Exercise 23: Games People Play

[Creole Ned]

Exercise 23: Games People Play

Write a scene or story based on a video, board or card game.

Due Monday, August 10th.

Entries:

One Bullet: A Prototype Short Story (http://www.joeldurhamjr.com/OneBullet.htm) (Acid)
On the Run (http://creolened.com/fiction/on_the_run.pdf) (Ned)
Untitled (http://home.comcast.net/~jgt503/kerzshortstory.doc) (kerzain)
Precautionary Measures (http://www.lamethrower.com/bills-off-topic-off-meds-ramblinations-part-1/) (BillD)

[Acid]

Got one. Finally.

One Bullet: A Prototype Short Story (http://www.joeldurhamjr.com/OneBullet.htm)

It's VERY short, but it's a story.

[Creole Ned]

I'll have some feedback soon. You're early on this one. I'm not used to people being early!

[russellmz]

grim stuff, acid. i liked it.

i dunno if you need to let the reader know the wife was killed in the first paragraph or have it shown a bit later on.

[Creole Ned]

This is the first piece of writing I have finished in awhile and it's silly but I'm glad to have the monkey off my back. I give you:

On the Run (http://creolened.com/fiction/on_the_run.pdf)

[Acid]

Love the story, Ned. I only have one suggestion:

Use contractions. You only used one or two throughout the entire story, in the very beginning and the end. I think if you'd used a few more (I'm instead of I am, it's instead of it is, etc), your character would come off as more human and be easier to relate to.

[Creole Ned]

I was a bit divided on the use of contractions. I liked the somewhat distancing effect it had, giving the story a more Kafkaesque feel. Lofty aspirations for a quickie based on Pacman, to be sure. :)

Feedback:

Acid -
I liked the punchy staccato writing here and the use of repetition for emphasis (for the most part). I'm undecided on russell's suggestion that the wife's death could have been held back a bit as more of a reveal, though if it's presented that way it might further underline the indeterminate morality of Mercer (I haven't played Prototype but I gather you can indulge your inner good or bad guy as you see fit).

A few nitpicky things you may or may not agree with:

This paragraph opener (bold substituting for italics in the quote):

She was covered in blood, even before she died. She had just had a run-in with an infected, whom I pulled off of her, but not before the poor son of a bitch vomited blood all over her. She looked infected.

I'd tighten up a bit and change the emphasis:

She had just had a run-in with an infected, whom I pulled off of her, but not before the poor son of a bitch vomited blood all over her. She looked infected.

Another minor tweak:

The military, the police, ever official was looking for him.

to:

Everyone was looking for him.

Again:

Some Web sites, some signs, some people believed Alex Mercer was a misunderstood hero.

to:

Some people believed Alex Mercer was a misunderstood hero.

Basically, I'm just cutting out stuff that pulls away from the rhythm of the story. Hopefully I'm sensing the rhythm correctly to begin with. :)

Finally:

There he was, looking down from the rooftop of some pier building. Alex Mercer. He spun, glancing about him. On the rooftop, infected were closing in on him.

to:

There he was, looking down from the rooftop of some pier building. Alex Mercer. He spun, glancing about him. Infected were closing in.

One of the things I like about short short stories is how you can compress so much into a few words. Here you've sketched out a fairly clear picture of a tumultuous Manhattan crowded with soldiers, civilians and infected, then used that as the frame for a man losing his wife and seeking revenge, all in a matter of perhaps a few minutes and several hundred words. Apart from my nitpicks, nicely rendered.

[russellmz]

creole ned: i got the game at the "turn on the attacker" part :)

it reads fine but visually there's a lot of sentences that start with "I".

[Kael]

Got one. Finally.

One Bullet: A Prototype Short Story (http://www.joeldurhamjr.com/OneBullet.htm)

It's VERY short, but it's a story.

