Planet Interactive FictionPluto 1.6.2 on Ruby 2.7.8 (2023-03-30) [x86_64-linux]Choice of Games LLC: Author Interview—Alyssa N. Vaughn, On the Run: Rogue Heroeshttps://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80832024-03-18T16:13:34+00:00
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</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Awaken your powers and save your friends! Uncover the secrets that the military has been hiding about Activated people, about your family, and about you.<br><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/on-the-run/">On the Run: Rogue Heroes</a> is an interactive teenage-superpower novel by Alyssa N. Vaughn. We sat down with Alyssa to talk about her work. <a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/on-the-run/">On the Run: Rogue Heroes</a> releases this Thursday, March 21st. You can <a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/on-the-run/">play the first three chapters</a> for free today. </figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>You’ve got an extensive list of short-story credits, but this is your first novel-length publication. What were your favorite aspects of moving from short-form to long-form, and what were some of the challenges?</strong></p>
<p>One thing I really enjoyed was getting to develop the world and characters of the story in more depth. With my short stories, I usually have an idea I want to get across and everything takes a backseat to that since I have more limited space. Since I had more room to stretch out, so to speak, I really felt like I had the ability to get more of what was in my mind onto the page–or screen in this case.</p>
<p>As I got further into development for On The Run, I think this ended up being one of the biggest challenges as well. With a short story it’s so easy to say “this is the end”, go through it two or three times, and feel really satisfied with your final draft. With On The Run, I felt like there was always something new I could add, something I could improve, so it was really hard to get to that last deadline and say “it’s finished.”</p>
<p><strong>On the Run offers a darker and grittier take on superheroes: government conspiracies and coverups, exploitation of powered people, and military conscription. What led you to take this approach, and what were some of your media influences and inspirations?</strong></p>
<p>I was a big fan of the X-Men growing up, and I always thought that the political storylines from the various adaptations were the most realistic in the way the government and general public would react to an outbreak of superpowers. Fear. Control. That vicious cycle of giving up rights in return for supposed safety.</p>
<p>Like a lot of fans, high-school-aged me dreamed up my own characters to join in on the adventures I loved so much, but I gradually became more interested in the stories of these new heroes.</p>
<p>There was one YA novel I read by Eoin Colfer, The Supernaturalists, which is a science fiction story of teenagers living in a technocratic dystopia, sneaking around rooftops and alleyways trying to do good using their recently acquired supernatural abilities. At the time I read it, I was really taken with this idea of teenagers going out and doing things on their own.</p>
<p>These ideas simmered around in my teenage brain and eventually became, in my sophomore year, the first hundred or so words of an interaction between the PC and Yeni, although those were not their names. Plus a handful of very bad character sketches.</p>
<p><strong>Despite the serious themes, On the Run has a healthy amount of banter and shenanigans among its characters. How did you maintain the humor amid this story’s darkness?</strong></p>
<p>To be honest, I’m not sure that I could write a one-hundred-percent serious story, because even in dark times (maybe especially then) I tend to look for something to laugh at. There were definitely a few moments when writing the story that I really felt somber, but heightened stress, confrontation, filling awkward silences? I go for the funny. At least it relieves some of my tension.</p>
<p><strong>This game also focuses very strongly on the experience of being a teenager: struggling with your identity, growing into independence, learning how to see your parents as flawed humans, and more. What drew you to the decision to have younger protagonists?</strong></p>
<p>One of the parts of the story I really wanted to tell originally (when I myself was a teenager) was this conflict between children and parents. In my high school journals, I would have scenes of the parents aggressively seeking out their children, while the teenage protagonists cleverly outwitted them.</p>
<p>While the adults in On the Run are less antagonistic, I still felt strongly about this idea of having the young protagonist confront the older generation about their actions. I feel like adults, facing the same problems all the time, can get bogged down in their perspectives. A lot of teenagers try to enter conversations in good faith and have so much positive energy and just get shut down. I wanted this game to reflect their genuine experience but also be somewhat cathartic for anyone who’s felt that way.</p>
<p><strong>What other projects are you working on now?</strong></p>
<p>I’m currently working on a fantasy YA novel and hope to participate in some upcoming game jams through itch.io!</p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comInteractive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarian: Age of Empires (or, How Microsoft Got in on Games)https://www.filfre.net/?p=58262024-03-15T16:46:37+00:00
<blockquote><p>We don’t have a strategy to do a $200 game console that is a direct competitor to what Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are doing…</p>
<p style="text-align: right;">— Bill Gates, June 1996</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s hard to overstate the scale of the real-time-strategy deluge of the late 1990s. For a period of several years, it seemed that every studio and publisher in the industry was convinced that duplicating the gameplay of <a href="/2023/06/a-dialog-in-real-time-strategy">Blizzard’s <em>Warcraft</em> and Westwood’s <em>Command & Conquer</em> franchises</a>, those two most striking success stories in the business of computer games since <a href="/2020/02/myst-or-the-drawbacks-to-success"><em>Myst</em></a> and <a href="/2020/06/the-shareware-scene-part-4-doom"><em>DOOM</em></a>, must surely be the digital equivalent of printing money. In the fall of 1997, <em>Computer Gaming World</em> magazine counted no fewer than 40 RTS’s slated for release during the coming Christmas season alone, to go along with the “nearly 20” that had already appeared with names other than <em>Warcraft</em> or <em>Command & Conquer</em> on their boxes. With no other obvious way of sorting through the jumble, the magazine chose simply to alphabetize the combatants in this “biggest clone war to hit the PC,” resulting in a list that began with <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/1682/7th-legion/"><em>7th Legion</em></a> and ended with <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/2299/waterworld/"><em>Waterworld</em></a>.</p>
<p>If those names don’t ring any bells with you today, you aren’t alone. While many of these games were competently made by genuinely enthusiastic developers, few mass movements in gaming have ever felt quite so anonymous. Although the drill of collecting resources, building up an army, and attacking your computerized or human enemies in real time struck a lot of people as a whole lot of fun — there was, after all, a reason that <em>Warcraft</em> and <em>Command & Conquer </em>had become so popular in the first place — it was hard for the creators of the next RTS generation to figure out what to do to set their games apart, whilst also staying within a strict set of design constraints that were either self-imposed or imposed upon them by their conservative publishers. Adventure games, CRPGs, and first-person shooters had all been the beneficiaries or victims of similar gluts in the past, but they had managed to explore a larger variety of fictional contexts if not always gameplay innovations. When it came to RTS’s, though, they all seemed to follow in the footsteps of either the high-fantasy <em>Warcraft</em> or the techno-futuristic <em>Command & Conquer </em>in their fictions as well as their gameplay. This can make even those members of the RTS Class of 1997 that are most fondly remembered today, such as the fantasy <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/113/myth-the-fallen-lords/"><em>Myth</em></a> or the science-fictional <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/904/total-annihilation/"><em>Total Annihilation</em></a>, feel just a little generic to the uninitiated.</p>
<p>One game from this group, however, did stand out starkly from the crowd for the editors of <em>Computer Gaming World</em>, as it still does in the memories of gamers to this day. Whilst sticking to the tried and true in many of its mechanics, <em>Age of Empires</em> dared to try something different in terms of theme, mining its fiction from the real cultures of our planet’s ancient past. It played relatively straight with history, with no magic spells or aliens in sight. This alone was enough to make <em>Age of Empires</em> a welcome gust of fresh air in a sub-genre that was already sorely in need of it.</p>
<p>Yet there was also something else that made it stand out from the pack. Although its developer was an unknown outfit called Ensemble Studios — one of many that were springing up like toadstools after a rain to feed the real or perceived hunger among gamers for more, more, more RTS’s — its publisher was, of all companies, Microsoft, that one name in software that even your grandparents knew. The arrival of <em>Age of Empires</em> signaled a new era of interest and engagement with games by the most daunting single corporate power in the broader field of computing in general. If anyone still needed convincing that computer games were becoming mainstream entertainments in every sense of the phrase, this ought to have been enough to do the trick. For, whatever else one could say about Microsoft, it was not in the habit of exploring the nooks and crannies of the software market — not when there was a sprawling middle ground where it could plant its flag.</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/age-of-empires-or-how-microsoft-got-in-on-games/6134140-age-of-empires-windows-front-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-5836"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5836" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6134140-age-of-empires-windows-front-cover-246x300.jpg" alt="" width="369" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6134140-age-of-empires-windows-front-cover-246x300.jpg 246w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6134140-age-of-empires-windows-front-cover.jpg 656w" sizes="(max-width: 369px) 100vw, 369px" /></a><br />
The man behind Ensemble Studios was one Tony Goodman, whose life’s direction had been set in the sixth grade, when his father, a professor of management science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, brought home a terminal that could be used to connect to the university’s mainframe. “He would give me the same problems that he had given his students,” says Goodman. “My father would say, ‘Tony, I have a puzzle for you.’ Immediately, I was sucked in for the rest of the day. I always looked at the problems as puzzles. I loved puzzles and games, so I just couldn’t get enough. It came to me naturally. I remember saying, ‘This is it. This is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life!'”</p>
<p>In an ironic sense, Goodman’s career path would be the opposite of that of the typical game developer, who joins the world of more plebeian software development only <em>after</em> getting burnt out by the long hours and comparatively low pay in games. Long before starting Ensemble Studios, Goodman made a career for himself in the information-technology departments of the banking industry, specializing, like his father before him, in data-visualization tools and the like that could aid executive-level decision-making. Along the way, he learned much that he would later be able to apply to games — for, he says, good games have much in common with good software of any other stripe: “One of the most valuable things that I learned about developing software was that, for users to be productive, the software had to be fun to use. The key is to keep people entertained long enough to be rewarded. This also happens to be the fundamental dynamic of games and, indeed, all human experiences.”</p>
<p>In 1989, Tony Goodman and three partners formed Ensemble Corporation — not to be confused with Ensemble Studios — in his garage. Two years later, they released Command Center, a user-friendly front-end for Borland’s Paradox database system that could “automate queries, reports, forms, and graphics.” The company exploded from there, becoming a darling of the <em>Forbes</em> and <em>Inc.</em> set.</p>
<p>Throughout his years in business software, Goodman never lost touch with that younger version of himself who had been drawn to computers simply because he found them so wonderfully entertaining. He and his older brother Rick, who joined Ensemble Corporation as a programmer shortly after the release of Command Center, were lifelong board and computer gamers, watching at first-hand the aesthetic and technical evolution of the latter, parallel software industry. They found a kindred soul in another Ensemble programmer named Angelo Laudon, who, like them, could appreciate the higher salaries and profit margins in productivity software but nonetheless felt a longing to engage with his biggest passion. “We would talk about games until the early hours of the morning,” says Tony Goodman. “I loved the business of developing software, but I wanted to create products that everyone would tell their friends about. I wanted to create a pop-culture phenomenon. If you want to create software that people really want, developing videogames places you at the center of the universe.”</p>
