Kev's SWC writing thread

Dailies
7-7-2025: post #4. 867 words! 350 points!!
7-22-2025: post #6. 520 words! 3

Weeklies
Nothing yet

Special stuff
7-15-2025: writing competition. Post #5.
7-31-2025: Documentary on Ninja Scratch Dungeon. Post #7.
7-31-2025: Documentary on Ninja Scratch Dungeon: Boss Rush. Post #8.

Word Wars! 7-3-2025 against Squidy-IceCream

Prompt: I'd heard revenge was a dish best served cold, but the catering staff seemed to have other ideas.

It wasn't fair to be the one having to pay for the wedding food. It was great news when my sister was getting married to some man, but her crazy request for food was supposed to be handled by me. Why me? Because I'm my sister's brother. Crazy.

After calling the catering business, they asked me what foods I needed. I told them about the heavenly foods we wanted, but I also mentioned to them about my sister's many allergies: nuts, eggs, wheat, and soy.

“Any special requests from us?” the business asked.

This is where my brain went overdrive. I smiled as I thought about my sister's allergies to such common foods, and if she wanted to make her guests have a great time, she could make a little sacrifice…

“Yeah. I have to pay for my sister's food, so forget I mentioned allergies,” I told them. Then I smiled deviously. Revenge may be a dish served cold, but if you have allergies to consider, things can go very far…

Word Wars! 7-4-2025 against TokoWrites

Freestyle! AKA no prompt.

One thing that's really… hindering my abilities is the lack to willingly learn. Don't get me wrong. I go to school, I get good grades, so I learn in school. But how about outside of school?

I hate change. I really do. If I'm playing video games, I don't want an abrupt change that could change the style I play forever. I'd much prefer getting something and sticking with it!

The consequences are mainly cons. For example, I play chess online. I have barely improved since I started around 7 years ago. I've done all the lessons, but my style usually remains the same: I'll do pretty fine until I play some terrible move that loses the entire game or practically gives me no chance of winning.

Another (less severe) consequence of not learning is actually Scratch and coding?? Ever since I started 8 and a half years ago, I didn't want to take inspiration nor code from other people. I wanted to be humble and original. Well, that means some game ideas will have to be trashed, like that sweet Flood Escape game I've been thinking about.

And for coding in general? Well, I can learn, but chances are low I'll actually use it in the future.

Oh, five minutes is up? Well, to conclude, I want to stay the same in life, even though it's usually not a very good idea.

Daily: 7-7-2025: Forgiving Lord Voldemort

In the Battle of Hogwarts, Hogwartians and Death Eaters lined up against the walls of the Great Wall. They were witnessing the final battle, Harry Potter versus Lord Voldemort.

After Harry Potter exposed Voldemort's true identity as Tom Riddle, Voldemort was furious. How dare such a mortal call him by his real name! How dare such a lesser being expose to the world about his common, Muggle-sounding name!

As if that wasn't enough for Potter's foolish defiance, he also dared to ask Voldemort something against his well-being and existence: to feel remorse. To be sorry for his murders, to feel sorry for his deeds.

But in this universe, Voldemort listened. Yeah. He actually did. Ahem…

Voldemort reflected upon his life before his transformation. Born from a poor mother who kept on having her husband under a love potion, Voldemort never grasped the idea of love. He never experienced love once in his life. Just like how Slughorn warned Potter in his sixth year, a love potion cannot create love. Nothing can create love. Instead, a love potion would only create a wild obsession for the victim.

A few tears came to Voldemort's eyes. How unfortunate he was, to not live like everyone else! How unfortunate he was, to not have what other people had! Was that the reason why he stole from the other children in the orphanage? Was that the reason why he was so greedy to Dumbledore? Was that the reason why he wanted to do everything by himself? Because he was forced to be alone his entire life?

