback, as well as certian dialogue options and choices being clarified.

"There are dark places in the galaxy, where few tread..." 

-Darth Traya

The prophecy is fulfilled. With the death of Emperor Palpatine on the Second Death Star the Sith have been destroyed forever, but their legacy of evil festers in the dark places of the Galaxy, where few still dare to tread.

You are a member of the Jedi Service Corps. hidden on Dantooine, and words from an old Jedi Order reveal the final Secrets of The Sith. But will you choose to destroy them, or will you listen to their dark whisperings...?

This story contains:

6 different classes: A quiz will determine which class is best for you, from a noble Jedi Consular to a sneaky Sith Assassin, and everything in between.

A dark side/light side system: The decisions you make will affect both the story and the powers you can accept; your alignment should match your class for the intended experience, but this is not required

Multiple endings and stories: A light side player will have a very different story to a dark side player. The story diverges considerably in both cases. There are over 6 different vastly different endings.

(Nearly) every character can be killed...or saved: Be careful in your choices, because you hold the lives of nearly every character in your hands...

6 different planets: Travel around the galaxy in your spaceship, meeting new characters and exploring new places along the way.

Note: This story is designed to align with the "EU" or "Legends" continuity up until the end of "Return of the Jedi", which is why much of the inspiration will come from there.

This is a choose your own adventure game where you will be placed into the robes of a member of the Jedi Service Corps in the Outer Rim. It takes place during and after the end of Episode III:Revenge Of The Sith.

This game features

-A main quest-Find out the secrets of the newly risen darkness threatening to take over the galaxy, but make sure that you do not lose yourself along the way...

-Explore unique locations-visit different planets from Star Wars lore, and find unique lore in each

-Three unique endings-Light side, dark side and neither. Each is acquired via moral choices made by the player throughout the story. Your alignment with each side will be shown through the story (Lower than 5-Dark Side, higher than 5-Light side, 5 exactly-conflicted between the dark and the light). Choose to be a beacon of light, someone that values all life. Or listen to the temptation of the dark side, and use its destructive power for your own ends, or even find a third option somehow. And most of all, remember, it is never too late for anyone to change...

-Different characters-encounter many different characters, some old, some new

NEW FEATURES ADDED IN THE UPDATED EDITION

- A new, short optional side story on the planet Manaan; explore the planet, and find out who, or what, survived when it was abandoned, and decide their fate based on your alignment. Adds an extra paragraph to the epilogue, and completion allows for new interactions at a key part in the main story.

-Minor tweaks and improvements to the original story, such as a little more dialogue in the epilogue that reflects your characters' beliefs.

You are a prisoner, bound for the Isle of Betony to await your final sentence. But strange voices whisper to you in the darkness, and before you know it, you are thrust into a new and unfamiliar world. Do you choose to explore this place, doing deals with the Princes in order to increase your own power? Or will you find yourself caught up in a plot to stop the most sinister ancient beings the world of Tamriel has ever known?

This story features:

- A skill system: Your skills will allow you to complete certain quests, though there are ways to boost skills you are weak in

-A small open world - A map will guide you around the Isle. Make sure to take a break between adventures in New Wayrest, especially if you come across gold in your travels.

- New and old characters - You will come across plenty of characters familiar to the Elder Scrolls universe, as well as a few new ones...

Maturity Level:

I would give this an age rating of 15+, and would advise anyone who does not enjoy any kind of horror elements to act with discretion.

EDIT: Some glitches where the game was left in an infinite loop have been fixed.

NOTES:

While it is possible to fail at this game, I have tried to account for as many skill combinations as possible. As such, the only consequence of a poor skill choices should be that the game takes a few more quests to complete.

While I have tried to stay as true to the lore as I can, there are parts of this story that are very heavily influenced by my own interpretations, which may differ from the interpretations of others.

Some issues with text spacing are sadly unavoidable due to how much this relies on variables. Apologies.

"These blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse; they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar..." - The Lord of The Rings

Many hundreds of years before the adventures of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, before Aragorn and the Quest of the Ring, the Shire and its surrounding lands were ruled over by the greatest Kingdom of Men ever seen to the East of the Sea: the Kingdom of Arnor. After the fall of the Dark Lord Sauron at the Battle of the Last Alliance, it seemed as if the peace in these lands would last forevermore.