In my opinion having the main character retell the story instead of telling the story in the present tense steals a lot of this story's power. Would it be more effective if we lived through the event with the main character? Can you do anything to personalize the relationship between the man and his wife before she is killed?

[Creole Ned]

I've added kerzain's story. Feel free to offer feedback on it, as well.

Untitled (http://home.comcast.net/~jgt503/kerzshortstory.doc) (kerzain)

[kerzain]

Yea, don't hold back. Don't expect me to take any of it personally or over-react when you find out it doesn't appeal to you.

I'm cool with that.

[kerzain]

I don't know if you like feedback on punctuation, word choice or simple story telling. I am usually willing to overlook typos, and most authors are full aware that they don't belong, so I will focus more on story and delivery and let you worry about stuff like editing details.

I read Ned's story. If I have it right the story is about Pac-man. I like that the name of the actual game itself was never mentioned (this would work especially well if i didn't know it was about video games at all, because I'd be wondering what the hell was going on and would have to figure it out), and I like that we were able to see the world through pac-man's eyes, an unbiased observer who only really knows what he sees, unable to compare and contrast it to the world we know. The story leaves it up to the reader to do the comparing and contrasting. This gives the story a surreal feel that wouldn't have been possible if need allowed Pac-Man to do all the thinking for us.

I wasn't to keen on calling the dots in pac man "crumbs" but I can't really think of a better term for them, so I guess this description is fine :p

Also, I don't mind the lack of contractions. I think it serves Pac man well, because all he does all day is gobble stuff up and interact with ghosts, he isn't really the smartest guy out there. probably doesn't ever really have much time to talk anyway, so the efficient and easy-to-use contraction would seem almost alien to him, simply because he hasn't had much practice.

The whole Pac Man analogy sort of falls apart for me though, and I begin to question if I even have the right game after all. I have no idea who 'the woman' is supposed to be. I haven't played the game in forever. This isn't a criticism of the story itself, but I'm trying to remember if MsPacman showed up in some version I don't remember. Most of my Pac-Manning was done on the Atari 2600.

Because the story is set sort of at a distance from the minute-by-minute experience of Pac Man I am willing to accept the over-use of "I" this and "me" that. Yes, the story is from the first person perspective, but typically running through actions at such a blistering pace in a story like this starts to feel more like a bullet-point re-telling of events. If you were to zoom in, zoom in quite ab it, you could probably turn this into a five or ten page story easy, and still keep it feeling fresh or new. Given more space you could also turn up the surrealism a bit, and keep the reader guessing about what exactly is going on without the threat of overwhelming them with several actions and facts all delivered within the space of a minute.

This would change the story on the whole though, as you would need to re-write it so that every action has a consequence, and each step along the way is fully explored. This is probably too much work for a pac-man story, but I've seen it done with even simpler topics.

[Creole Ned]

Yes, it is indeed Pacman. I avoided references to the thugs as "ghosts" or the city as a "maze" so it wouldn't be as immediately obvious. The encounter he has along the way with the woman is one you missed if you only played the Atari 2600 version -- it's the first intermission screen where Pacman and his female counterpart chase, meet and kiss. I'm not positive but it may have been the first video game cutscene.

The story has 12 paragraphs, 9 of which start with "I". I didn't even notice until russell pointed it out. The effect to me comes off as the main character narrating the story to himself and I used it (without consciously thinking about it) to maintain a distancing effect in the story.

I usually do write longer pieces for the exercises (see: Hello?) but in this case it just felt better to keep it short and get it done.

Thanks for the feedback. I will offer my two cents on your story in the next day or so.

[Bill Dungsroman]

http://www.lamethrower.com/bills-off-topic-off-meds-ramblinations-part-1/

Woo here's mine.

I like the ones submitted for this exercise., especially Acid's. It has a neat angle, reminiscent of Marvel's Marvels mini.

[kerzain]

I'm reading Bill's as we speak. I had to pop in and mention I busted up laughing at the overtly phallic innuendo in the "Nice Side Arm" conversation between two guys alone in the gym. I haven't read far enough to see if it is intended that way or not, but it's awesome.

