10/12/2022

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Marginalia and Madness: A Writing Quiz

Twelve questions on writing, authors, and literature!

In truth, this is a thinly-veiled pretense to share some interesting stories about writing. Some questions are hard, and perhaps intentionally so, because even the wrong answers lead to stories that are fun and informative.

Warning: Should you choose to read through all answers, you waive your right to complain that it's too long.

I consider this a fun family-friendly game, but still it is about writing, which means drugs, suicide and insanity will come up repeatedly.

(Edit: The title was updated, and errors have been corrected in response to reviewer comments)

Enjoy!

Rainbow-1

You are a Californian inmate firefighter, flying out to stop a wildfire in the sierras. You are also a native of this land, descendent of a proud line of firewalker shamans, but the blaze you're facing now is unlike anything you've ever seen. As you stand before it with your high-powered chainsaw, you'll will have to face the demons of your past. Depending on your choices, you may emerge tempered, reforged, or burned to a crisp. The choice is yours, Chief.

This is a game for adults. It has a fair bit of gore, violence, sexual elements, and touches on offensive topics. If that's not for you, turn around now, this site has plenty of other content that you will like better.

Despite the word count this is a short game: Typical time for one playthrough is 25min.

This game was an entry to Sherbet's "Summer's End Synnergy Contest". (I wanted it to be Quentin Tarantino, but it turned out David Lynch.)

The Laconia Incident

It's 1942 and you are Karl Petersen—In another life, you'd still be studying for your doctorate in English Literature, but this isn't another life, and you've been assigned as second officer of the submarine U-156, patrolling the South Atlantic. So come on now, the Third Reich is at war and the Kriegsmarine needs you!

The game was made as an entry to END MASTER'S PROMPT CONTEST 4, with the prompt “A story about naval warfare.”

Content Warning: I thought this one would turn out on the lighter side, but the usual sex, violence, occasional torture and optional suicide crept back in (It also has language!). In cinematic terms think of Hemmingway and the Reservoir Dogs re-enacting the Omen on a submarine.

Regardless of word count, this is a short game: Playtime is only 20-30 min.

There are several storylines but only ONE TRUE ENDING.

Labyrinth of Secrets

unpublished

When she reaches a strange temple, Anna struggles to remember even her own name, but as she explores the temple's vast library she must discover the truth about her past, before an ancient curse claims her. And, is she even Anna?

This was written for Mizal's single-day competition that was "all Suranna's fault."

This story is set in the same world as "Wintertorn" that I am currently writing for Endmaster's prompt contest.

A quick but powerful method to create gripping plots by answering six simple questions.

Starting is hard, finishing is harder. Here are some thoughts on getting started and maintaining productivity and quality while writing.

OK, got it, we will be sulfurous threads! (and we will not comply)

Scroll up :)

BHP?

UD?

Tried that, but got to play it more. I thought that was what End meant when he said Gryphon.

I might try to do something, but there is certainly an uncanny valley between game and story. I guess more gamey can only really work if the story is compressed into fairly short snippets.

So, read a bit on project aom and have to ask this: The amount of content seems comparable to storygames here, but adventure books do some things that are rare here, such as picking skills, right-left choices and random combat. I may be wrong but I think these would be things people would complain about in a storygame. Has the medium evolved and we have just figured out better ways to do storygames? Or was this great and will it always be great, should we do it? Or have the times changed, and back in the old days you bought a book and then didn't mind to read the same book twice with only say a different skill that might in the end only allow to circumvent one fight or so?

I don't think that's an option. Besides why would you want to change your name? It feels like you literally made this account 5 min ago.

I might be able to help you there ... what you describe is called sympatric speciation, the emergence of a new species in the same place. It is very rare. But when it happens we typically have a split of the original population. It is not 50/50 but close enough, otherwise it would just vanish as it would be below the viable population size. Generally it is wrong to think that a species is just around and then another specis is just formed. Typically all the species are evolving in some direction all the time and they might reach a state in which the evolution may go in two ways and then the population may split up if conditions are right (this is called disruptive selection). The more common cases however are parapatric and allopatric speciation and both of these involve space. So a large population of a species becomes spatially separated from the rest and then evolution goes its separate way for both of the populations. Eventually they may meet again and discover that they cannot have viable offspring anymore because the genetic compatibility has become too low, so they have become different species.

No, it's still up. Mizal insisted on a name change ;) Here you go!