And the time when Dumbledore refused Voldemort a job in Hogwarts! Voldemort became a little more angry at the thought of being rejected, but he thought less of Dumbledore and more of the rejection this time. Voldemort realized that Hogwarts was his true home all his life! To stay in Hogwarts might not only have meant to raise a new army of Death Eaters, but also to feel at home and relax? But Dumbledore, like always, never helped him…

Voldemort also thought of his Death Eaters. He never wanted them truly by his side. He never cared about them. Because he was never cared about as a child, but they were!

Voldemort started to cry. So that was the reason why he committed all of his murders and sought immortality! He never had what other people had. He didn't have a choice. To give love started with taking it.

Voldemort feel and writhed on the ground. How dare he, not the most powerful, but the most unfortunate, being not having love! Maybe he didn't regret everything, maybe he wanted people to be killed, but he must not continue anymore. He must leave the fortunate alone. But that also meant he would still suffer. Voldemort must end his suffering,

Voldemort stood up tall. He commanded Potter to kill him. To leave this cruel world, after remorse.

Potter was shocked. He never expected Voldemort to die in any situation. But here he was, asking for Death. Welcoming it, for the first time in his life. Potter then shook his head.

Voldemort was furious. He gripped the Elder Wand in his hand and brought it up to his head. He knew that his Horcruxes were destroyed, and killing himself would be final. He bellowed out the Third Unforgivable Curse, and toppled.

The Hogwartians and Death Eaters alike were shocked. Then the Death Eaters took off the masks and begged for mercy, not to be killed, even for their crimes against humanity. Although everyone knew that now the Death Eaters themselves were also experiencing their own sort of remorse, even most of Voldemort's actions could not have been forgiven in any way.

After all of the Death Eaters were either killed or sent to Azkaban, Potter looked on at Voldemort's body. Despite Voldemort having killed many people, Potter could not help but feel a twinge of sadness for Voldemort.

Potter went to the Headmaster's office, where the portrait of Dumbledore was smiling down at him. Potter started to explain what happened, but Dumbledore cut him off, knowing exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, everywhere across the Wizarding World, people were partying and rejoicing due to the Dark Lord's fall. They wrote the details down in history books for the new generations to understand the hardships of the past.

However, one shared detail in those history books was Voldemort's last regrets. While it was known that he could not be forgiven for his actions, people understood that he showed some kind of remorse right before his death. Of course, his crimes would still be acknowledged and still unforgivable, but at least his story had some sort of redemption at the end.

Dumbledore explained to Potter about Voldemort's impact on the remaining survivors. That those survivors knew his last regrets would be a message: empathy can't be escaped. That remorse is a human trait shared by all beings.

Dumbledore also explained that remorse has many meanings, and people only think of asking for forgiveness. This was not the only definition. For Voldemort, feeling remorse meant releasing himself of his burdens and anger, and wanting to pave a path forward for himself and maybe others.

Writing Comp: 7-15-2025: Where I'm From Poem (Edited from school)

Where I'm From

I am from my desk, my pen, and my pencil bag; yellow-green, torn, and old.
I am from my laundry basket, always piling up by Wednesday
To be thrown into the washing machine on Saturday mornings.
I am from large meals at home, small during school breaks.
I am from the refrigerator in the morning, my room at night, and after school.

I am from monthly haircuts and mom lectures.
(Quiet, disappointing, easy yet hard to ignore.)
I am from the soft, comfortable couches in my house.
I am from the big park near my house and near my rival school.

I am from disagreements with my brother.
From test scores to grades,
To classes and hobbies,
Even what coding language I should use.
(It’ll always be Scratch for me.)

I am from watching YouTube shorts late at night,
Finding more jokes to tell my victims,
Whether they be a teacher or student.
I am from my queen-sized bed,
The largest out of my siblings',
With lots of hiding spots, nooks, and crannies.

I am from personal secret operations.
Starting at noon and stretching after midnight,
Usually taking a couple of days to complete.
I am from independence while gaming.
I am from independence in school.

