brattyone's second assignment

[SheepishJaina]

I'm really terrible with spelling. This assignment was difficult because I really wanted to check to see what errors I hadn't caught during proof reading. Hopefully I caught many of them before posting. I went over reading each line and was surprised at how many errors I had missed just rereading the story. I hope y'all enjoy.


Meeting Rocky

I've always loved puzzles and brain teasers. If I don't feel challenged in my activities it doesn't feel like it is worth doing. I know that's why I never did well in school. It never felt like a challenge, but that is another story.

I had been playing games on Popcap and Yahoo and other sites for a while when I first saw the ad on the Penny-Arcade site. Players wanted for Beta testing of a new online game. The ad proclaimed, "Puzzle based play set in a pirate setting!" fittingly called Puzzle Pirates. My interest was peaked, but I knew that my older computer already struggled to even play games like the SIMs. My dialup connection took forever to even load websites, let alone be able to download a large client and then run the game online. I muttered under my breath and navigated away from the site, quickly forgetting about the ad.

Several months passed. The winter holidays had come and gone and Valentine's Day had just passed. I made plans to spend the weekend up with my boyfriend, Scott, at his college apartment in York. I had made a number of trips over to his college since we'd started dating, but very few of which I can remember most of the details of. Life is strange in that sense. The drive over was uneventful. We spent Friday evening and Saturday morning laying around watching movies and playing video games.

I was laying on his bed playing my favorite Zelda game while he talked with a few friends online. I had just beaten the Fire Temple in the game for perhaps the billionth time when I glanced over at his screen. "What's that you're playing?" He glanced over at me and said, "Its called carpentry. It's part of some puzzle game I found this week." I sprung out of the bed and leaned over his shoulder watching. For some reason it looked familiar. The game he was playing looked like a cross between Tetris and a traditional jigsaw puzzle. I watched as he moved the pieces around, "Oh that looks like fun, let me play?"

He kept playing, "No. You'd get too addicted to it." I stood with my hands on my hips, breathing down his neck. "Please? You know how quickly I get bored with a game once I figure it out." He ignored me. While he was playing a screen popped up over his game. I glanced over it, "Which one are you? What does Booched mean?" "Jaggedfel and I don't know," He replied as the screen went away and the puzzle was visible again.

Obviously he didn't want me to play the game. What about it did he know that I didn't know? I lay down again and tried to focus on my Zelda game. Honest I did, but when He got up to use the bathroom I rocketed off of the bed and quickly sat down at the desk. I started moving the pieces around, trying to figure out how to rotate them. "Use the mouse wheel." I glanced over at Scott standing in the door way grinning at me. "Sorry hon! I couldn't help it!"

He plopped down on the bed and started playing my Zelda game while I stared intently at the computer screen, when suddenly a different puzzle popped up. "Hey! What's this? I didn't press anything." Scott chuckled and said, "That's called swordfighting. See those little sword pieces that match the colored blocks? Use that to remove the blocks from your screen. Use the space bar and arrow keys to move and rotate pieces. The reason that puzzle has popped up is cause You're doing something called Pillaging. It's how you make money in the game."

I spoke more to the screen than to Scott, "Cool. So wait, the other people on my side are other humans? What is this game called anyway?" He sighed loudly, "Yohoho Puzzle Pirates." No wonder it was familiar! Suddenly I couldn't wait to get home and install the game onto my own computer.

I confess that I stayed up that night playing. I know I shouldn't have driven home Sunday afternoon, but I did. As soon as I got home I turned on my computer and started downloading the game. While I waited I started to read documents on the game's website about how to play. Six very long and annoying hours later I held my breath as my computer finished installing the game client.

"Welcome aboard! Yer pirate needs a user account." I clicked on the button to create an account. Once I had filled out the standard form of account name, email, password, I clicked the button marked "Set Sail!" A screen popped up, "Create your pirate!" I started by changing her hair and skin around till she resembled myself as closely as possible. I needed a name. I sat there thinking for a while before it came to me. If Scott was playing as Jaggedfel, I could play as Jainasolo. I held my breath as it checked for the availability of the name. Suddenly the screen changed and the character I had created was standing on an island.

The little tab on the right side of the client showed words I only understood half of. "Guava Island in the Emerald archipelago." By clicking my mouse on the ground, I found my character could walk around this "Guava Island." To my surprise, as I moved for the first time, a white thing came walking over to me. It didn't look like a human character, and its name confirmed my suspicions. "Sheepish Rocky" followed me as I walked around the island. When I stopped moving around, he stopped as well, sometimes in front or behind me, usually next to my side. As I sat in front of my computer giggling, white text appeared in the chat area. "Sheepish Rocky says, "Bah." It was love at first Bah.

[TheKnothead]

What a cool story!! Interesting isn't it, how some of the more special things in our lives just kind of magically appear.
I really enjoyed it!

TKH

[Aussiegirl1]

Oh thank you bratty, I loved it!

You did very well with no spelling mistakes and you have a great understanding of commas and paragraphs. I loved the idea behind the story and as someone who loves games and has to suffer slow downloads, I was hooked from the start. I even love pirates too!

Good to see you were able to get a friendly sheep in there too - love at first baa, very clever!

Well done! When you are ready, you can move onto the third assignment.

Aussiegirl

[SheepishJaina]

*smiles* Actually, most of that story is 100% true and real. Though I think it was Valentines day weekend now that I really think about it... lol..

That game does exist, my (now) husband really did try to stop me from playing it, and 2 and a half years later I still am. I ended up being the first person in the game to achieve the highest experience level for carpentry first. I also am now one of the top ranked "sword fighters". I guess all i do have to say is, Scott was right.. lol

I'm glad ye enjoyed it, and now i can finally run the whole thing through word and make a few changes! *grins as word opens*

Happy talk like a pirate day!
~bratty

[Aussiegirl1]

Cool, happy talk like a pirate day to you too. I just found out via your pirate day post that the game is real, and guess what I'll be doing on the weekend!

Thanks
Aussiegirl

[cariad]

Oh, that was lovely SheepyOne. I was not surprised to see your post which said 'Actually, most of that story is 100% true and real' it felt like it as I read it. Am just slightly tempted to go and have a look at the game - but have enough addictions in my life without adding to them.

cariad

[SheepishJaina]

*giggles*

Diva went and bought a subscription this morning....

Q's in the crew too.. if the bugger would give in and give a real try