Editor's note: Chris received some really creative submissions for last month's writing challenge, which he's conveniently collected below. If you want to participate in this month's challenge, check out the prompt here. -Brett

Last month, I took the reins of Michael Rousseau's Bitmob Writing Challenge series with a prompt called “First-Person Writer." The challenge was to write about the act of playing a video game, mixing real life with the virtual world to create an entertaining narrative. 

And you did just that. Some of you immersed yourselves in a video game's world, while others took a more detached approach. I loved seeing the range and creativity the Bitmob community possesses, and I encourage others to explore this approach to games writing in the future.

Here are the entries:

Mass Effect 2
by Suriel Vazquez

Suriel jumps right into Mass Effect 2 with a Shepard who’s as much concerned with nabbing an Achievement as he is fighting the Collectors. The combination of near-total immersion with strategic thinking makes this a great read.

Star Ocean: Till The End of Time
by ChrisHoadley

My own entry for the writing challenge focuses on Star Ocean: Till the End of Time’s item creation system. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this is a good example of the challenge or a reject from a creative writing class. 

Halo: Combat Evolved
by Jeffery Sandlin

Jeffery takes a break from his Mi fiction series to look back on how an anime series called Fooly Cooly helped him get through Halo’s Library. He also uses relevant photos and captions to correlate with the text, which is a nice touch.

Heavy Rain
by Michael Pangelina

Heavy Rain fuses the interactive experience of video games with traditional storytelling methods. As an observer to his friend’s playing, Michael finds out how the game elicits emotions not often found in games.

Other Submissions

A few writers wandered away from the rules, which had me deliberating the role of the challenge at Bitmob. A writing challenge is pointless if people can ignore the rules without punishment, but these Bitmobbers wrote their entries on their own time, and a draconian adherence to rules limits creativity.  Writing has a lot of gray area, so I'm hoping this solution is fair. 

An Adult Gamer’s Burden (The Game of Life)
by Tony DaSilva

Tony posted this entry soon after the First-Person Writer hit Bitmob’s front page. He takes a different route with the prompt, writing about how video games affected his life in general rather than one experience.

Pokemon Heart Gold
by Jazz English

Jazz creates a fictional version of his friends’ experiences with the latest Pokemon, which he admits to not playing. I feel like I’m punishing Jazz for being honest, but at the same time there’s a lot to explore by being the outsider to a group’s favorite game as well.

If you want more creative nonfiction from a gamer's perspective, read the Bully Game Diary by Richard Moss. While Richard’s account of his experience playing Bully has been going on since before this challenge was even thought up, it is a good example of the spirit of First-Person Writer. By the end people will be able to read about an entire game from start to finish through the eyes of one person.

April is a new month, and I’ll be responsible for the next writing challenge as well. Keita Ohara suggested making a challenge involving your fanboy (or fangirl) tendencies. I'll have the challenge up in a few days.

A Reminder: I didn't post any articles without "First-Person Writer" in their tags or title. If you did the challenge and it's not in this article, please let me know in the comments.