Yet it was not so. For in the cold, dreary lands of Angmar, a new shadow began to stir; one only known as the Witch-King of Angmar. Orcs and all manner of wicked things began to creep from that cursed vale, and within but a few years, ruin fell upon the lands of Arnor that could scarcely have been imagined. The land split into three Kingdoms; brother turned against brother, blight and pestilence struck the land. The great watchtower of Amon Sul, which had long stood watch over the land with its seeing stones, was destroyed as hundreds died. It seemed even the might of the Elves could not quell this new devilry.

Yet the Arnor capital, Fornost, stood against this rising tide of evil; for this is where your story begins. As one of the Dunedain rangers, you must explore the sundered lands of Arnor to save your Kingdom before it falls utterly to the devices of the enemy. Though be on your guard, for the lands of Arnor still lie uncharted, and you may meet both friend and foe alike. Whispers tell of things that creak beneath ancient trees, eerie dirges that rise from beneath long forgotten tombs and of a mysterious old man, hooded and cloaked, that could change the fortunes of even the most doomed...

Features

-Rather than "leveling up", this story will instead provide all bonuses and gameplay through artifacts and items. So whilst a regular RPG might say "You have reached level 2! Here are 5 points you can put into a stat, and a buff that gives you 2 damage to Orcs!", instead, this story will give you named items that you will be able to switch with each other, giving a much more personal and impactful way of progressing that ties back into the story. Further, while you can acquire nearly every single item in one playthrough, it is reccommended that you focus on items of a certain Class Type, for this will be a much easier and more immersive way of playing. As Rangers do not use armour, you will instead have to find other ways of restoring your Amdir ("Hope"), such as with herbs like "athelas".

-A true open world; great care has been taken to ensure that this open world is as free and traversable as possible, as well as including many details from the lore. The lore for this story comes from Tolkien's books Unfinished Tales, The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, though a great deal of inspiration has come from the video games "The Battle For Middle Earth II", which did provide a helpful overview of the story through cutscenes, and The Lord of the Rings Online.

- The lands of Arnor are on the brink of disaster, and as such, the paths you choose and the treasure you find, matter more than ever before, and what you do in one part of the Kingdom may have great effects where you least expect them. Plenty of folk across the land are kept safe from things that would make their blood run cold by the Rangers, and while Fornost remains, you ought not allow evil to go unchecked.

-Death is not the end. Unlike most games, when you are defeated in battle, the story does not end there. For there are other forces at work in Middle Earth besides the will of evil.

-A day-night cycle. Be wary if you stay out too long into the night, for there are fouler things than Orcs in the dark places of the world...

- Mysteries of Middle Earth. Do not be afraid to explore the lands. For while you can complete the story without doing so, in order to uncover the whole story of the lands of Arnor, and of the histories behind your friends and foes, you will need to travel off the beaten path...

Author's Note: I have really tried to improve my prose for this story, as well as to focus on things that people liked about some of my previous stories. I have tried to tie much of the gameplay and combat to the "day-night" cycle as I really like the pseudo-emergent/survival elements it adds to the story. Also, while I have taken great care to keep true to the lore, some aspects have been changed slightly to work with the gameplay features (Most notably, the time it takes to travel between locations is greatly reduced, and the bounds of Rhudaur in the "Map Location" have been extended slightly to the West to encompass Bree-Land.) This game has been tested many, many times and I cannot find any bugs, yet nor can I guarantee that it will be bug free, owing to the scale and scope.

Inspired by the ballet; "Swan Lake".

A homeless man recovering from addiction meets a woman, Odette, in tears outside a brothel.
Together, they decide to find a treasure that could help them make a life for themselves. But they soon learn that there was a reason that the treasure had gone unclaimed for so long, and find that they may just lose themselves along the way...

Auhor's note:  This story has a narrative that is heavily dependent on the choices you make; there is a total of 7 endings that are decided by your final choice, and the set of final choices you have is in turn determined by the decisions you took early on in the story. This was inspired by the fact that the ballet has been performed with a vast number of alternate endings (the Wikipedia page lists around 12, though some of them heavily overlap with each other), a fact which seems to make this story fit the "interactive genere" well.

While this is primarily influenced by the story "Swan Lake", it also takes inspiration from these sources:

-Supernatural

-A Canterlot Wedding

Maturity : While I have tried not to be overly graphic, this story does involve some dark topics, such as suicide. I would give it a 16+ year age rating, though viewer discretion regardless of age is advised.

