Read once quickly, then remember and reproduce

[Jplus]

This game is a response to Type the Sentence: No Backspace, No Peeking. Since I think the rules of that game can only lead from a normal sentence to unintelligible gibberish, I decided to come up with something else which would lead to new, intelligible but totally different stories. Basically this is just the whispering game for children, but in forum posts.

Note to other forum game creators: if I accidentally reinvented your game, please forgive.

NOTE: you're supposed to type out the sentence as good as you can remember it, not to describe your memories of it. So don't insert comments like "someting about a ..." or "I don't know".

Current rules (v3):

1. Read the sentence from the last post once quickly and close the spoiler immediately after that.
2. Reproduce the sentence from your memory, as faithfully as you can. Spoiler it in your post.
3. It must be exactly one sentence, with at most two commas and no other interpunction. If not, refactor to make it such.
4. Call N the number of words in your newly produced sentence. After the count, freely apply mutations under the following conditions.
   Word additions are required when N < 18, forbidden when N > 26, and allowed in between. The opposite applies to word removals: forbidden when N < 19, required when N > 27, and allowed in between.
   In the end the result should be between 18 and 27 words long, inclusive.
5. Now open the spoiler from the last post again. If the sentence in there is exactly the same as your new sentence, execute the steps below. Otherwise you can directly post your new contribution.
   
   • Check back whether the previous spoiler was also exactly the same, until you find a spoiler that was not the same.
   • If 5 or more of the most recent spoilers were all exactly the same as yours, throw away your sentence and create a new seed. Otherwise just post your sentence.
   • Requirements for a new seed: exactly one sentence with at most two commas and no other interpunction. Between 18 and 27 words long, inclusive.

You MAY look at your keyboard while typing.
You MAY use the backspace. In fact, well-crafted and correctly spelled posts are preferred. Typos that change one word into another are however allowed as creative mutations.
You MAY NOT, under any circumstance, look back at the spoilered text from a recent post, except when you've just written a new contribution.
You MAY, at any time, look back at older spoilers.

First evolution (under rules v1)
Seed:
(From Sue Townsend, True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole)
"I smiled coldly, then left them together, unable to witness the naked lust in their middle-aged eyes. Three roubles were burning a hole in my sock, so I removed my shoe, took the money out and summoned a taxi."
Result:
I smiled quietly. I don't know. A taxi.

Current evolution (under rules v2 and v3), as of 1. May 2012 11:00 UTC
Seed (state 1):
(From Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books, Book Two, "How Fear Came")

All the game in the jungle was no more than skin and bone, and Bagheera could kill thrice in a night and hardly get a full meal.

Intermediate highlights as of 13. March 2013, p. 8:

Spoiler:

8. (cemper93):
All game in the jungle was sleep and booze, and Galahad could not sleep because he couldn't remember whether he had closed the doors.

32. (Adam H):
All that Galahad's doctors had was booze, and all that Galahad had was a headache from that wicked awesome party last night.

65. (Oflick):
Way back at Galahad's place there was a smoking hot chick, and there was blue in every purple mist.

119. (orangedragonfire):
Yesterday floating, around the bald head of my father, was a blue goldfishbowl with something golden engraved in it.

131. (matt96):
Sometimes while floating around with my bunch of feathers, I feel flaming mammoth skulls chasing me around the downtown London area.

160. (gaga654):
When I am uttering flywords, I am fluttering sidewords, so I add another 5 or 8 elephants to the mix for good measure.

175. (MinotaurWarrior):
When I flail my arms and scream curses at Ba'al-Hammon, I write silly things, which is the topic right now.

206. (Sean Quixote):
Hi, can I tell you something about Richard the Lionheart? I always lose my temper when I talk about him.
(This one was almost-terminal, i.e. it got 5 perfect copies. The same is true of the version before that, which only differed by the second-last word.)

216. (Jplus):
Hi, I don't want to talk about Richard the Lionheart nor about kittens with earmuffs, but I'll win the lottery if I do.

