Challenge #03055-H132: Worked Stone
It was an old custom on Earth that was once popular. Humans would paint stones with pretty pictures, happy sayings, and then, when they had a fairly large collection done, would take all of these intricate stones and scatter them all over the place so other people could find them. Often with a URL on the back for people to log in with a picture of the stone to show it was found and where. A way to brighten a person’s day. That person would then be encouraged to take the stone out and set it somewhere so someone else could find it. And let that cheerfulness spread. Some old customs don’t seem to die, even as humans have spread through the universe, so have the pretty stones. – Anon Guest
It was a smooth river stone that was light years from the nearest river. Large and flat and painted with a contrast code that could easily be read by any datareader. The other side of the stone, the one that had been facing up, had a stylised image on it. What it was a stylisation of was something Techie Del was unfamiliar with. Humans had been here.
Just how and why a Human would leave a river rock stuck to the underside of a desk in a derelict vessel was a mystery to Del. Further, that derelict had been marked for complete salvage by a roaming band of scavengers working the very same wreckage Sargasso. Since it had been painted, Del guessed that it was of some cultural significance and put it aside for analysis.
She never expected a rock to be a message in a bottle. After her shift was over, she scanned the code left on one side and found a message and a link to a social site called Dude, Where’s My Rock? It was a long-term cross-galactic game. Of course it was. Humans were baffling that way. This game had been going on for longer than an average Human lifespan, so it was a decent bet that the hands that had painted this stone were in their grave by now. There was a message.
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(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #02954-H031: Operation Comeback
They were runners-up last year at the Zombie competition. However, their squad got wiped out in the start of the third hour. This year they were determined to make it through the semi-finals and into the finals. But it would take a lot of practice. However, this year, they had a long haul from the station they’d been at to the competition arena. They had plenty of time to practice.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02723-g166-just-add-zombies – Competition
Zombie tag had somehow become a seasonal sport. Points were awarded for the Zombies remaining in character, of course, so roleplaying was a draw for Team Zombie. As for Team Live… the excuse to go into a mock battle with Deathworlders and have a chance of winning. It was great for epigenetic strengthening of the genome.
This year, Team Zombie were trying to come up with a strategy to outlast Shar the Destroyer. There was a profile picture and some of the winning stratagems playing on loop. “Ze has many names,” said the Team Zombie leader, briefing the starter crew for Team Zombie. “Shar the Star, Shar the Scar, Death From Above, Silent But Deadly,” the leader paused for the more childish members of the team to get over their giggles. “As well as The Sneak. Ze’s a Level Three Havenworlder with the ability to climb and glide. Her rate of descent per DU traveled is point one per DU horizontal. Keep that in mind when you’re lurching towards climbable structures.”
“Yeah but we’re supposed to lurch towards the last sound we heard. Zombie rules.”
[Experimental posting format. Reblog or comment if you see this post in the tags. Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #02795-G238: The Ultimate Plasmotron 6000
While I’m playing some team based game
Some dumba22:
Ooo what’s over here~
Death chat:
[the entire enemy team] absolutely destroyed [dumba22] – Anon Guest
The Humans were very still. There were twenty of them, each concentrating on a screen. It was utterly silent. One of them might mumble now and again, but otherwise, they were transfixed. The only noise was the movement of mice and the click of W A S D keys.
Companion Vresk was only sure of one thing. This was some form of pack bonding activity. These Humans were, if not friends, at least associates in a complicated web that would take weeks to unriddle if Vresk really wanted to work at it.
One of the Humans, apparently investigating something they could see, said. “Ooh, hey. Secret passage. What’s down there?”
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Challenge #02730-G173: Hunting for the Delicate
Some older humans bring their alien friends to a bingo parlor for a night of playing bingo and having snacks. – Anon Guest
[AN: Though I am of bingo-playing age, I only have the vaguest idea how it is played]
“This is a perfect game for the frailer sort,” said Human Jem. “Little strenuous activity, but it still tests observation, response time, and searching skills.”
This was a Deathworld game, so Glex knew the right question to ask. “What are you hunting?”
Human Jem laughed and nodded. “You nailed it. We’re hunting numbers, and these,” they handed Glex a piece of cardboard with a grid on one side, “are the hunting ground.” The grid, on further examination, held numbers within each square. “The goal is to get five of them in a straight line. Vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.”
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Challenge #02723-G166: Just Add Zombies
This prompt issues to an earlier story from two years ago. https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-01928-e104-tag-you-re-undead. One that gave me a wicked little grin, though I did have to search a bit to find it again.
Zombie tag. That was a game, and an experiment, that was both famous and infamous. Since its inception a few years ago, it had become a wildly popular thing that became a new sport. How long could teams last against the “zombies”? Rules were drawn up, people could “defend” themselves against “zombies” with soft, fake “weapons” that, at worst, might give a level 4 havenworlder a slight bruise and, frankly, other than blotting a little ink on someone, nothing more. If the blot was on the head, the “zombie” was out. If you were tagged, you either “died”, or became a “zombie”.
But when the lights go down, the environment gets creepy, and the recording of frightening groans begins as the “zombies” are let loose on the “uninfected”, the championship teams for that year were in for a bit of a surprise. Every year there was an odd twist for the championship, but this one? A messed up version of the human anthem, enough to keep anyone on their toes. How long would the teams last, and who would the champion be this year? – DaniAndShali
Inexplicably, the Havenworlders loved it. Simulated danger without any actual danger. The rules were clear, and the options were multiple. When the Humans added Nerf Weapons and paintballs to the shenanigans. To make a bad pun worse, the nerf weapons were a hit. The paintballs were sponge, and softer than the projectiles Humans used for their paintball-oriented simulated combat. They would be felt, but they would not cause injuries hazardous to Havenworlders.
One hit to the head or five hits to the body could ‘kill’ a 'zombie’, other players could fortify, hide, or attack 'zombies’. Play only occurred within the arena, and safe spaces were non-combat zones. Non-zombies who 'died’ from a zombie could choose whether or not they became 'zombies’ and therefore joined the zombie horde.
It was a game that gave Havenworlders a chance to wail on Deathworlders and win, even if it was simulated battle, it did immense good to both Havenworlder confidence and epigenetic drift towards hardier makeup. That, and there’s nothing like almost unrestrained chaos to create a good time for all.
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Challenge #02422-F232: Crit Happens
Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out ‘til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along. ~Terry Pratchett
Also known as being a DM. (Dungeon Master) – Anon Guest
Imagine a game so complicated that even the experts have to look up the rules. It is not just played with dice, but also cards, charts, tables, books, miniatures, and a hell of a lot of imagination. There is only one person at the game table who knows anything about what’s going on, and that is the holder of the core of the story. They know most of what’s going to happen. Well. What’s most likely to happen.
The one thing they don’t have control of is what the players are going to do. Because everyone who plays this game is a chaos demon in roughly humanoid form. They have a set of rules, too. A set of rules almost as complicated as the entire game, with permutations and corollaries so complicated that nobody could keep track of them all. Player choices leading to potentially infinite customisation not limited to the character’s appearance, but also throughout the game.
The game can last for years. Groups meeting to play on a semi-regular basis. Play interrupted by life events, by colds and other virii, by children and the associated shenanigans, by spouses, by family, by work… but they keep returning to play. A game that can involve pop culture, dirty jokes, incidental weaponised singing - both in-game and out - research, improvisation, and massive amounts of bullshit made up on the fly. No one session is completely predictable. No game is ever played the same way by any group of players. It’s no surprise that something this phenomenally complicated is also something invented and enjoyed by Humans.
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