Entry for the 2020/2021 "Dark Fantasy" Contest. 

The Old Unicorn Lands are in a fragile state of peace. Though the dark "Horned god" has been banished, the twisted monsters he has lost control over still roam the land, killing any who stray too far from the civilised realms. But worse even than the monsters are the some of the unicorns, twisted and embittered by their experiences in this unforgiving world...

A certain unicorn gains knowledge of an even greater threat than the Horned God on the horizon. Can they stop the end of time and space as we know if?

While you can, with a certain level of care, choose to whether the protagonist is an "anti-hero" or a more "straightforward hero", the vast majority of the other characters are varying degrees of flawed or cruel.

Features: This story has three different endings, depending on the choices you make.

There is also a bonus epilogue, which you can get if you choose specific dialogue options throughout the story.

Try to gather as much information as you can before deciding on anything, as clues will sometimes be made available so that the choices do not feel as if they're based on random chance.

Disclaimer:While this story takes influence from many other series, such as the universes of The Witcher,Enderal, Supernatural and the land of Equestria from My Little Pony, the events and characters in the story are not intended to take place within any of these lands, and as such the story is intended to be an original, stand-alone work.

Maturity:16+, though viewer discretion is advised for all ages. It includes

-Fantasy drug use

-Mentions of real torture devices, and some first-hand descriptions of fantastical torture

-Violence and mild gore

A Witcher spends his whole life fighting monsters. Yet no matter how many contracts he fulfills, how many basilisks, kobolds and katakans he cuts down, more remain.
Geralt of Rivia knows this better than anyone. Yet one day, after he believed his days of facing monsters were over, a message reveals a way to put an end to this nightmare for good. But is Geralt willing to do what needs to be done, and face the consequences for his actions...?

This game features :

-An RPG system that is built into the narrative and rewards exploration

-A "Story" system - if you decide to go on any side adventures outside of the main quest, you will be rewarded with "Story" points, which may come in handy later on...

- Context specific skills - even if you have the most combat skills, if you don't know when to use them, then you will surely fail. Make sure you pay attention to each being you fight

-World jumping - explore different worlds, each one with specific skills, challenges and mechanics.

- A story and world that changes, and is affected by your choices. It is very unlikely that two playthroughs will feel exactly the same.

Lore: This is intended as a direct sequel to the video game Witcher III : Wild Hunt, and as such will use that as a base for most of the lore. However, there will be some minor references to the events of the original novels.

Maturity rating : The Witcher is a dark fantasy series with mature themes and scenes, and this story is no exception. The story does contain an amount of violence and some gore, though the descriptions are not overly graphic and certainly contain nothing worse than the games and books that it is based on.

I think everyone on this site should try at least one of these stories, whether you're a writer looking for inspiration or just someone who enjoys playing text based games in general (if you didn't you probably wouldn't be here). While these games are not entirely text based like the ones on this site, and still have some exploration/combat elements that are graphical, all of them (Except Year Walk, but that's a unique case) have the vast majority of their exploration shown entirely through text descrpitions, which is the critera I have chosen to count them as "text-based video games).

I'll give a short overview for all of them so that you can see if you think you'd be interested:

1. Sunless Sea & Sunless Skies

Both of these games are part of the same series. Set in the "Fallen:London" universe, a world where London has been dragged underground by eldrich bats and sunlight drives people insane with bliss (it makes even less sense in context), this is a particularly strange world that's almost impossible to get your head around, because the deeper you get into the lore, the harder it is to understand. It's possible to get a general idea of what's going on if you dig deep enough though. The "island exploration" is text and choice based, but the "ship" exploration and combat is more RPG/Roguelike in nature.

The gameplay involves taking your ship to different islands in these eldrich locations, where each island has some eerie goings on, from haunting to cannibal cults. There's also a "sanity" meter, where if your ship spends too long in the dark (or you make risky choices when you get to the islands), your crew goes insane. There's a good deal of supply management, with you having to get enough food and fuel on your voyage. This is probably the most famous of the games here but it's worth including because it is very well written and thought out.