I am from whoever I meet at school.
I am from taking mental notes about people,
Ready to learn from them and change.
I am from the scared faces of people
Whenever I walk up to them for a chat.

I am from the pronouns of me, myself, and I.
I am from the company of my friends.
I am from the differences in my personal world,
Daring to be different in any way.

Daily for 7-22: Ode to a Mango

Up until middle school, mangoes were unknown and not my favorite. Back then, we bought mango nectar, dried mangoes, fresh mangoes from the store, and pre-sliced ones. I, a growing elementary-school student, was excited to taste this new fruit that I never heard of before, even at school.

Mango nectar was my favorite out of the three, but it wasn't the best juice I've ever tasted. That was because the juice was diluted! Maybe the extra water stopped the nectar from being too thick, but it didn't work for me. It made everything sour and bitter. But still, not bad overall.

Dried mangoes were a hit or a miss. Who knew all of the dried mango brands had different recipes for their products? The variety was usually for the worse for me. There were a lot of good pieces, but a lot of them were just too sticky, or they tasted like raisins, or they tasted like sweet potatoes, or they had sugar on them. Yuck.

The fresh mangoes looked big and firm. But my parents didn't know how to check for ripe mangoes, so every mango we got was hard, sour, and fibrous. They never met my expectations. I didn't enjoy most of the mango cubes I ate. So I wasn't mad when my sisters enjoyed their slices.

The pre-sliced mangoes weren't much better. After slicing mangoes and putting them in a box, someone's gonna eat them a few days later. There are definitely a few good pieces of mango, but most of them were like the fresh ones that weren't ripe, with the aftertaste of chemicals.

This was all in elementary school. After those experiences, I never fully looked forward to eating mangoes. Mangoes stopped appealing to me. I never wanted to try a salad with mangoes. I never wanted a mango salsa. My experiences were bad enough. I was well-aware that I wouldn't like mangoes.

But then, everything changed when I entered middle school.

Starting in first grade, my family would sometimes make smoothies for meals. Just bananas, ice (my parents' idea), water, sometimes milk, and frozen fruit.

Wait a second! Out of all the mango products I ate before, frozen mango chunks weren't on the list. Frozen mango treats also weren't on the list!

It was that golden day when my parents used frozen mango in tonight's smoothie when I realized my love for mangoes. Oh, how sweet it was! Nature's candy in every way. So sweet, creamy, juicy, and smooth. No other fruit could ever come close to beating the superior mango.

Also, I tried frozen mango bars. The best bars on the planet! Ice cream cannot beat it. Doesn't come close. Just frozen mango bars and I'm happy. I ate them gleefully in middle school and high school.

Even today, most of my smoothies are mango flavored. Most ice bars I eat are mango flavored. I enjoy mangoes a lot more than when I was younger. The taste of mangoes will never grow old for me. I can just imagine myself being in college, still snacking on mangoes. Guess I'll find out in three years.

7-31: Nothing special, so here's a documentary on one of my projects!

In middle school, I started one of my biggest projects yet: Ninja Scratch Dungeon. I was exploring mob behaviors around that time, so I decided to have 5 mobs and 2 bosses in my short game. So after a while, I got version 1.0 out. All I remember was that it wasn't finished. Yeah. You could just attack to deal scratch damage to 2 enemies, I think.

The next day, I released version 1.1: That update gave more NPCs to the game, just for dialogue and nothing else. This was just a filler to perhaps make the game more interesting? Maybe? Hopefully the next version will actually do something to the gameplay.

Version 1.2 finally added shops. There, you could buy gear to increase your stats. There were tiers to gear, and you were required to buy the previous tier if you wanted to buy the next one. At this point, there were 2 types and 3 tiers of gear: weapons and armor. The weapons not only changed your damage but also what attacking looked like. The armor just increased health and defense. Nothing else. Now the game had a point to grind monsters.

