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Anian you clever bastard! I do the same thing!

[Idea]

Idea: Selmiak
Atmosphere: Wheela
Design: Anian
Composition: Anian
Functionality: Anian
Technique: Anian

Generally speaking:
- I really like oil rigs and other oversea platforms as an idea for a game environment, so I liked Selmiak's work
- Anian's BG drew my attention with its "clean" look and how the details stood out thanks to the flat colours
- Snarky's work reminds me of a 3D render turned pixel-art, which is an accomplishment to itself, but didn't float my boat this time
- I had a hard time figuring out Sane Co.'s piece. I think it's mostly because of the way it's the least traditional entry when considering game backgrounds.
- Creamy's piece made me feel the perpective was off somehow, I'm no master myself, but it just felt to me the entire scene was somehow bent or twisted
- Wheela, last but certainly not least. This piece was ALMOST my vote for all categories, but Anian and Selmiak's works just barely topped you this time due to the reasons listed above. Shame, I really think this background was beautiful, so it pains me to not give it more votes.

Interesting read, and I think it's acceptably close to the given guidelines, so no worries Sinitrena.
We have a starting point, people, let's see who has the courage to step up and challenge Sinitrena's entry!

A truly critical mystery for Indiana Rodent, considering your previous entry?

[Dark Moon]

Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fortnightly Writing Competition!

The theme for the upcoming two weeks is "Dark Moon". The only guideline for the story is, that it must revolve around the moon, or rather the lack thereof, since almost exactly two weeks from now there will be a new moon. What would go through your mind if you one day realized the moon was not up there anymore, or that it was simply not visible anymore for some reason? Would you care? Would you be frightened? Would you be curious?

The competition starts right now, on the 26th of February, and ends at noon (GMT) on the 13th of March, after which the voting begins. Trophies will be made for the top 3 stories (and probably for all participants too).

Yaaay! My first forthnightly victory!
Thanks a lot, everyone, this means quite a bit to me, as I've been trying to re-start my writing projects over the last month or so, and now I feel I haven't completely lost my touch.

New comp will be up soon, maybe tonight!

-WHAM

[CaptainD]

My vote goes to CaptainD simply because it was the funniest.

Whelp, I've always been a fan of the fine utilitarian designs of the Germans, so:


Oh, and in the Finnish winter this hat is doubly awesome, as it can do THIS:

Spoiler

See!? Ears and jaw and my ridiculous neckbeard all protected from chill winds!

[close]

with no bread, do you mean no bread at all, or no white bread, no toast and rather wholemeal bread? Somehow I always imagined wholemeal to be healthy and thus fitting. Not that I know a lot about it...

Avoid all bread, generally, though I do permit one small piece of rye bread or some other "dark bread" once or twice a week. I also use dark rice roughly once every couple of weeks, though only in very small amounts.

Based on the name I expected pube -jokes, it seems I will be disappointed.

I have to say it will be hard for me to get into the mood for a horror game with this level of visuals. Too heavy-handed copy/paste use and the cartoony look can really diminish any scary aspects to the game. However, if you put a good amount of effort into story and audio design, the project can work, so don't think I'm telling you to scrap this or anything.

I also find it an odd design choise to make the anxiety level clearly visible to the player, in my opinion that would be something that should be conveyed through visual / audio / dialogue ques, rather than a plain bar.

Oh well, hope I didn't sound too downbeat, and I hope you'll keep developing.

Beautiful visual style and a nice setup storywise. Pretty unusual to set the game in Ireland, and I like that as well.
looking forward to giving this game a try!

I know quite a few people with weigh problems, hell, I'm one of 'em. The most common issue I've seen is people expecting a diet of any kind to work in a month or two and then have the effects last. Most of them just bounce back a few months later.

I myself weighed almost 130kg about a year ago, and have worked almost non-stop since then to control my weight, and am currently at about 112kg, slowly going down. That's about 18 kilos in 12 months, a seemingly slow pace to some, but maintainable.

I have not (yet) added any exercize to my daily life, and the only changes I've made were dietary. The diet I tried, and have been on since february 2012, is a variation of the Atkins diet, ie. a low carb diet. Little to no bread, grain, pasta, rice etc, instead those have been replaced with meat, fish, salad, vegetables and, most importantly, eggs. For me the diet has been easy to follow, as it involves no keeping track of your calorie intake and no weighing every piece of food before eating, and allows many foods I enjoy with practically no limitation other than the ones I set myself. There are some downsides, primarily the fact that at the start, as your body stops getting the carbs it's used to, you get headaches for a week or two, as well as some slight dizzyness, though these ailments stopped for me completely over the first month. Then come the muscle cramps, which I suffer from roughly once every month or two, though this latter issue can be avoided almost completely by taking in some extra magnesium.

Whelp, that's it for my input, hopefully I'll be down at 100kg or lower by next christmas.

-WHAM

Not this year, guys.

