Chain Story DONE!

[Stee]

Well so far, I've only read Sci-Fi. I'll update this thread when I've gotten through all.

For Sci-Fi, Im voting for The mission. The story I felt was excellent, and I'd love to have read more (maybe your group would like to carry the story on after the comp? I'd love to have worked on this if I had the time). I also liked the twist at the end, and could see this working quite well as a game with a few tweaks.

I felt a little lost reading Be Quiet, It was too fast, it felt like one of those book to movie versions where the movie cuts a ton of crucial points out to fit into the 2hr slot. I wasn't sure what was going on throughout the story, and it didn't really grip me.

Sorry If that sounds like a harsh critique but thats what I felt. Both of you did excellent jobs, and I look forward to seeing this crop up again.


Update to come once I've read the parodies, and a further one after the fantasy articles have been released

Update:

This was really a difficult one. I enjoyed both stories pretty much equally.

Shpritz 2000, was funny, reminded me a little of Intense Degrees Colin Simpson leaves Employment. It fitted in well with the parody concept.. a parody generally is meant to be funny and it ticks the boxes on that front. It did however feel more like a script for a game than a story. Like a game it did get repetitive when you die, and the **click** all the time did ruin the immersion a little bit.

A Hero's Tale on the other hand was quite entertaining. I noticed influences from Elder Scrolls Oblivion in there. It made me think of The Apprentice Games (I think it was those its been a while), as there isn't many ags games I can think of in that setting. The story ran smoothly (I'd almost hazard a guess that a good chunk of those writing The Mission, worked on this too) and was immersive. I could also associate with those timer puzzles - I hate them and they always get me killed, especially if I'm gaming in bed on my laptop. The only major problem I had there was that it wasn't a parody. It was a story based on being in a game, but it focussed on seriousness rather than comedic value (check the definition of parody, you'll see what I mean). I did however really enjoy reading this, the ending reminded of certain Red Dwarf episodes (avoiding spoilers, if you're a Dwarfer you'll know what I mean).

I honestly can't decide. I think I'm going to have hold off for a little while

Ok, My Decision: Personally I was going to abstain my vote for this since I don't feel either fits the rules. However considering they both break the rules to the same extent I felt it was fair to make a vote (since it doesn't disadvantage any competition).

So based on that I'm afraid my decision sits solely with A Hero's Tale, simply because I felt involved in the story. Even though it was more a Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hybrid set inside a game than an actual parody.

Not to take anything away from any of your hard work. Congrats guys on making some interesting reads.

[Vince Twelve]

Thanks for your votes so far.  Sci Fi and Parody will be closed for voting in 12 hours or so.  And Fantasy has just been opened for voting!  So, read the newly released two stories and vote for your favorite!

[Trihan]

I vote for The Mission and A Hero's Tale.

[monkey0506]

You fool! Now you've gone and rigged the voting! Now everyone is going to vote for those two just because you worked on them!!!

For Sci-Fi, Im voting for The mission.

...my decision sits solely with A Hero's Tale...

I vote for The Mission and A Hero's Tale.

Okay...who called it? I did!

My vote is for Oran's Awakening. The ending I didn't feel was as strong as the rest of it, but it still held together a lot better than Charming Forest. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the same people from Be Quiet worked on Oran's Awakening.

Overall I loved all the stories. It was great fun writing and reading all of them (yeah...that's right I worked on all of them... : ). We should do this again sometime.

[LGM]

Yea, sorry about that ending. The set-up was too much for me to make a decent ending in 200 words.

[Andorxor]

I think a tragic end would have worked with 200 words.
I vote for Orans Awakening

[Akatosh]

So... guess I should vote. I'll go with...

Be Quiet... because The Mission was way too twisty for my taste. Be Quiet has its problems, but at least it doesn't flip-flop as crazily as The Mission.

Oran's Awakening... because I'm an egoistic fuckwit with monkey here. 

Shpritz 2K... because I thought the idea pretty clever. This one was a close call, but it just fits together better than the hero's tale (although the final twist of that one was really, really funny).

[Bulbapuck]

I vote for Be Quiet (surprise! ) 'cause it held together very well and I really enjoyed reading it.

For adventure game parody I found it very hard to decide, but I've decided to go with A Hero's Tale because I'm not a fan of the way Shpritz 2000's story was built. (Though I did like them both)

I also vote for Oran's awakening because, even though it suffered from being pulled in different directions, it was far more exciting than charming forest.