266. (Elmach):
Everyone loves cats, especially Fester the polka-dotted earmuff, who eats brown rats, for they are tasty and taste good with ketchup.

296. (Reecer6):
Everyone likes them raw, except granny who likes them cooked, and it's about time we got into mass production.

Current state not shown, just play!


Old versions of the rules spoilered.

Spoiler:

Rules v1:

1. You read the spoilered story from the previous post exactly once and close the spoiler directly after that. Since you don't read it again, you don't know whether there are any errors in your interpretation (most of the time there will be some).
For those extremely worried that they might re-read the text in a reflex: calculate the amount of time you'd usually take to read four lines from a Harry Potter book (that's about 1/8 of a page), and give yourself no more time than that. That will be something between 3 and 10 seconds for most people.

2. You reproduce the text from your memory, as accurately as you can. Just write down your first impression of what you read, don't try to make more sense of it afterwards. Spoiler it in your post.

You MAY look at your keyboard while typing.
You MAY use the backspace. In fact, well-crafted and correctly spelled posts are preferred.
You MAY NOT, under any circumstance, look back at the spoilered text from a recent post.

Rules v2:

1. You read the spoilered sentence from the previous post exactly once and close the spoiler directly after that. Since you don't read it again, you don't know whether there are any errors in your interpretation (most of the time there will be some).

2. You reproduce the text from your memory, as accurately as you can. Just copy as accurately as you can what you read, don't try to make more sense of it afterwards. Spoiler it in your post.
NOTE: you're supposed to type out the sentence as good as you can remember it, not to describe your memories of it. So don't insert comments like "someting about a ..." or "I don't know".

3. Check that your contribution conforms to the following constraints, and adjust as indicated:

• It must be exactly one sentence with at most two commas and no other interpunction. If not, refactor to make it such.
• It must be at most 27 words. If longer, make your sentence shorter (even if you need to sacrifice something to make that work).
• It must be at least 18 words. If, but only if, you can't produce more than 17 words in a faithful way, you're allowed and required to make creative additions.

These constraints may seem rather meticulous, but I believe they're necessary to ensure two things. First, it must not be too hard for the next player to remember what you wrote, so we have to put an upper limit to the complexity of the sentence and the number of words. Second, we want there to be enough room for errors and creative evolution, to there also has to be a lower limit to the number of words. In short, this is an attempt to hit a "sweet spot" in the amount of human memory failure.

(Have a look at the first few posts to see what can go wrong with more liberal rules.)

4. Submit your post.

You MAY look at your keyboard while typing.
You MAY use the backspace. In fact, well-crafted and correctly spelled posts are preferred.
You MAY NOT, under any circumstance, look back at the spoilered text from a recent post.

[mike-l]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly, something about the lust in their middle aged eyes. I had three roubles burning a hole in my sock, so I removed my shoe and summoned a taxi.

[Adam H]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly, something about the look in those middle-aged eyes... I reached in my pocket for the roubles and called a taxi.

Explanation for how awful I am at this:

Spoiler:

Nope, no explanation except I have a terrible memory! After "I smiled coldly" I drew a complete blank. Except roubles, for some reason roubles stuck out in my mind.

[KrazyerKate]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly. Something about those middle-aged eyes... I took the roubles out of my pocket and called a taxi.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly. Something about those middle aged eyes. I took the roubles out of my pocket and called a taxi.

Seems I put a full stop where there was once an ellipses and didn't hyphenate "middle-aged". I know you said we can backspace, but I'd assume doing so after reading what the last post was is frowned upon even in this case.

[AvatarIII]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly, something about those middle aged eyes, I put the roubles back in my pocket quickly.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly, something about those middle aged eyes, I put the roubles back in my pocket quickly.

[cjquines]

Spoiler:

I smiled coldly. Something about eyes, I suppose, I don't really remember. Then there were roubles and some weird taxi... I don't know, reallly.