<p>He realized that computer games had hit a watershed moment when Microsoft announced <a href="/2022/11/doing-windows-part-10-chicago">Windows 95</a>, and with it DirectX, a software subsystem that would allow people to install and run even cutting-edge games as effortlessly as any other type of software, without <a href="/2017/04/the-640-k-barrier">the travails</a> of the bespoke IRQ and DMA settings and memory managers that had been such a barrier to entry in the past. If he ever wanted to try to make games of his own, he knew, the time to get started was now, between the market’s expansion and the inevitable market saturation that would follow. Rick Goodman remembers how one day his brother</p>
<blockquote><p>walks into work, assembles the team of database programmers, and says, “Would any of you guys rather be making games than database applications?”</p>
<p>I think people were caught off-guard. We were looking around the room, like, “Is this a trick question?” But I raised my hand, and Angelo Laudon raised his. Tony was serious. He said, “I’m going to pull you guys aside and we’ll make a game.” I thought that was awesome. I said, “Okay! What kind of game?” None of us had any idea.</p></blockquote>
<p>For months thereafter, they continued to do their usual jobs during the day, then gathered again in the evening to hash through ideas and plans. During one of these sessions, Rick suddenly brought up a name that Tony hadn’t heard in a long, long time: Bruce Shelley, an older fellow with whom the brothers had played a lot of board games during their pre-teen and teenage years. Shelley worked in computer games now, said Rick — had in fact assisted Sid Meier with the design of <a href="/2017/03/railroad-tycoon"><em>Railroad Tycoon</em></a> and <a href="/2018/03/the-game-of-everything-part-1-making-civilization"><em>Civilization</em></a>. “Maybe — <em>maybe</em> — he’s not busy.”</p>
<p>And lo and behold, it turned out that he wasn’t. After finishing <em>Civilization</em>, Shelley had left Meier and his other colleagues at MicroProse Software in order to follow his new wife, a banking executive, to Chicago, where she’d secured a job that was far more lucrative than any that he’d ever held. He was writing gaming strategy guides out of his home office when Tony Goodman called him up one day out of the blue: “I hadn’t heard from him in fifteen years, and here he is with his own business in Dallas, doing software for banks, and he’s got guys who want to make computer games. We had these long conversations about what it takes to make a game. I told my wife, ‘I think this guy’s going to start a game company.’ And finally he did call me and say, ‘We are going to start a game company, and we want you to be involved.'” Shelley agreed to fly down to Dallas to talk it over.</p>
<p>But they still weren’t sure what kind of game they wanted to make. Then, as Shelley remembers, “One day one of the guys walked in with <em>Warcraft</em>. He said, ‘We’ve got to make this. We’ve got to make one of these. This is blowing the socks off the gaming world right now.'” It all came together quickly after that. Why not combine the hottest current trend in gaming with the last game Shelley had helped to make, which was already widely regarded as a hallowed classic? “The idea was, let’s take the ideas of <em>Civilization</em> — an historical game — and do a <em>Warcraft</em>/<em>Command & Conquer</em>-style RTS.”</p>
<p>This, then, was the guiding ethos of the project, the first line of any pitch document to a potential publisher: to combine the fast action of the typical RTS with at least some of the more expansive scope of <em>Civilization</em>. You would guide a tribe — in time, a full-fledged civilization — through the Paleolithic Age, the Neolithic Age, the Bronze Age, and the early stages of the Iron Age (where this particular voyage through history would end, leaving the table set for a sequel). Along the way, you would research a variety of technologies and build ever more impressive structures, some of which would not be strictly military in application, such as granaries and temples. There would even be a version of Wonders of the World, those grandest of all <em>Civilization</em> achievements, waiting to be built. But the whole experience would be compressed down into the typical RTS time frame of an hour or so, as opposed to the dozen or more hours it might take to get through a full game of MicroProse’s <em>Civilization</em>.</p>
<p>Initially titled <em>Dawn of Man</em>, the game evolved slowly but steadily betwixt and between the usual daily routine at Ensemble Corporation. The other Ensemble principals took Tony Goodman’s after-hours vanity project with a shrug. They didn’t really understand it, but he had worked hard for a long time and was entitled to it, they supposed, in the same way that other successful entrepreneurs were entitled to go out and buy themselves a Porsche.</p>
<p>When Tony Goodman started shopping the game to prospective publishers, it already looked and played decently well. He was growing more and more convinced that he had a winner on his hands. Yet even he was surprised at his good fortune when he made a cold call to Stuart Moulder, a middle manager at Microsoft’s relatively little-remarked games division, and captured the interest of the biggest fish in the software sea.</p>
<p>Historically speaking, Microsoft’s relationship to games had long been a tentative one. It was true that, in the very early days of the company, when it was known chiefly as a peddler of <a href="/2011/05/in-defense-of-basic">8-bit BASIC</a> implementations, Microsoft had published a fair number of games. (The most important of these was probably its <a href="/2011/07/microsoft-adventure">ethically dodgy commercial version</a> of <a href="/2011/05/will-crowthers-adventure-part-1">Will Crowther and Don Woods’s classic <em>Adventure</em></a>, the game that lent its name to a whole genre.) Even after it signed the landmark deal to provide <a href="/2012/05/the-ibm-pc-part-1">IBM’s first mass-market personal computer</a> with an operating system — a deal that resulted in the ever-evolving PC standard that remains dominant to this day — Microsoft continued to dabble in games for a while. There was a good reason for this; it’s often forgotten today that IBM and Microsoft first envisioned that original IBM PC becoming <a href="/2013/07/popcorn-and-peanuts">a fixture in homes</a> as well as offices. But when home users didn’t embrace the platform as rapturously as the partners had hoped, even as Corporate America took it to its bosom more quickly than they had ever dreamed, Microsoft abandoned games, thanks not only to the bigger profits that could be earned in operating systems and business software but out of fear of the stigma that surrounded games and their makers in the more “serious” software circles of the 1980s. The one exception to Microsoft’s no-fun-allowed policy was — at least according to some people’s definition of “fun” — <a href="/2021/01/the-dream-of-flight"><em>Flight Simulator</em></a>, an early product for the IBM PC that turned into a minor cash cow for the company; like Microsoft’s operating systems and productivity packages, it was a program that people proved willing to buy all over again every few years, whenever it was updated to take advantage of the latest graphics cards and microprocessors. Its focus on the pedantic details of flying a real civilian airplane — the complications of VOR navigation systems and the insidious threat of carburetor ice were implemented, but absolutely no guns were to hand — presumably made it acceptable in Microsoft’s staid software lineup.</p>
<p>The release in 1990 of the comparatively approachable, user-friendly <a href="/2018/08/doing-windows-part-9-windows-comes-home">Windows 3.0</a> operating environment marked the moment when more conventional games began to become less of an anathema to Microsoft once again. <a href="/2018/08/the-games-of-windows">An implementation of the hoary old card game Solitaire</a> was among this latest Windows’s standard suite of software accessories. As easy to pick up as it was to put down, it became the perfect time killer or palate cleanser for hundreds of millions of office workers all over the world, enough to make it quite probably the most popular videogame ever in terms of sheer number of person-hours played. Microsoft went on to release four <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/group/9842/microsoft-entertainment-pack-series/sort:date/">“Entertainment Packs”</a> of similarly simple games for the Windows 3.x desktop, and to include a clever <em>Battleship</em> variant called Minesweeper in 1992’s Windows 3.1. Microsoft was slowly loosening up; even Bill Gates confessed to a Minesweeper addiction.</p>
<p>The company now began to dabble in more ambitious games, the kind that could stand on their own rather than needing to be packaged a half-dozen to a box. There came <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/14214/microsoft-golf/">a golf game</a> for the corporate set, and then there came <a href="/2021/01/microsoft-space-simulator-or-charles-guys-galaxy-in-a-box"><em>Space Simulator</em></a>, an attempt to do for armchair astronauts what <em>Flight Simulator</em> had for so long been doing for armchair aviators. But the big shift came with Windows 95, the first (and arguably only) Microsoft operating system whose arrival would become a full-fledged pop-culture event. That old dream of the PC as a standard for the home as well as the office was coming true in spades by now; amidst the hype over multimedia and the World Wide Web, ordinary people were buying computers to use in their homes in unprecedented numbers. Microsoft was determined to serve their wishes and needs just as they had for so long been serving those of the corporate world. One result of this determination was DirectX, which allowed Microsoft’s customers to install and play audiovisually rich, immersive games without having to learn the arcane mantras of MS-DOS or memorize every detail of a computer’s hardware configuration. Another, less initially prominent one was a more empowered games division, which was for the first time given permission to blow through the musty vibes of office life or educational value that had clung to Microsoft’s earlier entertainment efforts and give the hardcore gamers what they really wanted.</p>
<p>At the same time, though, it should be understood that even by this point game publishing had not become a <em>major</em> priority at Microsoft. Far from it. There remained plenty of people inside the company who didn’t think getting into that business was a good idea at all, who feared that it would be perceived as a conflict of interest by the very extant game publishers Microsoft was trying to convince to embrace DirectX, or who thought the potential rewards just weren’t worth the distraction; after all, even if Microsoft managed to publish the most popular computer game in the world, those revenues would still pale in comparison to the Windows and Office juggernauts. Among the skeptics who did no more than tolerate the notion of Microsoft peddling games was Bill Gates himself.</p>
<p>The games division was in the keeping of one Tony Garcia at this time. One day a manager a rung below him on the hierarchy, a “talent scout” named Stuart Moulder whom he had explicitly tasked with finding hot “gamer’s games” to sway the naysayers and reinvigorate the division, knocked on his door to say that he’d just seen an RTS work-in-progress by a brand-new studio that was being bootstrapped out of a business-software maker. Yes, Moulder rushed to add, he understood that no part of that sentence sounded overly promising at first blush. But the game itself looked surprisingly good, he said. Really, really good. This could be the Big One they’d been waiting for.</p>
<p>So, Garcia invited the <em>Dawn of Man</em> crew to come up to Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and show him what they had. And he too liked what he saw enough to want to put the Microsoft logo on it.</p>
<p>Microsoft was an infamously tough negotiator, but Tony Goodman was no slouch in that department either. “Negotiation is often about compromise,” he says. “However, negotiating with Microsoft is more often about leverage. Microsoft negotiates hard. They don’t respect you unless you do the same.” Goodman gained some of his needed leverage by showing the game to other publishers as well — Electronic Arts, Hasbro, even Discovery Channel Multimedia (who were attracted by the game’s interest in real history) — and showing Microsoft the letters they had sent him to express their very real interest. Meanwhile Microsoft’s marketing department had already come up with the perfect name for a game whose historical time frame extended well beyond the Dawn of Man: <em>Age of Empires</em>. Having invented the name, Microsoft insisted on owning the trademark. Goodman wasn’t able to move the beast from Redmond on this point, but he did secure a royalty rate and other contract terms that he could live with.</p>
<p>In February of 1996, Goodman’s moonlighting venture was transformed from a skunk works inside a business-software maker to a proper games studio at long last, via official articles of incorporation. That said, it wouldn’t do to exaggerate the degree of separation even now: Ensemble Studios was still run out of the office of Ensemble Corporation. It had about ten employees in the beginning. Angelo Laudon was listed as lead programmer and Rick Goodman as lead designer, despite the latter’s complete lack of experience in that field. Fortunately, Bruce Shelley had agreed to join up as well, coming down to Dallas about one week of every month and working from home in Chicago the rest of the time.</p>