[Second Escape - A Chance of the Dead Fanfiction]

Second Escape - A Chance of the Dead Fanfiction


The Unfinished Business Departedment was, despite all the puns involved in it's everyday existence, a dead place to work in. When Ted had been given the chance to resolve his unfinished business via a contract with the Departedment, he had been overjoyed, despite the shock of his recent departure of the mortal realm. Now, just a few short years later, the routine had kicked in. Go to work, receive the day's (or night's) file or files, take the fourteen-line tram to the mortal realm and raise the recently dead so they can resolve their issues and move on. Nothing as exciting as resolving that long-overdue Burdie case that had been his first, but instead mostly bringing back those that lie comatose in hospitals, merely dead by technicality, or visiting the morgues to allow the recently dead to make good on promises they themselves had often forgotten about. Dull, menial job, if there ever was one.

“Hey Ted, catch!”

Before poor Ted could turn his bald bespectacled semi-transparent head to face the source of the voice, a heavy semi corporeal folder landed square on his head, bursting open and releasing the stack of semi-transparent papers within. Ted scrambled to stand up from his office-chair, but merely managed to topple it over, leaving him hovering inches off the dusty floor of his cubicle as the papers slowly rained over him.

“Ack- Joe! Do you mind?” -Ted burst out, frustration evident in his voice.

“Sorry, Ted. Didn't think the straps were so loose.” -came the response, as Joe in the other cubicle was barely able to keep himself from bursting out laughing. Ted slowly righted his incorporeal body and began to pick up the loose papers and to reorganize them in the folder that now lay on his messed-up desk. Glancing over the papers, it looked to Ted like this would be a short day. Praise the Powers that be for small mercies.

A few moments after the incident, Ted had packed up his files, folders and neatly organized collection of incorporeal ballpoint-pens, into his suitcase. He adjusted his necktie, brushed off his coat and soundlessly floated out of his cubicle and, eventually, out of the building. As the doors slammed shut behind him, he thought he could hear Joe making some witty comments about their work-life balance and upcoming development discussions feedback reports to one of the other lost souls working at the departedment. As he floated out towards the tram station, allowing the current of souls wandering the streets of the otherworld to steer him to his destination, Ted let out a little sigh. He wasn't sure why, but it might have been relief. He always felt nostalgic when entering the mortal realm.

---

Nicholas “Nick” Holmberg had breathed his last just a few hours ago. The sounds of the world, the distant wail of sirens and the shouts and screams he barely recalled seemed so distant now, as if they had happened to someone else, as if he had been a mere observer. Relieved of his mortal coil and the pains, ailments and bodily functions, his mind had had those few hours, the first ones of a long eternity that awaited him, to ponder on his past life. Yet, the recollections did not come clearly, but instead appeared as confused bursts, split-second fragments of his life, and that of someone else.

Nick was sure he was dead, no way around it. He'd never thought much about death when he was alive, though. Why bother with it? Live in the moment, that's what his dad had always told him when he had been alive. Now that he thought about it more, Nick didn't even remember how he had died, only that the sensation had been unpleasant. If he'd been religious, would he be at the pearly gates now, or did this same black nothingness await all?

As he lay there, in the silence and darkness he had been confined to, a voice came through to him. It had no echo, no depth and it seemed to be coming from a great distance away; the tinny voice of an office worker.

“By the powers that be...”

Had they brought in a priest to bless him? Nick thought it odd, considering he was not part of any church or religious organization. Then again, considering the fact that he hadn't heard a single sound in hours, this seemed like a welcome change to him. Nick listened intently as the voice rose gently to deliver one more word, that somehow seemed to be addressed directly to him.

“Rise!”

A flash of white light out of nowhere, a burning sensation in his eyes, his whole body, that jolted his muscles and organs into action. The numbness and nothingness faded away, replaced by a new sensation, that of pain and sensory input: smell of metal and blood, taste of copper and bile, a cool metal surface upon which he lay. Nick spasmed, his arm thrashed once, then twice, then relaxed as his body came to be alive once more. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to draw breath to calm himself down, but the breath would not come. In a second he realized he didn't need to breathe.

“Oh come on now, Mr Holmberg, time is short and I'm sure you, like myself, have things to attend to.”

The metal slab slid open and the zipper of the body bag broke open. The cool fluorescent light hurt Nick's eyes and the air smelled of disinfectant and decay. A bald bespectacled figure, barely visible as the bright light filtered through it's form, hovered over Nick's head.

“Mr Holmberg, my name is Ted, of the Unfinished Business Departedment...”

---

Frank White, a white middle-aged man in a one-size-too-large spare police uniform, was sitting in his patrol car, observing the unfortunate individuals that roamed the streets of his hometown in the night. Drifters, alcoholics, mostly people who posed no danger, but occasionally they had the an honest-to-god burglar or an escaped mental patient to tend to. Frank took a sip of this thermos, hoping the warm drink would fend off the chills, and grimaced; the coffee had gone cold about an hour ago. He'd been too deep in his thoughts, just staring blankly into the night, to notice. The radio of his patrol car squelched to life.

