3/14/2020

7/28/2021 5:17 AM

305

2

2 wins / 6 losses

Marauder Exemplar

CYBERMONKEY

A short, silly, high-octane ride through a cyberpunk future where your bullets are few, your friends are fewer, and the long tentacles of the law are slithering up your pant legs. 

I am aware that technically, writing a sentence in all capital letters is gramatically incorrect. I did this on purpose, several times, for stylistic effect. If you point this out in the reviews, a team of hit-apes will kick in your door. 

Winter, After the Harvest

Winner of EndMaster's 2020-2021 Grimdark Contest!

Take the role of Lord Winter, an aspiring sorcerer and the scion of a noble line that has fallen into obscurity. 

Contains scenes of intense gore, brutality, and sexual violence. 

Cover art by the talented MadHattersDaughter.

Spear of Flint, Sword of Bronze

unpublished

Whom the Gods Would Destroy

unpublished

"Behold!" Pasha Malk says, one mulligan later. "The..."

CHRONOMANTIC | ADAMANTIUM | KHANJAR | ON THE END OF A ROPE"

Pasha Malk hands the peculiar curved dagger, affixed to the rope, off to one of his attending warrior-eunuchs. The eunuch executes a flawless sequence of impressive spins and strikes, before vanishing in a puff of smoke. The blade lands on an awaiting velvet cushion. "As you can see, I have made a weapon capable of cutting through the very fabric of time. You can use it to literally hack your way back in time; this gives you, quite literally, all the time in the world to make friends. You could, for example, go back to a happier time, before you were an antisocial loner. It is also an adamantium blade on a rope, which makes it good for murdering people, which I know is always a priority."

In another timestream, a warrior-eunuch has successfully saved himself from castration.

"Warrior-eunuchs, my hand sucks this round! Present me with the Mulligan!" Pasha Malk declares, pointing his scimitar into the air. It is preposterously curly.

I will sink my blade into the hearts of the degenerates, sign me up

Avery posting Starkid musicals on the forums. Imagine outing yourself as a former theatre kid like that

Alright, I've put been able to put my feedback into a more manageable format and clean it up a bit for public consumption. Here we go, in no particular order...

FAILsafe was my choice for winner. It wasn't perfect, and the linearity in particular was a bit grating; being locked into certain choices based on my invisible morality stat was not ideal. The invisible morality stat was a real problem, especially with how easy it is to break; when I was chasing other paths, I managed to discover a scenario where both endings were available which I don't think was meant to happen. Also I'd be remiss if I didn't mention dialogue punctuation. C'mon man.

Even still, it had what I was looking for in a winner. Good vibes, an attitude, and fun characters. I mightily aprpeciated how Wizzy essentially just made a cyberpunk Lethal Weapon movie. Good shit, Wizzy, looking forward to your epic game.

Engineered Desires was very cyber, but suffered from a terminal lack of punk. Moreover, it wasn't really a story, per se, it felt like a Wikipedia summary of someone else's story. It had a real didactic tone that felt preachy, at times.

Gig: Blast Damage Days suffered from pretty severe syntax issues. Severe syntax issues were a real common thread in this contest. Also, it was a pretty paint-by-numbers story; if you played any of the side-quests in Cyberpunk 2077, you've played Gig: Blast Damage Days. It is a fanfiction, though, so perhaps it deserves kudos for accurately aping what it is playing in the universe of. Not a bad entry for a first time.

Metric Measurement of Death likely would have won if DerPrussen didn't get his story wiped by a hostile netrunner intrusion and have to restart. It painted its crapsack world pretty well, even if the crapsack world is a well-worn cyberpunk trope at this point. Also, I actually liked the action; I like maybe 1/10 of the action I read on CYS. Unfortunately it was pretty obviously incomplete. Please bully Derp into writing a longer game.

Silicon Desires was a respectable length and had the most bonkers worldbuilding of any entry. Unfortunately, it too was plagued by severe syntax issues, to the point where the plot was not totally clear to me throughout. This, coupled with the odd vignette-ish format, made it a pretty confusing read for me. The author is ESL, though, and should be commended for a solid effort nonetheless; Mara's English is way better than my Spanish.