<p>Soon after <em>Age of Empires</em> became a real project from a real studio, Tony Garcia left Microsoft. He was replaced by Ed Fries, a veteran member of the Office team who had programmed games for 8-bit Atari computers before starting at Microsoft in 1986. When he agreed to take this new job in games, he was told by his colleagues that he was committing career suicide: “Why would you leave Office, one of the most important parts of this company, to go work on something nobody cares about?”</p>
<p>For all their apparent differences in size and clout, Microsoft and Ensemble Corporation were in an oddly similar boat; both were specialists in other kinds of software who were trying to break into games. Or rather, a handful of passionate individuals within each of the companies was, while everyone else looked on with bemused indifference. In an odd sort of way, though, said indifference was the passionate individuals’ superpower. If the new RTS failed utterly, it wouldn’t show up on the ledgers of Microsoft or Ensemble Corporation as anything more than a slight blip on an otherwise healthy bottom line. This lack of existential stakes — an extreme rarity in an industry whose instability is legendary — was greatly to the game’s benefit. With no pressure to have it finished by such-and-such a date or else, the developers could fuss over it until they got every detail just exactly perfect. Sticking close to the RTS playbook even in his choice of metaphors, Rick Goodman describes time in game development as “a resource, like collecting wood. The more of it you have, the better off you are. We took a lot of time. A <em>lot</em> of time. Most companies would not have survived that length of time.”</p>
<p>During that time, the game got played. Over and over and over and over again, it got played, not only by the Ensemble crew but by lots of folks at Microsoft, including the experts at that company’s “usability laboratory.” Microsoft brought in people from the street who had never played an RTS before, who didn’t even know what those initials stood for, and had them run through the early tutorial missions to see if they communicated what they were supposed to. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. <em>Age of Empires</em> was tested and tweaked no differently than it would have been if it was a $1000 mission-critical software application destined to be the fodder of corporate purchasing departments all over the world.</p>
<p>For this was to be a broad-spectrum computer game, beamed straight at the center of the mass market but wide and diffuse enough to capture an unusual variety of playing styles and priorities. Bruce Shelley has spoken often since of the value of putting “multiple gaming experiences within one box.”</p>
<blockquote><p>To reach a broad audience, include a variety of game types and adjustable game parameters that combine in different ways to create a range of quite different gaming experiences, all within the same game. Examples of different gaming experiences with the Age of Empires games are multiplayer death matches, single-player campaigns, random-map games, cooperative-play games, and Wonder races. Victory conditions, map types, and level-of-difficulty settings are examples of parameters that can be adjusted to create different gaming experiences.</p>
<p>We want the smartest kid in junior-high school (a hardcore gamer) telling his or her friends that our game is his or her favorite right now. When those friends buy our game, they probably won’t be able to compete with the star, but by adjusting those parameters they can still find a type of game that suits them and have fun. The average kids and the smart kids can both enjoy our game, although they play quite different parts of it.</p>
<p>When we provide a variety of gaming experiences within the single box, we increase the number of people who can buy our game and be happy with it. Each of these satisfied customers becomes in turn a potential evangelist.</p></blockquote>
<p>Although I wouldn’t directly equate being “hardcore” when it comes to games with being “smarter” than those who are not in the way that Shelley (perhaps inadvertently) does here, the larger point is well-taken. This was something that the industry in general was finally coming to realize by the latter 1990s, probably more belatedly than it ought to have done. By making it possible to play the same game in a variety of different ways, you could dramatically expand the size of that game’s audience. You did so by including varying difficulty levels and speed settings, to make the game as easy or hard, as relaxing or frenetic, as any particular player wished. And you did so by including different <em>modes</em> of play: story-driven campaigns, a single-player skirmish mode, online multiplayer contests. It might take additional time and money to make all of these things, especially if you were determined, as you ought to be, to make them all <em>well</em>, but it remained vastly cheaper than making a whole new game. Most older games dictate to you how you <em>must</em> play them; newer ones ask you how you would <em>like</em> to play them. And this has been, it seems to me, an immensely positive development on the whole, broadening immeasurably the quantity and types of people who are able to enjoy games — both each individual game that appears and gaming in the aggregate.</p>
<p>Certainly <em>Age of Empires</em> understood all of this; in addition to selectable difficulty levels and speed settings, it includes campaigns, pre-crafted singleton maps for single- or multiplayer sessions, randomly generated maps, even a scenario and campaign editor for those who want to turn their hobby into a truly creative pursuit. Anyone who has been reading these histories of mine for a while will surely know that the RTS is far from my favorite sub-genre of games. Yet even I found <em>Age of Empires</em> surprisingly easy to get along with. I turned the difficulty and speed down and approached the campaigns as an interactive whirlwind tour of the ancient world; as readers of this site’s companion <a href="https://analog-antiquarian.net"><em>The Analog Antiquarian</em></a> are well aware, that is a subject I can never get enough of. I have a friend, on the other hand, who tells me that he can’t remember ever even starting a campaign back in the day, that he jumped right into multiplayer on Day One to engage in ferocious zero-sum contests with his friends and never looked back. And that’s fine too. Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>But since I am the person I am, I just have to say a bit more about the campaigns. There are actually four of them in all, chronicling the evolution of ancient <a href="https://analog-antiquarian.net/2019/01/11/chapter-1-the-charlatan-and-the-gossip/">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://analog-antiquarian.net/2019/10/11/chapter-1-the-center-of-the-world/">Greece</a>, <a href="https://analog-antiquarian.net/2020/09/25/chapter-1-the-ancients-bucket-list/">Babylon</a>, and Japan. (An expansion pack that appeared about a year after the base game includes three more campaigns that deal exclusively with the rise and fall of Rome.) The campaigns were a labor of love for the lifetime history buff Bruce Shelley, as were the 40-plus pages in the manual dedicated to the twelve different playable civilizations, whose ranks include not only the aforementioned but also such comparatively obscure cultures as the Minoans, the Phoenicians, and even <a href="https://analog-antiquarian.net/2022/01/28/chapter-3-the-beginning-of-chinese-civilization/">the Shang Chinese</a>, all with strengths and weaknesses that stem from what we know — in some cases, what <em>little</em> we know — of their real-world inspirations.</p>
<p>“We really only needed one grand theme for a civilization that was historical enough to make people believe,” says Rick Goodman. “Like, they know Rome was good at X and the Greeks were good at Y.” For all that <em>Age of Empires</em> is no one’s idea of a studious exploration of history, it does have a little bit more on its mind than the likes of <em>Warcraft</em> or <em>Command & Conquer</em>. At its best, it can make you ponder where and how <a href="/2018/04/the-game-of-everything-part-4-civilization-and-geography">human civilization came to be</a>, starting as it does with the bedrock resources, the food and wood and, yes, stone out of which everything that followed was built. I’m sure it must have sent at least a few of its young players scurrying to the library to learn a little more about our shared heritage. Perhaps it managed to spark an enduring passion for history in some of them.</p>
<p>The graphics style was an additional key to <em>Age of Empires’</em>s appeal. Bruce Shelley:</p>
<blockquote><p>The sun is always shining in Age of Empires. It was always a bright, inviting world that you wanted to know more about. I’ve always had problems with dark, forbidding games. You’re crushing your audience — you’re really narrowing who is going to consider buying a game when you make it ugly, dark, and forbidding. Maybe it appeals to a certain audience, but…</p>
<p>When you set out to develop a PC game, the potential market is everyone on Earth who owns a PC. Once you begin making decisions about your game (gory, sci-fi, RTS, shooter), you begin losing potential customers who are not interested in your topic, genre, or style. Commercially successful games hold onto [a] significant share of that market because they choose a topic, genre, and style that connect with a broad audience. The acceptance of the PC into more world communities, different age groups, and by women means that games do not need to be targeted, and perhaps should not be targeted, solely to the traditional gaming audience of young males.</p></blockquote>
<p><em>Age of Empires</em> inevitably comes down to war in the end, as do most computerized depictions of history. But the violence is kept low-key in comparison to many another RTS bloodbath, and there is at least a nod in the direction of a non-conquest victory, an equivalent to sending a spaceship off to Alpha Centauri as a capstone to a game of <em>Civilization</em>: if you can build yourself a Wonder of the World in <em>Age of Empires</em>, then defend it for a period of time against all comers, you are declared the victor then and there. A “religious” victory can also be achieved, by collecting all of the religious artifacts on the map or holding all of its sacred sites for a period of 2000 years — about ten minutes in game time. There’s even some nods toward diplomacy, although in practice becoming allies usually just means you’ve agreed not to fight each other quite <em>yet</em>.</p>
<p>I don’t want to overstate the scale of the game’s innovations. At the end of the day, <em>Age of Empires</em> remains an RTS in the classic mold, with far more in common with <em>Warcraft</em> and <em>Command & Conquer</em> than it has with <em>Civilization</em>. It’s an extremely well-made derivative work with a handful of fresh ideas, not a revolution from whole cloth. Its nods in the direction of <em>Civilization</em> are no more than that; it’s not, that is to say, the full-blown fusion that may have been Bruce Shelley’s original vision for it. Compressing into just one hour the first 10,000 to 12,000 years of human civilization, from the dawn of sedentary farming to the splendors of high antiquity, means that <em>lots</em> of the detail and texture that make the game called <em>Civilization</em> so compelling must get lost. Even if you’re a story guy like me, you’ll no longer be marveling that you’ve brought writing, irrigation, or religion to your little group of meeples after you’ve played your first map or two; those things will have become mere rungs on the ladder to the victory screen, the real point of the endeavor. In a rare lukewarm review, <em>GameSpot</em>‘s T. Liam MacDonald put his finger on some of the places where <em>Age of Empires’</em>s aspirations toward <em>Civilization</em> don’t live up to the reality of its well-worn RTS template.</p>
<blockquote><p>I wish that Age of Empires was what it claimed to be: Civilization with a Warcraft twist. Instead, it is Warcraft with a hint of Civilization. That’s all well and good, but it places it firmly in the action-oriented real-time combat camp, rather than in the high-minded empire-building [camp] of Civilization. The result is Warcraft in togas, with slightly more depth but a familiar feel.</p></blockquote>
<p>I too must confess that I did eventually get bored with the standard RTS drill of collect, build, and attack that is the basis of almost every scenario. As the scenarios got harder, I gradually lost the will to put in the effort it would take to beat them; I wound up quitting without regrets about halfway through the second campaign, satisfied that I’d had my measure of fun and certain that life is too short to continue with entertainments of any type that you no longer find entertaining. Still, I won’t soon forget <em>Age of Empires</em>, and not just because its theme and atmosphere make it stand out so from the crowd. I would be the last person to deny that it’s an incredibly polished product from top to bottom, a game that was clearly fussed over and thought about to the nth degree. It exudes quality from its every virtual pore.</p>
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<p>The <em>Age of Empire</em> intro movie displays some of the game’s contradictory impulses. The scenes of combat are no better nor worse than those of any other game that attempts to make war seem glorious rather than terrible. Yet the weathered ancient stone raises other, more poignant thoughts about the cycles of life, time, and civilization. “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”</p>
