Because of the way I can purchase games on this site, I can usually only buy games if they are on sale through my meager PayPal account, but after helping somebody out by shipping Japanese merchandise to their country, they paid me back and I suddenly have an excess of funds. Thanks to GOG's sales generosity, I have more than enough games to play and am generally blessed with more entertainment than I could imagine, so I think it would be greedy to spend it on myself.

Therefore, I want to start a weekend poetry giveaway! To make it fun though, I've often been amused by the irreverent haiku* gamers sometimes compose about games.

So all you have to do to enter is compose a short 5-7-5 syllable poem about a game. Bonus if it's about a GOG game! Another bonus if you can sneak in a seasonal reference! Remember haiku aren't always so strict about the syllable structure. You can do 5-6-6, or 4-8-5 or things like that if it fits better! You see this in the serious haiku circles in Japan, so there's no shame in it!

When the weekend is over I'll choose three poets who didn't even know it for their choice of a free game. Because of the nature of how this giveaway came about, don't even think about asking for something cheap if that's not what you want most! Consider this your chance to get a more expensive GOG game for free! This is all extracurricular for me and doesn't have any impact on my important finances.

I look forward to any wordsmiths who want to join! :)

(*If they don't include seasonal references and are more about human nature, they aren't actually usually considered haiku, but something else called senryu. Since that word doesn't exist for most English speakers, I have no problem calling them haiku in that language, just thought it would be a nice piece of trivia for people.)

There once was a man from nantucket...

What a nice gesture!
But my massive backlog looms.
I'm not in this spring.

Id actually rather use finnish to write haikus as the syllables work better than in english - might be even better for audience so they dont understand the low level :D

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Some poems rhyme
But this one doesn't.

NOT IN +1 for the giveaway :)

Go ahead! Just give a rough translation what it means! Come on, dazzle us with your Finnish powers!

I'm also very curious. Especially since I thought English should be easier to write Haikus in, given its abundance of short words. Whenever I see Finnish, I see words with so many syllables that they make my head spin (and it's a German head, so it's used to long words. ;) ). Writing Haikus in Finnish seems to me like putting an elephant into a matchbox! ;)

Also - come on guys, this is such a great idea, do we really want this thread to go on without actual Haikus?

I'm still not entering (as I tried to express with my first haiku in post #3, I have so many games here that I don't feel comfortable taking the opportunity of a free game away from others who have less), but as an attempt to kickstart this thread, here are two haikus about GOG games. They are probably quite bad considering that these are the second and third haikus I ever wrote (the one in post #3 was the first ...), so they should encourage you to do better! :)
.
.
The man who can't die
Despite his wish is fulfilled
Answers with regret
.
(Planescape: Torment)
.
.
Beaten by my spell
She lies there dead and bleeding
"Rise!", I tell her, "Rise!"
.
(inspired by "King's Bounty", but every other game with necromancy would work as well, I suppose)

Your backlog blooms like
A cherry blossom in spring
Summer sale is near

Red leaves, all year round:
Drifting in the passage of
The Raincoat Killer.

(The game referenced is Deadly Premonition. I suppose that might be an unseasonal anti-reference.)

Driving Interstate.
Crash! Unhandled exception :(
Must contact support :)

Not in and a +1 for the giveaway.

Nevertheless, have a haiku!

Cybernetic eyes
See shadows streak the city
Rain falls on blood, ash.

-Shadowrun Returns.

Not in....and with this I shouldn't be. :P

Beautiful shivers,
Pieces of fun,
They'll all come true,
when my time has passed.

That's all I could remember; I wrote it 25 years while I was stoned senseless.

Yay. These are fun. Let's make it a guess-the-game.




Vengeful ears
But under the weight of silence
You died unknown
________

Holds memory
Of a kiss that never happened,
"Kakolouga"
_______

A life, a death
So many ones, put on paper
Will get your stamp
_______

Wind on the grass
May heal your mind or tear your flesh
But a bolt knows

well thats kinda the point there. english has short words, but the syllables dont work in "sensible manner" you are supposed to be counting syllables and not words afterall.

Finnish words tend to be way longer than japanise, but still atleast in my mind the finnish ones sound more poetry than the english ones.

Then again, its not like i understand poetry -_-