Messages

Haha Tuomas, you just put me in stitches. 

I'm more of a Manhattan man myself.

In answer to your question though.  I quite like the idea of monarchies.  For me, all the best British history revolves around the Kings and Queens of yesteryear... but that was before all the power was given to the Prime Minister and the monarchy became little more than a figurehead.

From a romantic point of view I think it's quite cool that we still have a Queen, and it's kind of cool to know I'll probably be around when William (who's my age) gets crowned King.   Personally I think we could do without a monarchy now, but I wouldn't say I'm against it as such...  In fairness the Queen does a lot of good work behind the scenes even if her role as ruler of England amounts to little more than customary signatures and the occasionaly festive speech.

[can't]

I agree with Virgil.  Cheap jumps are not the same thing as genuine horror.  Cute, defenseless kitty-cats suddenly jumping out of lockers will make me jump, but then they make me feel angry that I've been fooled into falling for such a cheap trick.

For me, real horror is psychological... more often than not it's what you can't see that's the scariest... I know they're clichéd but I find abandoned insane asylums fookin' scary, too.

For me, slimy and hairy things are far less scary than 'human' monsters.  Dead babies, and the twisted nurses from Silent Hill... now that's scary, because they're more human.

For me, all these suggestons people are coming up with for somehow separating the important dialogue from the background/unessential information would just make things too complicated, both for the player and for yourself designing the game.

I'm also a completionist who likes to exhaust every conversation, but that doesn't mean I don't sometimes find it boring to do so.  For me, the best approach would be to simply take a deep breath and cut some of it out.  Who was it who said a good writer must learn to kill his darlings?

Of course, you don't have to kill them entirely.  Instead of somehow disguising the extra information or making the player dig for it within the game, why not  include the background information outside the game.  Many games include character bios and background information as part of the game manual.  I think you could make a really neat booklet containing anything that you think is interesting but that might not be entirely necessary to everyone playing the game.

It would be a really cool addition if it comes on paper shipped with the discs, or as a PDF for digital downloads.  And it saves you from having to provide players with the trim vs. bloat option every time they open a dialogue.

I've been to a few gigs on my own.  Most notable The Stranglers last year.  I was 26, which isn't exactly young anymore, but nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I was in the youngest 1% of all attendees.  Punk Milf everywhere... love it!  Was a great gig!

And the good thing about being on your own is you don't have to worry about finding everyone afterwards if you get separated.

Hey All.
We're about 1/3 of the way through phase 1.
Team B is a bit behind, so what I might do is put their extra 7th man at the end of Team A so that both teams might finish at a more similar time.

Keep up the good work.

Dom, where did you get that gift-wrapped trophy from?  I used to have a bronze one of them, but it disappeared.

oooh.  Looks good.  I can't wait for this.

[200-250]

Welcome to the Mystery Chain story.  Thanks to all those who signed up.

This is how things are going to work:

Each author will be placed into one of two teams of 6 or 7 people â€" Team A and Team B.
There are two phases.  Phase 1 is the ‘chain’ phase and phase 2 is the ‘endings’ phase.  Each author will take part in both phases.

Phase 1 â€" The Chain
Each team will create a chain story in the usual way.  I will supply the first author in each team with a selection of starting sentences taken from a range of well-known novels.  He or she must write 200-250 words on top of that and each subsequent author must write 200-250 words on top of what has already been written.  There is, however, one requirement â€" in your entry you must introduce one prominent new question or mystery, without attempting to answer any of the previous authors’ mysteries.  Use your imagination.  The final author will also be asked to leave the story unfinished and pose one final mystery to be solved...

On your turn I will send you the story so far and you have 48 hours to send me your entry.  Please acknowledge your receipt of this email within 24 hours to help me keep track of things.

Phase 2 â€" The Endings
Once all entries of Phase 1 are returned to me, I will send Team A’s story to each member of Team B and I’ll send Team B’s story to each member of team A.  Each author’s task is to come up with an ending to the story (anything up to 1000 words) which solves all of the mysteries (or as many as you can) posed by the previous authors in Phase 1.

You will have one week to get your entries back to me.

Voting
Once all of the entries are in, the stories will be made public and voting will commence.
Prizes of bronze, silver and gold will be given to the three entries voted ‘best mystery’ for each story in Phase 1.
Prizes of bronze, silver and gold will be given to the three entries voted ‘best ending’ for each story in Phase 2.

Thanks again for participating.
Enjoy the game :-)

-Stu


Progress

Phase 1
Team A - 6/6
Team B - 7/7

Phase 2
Team B (Story A) - 0/7
Team A (Story B) - 0/6

Right-o II
Last call for sign-ups.  Any more for any more.
The game begins in 90 minutes.
After that, this thread can be locked

\o/ Hooray... just.

you're gonna have to explain your reasoning stupot :p

^^

CF?

No CDF.

Spoiler

A = overlap
B = square
C = circle
D = no overlap
E = 3 shapes
F = 2 shapes

[close]

That would make an awesome battle theme, especially the 2nd half.  Got any more?

Me neither... Looks like we're not priveliged, Ethan.

Right-o
Anyone else interested?  As it stands we've got a good number of people - enough for two teams.  But I'd love to make that three teams.
I'm gonna give this sign-up period until Midnight on Saturday night UK time.
The contest proper will commence some time on Sunday.

Either that or he lives in a really dumb area.

Hehehe.

There's a place to login but no way to register that I can find

S'okay.
Found it in the News and Articles section. which is an odd place to put registration form.

Would someone like to design some trophies as well?
Jim, you're welcome to have another go, or would somebody else like to have a go?
PM me if you're interested.
-Thanks