As an afterthought: I thought all stories were surprisingly good , and I really enjoyed being a part of this. Good job guys

[Wyz]

Altough Oran's awakening is far more coinsistent but a bit bland somewhere towards the end it gets a cumbersome twist I think. I really like the way Charming forest was going, if someone would scrape out the inconsistencies you'd have a really good story. I vote for Charming Forest.

(other two votes in previous post)

[Stee]

You fool! Now you've gone and rigged the voting! Now everyone is going to vote for those two just because you worked on them!!!

For Sci-Fi, Im voting for The mission.

...my decision sits solely with A Hero's Tale...

I vote for The Mission and A Hero's Tale.

Okay...who called it? I did!

My vote is for Oran's Awakening. The ending I didn't feel was as strong as the rest of it, but it still held together a lot better than Charming Forest. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the same people from Be Quiet worked on Oran's Awakening.

Overall I loved all the stories. It was great fun writing and reading all of them (yeah...that's right I worked on all of them... : ). We should do this again sometime.

Err, Why do I care what Phemar worked on? I don't know the guy, and I honestly couldn't remember which two he had mentioned when writing my "mini review".

I voted for the 2 I felt worked. To be honest like I said both the Parody ones broke the rules of the thread in my opinion, so if you really feel that way inclined, you can talk Vince into considering all votes null and void for that category. Personally I felt it was only fair that the teams hard work gets acknowledged regardless.

So... suck it up, and take it like a man, biatch 

It's not my fault that you clearly worked on the other 2 and you're scared of losing 

[Vince Twelve]

Pretty sure Monkey was joking there, as monkeys are prone to do.  These votes are just for fun, so nobody really gets bent out of shape (I hope!) if the story they worked on doesn't win.

[monkey0506]

Yes Stee as denoted by the "" in the original post, it was a joke. I just thought it was funny that the very next two votes in both categories went toward the games (Phem)Zor went blabbing about.
I never knew you could use the CSS transparent value here!

because I'm an egoistic fuckwit with monkey here. 

Ohh the possibilities here are endless!
How surreptitiously clever of you.
I WORKED ON THE MISSION AND A HERO'S TALE!!! HAHAHA!!!
With just under two and a half hours left I for one will maintain my integrity and not go shouting out which stories I worked on... :

[Vince Twelve]

Very nice subliminal messaging monkey!
I tend to highlight things as I read them on screen!

OK!  I'd better get in my votes before I close these.

I definitely was sucked into Be Quiet from the very beginning.  It has such a great opening passage, which is not to demean the start of The Mission; Be Quiet's start was just so evocative and quickly built this great image of the world.  And a gondola at the center of a sci fi story?  Got to be a first!

Both stories had some inconsistencies.  But Be Quiet worked together really well overall, I thought.  So it gets my vote.

As for the Parodies, they were both pretty good and both had great twist endings!  Great job to both of the finishers!  It's kind of a toss up to me here, so I'm going to give it to A "Hero's" Tale, since that makes it a tie!






SO!  Here are the final results:

Congratulations to the winners of the Science Fiction catagory: Be Quiet

Writers were:
Andail
Akatosh
Vince Twelve
The Ivy
Wyz
LGM
DanielH
TheJBurger
Bulbapuck
Wyz (again)

Congratulations, you all get to stick the trophy (graciously made by Atelier Games) in your signatures.
The Golden SciFi Quill:

Code: ags

[img]http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5373/33296702.png[/img]

And Congratulations to the winners of the Adventure Parody category: Everyone!

Yay!  It was a tie!  So everyone gets to add the trophy to their sigs!
The Golden Parody Quill:

Code: ags

[img]http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8905/98545321.png[/img]

Also, everyone can add the silver participation quill to their sigs:

Code: ags

[img]http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2544/29561018.png[/img ]

I've added names to all the stories here, so you can see who wrote what: (let me know if I messed up on anybody's)

Science Fiction 1: The Mission
Science Fiction 2: Be Quiet

Adventure Game Parody 1: Shpritz 2000
Adventure Game Parody 2: A "Hero's" Tale


But voting on the Fantasy stories is still open!  So please vote and give feedback!

[LGM]

Oran's Awakening please, kthxbye.

[monkey0506]

Thanks to everybody who worked on and voted for The Mission. I'm sorry if I let anybody down by not voting for our story but I was trying to be subjective!

Great job to the A "Hero's" Tale team as well. I worked on that one early on so it was fun seeing where it went after I had my hands on it. Ultra Magnus specifically, your line ("That's not what I was trying to do!") still slays me.