[kerzain]

I read Bill's story, here are my thoughts on it. My thoughts are a bit light on the critical side, and sort of stray into fan-boy type talk for the characters involved, but since I've been busting out review type stuff all day here and elsewhere I didn't get as critical as I could have, for better or for worse. I'm sure someone else can fill that stuff in where I didn't go into very good detail.

Because I've played HL, and I enjoyed this story I wanted to have a say:

Again, I like that the story doesn't beat you over the head with game references until midway through. I like trying to puzzle these types of stories together, while trying to figure out what jives and what doesn't with the games I've played. This one opens ambiguous enough that it could have been any number of games, except I couldn't quite see where the gym fit in to any of it.

I like that this wasn't so much a retelling, or re-enactment of the game itself, or a prequel so much as a 'day in the life of' the people involved in the events leading up to the real start of the Half-Life story.

Hearing words coming from Gordon's mouth is a change for the better. Up until this point (I haven't read fan fiction for half-life before) he's always just been a silent protagonist that at times (in the game) seems a little slow in the head since everyone just keeps talking to him like he has nothing important to say anyway.

Giving him words though is a monumental task, since you are giving voice and personality to a character many of us have been familiar with for a decade. Now questions can be answered, questions like "Does he have a sense of humor? Does he get along with people, or is he an introvert?" etc. I think you did a fine job giving him things to say, and it gave him a personality I hadn't quite expected of the character I was familiar with from the games.

In the story he comes across as more of a tough guy than I had expected. The talk about his government work, and the somewhat sardonic delivery of "I can tell you that I can't tell you, that's about it." at first seems a so wordy coming from a guy I would have expected to simply shrug and shake his head.

It is that type of dialogue that brings new life to this character and sets him apart from what I know in the games. Although I think it's unfair to be comparing my expectations of Gordon to your interpretation of him, but if you ever take a crack at writing fan-fic's there will be people with bigger expectations than me. I haven't played HL games in years hehe.

There is a funny moment in the story that might not have been intended as such, and I mentioned it in my prior post. The dialogue about the guns. Here is how my mind, up to this point (after the re-read after seeing the gun dialogue), reads this scene:

***
Two guys find themselves alone together in the peaceful silent ambiance of an unused gym, a contrast to the normal grunts and moans typically found in places like this. One of the guys is a little uneasy around the other man, who seems content and self-assured. Something clicks and the timid man tries and fails to initiate a meaningful chat. After stumbling through what he should have known would be an off-limits topic of conversation, Barney becomes becomes self-deprecating while unconsciously complimenting Gordon at the same time.

He calls himself "less a man" than Gordon, which both reveals his true impressions of Gordon, while also giving Gordon the opportunity to chime in, refuting the claim and Barney isn't a real man, and respond in kind by telling Barney something he likes about him. In this case a very phallic conversation about guns takes place, where the true meaning of the conversation bubbles just under the surface, and laughs are had by me.
***

I don't know if that was intended, but this is one of the best things about writing to me, seeing how my work is interpreted by people other than myself. And boy do the interpretations vary. I'm not the kind of guy that gets offended if different people get something different from my stories than I had intended, I hope you aren't either.

Back to the actual story though:
You like to write dialogue. This is something I typically stumble over. I think your dialogue needs more action between the words, a little more description about what the people are feeling or doing while also speaking. At certain points dialogue almost comes off as it could just as easily have taken place over the phone.

I love every word that Dr. Breen said, and I had a perfect mental image of the conversation taking place during his moments in the scene.

I did get a little confused about who was saying what a couple times, but re-reading helped sort that out. Though I don't think you need to shoe-horn in a bunch of "he said, she said" type stuff, I think places like these are where a little more action would help support the dialogue.