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<div id="attachment_5832" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/age-of-empires-or-how-microsoft-got-in-on-games/aoe0003/" rel="attachment wp-att-5832"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5832" class="wp-image-5832" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AoE0003-300x225.png" alt="" width="600" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AoE0003-300x225.png 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AoE0003.png 640w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5832" class="wp-caption-text">Each campaign follows the historical development of the civilization in question to whatever extent the demands of gameplay allow.</p></div>
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In commercial terms, <em>Age of Empires</em> was a perfect storm, a great game with wide appeal combined with a lot of marketing savvy and the international distributional muscle of the biggest software publisher in the world. The principals from Ensemble remember a pivotal demonstration to Bill Gates, whose reservations about Microsoft’s recent push into games were well-known to all of them. He emerged from his first first-hand encounter with <em>Age of Empires</em> calling it “amazing,” assuring it the full support of the Microsoft machine.</p>
<p>While Microsoft’s marketing department prepared an advertising campaign whose slick sophistication would make it the envy of the industry, Tony Goodman deployed a more personal touch, working the phones at the big gaming magazines. He wasn’t above using some psychological sleight-of-hand to inculcate a herd mentality.</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">I built relationships with the most recognized gaming magazines. I invested a lot of time with key editors, seeding the idea that Age of Empires was “revolutionary” and would become a “phenomenon.” They may not have believed me at first, but my goal wasn’t to convince them. My goal was to plant wondrous possibilities in their brains and create anticipation, like Christmas for kids.</p>
<p>When the early previews began appearing, they were using the terms that we seeded: “revolutionary” and “phenomenon.” These early opinions were then picked up and echoed by other publications, creating a snowball effect. Eventually, all the publications would get on board with this message, just so they didn’t look out of touch.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sure enough, in the <em>Computer Gaming World</em> RTS roundup with which I opened this article, <em>Age of Empires</em> was given pride of place at the top of the otherwise alphabetized pile, alongside just one august companion: <em>Starcraft</em>, Blizzard’s long-awaited follow-up to <em>Warcraft II</em>, which was to try the science-fiction side of the usual RTS fantasy/science-fiction dichotomy on for size. As it happened, <em>Starcraft</em> would wind up slipping several months into 1998, leaving the coming yuletide season free to become the Christmas of <em>Age of Empires</em>.</p>
<p>So, while <em>Age of Empires</em> may not have quite lived up to its “revolutionary” billing in gameplay terms, it definitely did become a marketplace phenomenon after its release in October of 1997, demonstrating to everyone what good things can happen when a fun game with broad appeal is combined with equally broad and smart marketing. It doubled Microsoft’s own lifetime sales projections of about 400,000 units in its first three months; it would probably have sold considerably more than that, but Microsoft had under-produced based on those same sales predictions, leaving the game out of stock on many store shelves for weeks on end while the factories scrambled to take up the slack. <em>Age of Empires</em> recovered from those early travails well enough to sell 3 million units by 1999, grossing a cool $120 million. It left far behind even those other members of the RTS Class of 1997 that did very well for themselves by the conventional standards of the industry, such as <em>Myth</em> and <em>Total Annihilation</em>. In fact, <em>Age of Empires</em> and the franchise that it spawned came to overshadow even <em>Command & Conquer</em>, taking the latter’s place as the only RTS series capable of going toe-to-toe with Blizzard’s <em>Warcraft</em> and <em>Starcraft</em>.</p>
<p>And yet that is only a part of <em>Age of Empires’</em>s legacy — in a way, the smaller part. In the process of single-handedly accounting for half or more of the Microsoft games division’s revenue during the last couple of years of the 1990s, <em>Age of Empires</em> changed Microsoft’s attitude about games forever. The direct result of that shift in attitude would be a little product called the Xbox. “I believe there were two successes that had to happen at Microsoft in order for the Xbox console to happen,” says Stuart Moulder. “One was DirectX, which showed that we had the chops on the operating-system side to deliver technology that made it possible to build great games. Then, on the other side, we had to show that we had the ability as a first-party publisher to deliver a hit game aimed at core gamers — because that’s [the] people who buy and play console games.” Thanks to <em>Age of Empires</em>, gaming would be overlooked no more at Microsoft.</p>
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<p><strong>Sources:</strong> The book <em>Gamers at Work</em> by Morgan Ramsay; <em>Computer Gaming World</em> of October 1997, November 1997, and January 1998; <em>Next Generation</em> of June 1996; <em>InfoWorld</em> of April 22 1991.</p>
<p>Online sources include Soren Johnson’s <a href="https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/bruce-shelley">interview with Bruce Shelley</a>, Scott Stilphen’s <a href="https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/ed_fries/interview_ed_fries.html">interview with Ed Fries</a>, David L. Craddock’s <a href="https://www.shacknews.com/article/120300/bet-on-black-how-microsoft-and-xbox-changed-pop-culture">long <em>ShackNews</em> series</a> on Microsoft’s gaming history (especially <a href="https://www.shacknews.com/article/120300/bet-on-black-how-microsoft-and-xbox-changed-pop-culture?page=6#detail-view">the chapter</a> dealing directly with <em>Age of Empires</em>), Thomas Wilde’s <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2021/former-microsoft-exec-ed-fries-shares-behind-the-scenes-stories-from-the-original-xbox-project/">profile of Ed Fries</a> for <em>GeekWire</em>, Richard C. Moss’s <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/01/the-age-of-age-of-empires-as-told-by-the-devs-who-built-it/">history of <em>Age of Empires</em></a> for <em>Ars Technica</em>, a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19990202052852/http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/feb98/worldpr.htm">Microsoft press release</a> from February of 1998, T. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070828013004/http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/ageofempires/review.html">Liam MacDonald’s vintage review</a> of <em>Age of Empires</em> for <em>GameSpot</em>.</p>
<p>Finally, the box of documents that Bruce Shelley donated to the <a href="https://www.museumofplay.org/">Strong Museum of Play</a> were a valuable resource.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1017900/Age_of_Empires_Definitive_Edition/?curator_clanid=35480745&curator_listid=97206">“Definitive Edition” of the original <em>Age of Empires</em></a> is available as a digital purchase on Steam.</p>
Interactive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarianhttps://www.filfre.netChoice of Games LLC: The Bread Must Rise is a finalist for the 2024 Nebula Game Writing Award!https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80532024-03-15T15:40:04+00:00
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<figure class="alignright size-full"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408.png"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="7642" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2023/09/the-bread-must-rise-spice-up-a-baking-contest-with-necromancy/web408-278/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="web408" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408.png" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408.png" alt="The Bread Must Rise" class="wp-image-7642" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/web408-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></figure></div>
<p>We are thrilled to announce that <a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/bread-must-rise/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>The Bread Must Rise</em></a>, by Stewart C Baker & James Beamon, is a finalist for the <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/2024/03/14/sfwa-announces-the-finalists-for-the-59th-nebula-awards/">Nebula Game Writing Award</a>, and it’s on sale for <strong>40% off until March 22</strong>! </p>
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<p><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/bread-must-rise/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Bread Must Rise</a></em> is a 450,000-word interactive comedy/fantasy/baking/eldritch horror novel by James Beamon and Stewart C Baker. In this magical baking contest, you’ll team up with the Queen Undying to bake your rivals into an early grave—or out of the grave, with necromancy!</p>
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<p>To celebrate, we are also putting every previous Nebula Finalist game on sale:</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/vampire-the-masquerade/sins-of-the-sires" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vampire: The Masquerade—Sins of the Sires</a></em><br><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/luminous-underground/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Luminous Underground</a></em><br><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/road-to-canterbury">The Road to Canterbury</a><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/magicians-workshop">The Magician’s Workshop</a></em><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/rent-a-vice"><em>Rent-A-Vice</em></a><br><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/martian-job">The Martian Job</a></em></p>
<p>Check out our <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/10426/Choice_of_Games_Nebula_Finalists/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nebula Finalists bundle on Steam</a> for an even bigger discount!</p>
<p>This is the sixth year that there has been a Nebula award for game writing—and the fifth year that Choice of Games authors have been finalists. Past Choice of Games Nebula finalists are: Natalia Theodoridou for <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/vampire-the-masquerade/sins-of-the-sires/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires</a></em> and <a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/rent-a-vice"><em>Rent-A-Vice</em></a>, Phoebe Barton for <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/luminous-underground/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Luminous Underground</a></em>, Kate Heartfield for <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/road-to-canterbury">The Road to Canterbury</a></em> and <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/magicians-workshop">The Magician’s Workshop</a></em>, and M. Darusha Wehm for <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/martian-job">The Martian Job</a></em>.</p>
<p>We also want to congratulate one of our Hosted Games authors, Baudelaire Welch, who is nominated in the same category for their work on Baldur’s Gate 3. Their Hosted Game, <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/dont-wake-me-up/">Don’t Wake Me Up</a></em>, is also on sale this week!</p>
<p>Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given annually to the best works of science fiction and fantasy published that year, as voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/2024/03/14/sfwa-announces-the-finalists-for-the-59th-nebula-awards/">The 59th Annual Nebula Awards</a> ceremony will be streamed live during the 2024 Nebula Conference, June 6-9, 2024. Stay tuned for more!</p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comThe Rosebush: On Making Trauma Legible: How Interactive Fiction Identifies Traumahttps://the-rosebush.com/?p=18002024-03-15T14:52:40+00:00
<p>Trauma resists definitions. Nevertheless, people will try to write about it, even within interactive fiction.</p>
<p>In last year’s IFComp alone, we see Naomi Norbez’s <em>My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition</em>, B.J. Best’s <em>LAKE ADVENTURE</em>, Ayu Sekarlangit Mokoginta’s <em>Lonehouse</em>, and others deal with aspects of trauma. The value of interactivity is not self-evident as there are many works that successfully depict trauma without it. What does interactivity have to offer in narratives that explore trauma?</p>
<p>This essay argues that interactivity helps players recognize trauma more clearly than, say, reading a book or watching a movie about it. Rather than passively watching trauma unfold, players can become more intimate with trauma through gameplay. Their interaction brings the unseen aspects of trauma into something more legible. Legibility is therefore an ideal for trauma-informed interactive fiction: it clarifies, explains, and depicts trauma in such a way that players cannot pretend the trauma isn’t there. In order to play the game properly, they must confront the traumas explored in the game, whether they want to or not.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> A Machine to Help Transfer Experiences</h2>
