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My understanding is that the hosts may also write entries....

Love this understanding of our hallowed rules.  Cue further debate! 

It was actually me that suggested that rule to RootBound for this round. When he said "it is my understanding" that probably meant his understanding was for this round. I actually don't mind if the host enters every round, but that's not the reason why I suggested the exception to the rule to him in this case.

The reason was that we have someone other than the usual gang who is potentially interested in submitting an entry.

Rootbound, feel free to write your entry and submit it. Like I said to you via our private discussions, if anyone doesn't approve of the host entering, they can just ignore that entry when they vote. The contest isn't even about "winning" it, really. It's just a motivation to write something every two to four weeks, and always feels good when something gets released no matter how few people read it. Well, it feels good to win as well, and the more participants we have, the better that feels as well.

I'm actually currently putting together a much-revised compilation of stories I have written here over the years into a short story compilation with hopes for some kind of publication. I wasn't even serious about writing the first time I joined this contest. You never know where bashing out a story every 2-4 weeks can take you.

Oh, and I finally have an idea in mind for MY story for this round... YAY!

Love this theme. It was definitely the best of the bunch.

Rootbound and I have hit upon a theme (of his suggestion) and are currently talking about some hosting stuff. Stay tuned!

Cheers, Sini...

Yes, in a longer second draft of the story I plan to explain Matt's motivation to take her there a bit better. Up until she had found out about the upcoming eclipse, all her delusions about the triangles had been wishy-washy like you can see a bit of in the story. Too hard for him to pin any claim on her and make it stick. But now that she was making an actual solid claim about how the eclipse was so important, he jumped at the chance to take her there, in the hopes that the lack of closure might be a foothold he could use to start to chip away at her problem, or at least make her start to have some self-doubt.

Thanks for spotting the timing issue. I think I had meant for them to have stayed up into the early hours of the morning, and then wake up after noon, but there was a real life time gap of about a week in between starting and finishing the story so I forgot.

Have an idea... might be in.

My feedback:

Vertices and Vagaries

Spoiler

Loved the take on the triangle theme and it was quite impactful with the concept of strongest physical structures vs. weaker emotional ones, despite the last line going maybe one syllable a bridge too far. Great poem!

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Of the Creation of Pyramids

Spoiler

Interesting concept to put math problems within the story for the reader to solve before moving on. I didn't though, and just clicked on the spoiler brackets. Would have worked better in a game. The story doesn't need that gimmick. BUT, I did love the symbolism of the class structure of shapes growing through the dimensions, only to be reduced back to inferiority and maybe obsolescence once they had built a "better" structure. Seems a tale that maybe describes our time. It got my vote for that reason.

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Three's a Crowd

Spoiler

A Mexican standoff is a great idea for the theme of "Triangles"! And putting it in the modern setting of a drug deal gone "wrong", including a sympathetic mule who is actually Mexican was also brilliant. But the structure of the story only paid off a little for me. I had to reread it a few times to figure out who each character was and what their motivations were. Also, I was a bit confused at the end when two of the characters made friends, but the other was not mentioned (EDIT: Ah! Upon another reading it seems the other was mentioned, and in fact initiated the final dissolving of the standoff, further feedback still based off my initial few reads, except where EDIT is mentioned). Seemed to me that a triangle story should have wrapped up on a note involving all three. But still great fun in the vein of stuff like the movie "The Mule". And also "Reservoir Dogs" except without the shooty-shooty-blam-blam, which was what you were going for I felt, but I just didn't feel the satisfaction at the end of all three characters completing their arcs (EDIT: As mentioned above, I got that all three stood down, but maybe a sentence at the end involving all three heading off for beers would have made that more obvious to me at least). Could be a great first draft of a short film script though!

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Played The Weird Thing Under The Bed.

It's weird!    Managed to get a few different endings. Oddly, my favorite part is

Spoiler

walking the hand around. I kept wanting to interact with the dust creatures. 

[close]

I gave it my vote. 

Yeah, interaction was in the plan, but just never got done. Only had 3 afternoons/nights to work on the game. I also voted for yours, obviously, but have only checked it out briefly. Hopefully will get back to it and be able to give feedback.

TOPPING THE TRIANGLE

  They were everywhere. The more she looked, the more there were. Triangles. Friggin' triangles. She knew that triangles were not an unusual thing to see. She wasn't crazy or anything. They were in every letter A and within every random intersection between stuff like that overpass right there and the building's wall next to it and the powerlines running across under as she swerved them into another lane to break the hateful shape apart.

  "Jesus, Janey! So, this is about the fucking triangles again?! And also, what the Christ?" said Matt. "You almost sideswiped that guy! Slow down!"

