Neopets Part 2: Neoquest Boogaloo

Aha! Bet you thought you wouldn’t see this series again? Probably thought it would go the way of that Christmas “series” I was going to do, or that series of rambles I’ve put on indefinite hold, or Professor Horus’ Puzzling Adventues. Well it’s NOT, so there! As for those other series...uh...

So in the last installment of this technically-a-series-now, I introduced you to Neopets. Apart from embarrassing breakdowns in the face of inert sacks, there wasn’t really much interesting about it. That would be because the one feature I left out before was the games! There are many little flash games on that particular website, and previously I planned to give this whole shpiel on some of the good ones and the bad ones and a much more detailed description. I...don’t really feel like doing that now, and in fact I don’t even feel like logging back into the website. The last time I visited that website, it broke my spirit completely and utterly.

I also MAY have forgotten my login info.

The Heist

So I'm taking another creative writing course this semester at college. Within this course I recently completed a nice little self contained short story in an exercise. It's fairly brief (the page limitations were strict), and I'm not coming back to revise it, but I thought some people might enjoy it. So the rest of this post in its entirety will be the aforementioned story completely unedited. Enjoy.

Earthbound Review

Have you ever played a game that frustrated you to no end? A game where there are dozens of enemies but they’re mostly identical? A game where irritating status ailments are plentiful and what little enjoyment you get out of the combat is sucked dry by the persistent hassle? A game where you enjoy yourself more using a walkthrough because every single step is littered with obtuse bullshit triggers, so that you can only proceed when you think of things in the way the game designers did, as opposed to rationally in-universe? A game where, when you get down to it, everything is a broken mess that’s “old-school” in all the wrong ways? There’s a game like that...and it’s called Earthbound.

Have you ever played a game that defied your expectations? A game where, for better or worse, you can never really predict what’s going to happen next? A game where it’s in some strange middle-ground between absurdist parody and innocent, heartfelt story-telling? A game where there are strange but oddly compelling visuals and sounds, where you want to keep playing just to see where it’ll take you next? A game that can make you laugh, creep you out, and above all has an unusual earnestness to it that embodies the phrase ‘weird but wonderful’? There’s a game like that....and it’s called Earthbound.

Neopets. No really.

So it has been a long time since an update as usual but I don’t want to dwell on that because there are only so many self-deprecating jokes I can make in that vein* and you’ll have so many better reasons to make fun of me by the end of this article. I oft wonder what I want to write when posting to this blog. A large part of the sporadic update rate is due to my writing subjects being “whatever I want (so usually video games)”; as this means I only update around “whenever inspiration strikes me, I feel like putting in the work, and I have absolutely nothing else I need to do”. It just so how happens that in the brief lull before the end of my most recent college semester, all three of these requirements have been fulfilled in the form of an idea that is stupid and silly. Fortunately for you viewers, concepts being stupid or silly have absolutely no bearing at all on whether I write about them! Hell, some would say they’re a sign of encouragement. So today I’m gonna’ talk to you about...Neopets.

*Note: This is a lie, I can make self-deprecating jokes on my update rate until hell freezes over. Or better yet, until I actually update again.

Genericide Update: New Staff

Well it’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it? Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll fabricate I mean uh, fabricate something completely unrelated to an explanation of my absence in the usual format, explaining why my extremely overdue attempts at a holiday special were waylaid. But that’s not important right now. What’s important right now is that I tell you of exciting new ground that Genericide Inc. Enterprises LLC Ventures is going to cover! You see, we (me) here at the headquarters (dorm room) were checking the latest statistical information on the blog from down at the lab (I don’t have one of those), and we (still me) discovered a fascinating fact.

This blog doesn’t update very often!

Genericide Holiday Special, Part 1

It was the night before Christmas,

And all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring,

Except for myself.

Well, and probably some bugs or something,

Like there might be spiders around in the basement maybe?

I guess there always are, in like…the walls and stuff.

Man, that’s gross to think about.

Wait, that’s way off meter,

Why am I even typing this

Shit do over DO OVER

***

An Unrestrained Ramble on the Inconvenience of Icicles

…this was probably a bad idea.

These were the thoughts of our stalwart hero, me, as I stared directly into a pit of razor-sharp, pointed icicle stalagmites (stalagmicicles, if you will). I was suspended upside down on a thin cord of rope, whose two ends were attached to opposing walls of a very tall, icy chamber. I could tell you immediately and promptly whether or not I made it across the deadly pit to the ledge that was sticking out of one side. In fact, if you stop munching on narrative tension long enough to take a refreshing sip of common sense, you can probably deduce the answer right now. But it would probably be more satisfying if I put off that impending tension for a bit while I dodder off back to how this all began, right? Shut up, it so would. So let’s go back in time a bit…