2. Year Walk, Device 6 and The Sailor's Dream

(You might be tempted to look for guides to these games online when you get them. Don't do that if you can help it, it will ruin the experience)

These are three Simogo games for mobile, and unlike 99% of mobile games, they are all incredibly cleverly done. They actually take advantage of the medium (some of the puzzles, for example, involve you having to change the position of your phone in real life, and turn it on its side to read text). Year Walk is an eerie game heavily based in European Mythology, where you have to explore beautifully drawn woods on a cold winter's night to learn the future, encountering faithful representations of the ghosts and creatures from these mythologies. The "text based" part of this comes from the Companion App, where the second half of the story is told entirely through text, but you need to apply the things you learned on your first adventure in order to complete it. Device 6 is an eerie mystery set on a strange, abandoned island, told mostly through text, but with a few visual puzzles sprinkled in.

The Sailor's Dream is one of my favourite games of all time. It's easily the most immersive experience I've ever played (I've tried VR games and they don't even come close to how immersive Sailor's Dream is). You have to explore a series of islands (a running theme in these sorts of things I've noticed), uncovering the mystery as to what happened to a young woman who once lived "in a house, on a cliff, by the sea". This game will take you at least a week to uncover, and you'll have to really imagine you're there in order to solve some of the puzzles it poses (if you do buy this game, make sure you start it on a real-life "Monday". Trust me, you'll enjoy it way more if you do this.)

3. The Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker

Part of the famous "Witcher" series, this is set before the RPG Trilogy, where Queen Meve has to free her land from the overwhelming might of the Nilfguardian Army. While you go from one location to the other in a top-down, isometric format, the actual descriptions of the towns, forests and swamps you explore are all explained via-text, which allows for a much greater degree of choice and consequence than the more "mainstream" RPGs. In terms of choice and consequence, this may be the best mainstream video game I've ever played, because seemingly tiny, insignificant moral decisions often have HUGE impacts that you sometimes won't even realise until you choose differently in a second playthrough. The game does a great job of not shoving any kind of agendas or moral positions down your throat (a quality that is not to be overlooked...), but simply shows natural, logic consequences of each action. If you play this game, I would certainly advise you to "go with your gut" and choose whichever option seems best to you. The combat in this game is card-based, which I personally find very fun and rewarding, but it's also a relatively unusual choice for some people, though it's quite easy to get the hang of after a while. (Also, one of the locations in the game is, quite easily, the most disturbing place I've ever been in any video game I've played. All I have to say regarding that is Gvaern Ichaer...)

I really hope that at least one of these games is enjoyable to play. (If you're squeamish about horror elements, then the only one I could really recommend in good conscience would be "The Sailor's Dream", but even that is really both eerie and sad.)

I certainly wouldn't dismiss Nieszche or Freud,I would never do that. In fact Nieszche made a great deal of points that have actually been incredibly important for my own thoughts and philosophies and Freud has had a tremendous effect on the modern world. And Nieszche's ravings inspire Jung who I think is one of the greatest philosophers of all time.

But I do think that, when you get right down to what their conclusions are about how the world and humanity work, and how people ought to behave, they've been  disastrously wrong and had extremely negative conseqeunces. Frankly I rather like Tolstoy's takes on Nieszche, he sums him up better than I can anyway: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10350187-there-would-seem-to-be-only-one-question-for-philosophy

I read "London" and I remember liking it, then I looked into his other stuff and just couldn't stand any of it.

The Poetic Edda is a GREAT choice, I absolutely love it. It's concise , epic, easy to understand but with incredibly interesting themes and ideas that I think are still incredibly useful in the modern world. Things like fate, writing, words, the meaning of life, technology, all of these things are all insightful. And even without all the philosophical stuff, there's all the creatures and characters like Odin and Fafnir. All around, great fun.

https://archive.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/index.htm

Schopenhauer essentially says "Everything you do causes more bad than it does good, so try not to do anything", yet Nietzsche’s ideas are "Everything you do causes more bad than good, but who cares, do it anyway." This is why they diverge so strongly on aestheticism. Fundamentally, they seem to me to be arguing over the same view of the world, but each one has a different viewpoint. I think the view of the world itself is actually entirely wrong and this is where the problem arises, but I think Schopenhauer's view is the less harmful because he at least doesn't see pity as contemptible or as "preserving those things that ought to be dead" or whatever it was Nietzsche said.

The less read of William Blake, the better. The "philosophies" of him and Nietzsche can be summed up by the line "and now for the author's poorly concealed fetish." As soon as someone starts to obsess over sex to the extent that both of them do, I no longer have much interest in what they have to say. And that goes especially true for Freud, too. The whole topic is a psychological tumor.

