Here’s a pretty cool prize: how would you like to see a tiny pixellated version of yourself in one of those trendy ‘Indie games’ everyone’s going on about these days?
I’m giving away a cameo in the upcoming Ben There, Dan That! sequel Time Gentlemen, Please, so if you’ve ever wanted to see yourself digitised, reduced to pixels, and making inappropriate jokes about wanking on people’s computer screens the world over, here’s your chance.
All you have to do is come up with an interesting character that you’d play. Maybe you’d like to be a Space Pirate called Ian, or a ghost who thinks he’s a piece of bacon. Maybe you’ll go all meta and play a man who won a competition to appear in a video game.
Whatever your stupid and diseased fetish, type it up in words and send it in.
No doubt you’ve already played and enjoyed and donated to the FREE, EXCELLENT, award-winning, and well-loved Ben There, Dan That! so you’ll know that pretty much anything goes in our universe – we can wangle near any monstrosity of a character into our improbable plotlines, so let your imagination run riot. Maybe you’d play a character whose imagination has literally run riot, and he’s constantly chasing after it with a net! Who knows?
You can leave your entry in the comments thread below or, if you’ve got a lot to write or a drawing you’ve done in crayons you’d like to show off, pop your entry into this forum thread. Double points if it’s done in MSPaint!
Make sure I can get in contact with you by using a proper email address.
Small Same-Sized Print:
I’ll pick the best and most-deserving entry. I reserve the right to tweak the winning entry to fit the game’s ‘tone’ and ’storyline’. My decision’s final. I also reserve the right to change the rules whenever I like so that this doesn’t all blow up in my face. If no one enters, I’ll code a void in space-time in your place which boots the player out to the desktop if you try to interact with it. Competition closes ‘soon’, so get your entry in today! Enter as many times as you like, go nuts. Any entries for silhouetted wibbly purple characters will be discarded.
48 people responded to this post...
I’d be a fellow standing somewhere wearing only a towel and a black, small brimmed fedora. Possibly sunglasses. As to what I do.. that’s completely up to you.
I would be a guy who flickers between the following forms at approximately three second intervals:
1. sinister penguin (no accessories)
2. papier mache chimpanzee (straw hat)
3. small boy wearing amateurish spider costume
4. potplant (species of which may be your choice)
5. anthropomorphic car tyre OR spatula
At the end of the sequence it would go back to the start. In between each change is a 0.25s burst of static interference.
There would also be a constant quiet humming whine, a bit like a fridge that might probably be broken but it’s not quite annoying enough or broken enough to worry about yet.
i’d like to be an over-enthusiastic tennis coach whose testicles droop alarmingly, one out of each of the legs of his tennis shorts
I’d be (Blatantly stolen from TV series Bottom, but embellished) Dodgy Bob McMayday, an alcoholic, incoherent, rambling, psychotic, wandering travel agent.
Wandering round the game world, I’d mutter to myself, throwing up and randomly attacking people whilst offering inventory items for ludicrous prices, occasionally offering something actually worth while, but majority of time giving out amusingly named, but useless, items\weapons.
Items could include Buckfast Breath, an imbibable substance that gives the user terrifying breath, or stagger + 1, giving user less control over their character, but increasing their chance to get past difficult obstacles.
I don’t know, I’m just rambling now. I’ll stop there.
I’d quite like to be an Alfred Hitchcock-type character, that ghosts across in the background of several scenes leaving possible MacGuffins on tables that may, or may not, turn out to be red herrings.
I wouldn’t mind being the 3rd cousin to Julius Caesar, 49 times removed. I am very adamant that because of my lineage, I have direct royalty and control over the Caesar cocktail..
As an aside, if you’re struggling for a title for the sequel, you should just name it “Got the t-shirt”.
Then you can package up, “Ben There, Dan That” “Got the T-shirt”. lol.
An irritating, Icelandic business man who’s bought up all the British banks but refuses to admit that he’s actually broke and keeps trying to exchange his worthless Icelandic money for Ben’s game-critical British pounds.
Hm… I’m not feeling especially creative or witty today but I’ll give it a go. If I just keep trying to come up with ideas maybe I’ll get one that’s actually interesting. And maybe not, but it doesn’t help to at least try excercising the creative juices, huh?
Um… a woman who is so sleep-deprived that she is at the point where she has stopped believing in her own existance. (Actually happened to me, once - I was really sleep-deprived.)
A woman who, with the help of a self-help book, has overcome her previously-held belief that she is a robot, and proud of herself that she no longer clings to this delusion - except that she actually IS a robot and she was right the first time.
