Tagged: event
April Fools in a Post-Truth World
April 1st is my favourite day of the year.
That’s not a joke. I’ve done something or other for April Fools’ Day every year for the past decade or so, and some of these things took weeks of work (or at least planning). Here’s a little list (with portions of the descriptions encoded in ROT13 where I think knowing the trick from the start might spoil it):
- 2013: The Crowd Scene – a full book consisting almost entirely of the word “rhubarb” repeated over and over again, with little Easter eggs scattered throughout.
- 2014: Spring Rain – an interactive fiction piece gung vgfrys pbagnvaf na Ncevy Sbbyf cenax.
- 2015: Rainbow Bears’ Playtime – an RPG Maker game jvgu n whzcfpner.
- 2016: Project Proteus – an interactive fiction piece gung vf npghnyyl bar bs sbhe qvssrerag vagrenpgvir svpgvba cvrprf fryrpgrq ng enaqbz. V yngre erivfvgrq guvf vqrn sbe zl VSPbzc ragel sbe gur lrne gjb gubhfnaq naq gjragl-guerr naq znantrq gb jva gur Tbyqra Onanan bs Qvfpbeq jvgu vg.
- 2017: Project Pythias – supposedly a neural network that’ll generate stories in my style. It is in fact a combination of randomly generated outlines of new stories and summaries of existing ones from Flash Fiction Month 2012. (Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate that I did this half a decade before the current “AI” hype?)
- 2018: Project Procrustes – an interactive fiction piece juvpu srngherf n punenpgre perngvba flfgrz, ohg erdhverf bar irel fcrpvsvp punenpgre ohvyq gb pbzcyrgr vg.
- 2019: Cookie Cracker – it’s Cookie Clicker, but clicking the cookie reduces its structural integrity and when you break it bees fly out. (This one later got me headhunted by a mobile games company.)
- 2020: I Am a Reclusive Author – a blog post announcing my intention to become a hermit having become famous enough for that to be a meaningful choice (and insisting that people stay far away from me in a manner consistent with the social distancing measures of the time).
- 2021: Project Ptocheia – an art piece that claims to be a bold new creative endeavour but is in fact a small selection of looping videos of me begging for money with annoying kazoo music playing in the background. The itch.io page also offers “certificates of patronage” for those who give me at least a dollar, and a “Limited Edition JPEG of a Potato” for those who give $20 or more. (Act fast if you want one of those, by the way – there are just 400 left!)
- 2022: Twinedle – a Wordle game made using Twine ohg gung nyjnlf bssref gur fnzr – engure cerqvpgnoyr – jbeq gb fbyir. V’ir orra zrnavat gb hcqngr guvf gb cebivqr bgure jbeqf jura vg’f abg Ncevy svefg ohg unira’g tbg nebhaq gb vg.
- 2023: Rainbow Bears Fun Maze – revisiting Rainbow Bears’ Playtime ohg raqvat ba n fhecevfvatyl cbfvgvir abgr qrfcvgr nccrnevat gb or whfg nf qnex nf gur svefg bar.
- 2024: Super Hyper Awesome Game: EXTREME! – a chaotic platformer game with a leaderboard ohg fpberf nffvtarq ragveryl ng enaqbz.
I HAVE THE BANANAAAAAAAA!!!
Okay. So, a while back I announced that I had an entry in this year’s Interactive Fiction Competition: Who Iced Mayor McFreeze? Remember that? Remember the noir murder mystery in which everyone is candy? The follow-up to 2022’s Who Shot Gum E. Bear?
That was a decoy.
Or rather, that was a sincere IFComp entry but it was not my main focus this year. No, this year I had other plans. You see, ever since 2001 IFComp has handed out an award to the entry with the highest standard deviation: that is, the entry that most divides opinion. The name of that award? The Golden Banana of Discord. If you know me, you’ll know that bananas are sort of my thing. Naturally I’ve wanted the Golden Banana for some time now, especially having very narrowly missed out with 2020’s Quest for the Sword of Justice. Seriously, that thing would have been a banana-winner in 2021 or 2022 – it got edged out by just one marginally more divisive game (Little Girl in Monsterland) that particular year.
That brings us to the entry I sank most of my effort into this year: DICK MCBUTTS GETS KICKED IN THE NUTS, entered under the pseudonym “Hubert Janus.”*
*Hugh for short.
New Game: Who Iced Mayor McFreeze?
It’s that time of year again! IFComp – the Interactive Fiction Competition – is in full swing and my entry this year is Who Iced Mayor McFreeze?, a follow-up to last year’s Who Shot Gum E. Bear?. Both see you take on the role of Bubble Gumshoe, a street-smart broad with a hard sugar shell but a soft centre who’s also the finest private eye sniffing out mysteries on the syrup-slick streets of Sugar City.
Both are parser-based games (meaning you type “take key” or “smoke cigarette” or “eat Mayor” to do what you want to do), but I’ve tried to take on board feedback from last year’s event so this one takes a different approach to the actual mystery involved. I don’t want to get into exactly how the approach differs this time around – partly because I’m hesitant to offer commentary that might influence votes while the competition is being judged, and partly because I fear it might spoil the challenge for one of them – but early reviews seem to suggest this one is going down well for much the reasons I hoped. At least, I’ve seen a couple of people praise the new direction but nobody lament the departure from the old one.
On the topic of judging, it seems worth taking this opportunity to mention that if you want to get involved in the competition, you yourself can be a judge! All the important details can be found in the competition rules, but the key thing to know is that you only have to play five games (though you can rate more if you want). It’s not a matter of poring over all 75 of the things. So if you fancy checking out Who Iced Mayor McFreeze?, you’re a full 20% of the way to being a judge!