  "Yeah, screw him." she replied, glancing over, her eyes locking onto her brother's lean face for quite a few beats longer than he felt comfortable with her having her eyes off the road for. "Not just the usual ones. I'm NOT crazy! I KNOW they're everywhere, like in every capital letter 'A' and like over there again on that..."

  "Okay, now he's flipping us off." Matt interrupted, his head turned away from her, looking over through two panes of glass at the angry driver surging up parallel to them. "And get your eyes back on the road! Actually, just pull over."

  She obeyed his first request but not his second and said, "Naw, we gotta be there by tomorrow." But she did slow down a bit and the offended driver passed them, his extended middle finger thrust back out of his lowering side window. "See that?"

  Matt turned back to his sister and said, "Yeah, I saw a deservedly pissed-off man you almost killed in a car wreck."

  "Ha-ha, funny." she replied. Matt didn't think what he'd just said was funny as she went on, "I meant the Mitsubishi sigil on his car. That's six more."

  "Okay, what's a 'sigil' for starters? And six of what? What are you even talking about?"

  Janey didn't answer. But she kept her blue eyes grimly focused on the road ahead and shut up about her conspiracy crap for now, so Matt just let it go. There would be more servings of her bullshit later on, he was sure. At least they might survive the drive.

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  After an awkward check-in at a roadside motel, the siblings had dragged their bags from the trunk of Janey's car to their seedy room. Matt made a run to the Burger King two blocks down along the rushing interstate and came back with their food. Janey had dragged the orange coffee table between their beds. It barely allowed leg room as her and Matt put their butts on the mattresses and began to unwrap their meals and feed their faces.

  There was no conversation between the two until the onion rings and fries had dipped to a sensible-enough level. Matt put his three-quarter-eaten Whopper down on the table inside its paper sleeve and said, "That zit though. Damn, girl."

  Janey laughed out some bits of burger bread and waggled her fingers by the pustulant bulge at the offending corner of one nostril. "I've been saving it just for you." She let her fingers pinch and draw toward the white-capped redness of the pimple. Matt drew back, laughing through his revulsion.

  "JANEY! NO! Not again!" he spluttered. "That one time at camp was enough to last me a... OH, SHIT! Stop squeezing it!"

  Pop! Pus from its burst cap leapt from the crater of the pimple's inflamed head, hanging tear-shaped just above Janey's upper lip. She smirked and said, "How much you dare me to lick it off?"

  "Oh, fuck! You're a fucking freak!" spat back Matt through barely restrained laughter. "Okay. Do it!"

  She did, and they both fell back onto their narrow motel beds, thrashing, laughing their heads off.

  Gasping for breath, Matt spluttered out, "You are honestly the most insane person I know." and Janey replied, "We'll see, I guess." and sat up, sudden seriousness spelled out across her broad, pale face. "I know you don't believe me. And FUCK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CALLING ME THAT!" she spat at him, all the mirth gone from her expression.

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  It had been a rough night after Janey went ballistic over him saying the word "insane", and Matt felt all the rougher for it as the morning light pouring through the motel window awoke him. His sister wasn't insane. He knew that. It had only been a word he put out after one of her loveable gross pranks.

  They'd gotten into a huge row after he'd said that word and he'd not been able to explain that it only meant that he loved all that about her; She had just stormed around the room, turning away and back to him over and over, and yelling mostly about how she wasn't crazy. But also, now and then as he'd shrank back on his bed, she'd pointed out the corner where the doorframe's pattern met or at the TV remote's "Play" button and sometimes shouting and sometimes whispering about how those triangles meant nothing. About how they weren't the important ones. And that only tommorrow's alignment meant anything and about how only the vision she'd seen meant anything and about how getting to that particular place at that particular time meant anything.

  Matt had eventually tucked Janey into bed after her eyes had rolled up enough for him to know that her tantrum was done. And then he'd thudded his own head down onto his pillow and escaped into sleep.

  But now the morning light pulled him back into the world where he had to care again. He groaned his way out of bed and went over and pulled the motel's mini-fridge open and took out the uneaten portion of his burger and fries from the night before for breakfast. He went over and sat at the table by the window and took a bite of cold burger and started to chew it.

  Then he looked around and noticed that the motel's door was ajar slightly. His eyes tracked back to his sister's bed and saw that the covers of it lay on the floor and had been dragged in the direction of the door.

  "FUCK!" Matt spluttered, spitting out cold meat and bread, throwing the remains of the burger aside and getting up from the chair, spilling both the table and the paper package of fries across the floor as he leapt up. He ripped open the already ajar door and looked every which way out over the parking lot of the seedy Las Vegas motel.

