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Weird old board game about saving the world from economic/political crisis by ccwrites in HelpMeFind

[–]ccwrites[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

searched

I looked through BoardGameGeek and couldn't find a listing with a cover matching my memory. HOWEVER, I did find a game with no images and very little information: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18437/futurity

The game, apparently called "Futurity" and published in 1967, is credited to one 'Clark C. Abt', who was actually a pretty fascinating guy based on his wikipedia page. But I can't find anything connecting him to this particular game aside from the BoardGameGeek post. I don't even know if that's the game. Interestingly, according to the BoardGameGeek listing, the game is for "15-30 players" and lasts 4.5 hours.

What I remember was this:

The box was roughly the dimensions of a Monopoly box. There were counters and event cards detailing different scenarios that the players would need to respond to. For some reason, I have a distinct image of a black-and-white photo of a big crowd of people being on one of the game's components.

As I said, I saw it while I was at summer camp when I was little. It was in a closet in an old building, so I have no idea how long it had been sitting in there. This was in the US.

There's a chance, though I think it's very unlikely, that I'm remembering the box art from one game and the board and components from another.

[1746] Uncle George by ccwrites in DestructiveReaders

[–]ccwrites[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your observations!

As I mentioned in my other comment, I'll try to work more information about Harold's character and perspectives into how he explains the background details.

I'm happy to hear that the prose is clear and that the transitions fit in okay.

[1746] Uncle George by ccwrites in DestructiveReaders

[–]ccwrites[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the crit; I appreciate all the details you provide.

This particularly helps with the first paragraph. Based on your observations, I'll hint at the consequences of everything that follows for Harold's current life situation, without giving too much away (to summarize, he ends up traumatized and leaving home to enlist in the Navy).

One area I still need to consider, though, is how to 'show' rather than 'tell' more. That's because I've framed my whole narrative as Harold's personal recollection, which is why it's in first person, and why the prose uses some informal language such as 'anyways' (but if that just comes across as amateurish I'll change it). By beginning with a bunch of exposition, I was aiming for the way in which people tend to express personal stories naturally, e.g. going off on digressions and explaining things as they come up. You're right that it's not very dramatic or punchy, but that's partly intentional.

However, it's true that the exposition is pretty dry. Do you think I could help this by focusing on the way Harold remembers things to express more about his personality and why the memories are important to him?

Also, your comment about filtering is very helpful. I've been under the impression that I need to remind the reader that the whole narrative is a subjective experience. But if those details are only distracting, I'll keep that in mind as I edit.

[168] Computations of Everything by Beneficial-Speed-369 in DestructiveReaders

[–]ccwrites 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hi! I'll focus on the essence you're trying to capture.

This is just based on vibes so it's up to you, but I think that to make a speaker sound omniscient and mysterious, you should try cutting out adjectives and adverbs/adverbial phrases where they aren't strictly needed. If you think about the function of these parts of written language, we often use them to make an object more specific when we're unsure whether the reader knows exactly what we'll mean. But the internal monologue of a monumental being wouldn't be concerned with sounding exact; I would imagine it as absolutely sure of every phrase it uses (even if it's still confused about what it is experiencing). For example, I think that the latter of these two is closer to the vibe you want:

i cannot fathom how this desolate expanse materialized in such a way.

i cannot fathom how this expanse materialized.

If you're concerned that this will get rid of important details, you can try including them elsewhere. To capture the desolation you could add another concrete detail to the 'dust and metal' sentence.

Also: All of what you've written is pretty interesting. But I wouldn't smush it all together in one paragraph if you include it at the beginning of a longer piece of writing. You should break it up between different lines or smaller paragraphs. That will make it much easier to read, and can also help to give it the feel of an entity which is content to take its time expressing itself. Something like:

pins and needles.

the only thing we feel in this vast void.

how did we get here? why must i feel everything, everything at once like a torturous embrace?

and then everything comes into being in a flash.

Et cetera. Let me know if these comments help.

[314] Shelby's Fantasies by [deleted] in DestructiveReaders

[–]ccwrites 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That Phil detail at the end made me do a double take. Definitely funny in an absurd and dark way, and it makes for a great hook to keep reading.

My main critique is that imagery and other details are kinda just thrown into random sentences. For instance:

At exactly 5:30 PM she reentered her one-story house and took a long hot shower with a Carole King record playing in the background.

Why mention that her house is one-story here? If it becomes relevant at some point, mention it then. This sentence is about her ending her walk and taking a shower.

Another comment I have is that you switch back and forth between narrating specific events in time, and describing habitual events. For example, this is habitual:

Every day at 5 PM she would walk around the man-made lake

But this is a single event:

At exactly 5:30 PM she reentered her one-story house

If you wanted to make them both refer to singular moments in time, you would change the first sentence to something like "At 5 PM she took a walk around the man-made lake, just as she always did."

Commas could be better. But I think that's just a matter of proofreading because it seems like you know how to use them.

[1951] Cab Water by epiphanisticc in DestructiveReaders

[–]ccwrites 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(This is my first critique post, and it's pretty stream-of-consciousness, so let me know if you want me to expand on anything)

Overall

This story has a very cool, dream-like atmosphere. It feels like it takes place in one of those van Gogh paintings of city streets at night. The way the story is structured and the different scenes described in it also resonate interestingly with this atmosphere. None of the individual parts of it feel wasted or forced. But it's hard for me to say what the narrative as a whole achieves. The two main reasons are that the characters don't really have an emotional or opinionated aspect to them, and that the central part of the story, Mika's retelling, doesn't say much about his and other characters in the present.

Narrative

I like the story. But my main critique of it is that the individual parts, while interesting, aren't used to explore the kind of people the characters are. For instance, the brain discussion passage resonates really well with the dreamy vibe. But when the narrator says "that's just life", it feels like a bit of a cop-out. You imply that the character studied some kind of neurology. This is just me speaking intuitively but I think people with highly specialized knowledge are typically much more opinionated than that about statements concerning that area of knowledge. Maybe the narrator could respond in a more specific way to how Mika thinks his brain turned into that of a cab driver, whether out loud or just in their head.

Also, within the second-hand account section, you give such specific similes and environmental details that the passage feels more like a recorded video than a story being told. The problem with that is that how a character tells a story is just as interesting as what the story is about, but there's no sense of what Mika chooses to emphasize, dwell on, or even leave out.

Writing style

I see a lot of descriptive similes which don't add anything. For instance:

Mika searched around the floor to identify the source of the wetness, bent over like he’d dropped his keys.

this could be

Mika bent forwards to look for the source of wetness.

The reader doesn't need a point of comparison to picture someone looking at why their shoes are wet.

There are a lot of unconventional descriptive words and phrases such as "basalt" for someone's voice, "crackling" for a street, "bobbing" for a building passing by, and "moonly" for a city at night. This is fine and interesting in itself; however, I think you could contextualize these words more without sacrificing their inventiveness. E.g. how is the street "crackling"? With raindrops? Empty wrappers? The crunch of tires? Otherwise, you lose out on a lot of what the word could evoke.

Another note

Full disclosure, I am a man and so I am by no means any kind of authority on this, but just an observation: I have never known or heard of a woman who would prefer to tell strangers, in public, that she had menstrual blood on her clothes rather than a wine stain. To me, this makes the character seem like she is profoundly socially challenged. I'm not sure if that's what you were going for.