Messages

First: Congrats to Baron & Eric, well deserved!

Second: Wow, my first competition and I already won a trophy -- thanks to everyone who read and voted! I had fun both writing and reading (and learning), so this won't be my last competition I participate in

And a little side note: Couldn't find a guide on how to put the trophy in my signature. Could anybody point me in the right direction?

[Atmosphere]

Took me a while to read them all and it was really a joy to see the different approaches, so here are my personal favorites:

Atmosphere: Eric
Word Choice / Style: Mandle
Characters & Pulpiness Level: Sinitrena
Noir Level of Background World: Dadalus
Best Overall: Baron, with Eric close on his heels

[Chapter 3]

Sorry for writing around 2000 words, didn't plan on it initially. But now after polishing it, I don't completely hate myself for it

Content disclaimer:
Strong language

Chapter 3

I really hated this part of Old Screw York. Full of human and architectural trash, debris and the colorful wrappers of dreams long expired. The acid rain that just had set in didn't make the place any more welcoming. It was bitter and cold, just like my ex. But I was here because of a contract, all business. Light at the end of tunnel, for a change.
        “Hey man, you spare a ‘coin?”
        A junkster with an ugly little rat face and shaking hands approached me from the dank shadows. He was a perfect specimen of this part of Little Leningrad, greedy and desperate. An angular portion around his bloodshot eyes was mostly free of the filth, a tell-tale sign of Fairlight abuse. You pathetic junkie, I thought to myself, you waste your little life completely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Not this one, no, this one is stone cold to the bone. You picked the wrong SOB today, pal! I reached for my Jorge .45 underneath my coat.
        “Hurry up, dude. I got a girl at home. She's pregnant. Please.”
        All of a sudden, somewhere amidst all my disgust there was a glimmer of pity for ratface boy and his ratface girl pregnant with their ratface litter. Jesus! What was I doing? I discreetly holstered my gun and fumbled for my old-timey wallet instead.
        “Here. But don't blow it on bandwidth.”
        I took out a fiver.
        “What the fuck, man?! What's that shit?”
        “Money. Just take it and scram.”
        “How am I supposed to change that for ‘coin? Fuckin' unbelievable!”
        He threw the bill into the puddle with floating cigarette butts and micro-sims in front of us, punched me in the gut (surprisingly hard for his wirily rat-arms) and left. Ungrateful bastard, I muttered as I fished the fiver out of the oily puddle.
        “I won't give you any such trouble, sailor. Unless that's your kinda thing.”
        A voice from the other side of the street called out in a cheerful manner. The rain stung in my eyes as I looked up but the shrill silhouette with the pink thigh-high riveted boots and matching umbrella was too distinctive. Leon, the Gigolo. Just who I was looking for.
        “Hello Leon.”
        I tried to ignore the pain and walk as casually as possible over to him.
        “Oh, it's you. Shit your pants or are you just happy to see me?”
        He giggled with his raspy voice and over the top antics, a Boro in the corner of his painted lips, each a different shade of pink.
        “Do me favor. Just tell me where to find Raye.”
        “A favor for your fiver. Or you wanna spend a bit more for the ol' in-and-out, sailor? Always better to jack into reality than into some cyber dream world, eh? Wink-wink, nudge-nudge?”
        “I'm not in the mood, Leon.”
        I gave him the bill and felt my ribs hurting. I was too old for this shit.
        “This jog your memory?”
        Leon separated the Boro from his quellazaire and dropped it along with his girly-voice the instant he realized I wasn't here for business. Well, not his, at least.
        “She's bought the Antique Emporium, so she might be there. But I wouldn't bother, if I were you.”
        With an overly disgusted expression he inspected the wet bill.
        “I am not intending to. Just pay her a little visit. See how things are going. Catch up.”
        “She doesn't want to see you, Dick. And you can have that one back.”
        He handed me back the soaked fiver with splayed fingers.
        “Don't call me Dick, my name is Richard.”
        I examined the the bill. It was totally fine, didn't appear to be counterfeit or anything. Just old and wet.
        “Why doesn't anybody want my money, anyway?”
        “That's because you're a relic of the past. And so is your money.” Leon already had a new Boro lit up and looked into the other direction for potential customers.
        I left to the next train station without another word. Surprisingly Leon's comment stung more than the punch in the gut for the moment. But there was no pain a sip from my flask wouldn't alleviate. At least for now.
       