  Janey was nowhere to be seen, but Matt knew the exact place and time he would find her at. He rushedly got changed and threw the motel room's key on the dresser and left the door open and got in the rental, reminding himself to be careful as he pulled out into traffic.   

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  When the triangles had initially come to her months ago, Janey had been worried and skeptical at first. They had shown up in paper coffee filters at work and the angles of her fitted sheets' elastic bands. They had kept showing up. But it had never been a really big issue until the night she saw the thing on Facebook about the upcoming solar eclipse. That's when she'd called her brother.   

  "Matt! It's real!" she'd yelled into her phone, breathlessly, her tone of voice alerting her brother to yet another upcoming sister-based crisis.

  "Okaaay... hello Janey. What is?!" Matt responded sleepily from half a continent away.

  "The eclipse, you clueless motherfucker!"

  Matt got up from the chair he'd dozed off in on the balcony of his lonely bachelor walkup and said, "What eclipse? The one that stopped your actual brain working?" and immediately felt bad for saying the words.

  His sister didn't seem at all phased though and replied, "The one on 3-3-3!"

  Matt went back inside and replied, "I have no idea what '3-3-3' even means."

  "OH, my ACTUAL God, MATT! Just listen! Fuck! Stop interrupting!"

  "... okaaay..."

  "Listen! It's all going down on 3-3-3!"

  Matt opened his fridge and replied, "I still have no idea wha..."

  "THE ECLIPSE!!! Fuck, man... Don't you even watch the news?!" 

  Cracking open a beer, Matt said, as calmly as he could manage, "Not a lot, no. Look, Janey, I'm a bit busy and..."

  "DON'T YOU EVEN DARE TRY AND HANG UP ON ME!" Janey yelled back through his phone's speaker. "Wait... sorry for shouting. Just lend me an ear, dude."

  "Okay, Janey. You know I'm always here for you." Matt said, taking a long drink of beer and sighing inwardly. Over the phone, he heard her panicky breathing start to calm as she replied, "Okay... Listen... There's gonna be a total eclipse of the sun on the 23rd next month at 3:53pm." and she paused, expecting her brother to butt in, not understanding.

  But he didn't. She only heard his breath over the line, so she poured on, "Don't you see?! The 23rd, At 3:53?! Three threes! The triangle!"

  After a long drawn-in breath from his end of the call, she heard Matt reply, "No... I don't see. I have no idea what..."

  "WAIT! I didn't explain it right!" Janey said, smashing the phone against her ear in terror that he might just hang up on her. "Just listen! Okay, I'll calm down and explain it rationally."

  "Okay." replied Matt, knowing that whatever his sister said next would not be rational.

  He heard her draw in a deep breath in the lull before she slammed her words into his ear like machinegun bursts, "The eclipse is going to be directly over Las Vegas on the twenty-third. Got that? Then that means three threes!"

  The gasping pause Matt heard through the call meant that Janey was waiting on a revelation from his end. He said, "Sorry, where are the three threes?" And then his mind caught up and he said, "Ah, I caught them. Wait, shut up!" And she did after just barely catching herself and he went on, "Are you trying to say that your date and time of two-three-three-five-three means three threes and that means a triangle?!"

  "Yes! Don't you see it?!" her relieved voice came back over the phone.

  Matt spat back, "No, I don't! It's just random numbers with three threes scattered around inside! Don't you see how you're just seeing what you want to?"

  Janey heard the frustration in her brother's voice and realized she hadn't told him everything yet. It was all so obvious to her given the last bit of the puzzle that she hadn't mentioned to him. And, once she did, he agreed to pick her up and drive her to Las Vegas.

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  Matt raced out of the parking garage and glanced down at his phone's screen and saw that the moment of the eclipse drew ever closer. Tucking the device back into his pocket, he ran up the strip in search of his sister. He dashed out into traffic, holding his hands out either way to the sounds of blaring horns, and reached the opposite sidewalk intact.

  The towering pyramid that was the Luxor Hotel was still a mile away as the moon began to eat away at the bottom left edge of the sun. Matt ran on, his heart racing as he weaved through the crowd of people turning their heads skywards as they placed their mostly cardboard eclipse-viewers over their eyes. He dodged between two Elvis impersonators and three Monroes and had to jump over a prone homeless guy staring gap-toothed upwards on his mad dash to the base of the Luxor pyramid where he was sure his sister would be.

  Matt ran on, his lungs starting to burn as the sun grew dim.