The Unsettling Escapades of Captain Birthday
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 31
“Help!” shouted the old lady in the burning building. “Help!”
“Oh no!” said a random bystander, clapping his hands to his face Macaulay Caulkin-style. “Is there nobody who can help?”
“This looks like a job for Captain Birthday!” announced a spandex-clad hero, appearing out of nowhere to strike a dramatic pose beneath the window. “Stand back, citizens!”
Then he whipped out a gun and shot himself in the face. Continue reading
Goldilocks and the Persimmon of Ambiguity
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 30
Once uptown a thyme there livered a little grill named Goldilocks, who was known motocross the lamp forher flowering olden hare. Often she wood wend the bay wondering threw the armrest toe and Frome the louse of her Grond motherlode, and it was on joust suck an occlusion that she net the big bag woof.
“Nice to meat you,” said the big bag woof, in a friendless manor.
“My,” said Goldilocks, “Watt large hears you haven’t.”
“Awl the batter to ear you without,” said the big bag woof, who had leant the English language at Universal Collegiate Uxbridge, where he had bean a model stew dent.
Butt Goldilocks was a cleaver little grill and had encoded something line thus in another storey and was begetting to circumspect that she wood end up been Eton by the woof. Continue reading
When in Rome
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 29
Challenge #13: Write a story involving a journey to past times, based on two prompts from previous Flash Fiction Month events. Optionally, those two prompts must be chosen entirely at random.
My two randomly chosen prompts were:
Fixing this problem with a piece of duct tape and a slice of cake is not as easy as you make it sound. (AquaMoon1o1, 2015)
Write a story that hints at or leads up to a past or future betrayal, but leave it up to the reader to fill in the act itself. Can you write a story without mentioning its central plot asset? (OnLinedPaper, 2016)
“We were only supposed to go back five minutes for another shot at getting Taylor Swift tickets. How did we end up in 44 BC?”
“It’s either down to gravitational waves from supermassive black holes colliding on the other side of the universe,” said Bethany, “or you got sambuca in the controls again.”
“Hey!” snapped Carla, slopping wine on her top. “I’ve been super careful!”
“Friends, Romans, countrymen!” Caesar squinted for a moment. “Strange women I’m not sure I invited! Before we get down to banqueting, I just want to make sure that we’ve got enough knives.” He took a moment to check with the toga-clad men sitting either side of him. “Cassius? Good? And you, Brutus? You know what?” He turned to wave at a slave near the door to the kitchens. “Can we get a few more knives, just to be safe? Mid-March is a terrible time of year to run out of knives.” Continue reading
Air Gap
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 28
“Remind me again why they didn’t just drop this thing out of orbit?”
“It’s a lot easier to scrub a computer virus out of an existing refinery platform than it is to launch the million tons of metal it would take to build a new one.”
Hash cast a glance around the bodies strewn around the docking bay. “I’m worried that’s not all we’ll be scrubbing.”
“Be glad this place depressurised.” Shim tapped his helmet. “No decomposition in a vacuum.”
Hash took a closer look at the nearest corpse, sprawled by the airlock. There was a scar at the base of the skull, and the telltale outline of a battery harness beneath the neoprene jumpsuit. “That just trades one problem for another. There’s a lot of silicon in these stiffs…” Continue reading
I Didn’t Think I’d Have To Book It
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 27
Challenge #12: In collaboration with another author, write a story in which everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and a character either responds optimistically to all the disasters or is despondent from the start.
This story was written in collaboration with Francesco Sarti, who wrote everything up until Satan’s appearance.
“Why is he looking at me like that?”
“He’s probably pissed we had to walk all the way across the woods for the sacrifice.”
“How was I supposed to know there was a booking system for the woods?” Asked Barney. “Did you expect Friday to be a busy night for human sacrifices?”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “It makes sense if you think about it.”
“Lisa!”
“All right, all right.”
“I don’t like the way he looks at me.”
“We’re about to gut him and leave him bleed to death on a dirty rock. I’d be mildly annoyed too.”
“But he’s not.” Continue reading
The Idea Has Legs
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 26
“Gimme your wallet!” shouted the mugger.
“Uhhhhhhh…” His victim pointed down the alley behind him.
The mugger suddenly became aware of the sound of feet—lots and lots of feet—approaching at speed.
He turned. “What the…”
There was a meaty “thwack” as he was delivered a mighty uppercut.
“That’s right!” cried the newcomer, cracking his knuckles. “The city has a new hero—with the proportional strength of a centipede!” Continue reading
The God-King’s Flight
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 25
Challenge #11: Write a stream of consciousness story including a lyric from a song chosen at random.
My randomly selected song was Older by Alec Benjamin.
The god-king drops from the palace wall. Battle-drums hammer as the gates come down.
Bum-ba-da-da-da-dum.
Bum-ba-da-da-da-dum.
Lands hard. Stone tiles sting feet. Already grunts and hoofbeats—the invaders close behind. Faced with such foes, even a god must run, but the nobles in the garden still seem shocked. Faces watch blankly. They do not bow. Too much to expect them to stand before soldiers. One wearing a crown: he had ensured there would be none in line to claim one.
No screams as he leaves the nobles behind. The invaders do not want them. Not the palace or its wealth. They follow his footsteps by scent, drumming as they go.
Bum-ba-da-da-da-dum.
Bum-ba-da-da-da-dum. Continue reading
Damon L. Wakes 