I liked the story, and I liked the casual atmosphere depicted in the story, as compared to the casual atmosphere presented at the start of the first game. The only thing missing, and this is just a personal preference of mine for this particular game, is the dark humor.

That's just me though.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Thanks a ton for the time you took to critique my work and give your thoughts on it, kerzain. Without going into a chain quote bonanza I will try to address/answer/comment on most of what you've said:

-The gay subtext sort of just came out while I was writing the first draft. I sort of laughed and decided it served well as a subtle commentary on the arguably homoerotic side to male bonding, FPS games, and gun-lovers in general.

-Honestly, the gym aspect came about because the basis for this story came about a couple years ago. I was playing through HL2 Ep's 1&2 after buying the Orange Box. I was also renting a room in this big house with some other dudes, and one of them had a treadmill he never used and let me use. So I'd run every day and think about shit, because I often ran at night and I couldn't blare music (and I hate using headphones when I run). So it spun out of all of that.

-I had toyed with the notion of making Gordon mute but that is essentially a cliche by now, so I went with a certain voice. I had meant for his Buddhist teachings (The Clear Mind is a real Buddhist following based out of - of course - New Mexico) to sort of lend itself to his penchant for being taciturn. I pictured Gordon as being friendly but guarded, also direct and essentially afraid of very little. Also a little on edge or on guard, as if he could sense something was amiss or about to go bad.

-I appreciate your honest criticism of parts of the dialogue that were somewhat disembodied or disjointed. I can see that, and I just have to plead that I only did one revision of the rough draft. I will keep it in mind in further projects, however.

[kerzain]

Thanks a ton for the time you took to critique my work and give your thoughts on it, kerzain. Without going into a chain quote bonanza I will try to address/answer/comment on most of what you've said:

-The gay subtext sort of just came out while I was writing the first draft. I sort of laughed and decided it served well as a subtle commentary on the arguably homoerotic side to male bonding, FPS games, and gun-lovers in general.I laughed because in my mind a very awkward silence would have taken place right after the first statement about the .357, only to be filled in as Barney and Gordon hurriedly try to "out-masculinize " each other with the subsequent gun talk. It's sort of a tired cliche, this type of dialogue, as seen in shows like Friends or other sitcoms where guys say or do something they feel emasculates themselves and then try to one up each other on toughness or tough talk, so I am glad you didn't go that route. It's just the first place my mind ran.

I like awkward situations in stories, so I have a tendency to try and bring them out, or see them in places where they aren't explicitly intended. This is all personal preference type stuff though, not a commentary on how you presented the scene versus how it 'should' have been done.

-Honestly, the gym aspect came about because the basis for this story came about a couple years ago. I was playing through HL2 Ep's 1&2 after buying the Orange Box. I was also renting a room in this big house with some other dudes, and one of them had a treadmill he never used and let me use. So I'd run every day and think about shit, because I often ran at night and I couldn't blare music (and I hate using headphones when I run). So it spun out of all of that.I like hearing where people get their inspirations for stuff. it's not like I'm looking for the 'secret ingredient' to figure out a way to inspire myself, but I like hearing how an author can take a relatively mundane moment in their life and use it as a seed to grow a completely unrelated story. It adds a feeling of spontaneity to their words, instead of feeling overly structured or planned.

I find it hard to read stories that sound like a point for point synopsis was drawn up beforehand, because things then to end up predictable before all the pieces fit together. People that don't mine their own experiences, in one fashion or another, while actively writing (not planning, but writing) sometimes end up with so much framework it gets in the way of where the story would be better off going.

And then we enter the dreaded deus ex machina territory I am famous for loathing.

-I had toyed with the notion of making Gordon mute but that is essentially a cliche by nowAbsolutely. I prefer the dialogue., so I went with a certain voice. I had meant for his Buddhist teachings (The Clear Mind is a real Buddhist following based out of - of course - New Mexico) to sort of lend itself to his penchant for being taciturn.As a reader who knows absolutely nothing about the common traits and mannerisms of followers of Buddhist teachings I think this aspect of his personality just went over my head is all.