<p>When Taylor McCue was asked why they made a game instead of a comic, <em>He Fucked the Girl Out of Me</em>, they began their answer with “I am not a good person. I wanted people to understand me, not pity me.”<a href="#sdfootnote1sym" id="sdfootnote1anc"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
<p>In <em>HFTGOOM</em>, the player controls a ghost avatar. At first, all they can do is walk past the horrible reactions people have said about the story they’re going to hear.<a href="#sdfootnote2sym" id="sdfootnote2anc"><sup>2</sup></a> The narration then doubts itself because the game would never be finished if it tried to “recall traumatic details and recreate things perfectly”. Instead, it invites the player to focus on an “impulsive decision”.</p>
<p>After this prologue, the player learns that their player character is seeking hormones. They follow their character to the pharmacy where they are given the choice of buying hormones or looking around the pharmacy. The latter fleshes out the location, but it doesn’t advance the game state. The player has to choose hormones, making them share the same goals as the character.</p>
<p>But it turns out the player character, Ann, is poor and they need some quick cash. They are roped in by their crush, Sally, to try their hand at “sugaring”. Sally wants to drill into Ann’s head that they need to be comfortable taking the initiative and refuse to let the customer dictate what should be done in sex work. The player regains control of Ann in a food court and must take food samples until someone says no. That end-point is never reached; the dialog box of “Would you like a sample?” will keep popping up until Sally says it’s enough. The awkwardness lingers, but the point is well-taken: people can take from each other as much as they want.</p>
<p>The player will relive more and more of these traumatic memories as Ann becomes a sex worker and depends on it for their livelihood. They will walk home through a photorealistic rendition of the developer’s neighborhood, buy snacks at a 7-11 only to find that the character is thinking about the sexual activities necessary to justify those purchases, and realize that all meaningful choices that can be made are false.</p>
<p>If the player resonates with <em>HFTGOOM</em>, they will understand that <em>this narrative</em> is the only way these events could ever unfold. Contrary to narratives that blame survivors for their actions, the game’s design reinforces the lack of agency to show how limiting the choices can be in these desperate situations.</p>
<p>This design approach is similar to how Emily Short describes interactivity in so-called dynamic fiction, which is a kind of IF that allows some interaction but otherwise does not allow the reader to change the course of the story. She explains the appeal of such works like this:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The interaction in a dynamic fiction story is doing something else: it’s providing pacing, it’s creating a sense of identification with the protagonist, it’s eliciting complicity with what happens or demonstrating the futility of the protagonist’s experience.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In particular, she mentions how interactive horror fiction in this style is effective because she has to “inhabit that moment of doubt over and over again” as she clicks through the text.<a href="#sdfootnote3sym" id="sdfootnote3anc"><sup>3</sup></a> The same dynamic is present in titles like <em>HFTGOOM</em> where the interactivity doesn’t usually affect the progression or change the state of the game, but rather how the player relates to the character and the setting. Interaction allows players to take actions (even those explicitly ordained by the developer) and become complicit in what is happening in the game. Whatever happens on the screen is co-signed by them, regardless of how they feel about the game.</p>
<p>Of course, different games may be more or less successful at engaging the player, and there will be players who refuse to engage with the game because the interactivity presented doesn’t match their heuristic for a game. Strongly implied in these games is the need for players to play these games knowing that whatever subject matter is being explored is being done in good faith. This means that the intertwining of interactivity and complicity is always fragile: not everyone will take the leap of faith and accept this style of interactivity at face value.</p>
<p>But if players accept these premises of trauma-informed games, then there is some possibility that some of their strengths may come from hurting the player. As McCue admits:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>I really basically just designed a machine to inflict trauma on people in a weird way, so that they would understand rejection, understand shame, and then accept me.<a href="#sdfootnote4sym"><sup>4</sup></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the rhetorical techniques<a href="#sdfootnote5sym" id="sdfootnote5anc"><sup>5</sup></a> they use to get the message across are so effective they hurt the player, then so be it. McCue justifies their “trauma machine” in another interview:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>By having a machine have that conversation for me, I can explain myself once with all the agony that comes with it and then never technically have to do it again or something. That’s what HFTGOOM basically is, it’s a machine to help transfer that experience to the player a bit so they can understand me and hopefully accept me.<a href="#sdfootnote6sym"><sup>6</sup></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, interactive fiction like <em>HFTGOOM</em> is usually designed by developers to make their trauma legible for players. The game mechanics will ideally force them to work out the issues and come to a better understanding on their own. If successful, there will be no need for further agonizing explanations.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> Strategies</h2>
<p>To achieve this goal, developers must find ways to make players invested in their games. There are at least two commonly employed strategies that try to make this possible:</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> Simulation</h3>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>The Archivist and the Revolution</h4>
<p>In <em>The Archivist and the Revolution </em>by Autumn Chen, the player character is an archivist who has been laid off and pays rent by working as a freelance contractor recovering data from DNA. But the player also has the option to “cajole and beg for support” from two people. No matter what they do (or don’t do), the player character has to pay rent or risk becoming homeless.</p>
<p>While the player can choose to work in the archives or waste their time reading internet forums, the player character may become “too tired to do anything else.” Later on, they’ll face the possibility of running out of food in their apartment; they need to choose whether to buy food or “take what you need.” If the character gets sick and has no money, they may become too sick to work and worsen their situation. The player ends up juggling their character’s stamina, health, funds, and relationships.</p>
<p>But they can take a break from this exhausting routine, which may include helping the character perform a funerary ritual from the distant past:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>You are in front of Lily’s gravestone, a small brown brick in a field of gray lichen. The name carved on the stone is illegible from years of scratches. Above the scratches, deepening grooves mark her real name.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The player may “scratch at the gravestone some more”:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>With a key you deepen the grooves of her true name, and add new scratches to her “legal” name. Since she never had dignity in life, the least you could do was give her some modicum of dignity in death.<br><br>Her family was the most supportive family of all the nonbinaries you had ever encountered. Still they buried her under the name they had chosen, and not the name she chose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not a required scene. The player character admits that they don’t know Lily and believes she would’ve considered them “a traitor for submitting [themselves] to the authoritarian capitalist patriarchal system.”</p>
<p>But this optional event is powerful because the player chooses to read it. They may not know how the event will turn out, but they’ve calculated that the cost of one turn is still worth the waste.</p>
<p>The player character is able to mourn now. They scratch the slurs off the tombstones and write the names they remember on paper to burn as an offering. The scene ends with the last choice, “You are alive, and you hope to stay that way.”</p>
<p>A <em>simulationist</em> approach places the player inside the game and asks them to interact in the way the game wants them to. This could mean going through the rhythms of someone’s life, but it doesn’t have to be a full-blown life simulator. As long as there are choices and the player is forced to go through the motions, the interaction makes them identify with the character and share the stakes.</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> DO NOT KILL THE SLEEPING BEAST</h4>
<p>This is best seen in a short game like <em>DO NOT KILL THE SLEEPING BEAST</em>, a game about substance addiction.</p>
<p>It begins by saying, “there’s a monster in your closet, but you know that already.” The narration addresses a family history of addiction and then, the player character’s struggle to contain it in the language of chivalry:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>you crawl from your bed in the dead of night, scaling it like a mountain; even at seventeen, you’ve never felt so small. the descent, the climb out of your warm bed and into the dragon’s den, is a bit like playing knights and princesses when you were much younger. you, you reported to the king— but the king isn’t here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abandoned by the king, the only thing “loyal to the knight” is the monster who is “his keeper.” The player character finds the monster:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>your fingers curl like claws, tugging at the monster’s keep until it is revealed: it sings to you, like a siren, in the clinking of glass bottles and the hiss of a bottle cap, <u>popped</u>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The monster pressed to their lips:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>crooning, it cries out, “why are you alone?”<br><u>nobody called</u><br><u>nobody came</u><br><u>nobody cares</u></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Any choice leads to the same outcome:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“maybe it’s you,” it snarls, “maybe you’re unlovable.”<br><u>maybe so</u><br><u>maybe no</u><br><u>get me out of here</u></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The same happens here:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“the king should know better,” it says, scolding.<br><u>i trust him</u><br><u>i love him</u><br><u>i want to go home</u></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The narration reminds them they could kill the monster, but the character cannot. While “the beast clutches at your throat and makes it hard to scream,” it treats the character with affection. This is something the king could never give.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the player character sends a message to the king that they love them, and the game loops with this final message:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>tonight, you do not kill the sleeping beast. maybe you’ll be stronger tomorrow.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The interactivity (or lack thereof) in this game illustrates the difficulty of overcoming drug addiction. The player has no choice but to accept the monster and when there are choices, it’s about how lonely the player character is. They’ve seen all the moves and so, they’re forced to realize that there’s little the character can do to slay the monster.</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> LAKE ADVENTURE</h4>
<p><em>LAKE ADVENTURE</em>, on the other hand, simulates the experience and feel of old text adventure games to explore repressed memories of the past. Ed Hughes has discovered an “ancient” game he made when he was thirteen, but couldn’t get it to work. He feels lonely during the COVID quarantine, so he asks the player who works in his company’s IT department to play the game for him while he’s on call.</p>
<p>However, the player will soon encounter disconcerting descriptions that hint at something deeper:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code><strong>More Hall</strong>
You are in some more hall. Exits lead north, south, east, and west.
### Behold the glory of More Hall. Guess I felt I really had to map my house well. Yeah. Um, let’s see. I think it’s stairs to the south, sister’s room to the east, and a storage closet thing to the west. ###
>? e
You don’t want to go into your sister’s room.</code></pre>
<p>While this doesn’t bother Hughes, different actions in the same hallway will surprise him:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>>? s
A mystical veil of magic prevents you from going south! Try west first!
### Um, okay? ###</code></pre>
<p>When the player finds a Memory Shard and puts it in the vase as the game requested,</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>As you drop the shard into the vase, it seems like it disappears! But suddenly you have this strong memory ...
