Animalball Games is proud to present its newest feature: Fiction That Changed the World! Animalball hopes that through this new feature, we will present exciting and groundbreaking works of fiction– some game related and some not– that will change the face of literature as we know it. Well... not really. But we thought you would enjoy reading some really amateurish fiction we wrote when we were smug teenagers.

At Animalball Games, we’ve made a name for ourselves through the liberal use of sarcastic humor and an unrelenting effort to make fun of geeks, nerds and dweebs (present company included). While we thought this was “all in good fun”– some people took offense at our tongue-in-cheek attacks on Wil Wheaton, H.G. Wells and “creepy gamers.” To all who were offended... we apologize. By introducing Fiction That Changed the World, Animalball Games is taking a more introspective turn. Instead of writing articles that chastise and mock others, we will use this opportunity to chastise and mock ourselves.

Mike and I recently discovered our personal collections of original fiction that we each wrote many years ago. As budding writers, Mike and I shared a typewriter/word processor which we used to crank out all sorts of different short stories, most of which had a gaming/fantasy slant. Cringing as I reviewed my own collection of stories, I also realized that most of my stories were thickly coated with teen angst and a self-importance that comes with the knowledge that no one could possibly understand what I was going through.

With each installment of FTCTW, we will not only be presenting the story, but the author will also be providing a short introduction to put the story in context. Sometimes, especially with the super-angsty material, this is the best part.

More importantly, FTCTW is not limited to the crappy fiction that Mike and I wrote. We’d also like to showcase amateur fiction from our audience as well. It doesn’t have to be gaming related, and it doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be yours. Have some fan-fiction you’ve kept on your hard drive for the last year? Know of some stories you wrote a long time ago that are just collecting dust? Want to write the next great story? Send them in with some author’s commentary! You can maintain the copyright and all that good garbage, we’d just be happy to immortalize it for you in the Safford Files.

Send all submissions to FTCTW@animalball.com. We won’t use your email address for any unsolicited purposes and we’ll not release your submissions or your information without your permission.

To date, our submissions include:

Mesuphial: By Kyle Jones

Untitled: By Crazy Elf

Rain Will Fall: By Silverwolf

First Run: By Mike

The Hell of Calculus: By Kyle