And… that’s all I got for now. Maybe I’ll think of something better, later.
I’d like to be a competing indie game developer who nobody’s ever heard of.
My appearance should be entirely unremarkable, except in as much as it was just remarked upon.
I’d be a donut-obsessed fat man with yellow skin, with a stereotypical american family (who also has yellow skin).
I’d be a seemingly sophisticated British scholar, who is in fact a racist, ill tempered and alcoholic Scottish man, ashamed of his roots due to his troubled childhood and tries to repress his actual personality and succeeding, even earning several awards and a PhD. on literature. While a great source of information, he is (because of his actual character) easily angered, and when he gets angry, he bursts into racial slurs and cursing in extremely heavy, half-comprehensible Scottish accent.
A 7th grade math teacher who does balloon twisting on the street to “unwind” from teaching math to 7th graders. Constantly frazzled and on the edge or bursting himself, he’s oblivious to the fact that despite his incredible skill with balloons no one likes balloon animals. And since the guy looks like he’s about to snap everyone is more than willing to entertain his fantasy that “everyone loves balloons animals.”
He insists on giving balloons to Ben and Dan and they can choose from a long list of things, including charactures of Ben Dan, no request they think of gets unanswered. When they get the balloons they’ll admitting that they are very good, but say that they just can’t get excited about them. Then, the balloons can either be used in any number of puzzles or, for the final insult, they can be completely useless to the game, eventually pop, and Ben wants to go back and get another one.
Half-android Half-man, a mandroid if you will, riding a mi nature brontosaurus surrounded by Dinopunk technology. That is technology powered by dinosaurs, ala Flintstones.
Strike my previous entry - I would be a glitchy character. That is, I complain all the time and am very depressed, because my collision isn’t working properly and I’m not rendering correctly at all times. Ben and Dan would find me on a wall the first time they meet me.
[...] the first one, you are battling for the opportunity to appear as a character in Time Gentleman, Please, the [...]
A red haired guy with a sword who haphazardly tries to attack everything with his plastic sword, beacuse he belives he’s the hero of an anime. This tends to get him in alot of trouble to say the least.
Also wears glasses and one of those cool japanese headbands with a red sun on them.
Code named KennEH!
I just stand there,
So cool with my red jacket and spiked hair.
Till danger strikes,
And I must fight,
With molotov, Cocktails.
A person who tries to insist that the entire known universe is actually a fictional video game and that everyone must stop doing anything and never make any progress in their life because if they do, eventually the game will end and the known universe will cease to exist after that moment. Only no one believes her, they think she’s nuts.
i am a dried-out orange who thinks he sells things, but actually i have no arms or pockets. my lips were made by a permanent marker, so i can’t talk either. i can’t even blink. i think real hard though.
I’ll be a french Canadian wearing your usual hockey garb (maple leaf jersey, helmet, hockey stick, etc.) who, in a drunken stupor got on the wrong plane, and somehow ended up in a place that has neither ice nor has ever heard of hockey. Because of the vast amounts of alcohol consumed I have no idea that the ‘team’ I am chearing on is actually a couple of janitors cleaning up my puke.
My persona would be a mixture of former PM of Canada Jean Chrétien and Sarney from the Simpsons.
I’d be a cockney butcher of exotic animals with leprosy and I would somehow help the heroes solve a puzzle disgustingly with one of my body parts. the idle animation would have me trying to reattach my own limbs and those of the animals I butcher to myself.
Later, I would appear with an octopus tentacle for a right arm, a zebra hind right leg for my left arm and 2 walrus flippers for each leg respectively.
Personality wise I would be distracted and irritated by each limb abandoning me and steadily more depressed. However I would perk up with my new limbs (see above) and the opportunity to make a cynically witty comment about the heroes using one of my limbs to solve the puzzle (see paragraph a).
Inevitably I will be taken away by both the FCC and a horde of wild vegetarians.
I’d be a character that dearly cared for his pet fish, Steve the wonder-fish, and carried him around with me all day in a handled fishbowl.
Oh, and Steve is secretly a spy, hence why he wears dark shades.
I’d be an petty and unhelpful phone operator for the vengeful god security company. Anyone who calls up will be belittled and chastised; A cheap target for me to vent all the pent up rage of my horrible life on.
The ending credits should include horrible things that have happened in my life such as: Me spending the last of my money to buy some hotdogs at the supermarket and getting mugged for them by an old lady in a wheelchair. Me walking in on my girlfriend cheating on me with my mother. Me waking up in my shithole apartment covered in ants screaming. etc, etc.
