There I was taking giant leaps for mankind and almost tripping over moon rocks in the process. My jumps were just too impressive to ignore. Sometimes I chained multiple sets of jumps together to reach the top of a space mountain.
The other astronauts wanted to know where and how I learned to time my jumps. I started telling them about my friend, a mustachioed Italian plumber who taught me.
Wham!
I hit the lip of a cliff, tumbled down and landed in a bad place.
I almost drowned in the sea of tranquility. A landslide of rock and dust slapped me in the face, and I sank to the bottom. But I woke up and dragged myself out of the rusty rubble.
When I got up and dusted the space dirt of my lily-white space suit shoulder, I recognized life. Not just my life returning. No. It was more than that. It was a large blue bauble teeming with life not to far away.
I thought about all those stick figures back home. They sat with their eyes glued to screens. They took everything for granted.
Meanwhile, I was drilling holes on another planetary body for the good of us all. I also took samples so they could sit in a museum and collect dust. They weren’t doing that.
Then Mr. Houston interrupted my space train of thought. “Jim, you there?” he said.
“Roger, roger HQ,” I said as my drill slid through the rocks like a knife through warm butter. “Hear ya loud and clear.”
“Jim, get the last of those rocks and bring ’em back to earth. We need them to save humanity. And Jim…”
“Yeah?” I folded the ten foot drill up and threw it in my space backpack.
“We’re all rooting for you down here.” Mr. Houston’s voice became as silent as the vacuum of space. Then he said, “Get back in one piece.”
As I put away the final sample into a space doggy bag, I gulped hard. Then I heard a strange gurgling sound behind me. I turned around to see a huge eight foot hazy figure.
That’s when I was face to face with a hideous, ragged monster that made big foot look like an annoying mosquito. It’s pearly white fangs had blood dripping from their tips. It extended its arm and lunged toward me. An epic space battle was about to unfold.
And it all began when I pressed start.
People think that traveling into space is both a great mental and physical challenge. Well, they’re right. I don’t know what else to tell you. But you can do it in video games too, so go out and try it.
Bonus embarrassing/funny fact: I once thought Houston referred to a person when I was a kid. That’s why I included it in this post. Also, I thought it just sounded different and cool to give a person that name.
Filed under Silly Video Game Inspired Fiction
I had so many tedious chores to do yesterday. As I glanced over my to-do list, I felt an itch. This wasn’t lice in my hair or something that begged for a scratch. It was an itch to finish the game I started the other day.
“Better play now,” I thought. “The dirty dishes can wait. Besides, if I didn’t do something now,” I reasoned, “the itch would only get worse.”
So I sat down and continued what seemed like a regular play session. I set out to find all the hidden fruit in the game and unlock an achievement for this feat. After I grabbed the last set of grapes, the achievement popped up. I felt a surge of excitement, accomplishment and adrenaline mix into a cocktail of euphoria. But then I saw something strange. It brought me down from this natural high.
You have unlocked “Grapes of Wrath – 0 Exp.”
I thought to myself, “Well, that was a waste of time.”
The summary confirmed this, “Whoop-Dee-do! You collected all the hidden fruit in the game. Why don’t you go make a fruit salad with all of it?”
I decided to keep playing and forget the thing had ever happened. And, sure enough, the game became fun again. Everything was fine.
After a while, I paused the game and made myself a quick sandwich. It had meatballs – which had marinated in marinara – and gooey cheese. I played the game with one hand and managed to eat half of the sandwich with the other. That worked for about five minutes. Then another achievement popped up.
“Ha,” I thought, “I deserve an achievement for beating half of this game.”
Boy was I ever wrong.
“You’re a disgusting pig” unlocked. The summary read “Hey lazy boy! Put down the sandwich, get off the couch and get outside!”
I shrugged it off. After all, I was relaxing after a long day and words don’t hurt my feelings.
Yet, in truth, the achievement had bothered me. I lost focus and watched in horror as zombies slaughtered my character a dozen times. On top of that, my character fell off a couple of cliffs because I couldn’t think straight.