“All units in the vicinity of Stammerford Memorial Hospital, we have a possible ten-sixteen. Units report in.”

Frank glanced at the street sign he had parked near, and realized he was just a few blocks away from the hospital. He wound down his window and poured the vile black liquid that had once been coffee onto the pavement before grabbing hold of the radio receiver and calling in:

“Unit fourteen-four, currently ten-six, over.”

Frank replaced the receiver and dropped the empty thermos into the passenger seats footwell. He rubbed his eyes and wondered if he'd ever sleep again. He'd had a quick interview with a doctor about the incident last night, the one that had left him without a partner, and the doc had told him to go home and rest, to sleep it off and to take some time to come to terms before returning to the job, but here he was. The radio remained silent, no other patrols reported in. After a minute the radio dispatch called out again:

“Repeat, all units in the vicinity of Stammerford Memorial Hospital, we have a possible ten-sixteen. Units report in.”

This time Frank didn't reply, he just watched as a short man hunched over a trash bin across the street, rummaging around to find whatever he was looking for. A faint buzzing noise startled Frank and he instinctively reached for his pocket and retrieved the cell phone. The message he had received read:

“Frank, either go home or go to work. -Phil”

Frank stared at the words on the tiny screen for a minute, until the light faded out as the phone went into power saving mode. Finally he stuck the phone into his pocket and picked up the radio receiver again.

“This is unit fourteen-four, I copy on that possible ten-sixteen, ten-seventy six, en-route, over.”

Frank started his car, startling the hobo across the street, and slowly rolled off onto the quiet streets that lead to the hospital.

It was only minutes later when Frank arrived at the hospital and caught sight of the shambling figure that was leaning on the chain-link fence of the parking lot. The man looked strangely familiar, but Frank pushed the thought aside as he saw that the man looked injured. His pale-blue shirt was stained black in several places and his leg was at an odd angle. Frank allowed his car to roll into a gentle stop and grabbed the radio receiver to report in:

“Fourteen-four, I am ten-twenty three. Possible ten-fifty five at my ten-twenty, over.”

“Copy that, fourteen-four.” -came the response from dispatch.

Frank removed his sidearm from it's holster and checked that the safety was on. It wasn't, so he clicked the selector before holstering the weapon and stepping out of the car. Frank drew out his flashlight and shined it towards the familiar-looking man leaning on the fence.

“Hey there, buddy! Need any help?”

The man jerked his head around, casting a glossy-eyed gaze at Frank. Something about the man made Frank's skin crawl and he hesitated as he stepped in closer.

“Sir, are you injured? Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

Frank took another step, then another, until he was just a few feet away from the man, who seemed to be dazed and confused, as if muttering to himself. Suddenly, before Frank could even react, the man wheeled around and charged at him. The force of his body slamming against his caught Frank unaware and the two men toppled to the ground. The flashlight escaped Frank's grasp as his assailant pinned his arms to the cold asphalt. A guttural voice came from the man's mouth, along with a foul smell: “Did you already forget me, officer?”

---

“Hey, Joe! Did you see this already?”

Joe let the double-doors of the Departedment close behind him and turned to face his colleagues, who had gathered next to the intra-office notice board. A new poster had been hastily tacked on top of the old notices, and Joe hovered in closer to take a look.

“Notice to all departedments and staff. Please locate and return the following case files to administration immediately, due to a potential mix-up all cases are to be placed on hold until the issue is resolved.”

Joe glanced over the names, and recognized one of them immediately. The first name was “Nigel Holmberg”, a father of three who had not been allowed to say goodbye to his children as he had died in a freak car accident. The second name was that of a “Nicholas Holmberg”, a mental patient shot to death during his escape from a hospital, which had left one police officer dead and another shocked to the core.

I'd love to see Janet in a story of yours. Hey, everything's deader with zombies and deader rhymes with better and is just one letter away from butter. Don't you feel lubricated already? 

Janet's story was resolved, I don't think there's anything to do with her anymore, but I do have something else in mind. I might write up a short sketch today and see how it feels.

My first thought was to use this as a chance to write up a small narrative addition to one of my own games, but I felt like that might be considered cheating.
So instead I turn my gaze at some of my favourite games, instead, and the challenge becomes picking just one. RAM Ghost? Technobabylon? Chance of the Dead? Indiana Rodent? One of the Trilby games? Falling Skywards? Something else?

I'll need to do some thinking...

Aww, looks like it will be a tight fit with so many people :/
My finances just took an almost 800â,¬ hit due to my car breaking down, but I will have plenty of time to save up for the trip if there is still room for me.

Sweet bejezus! Looks really nice! I just got a pay raise so it looks like my participation is even more likely than before, too!

[Herein lies the catburglar Trilby...Ummm?...I give up!]

Herein lies the catburglar Trilby
...
Ummm?
...
I give up!
- Gravestone of Trilby the Catburglar

Here lies a ghost from the RAM
Born as someone's rig went ka-blamm
It'll haunt this machine till the end of days
All software, beware of it's mischievous ways!
- Gravestone of a RAM ghost