-I appreciate your honest criticism of parts of the dialogue that were somewhat disembodied or disjointed. I can see that, and I just have to plead that I only did one revision of the rough draft. I will keep it in mind in further projects, however.I cringe while re-reading my own stuff. Writing takes a lot of time consuming work to turn out usable pages. It takes a while for me anyways; because I have a tendency to write in sort of a semi-stream of consciousness mode (I hate that term, so trendy) my fingers don't exactly keep up and things get lost in the translation unless I do a very detailed re-read.

Because time is something I've been a little short on lately it is only because I thoroughly enjoy reading and writing that I've been spending more time than I probably should have the last few days churning out stories and reviews.

When I feel rushed I'm also the type of person that is in a huge hurry to get the story out ASAP and stupidly posts it (wanting to be rid of it so I can get back to my studies) before I've waited at least a day or two to re-read when everything is much clearer on the page. This makes for some lame edits, because I *do* eventually re-read my stuff, and then face-palm endlessly.

[Rimbo]

i refuse to participate in this exercise because i am too much of a snob to read or write video game fanfic!

[Creole Ned]

:P

I suck, I still haven't given feedback on the other stories yet. I'm going to aim for tonight, promise!

[russellmz]

kerzain, i liked your story. it really gets that feeling of being second best to someone you care about down pat. i don't know why but i got the game around the end of page two.

normally this kind of thing would be comedic but your version is really dark, which i like. the fate of the non-game mike and the real life effect of parents not taking as many pictures of children as their older siblings are really effective.

i don't know if you need to add the mask part. the yellowing of the mom is gross enough and she seems to talk normally without the mask.

one minor criticism i have is that it feels like the story needs a conclusion, that the ending should be more than a reveal that the new kids are part of a game.

[russellmz]

bill dungsroman, i also liked your story. but it was harder to get into your story since your conception of gordon is totally different from mine: vet vs mit nerd. great conversationalist vs silent. although it explains gordon's familiarity with guns, explosives, etc.
is there background for that in the second game? i only played the first.maybe that was your intent?

either way, you do a great job having him talk so i can imagine him as a confident, hardened vet.

my only concern is i think there are a few too many characters. it's really early in the morning but the gym has loads of people appearing.

[Creole Ned]

kerzain:

Unlike russell I am a dope and could not figure out the game. I think I got it fixed into my head that the girls were princesses or something from some obscure 8-bit Nintendo game and kept trying to shoehorn the story into that preconception.

You do a good job here evoking a feeling of disconnection, with the protagonist left frustrated and angry after living a life in the shadow of a (as we discover) long-dead sibling, compounded by not only his mother's lifelong disinterest in him but also her descent into a world of make-believe that is built on The Sims. It's rather creepy to think there may be people out there treating the Sims in that game as if they were effectively real. The recollection of neglect while leafing through the photo albums works well.

The image of the protagonist as a shard of glass in the carpet was good.

I was not sure why her smoking and subsequent need for oxygen were included in the story. Was this an attempt to make her more sympathetic by suggesting frailty or weakness? Was it meant to just make her that much more unpleasant? Especially with the mask, I began thinking that it might be a device to signal that she was near death but the story did not follow up on any such point, so it left me a bit puzzled as to its inclusion.

There are a few grammatical goofs and phrases that could be reworded but I don't want to offer line edit criticisms unless people specially want them (I suggested some in Acid's story simply because it was so short and I felt the cuts could help tighten the fast pace even more), so I'll just acknowledge them here and note that they did not detract from the feel of the piece.

Overall, this is probably the bleakest take on The Sims I've read. I liked it!

BillD:

I may be a dope but I did recognize the name for this story (or at least thought I did) so I placed it as Half-Life right off. The enjoyment then was watching things unfold in this world with all of my recollections of the game(s) in place.