— HIT ANY KEY —
It’s a beautiful spring day. You and your 4-year-old sister are playing at a park near your house. You’re pushing her high on the swings, and she’s laughing and having a great time!
— HIT ANY KEY —
### Uff. Um, okay. Okay.
### No. No, I’m fine. It’s just ... shit. It’s coming back to me. Yeah, the game. You don’t know anything about my sister, do you? Yeah. That’s me and that’s her. Look, this—this might turn into a wild ride. Fair warning. I wrote this game when I was thirteen or whatever, and then I ... I went back to it when I was older. Yeah, kinda. Like revising it. I added stuff. I have no idea what version this—no, no. I mean, we’ve known each other for a while, right? I ... I’d like to keep going. As long as you would, that is.
### Yeah. The girl in the game is my sister. She might ... she might show up again. ###
— HIT ANY KEY —</code></pre>
<p>As the player gets deeper into the game, Hughes begins to realize that this game is the place where he has bottled up his feelings about the world around him. His grief over the loss of his loved ones, his fantasies of revenge, and what he aspires to be are clearly laid out in the game. A sudden realization dawns on him: he may be in his forties, but he has not overcome his trauma.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the player is just playing the game he made. Unlike most of the other games discussed here, the player does not directly identify with the traumatized character. They may sympathize, but they’re also aware of the distance because they’re playing an old computer game far away from Hughes.</p>
<p>As a result, it’s hard not to play <em>LAKE ADVENTURE </em>and feel complicit in hurting Hughes. Players may be typing the same well-worn commands they’ve always typed in other text adventure games, but those same inputs are unearthing his darker memories. The game may have the same amount of player freedom and agency found in other parser games, but there are no commands that go outside the parser game framework to calm him down. Unlike the other games described here where limited choices set by the developers immerse the player in the traumatic experience, the players have inadvertently retraumatized Hughes by simply playing the game. Their curiosity as parser players makes Hughes suffer. They can only continue playing Hughes’s traumatic memories as a text adventure game or stop.</p>
<p>Simulations, large or small, are effective because they lay out the choices and let the player choose. The player cannot go beyond what the simulation has offered, so they have to reckon with the consequences. Only then will they begin to identify how trauma affects everyday life.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> Ellipsis</h3>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> Sting</h4>
<p><em>Sting</em> is an interactive memoir by Mike Russo about growing up in New England and his memories with his twin sister Liz. The game starts like this:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>Port Washington, NY — 1985<br>Mom said you and Liz can play for ten more minutes, because that’s how long it is until lunchtime. Sometimes ten minutes feels very long and sometimes it feels very short.</code></pre>
<p>The player character can check their surroundings, but their interaction is limited by fading memories:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>> x swing
Wait, there wasn’t a swing set yet when this happened — my mistake.</code></pre>
<p>Each of the six vignettes is punctuated by a bee sting experienced by Russo. After each sting, the story jumps forward in time to follow the sibling relationship between Russo and Liz.</p>
<p>In the third vignette, the player character is hanging out with his buddies, but he is also very shy about talking to his crush, Laura. She is the central character of this chapter and never appears in the story again, except for a brief mention in the final vignette. Instead, Russo can talk to Liz about how to get the courage to talk to girls. The player learns more about Liz as a close friend, Russo growing up, and the symbolic meaning of the bee sting than Laura herself.</p>
<p>The player also has some freedom to interact with the game but cannot go beyond the contours of the memory. In the second vignette, the player is plunged into a sailing section where Liz screams at or praises Russo’s actions. Whether the player succeeds or not is not really relevant to the story as the scene is more about how these twins communicate with each other and the bee sting.</p>
<p>In fact, the final vignette allows the player to correctly or incorrectly say what Russo thought happened in the second vignette. It’s as if <em>Sting</em> is trying to say that even as we relive these cherished memories, they may be wrong, and that’s okay. What matters is what we make of them.</p>
<p>The final vignette reveals that Liz has recently passed away from cancer and Russo’s family is expecting a child. Liz’s absence is clearly felt by Russo and his spouse because she has made an impact on them. However, her influence can only be guessed at by the player; it is not explicitly written into the work. Russo writes in his author’s notes that “she was an amazing person and trying to pin her down with the few meager glimpses these anecdotes afford would be impossible”<a href="#sdfootnote7sym" id="sdfootnote7anc"><sup>7</sup></a> and he is deliberately avoiding the pitfalls of works that create art out of real life tragedies. Words and stories cannot capture the magic of Liz.</p>
<p>Instead, Russo invites players to join him in reflecting on his life, processing his grief, and his coming of age. The bee stings mark the beginning and end of Russo’s story with Liz. For the player, the intentional omission requires speculation about the depth of their relationship and how Russo has learned to grieve. What they don’t see paradoxically becomes more concrete. The bee stings take on new meanings, and what’s already on the page helps the player contextualize what’s being paved over. Brevity allows the unwritten to speak louder than words.</p>
<p>This is <em>elliptical writing</em>, a method of skipping over a portion of the narrative to heighten its significance. When used in interactive fiction, the transitions (or lack thereof) force the player to make sense of what the story is trying to evoke through that absence.<a href="#sdfootnote8sym" id="sdfootnote8anc"><sup>8</sup></a> Its interactive elements suggest that there must be something relevant in them.<a href="#sdfootnote9sym" id="sdfootnote9anc"><sup>9</sup></a> The player is forced to speculate about what is unwritten.</p>
<p><em>Sting </em>relies on this style of writing to talk about how important Liz is to Russo without overtly sentimentalizing their relationship. Her presence and absence are clearly felt through the passage of time and the glimpses the story has provided. And yet, it can only be felt, not written. To write something down is to limit interpretations to one way and leave a solid trail. Grief cannot be described by prose but by absence, by what might have been. It has to be opened up by the players who are willing to engage and participate in processing the loss together.</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> After the Accident</h4>
<p>There are other works about trauma that employ ellipsis in different ways. <em>After the Accident </em>by Amanda Walker features episodic and elliptical storytelling segmented by parser input. After the intro, the game starts out like this:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code><strong>Side of the Road</strong>
The sunset is laid out before you, throwing gold stripes on the black asphalt, the pink and gold and soft blue light swirling against the mountains, the barren landscape, touching the scrub grass, the roadside litter, the barbed wire fences, lining the road with fire. You don't know why you are here, your skin stinging, eyes fixed on the sunset.
There's something trying to get into your head. Or out, you're not sure. Something pressing on you. It's a memory, but you can't catch hold of it. This is wrong, something very wrong here, what is it, where is it.
>x memory
You can't see it, but you can feel it, brushing against you, coiling on your shoulder, whispering in your ear. You want to tame it, to remember...
>remember memory
You try to remember, but your head is aching and you can't quite grasp it, not yet, you're not ready for it, there's something wrong with you, with your body, pain as if from some distance but coming nearer, sharp teeth snapping.</code></pre>
<p>The player needs to explore their surroundings before the player character can properly remember their memories. For example:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>>x myself
You look down at yourself. Your hands and arms glitter, the last rays of sun catching like diamonds on the hundreds of tiny shards of glass bristling from the sleeves of your cornflower blue angora sweater, from the backs of your hands. Your bare feet are bleeding.
You weren't here. Now you are, with a memory fluttering around you, whispering softly.</code></pre>
<p>Once enough observation is done, the player can proceed to</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>>remember
You shut your eyes and squeeze them tight, tears of effort slipping from them, groping at the memory. Grasping.
Finding the edge of the memory.
Pulling at it with the fingertips of your will.
Until it breaks over you…
<strong>In the Car: One Hour Ago</strong>
The echo of angry words hangs heavy. It's cold in here. The heater is broken and the day is chilly. He's driving, hands caressing the wheel because even though the car is a piece of shit, he bought it, it's his, he loves it. He's saying something to you, an edge in his voice, and you can't quite hear. The sun is going down through the windshield, the impossibly bright winter light making you squint to see the road ahead, unfurling like a ribbon under you, the speed blurring the barbed wire fences you pass.
He's talking to you, but you can't quite hear.</code></pre>
<p>This is the first of several flashbacks that tell the story of the accident and the relationship between the two characters. The main goal is to find the commands that further clarify the scene:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>>listen
You turn to him and strain to hear. He sounds irritated,
(that's right you were fighting sniping at each other working up a conflagration)
his voice a weapon, saying "... must be cold. It's freezing. Where's your sweater? Can't you at least pretend to have some sense?"
And the memory widens: your sweater is here.</code></pre>
<p>The description will also point out important objects to interact with:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>>x sweater
A cornflower blue angora sweater, soft and thick.
>wear sweater
(first taking the angora sweater)
You put on the angora sweater, soft against your arms, a gift from him after an earlier fight so that it's both a haven and a trap. He says, "Find a song on the radio so we don't have to talk anymore."
And the memory deepens: you can see the radio in the dashboard.</code></pre>
<p>The player will have to follow a few more instructions from the player character’s partner before he asks for his sunglasses.</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>>give sunglasses to him
You hand him the sunglasses and he fumbles them, the light streaming in, and it's blinding, and the air is filled with noise and you hear a snatch of the song about a landslide, about an avalanche, and then you are in the avalanche and your eyes are filled with stars and light and dark and you are floating and then and then and then
PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE</code></pre>
<p>Following that command will return the player to the present:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code><strong>Side of the Road</strong>
The sun is almost down, the last light like gold stripes scattered on the road, the sky above you darkening, the cold snapping at your bare feet. You were in the car with him. Now you are here. Something happened. It's behind you on the road, the thing that happened.
You can see a backpack, an empty bottle and some sunglasses here.</code></pre>
<p>The player may then interact with the object and remember to go back in time. However, instead of remembering important details of what just happened, the player character goes further into the past:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-code"><code><strong>Kitchen: Three Months Ago</strong>
It's Autumn. He's standing by the window, watching the rain stream against the glass, looking out to the fields glassed over with water, flooded, impassable. You're stuck here in his father's farm house with him, and the fight last night was so terrible, such unforgivable things said as the rain roared and the wind shrieked and you hissed and spat at each other. But you have to forgive him, forgive yourself. You're making up and there's that feeling of capitulating, of losing something, losing yourself. But you want to fix it, so here you are at the counter, with a bowl and ingredients for making bread, your gift of atonement.
The memory shows you the sink, the cabinets, the refrigerator, your own hands putting out the ingredients: flour, milk, yeast.
He's standing by the window, watching the rain stream against the glass.
