(These drafts were written with Victoria Posner and edited by Marianna Shek) SPACE INVADERS (STATION TWO - PART ONE) LEVEL ONE Large pieces of broken up space ship and invaders scattered across some sort of game board on the ground. Ambient smoke and sound effects (zap! zap! Boom!) to convey that we re in the middle of a battle Roger that, Captain! Oh yeah look at that laser go. Zap! Zap! Boom! Damn it! Missed...Ha! Gotcha! Too easy. Zap! Boom! Ker-Rash! Is that all you got? You can come as close as you like, you re not getting past me! I ll be done with you faster than you can say- BOOOOOM! Player one explodes. There s a pause while he regenerates... Alright, you got me... I betcha didn t know I still have two more lives left though? Ha! No more games! Zap. Zap. Boom. Boom. Zap. Zap. Boom. Boom. One shot, one kill! Whoooooo! I can t believe how easy that was. I just saved the world, baby! And THAT s how we do it. Captain..this is Space Eagle One. I ve shot down the alien army. Great job, Eagle One. You saved the world! You ve got a big reward waiting for you back home! Just doing my job Captain. Just doing my job.
What the?! Better take a rain check on the going home part. It s the aliens again! With a whole new army. (exhausted sigh) Roger that Captain! Sound designer have fun mixing up battle sounds - lasers! pew pew pew! Explosions! Ha! Alien scum. Thought you had me but I win AGAIN! Captain, this is Space Eagle One. I ve saved the world again! I m coming home! NO! This can t be right! I want to go home, Captain. I want to go home!! At first, I thought there was hope. I was excited, I was energized, I was ready to defeat the enemy and save the world. You sure made it look glamorous in the recruitment poster. It was every little girl s dream. Sure I can knock the aliens out with one shot, but there are only two of us and hundreds of them...and they keep on coming back. ZAAAAP - enemy laser! Great job, Eagle One. You saved the world! You ve got a big reward waiting for you back home! (bitter laugh) Player one use to talk about going home. He was
gonna find a girl, buy a house with a picket fence, have kids, the whole nine yards. I like to think he got his reward. That we ll all go home one day. That when we die, we stay dead- BOOM - Huge explosion Go save the world, Eagle One! We re counting on you. CONTRA (STATION THREE)LEVEL ONE Hey Lance. It s me again. The Doc back at camp wants me to talk to the shrink at special ops. I asked him, what the hell for when I can talk to you? Makes my trigger finger twitch just watching them White Coats curled in their comfy chairs. Bet those coats have never been splattered with alien blood. Ha! We both know there are some stains you just can t wash out. He s my brother. We wake together. We fight together. We die together. I watch his back and he watches mine. You shoulda seen us yesterday. We were on fire! I did this amazing somersault in the air and kicked the pillbox sensors and got this awesome fireball gun. Red Falcon is going down! (heavy sigh) Another mission. This time, it s an alien army called the Red Falcon. I m tired Lance. Do you ever think of what you ll do when this is all over? Maybe it s just me but-- forget it. I m late for my meeting with the Doc. Yeah, couldn t get out of it. I ll brief you on our mission at 0-1-hundred. Bill s the man. He saved my neckthe first day I got here. The enemy shooters had his gun trained on me but Bill spilled him first. You can t ever pay a man back for that. He leads. I follow. Except the other day, Bill started acting funny. I went to see if he was up but he wouldn t come out of his tent. Hey are we gonna fry some alien squid or what? I yelled. I didn t know what to do (beat). I just couldn t go without him. It was the strangest feeling. Like I had no control of my body. So I just...stood there all day. Red Falcon were out there terrorizing the island and I just stood there! Hey Lance. Sorry about the other day. I was inside my tent thinking. Yeah I know that sounds lame but... Is this all there is to our lives? Kill this. Save that. Today it s alien squid. Yesterday it was spaceships. Tomorrow it ll probably be giant
mutated turtles. I need a break. Listen, I ve saved enough to buy a houseboat. We could start a floating bed and breakfast in the Amazons. You love the jungle! We could... disappear. Just think about it. Bill went AWOL. I told Contra, don t worry. I ll handle the solo missions.i wasn t just watching Bill s back in the jungle. I was racking up experience points. Now it s my turn - Bill went on solo missions all the time. Contra hasn t given me the go ahead but I m pumped. I ve suited up, loaded up extra ammo, I m just gonna stand here ready for action...!! DAY OF THE TENTACLE (STATION TEN) LEVEL THREE I m telling you Laverne. There s no such thing as free will. I can t believe you re saying that, Bernard with all your philosophies. Here we are, Laverne. 200 years into the past. We re supposed to give these documents to Dr. Edison s great-great-great-greatgrandfather so he can bring us back into the present and prevent the purple tentacle from taking over the world. What if I choose not to? What if I choose to go back to the present in the Chrono-john? Try it. I ll wait here. Lots of random sounds- doorbell ring... Laverne cursing... sound of jean zipper being pulled up... toilet flushing... footsteps walking away... drills... Laverne cursing and muttering. Explosions. A cat yowls. More cursing from Laverne Laverne! You look terrible! What happened? Quit playing, Bernard. I tried everything. But something always came up - I had to go to the toilet. The doorbell rang. I got kidnapped! A civil war broke out. When I finally got back to the Chrono-john, a feral cat was living in the toilet bowl with a litter of kittens.
You failed because it s not supposed to work yet. We re supposed to give these documents to Dr. Edison s ancestors. It s fate. Whatever, Bernard. More sound effects... Toilet flushing... doorbell ring... footsteps walking away... drills... Laverne cursing and muttering. Explosions. Toilet flushing... A cat yowls. More cursing from Laverne Give up and help me deliver these documents! Never! It s my destiny to smell like a public toilet. Toilet flushing again... doorbell ring... A cat yowls. Repeat over and over) More cursing from Laverne. A new sound - Answering machine. (recorded on answering machine) Hi there, this is Bernard. I m sorry I m unavailable at the moment. Please leave your message after the beep. I ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks! Hi, Bernard. It s me again. Luckily, the Chrono-kitty did not have rabies so all I ve gotten from my 97th attempt to re-locate her litter are a few scratches. You know, I m starting to believe in destiny. It s pretty cool that no matter what I would have chosen, I d end up here. It s like a safety net. No wrong decisions. Everything is pre-ordained. But I still believe we need to keep trying. It s a fine line between being a player and being human. Sometimes I confuse the illusion of agency with the real thing. I forget that it doesn t matter. In the end, the game must go on.!