As for The Mission I felt right from the time that I was writing it that I wanted to justify the ending. It was my second shot writing on that story and I had to bring it to some kind of close. When I first wrote about Anthony being orphaned I had no idea that Babar and tzachs would interpret that to mean that he was raised by them! But I suppose that's one of the challenges and more interesting parts of a collaborative story like this; trying to figure out how what you add is going to be understood, and where the story is going to go from there.

With tzachs moving the story from Anthony being promoted to Captain toward actually being en route for imprisonment (or worse) I wasn't sure how to take that. In my mind Anthony was being promoted because he had always been a hard worker, dedicated to the cause.

I'd just like to be clear that I'm not trying to accuse anybody of doing anything wrong, just pointing out how the way I read the story isn't always the same as the way other people read it. Ultimately I suppose this lead up to the final "tweest" that I threw in though.

As I was saying Anthony seemed to me the type of guy who isn't going to really let himself be taken alive. Here he'd dedicated his life to the service, eradicating the same filth who had stolen his family (and his childhood) away from him.

Yet despite all that, they were going to judge him over crimes from a past life?

No, no, no...Anthony's not going to stand for that.

It was hard for me to end it the way that I did but I didn't see another way out. Anthony had to kill Gillian to prove the point that he was still a raider so the raiders wouldn't kill him. And if he tried to protest Gillian wasn't going to let him just walk off the ship!

So I hope that it wasn't too much for anybody, and again thanks for those who liked it. Looking forward to the next round of this! 8)

[Atelier]

It makes me so proud to see my creations all over the place! Thanks for letting me have the honour of making them, and well done everybody on their stories - they all turned out excellent!

[Akatosh]

Booyah! Go Team Us! 

That said, I'm really quite happy with the way Be Quiet turned out. As a funny aside, when I wrote the story, I imagined the guys in the boat to either be terrorists or fugitives. Imagine my surprise when they turned out to be both.

I didn't really expect A Hero's Tale to tie, on account of simply liking the other one better, but it seems I have once again been proven to have stupid opinions. Ah, well, this is one of the cases where I don't mind being wrong.  That's a second Go Team Us, then, but with a different "us".

[DanielH]

I vote for Oran's Awakening, because I thought it easier to read and understand.

[Wyz]

Big yay for everybody that worked on Be Quiet from me. Nobody was tempted to make weird plot twists and that is wat made this story work. From the very start it had a direction and every body just kind of followed the flow. (Literally )
Also very cool that (some not very ovious) hints got used.
The rendezvous point by Akatosh used by The Ivy.
Andail already pointed out there was something downtown, The Ivy mentioned the end point being the core.
I mentioned the formal clothes and masks, with in mind they used it to get in by crashing some formal party, this actually was used by DanielH and TheJBurger.
I wanted to make the Gondolier smoke under the tree but ran out of words, but LGM made it happen despite that.
The rest all contributed into a overal ambience of the setting. Things that helped me to get into the theme where among others, the difference of the army and riot police mentioned by Akatosh and the smell of the air by VinceTwelve.
When I also got to write the ending I was thrilled, I wanted closure, and within the 200 words.

I was happy with the previous entry by Bulbapuck; I could use the sheriff to make a really strong ending. At first I wanted them to open the dome, but it might have killed them, so I needed to think of something else. So I choose for a peaceful solution of a suppressed people that was looking for a way of better life. The six would be the ones to open the door, the gondolier the experienced taxi, who entered and escaped the dome many times. Someone mentioned the the arrest warent, but later on the sherif acts as if he doesn't know him: the only way I could fix that, was by making the dome inhabitant ignorant, something the overal theme supported very well. Then I just had to write an ending for the six (open ending since you can only assume what happens) and mention the titel one more time

-----------------

I didn't vote for Hero's tale despite I contributed to it, I felt it had some serious issue's. Reading back, I also don't like my own entry. And Akatosh really slapped it in my face. I think the solution Ultra Magnus came up with should have been done two entries before that because the story was slowed down, and left not enough room for a decent ending. Trihan made me laugh. Babar won some of my vote back with his ending, but not enough I'm affraid to tell.

-----------------

I really enjoyed reading and working on them, and also reading the other two stories. The Shpritz 2000 needs an ending though! The mission suffered from people that want to change the way the story goes, even if its not your thing, I think you owe it to the predecessors that you at leats give it a try I like the way monkey_05_06 tried to fix it though.

To long, I know, but I had to

[Akatosh]

Yeah, sorry about the in-your-FACE-ness of my part. The plot looking pretty disjointed to me, and I figured that gluing it together to coherentness wouldn't be easy, so I just launched an ICBM against the fourth wall. It seems to have worked.