The Google homepage is something that everyone has been on, not once or twice. Many times. But it’s one of those things we don’t pay much attention to. It’s pretty easy to ignore it. It’s just a homepage, but one of the things that makes it so special to me are the little games or slideshows they have. Every day, Google has a new page on the home screen that will lead you to something special, whether it’d be a tribute to a famous man or woman, or just something fun. Most of the time, I never paid attention to them, but today (July 23, 2021), I found a cool game on the homepage. Not a slideshow or a tribute like Google typically does, but an actual video game. It’s a very simple game that anyone can play, called Doodle Champion Island Games (DCIG). A calico cat named Lucky is trying to defeat the 7 champions across an island (we never get the name of it) and collect the scrolls. That’s it. It may seem boring, but it’s actually really cool. I’ll tell you why. First, I love the art style. It has a Pac-Man, 16-bit style of gameplay similar to the old 1980’s arcade games, with actual hand drawn animated cutscenes that look super cute! These are not the type of games I typically play, but this one is so colorful and nice to look at; it’s breathtaking. It’s not just looks though. The actual gameplay is very diverse. The 7 champions you have to defeat all have their own mini-games. I’ll list them: 1. You have to hit the arrows at the correct time in a rhythm game. 2. You have to play rugby while enemies try to catch you. To win, you must pass the ball to your teammates quickly before any of your opponents touch you! 3. You have to play table tennis with one of the champions and score a certain amount of points to win. 4. You have to use a bow and arrow to hit targets. However, the enemy champion will also try hitting the targets. Hit the most targets and collect the most points to win. 5. You have to land different trick shots on a skateboard, which will give you points. Complete the required amount of points to win. 6. You have to climb a mountain while rocks and other terrain are hitting you down. Head up to the top before the timer runs out to win! 7. You have to complete a marathon. Win first place to progress onward. These are the games in DCIG, and while they may sound easy, they’re actually quite hard! Each requires some different type of skill to defeat them, and it all depends on you. I beat the table tennis one with ease, but I’ve seen people struggle with it like crazy! That’s not the only thing though. There are also side quests to complete like helping certain animals find their lost possessions. All of this is a tribute to the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games (which are going on till August 8th), and I’m really impressed by the people who worked on this. They could have just made a slideshow talking about how the Summer Olympic Games got started, but they made an actual game that must have taken them hours! That’s crazy, and I applaud the team (a Japanese animation studio called Studio 4C) who worked on it. Not just because it’s fun, but because it actually shows how you can tell stories through video games. I’ve seen many people say that video games are “bad” and teach you nothing! I whole heartedly disagree. There are so many games out there that have intricate and interesting stories that can challenge you in multiple different ways, either by exercising your reflexes or critical thinking. DCIG proves this really well, and I’m glad people are finally realizing how video games are actually just as imaginative and exciting as books. Yes, games may not be educational—and I’m not saying to play video games 24 hours a day, but I feel they shouldn’t be completely ignored either. DCIG was a wonderful, unexpected find during my daily Google browsing. I expected something boring, but I got something great instead. It’s not long (I beat it in about 45 minutes), but it is still as fun as other games I’ve played that last hundreds of hours. For a Google game developed by a small team of people, this is insane! DCIG is a perfect tribute to the 2020/2021 Summer Olympic Games, and I can’t wait to see what the Studio 4C team will do next.
Abhi Sukhdial
Saturday Newsletter: March 6, 2021
“Sunny Beach” (Procreate) by Emi Le, 13 (Millbrae, CA) and published in the March 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William Today, from me, mostly news—which is appropriate for a newsletter. Exciting news! Our very own Abhi Sukhdial’s novella, Three Days Till EOC, the winner of our 2019 Book Contest, has been long-listed for the Green Earth Book Award under Young Adult Fiction! So, congratulations are in order to Abhi and his family. This news comes just one week after Three Days Till EOC was given a glowing review by author Adam Rex, which you can check out here. Dan Bloom, one of the founders of the cli-fi (climate science fiction) genre and editor of The Cli-Fi Report, wrote in his review of Three Days Till EOC that he, “at the age of 71-going-on-72 enjoyed every page” and proclaimed Abhi “a young writer to watch!” Summer classes: The schedule for summer classes will be sent out toward the end of the week. Like last year, we are teaming up with Naomi Kinsman’s wonderful Society of Young Inklings. I am also very very very excited to be able to tell you that our brilliant editor, Emma Wood, will be teaching a writing class, as will her husband, Conner Bassett, also a published writer and a creative writing instructor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Two other Stone Soup staff are also offering classes: Laura Moran, from the book group, is offering a class that takes an anthropologist’s approach to personal narrative, and Jane Levi is offering a class in food writing. Saturday writing classes will continue during the summer. What if the classes fill? All classes will have a waitlist. Naomi has a number of teachers already on her staff, so we anticipate being able to meet increased demand. Next-session Saturday Writing Classes: Registration is going to open soon for the next session of Saturday Writing Classes. This will take us from April to the summer. The fabulous news is that we are expanding the program! Conner Bassett, who I