KRYSIS terrified me when I saw its 100k word count. After poking around, a bit, I saw that it was an inflated wordcount made longer by copy/pasting. I didn't fault Cromwell for this, because it's entirely possible that he was just highly unfamiliar with the editor, which can be pretty difficult to navigate.

Despite the obvious amount of work put into KRYSIS, I couldn't give it the win. It too was plagued by the syntactical issues that a lot of people suffered from. Also, for a work of its length, the characters were pretty thin. I'm hard-pressed to remember the name of a single side-character. Ideally, for an epic-length CYS game, you want some memorable characters for the audience to remember for. Also, I personally am not a fan of exposition dumps, but I recognize they have their place.

Everyone who submitted something should give themselves a mighty pat on the back, and everyone in the Cyberspace InfoPit of Shame will be ravaged by hostile I.C.E. until they produce a contest entry. Good show, everyone. Had a lot of fun reading these. And a big sexy congratulations to WizzyCat for winning this thing.

It's customary

"My friends, as you know, the Turbaned Man is the natural master of the Slav," Pasha Malk spreads his hands grandiloquently, trying to conceal his anger at repeatedly losing to bare-headed infidels. "In my travels in the Turkoid Empire, I encountered many a slavic manservant. None, however, so powerful or hardy as the Russian gopnik, a fearful beast; a vodka-based organism that confounds even the most learned minds of the Capybaliphate. Learned gentlemen and beautiful ladies of the smithing trade, allow me to present....

THE FLAME SPITTING | PYRITE | GOPNIK | COVERED IN HUMAN TEETH!"

A nervous warrior-eunuch leads a hideous mechanical abomination into the forum. It is roughly the size and shape of a human being, but cast entirely from fake gold. Canine teeth protrude from its metal flesh. A Nike tracksuit forms part of its hide. It takes a swig of vodka so potent that it would kill any man who hails from West of the Danube, and belches flame into the air.

"...I crafted him myself, intended for him to be the ideal harem guard, but I now gift him to you, fair lady. Rest assured, every expense was spared in his creation (savings which pass onto you); I crafted him from cheap pyrite instead of fine gold, and instead of mounting spikes on his carapace, I instead used human teeth, extracted for free from the mouths of infidel volunteers.

As for his battle readiness, I can attest to that. The gopnik, when blind drunk, can seemingly ignore injuries and alcohol poisoning that would be fatal to a mortal man. Him being cast entirely from metal will only enhance his hardy qualities."

As Pasha Malk shows off his mechanical monstrosity, Sergei mutters something only half-coherent. "Kill me сука блять"

The real female character was Kiel all along

Reset the scores, I say do the opposite of whatever that bastard Tony wants

"I think I'm just about ready to make a decision!" the paladin declares in a knightly way. His eyes turn to the kobalds. "Well, this certainly would" make an effective anti-necromancer countermeasure... but something about it disturbs me. And it makes Sir Horse uneasy."

As if on cue, Sir Horse whinnies miserably.

"Easy now, Sir Horse. As for my gnomish friend, who is -- oh wow, that's a lot of sweat -- presenting me with a very fancy lute, I'm afraid I cannot except. That would be a wonderful tool for a bard, but it simply would not do for a man as lordly and knightly as me to sing my own fanfare! Also, bards tend to be low-life actors and musicians, often descended from disgusting gypsy-elf stock and will simply not do."

He turns his eyes to the armoured blacksmith. He nods approvingly at his various clanky plates and visors and other armoured bits. "These certainly are a lovely pair of knuckle-dusters. I can just imagine beating some disgusting half-elf vagrant beggar to an absolute pulp with those, that dirty knife-ear celery eating.... sorry, lost in thought. Unfortunately, I feel as if coming within punching range with the forces of Evil is a plan that will surely backfire, and I'm afraid they look like they wouldn't rest comfortably on my tremendous armoured gauntlets. For that reason, I must pass. I do encourage you to use them against any elves you might see."

His eyes turn to the ridiculously large, sparkling sword wielded by the penguin farmer. "Now THIS is a blade worthy of a paladin most holy and just. With your permission, Lord Bird, I would like to swing this around." He takes the blade and executes a lengthy claymore-kata that results in several market stalls being cleaved wide open. He holds the blade aloft and squints at its absurdly bright sheen. "This is a perfect tool for battling against evil, I'll take those sunglasses now please."