Messages

Nice guess, but not what I was thinking of.   Your logic is very compelling, however, so if no one guesses the right answer I'll decide you are correct after all.

Congrats Myinah!  I wrote 6, but voted 2, 3 & 7.  We should do this more often!

[Turbulent air of a flightless bird. (3,4)]

I'll leave the next one for someone else to come up with.

I'll just sidle in here with....

Turbulent air of a flightless bird. (3,4)

Spoiler

AGS related.

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BLAST!  I was fixated on Geordies = EN. 

[Entrapment]

Hmmmmm.....

Spoiler

Well a "lorry" is a truck, or a big rig.  The internet vaguely extends this to all freight carrying vehicles, but that's not common parlance.

"Geordies" are people (in the loose sense of the term ) from Newcastle and environs.  This might refer to its location (NE for North England, or the postal code?) or some other term for residents there (intriguingly a nickname for Newcastle is "The Toon"....). 

I can't figure out "lively".  It might mean that "Geordies" is bouncing around (ie scrambled), or it might refer to a synonym like spry or perky....

So now it's wild stab in the dark time.  I'm going to go with Entrapment, with EN for North England, TRAP for something you do to lively game, and MENT because as a suffix it means "state or conditions caused by an action", like shipping something.

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[All Gone Soon]

Voted.  Man, that was hard.  All the entries really glowed in their own way, in that they were by far and away better than what Ponch and I were able to cobble together last November.   I feel bad that you all can't win: try to disperse your entries more next time!

All Gone Soon might have suffered from a lack of actual game play, but the story line was very well-written, the voice acting superb, and the humour outright hilarious.  Bonus points for Neil mimicking Gile's accent in mockery, Audrey Hepburn with a Penis, and the sarcastic "Shouldn't you be transitioning to the game-over screen now?" ending.

A Landlord's Dream did an amazingly atmospheric job of slowly introducing the player to a futuristic dystopia.  The dialogues were snappy, and the background art jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  The puzzles were logical (if a bit outlandish in terms of the cat... ), and the animation solid (especially the fish and the fixer).  Such a large concept obviously begs a larger game, but I thought you guys did a phenomenal job given the timeline restraints.  Awesome!

Starlit Grave was a very intense experience.  The music really made it work!  I loved the low res-art and animations, and the puzzles were logical (though short).  I felt a little overwhelmed by the sudden introduction of so many characters at the beginning, but otherwise the plot was solid.  The interface was a complicating factor for me, but it certainly gave the game that old-school vibe.  Nice work!

Mess Goblins was icky-sticky cute.  The world, the back-story, and the dialogues that revealed it were all wonderfully executed.  The puzzles all had an inspired insight into the minds of the slovenly (luckily I share this wavelength ).  But all of this pales in comparison to the blinding light of the animation.  I think my jaw shattered into a thousand pieces when it hit the floor: it is INSANE that you were able to pull all that off in a month (among all the other tasks necessary to assemble a functional game).  Wow! 

Good work all around, and I hope to see more from all the developers and teams, either expanding upon the work above or in other projects!

I'm Spartacus!  I also wrote ghost-wrote Monsieur OUXX's last-minute entry. 

I think that must be a record for submission off the mark.  The contest rules weren't leaked ahead of time, were they?

Let's see more!

Spoiler

trollsong?

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[Inept Personal Ad]

The Joint Committee of Writing Topic Allocation (ie Sinitrena & Baron) presents...