        According to the records, Raye's shop was located not far from the Dead Central Station, at Lexington and 52nd. The rain had no intentions of ever dying down, instead it ate away on the rotten limestone facades and gargoyles of the buildings I passed. In some alley close by, a couple of teens, kids really, had constructed a shelter out of old plastic EvoMal containers and underneath fiddled around on something that looked awfully similar to a severely scorched RC-45 mech from the riots in '86. It still read “OSYC Precinct #17” on the side. I didn't even want to know.
        The “Emporium” was nothing more than a warehouse with an anachronistic holo sign floating above the ramp. The acid from the sky had drenched my coat and hat and I was eager to get someplace dry.
        Inside it was dark and musty but even then I could make out that it was packed to the brim with old shit. Raye probably called it “retro” but it was just glorified, ages-old junk. I went past pool tables, Coca-Cola vending machines, LCD TVs and a battery of arcade cabinets. I read their stupid names while heading for the stairs that lead up to some kind of small floor office: “Asteroids”, “Polybius”, “Frogger”, “Computer Space”, “Missile Command”… If those geniuses had been tasked to find a title for Moby Dick, they would have settled for “White Fish” and patted themselves on their backs for a job well done. Idiots.
        The door to the office was not locked so I let myself in. The furniture looked as dated as the warehouse floor, only somewhat more organized at least. The most valuable object in here probably being the Shepard Fairey painting of some dead president on the wall. From a white square hardware player blared some song in which a woman sang something about seeing beauty in everythingâ€"how jarringly ironic. The last time I had heard that song was at my parents' funeral home ages ago. I tried to turn it off as a woman in combat pants and a wet parka swung open the door. I had to look twice before I recognized her.
        “Raye?”
        “Dick.”
        “Don't call me that.”
        “Then don't act like one for starters. Who do you think you are, walking in here like you own this place, Dick?”
        She was quite a sight. The last time I had seen her she had been wearing preppy scytex blazers, always accompanied by one of those annoying pet owls and had sported curly cyan hair. Now she looked like a woodworker from another century.
        “So this is how you spent my money? What's this shit anyway?”
        I pointed at the flat gray box, about twice the size of a phone on her desk.
        “That's an antique. And it never was your money in the first place. Now get out, you're leaving stains on the carpet.”
        She brushed past me into the room, turned off the music and hung the red parka on the back of her office chair.
        “Funny, because the last time I looked into my account it had been mine.”
        “You cheated on me, Dick. For years. I deserve a compensation for the psychic pain. Hell, I deserve a lot more…”
        She was just as greedy as I remembered her, still the spoiled brat underneath her flimsy grownup mask.
        “This is a bad time, Dick. What the fuck do you want here anyway? Or is it really just about money?”
        With a resigned gesture she slumped back in the chair. The light from the sign outside made her look old and I realized that I had no intentions of staying any longer than I had to. So I cut straight to the chase.
        “What do you know about some individual called the ‘Phisher King'?”
        She stared at me for a moment, her eyes piercing.
        “What the fuck kinda question is this?”
        “The sooner you answer, the sooner I leave.”
        “Search the blogs, watch the streams. I know exactly what everybody else knows. I am not your congregator. Now get lost.”
        “But at some point you had been in contact with him.”
        “…or her, you chauvinist prick.”
        “So you do know him? Or her.”
        “No!”
        I knew that inflection of hers. She looked away, at the gray thing on her desk. Oh boy, was she lying. I only had to press a little harder.
        “Then why…”
        There was a knock on the door.
        “Shit. Dick, you must leave.”
        Relieved she jumped to the door, pushing me towards the exit and opened it. A tall, bulky man with glasses, a wrinkled white shirt and one hell of an upside-down smile glared at me. He was very tall.
        “The fuck are you?”
        “Glad you could make it, James.”
        Before I could respond, Raye cut in with a tone in her voice I hadn't heard in years. What do you call it, ‘friendly'? Still, her grip on my arm was as strong as a vice, shoving me past the man.
        “Dick was just about leaving.”
        “Dick?”
        The man grinned.
        “My name is Richard. And I am not leaving.”
        I tried not to lose hold of the situation, get some answers for a change. On my terms.
        “You look like a dick to me, alright.”
        The guy with the thick Jersey accent, James, sneered at me but I've had had it and pulled out the Jorge .45 and the stupid grin on the square face morphed into a puzzled look, turning the smile around once again.
        “Shut up!”
        “Dick, what are you doing?”
        Raye was more annoyed than anything and also the big guy didn't show any signs of respect. Asshole.
        “What do you think you're doing with is, you piece of shit?”
        “Shut you up for starters?”
        I pointed the zapper right at his dumb face.
        “Damnit, Dick. Use your fucking brain for once and put down the fucking gun! You're insane!”
        Raye yelled in my ear and it was hard to restrain myself from pointing the gun right at her for that statement.
        “Yeah, use your brain, Dick!”
        James mocked and reached into his pocket.
        I must've lost if from there, it's all a blur of rage, gunshots and blood. As the vapor trails from the muzzle dispersed, I saw what had happened. A big red stain was on the wall behind the big guy, his white shirt with the pens in breast pocket sprinkled too. With strangely splayed limbs he laid there, the carpeting absorbing the faint trickle of blood from the hole in his head and something in his hand. No gun, just a phone. Damn.
        And there was this noise. This loud, stinging noise in my ears. Perplexed I looked around and saw Raye's mouth open and close in rapid succession and realized that it was the source of it.
        “You idiot! You stupid fucking idiot! This would've been my best customer, you moron! And you just shot him!”
        Slowly I turned around and pointed the gun at her heart and yelled right into her face.
        “Who is the ‘Phisher King'?”
        That did the trick. She fell silent instantly, looked at me like a deer in the headlights.
        “I… I don't know. She just arranged the deal with James…”
        The time-out lasted only these few seconds, Raye noticeably filled up with anger again. But it was all I needed to know.
        “…WHO YOU SHOT, YOU IDIOT!”
        I holstered the Jorge, knelt down and took the dead man's phone. Where he was going he wouldn't need it anyway. Apparently the incident had stirred the neighborhood and the shadow and sound of sirens of an alerted police dirigible drew closer. If I didn't leave now this would get uncomfortable. As I slid the phone into my coat's deep pocket I felt a familiar piece of paper.
        “Oh, and that's for the carpet.”
        I placed the wet and still neatly folded five nuyen bill on her desk.
        “Fuck. You.”
        Raye scrunched up the bill and threw it at my back as I left.

