Forums » Creative Corner » Read Thread

@UnscapeableDeath @RKrallonor @Anthraxus

Thank you three for encouraging me to restart this! Now: Options!

The original Owl's Challenge was a daily one-word prompt. Do the whole week, get five points. If people want me to do that again, I can do that again. I still have a whole list of words... somewhere. I'll find them.

That said, I've been thinking about something more involved. Maybe a weekly challenge, and rather than anything-goes, specifically have everyone make (small!) storygames. Not necessarily complete games with a beginning, middle, and end, but something interactive. Like a piece of something that could theoretically be an actual storygame, the way writing exercises are often like a scene out of something that could be an actual story.

I realize that just getting words on a page is always good, and there is something to be said for the simplicity of Option A... but I know I'd specifically like to build my interactive fiction muscles, and maybe Option B would encourage some of us to do that.

Don't say both. I'm not doing both. If the majority favors Option B but some folks are still interested in Option A, I will happily give my blessing to someone else to run a word-a-day challenge.

So, what say you, CYS?

Option B is interesting, and the weekly timeframe sounds more ideal for avoiding burnout. There are a quite a lot of activities going on right now in addition to the big contest, so something low commitment may be best. This could be a cool idea to encourage people to play around with scripting and the like and find testers too.

This - though I know I wasn't tagged nor am I a prominent site member - sounds like a lot of fun, especially option B. It seems low-commitment, like Mizal said, but for those of us who procrastinate chronically on finishing full projects, it seems like a good motivator to keep going.

With option B, when posting a snippet, people could also give the snippets to other people as free reign. Mizal has suggested doing the same with past THUNDERDOME entries as well, I believe.

Anyway, I must go back to being productive now.

Option B!

Gonna have to use a YT link because the school has now banned seemingly all image & art sites. It should still get the point across though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSCGoefBO7Q

Being serious, however, I prefer option B.

That's funny- my school blocked Youtube. Still allows me to use freeimage.host, though.

Huh, that's strange. I can still use YT, it just doesn't do recommendations next to the video, and all the channel icons are blocked. Oh, and I think I don't get notifications anymore, but I never used them anyways, lol.

And I've never heard of freeimage.host, but it seems to work for me too.

Consider me another vote for Option B.

All right, it's been 24 hours and it looks like an unanimous vote for Option B! Awesome. Now... should I actually start this now, amid the contest and everything else that's going on, or should I wait until, say, early April?

start it now. Should be fun!

I would suggest starting on the 1st of March to keep it nice and neat.

We also won't be double dipping on the mini games and voting that way, and people will start out with a realistic idea of what they can write in a day before moving on to what they can write in a week.

That works for me.

Looking forward to it.

Don't know how I missed this for the full 24 hours from the original post. I would also vote for Option B. I would also pitch a twist on that idea:

Morgan sets up a storygame and adds all participants as co-authors. The first page provides a simple framework of initial setting and any other relevant parameters. The each participant adds a link from that page to their one page entry using the keyword. The next day, when the next word is released (probably on the first page), we have two options: 1) you write another page linked from your first response page featuring the keyword, or 2) you write a follow on to someone else's response from the prior day.

Bonus points for setting up a given response page that legitamately connects to another co-author's response page (either current or later in the week). Everyone knows going in that you only have 5 or 7 response pages to build out a story branch that makes sense. Bonus points if their branch actually concludes at the end of the week.

This could lead to unclean branches of the story, but that just leaves a window for industrious people to finish them up after the week. The use of variables and such may be complex or need pre-agreement between writers.

What do you think?

There's a limit of four co authors on a game.

Oh, didn't realize there was an upper bound. Makes sense. Maybe we could divide up participants to 3 per?

This is a fun idea and I could definitely see doing it once, but not every time.

Oh, this is cool! I'd like to take part! :D

@Morgan_R, are we still doing the Owl's Challenge starting tomorrow, March 1st?

I was just thinking about that. And I hate to say it, but I might push it back another month. I have a lot going on in March. Also, based on the number of claimed prompts, it seems like a TON of people are doing EndMaster's Prompt Contest, which ends on April 1st.

Sorry to disappoint anyone who was looking forward to a March 1st start, but yeah, I'm thinking April 6th at this point.

Sounds good, April 6th it is! Should be fun! Also, please don't feel the need to apologize, it's a cool thing you're doing so whenever you have time, that should work. Plus, with the recent shrimp jam, I'm sure this break will allow everyone to rest their writing muscles for a bit and focus on the contest

I was planning to sit this out, but if you bump it to April, there's a good chance I'll participate as long as nothing unexpected comes up on my end.

you should get a profile pic, techno mage. It would look cool!

I'm working on it! I looked around a bit the past two weeks and couldn't quite find anything that matched what I wanted, plus writing has been the bigger priority. DeviantArt used to be my go-to for art commissions, but it seems like 90% of the stuff on there is AI-generated nonsense. It's surprisingly hard to find real artists these days!

if you're looking for talented human artists, I know a couple of people who may be interested in doing commission-based work.

https://chooseyourstory.com/member/?Username=MadHattersDaughter

https://chooseyourstory.com/member/?Username=Suranna

Liminal also made this thread which is pretty cool:

https://chooseyourstory.com/forums/creative-corner/message/30741

I appreciate the recommendations! I actually reached out to MadHattersDaughter the other day, so we're working something out right now. I'll definitely have to check out the other artists too! If I'm around long enough, I might commission a featured image for each of my storygames. Even if I feel my writing is pretty mediocre to justify something like that, ultimately this is all for fun, and I'll hopefully entertain a few people along the way.

Are you still doing this?

She says above she is looking to start this on 4/6.

pfft, who reads the forum

Me! *raises hand*

Forums? What forums? I don't know what you're talking about!

She is likely distracted and delayed by her recent photoshoot to appear on UK money.

Actually I was busy earning my shiny new trophy, byyyy doing absolutely nothing. Thanks, Mystery Mod!

That is a very handsome owl, though! Flattered to be mistaken for them! *preens*

I think it might be Thara from the lel.

Plausible!

Since there are already rumors of an extension, I would like to amend the challenge's start time to "the Monday following the actual final deadline of EndMaster's Prompt Contest." So... currently April 6th, but we'll see.

I think you're just going to have to do your thing and see who joins because it's a nice fat extension.

Luckily, people here are terrible about not joining things regardless of the amount of time they don't have available.

I'm going to stick with May 4th (assuming there isn't another extension). Partly because I expect people to be working on their entries, and partly because of my own (unrelated) workload. March has been rough and the first couple weeks of April are likely to be worse. May should be better.