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I thank you!  Although I think you might have solved it pretty quickly off the bat....

[kconan]

They say three's a crowd, so by that yardstick I declare this contest to be a success!  Our contestants are, in order of entry:

kconan with Barnaby's Ten
Sinitrena with The Spy
Kasander with Stormy Cloud

Our voting criteria are more-or-less as published at the outset of the competition.  Specifically....

Best Character: so captivating that it shines through the turbulence of translation
Best Editing: which translation has the most polish? (not Polish )
Most Unholy Analogy Gone Awry: A self-explanatory category.  What just didn't translate well, but was thoroughly amusing nonetheless.
Best Plot Despite Weird Discrepancies: the gem in the rough shines through the translation exercise.
Best Setting: a place brought to life in exotic language
Most Substantive: which story will stick with you most? (due to moral, lesson, revelation, insight, gravity, emotional response, etc.)

You can vote as many times as you see fit for each category, so long as you believe in your heart of hearts that each author you vote for has truly earned a vote in that particular category.  Voting starts now and ends 72 hours from now, at approximately 2:40am Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday April 18.  Votes will still be accepted until I get around to tabulating them, which should be shortly after the deadline.  In the event of a tie I will cast the deciding ballot.  Good luck to all participants!

Jimmy assists Larry with the delicate molting process, and he emerges as a beautiful butterfly, complete with an extra pair of webbed and waterproof she-duck socks.  Jimmy's efforts at interrogating the duck are less successful, however.  It appears to have been knocked out cold for the time being.

[hint]

Oh, for the love of....

Spoiler

hint: Google Translate (English ->French) "stomach" = l'estomac, le ventre, la caillette.

[close]

Spoiler

hint 2:  What does stapling do to a stomach?

[close]

One more day!  Let's try to get a few more entries in folks.

Jimmy quickly grabs the gun and then carefully repositions one of the nest pillows to cushion the fall of the peeling mallard.  Meanwhile Larry attempts to either interrogate or gorge upon the green lily-pad design on the carpet (nobody's really sure which).  As an afterthought Jimmy rummages through the duck's luggage.  Most of it is full of sales samples of waterproof stockings for web-footed fashion-forward-females, but there is also the usual traveller's burden of toiletries, soiled clothing and untouched reading material.  Jimmy pockets a packet of waterproof stockings on the assumption that it won't be missed.

So close!  Remember, it's a stapled stomach in Paris.

I also vote 3, since you can then invent swear words that sound even dirtier than real swear words.  But like many have also said, it's your game, so let the profanity rain down hard if that's the atmosphere you're going for.  Just put a warning on it and I'm sure that'll scare away anyone with sensitive eyes/ears.

Fashionable stapled stomach in a Parisian airport (9)

This is so adventure related that its parents were siblings.

Although he's never seen a caterpillar move, Larry does his best impression of "ooching" based on Jimmy's meticulous description.  Remarkably the manoeuvre works!  Larry crawls away, leaving Jimmy lying free like a magnificently ruddy caterpillar turd.  But there is not much time to bask in the glory of their successes: even now the duck begins to peel off the wall!

Larry suddenly stops churning his legs, causing the unfortunate duck to go flying off into the wall at an awkward angle.  It remains to be seen whether the force of his impact will suffice to keep him suspended there like a gob of rich pudding, or whether he will slowly and comically begin to slide down the wall like a frog on a wind-shield.  For the moment the gun is free, but it is out of our duo's immediate reach.  While Jimmy attempts a one-sided negotiation of the terms of a truce with the duck, he can't help but entertain the nagging thought that they should be using this window of opportunity for something more purposeful....

[a) How many marbles should you draw in order to have the highest possible chances of winning?b) Is it a reasonable game to play (i.e. would you be making more money than losing it in the long run)?]

You can draw as many as you wish, and if your total score is 10 points or more, you'll get paid double the amount of money you bet, and if you lose, you lose all of it.

a) How many marbles should you draw in order to have the highest possible chances of winning?
b) Is it a reasonable game to play (i.e. would you be making more money than losing it in the long run)?

Not a math guy, but I'll try to solve it backwards:


b)  The odds are against you.  You have a 1/6 chance of outright victory (10 points) and 1/6 chance of instant defeat (x), cancelling each other out.  The ones are useless because they will never combine to make ten points (and playing past 10 is insane).  There is a 1/30 chance from the outset of getting two fives (1/6 * 1/5), but a much higher chance of drawing an x over two draws (if I'm not mistaken, 1/6 + 1/5 or 11/30).  The odds get further apart if you draw more than twice.

a)  The highest possible chance of winning is therefore drawing once (50:50).  Anything more than that the odds become progressively stacked against you.

Edit:  Gah, that's not right, since 1/6 + 1/5 + 1/4 + 1/3 + 1/2 guarantees failure, but of course it is possible to draw five marbles.

Dialog options?!?  This is a text parser game, my friend.  Invalid input!



Jimmy yells at Larry to stand up.  Larry tries to, but cannot get his footing, and so simply churns his legs in the air as if he were on a bicycle.  This causes the duck to tumble head over heels over and over again like that time he was stuck in that dryer in Belfast.  The gun would be going off wildly in all directions by now if not for the fact that the duck lacks the opposable digits with which to operate it.  Now the only impending danger is that of imminent multi-directional duck vomit.  In a misguided attempt to thwart this outcome, Jimmy starts singing a song about apologetic baggage mix-ups.

Nice to see all the enthusiasm.   One more week, folks!

Spoiler

Well....  I think "sensual seemingly" must = "sexmingly", and "endless cream" must = "crea".  The consumption bit implies that "crea" swallows "sexmingly", thus "cresexminglya" which very conveniently equals 13 letters, but most inconveniently makes no sense whatsoever.    I guess I'm missing something....

[close]

Sorry about the prolonged absence.  Family stuff....



Jimmy's attempt to aim his revolver at the duck results in a quick tussle, after which the duck emerges triumphant with the pistol!  Now Jimmy and Larry are at his mercy!  No amount of down-home humour seems to pacify him at this point.  They better think of something quickly!

Is it cans be write as if poorly transmutilated, be my ghost!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'll be away visiting family over the Easter weekend so there will be no update until Sunday at the earliest.  I look forward to reading many a hair-brained scheme when I return!



The dynamic duo call out for help, and then Jimmy wriggles the revolver free in order to attempt to set fire to the nearby bedding.  Fortunately, just before he carries out his plan to burn the hotel down, the lights flick on by themselves!  They are now confronted by the irate occupant of the room who now wordlessly hisses at the current occupants of his nest.

Well I took ten minutes to see if the "brute force" method would work: just looking up all the 5 letter AGS games (how many could there be?).  I searched the database and the last couple pages of the CG thread, but admittedly some AGS games would appear in neither.  Anyway, I couldn't make any of the names fit, but maybe some of you could see the logic behind the clues, so here are my results:

Atapi
Beer!
Crave
Crypt
Deity
Doses
Essia
Exile
Jacob
Party
Plan M
Shells
Snake
Space
Wall-E

Anybody got any ideas?

It's no use!  They seem to be trapped by the twisted snare of Larry's super cool cloak!  Struggle as they might, it only seems to tighten the grip of the sinister blanket.  And to make matters worse, there appears to be some sort of raspy breathing sound emanating from the eerie darkness!