Friday, January 25, 2008

Junk Yard Story

This is the story I wrote to help explain some of the sillyness in the game.
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JUNK YARD.... The Story

"Nice Doggie!", I exclaimed. Where did this ugly dog come from? I was only looking at a beat up old toaster and the next thing I knew a mouth full of ivory spikes was chomping on my heels as I fled for my life.

"GRRRRFFFFF GRFF GRFFFFFF!" Snarled Spike.

"Maybe I have a Milkbone," it was lie. I rounded the corner and dashed through a large sliding gate. Spike was still coming, attitude and all. Dropping the toaster, I hurried to slide the gate shut as Spike's shadow grew all around me. CLANG! The gate closed and Spike was unable to stop in time.

Then I got a bad feeling as I heard laughter all around me echoing. "You're trapped in my junkyard. HA HA HA HA HA!!!" That must be CRAZY BOB, I thought. I'm going to have to build some kind of flying jalopy to get out of here.

The growls and snarls of Spike grew faint as I wandered deeper into the canyons of junk. I stumbled across a functional television set. Now, if I only had a weather vane I could create a radar device. I looked up and there was a weather vane sticking out of a telephone pole. Climbing on top of a stack of cars, I retrieved the weather vane. Using some extra wiring, I integrated the weather vane to the TV creating a radar device. It was time to test the device. I flipped through the channels on the TV. My choices were Christmas trees, time machines, fireworks, hot babes, junk, and Mean Dogs. I chose fireworks. Then I adjusted the tuner and bingo: the display showed me where and how close the fireworks were.

Just then I saw a hair dryer buried under some bicycle tires. I combined the hair dryer and the toaster creating a kind of toaster gun. Holding the gun I felt the urge to say 'feeling lucky PUNK!', but I resisted.

With new found confidence I made my way deeper into the labyrinth. I had a growing sensation. The sensation of being watched. Turning the corner I saw them. Down the alley, under a street lamp, hundreds, no thousands of rats were bubbling out of crates of fireworks. A sudden urge of stupidity swelled within me. I charged down the alley screaming at the top of my lungs and toaster gun blazing. As I reached the crates, I wasn't sure if it was toast or dead rats crunching under my shoes. I had a feeling that I would need these fireworks sooner or later.

I heard the distinct sound of water running. Climbing over stacks of tires I hid in the shadows and watched. A bare outstretched foot and a wet leg glistened in the moon light. She was taking a bath! I started to forget my surroundings when I heard a familiar yet loathing sound.

"GRRRRFFFFF GRFF GRFFFFFF!" Spike had a limited vocabulary. The bathing beauty leapt from the water naked and suds flying. I took a firm grip of the toaster gun, and a smile took control of my face.

"Somebody get this dog away from me!" She blurted. Leaping to my feet, I chased after them. FLANK FLANK FLANK, three pieces of toast whizzed past his head. I missed. I followed them to a small alcove. Locked in a figure eight, she was running for her life. I knew how she felt.

Crouching down I took aim. FLANK. Nervous, I shot too soon. The toast narrowly went between them. FLANK. This time I was successful! Spike, knocked down and away, the girl had time to escape. "Eat hot toast you scruffy old mutt!" I exclaimed victoriously.

That's when I had an idea. I tuned my radar device to the junk channel and calibrated it to search for a fan. I was lucky. There was a fan nearby. I tested the fan. I plugged the fan in and turned it on and the force blew me back against a wall of cars. The next thing I remembered was toast, dead rats, and small pieces of junk flying down the alley.

The bath tub still had her sweet smell. Digging the bike tires out I added them to the bath tub. I attached the fan to the rear. Using the fan as a means of locomotion and a rudder, I was soon tooling around the junk yard in my new jalopy.

I knew then that I would be able to collect all the junk I needed to finish this flying jalopy and go on many more adventures.

- J. W. O'Mally

1 comment:

Krellan said...

That's great to have a backstory to go along with the game.

You mentioned JY and W?D, both Oursler games. I have Doctor Who. I want to also get a BSD. Do all these games have backstories? You provided the ones for JY and W?D, and DW has a backstory in the manual. I'm not sure if BSD also has a backstory (since it was based on a movie, the movie provides plenty of story on its own).

Something nice I did for DW: put the backstory text on the pricing card, since my game's on free play. That way, players can see the text, something they never got the chance to do when the game was on location.

http://krellan.com/pinball/dwcards/

I should make something similar for your W?D and JY stories....