Video game one-liners
Although I was a voracious reader when I was younger, I don’t often get to spend any time with fiction books nowadays. I used to love the horror and science-fiction genre but those I tend to pick up as an adult are mostly in connection with my line of work. I’m currently reading about the lean framework and something on different communication styles by Nigel Risner – pretty dry subjects for anyone outside of IT.
That what makes responding to Pop Culture Literary’s nomination for the One-Liner Challenge so difficult. Nobody here wants to read short summaries of books about IT best-practice and processes; we much prefer stories about epic battles, dramatic rescues and the balance between good and evil. I’m therefore going to put a twist on it and focus instead on video games.
I hope that change still meets Pop Culture Literary’s requirements. As they did for their own challenge, I picked the ten titles below from my Steam Library on a random basis (using a random number generator rather than dice). Here we go – and no spoilers!
Child of Light: a young princess named Aurora dies of a mysterious illness but then reawakens, before saving the sun, moon and stars from the Queen of the Night in order to return home
Braid: a pretentious platformer featuring a time-reverse mechanic, and a plot about a man rescuing a princess constructed to make the player question who the real monster is
Cat Quest: an RPG set in the pawsome world of cats, featuring a frisky feline in pursuit of the evil Drakoth and his catnapped sister through the world of Felingard
Four Last Things: an adventure for those who like Monty Python and smutty humour, here’s a man who must re-commit the seven deadly sins after arriving to confess at the wrong church
Sam & Max Save the World: a hypnosis conspiracy being investigated by the Freelance Police which makes you feel as though you’re watching Saturday morning kids’ television
Knee Deep: investigate the suicide of a washed-up actor in the backwater town of Cypress Knee with blogger Romana Teague, local reporter Jack Bellet and private investigator K.C. Gaddis
Broken Age: funded via Kickstarter and not without controversy, a coming-of-age story about Vella and Shay as they try to escape similar situations in totally different worlds
The Night of the Rabbit: a white rabbit leads Jerry to Mousewood, where he learns spells while travelling to worlds through portal trees and uses these to defeat the evil magician Zaroff
The Talos Principle: a puzzle game which will drive you bonkers, you’re tasked by your creator to solve a series of complex challenges while wondering who you are and what your purpose is
Black Mirror: the original (not the remake) about the aftermath of the death of William Gordon, dark secrets and the terrible curse which has decimated the family since the Middle Ages
Thank you to Pop Culture Literary for nominating Later Levels, and for giving me something a little different to write about. I’d love to hear your own one-liners: how would you describe your favourite game in a single sentence?
What a cool idea! Also, Braid is pretentious isn’t it?! I’d never thought about it like that before.
This could become a fun game – people put up their one-line descriptions and everyone else has to guess what game they are referring to.
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I was also thinking that but in the describe a film badly in one line but with games could be fun too.
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Ooh that’s a good idea… I feel a collaboration coming on… 🤔
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Sounds like an idea 😉
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Ristar: the universe’s tiniest star grabs stuff with his hands – because video games always make perfect sense.
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So much better than any of my one-liner attempts! Ha ha ha
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The first thing that comes to my mind now is…
Full Throttle: a man who’s always been an outsider and rebel fights for his freedom and finally learns that being free means being lonely.
Thanks for this great idea, I think I could make a very long post with similar one-liners.
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There’s just one thing you forgot to mention: minefield bunnies! 🐰
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Reblogged this on DDOCentral.
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Because I’m a gigantic dork, I’ve actually already done this in my own notes, not posted anywhere. When I was attempting to write a hook for my first novel, I practiced by taking stories I already knew and writing hooks for them (I was shopping for an agent at the time), because compressing a whole story down to a single sentence is hella hard. Now I don’t think doing so is as important, but being able to describe your work concisely still is, so it was good practice! Of course now I can’t locate what I wrote before, but if I was going to wing it (appropriate I guess for the title) I’d say:
Final Fantasy VII – Lies, corporate greed, and the lust for power lead to a Planet in peril in this symbolism heavy eco-parable.
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After drafting a post, I end up going through it several times afterwards and taking out so many unnecessary words. So to someone who’s able to write fiction as well as you do, I have the utmost respect!
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Aw thanks! Even though I edit things a thousand times, I’ll STILL find errors, but I’ve learned not to beat myself up about it 🙂
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This was a fun response to read! I love your adaptation of this challenge. I’m only familiar with one of these games (Child of Light), and they all sound interesting. (Sorry, I wanted to read this sooner, but I’ve had a crazy few months!)
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No need to apologise – real life has that annoying habit of getting in the way sometimes! Let us know what you think if you manage to give some of the games a go. 😀
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I’ll be sure to!
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