First, I had to ask myself: What would the always mute Freeman sound like when he spoke? What sort of personality would he have? Here you've made him assertive and confident and those choices don't seem out of place given the way he one-mans everything after the experiment goes awry. A niggle might be made over the scientists in the actual game seeming to show him less respect that he would seem to warrant based on his depiction here, but it is that -- a niggle.

On the style of writing, I quite like the way you use sound, from the "lub" of Freeman's heartbeat to the various sounds in and around the exercise room. The dialogue for the most part feels natural but there are a few times when you add description that is probably unnecessary, such as "Barney replied gloomily". The context is usually enough for the reader to pick up on the tone (or should be, ideally).

The one spot that felt awkward to me was the exchange about the surprise appearance of the Gman (which in itself is great and practically obligatory). It felt as if you were trying to convey too much through the conversation instead of showing what was happening instead and as a result it felt a bit stiff.

The inclusion of the other characters was handled well for the most part. In a few words you capture the essence of the personality of each (as much as we know of from the games). I especially like Klein being compared to a wadded-up piece of paper. Breen's crisp, precise delivery is delivered with just the right pitch.

(Note I haven't read kerzain's feedback yet, so I may be covering some of the same ground here.) There is a chronological faux pas here when Barney talks about being in Afghanistan if one assumes the events in HL occurred when the game was released in 1998, as Afghanistan was not invaded until 2001 -- unless Barney was working undercover with the Soviets or something, which would probably fit in the paranoid and conspiracy-fed world of Half-Life, come to think of it.

I like the snappy wrap-up at the end that underscores the chaos that is soon to follow.

Overall, a good piece that evokes the feel of Black Mesa and its inhabitants and fleshes out Freeman in a way that is interesting and plausible. While I don't think the story stands on its own as well as it might, I don't see that as a flaw so much as a deliberate choice in the style (ie. the story is written for an audience that would have knowledge of the game and its characters).

EDIT: Having looked over kerzain's feedback, I totally did not see the gun thing the same way. Sometimes a gun is just a gun. :P (I took it as a "guy thing", nothing more. Boys with toys and all that.)

And yeah, you probably need to change the time of day, like russell said. That's a lot of people to be milling around Black Mesa for 5:33 a.m.

[kerzain]

kerzain:

Unlike russell I am a dope and could not figure out the game. I think I got it fixed into my head that the girls were princesses or something from some obscure 8-bit Nintendo game and kept trying to shoehorn the story into that preconception.I wasn't trying to write the type of story that wouldn't necessarily be figured out until after 'the big reveal'. I was trying for the type where, once you RE-READ the same story all the seemingly innocuous stuff suddenly makes sense and references and connections can be made. So don't feel bad if you didn't 'get it' until the end. I was trying to work out a way where the story could be just as entertaining the second time through (if not more so) by making certain aspects suddenly jump out at you AFTER you know the surprise.

It's rather creepy to think there may be people out there treating the Sims in that game as if they were effectively real.I know a woman I was guilded with who broke down crying when someone in EverQuest maxed out Wood Elf tailoring before she did on the server. This woman took it as a personal failure in life. People can and do readily forgo all connections to reality and supplant it with video games if given chance.

The image of the protagonist as a shard of glass in the carpet was good.Closest thing to poetic symbolism I can write. I've been working real hard on this because I am such a literalist most of the time. This was one of the harder parts for me to do, and still make it seem to fit.