The Vengeful God security company typically has a little plaque on the front of a premsis saying “this property is protected by vengeful god secuity”. The plage has a picture of a lightening bolt streaking out of the sky and frying a theif. The company maintains a cluster of high energy particle lances in geostationary orbit over every major city and will literally fry from orbit anyone who tries to break in.
i want to be a kleenex salesman, and when someone sneezes, i’ll slide in from the corner of the scene and say “HERE, TRY OUR LATEST DEVELOPMENT IN SANITARY MUCUS REMOVAL! OUR TEAM OF SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN WORKING ROUND THE CLOCK ON OUR PAPERIEST TISSUES YET!”. and then later on you can have a character say something like “Damn it, this is a pressing issue!” and I’ll come back like “DID SOMEONE SAY… TISSUE!!?” and the other guy can be like “no, no I did not..” and then i’ll slide away in crushing disappointment. It’s always been a dream of mine.
I would very much like to be a paranoid former astronaut with a deathly fear of moon-sorcerers (who he is very convinced exist) and talks eNTiReLy iN CaPiTaL LeTTeRS eXCePT FoR VoWeLS (y iS ToTaLLy a VoWeL).
I’d be the “Annoying Generic Videogame Protagonist”, a guy with short brown hair, improbable muscles, a bandanna and a really horrible red shirt. I constantly be spewing out horrible one liners that would make Duke Nukem sound like Oscar Wilde.
I would also carry enough weapons to shame North Korea, which would slow me down to the point were I can’t move without a major struggle, making me completely useless.
Optional female sidekick is a kickboxer in a bikini.
I’d appear as a seemingly normal guy with a fascination for indie games. After talking to me a bit, you’d start to realize that I’m a complete whore for all indie games and unable to control my rabid fanboyism. I’d start to make references to how wonderful Cave Story, Everyday Shooter, Aquaria, and Braid are, at the same time chastising you for not playing them. I’d want something extremely hard to find like a lock of Phil Harrison’s hair, but in return I’d give you something that I wouldn’t have any use for, like Cliffy B’s elevator shoes.
I’d be an Asian guy trying desperately to assimilate the ways of the British for the sake of wooing his online Australian girlfriend (and her highly suggestive vampire parents) by way of absorbing as much cultural information possible through the Monty Python medium. Oh wait… you wanted it to be a make-believe character?
I would be Ben and Dan’s best friend, who has never been mention at all before. Throughout the next game, you’d see this character pop in every now and again, just to say ‘hi’ to Ben and Dan.
And then he’d be on his merry way.
A librarian (i.e. Purveyor of All the Knowledge in the Universe), who doesn’t mind Ben and Dan talking in her library because technically, their speech bubbles don’t make a sound. She tells them the Shhh sound they’ve heard in the library is really the door to the Secret Vault of Pertinent Things being opened, but to open it they must solve a puzzle. When they do, inside the vault are various items and a sign that says Please Take One. Observant players find they can take two.
Or, just a librarian in the background.
I’d be a guy with no short term memory, like in Memento, except instead of having a defined goal that I can remember through notes and tattoo’s, I have no idea what I’m doing and as such my story and actions change every couple of minutes. I’d also have a pet parrott that I’ve trained to say “Cunning Stunts” and other such rude spoonerisms.
How aboooout…
- I’m a cow wearing a chicken mask, desperately encouraging people to eat beef, because I’m really suicidal. After being exposed I could chase people screaming at them to eat me. Maybe I have teat cancer.
- I’m a hulking, bald, scary crazy cannibal man with big staring eyes, one larger than the other, dressed like a nanny. I’m trying to get strangers passing by to leave their babies with me…their sweet…tender…*gmnph-droool* “Maybe baby would like a bottle.” “Wait, what is this?” “Ehm…steak sauce.”
- A Sexual Education Clown, with instructional balloon sculpting.
I would be TimeCorpse, the Crime Busting Cadaver ™. Basically a corpse who quantum leaps through time, solving crimes simply by being a corpse in the right place at the right time.
Timecorpse could communicate with the characters by having seen the entire conversation previous to his un-’time’-ly death, and written his responses on bits of paper stuffed into his pockets and between his clammy corpse butt cheeks.