Kant is pretty much just an updated explanation of Christianity. Schopenhauer is just gnosticism for atheist nerds, like he comes up with this whole philosophical framework which has already been thought up hundreds of years before him. Neiszche just becomes an outright satanist by the end. Both of their ideas of the "Will to Life/Will to Power" are fundamentally wrong, but at least Schopenhauer had the good sense to say "This will is probably a bad thing and ought to be rejected." Whereas Neiszche basically just stole Schopenhauer's ideas but said "this will is a good thing and everyone should follow it to get power." It's like, I really disagree with what both of these people have to say and I think it would have been better if both of them had kept their mouths shut, yet that doesn't mean that I don't find their ideas impressive.

Honestly, I think a huge part of why religion and mythology work is just that they're inherently so much more epic. Fenris the devourer of worlds fighting epic duel against Odin at Ragnarok while Heimdall and Loki fight is far more worth reading than "ethical duties and moral laws as representations of the world and will". And I get the impression it can say a lot more with a lot less than any philosopher can. It's why I have such great respect for Tolkien, who manages to take all these religious ideas and do something cool with all of them rather than just write essays and lectures all day.

As for Spinoza, I originally was a huge fan of him over other philosophers and I really like what he has to say, but Kant seems to have eclipsed him recently for me.

I like Kant's overall ideas, I've been thinking about them a lot recently. Not a fan of Hegel, but most of my exposure to him is from The World as Will and Representation,and Schopenhauer doesn't exactly jump for joy whenever Hegel is brought up. Marcus Aurielias is reasonably good, he at least makes his thoughts understandable and accessable, unlike Hegel who delibrately makes his work obscure to annoy people and show how clever he was (even though Schopenhauer literally showed him up when Hegeel was a professor and he just a student). I think Descartes was right about a lot but his stuff on animals is just atrocious, really just the worst imagiable. Kant wasn't great, but at least he had some idea about morality being applied to animals. Haycartes>Descartes.

Nothing beats mythology and religion though. The more you understand them, the more you realise that 99%-100% of what these philosophers are saying are just simplifications/complications of what's already written down in these stories. Carl Jung at least seems to have understood this. Give me the Bible or the Poetic Edda over these endless treatises and essays any day. Though I'd be wary of the Ancient Greek stuff (Pre-Plato, anyway), lest you start becoming a babbling lunatic like that Nietzsche fellow, who seems to have achieved a level of stupidity only reachable by the incredibly gifted.

Addendum: Giving this a bit more thought, you seem to have perceived my argument as being that evil exists as an enhancement to the thing itself, whereas your rebuttal is that it is not additive to the thing itself but merely enhances the perception of the thing itself. If this is the case, then this discussion will quickly turn from a Tolkienian one to a Kantian one, and I don't think we'll be getting anywhere with that. Suffice it to say that I am still unsure where lies the distinction between "perception of the thing itself" and "the thing itself", and therefore will not be making any claims one way or the other, nor did I intend to to begin with.

Arda Renewed, that is, the world after its ultimate destruction and renewal, is the greatest of all possible worlds, and such a world is only possible through the marring of Arda in the first place. If it were possible, by our understanding of the word, to create the greatest of all possible worlds without first having the Marring of Arda by Morgoth and his ilk, then Eru would have just created the world as Renewed to begin with. This is why the Second Music Of The Ainur, with the voices of the Children of Illuvatar, is greater than the First, with the Ainur only, because the men and elves (and dwarves, perhaps?) have gone through a world in which evil has come into into, now that they're on the other side and evil has been destroyed forever, they can make a world that wasn't even conceived of prior.  Evil in Tolkien does not permanently stain Creation (although admittedly it does require the entire erasure of Arda Marred to remove Melkor's stain), nor is it a neutral force upon the world that makes the world no more or less beautiful after its renewal. Morgoth's rebellion failed so utterly that, in the end, it wasn't merely impotent: it outright backfired. Therefore, it does evil-doers no credit that the world becomes better through grace.

"Evil cannot be beneficial in and of itself."

I absolutely agree with this, in fact, evil cannot really exist in and of itself, since it's inherently parasitic and corruptive, and of course you need something good to exist in order to be corrupted in the first place. I suppose a more comprehensive way of framing it would be that good's reaction to (and ultimate defeat of) evil is what makes the world a better place than it was prior, rather than evil in and of itself making the world a better place. 

TL DR: Arda Renewed > Arda Unmarred