[Diemo]

Spoiler:

I smiled quietly. Something about the eyes, something cold. Or maybe a taxi? ... I don't know

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

I smiled quietly. Something about eyes. I don't know. A Taxi.

OK, so my attempt is pretty piss poor. I wouldn't have thought typing "Something about" and "I don't know" would really work within this game. I thought the goal was the type out the sentence as best you remember it, not to essentially describe your memories of it.

[Jplus]

Spoiler:

I smiled quietly. I don't know. A taxi.

Oh boy. How did the story get reduced that much? Perhaps it's too hard to remember...

OK, so my attempt is pretty piss poor. I wouldn't have thought typing "Something about" and "I don't know" would really work within this game. I thought the goal was the type out the sentence as best you remember it, not to essentially describe your memories of it.

You're completely right about that. I'll edit the opening post to add this more explicitly to the rules.

In an attempt to prevent future reduction, I propose to make the game a bit more strict with regard to story content. From now we'll play with exactly one sentence, containing at least 18 and at most 27 words. If, but only if, you can't produce more than 17 words in a faithful way, you're allowed and required to make creative additions. (This is also going to be mentioned in the opening post).

New start:
(From Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books, Book Two, "How Fear Came")

Spoiler:

All the game in the jungle was no more than skin and bone, and Bagheera could kill thrice in a night and hardly get a full meal.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was skin and bone, and Galahad could get no sleep at night in the cold.

I know without looking back over the last sentence that this is dead wrong. I apologise for fucking it up so early. Don't know how I turned Bagheera to Galahad. I was certain it was a G name. Oh yeah, and by the time I wrote those last two sentences, I had indeed reread the sentence.

[Jplus]

LOL, just great.
(Seriously, as far as I'm concerned you're playing perfectly by the new rules).

I'm not playing yet since it's too fresh in my memory, anyone just go ahead and continue from the previous post.

[dragonmustang]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was skin and bone, and Galahad could get no sleep at night in the cold.

[mike-l]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was skin and bone, and Galahad could not sleep a night in the cold.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was skin and bone, and Galahad could not sleep a night in the cold.

[cjquines]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was sleep and booze, and gallahad could not sleep.

[Jplus]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was sleep and booze, and Galahad could not sleep because he was worrying whether he'd locked all doors.

Seems to be working out quite well so far.

@cjquines: you seem to have missed the new creativity rule. If you can't faithfully reproduce more than 17 words, you're allowed and required to expand the sentence with creative additions.

[cemper93]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was sleep and booze, and Galahad could not sleep because he couldn't remember whether he had closed the doors.

[Dthen]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was sleep and booze, and Galahad could not sleep because he could not remember whether he had closed all of the doors.

Oh. I seem to have remembered it, more or less, but I've accidentally added some extra words.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was sleep and booze, and Galahad could not sleep because he could not remember if he had locked all the doors.

[undecim]

I think we need to lengthen these

Spoiler:

all the game in the jungle is covered booze and sir Gallahad could not sleep because he didn't know if he locked the doors

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All the game in the jungle was covered in booze and Galahad could not sleep because he wasn't sure if he had locked the doors.

[cjquines]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was covered in booze, and Gallahada could not sleep because he was worried about doors.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad could not sleep because he was worried about doors.

[Jplus]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried because he had dreamt about doors in his sleep.

[Dthen]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried because he dreamed about doors in his sleep.

EDIT: I'm so sorry!

[Jplus]

Spoiler please!

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried because he dreamt about doors as he slept.

[thorgold]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried his doctors as he dreamt about doors.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

all game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried his doctors as all he dreamt about was booze.

My mistake at the end was almost certainly the written equivalent of a Freudian slip, but I won't change it as I didn't notice until after I reread the previous sentence.

[undecim]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze

[mike-l]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[Dthen]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[Diemo]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[Dthen]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[shirosuzume]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

[Oflick]

Spoiler:

All game in the jungle was booze, and Galahad worried that all his doctors thought about was booze.

How about a new rule? If the sentence stays the same after X amount of posts, a new sentence is created.