Ineptitude in Personal Ads

    Love, obviously, is an affair of the heart, but in the quest for love some people obviously leave their brain behind.  For this Valentine's edition of the Fortnightly Writing Competition, we are challenging you to write a fictional Inept Personal Ad wherein your main character is looking for love or companionship.  The format is completely open to the writer's discretion, but can possibly be: a traditional print ad, a dating website profile, a dating site video transcription, a love letter, etc.  The length and tone are up to you: it is an easy topic to have some fun with, but we feel the topic also avails itself to critical analysis of the expectations of what "love" is in this day and age.  We advise you to read the voting criteria (below) carefully, since our ideal entry will balance both humour and thoughtfulness.  But first, some examples to get the creative juices flowing:







   The voting criteria will be as follows:

1) Best Character (most inept, or most date-able, or most rounded, or most endearing....)
2) Best Use of the Language of Love (ie best word-choice/style)
3) Best Hook (the strategy the character uses to stand out from the crowd to get attention)
4) Best Social Commentary (Who has best revealed the good and ugly about modern society and its ideas of love)
5) Best Overall (Most entertaining, sweetest, etc.)

Deadline is February 21, or until there are at least three entries.  There will be no tie-breaking vote by your contest organizers, since we reserve the right to participate (being the two most reliable participants in the FWC in that we have neither of us missed a contest that we were eligible for in the past 2 years ).  As potential participants, we will vote just like everyone else does.  So that this does not lead to confusion about when the contest is over, a strict voting deadline will be enforced (the exact date to be determined once the contest closes).

   Good luck to all participants, and happy writing!

Who is this strikingly handsome devil who doth protest too much?  I would contest his assertion if I weren't made weak in the knees by his dreamy eye....

I can't believe this comp isn't getting more lovin', especially this time of year.   I am keen to see more prospective competitors.  Even if you're not planning to enter, you should still post in this thread to help build the hype and try to subvert our "guess the anonymous author" sub-game.

Wow!  It actually happened!   Let the preliminary stages of the initial negotiations begin....

I see that Baron got it first though really, but didn't want give it away...

Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

Mind games in the Cryptic Clue thread!?!  Well, I never....

[Edit]

This was one of the best examples of subtle trolling I've ever seen, Baron! Like others, I was fooled as well!

Doesn't there have to be some sort of malicious intent for it to count as trolling?  Anyway, I've changed my avatar so it's less likely that people mistake me for the big P.  Bear in mind that with my own server down, I'm pretty much limited to what I can scrounge off of the Barn Runner website.

Edit
P.S. Another guess:

Spoiler

You keep emphasizing crazy things, so I'm guessing I need to do "prefix for flying" + "word for crazy".  Thus, the only logical conclusion is:

Spoiler

Astroloco!

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Sorry for the confusion.  My server is down and I needed a sexy avatar to span the gap.

[Flying followers of a little green vegetable. (8)]

Flying followers of a little green vegetable. (8)

Spoiler

OK, I'm going to put my serious-cap on and try to figure this out.  I'm pretty sure the little green vegetable is Brussels sprouts.  I mean, peas would work better as a partial answer, but aren't they like legumes or something?  So it's gotta be Brussels sprouts.

The "flying followers" intrigue me.  For a while I could not think beyond my first impulse: My Little Ponies.  But eventually I broke down and started reading the hints, and reluctantly abandoned my original hypothesis.

Spoiler

The word "followers" can also be taken in a bit more... grammatical sense, if that's the right expression.

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Since grammar typically refers to syntax or morphology of words, and since secondary clues all referred to seemingly random nouns, I theoretically postulate that the next logical "following" would be a verb.  But which flying verb?  Flying?  Floating?  Levitating?  Maybe, if we expand "grammar" to include punctuation we can get actual flying marks, like quotes and apostrophes, and the ever flexible tilde....  Or maybe the clue refers to other symbols that you see floating in the superscript, like â,,¢ or ®?  R?  Wait!  "Flying Followers" + "Little Green Vegetables" is

Spoiler

®® + chives!

Arrrrrr Chives!

Archives! 

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[epic tie!]

Thanks for the kind words, Sini.   One more day and we can declare another epic tie!

N'Orleans still exists?

I can't make it, but you'd be insane not to choose the Terrytown Chateau.  C'mon guys, splurge!

Holy avalanche of entries, Batman!

Based on the screenies these are some serious entries.  Not like that fluff that Ponch & I won with in November....

Look forward to playing!