Spring Thing ’11 – Sean Huxter’s The Promise!

ASCII dinosaur by Celeste Fowler.  I considered doing something like “what if Jane Austen wrote Dinosaur Comics?” but it didn’t really go anywhere, and I realized I didn’t want to spend more time on the buffer than on the review.  Plus I’m not sure I could easily find a woodcut of two happy nuptial dinosaurs perpetually about to step on a chaise and four.  If this greatly disappoints you, write one yourself.  Be the change you want to see in the world.  I’m certainly not it.

                             /                             \ 
                     ___/ /  | work yourself to death      |
  \                 |  /\/   |and I stick a horn into you! |
  \\                \  o --/ \ ____________________________/ 
   \\    /---\------/\   __)_/ /                              
   \ \__/ '           `  _/ --/                                
    \     \    '         |                         
    \______\   \   `     /
        /   \   \--/   / \                                  
        /  / |  |  |  |  |                                  
        |  | |  |  |  |  |                                  
        ---# --##  --## -#

[spoilers begin here]

Spring Thing ’11 – Michael Wayne Phipps Jr.’s Hallow Eve!

Usual disclaimer about horror games and how I reserve the right to, at any time, stop playing them and demand a hug.  Also, I know I promised you guys some shitty Peter Falk, but that is before I found out about That Can Be My Next Tweet.

I have to have sex with those trust exercises where you eat.
Like, drove *into* the energy of my mental decay.
I said that, I want a hard rubber urethane foot.
I’m going to eat it. Patrick Swayze is a non-zero chance of applesauce today.
The other day I did that right now.
I want to fire nine bullets into a diary all ingredients and vegetables and tired.
OH MY TEMPURA, MOTHERFUCKERS!
The fuck is now open on Sundays from my hair.
I’m hungry. I WILL EAT YOU SEE? – I don’t eat.
Also we had twelve hundred sweaters. Roy.
It was called Twygge and then you fall back, eyes closed, and I WILL EAT YOU SEE? – I am so good.
Riff: A mummy is very excited! Have barbecue tacos now.
Trying to the hunt where you say, reader? I shit like a gun that shoots babies that shoots babies?

…yeah, this is pretty much my new favorite thing ever.

[spoilers begin here]

Spring Thing ’11 – Clara Raubertas’ Wetlands!

Man, I gotta get on these.  You can’t be all “to the Sausage Cave!” and then not go immediately to the Sausage Cave.  That is super bad form.  That is super bad form and I am sorry.

For today’s RSS buffer, I am going to ask you the readers for input regarding what sort of thing you would like to see in these RSS buffers.  If no one says anything, I will fill this space with shitty drawings of Peter Falk, or, if I get lazy*, the same shitty drawing of Peter Falk run through various Gimp filters.  This is not a bluff.

* Like that’s ever happened!

[spoilers begin here]

Spring Thing 2011 is out! Also, I have unresolved issues from junior high school apparently! (Pfft, who doesn’t.)

Oh, wow, Spring Thing has games in it this year!  And enough prize money to buy twelve dozen sharp sticks to shake at a horse!*  (Yeah, I know, prices on those have really gone up.)  Let’s take a look at the list.

Mentula Macanus:  Apocolocyntosis sort of stands out, huh.  When a game is written by “one of the Bruces and Drunken Bastard,” it’s basically daring you to play it in order to find out whether or not it’s actually funny.  I googled “cyntosis,” it didn’t seem to mean anything.  “Mentula” is apparently Latin slang for penis.  Macanus… oh, there’s a guy called Heinous MacAnus on Facebook, that’s actually pretty good… huh, this was expanded from a TWIFcomp game?  Oh, no way, this is the one dude wrote in Whitespace!  Okay, I have higher expectations of this game now.

Sean Huxter’s got one in as well.  Remember that guy?  He did a solid old-school game about space pirates for the 2008 IF Comp.  Also, I met him at PAX East last year.  He was nice and quite gracious about suddenly being attacked with demands for purple cube gimme purple cube and another for my boyfriend (I get super ADD all surrounded by stimulus like th hey look someone dressed their baby up as Wil Wheaton oh wait what’s happening are we going to dinner? Also it makes me be incredibly awkward at Juhana Leinonen, for some reason.  Sorry, Juhana Leinonen!)

Oh, right, so Sean Huxter’s got a game in Spring Thing, which is what we’re talking about.  I was just, you know, mentally going over the list of “here’s everyone you were accidentally rude to on a particular weekend a year ago, here’s everyone you’ve ever been awkward at, hey, remember that kid who asked you out in sixth or seventh grade and you were so surprised anyone would be asking you out and half-convinced he was making fun of you that you were really mean to him and then you felt terrible, remember that?”  Is this really the time to be going over all this, brain?  In public?

Anyway.  To the Sausage Cave!

* This is your writing tip for today:  you can’t just say “$1200 in prize money,” because that’s a factual statement, and hot Christ are those boring.  So you have to come up with an equivalent:  what can a person buy with $1200?  The first several things you come up with will probably be cheap jokes or Wacky Nouns; throw those out.  Then slap on the first nonsense sentence that comes to your brain, because shit, dude, this is only the second sentence and at this rate we are never going to get this post written.  Actually maybe you shouldn’t do that.  Sorry!