mentioned above, is going to begin teaching on Saturdays. Conner has a reputation as a brilliant and inspiring teacher. I am so excited that he is joining our team. Registration will open soon for existing students; after existing students are taken care of, we will open registration to everyone else. We are now committed to expanding the program to meet demand. The limit to our expansion, obviously, is the need to retain the same level of quality. Weekend Project: The main problem for me about this newsletter is that, by custom, newsletters are supposed to short and I find short hard to do! The evocative digital painting Sunny Beach by Emi Le is the perfect illustration for Raya Ilieva’s “Sand and Sea.” I really like the ambiguity in Emi’s painting. I live near the Pacific Ocean. She captures the feel of the foam advancing (or retreating) from the sand. Please please please read Raya’s “Sand and Sea.” Yes, I cried at the end. But I want you to read the story for the clarity of Raya’s descriptive language. The first paragraph one can say is pure “sense of place.” Note the use of language that creates pictures in our heads—smooth waves, foamy blue sea, empty beach, gritty crystals, etc. Note, too, the description of sand on Kate’s feet. Those of you who have been to the beach will recognize what she says about this. In the next paragraph Kate, the main character, is given a physical description—of her eyes. Brilliantly, Raya ties in her description of Kate’s eyes both with her emotional state—a hint to us of things to come—and where she is. Raya continues with a clear descriptive vision from the beginning of her story to the end. I want you study how Raya brings alive her character and her world. “Sand and Sea” is also a classic in the sense that the problem that Kate is dealing with is one of these life problems that many of us have experienced. So, I’d like you to write a story that begins with a paragraph that sets up the scene where the story is opening; then, in the second paragraph, share with us at least one key aspect of how the character looks, and then let the story flow, trying throughout to be precise with your descriptions. As always, if you feel your work turned out strong, then please go to Stonesoup.com and submit the work so that Emma can consider it for Stone Soup. Until next time, Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Georgia, 11, wrote a lovely “Ode to Books.” Do you feel the same way that Georgia does about books? If you were a fruit, what kind would you be? Trevor, one of our bloggers, explains why he thinks his mom would be a Dragonfruit. Check out his post on the blog. Contest, partnership & project news There’s still time to submit to the Monthly Flash Contest. Here’s the prompt for this month, by Contributor Molly Torinus: Write a story set somewhere you’ve never been. It could be set in outer space, Antarctica, or even an alternate reality! And here’s where you can submit your entry. From Stone Soup March 2021 Sand and Sea By Raya Ilieva, 10 (Belmont, CA) Illustration by Emi Le, 13 (Millbrae, CA) Smooth waves of water crested up out of the foamy blue sea and crashed down on the empty beach, rushing out along a darkened strip of sand, and then were sucked back into the depths of the blue ocean. Kate paced the rough sand, gritty crystals coating her bare feet and tickling her ankles. A heavy fog hung over the beach, covering the sky and the air in a thick gray mass that did nothing to help lighten Kate’s mood. Her usually warm light-gray eyes were stormy, dark, and wild and focused on the never-ending expanse of sand and water
Author Adam Rex reviews Abhi Sukhdial’s novella Three Days Till EOC
We sent Adam Rex, the author of so many wonderful books himself, a copy of Abhimanyu Sukhdial’s Three Days Till EOC, the winning work in Stone Soup’s Book Contest 2019, published last September. We were so thrilled to receive this incredible review of the book from him. Thank you, Mr. Rex, and congratulations, Abhi! There are a lot of stories about the end of the world, and almost as many fictional methods for bringing that end about (zombies, war, fairy invasion, alien planning committee to build a hyperspace bypass). Not a few of them are about the very real prospect that we’ll do ourselves in with global warming. That we’ll drown beneath the weight of all the stuff we thought we couldn’t do without. I’ve seen these stories before. Every one of them has been written by a true believer—an author who warns us that we have to change course for the sake of our children, or our children’s children. But there’s something especially arresting about a story of global warming catastrophe written by an author who just may be young enough to see it come about in his own lifetime. Three Days till EOC is special because author Abhimanyu Sukhdial makes you feel an urgency he no doubt feels himself. And because, after walking you to that edge, he also has the wisdom to imagine a way we all might take a step back. Climate scientist Graham Alison is one of only a thousand or so people left alive in the year 2100. And while his fellow humans are resigned to abandoning Earth and starting fresh on Mars, Alison remains hopeful that the coming climate cataclysm can be turned back. He sets upon a journey that’s equal parts survivalist adventure and classic science fiction, building upon the work of humanity’s best and brightest to travel through space and time. And when Alison finds you can’t change the course of a river by throwing a few stones, author Sukhdial leads him to a solution that could only exist in the most hopeful science fiction: a massive social media network that actually does what it’s supposed to do—make the world a better place by giving us a common purpose. At 12, Sukhdial already understands what many of us never learn: that often the only hope of reaching someone is to pull them close, find a personal connection, and tell a story. For hero Graham Alison, it’s how you save the world. But for author Sukhdial, it’s also the way to his readers’ hearts. Three Days Till EOC by Abhimanyu Sukhdial, published by Children’s Art Foundation–Stone Soup Inc. (2020) Buy your copies at all good book stores, from Amazon, or from the Stone Soup online store here.