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#61
Welcome to a new round of our exciting Fortnightly Writing Competition!

This time, your challange is to write about an archer.


Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) - Anja Hitzler - Oliver <The Arrow> Queen (Stephen Amell) - Robin Hood


A medieval English longbowman, an olympic champion or a science-fiction hero shooting laser beams instead of arrows - archery requires a lot of skill, talent and strength.
The archer in your story doesn't need to be the main character but he/she should play an important part. Other than that, just write what you want.

Deadline: 29. Sept. 2015
#62
Fellow wordsmith and tellers of tales,

we've all read stories where eyes become orbs and the description of a burning fire needs four pages. Where the reader wishes the author had burned his thesaurus twenty pages ago. In other words: purple prose - prose that is so florid that it becomes painful to read.


You want some examples?


Quote from: Paolini: Inheritance CircleThe branch Roran had added to the fire burst asunder with a muted pop as the coals underneath heated the gnarled length of wood to the point where a small cache of water or sap that had somehow evaded the rays of the sun for untold decades exploded into steam.

Quote from: Theis: The Eye of ArgonThe weather beaten trail wound ahead into the dust racked climes of the baren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age worn hoof prints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless sun cast its parching rays of incandescense from overhead, half way through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdonsome cargoes of their struggling overseers.

More examples can be found here.


So why do I force you to read this?

Because now I want you to write like that!


For this Fortnightly Writing Competition your task is to write a short story (preferably less than 4000 words) in the worst purple prose you can manage. And to make it even more of a challange: Make it a good story, that is, one with plot and characters.


Voting will be done in the following categories:

Best Character: Most believable or captivating or magnetic or unique: could be main character or supporting role
Best Plot: What happens in the story? Are the actions logical, exciting, suspenseful? Is it good despite the prose?
Best Atmosphere: Which story evoked the strongest feelings due to excitement/humour/intrigue/wonder/emotional intensity?
So bad it's good: This is our style category this time around. The more painful to read, the more hilarious and dreadful the prose, the better.


Deadline: 11. August 2015


Happy writing!
#63
Quote from: NapoleonSoldiers, from the summit of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you...

Old monuments like the pyramids probably would have a lot of stories to tell if they could talk. They also are very limited in their perspective. They stay at one place and only see part of a larger picture. On the other hand, they see human interaction over a period of many, many years.

Imagine yourself to be a monument and tell a story from this perspective. It doesn't have to be first person and it's not even necessary to treat the monument like a person. As long as you limit your point of view, it is enough. All kinds of stories are possible: two lovers that always meet at the Taj Mahal, the pyramids witnessing Napoleons speech or the Statue of Liberty being transported from France to New York.

This Fortnightly Writing Competition ends on the 7. August and there will be trophies.
Enjoy writing.
#64
Every great story has to begin somewhere. Every great story needs a first sentence, a first paragraph, a first chapter (or a prologue, depending on how you set up your story) In this chapter the author needs to set up some characters (not necessaryly the main ones), the world and probably the atmosphere of the whole story. He also needs to captivate the reader to a certain degree. After all, you would want people to keep on reading.

Let's look at some examples:

A character is created:

QuoteFirst the colours.
Then the humans.
That's usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.
Here is a small fact
You are going to die.
I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestation.
Martin Zusak: "The Book Thief"


QuoteI have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Treborn. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the university at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread path by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.
You may have heard of me.
Patrick Rothfuss: "The Name of the Wind" (Actually from chapter 7, but it's the beginning of the story within the story, so I'd say it counts)


Or an atmosphere:

QuoteFar out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbitting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
Douglas Adams: "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"


QuoteMr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.
J.K. Rowling: "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"



But a first chapter alone does not make a story, it just sets the tone. The storyline in the rest of the novel is just as important.

So, what I want you to do this time around is devided into two parts:
1. Write a short first chapter, or first paragraph, or just first sentence of what could be a whole novel.
2. Write a summary of what is to follow or something that could be used as a blurb on the back off the book.



One last example:

First paragraph:
QuoteI didn't know how long I had been in the king's prison. The days were all the same, except that as each one passed, I was dirtier than before. Every morning the light in the cell changed from the wavering orange of the lamp in the sconce outside my door to the dim but even glow of the sun falling into the prison's central courtyard. In the evening, as the sunlight faded, I reassured myself that I was one day closer to getting out. To pass time, I concentrated on pleasent memories, laying them out in order and examining them carefully. I reviewed over and over the plans that dad seemed so straightforward before I arrived in jail, and I swore to myself and every god I knew that if I got out alive, I would never never never taky any risks that were so abysmally stupid again.