I was not sure why her smoking and subsequent need for oxygen were included in the story. Was this an attempt to make her more sympathetic by suggesting frailty or weakness? Was it meant to just make her that much more unpleasant? Especially with the mask, I began thinking that it might be a device to signal that she was near death but the story did not follow up on any such point, so it left me a bit puzzled as to its inclusion.Well I probably didn't do a good enough job explaining this part, as I only touched on it. Here's where the mask and smoking comes in (the following passage is the closest I come to explaining it without beating the reader over the head with specifics):

She was awake now, as I could hear the hissing of her mask when she took it off, at least she was finally using it. Smoking was something she picked up during my teens, I'd never known her to smoke before this period. One of her boyfriends got her into the habit I think, but when she got turned on to it she took it up like she did everything else, fiercely. We used to have a pristine home, and now her couches were pitted with burn marks, ashtrays overflowed in every room of the house and her lips and fingers had a permanent yellowing to them that seemed as if the nicotine had leeched straight into the meat of her.

I am trying to paint the image of a woman who was once in control of herself (pristine house before, piles of cigarettes and such now -- lots of happy pics before, disinterest now). I also leave open certain questions about "What ever happened to the father, where was he in all this?" I try to paint her as a woman, who in the protagonists early teens, not only had a lot of boyfriends, but also started picking up bad habits. These are signs (usually) of a troubled woman (or maybe a guy having a mid-life crisis). I hint at other habits or 'thing's she was addicted too, by mentioning that "She took it up like she did everything else, fiercely" hinting at signs of addiction in one form or another -- I wouldn't typically describe a healthy person as anyone who would fiercely pick up any habit, good or bad. The smoking, the obsessive video game playing all work together to show that this person is out of control of her own life.

I was trying to make it so the video game playing and her lack of enthusiasm about life in general could be connected together on a re-read or through some afterthought. Once the reader knows that neither the girls nor Mike are real (not in the sense the mother thinks of them anyway) they'll realize she doesn't care about anything tangible, other than things like smoking and a video game. I try to make it so the reader will connect the two as similar bad habits, but where the pitfalls of excessive video game playing might manifest itself in subtle ways, the pitfalls of the just-as-excessive smoking manifests itself through disease. She is taking these things to such extremes they are destroying her, but she keeps at it just the same. But both of these are merely symptoms of a much bigger problem.

Again though, I can try to explain it all outside the story, but I think I'd be best off trying to re-word this a bit in the story itself to try and get the reader to pick up on it easier within the confines of the tale. I was just trying to cut back on back-story and her gradual descent into depression or whatever else is wrong with her.

Overall, this is probably the bleakest take on The Sims I've read. I liked it!Leave it to me to turn a happy game into a nightmare.
And yeah, you probably need to change the time of day, like russell said. That's a lot of people to be milling around Black Mesa for 5:33 a.m.Evil doesn't stop for morning tea!

[Bill Dungsroman]

bill dungsroman, i also liked your story. but it was harder to get into your story since your conception of gordon is totally different from mine: vet vs mit nerd. great conversationalist vs silent. although it explains gordon's familiarity with guns, explosives, etc.
is there background for that in the second game? i only played the first.maybe that was your intent?

either way, you do a great job having him talk so i can imagine him as a confident, hardened vet.

my only concern is i think there are a few too many characters. it's really early in the morning but the gym has loads of people appearing.

Heh, yeah I realized that a day or two after I wrote it. I could easily change that up to having it take place on a Sunday morning, perhaps.

[Bill Dungsroman]

(Note I haven't read kerzain's feedback yet, so I may be covering some of the same ground here.) There is a chronological faux pas here when Barney talks about being in Afghanistan if one assumes the events in HL occurred when the game was released in 1998, as Afghanistan was not invaded until 2001 -- unless Barney was working undercover with the Soviets or something, which would probably fit in the paranoid and conspiracy-fed world of Half-Life, come to think of it.

WELL MAYBE THEY DIDN'T. Heh, no, good catch. One may as well assume the events of HL1 take place in 98, I suppose. Thanks.


Overall, a good piece that evokes the feel of Black Mesa and its inhabitants and fleshes out Freeman in a way that is interesting and plausible. While I don't think the story stands on its own as well as it might, I don't see that as a flaw so much as a deliberate choice in the style (ie. the story is written for an audience that would have knowledge of the game and its characters).

Well, I had to make it short!