  The massive pyramid of the Luxor Hotel loomed larger with every step as the sky grew dark. And then he saw his sister between a brief gap of the parting crowd and ran through it. The eclipse was approaching totality as Matt weaved his way through the last clusters of people in his way between him and Janey. He reached her side just as the diamond ring of the eclipse started to draw down over the peak on the Luxor Hotel pyramid and the strip grew ever darker.

  Janey turned her face toward him unsurprised and said, "I knew you'd be here."

  "WHAT?!" spat Matt back at her. "You've led me on this merry chase and now that's all you've got to say?!"

  "Just watch." Janey murmured, her upturned eyes reflecting the closing moments of the cosmic event above the tip of the pyramid. "I was promised that something FUCKING AMAZING will happen!"

  Matt, pushing his anger down, put his arm around his sister's shoulders and drew her in close.

  They stood there like that and watched until the shadow passed across the sun and the glare of mid-afternoon started to come back enough that they had to turn their eyes away and back to one another.

  As the throngs along the sidewalk resumed the normal flow and chatter around them, Janey looked up into his eyes and said to Matt, "I don't understand."

  Matt said, "What?" starting to draw her, one arm over her shoulder, down the strip toward the hotel's parking garage.

  "Something amazing was supposed to happen. Wait, if I was wrong about all this..." and Janey started to slump beneath Matt's arm. "Then... what else have I been wrong about?"

  As Matt sat his sister into the seat of the rental car, she was talking about going back into therapy. The last thing she said before sliding off into peaceful sleep as he pulled out onto the road leading back home was, "Matt, something amazing was supposed to happen..."

  Matt restrained the urge to say that something had, and just drove.

Here is my Slasher-esque MAG entry.

My philosophy behind it was what Slasher did to be so prolific with his games: Only push forward, never go back.

No matter how stupid this game was becoming, I never went back to remove anything. Everything I ever added is in there, and everything after was built on top of it.

THE WEIRD THING UNDER THE BED



DOWNLOAD VIA THE LINK BELOW:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2705-the-weird-thing-under-the-bed

CONTENT WARNING: (Spoilers within)

Spoiler

Suicide and Domestic Violence themes

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Should be able to get mine done given an extra day if possible.

Hopefully "finishing" mine today or tomorrow. It's probably gonna be a lot less grand than planned, but it'll have to do.

Anyone in?

I've got just the tip in... but should make full entry by the deadline.

My nose will soon be open to the public for Halloween. Almost ready. Just got to get the bats in and turn the lights off.

No thanks. I'm scared of the bogeyman.

Thanks for all the extra votes, guys! A mod can close this thread now.

Thank you to all. Voting is now closed and the tally is:

Two Birds: 3

Oh, 'Chute: 4

The Book of Jim: 3

Stu wins by a nose! Which ain't all that surprising because, boy, you should see his honker!

Over to you, big nose.

And I don't excuse your French 

Hahaha!

THIS DECADE-OLD STAPLE OF AGS CULTURE IS STAGNATING AND WE NEED ALL YOUR HELP ONCE AGAIN:

I make this plea here at this time for a simple reason: there are only three stories in the contest this time and all are short. Readable within a lunchbreak.

Please come to this thread, read the three excellent tales and just post the name of which was your favorite. Your vote will matter, and no further obligation is required.

Just click the link below to help keep this amazing AGS classic contest alive:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/competitions-activities/fortnightly-writing-competition-not-on-solid-ground-until-end-of-october-10/

VOTING OPEN UNTIL OCT 18TH.

TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE OF THESE STORIES JUST MENTION ITS NAME WHEN YOU POST IN HERE TO VOTE.

ANY OF THESE:

"TWO BIRDS"

"OH, 'CHUTE"

"THE BOOK OF JIM"

AFTER YOU POST YOUR VOTE THERE IS NO FURTHER OBLIGATION TO DO ANYTHING.

THIS CONTEST HAS BEEN AN AGS CLASSIC FOR OVER A DECADE!

HELP US OUT, PLEASE!

Previous voting rules have been retracted... see new ones below... Just say the name of your favorite story in a post and your vote will be counted.

Excuse my French

     Jacque Grenouille came home, a brown paper bag of baguettes under one arm. His girlfriend, Magnifique Bonaparte, lay naked, draped across their Louis the 14th settee. She had one arm propped seductively behind her head. Jacque's eyes grew wide, his beret popping off his head in his surprise and deep, deep, French lust for her. The hat bounced off the massive, angled roof windows above at almost exactly the same moment the ripped bag spilled its bread torpedoes out across the bare wooden floor of their Paris loft.
    Jacque sprung across the room, between the passionate couple's vast multitude of art easels and lack of bathing products. He shoved his Pythagorean proboscis into her exposed armpit, screaming, "Oui! Oui! I am lost so up in ze 'air!"