Three days later, version 1.3 was released. This introduced a boss to the game. In the final version, there would be 2. But for now, it was just one. Back then, this game was 1D instead of 2D. So you actually had to tank the boss and pray you had good enough stats. But that's something 3 tiers of gear shouldn't do as long as you're spamming the spacebar, right?

A week later, I made version 1.4. This nerfed all enemies and/or buffed all gear, making the game easier. I realized that not everyone would know to just spam the spacebar to attack. Also, tanking can be stressful for some people. One, you still might die. Two, it already takes enough willpower to even do it in the first place. At this point in the making, I was happy. To make the game easier would surely bring more people into playing it.

On the first day of 2022, I got to work hunting for bugs for version 1.5. There were a few I already knew, so I just patched them. Simple as that. But the game was still incomplete. To complete it might require something big. A new overhaul. A big update.

Introducing version 2! I'm very sure I tried to leave the game as done, but I don't remember exactly what I did. This was definitely not the update that added the second boss. Yeah, I think I just called it done and tried to leave it alone. But did I? Uh, no. Let's see what I did next…

In version 2.1, I said that I made the boss more fair. What does that mean? I don't know. Maybe that was another nerf. Or maybe I made it start somewhere so you could at least have five seconds to mentally prepare to tank the boss while spamming the spacebar.

Version 2.2 was very small, like the other version 2 updates. This was just for art, but I added the Ninja Scratch village! It's just a couple of huts. That's it. Were they meant for something? Later, but not now. During version 2, I re-thought my game. Why do you have to be hit by monsters? Wouldn't it be easier to dodge them all? Another big update would solve this. Ahem…

Version 3! I said that I made the game 3D, but it's really just 2D because you move in the x and y values. This was a big update with an easy way of doing it. I could just reposition everything after making the map 2D, and that was all. However, this update was huge for some reasons. I don't know them, but the biggest one is not having to tank every single hit you get. That's actually amazing. Mistakes won't mean game over anymore.

I was thinking about adding more NPCs to the game. In the training area for version 3.1, I made a few NPCs representing new ninjas starting their training. They were tiny and cute, determined to take down the example enemy: a Training Dummy. This made the game bring a smile to my face. just watching the innocence of the newbie ninjas wondering about how to be stronger.

There are 3 stats in Ninja Scratch Dungeon: HP, POW, and DEF. I updated those stats in some ways for version 3.2. I think it was just gear changes. probably nerfs to all of them.

In version 3.3, I did almost nothing besides bug fixes. The one thing I did that changed the gameplay was making the hit range bigger. That way. you could hit enemies easier and they wouldn't be able to run away from your attacks very well.

In version 2.2, I said that the village was just art. But then in version 3.4, everything changed. One of the huts had a stat upgrade shop, where you could permanently upgrade your POW and DEF. But as of version 3.4, you could only increase your POW.

But in version 3.5, I made the DEF upgrade! I also added a couple of NPCs thinking of getting upgrades. At last, the boss became so easy if you had the maximum POW and DEF in the game! I'm very sure that you would just take no damage if you walked into it. Or if you did, it would be 1 or 2 damage. Now it was time to improve the UI, making stuff cleaner and prettier. Another big update, anyone?

Version 4 came out, and all it did was make the 4 showing variables (HP, money, your armor and weapon) in a better way. Makes the game look less basic. Starting from this update, most subsequent updates would be kinda tiny.

Take version 4.1, for example. All I did was add sound effects. If this was the update where I added music, I wish I could revert version 4.1

Version 4.2 was kinda big. Yes, the idea was small: to rework the behaviors for each mob. But the work and ideas needed were pretty big, and so was the gameplay impact.

I was told to make a quest in Ninja Scratch Dungeon, and I had an idea for version 4.3. I added a NPC in the village that would request 150 money from you. What happens when you give him/her the money? Uh, stay tuned for that. That would be for the next update.