The rain roars on the tin roof.</code></pre>
<p>The player must now follow the player character’s instructions to make bread. This may seem like a strange change of direction, but this memory will prove to be very important. If the player character and her partner are arguing, they can reconcile by giving each other gifts: the player character gives him freshly baked bread, and he gives her the angola sweater she’ll be wearing in the first memory.</p>
<p>After the player returns to the present and gets into the car, the next memory to be recalled takes place six months ago. And later, when they first met seven months ago. Rather than exploring the accident, these storylets and the elliptical connections players make flesh out the characters’ troubled but resilient relationship.</p>
<p>Focusing on their everyday life together means that the trauma of the accident carries more emotional weight. Instead of writing out gory descriptions of what happened, the work makes players think about how those days can only be memories and nothing more. It is the aftermath, not the accident, that defines the traumatic experience for the player character, and the aftermath is presented as the culmination of all these fragmented memories.</p>
<p><em>After the Accident</em> is a visceral game because it knows that the acts of remembering and connecting memories are real struggles that trauma survivors have to go through. What seems random at first is actually poignant to those who have experienced the whole game. The car crash forces the player character to reevaluate her life with her spouse. However, the immediacy of this traumatic event does not result in a neat narrative sequence of events. Memories are fractured and do not make chronological sense. <em>After the Accident</em> situates the sudden loss of a loved one in the context of a violent accident, and shows how grief in these situations is impalpable. Without explicitly writing it down, the game manages to replicate the feeling of something irreplaceable being gone through the clever use of ellipsis.</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition</h4>
<p>On the other hand, <em>My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition</em> is a virtual museum that tells its entire story through curated artifacts. Players encounter notebooks and photographs that represent the author’s time in mental institutions; they move slowly through each exhibit and have to create connections between objects that catch their attention.</p>
<p>This creates an affective distance that is not present in something like <em>Winter in June</em>. Instead, it’s most similar to <em>LAKE ADVENTURE</em> where players are given some distance to observe the game elements. As Mike Russo writes, “it’s a reflective distance that invites the player to engage with what they’re seeing and reading, and then think about it.”<a href="#sdfootnote10sym" id="sdfootnote10anc"><sup>10</sup></a> It is up to the player to decide how much they want to understand the symbolism of the stamps, old bags, and artwork.</p>
<p>For example, the player may encounter a “little plushie” of a fictional band member given to the author by his twin:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>I brought Little Seki everywhere with me during my time at every single facility, carrying him inside of my bag. When I got stressed in group or therapy, I brought out Little Seki to both think of Eliana and use his fluffy head as a stress toy. Having that plush helped me think of the person who loves me most in the world, and was an anchor for me, especially when things got really hard.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>North of the Little Seki exhibit is an art display called “Sailor Souls Forever!”:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>While at TR, I developed a new story concept, based around the idea of fictional bands (like Gorillaz, for example). I drew these four characters who were brought together to be in a band called Sailor Souls, all of whom have their own inner demons that are finally able to be dealt with, thanks to the power of found family.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The introductory statement in this section of the gallery doesn’t refer to fictional bands. Other objects include a notebook, sketchbook, and “the first of many, many recovery folders”. However, there is a group of paintings titled “Leo Tolstoy Was Right About Families”:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>One of the projects I devoted myself to was painting all 4 of my family members—or at least⇨, my family members in the ways that I saw them—which included myself. Each of us is represented by a different color: I’m sea green; Eliana is orange; my mother is bronze; and my father is blue.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The text goes on to describe the author as “a phoenix rising, with a shining center that is painted with the transgender & nonbinary flags”, his twin as a musical note with the text “do no harm, take no shit”, his mother as “a stethoscope” whose “heart is dark & murky, with clawed hands coming out of it, which make wounds that make a river of blood”, and his father with the same darkness as his mother but disguised as a “happy, smiling face”.</p>
<p>It may be a stretch to associate fictional bands with unhappy families in most circumstances, but phrases like “found families” seem to suggest a connection. These three exhibits read like a longing for relationships beyond the nuclear family. The doll captures this tension because it represents the author’s only ally and the fantasy of found families in anime bands. This reading may not be expected by the author, but what is certain is that the game provides an environment for contemplating these objects and their connections.</p>
<p>There are only elliptical connections in <em>My Pseudo-Dementia Exhibition</em> and that is the work’s greatest strength. After walking through the museum, the player is only left with their own interpretation. Not only are their readings likely valid but they are all engagements in the author’s terms. The game harnesses the freedom of interpretation to help clarify the dimensions of trauma.</p>
<p>The power of ellipsis, then, comes from the player’s own ability to make sense of what they have just played. They have to read between the lines and draw their own conclusions without realizing they’re being guided by the author.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a> Conclusion: On Games About Trauma</h2>
<p>When it comes to interactive fiction titles that explore trauma, developers and critics hope that players will have an experience that redefines their understanding of trauma.</p>
<p>This hearkens back to age-old debates about the impact of art on us. For example, the literary theorist Wolfgang Iser sees something emancipatory in the way we read novels. Iser argues that when authors allow texts to develop ambiguity, they are actually guiding readers to fill in the blanks. As readers try to grasp for meaning, the text may surprise them with a twist and force them to rethink the situation. What was once familiar became unfamiliar, especially in the field of realistic literature where they interrogated the norms of their time. This mental activity of reconstituting the “reality” of novels again and again according to new discoveries allows readers to begin to see norms for what they are.<a href="#sdfootnote11sym" id="sdfootnote11anc"><sup>11</sup></a> This includes how readers see themselves, because literature, by allowing readers to be someone else, provides the necessary distance to judge one’s own behavior.<a href="#sdfootnote12sym" id="sdfootnote12anc"><sup>12</sup></a> Fiction thus has practical value: readers will not only learn to examine the social construction of reality and knowledge but also develop self-awareness.</p>
<p>A similar optimism is shared by Mary Ann Buckles in her dissertation on the first interactive fiction title, <em>ADVENTURE</em>. She recognizes that “the process of reading interactive fiction is morally grounded and can be a playful way of gaining a deeper understanding of oneself.”<a href="#sdfootnote13sym" id="sdfootnote13anc"><sup>13</sup></a> The world that the author constructed can be read in different ways by the potential reader because “readers must make the text happen.”<a href="#sdfootnote14sym" id="sdfootnote14anc"><sup>14</sup></a> Interactive fiction is not complete without an active reader whose “fairly sophisticated assumptions” will complete the text. Otherwise, they are simply disconnected puzzles. It’s why Buckles argues that</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Many readers get intensely, emotionally involved in fictional events because of their step-by-step activity in exploring the fictional world and mastering the fictional events. This can unlock strong feelings and memories of associated events from their own lives which they then build into the imaginary world they are creating.<a href="#sdfootnote15sym"><sup>15</sup></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both Iser and Buckley claim that the way readers and players engage with media causes them to bring something from the world they’re in to these texts. Perhaps then, they’ll think about the world they’re in. They could, in Augusto Boal’s words, participate in a “rehearsal for the revolution.”<a href="#sdfootnote16sym" id="sdfootnote16anc"><sup>16</sup></a></p>
<p>It’s not surprising then that creators like swanchime see the potential of trauma IF “to humanize the most vulnerable to systemic and pervasive dehumanization.” These games are worlds: “the dev’s autobiographical world. the world of their experience. the world of their life.” If players “choose to believe”, their “heart [will open] to the depth of breadth of human experience beyond [their] own.”<a href="#sdfootnote17sym" id="sdfootnote17anc"><sup>17</sup></a> This brief moment when players can imagine what it would feel like to be traumatized and oppressed seems to be a glimmer of hope in communicating the unspeakable.</p>
<p>But while I am touched by these games and there are indeed people who have reformed their outlook, I doubt its impact on the larger community of players who play mainstream games and occasionally encounter these titles. These are the works that are “caught between ‘everything is horrible’, ‘everything is survivable’, and ‘this is too hard to talk about'” in the first place<a href="#sdfootnote18sym" id="sdfootnote18anc"><sup>18</sup></a>. Not only are they difficult to discuss in public but their subject matter requires faith and trust from players. In fact, there’s a good chance that the game will actually succeed in making trauma legible <em>and</em> the players will choose to reject it. It is easy to imagine them playing these games and getting nothing out of the games or, in exceptional cases, being so effective that the games are heavily censored. Knowledge and understanding are not inevitable conclusions; on the contrary, we should expect hostility because trauma is still a stigma in our world. No amount of theorizing will convince a hostile world to think otherwise.</p>
<p>But while these games may not elicit empathy, they do achieve a more important goal: they shed light on the invisible pain of trauma. Whether one accepts or rejects the message of these games, they have to read it. Rather than wishing for some transformative experience for the player, I argue the power of these games comes from rendering trauma legible. Silence becomes unacceptable; we have to face these issues and talk about them. Even the denials imply some recognition of the trauma.</p>
<p>For my part, I’ve made my fair share of games like <em>June 1998, Sydney</em>, and <em>Chinese Family Dinner Moment</em> that explore uncomfortable situations and repressed memories. I don’t see myself as someone who wants to make these games forever, but they allow me to communicate something I can’t express in plain language. Very few people will connect with my games, but I’m happy when players write what they think of the game and notice the effort I’ve put into it. People don’t just want to be heard – they want to be recognized as peers.</p>
<p>And in the context of these games, recognizing trauma as a real thing that exists requires strategies that make it legible. Through the use of simulationist and elliptical techniques, trauma becomes something concrete and perceivable. Simulation techniques constrain the player’s actions while elliptical techniques allow space and freedom for the player’s imagination. In other words, trauma-informed games simultaneously minimize and maximize their depictions of trauma for the player to experience. This paradoxical approach recreates what it is like to hyperfixate on some details while ignoring others, leading to a better understanding of what can and cannot be talked about trauma. Trauma is everything and nothing at the same time. It is a peculiar dynamic that can only be explored through contradictory strategies.</p>
<p>Our interaction with the game mechanics fleshes trauma out, rendering it more and more legible. They make it impossible for players to avert their eyes without closing the game, and they allow stories to respect the indeterminate nature of trauma without sacrificing clarity.</p>
<p>We cannot deny the existence of these traumas because the games are designed to make us think about them. The conclusions that players reach may not be what the developers anticipated, but they are an understanding that has grown organically from playing the games. Whatever the outcome, they are responses to traumas explored within the games.</p>