And the blurb:
QuoteBecause of his bragging - and his great skill - Gen lands in the King's prison, shackled to the wall of his cell. After months of isolation, he his released by none other than the King's scholar, the Magus, who believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. The thief he needs for the long, dangerous journey is Gen. To the Magus, Gen is just a tool. But Gen has some ideas of his own.
Magan Whalen Turner: "The Thief"


And now you know what books I own in english ;) I hope I did not overwhelm you with all these quotes. In the end this is a rather simple topic, really. Just imagine you wanted to write a novel and go from there.
Deadline is the 8th february.
Go and be creative!
#65
People make promises all the time:

“I`ll be home by six.“
“I`ll help you with the dishes later...“
“I`ll never steal again.“

People also break these promises all the time. That is just the way we are.

For this Fortnightly Writing Competition I ask you to write a story in which a promise is first made and then broken. This promise can be something small like my first two examples or something big like a broken treaty between nations.

Deadline is the 15. Nov.

Enjoy writing!
#66
How did this shovel fit in the pants of this adventure game character?
Why does nobody ever question the child detectives when they look at a crime scene? And why do all these crimes happen when they are in the vicinity, again?

In most stories there's one point where the story would probably happen differently if the characters lived in the real world. As a reader you would probably shrug and read on and not really care, because we expect to a certain degree that things happen differently in a story. That's just the way it is. A character in a story doesn't wonder about these things, because for him, this is reality. The child detective doesn't expect to get stopped or questioned, the adventurer knows that he can everything he wants and no-one notices or even arrests him for theft, for example.

Of course, there are stories that point these things out on a regular basis, and others that try to stay as close to reality as possible. I ask for something different: Write a story where a character's conceptions about his world suddenly stop to be true and our reality inserts itself in the story. This can go from a character that gets simply confused because his world has gone crazy to the character actually realizing that he his in a story and him questioning the author. (A short example, because I'm not entirely sure I made this clear: The adventure game charatcer has always put heavy equipment in his pockets and nobody batted an eye. He tries this again, but his friend points out that it shouldn't be possible to do something like that. The main character suddenly can't do it any more. He starts to question what has happened in the past and now and comes to the conclusion that he must be going crazy.)

For some reason this topic sounded easier before I typed it. :-[ But I'm sure you all will come up with some creative ideas and some great stories.
You have time untill the 5th october.
#67
Rashomon Style

Maybe you are familiar with the movie Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, and if not, that's not a problem. Knowledge of this movie is no requirement to enter here. The point of this film is that several protagonists provide alternate versions of the same incident and you only get the whole picture in the end. This basic idea was used in a lot of different stories and movies. For some examples go here.

I want you to write a story like that. Tell us about an event in at least 2 versions. This can be two first person narrators, or a first person narrator and a third person omnipotent narrator, or it could be one narrator once telling the story to a child then to an adult, or the narrator is a child when he tells the story the first time and an adult the second time. Or anything else you could think of. As long as you tell us about the same incident (at least) twice, it's fine. It's not necessary that there is a true version.
You can connect these parts with a framing story, but that is not absolutely necessary either. You can simply put them as two chapters, if you prefer it like that.

The deadline for this round is the 23. August.

Enjoy writing and good luck!
#68
"There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt" (Audre Lorde)

Maybe it's true that there are no new stories to be told only new ways of telling them, maybe it's not. But I do believe that every story takes elements and concepts from already existing stories and uses them to create something new. That's basically what I want you to do.
The topic for this fortnightly writing competition is

TV Tropes

Head over to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage (or if you know of a similar site, go there) and chose a random trope (there's a random button on the bottom or a story generator under "toys" on the left) to use in your story, or poem or essay or whatever you want. If you don't want something so random, just write any story you like and look for a fitting trope later.

Post your story and the trope(s) you used until 10. July.
And most important: Have fun!
#69
It's criminal how very few entries there were for the last writing competition, so to make up for that, I want you all to write stories (or poems) that involve any kind of crime. It could be about a detectiv solving a case of identitiy theft, about a group of thieves planning a heist or about a family grieving their murdered family member - just to give you some general ideas.

Please commit (or solve) all crimes until the 27th of August.
#70
QuoteMythopoeia (also mythopoesis, after Hellenistic Greek μυθοποιία, μυθοποίησις "myth-making") is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction.
(Thank you, wikipedia)


What I want you to do for this fortnightly writing competition is to write a myth of any kind.

