Saturday, April 14, 2012

From The Old Floppies: Issue #9: A Number Munchers Fan Fiction

Well, here's a little something I'd forgotten about quite some time ago.  It's a Number Munchers fan fiction.  You read that right: a Number Munchers fan fiction.  This was a little thing I came up with one day after having reacquainted myself with the old Munchers games from my childhood.  Even when I wrote this, it had been a good fifteen years since these games had been halfway relevant for me, so it was just a dumb idea to keep myself busy with one afternoon.

You'll notice that this is tagged with "Warp Power Studios and Theaters" and "A List of Evil" at the beginning.  That was just a silly little thing I was doing at the time because it was pretty much the in thing to do with fanfiction at that point in time.  It kinda got abandoned when being an adult became more important.

This particular piece never got published to my [FanFiction.Net page] for one reason or another.  I think one good reason for that was that at the time, there was no appropriate section for it.  Another is that it's a horribly stupid story.  See for yourselves below the jump.
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 Warp Power Studios and Theaters presents:

A Something in the Life of a Muncher

A List of Evil Production by Jesse Shearer
Based on the Number Munchers game by MECC.

It was an average day in the life of Muncher Number 249, or Joe, as he called
himself. The troggles that lived in the woods near his cave had unwittingly left
him a nice pile of Factors of Two for breakfast. So far, the day was off to a
wonderful start.
Shortly after finishing his breakfast, Joe noticed that he would be late for
work in the Number Fields if he did not leave soon. Joe spent the next five
minutes looking for his car keys before he remembered that Munchers couldn't
drive and therefore didn't have cars. Then he spent another five minutes looking
for shoes, which he didn't have either. When Joe realized this, he simply ran
out of his cave and to the field where he would begin another day of work.
As he aproached the gate to the field, he noticed a large, purple creature
waiting for him. It was what passed as one of his friends, a troggle named Ted
Normal.
"What do you think you're doing, you twit?" Ted asked when Joe stopped at the
gate to sign in. "You're ten minutes late."
"I'm sorry, Ted," Joe began. "First, I thought I'd lost my car keys, and then I
remembered I can't drive and don't own a car. Then I thought I'd lost my shoes
before I remembered I don't have any of those, either."
"Well, your partners are waiting for you," Ted said. "You're working with 248
and 250 today."
"Oh, Bill and John! I like working with Bill and John," Joe said.
"Anyway," Ted continued, "your theme for today is multiples. Standard rules
apply. One wrong choice and you're out. After you've made a thousand units, you
either get one outed team member back, or if none have been put out, one more
team member will join. Once all three of you are out, you're done for the day.
Your total earnings will be split three ways."
"Gotcha," Joe said.
"Just get in there, you moron!" Ted exclaimed angrily. "Get to work!"
As the day progressed, Joe, Bill and John alternated working the maze of fields.
Each field had at least one supervisor troggle. Each new field had more kinds
and numbers of troggles, who made things difficult. In many cases, this meant
merely being in the way and changing numbers. In some, it meant adding new
numbers at random and changing others. In a few cases, this meant removing
numbers.
Every three fields or so, the troggles would set some silly trap that was doomed
to fail. With failure came increased numbers of troggles in the fields, which
lead to some spectacular fights amongst them.
By the end of the day, Joe, Bill and John had earned seven thousand units
collectively. They each took two thousand units and began arguing about what to
do with the remaining one thousand.
"I say we divide that up, too," John said. "After all, everyone could use the
extra."
"True," Bill agreed, "but I think we should go out to dinner and spend it that
way."
"Let's invest it and split it up when it gets to a fair amount," Joe suggested.
"Well, I still say split!" John said.
"I want to spend!" Bill said.
"Invest it," Joe argued.
They went around arguing in such a manner for fifteen minutes. Then Ted Normal
came along and took the extra thousand units and left.
"Well, I guess that solves our problem," Joe said.
"I guess so," Bill agreed.
"There's always tomorrow," John commented.
"Yes, there's alwayst tomorrow," Bill said. "Let's just go home and be glad we
got what we got."
With that, the three munchers went home and prepaired for their next day at
work.

The End



--New Section--

Web Explorer, with your host, Jesse Shearer.
A parody of Star Gazer with Jack Horkheimer.

Greetings, greetings fellow Netizens. In an effort to make the preceding story
at least somewhat worthwhile, I've decided to present you with an unauthorized
and unsolicited advertisement for my current favorite Web Comic, 8-Bit Theater.
The basic premise is that it loosely follows the classic Nintendo game Final
Fantasy. The main characters are Black Mage, Fighter, Thief and Red Mage. This
intrepid band of heroes goes through the same series of events but stumbles a
whole lot more. The stumbling is not only caused by the personalities of the
lead characters but also by the bumbling nature of those they encounter. In too
many ways, it reminds me of real life. Check it out at
www.nuklearpower.com/comic/. Enjoy.

Final Fantasy copyright Squaresoft and Nintendo.
8-Bit Theater copyright Brian Clevinger.
Star Gazer produced and copyright the Miami Space Transit Museum and
Planetarium.

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Ah yes, the Web Explorer section at the end.  Another dumb idea from my list of dumb writing ideas at the time.  Probably another reason why this one never saw the light of day before.

As always, there's more of various things to come, so be on the lookout for it.  See you soon, folks!

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