[Contest] Win a copy of Scrolls!

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Dave

Dave

Staff member
So people have been getting recently into a game into a game called Scrolls. You can read more about it here. So I figured I'd do a contest and give a copy away. Alas, there are no gifts yet, so I can't do that. What I CAN do is if you win I'll give you $25 and you can either buy your own copy or just tuck it under your mattress. But I'm sending it by PayPal so you'd better figure out how to put that under your mattress. You do NOT need Steam for this and it's for either Windows or Mac. Score!

Anyway, what is the contest?

Contest: One Paragraph Stories!

What the hell is that? Well, it's a total story written in one paragraph. Now, you can't write 1,000 words and just not put in any paragraphs. That's cheating and the entry would be ignored.

Here's a list of topics by day:

Sunday: Old friends
Monday: An imagined Halforums meetup
Tuesday: She/he said yes!!
Wednesday: US Independence Day!

Rules:
  • You can enter as many times as you like, but only 1 entry per day will be counted.
  • Likes/loves/etc. have NO BEARING on this contest. I am the sole judge. Of course, I'm easily swayed by public opinion, so it couldn't hurt, right?
  • I reserve the right to end the contest or extend it as I feel. Probably won't, but my imaginary lawyer friend told me I'd better put that shit in.
  • Entries that I feel are multiple paragraphs crammed together will be summarily ignored.
  • Well-written off-topic paragraphs will be considered, but may be ignored. In other words, if they ain't good and they ain't on topic, they ain't being counted.
  • The winner will be chosen either Thursday or Friday, depending on how busy my holiday turns out to be.
  • When a winner is chosen, the $25 will be sent by PayPal to the account of their choosing, unless it's to the RNC or Darryl Issa. Fuck that guy.
  • Entries can be typed in this thread. Responses are welcome, so if you are putting in an entry, please give it a title or a preceding line to tell me that it is one.
Here's an example I wrote for a very similar thing:
Corinne

They found your body in a shallow grave in 1984. I found out about your disappearance and the grisly discovery in the same way - a letter from my mother while I was in Marine Corps boot camp. The information was nestled among banalities like who was dating whom and how the weather had been. Her letters were like windows to the world, but only after the brightness had been shut out. The drill instructors couldn't understand how I stayed so calm, but that was easy - nothing they could do could hurt me more than I had already been.
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By the way, this is a true story. A girl I had dated on & off disappeared and was found dead when I was a senior in high school. I found out by a letter from my mom that they'd found her. The murder is still unsolved. The part about her disappearance I did know before I went in, but every time I wrote that it looked more like I was confessing than telling a story so I changed it.
 
Shawn

Shawn

Old Friends

You were immature, abrasive, and sometimes a real dick. But honestly, now that I've given it years of thought, those were things I actually miss. Yeah you couldn't toss a ball. You couldn't be bothered to lend a helping hand when it was most needed. You basically just lazed around consistently, day in and day out, playing those god damn video games. Course now there is no time for stuff like that. And I'd be lying if I said that honestly doesn't sound like any fun. I mean fuck you, childhood. Where did you get off to?
 
strawman

strawman

Peer to peer

"I'll be there in a few hours!" is what the instant message said, but she didn't show. The peer to peer program we were writing was on her school account, so as the day dragged on we recovered what we could, as it was due that evening and we could no longer get ahold of her. It was incomplete, but we felt it better to turn in what we could and email the teacher about the unusual situation. Two days later the professor notified us that we would be given another week, and counselors were available if we needed them, as she had been murdered shortly after that instant message on the due date. The suspect claimed in a suicide note left after taking her life, then his own life, that she had taken the life of his disabled daughter years before, then conspired with him to hide the death. So not only were we working with an alleged murderer, but professors will not, as a matter of course, give passing grades to your project partners if you die on the due date. FYI.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

A Face in the Crowd

I suddenly see a face in the crowd, in the middle of my walk during rush hour in my hometown. Actually, calling this place my hometown would be misleading. This is a frigging huge city. Millions of people, the vast majority of them I've never known and probably never will. A faceless mob of people, carrying me forward as I mindlessly stroll the pavement, following the flow of bodies from point A to point B. But this face... was it her? I haven't seen her in years. Decades, to be honest. I pause in mid-stride; the crowd behind me parts with an angry murmur, and continues surging forward, detouring around me like a brook flowing around a stone. I hesitate a moment longer, before coming to a decision. I turn around and look for her. I spot her head; it looks like she'd just turned back away from me. Did she recognize me too? Did she turn around too? But she's walking away now. I stare at the back of her head for a long wistful instant, then rejoin the flow of bodies.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Is it day 2 yet? I'm gonna go for my day 2 story:

A Happy Meetup

We took a moment out of our game of "glue body parts back onto Dave" to count the people there. One, two, three, four, five, six... wait, where's Gusto gone? Huh, maybe he just went to the bathroom or something. It's all right, back to the game. We got as far as gluing Dave's endoplasmic reticulum in place when we realized someone else was missing. There's just five of us now, where's Cajungal? She was just here with her yuke, wasn't she? Well, maybe she's in the bathroom too. Maybe she'll be back in just a few... wait a second, now there's just four of us. North Ranger's gone. Okay, okay, this is kind of pissing me off now. It's fucking inconsiderate of them to wander off without telling anyone. Don't you think so Pez? Pez? Oh come on, now Pez is gone. This is starting to freak me out now. There's just three of us left now, me, Gilgamesh, and Dave. Dave's freaking out too, but Gilgamesh is just sitting there grinning. What's he so relaxed about? Why isn't he... oh God... oh my God... it's because he knows she would never hurt her own brother...
 
Gusto

Gusto

If the person who wins this ends up actually playing Scrolls, I'll also toss them a rare scroll of whatever colour they end up choosing. :)
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Day 3:

The Journal

I stumbled through the front door and collapsed onto the couch. The smell of the hospital still lingered in my nostrils. The sounds—the hum of the air conditioning, the beeping of machines, the squeaks and rattles of wheeled beds and carts—I couldn't get them out of my head. Looking for something, anything, to distract me, I grabbed the first thing I could from the coffee table. I blinked the tears away, and saw that it was our journal. We'd started it together, five years ago, pasting a pair of movie theater ticket stubs to the first page. On the second page was a photo of us in an Italian restaurant, our second date. And then the third page, the fourth, the fifth, all of them filled with memories, reminders of five happy years together. By the time I got to the last page, I was sobbing loudly, my body shaking with grief. He'd said we need to get a new journal, because the only room left in this one was one last blank page. Except... and I held back my sobs and rubbed the tears away... except the last page wasn't blank. A sparkling diamond ring was taped to the paper. I pulled it off and slipped it onto my finger; a perfect fit. "Yes," I whispered, knowing that he will never hear me, "Yes I will marry you."
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Short Story:

A man stumbled through the desert, dying of thirst. He met a talking snake, named Nate, next to a magic lever. To make a long story short, he ended up deciding that it was better Nate than

***USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST***
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

I'm the only one playing, it appears.

Declaration of Independence, v 2.0

Oh great. Now the Declaration of Independence will have to be rewritten all over again. I blame that asshole, John Hancock. He wanted to sign his name in huge letters. Hell, he said he wanted it to take up half the page. Quill ran out of ink halfway through his first name, didn't it? And then when he picked up the inkwell, he spilled it all over the parchment. Ruined it. So now Tommy Jefferson's going to have to write the whole thing out again, from memory. Except Jefferson's gone off drinking somewhere with that lady friend of his, Sally something. I'll bet he won't be able to remember half the declaration when he comes back. He'd better not leave out the important stuff, like Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, Blackjack, and Hookers. And he'd better remember to specify that all men AND women are created equal. I bet he's going to leave out that part. All because of John "Butterfingers" Hancock. Asshole.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Well, I'm saying bhamv3 is the winner. I'm not saying that because his stuff was necessarily better, but he tried harder than anyone else and I'm rewarding that.

So send me your PayPal and you'll see $25.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Dave, everybody,

I don't have a Paypal account. Additionally, while it'd be cool to play games with you guys, I already have a huge backlog of games, as well as lessened game time after getting married.

Therefore, I would like to propose that Dave use the 25$ as part of the Halforums fund. Maybe it'll pay for a month of bandwidth or something, I'm not sure about the rates. Alternatively, Dave could donate the $25 to a charity of his choice. Undoubtedly it would do more good than a game sitting in my backlog.

It was lots of fun to participate though. I love forum contests. :D
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

bhamv3 said:
Dave, everybody,

I don't have a Paypal account. Additionally, while it'd be cool to play games with you guys, I already have a huge backlog of games, as well as lessened game time after getting married.

Therefore, I would like to propose that Dave use the 25$ as part of the Halforums fund. Maybe it'll pay for a month of bandwidth or something, I'm not sure about the rates. Alternatively, Dave could donate the $25 to a charity of his choice. Undoubtedly it would do more good than a game sitting in my backlog.

It was lots of fun to participate though. I love forum contests. :D
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Someone is playing Scrolls with us, whether they like it or not.
 
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