***

If you're still reading: Thank you for seeing it through! Hope I didn't steal too much of your time.

Alright, my entry is going to be close to the deadline. Despite completely not being my genre, I found a lot of joy in coming up with my entry so it's going to be a bit ... long. There'll also be a bit of cyberpunk in it because reasons

That's really true, the characters and the plot really need to work in tandem. I mean, I know a Guybrush Threepwood type clerk at one shop and he's not funny, just very annoying.

Also see: "Aliens vs Predator" (not literally though)

Great video! This is the first time I hear of this author, and unfortunately there are no translations of his works on my native language, but if I ever get a chance to read it on English(or some other language) I definitely will. ^ ^

Hey, thanks for watching! And as a German native speaker, I found the English translation pretty easy to read, especially when compared to Lovecraft.

By the way: For those of you who enjoyed my Lovecraft video on YouTube, jere's the new one about Koji Suzuki

â–º https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Em-sMhsajA

… The scariest thing about that film is that they're making a sequel. Aaaargh!

good one!

Hey Phil,

I have just watched your video on YouTube about Lovecraft and it's really good. I have myself just recently discovered this writer and am reading a collection of his stories translated on my language.
There are a lot of creative competitions in these forums, but MAGS (monthly AGS competition), particularly, can make you quite productive in terms of making games. You should check it out!

And, nice to meet you!

Thanks you very much for watching, BSP! Next week I'll release a video about a book by the Japanese author who wrote the Ring trilogy, so maybe that's also something for you And for now I'll try to get started with some background art first before stepping out of my comfort zone

Welcome to this wonderful community, Phil. I wish you the very best in game making! It's fun!

Nice to meet you too, Gribbler! Let's see how far I get this time with making a game...

Hey everybody! Just wanted to introduce myself to the community.

I've been in an on/off relationship with AGS for many years now. Every year or so I get myself the latest version and tinker with it just because of the great possibilities. I also code a bit (Pure Basic & Gamemaker) but I never finished a real game in all those years, though.

But since I am doing quite okay with pushing pixels and enjoy it very much, I am intending to participate in one or the other competitions around here to gain some more experience. In any case: Nice to meet y'all!

- Phil