I would be a genie in a 4 pack of beer. Head in one can, legs in another, arms in another and whatever is left in the final one. I would be sealed in the cans as I am annoying, always need rescuing but can offer 3 wishes to the two heroes on their quest. I would be carried around (both Ben and Dan know I am in the cans) and carry me around for when they need my assistance. Obviously, I am hilarious but the butt of jokes and ridicule from Ben and Dan. I can be re-sealed in the can’s and if in real trouble be shaken up whilst inside. Pulling the tab makes me burst out and I knock over any enemy etc that is about to kill them.
I would be either…
1. A dandy highwayman, with perhaps a pistol, who is afraid of… hats. Perhaps… or in love with one of the main characters.
2. A cowboy who likes to make cakes. A… Cupcake Cowboy!!
3. An english gentleman with a bowler hat. Who can fly, but is completely ignorant of the fact, and uses REALLY LONG WORDS
WAIT
a private detective, or someone, in a trenchcoat, who keeps trying to commit suicide but Dan keeps accidently saving him. For example- Dan randomly severs a rope because he needs a rope, not knowing the other guy is attempting to hang himself with it. ENDLESS FUN
my detective could be investigating all the accidental murders ben committed in the first game. in the end he realises that he should stop attempting to commit suicide and
a) let Ben accidently kill him
b) just not kill himself
another character- lost pacman ghost. one of the dimensions could be ‘retro game world’ characters from pacman, space invaders, asteroids and more mixed together in a narrative nightmare!
A Captain N-esque guy from another universe who is stuck in Ban and Dan’s universe. He is Captain N-esque because his universe is wildly different to Ben and Dan’s but its video games are exactly like ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) day-to-day life in Ben and Dan’s world.
A guy who travels through time, variously fixing and finding explanations for continuity errors in the universe. He is very nerdy and pathetic - indeed, the Most Pathetic Being in the Universe.
Addition to above character: he can get a bit nasty and petulant at times, especially if someone tells him to get a life and just enjoy the universe instead of picking it apart. If he gets fervent enough, he could potentially cause some real damage, by which I mean he could make Time Gentlemen, Please incredibly unspeakably bloody boring by spending hours fixing every single little problem in detail.
A young Grim Reaper, new to the job and not even bony yet, but already with the constant tired, jaded look that often comes with the job. He keeps getting stuck with assignments that involving reaping souls in alternate universes because people from his universe killed them. He doesn’t like Ben very much, of course.
I would like to be Adolf Shitler, a gay porn star with a dirty sanchez who tries to get Ben and Dan to star in his new movie involving a dog, a bird (which he has yet to aquire), Adolf Shitler himself, and a zuchinni, which through the handing over of a cooked turkey results in the gaining of the zuchinni.
I’d like to be the talking sunflower in the trip after a game character sees the love of his live, and if this position is already taken, I’d like to opt-in for the rainbow.
i’d like to be a thinly veiled attack on Anne Robinson, perhaps in a special level set in the points of view studio, where Anne takes the form of a single engorged tit hanging out of the nylon blouse of a primary school dinner lady…. so it’s a bit like the boil in How To Get Ahead In Advertising, or the bit in that Arnie film where the alien leader pokes out of the slave host’s chest.
Thanks! Hope I win!
make me a really jacked muscle head who dan throws his voice to to convince him he’s in a vase or box that needs opening and then consequently is knocked out by ben ( you could have dan say something to the effect of ” hey jerkoff come and get me” probably something funnier but something to get him to open a box containing a important item
he wouldnt have any shirt and be bald with shorts and incredible jacked ( has big muscles for you that dont know what that means like me 5 minutes ago ) and stupid ( of course )
one idea is a green turtle that one a very important item is dropped on the ground i grab it with my mouth and pull it inside my shell and ben and dan must do something to get turtle feed such as findind an item to trade for it or breaking into a safe by solving the coded riddle to get the feed to coax my head out
thanks for reading
sorry for the poor grammar above i meant to say that ” what i would do is when a important item is dropped….. ” and that you must find a item to pawn to get money to buy turtle feed or trade the clerk something like a comb since he’s obsessed with his hair and keeps running his fingers through it saying ” i wish i had a comb ”
ben and dan can also make a comb using cardboard and scissors
sorry for the poor grammar above i meant to say that ” what i would do is when a important item is dropped….. ” and that you must find a item to pawn to get money to buy turtle feed or trade the clerk something like a comb since he’s obsessed with his hair and keeps running his fingers through it saying ” i wish i had a comb ”
ben and dan can also make a comb using cardboard and scissors
i may have submitted this twice by accident if so just put on the first one
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