Then another achievement appeared on the screen.
“You have unlocked Epic Fail – You’ve died 1000 times. So put down the controller, hang your head in shame, and walk away already.”
That was the last straw. I was going to beat this game and prove it wrong. It would soon find out about my skill.
I charged the through the swarm of zombies and survived. I scaled the treacherous precipices on the cliff that had tested my patience. And I still had time to make a fruit salad in the game. “Ha I proclaimed to myself. That was easy.”
Then something popped on the screen. “You have unlocked Wasted. You have wasted 10,000 hours on this game. You’re pathetic. How can you stand yourself?”
“Why you little…,” I started to say.
There was no time to argue. The game could insult me all it wanted and make stuff up. It was crazy. So I trudged toward the finish line and made it across in record time. The game was over!
As the credits rolled, I dreaded seeing another achievement. Sure enough, it appeared just as I hoped to escape the game’s insults.
“You are terrible at video games. Seriously. Just give up already. Don’t you have something better you could be doing with your time? Oh wait, no you don’t”
“That’s it! I’ve had just about enough of this,” I said. I lunged toward the TV determined to destroy the console forever.
Before I couldn’t finish my foul deed, I felt sweat drench my forehead. My clothes were covered in sweat too. I opened my bloodshot eyes wide and found myself sitting upright in bed at 2 AM.
I surveyed the room and took it all in. The apartment was quiet, except for the TV in the other room.
“Haha it was all a dream. There’s no game like that.” I laughed out loud.
My roommate furrowed his brow and steadied his gaze on me. “Are you alright? He had a puzzled look on his face with one eyebrow arched higher.” I ignored him for now, and he walked away.
“It was only a dream… only a dream. None of it really happened,” I said.
My eyes started to feel heavy as if a giant boulder weighed them down. I instinctively grabbed a half-eaten meatball sandwich on my end-table, took a bite and then let it fall on my bed. I was fast asleep again.
***
Meanwhile, somewhere far away in a deep, dark cave, a pasty man roars with laughter. His flabby jowls jiggle as if made of jello. He taps away with Flash Gordon-like speed at a keyboard. Then he stops, scans the screen, and shakes his head. “Oh man, the achievements in my new game are too cruel.”
What if achievements were cruel and picked on people? That was the prompt that inspired this silly post.
Filed under Silly Video Game Inspired Fiction
Mama and Papa Bear inspired me to write this post.
See, when I was a kid, my dad read the Berenstain Bears to me before bedtime. I loved that series. Sometimes he would add funny words to the story to see if I was following along. I would always call him out on these added words, and we would laugh.
On occasion, after he had a long day, my dad would fall asleep while reading to me. My mom would check on us after my dad had already shut his eyes. “Shhh,” I’d tell her, “Don’t wake him. He’s sleeping.” Then I’d continue reading until we all had to go to bed.
Not too long after these bedtime stories, I decided to pen my own tale. I remember a book called “Colour Your World,” about a cat, inspired me to write. After scribbling the last word and showing my mom the triumphant masterpiece, I realized I had a lot more to learn about spelling.
Cue years of learning and writing. But most of that writing was dryer than 2 week old stale bread. Yes, it was fun to write at all, but I wanted to try different styles of writing and be more creative.
So I started this blog and decided to write with flavour. I wanted to leave behind the bland writing of my past, to experiment with words, and to make something that excited me.
Video games became my subject because I love to play them and know a little about them. So many of you love them as well, which meant I could talk to you on my blog.
But when it comes to hobbies, writing is near the top. Thanks Mom and Dad.
I wanted to reflect on why I write this blog. Why did l choose video games as a topic? What experiences in my life made me fall in love with writing and then start this blog? As I reflected, I recalled something beautiful about life that mirrors my favourite hobby. My life is a story with a history, a present and a future I look forward to writing.
Filed under Video Game Blog
Video Games Nebula 