It’s somewhat fitting that was I was having trouble writing an introduction for a Bitmob Writing Challenge roundup about crafting five different openings for a piece. The beginning of your article sets the tone for the rest of your work, and you are only hurting yourself if you don't put any effort into it. When I read articles as part of my moderator duties on this site, I examine them from beginning to end regardless of how it starts. Few people will feel obligated to do this.

While I wish the turnout could have been better -- maybe I should have only required three unique intros -- we do have two great writers who participated.  Jonathon Oyama is a former Featured Community Writer, while Leigh Harrison is a newer member who has done a great job creating interesting topics that often make the front page of Bitmob or regular Spotlight features.

Please enjoy reading these articles and the two's commentary on their beginning passages.

The agony of victory: Drinking heavily and playing games
By Leigh Harrison

As someone who is lives alcohol-free, I do not support excessive drinking, but playing video games is one of the less-terrible things you can do under the influence. Leigh attempts to exert some fun out of Just Cause 2 using beer, and the writer tries several creative ways to introduce the article’s thesis.

How The Last Story captured my heart
By Jonathon Oyama

Jonathon tried a number of approaches to introduce his review for the much-anticipated Wii role-playing game and ultimately decided to mix-and-match a few of the sentences together. While discussing the Wii’s lack of new titles is a bit overdone, he does entice the reader about how The Last Story’s gameplay is more than another paint-by-numbers Japanese RPG.

Street Fighter X Tekken’s new characters must save the game from itself
By Chris Hoadley

The link above goes to my original article, and you can see my introductions in this reminder post. I tried multiple means of discussing the controversial Capcom fighting game, several of which involve Oompa Loompas. In the end I used an example from a tournament I went to, which is hopefully engaging without being gimmicky. You can read the original article here.

Thanks to Jonathon and Leigh for participating. Be sure to check out our current prompt on game controls as well.