Chat Lib #1: The Corset after the Great Punching

Chat Libs is a ‘Mad Libs’ based activity over on our Twitch live stream.  The audience suggests a scenario, I write a story template with missing words, and they fill in the holes.  Hilarity ensues.  If you wish to participate you can join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade

Scenario: Post-apocalyptic Cave Sytem

The homely caves were filled with an excess of pancakes. There was no way this was natural, but could anything be called natural anymore? This was a new underground age of evisceration. She would just have to deal with it, alongside the lack of tablesclouds, and hot paintings. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Colors under the House

Prompt: An old deaf Italian man spends all his time painting; they are his interpretations of sound.

There was no getting my father to leave. Visitors thought his paintings were his life. He refused to sell any of them or give them as gifts. He just let the house eat them, the same way it ate him alive. I mean the first part quite literally. The house had a terrible pest problem, and not just one species. It was like a diplomatic summit of everything you didn’t want to be diplomatic with. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: The Cryptid Fog

Prompt: A man stumbles into swampland; mist surrounds him.

It was four days into what most people would call a camping trip. Bryce only called it that when he was embarrassed, when the stranger at the checkout counter asked him why he was buying both ammunition and sidewalk chalk. He could just answer with ‘camping trip’ and a smile. They would assume he had children looking to draw on boulders. Continue reading

Chat-your-own-Adventure #29: Parts Littering the Sea

Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience voting to determine the path of the story.  The underlined phrases in the choice of three were the winning pathways.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d ever like to participate in our interactive fiction.

Paper                                                          Iron                                                        Wood

The storm made quick work of the cliff side, speeding what should have been more than a hundred years of weathering. The rock fell away, revealing the iron plate beneath. It had no visible hatches or doorways. There were no words or pictograms. It was almost like it was natural, simply a collection of all the most like-minded iron atoms in the world. Continue reading

Regular Romp #13: The Goldin Element

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

Goldenfellow

The door was stuck; it seemed even the rust around town didn’t want him loitering. It was best not to let the village or its people see him downtrodden, so Goldin just pushed against the door until it finally gave way and sprayed rust flakes all over the ground. He stepped out with a deep breath and a smile. Goldin Fella was one of those men of indeterminate age who always seemed better defined by his mood than his position in society or daily luck. Continue reading

Chat-your-own-Adventure #28: Mixing Soda and Stock

Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience bidding tokens (earned while watching) to determine the path of the story.  The underlined phrases in the choice of three were the winning pathways.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d ever like to participate in our interactive fiction.

Death Combat                              Slime Culture                              Expiration Date

The palace wibbled and wobbled as the thousand guests rolled and slithered into the exhibition hall. It used to be the ballroom until the slimedom collectively realized they could not dance, at least not by the standards of the solid beings in the neighboring lands. Continue reading

Regular Romp #12: Leor the Tenth, Possibly Last

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

LiorX

Sixty-eight people milled about on the beach pretending to enjoy various activities. There was a game of volleyball going; the ball hadn’t touched the ground in more than forty minutes. Neither team had scored yet. They didn’t need to. The game was simply decoration, like the surfers lounging against their posted boards and the children building sand castles so tall and symmetrical that no actual child could resist toppling them. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Balancing Actor

Prompt: a comical tale of a superhero dad who struggles to balance real life with his wife and daughter and his heroics.

Pretty soon I would be going to my daughter’s games. I don’t care what kind of games they are: soccer, baseball, mountain biking, chess… as long as she gives me something to go to. My wife insists she’ll be a gymnast because she’s now quite good at tumbling without bruising her forehead. Continue reading

Regular Romp #11: Sir Moanle at the Luncheon

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

Sermonal

Most people chose to capture moments like that with paint or, if they could afford it, the newfangled tin plate photography. Sir Moanle was a simpler man who painted with nothing but the sparsely-haired brush of his memory. If the image had any bare patches they were filled in over time, as he observed that sunrise over the river every day for three months. Continue reading

Minesweeper Fiction: Session 16

Author’s Note: This was written live on stream, with the tone being determined by the numbers under minesweeper tiles.  The audience could bid tokens earned in stream to reveal random tiles.  A mine hit results in the death of all characters, unless they are temporarily saved by a lump sum of tokens.  If characters make it to the end of the stream, they survive to be seen another day.  Join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade if you wish to participate.

1-peace    2-alert    3-escalation    4-action    5-tragedy    6-world-changing

The minefield has been moved. It now connects the Trap to a new world, a new game. There is no destruction this time, nothing forcing them to flee. Only the brave, curious, and strange will take the journey. Who will step through the fog and face the myriad dangers of the field?

Three enter: Glitterhook the pirate who thinks he’s a unicorn, Cricketty the empty bent mimic chest, and Sailor Midnight the Gothic sailor booted from her ship. Continue reading