Summer's End Contest Results

Now, let's go ahead and get the rankings out there;

1. Re-election Campaign, by Orange

2. Fey Light, by Fluxion

3. Rainbow-1, by Fabrikant

4. Yet Another World-Ending Scenario, by fresh_out_the_oven

5. Fleeing the Forest, by benholman44

6. GOL'BURGER, by MiltonManThing

7. Ignis and Aero, by Clayfinger

8. Falsely Accused, by RKrallonor

9. Into the Darkness, by Cat2002116

10. Scapegoat, by sitelung

11. It Happened At the Waffle House, by Petros

DQ. Witness, by Anthraxus

Orange for some time now has been one of those really good writers who will place highly in contests, but never quite at the top of the mountain; not for lack of contest-winner-worthy stories, mind you, BITKC for example would have been good enough to win most contests.

She really locked in this time around with an extremely high effort showing (it's a FAKE 100k but regardless), I would say Re-election Campaign hovers comfortably around the 7-8 mark, making it the winner of Sherbet's Summer Synergy Contest. Congratulations to the resident bear.

Fey Light trails not too far behind- Fluxion's stories tend to be really cool, even if they force me to turn the CYS chrome extension off. Fey Light feels like solid evidence that Flux is going to win a contest one of these days though, not if, but when. A really great and, well, grimdark addition to the site.

Another high effort storygame, Rainbow-1, takes our third-place spot. This one is already pretty underrated, but that might change once I actually go and rate it myself; absolutely one of the better 'first storygames' I've seen in my time on CYS- Fabrikant will go far, with a bit more proofreading.

Fresh got locked in pretty late in the contest through trickery and cruel tactics (I don't remember who did it exactly) but had an impressive and humorous showing regardless.

As for Ben's story, well, this was probably my personal favorite piece of his writing that he's contributed to the site so far. Do with that what you will.

This contest followed a recent theme, where while there wasn't an abundance of storygames, almost everything that got submitted IS solid (so don't feel too bad if you placed low). You could make a case that everything outside of the bottom two is at least a five; Ignis and Aero, GOL'BURGER, Falsely Accused, Scapegoat, and Into the Darkness make for a very respectable midcard in this contest, with most of these writers making their storygame debut here. And hey, props to Clayfinger for showing up early- and hey, props to Cat2005920357390582235235236347856 for coming after Darius's title. I will not say what that title is.

Petros is lucky he's funny. Waffle House having 14 ratings while Fey Light has 2 is criminal, though, I may have to overload his engine with molten cheese for that. I may have to kill him.

Witness was an unfinished storygame, lacking real endings, and leaving me fairly disappointed, but that didn't stop me from reading what was there. And what is there is fine, I'm sure it would be a solid short story if it had more time in the oven; but naturally, it doesn't quite meet minimum site standards, and for that reason, I am out.

I have amassed a google doc of more in-depth thoughts on most of these, which will hopefully some day be translated into a bunch of featured comments (assuming you people keep your stories up; if you don't, I may have to kill you).

Thanks for your participation in the Summer's End Synergy Contest, points will be handed out soon!

Sherbet's Summer's End Synergy Contest

It's that time of year, people are going back to school (if they're YOUNG and GROSS) and the apathy of the summertime becomes but a fond memory. Instead of procrastinating on writing, the youth can now procrastinate on their schoolwork WITH writing while also becoming RICH in collaboration with their fellow Cystians, in the Summer's End Synergy Contest, in a beautiful surprise twist to close out the season.

Naturally, the reward for winning the contest is fortune, glory, and prestige.

However, to spice things up this time around, I've cooked up some bonus incentives in order to increase our numbers.

BONUS INCENTIVES! (No, they don't stack)

1. If there are at least 10 successful contest entries, the top five will receive 50 points, while all other valid participants receive 25 points.

2. If there are at least 15 successful contest entries, the top five will receive 75 points, while all other valid participants receive 50 points.

3. If there are at least 20 successful contest entries, the top five will receive 100 points and guaranteed story commendations, while all other valid participants receive 75 points.

Prompt: A recent event has caused the protagonist to go through a difficult change.

It's a pretty open-ended prompt, there are a lot of directions you could go with it. Just as long as you don't tuck any relevance of the prompt away hidden in one specific page in a sub-branch, you're going to be okay, I promise, just stop freaking out, just calm down.

I should also note that while anything above minimum site standards technically qualifies as a valid entry, any 3.01/8, 2000-word slop will be thoroughly looked down upon by my higher council, and I might just feed your points to @ISentinelPenguinI out of spite. Do yourself a favor, start early!

The deadline will be October 31st November 3rd at 11:59 PM (PST).

Best of luck!