How was the world created?
Why are there summer and winter?
Why do people live and die?
Or anything else you can think of.

Basically, write a non scientific story that explains any kind of natural phenomenon.

Dear gods, please create your worlds until the 20. March.
#71
Sometimes, the world turns upside down. Nothing seems as it was before. Is this just what a  character feels or has the sky become the earth? Whatever you make of it, something should not be or seem as it usually is.

General rules:


  • the length of your entry isn't important
  • all entries should be in by 13th July
  • voting will start after the 13th and last for 2 days
  • the winner will host the next fortnightly writing competition

I hope for as many entries as last round.

Enjoy writing!
#72
Emerald Eyes

"It all startet with a dream. I saw myself - standing in front of a swimming bath. I felt strange. I felt strong. I felt the desire to kill. I knew my victim. She was in there. She had to die, she had to drown. Water was the first element. I couldn't stop myself. I had to kill..."




Get it here.



Enjoy
#73
The Witch, the Wizard and the Blue Cup

Ever wanted to play a game with a really cliched story? Here you are: Linara is a witch. She dreams that she shall find a powerful magical object (The Blue Cup) to safe the world.



Features:
- a really cliched story
- bad voice acting
- worse graphics
- uninteressting puzzels

You can get it here.

Enjoy
#74
Death of an Angel

The city of Angels is located in the clouds. Noone has left it for 500 years. But now, one of the Angels, Simon, is missing. Where is he? What happened to him?



Download
Mirror

Disclaimer:
This game is not exactly about religion, but it takes some religous concepts rather liberal. If you feel offended by this please don't play this game.

This game has two different endings and multiple solutions for one puzzle.


Enjoy!
#75
Completed Game Announcements / Lonely Night
Fri 20/01/2006 02:53:58
Lonely Night

An old man lives alone in his house. His wife has died some years ago.

One night he thinks that there's a burglar in the house.



This is an entry for the January MAGS 2006

Download here   Version 2

Mirror  Version 2

Enjoy!
#76
Normally I use hi-color, but I decided to work in true color this time. Now I wanted to find out the number for a color. In hi-color you simply look the color up in palette and use the number in the gui, but when I try this in true color, the shown color in palette and the GUI color are different when I use the number.
So, is this a bug or is there an other way to find out colors for true-color games? 
#77
James Bond - Who wants to live again?

You are James Bond and someone kills you while you are in bed with Janine, you're current girlfriend. But you have luck. A man called A offers you the possibility to live again, but he wants you to do something on earth before you can live again. The only problem is that you're dead enemy Clawman has been offerd the same possibility to live again by a man called Z. And Clawman tries to kill you and to destroy the earth. Will you manage to give James Bond his life back?


Have fun and download it here.
#78
Well, I'm sure this sounds a bit strange but I don't mind. I googled my Forum name (it's the name I always use when I'm online) and found a review of my second game "A magic stone". I don't understand the review (It's in polish or czech. That are languages I don't know one word) so I would be really thankful if someone arround here who speaks this language could translate it for me. This is the link to the review:
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/amagicstone.html
#79
Story:
You are Nolan, a young man who is half human half elve. His father, a human, sends him on a mission to find and destroy the last 'magic stone' The magic stone is a dangerous magic object that was developed to fight against demons but it turned out to be more dangerous for those who made it.

Screenshot:


This game is half Point&Click Adventure and half RPG.
A fighting system is part of the RPG part and I thought of making it a template. Is someone interessted? Please post it here.
You can download the game here.
I would be really thankful if someone could make a download mirror.

A walkthrough to this game is also available. Pleas click here
#80
Advanced Technical Forum / Bug with inventory?
Thu 02/09/2004 23:55:54
I am not exactly sure if it is really a bug, but, well, here is the problem:
I made an own inventory window on one of my GUI's. I ticked the box "player starts with this item" on some items. First my own inventory window didn't work (I actually made it too small, so this isn't a problem anymore) , but I tried to press tab to start the normal inventory window. The game crashed with the following message:
"An error has occured. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 2.61.747)
Error: InventoryScreen: one or more of the inventory screen graphics have been deleted."

Now this means that I can't use a costumized inventory window and the standart one in the same game. Is this a bug?
Even if it isn't a bug I think the error message should be something else. It really drove me crazy to find out what the problem was, because according to the error message I thought there might be something wrong with the sprites I imported before this error or with the inventory items I created.
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