That next update would be version 4.4, where I made the final tier of gear. This would come from a secret shop, only unlocked from the quest. Now the boss was really too easy. Before I could add the final boss, I wanted to fix all of the bugs.

So in version 4.5, I did. I fixed all of the bugs. Now for another big update to make the finishing touches…

The second boss came in version 5! More difficult and tanky, this new boss would be challenging but still very easy if you got your stats to the maximum. Now you could beat the game. Finally! 2 months after release, you can beat the game! Since when have you heard of that?

Version 5.1 just fixed bugs. I also thought of ways to teach people how to play and how to make the game look better.

So in version 5.2, I added healthbars for all of the mobs. This was kinda tedious for the normal mobs because I drew costumes for each healthbar sprite. But for the bosses, the pen tool was enough to make a good healthbar.

In version 5.3, I added a guide to the game. This only covered the stats (HP, POW, and DEF) for each mob and boss, how much money they would drop, how damage was calculated, and everything about gear,

At this point, the game was almost finished. I put a whole update, version 5.4, into fixing bugs. And after that, the game was finished. But how did I mark it as finished? By staging a whole big update that added nothing except for a note: that it's done.

I called it the Final Update, or version 6 in this scenario.

7-31: Nothing special, so here's a documentary on one of my projects!

Creating Ninja Scratch Dungeon took all of 7th grade. When I stepped into 8th grade, I decided to make a shorter sequel: Ninja Scratch Dungeon Boss Rush. Having 7 bosses and 0 enemies, this was a quicker game that I never thought much about. It had more stat upgrades, four tiers of gear, and two powerups with cooldowns. Also, it had save codes! They couldn't save your money, though. Also, you could cheese the codes to get something unintended. But I left that alone.

As you might imagine, when I released version 1, you couldn't beat the game. In fact, there was probably nothing you could do. You couldn't even get money. You couldn't buy anything. You also couldn't fight anyone.

I remember version 1.1. I was at a theme park and I made everything on my phone. I just added an NPC that would tell you what the next update would bring. But besides that, nothing changed. No getting money, no buying anything, no bosses to fight.

Finally version 1.2 came out, which allowed you to fight the first two bosses of the game: Bot and Stalk. Bot literally can't deal damage, so the strategy was to hold down the spacebar until his healthbar reached 0. Stalk was a fast boss. Slower when slightly invisible. With a defense of 1, it was recommended to buy the first weapon to fight him. The next update would be pretty large, as I would add not only the next two bosses but something else…

Version 2 brought out the next two bosses: Rage and Shead. Rage would chase you around, go to the center, charge at you, and repeat the cycle. A slightly hard boss to dodge. Shead was the first boss to have projectiles and self-healing. He would slowly chase you, then while being invincible, would fire some waves at you. Then he would heal himself. Also in version 2, I made restrictions on what items you could and couldn't buy. You see, the more bosses you defeat, the more stuff you could buy. That means you couldn't get the fourth tier on armor and weapons before clearing Stalk or Rage. This was also the same with powerups and stat upgrades.

This next update was pretty small. Version 2.1 brought out the fifth boss, Mysti. A balanced boss, she would chase you down and throw balls at you while healing herself. Also, I specified the restrictions on bought items. Like the reason why you couldn't buy something.

If you drain the enemy's health to 0, their attack sequence will continue. That was intended. But what wasn't intended was that the boss could still heal itself even if their HP was at 0. So I prevented this from happening in version 2.2. If you defeat a boss, you'll still have to dodge their attacks. But at least they couldn't heal themselves anymore. It would be frustrating when you drain the healthbar to 0 and the boss heals itself, making it more than 0. This update also added the sixth boss, Orbulus. A literal ball of bright energy, shooting lots of stuff and being really fast and also healing himself. Also, he had a big attack sequence.

To finish up the game, I released version 3, the Final Update. Finally, you could beat the last boss: Dark. Think of him as Orbulus but stronger and with a longer attack sequence. Difficult to dodge, but at least you could finally win the game.