Don't Flunk Alien Abduction Class

Or your parents will incinerate you!

GREETINGS, ADVENTURER!

Today’s Quest: You need to figure out how to get an “A” in UFO. Afterwards, we’ll talk school days in Table Talk, then play the shiny new version of Fix Your Mother’s Printer!

First time here? Adventure Snack is a game series I email to subscribers. Play quests for free, twice a month, and turn your inbox into an adventure!

YOUR NEW QUEST:

While your schoolmates spend the weekend socializing on planet Hynek, you fly your hand-me-down clunker of a spaceship to The Milky Way galaxy. Your destination is planet Earth, and your abduction target is farmer Blevins' prize winning cow Betsy. Humans are normally the objective, but you spent too much class time ogling the slimy six-tentacled beauty sitting in front of you, and are now incapable of such a feat.

Your teacher awaits your return from the far reaches of space, ready to judge you harshly on your performance. You must perform with a high degree of stealth while avoiding all of the potential obstacles that end up in your path. One of those is farmer Blevins, a crack shot who treats Betsy like his own kin. You're about to find out if this grade is really worth the effort.

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👏 Today’s quest was created by

Brian Reindel 👾⚔️

, author of science fiction and fantasy stories on his newsletter Future Thief and creator of the Lunar Awards for genre fiction on Substack. Thank you for a hilarious game, Brian, and for being a linchpin of the Substack fiction scene!

LET’S CHAT!

When your quest is complete, it’s time to debrief. Join your fellow adventurers at the virtual D&D table we call the comments section. Regular commenting leads to stat bonuses. Yes, there have been stat bonuses this whole time and they’re important!

Discuss one (or all) of today’s topics in the comments:

🐄 How did it go abducting a cow? Smoothly, I hope?

👩‍🏫 Did you ever flunk a class or get close to flunking? I was terrible at Spanish. My dad was pretty good, though. He had a little joke, “estos son los frenos,” meaning “those are the brakes,” like the brakes of a car, because the English expression doesn’t really translate. So for an end-of-the-year oral Spanish exam in 9th grade, I got stuck at the end and said, “estos son los frenos!” I would’ve failed if it weren’t for that joke, and more importantly, the extreme generosity of my Spanish teacher.

🪐 Which alien from pop culture would you want to live in your home? As much as I enjoy Alf’s antics, I have a cat. So I’ll say Yoda, so maybe I’ll pick up a little The Force via osmosis.

FIX YOUR MOTHER’S PRINTER IS LIVE ON IFCOMP!

Fix Your Mother’s Printer officially shipped this month as part of IFComp, the interactive fiction competition! Thank you to the adventurers who played the closed beta and took the survey. The feedback was overall very encouraging and I got great suggestions on how to improve the game. You’ll notice some pretty big changes in the live version based on feedback.

• I added a new introduction that gives the player more context for what’s to come and how the choices will affect Mom.

• I added a player goal of getting important advice from Mom, which the player receives if they remain positive on the call and/or manage to fix her darn printer.

• I gave the dialogue options more weight, potentially ending the game early if the player is very negative on the call.

• I added a furry new character. 🐶 ❤️

To see how the game evolved…

More on IFComp in the coming weeks, including my favorite games and how YOU can judge the competition!