<p>What comes next is beyond the scope of this article, but it is this first step — legibility — that starts the whole discussion. Once the word is out there, the status quo cannot resist the need to say something about it. No one can predict how toxic or productive these discourses will be, but one thing is certain: people will always want to speak up about how they have suffered from trauma.</p>
<p>The next step is to respond to what’s in front of us.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Footnotes</h2>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote1anc" id="sdfootnote1sym">1</a><a href="https://indietsushin.net/posts/2023-05-21-Taylor-McCue-Fuglekongerige-HFTGOOM-en"> <u>https://indietsushin.net/posts/2023-05-21-Taylor-McCue-Fuglekongerige-HFTGOOM-en</u></a></p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote2anc" id="sdfootnote2sym">2</a> McCue says the intent is to prime the player “to not view it as like porn, but as like, disorienting.”<a href="https://www.xrmust.com/xrmagazine/taylor-mccue-he-fucked-the-girl-out-of-me/"> </a><a href="https://www.xrmust.com/xrmagazine/taylor-mccue-he-fucked-the-girl-out-of-me/"><u>https://www.xrmust.com/xrmagazine/taylor-mccue-he-fucked-the-girl-out-of-me/</u></a></p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote3anc" id="sdfootnote3sym">3</a> <a href="https://emshort.blog/2015/11/17/a-couple-examples-of-dynamic-fiction-and-why-they-work/"><u>https://emshort.blog/2015/11/17/a-couple-examples-of-dynamic-fiction-and-why-they-work/</u></a>. I thank Aster for bringing this connection up as editorial feedback for the article.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote4anc" id="sdfootnote4sym">4</a> Indie Tsushin interview with Taylor McCue.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote5anc" id="sdfootnote5sym">5</a> I am thinking of Ian Bogost’s “procedural rhetoric” found in books like <em>Persuasive Games</em>. While I agree that games can persuade players by making them go through procedures, I find this analysis lacking and could be supplemented by theories on how people experience art.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote6anc" id="sdfootnote6sym">6</a> Indie Tsushin interview with Taylor McCue.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote7anc" id="sdfootnote7sym">7</a> <a href="https://intfiction.org/t/sting-authors-notes/53479"><u>https://intfiction.org/t/sting-authors-notes/53479</u></a></p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote8anc" id="sdfootnote8sym">8</a> I am greatly indebted to <em>Staging Memories: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness</em> by Abé Mark Nornes and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, which analyzes narrative techniques such as ellipsis in the film. Wolfgang Iser, in <em>The Implied Reader</em> and <em>The Act of Reading</em>, has also described this feature as “blanks”, “vacancies”, and “places of indeterminacies” depending on the context. While I find this distinction useful, indeterminacy doesn’t feel precise when applied to writing techniques.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote9anc" id="sdfootnote9sym">9</a> In hypertext, Tosca discusses how links can indicate to the player that “there is meaning here: explore the context.” I extrapolate this insight to the broader world of interactive fiction. See: Tosca, Susana Pajares. “A pragmatics of links.” <em>Hypertext ’00: Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM on Hypertext and Hypermedia</em>, 2000,<a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/336296.336327"> </a><a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/336296.336327"><u>https://doi.org/10.1145/336296.336327</u></a>. pp.80.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote10anc" id="sdfootnote10sym">10</a><a href="https://intfiction.org/t/mike-russos-if-comp-2023-reviews/64792/135"> <u>https://intfiction.org/t/mike-russos-if-comp-2023-reviews/64792/135</u></a></p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote11anc" id="sdfootnote11sym">11</a> These are the key insights I’ve gleaned over from <em>The Implied Reader</em> and <em>The Act of Reading</em> by Wolfgang Iser.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote12anc" id="sdfootnote12sym">12</a> Fluck, Winfried. “The Search for Distance: Negation and Negativity in Wolfgang Iser’s Literary Theory.” <em>New Literary History</em>, vol. 31, no. 1, 2000, pp. 175–210.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote13anc" id="sdfootnote13sym">13</a> Buckles, M.A. <em>Interactive Fiction: The Computer Storygame “ADVENTURE”</em>. pp.4</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote14anc" id="sdfootnote14sym">14</a> ibid., pp.178</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote15anc" id="sdfootnote15sym">15</a> ibid.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote16anc" id="sdfootnote16sym">16</a> Augusto Boal’s famous quote found in pp.98 from the 2008 edition of <em>The Theatre of the Oppressed</em>.</p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote17anc" id="sdfootnote17sym">17</a> swanchime, “A Working Thesis on Traumatic Interactive Fiction”.<a href="https://pancreas.gay/a-working-thesis-on-traumatic-interactive-fiction"> </a><a href="https://pancreas.gay/a-working-thesis-on-traumatic-interactive-fiction"><u>https://pancreas.gay/a-working-thesis-on-traumatic-interactive-fiction</u></a></p>
<p><a href="#sdfootnote18anc" id="sdfootnote18sym">18</a> This description originates from Nathalie Lawhead. See:<a href="http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/real-talk-games-about-trauma-art-caught-between-everything-is-horrible-everything-is-survivable-and-this-is-too-hard-to-talk-about"> </a><a href="http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/real-talk-games-about-trauma-art-caught-between-everything-is-horrible-everything-is-survivable-and-this-is-too-hard-to-talk-about"><u>http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/real-talk-games-about-trauma-art-caught-between-everything-is-horrible-everything-is-survivable-and-this-is-too-hard-to-talk-about</u></a></p>
The Rosebushhttps://the-rosebush.comChoice of Games LLC: Giveaway! Unlock tribes for free in Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Nameshttps://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80582024-03-14T18:02:01+00:00
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<p>We’re super excited for the release of “<a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/werewolf-the-apocalypse/book-of-hungry-names/">Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names</a>” on April 25th!</p>
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<p>As a special offer, if you purchase “<a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/werewolf-the-apocalypse/book-of-hungry-names/">Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names</a>” by 11:59pm PDT on April 26th, we’ll give you the “<a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2861970/Werewolf_The_Apocalypse__The_Book_of_Hungry_Names__Wardens_and_Furies/">Wardens and Furies</a>” DLC, featuring the options to play as a member of the Black Fury tribe or the Hart Warden tribe, for free.</p>
<p>Experience “<a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/werewolf-the-apocalypse/book-of-hungry-names/">Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names</a>” as one of the ruthless slayers of the Black Furies or the howling celebrants of the Hart Wardens. Hunt the wilds of New England with Gifts of divine archery, beast-speech, and the dark blessings of long-dead werewolves.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2402280/Werewolf_The_Apocalypse__The_Book_of_Hungry_Names/">wishlist it on Steam</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.choiceofgames.hungrynames">preregister on Google Play</a> now! You can also <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/werewolf-book-of-hungry-names/id6478510093">pre-purchase the app on iOS</a>.</p>
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<p>Also: <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/choiceofgames">All our games are on sale on Steam this week</a> as part of the Steam Spring Sale! </p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comZarf Updates: Oh, that's what happened to Kickstartertag:blog.zarfhome.com,2024-03-12:/2024/02/what-happened-to-kickstarter2024-03-12T05:19:23+00:00
<p>A couple of years ago I wrote about "<a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2021/12/that-kickstarter-news">That Kickstarter news</a>". The "news" was blockchain crap.</p>
<p>I pointed out that an open-source protocol for crowdfunding project tracking was <em>a pretty neat idea</em>, but blockchain doesn't make it happen. To make it happen, you need a bunch of people of good will to sit down together and work out details. Then you need a trusted organization to run it. Kickstarter was well-situated to get that process started.</p>
<p>They didn't, though. Everybody yelled that blockchain was crap -- it wasn't just me. The company flailed for a while and then seemed to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/04/kickstarter-ceo-everette-taylor/">back off on their plan</a>. Although they never disclaimed it completely.</p>
<p>So what was that all about? We now know, or have a good notion anyway, thanks to <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/03/11/kickstarter-blockchain-a16z-crypto-secret-investment-chris-dixon/">an article</a> that appeared yesterday.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The stealth round totaled $100 million, according to people familiar with the deal. It was led by a16z crypto and included a handful of other smaller investors [...]</p>
<p>In return for the a16z largesse, Kickstarter would take its own crack at becoming a Web3 company. The grand but improbable plan called for shifting its entire platform onto a blockchain called Celo, another a16z portfolio company, where it would operate as an open-source protocol – akin to http or Bitcoin – rather than rely on the proprietary code model used by most tech firms. </p>
<p>-- "The untold story of Kickstarter’s crypto Hail Mary – and the secret $100 million a16z-led investment to save its fading brand", Leo Schwartz and Jessica Matthew, <em><a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/03/11/kickstarter-blockchain-a16z-crypto-secret-investment-chris-dixon/">Fortune</a></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>So that's a simple story. Some finance bro from the blockchain department of Andreessen Horowitz turned up with a suitcase full of cash and said "Here, we'll pay you to become a Web3 company. It'll be great. PS: Use our blockchain."</p>
<p>Now it's not really that simple. The article notes that the funding round was in the form of a "tender offer", meaning the money went to shareholders -- including employees -- rather than to Kickstarter as a company. As a public benefit corporation, Kickstarter had pledged to never IPO or seek acquisition, leaving employee stock options as ghost paper. This was an offer to cash some of them out on the spot.</p>
<p>Also, the plan wasn't a <em>commitment</em> to go blockchain. Nonetheless, it was pretty clear that management had bought in. It was also clear that nobody else had.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most of the community outrage fell upon employees, who expressed their disbelief in group chats and swapped sardonic jokes about Kickstarter NFTs. Meanwhile, the company’s decision to use an outside consultant to announce the blockchain news meant that many staffers were ill-prepared for the sudden torrent of vitriol from users. And given Kickstarter’s checkered history of launching new initiatives, doubt spread about its capacity to pull off a major technology pivot. “It was inconceivable,” said one employee.</p>
<p>The blockchain plan seemed impossible – and that would soon prove to be the case. Within months, executives stopped bringing it up at all, and no section of the platform was ever converted to run on a blockchain. “It felt like Drip,” said one former employee, referring to the ill-fated Patreon competitor. “Announcing this thing, and then just abandoning it.” </p>
<p>-- ibid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can say "Well, great -- the employees got cash and the company never went Web3 at all. Win/win!" Or win/status-quo, I suppose.</p>
<p>But then there's the reputational hit. <a href="https://www.polygon.com/23167962/gloomhaven-backerkit-crowdfunding-launch-blockchain">Big</a> <a href="https://www.polygon.com/24079383/backerkit-2024-goals-brandon-sanderson">projects</a> started shying away from Kickstarter and going to BackerKit or other competitors. I, personally, never backed another Kickstarter after the blockchain announcement. We all have the sense that Kickstarter is in the doldrums. None of this is really news.</p>
<p>The interesting angle is that, from the company's point of view, they were <em>already</em> in the doldrums. Thus the title of the <em><a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/03/11/kickstarter-blockchain-a16z-crypto-secret-investment-chris-dixon/">Fortune</a></em> article: "Kickstarter’s crypto Hail Mary".</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But a dozen years after its launch, Kickstarter had lost its cachet of cool and churned through CEOs. The Kickstarter of 2021 had little to offer would-be investors but headaches. Growth had flatlined at the startup, which made its money by taking a small cut when a project on its platform met a funding threshold, and its onetime feel-good culture had become toxic in the wake of a bitter unionization drive. New shareholders would be inheriting ownership of a brand that many felt had turned stale.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even though Kickstarter figured out early on how to make a profit, the company could never seem to take off. The number of projects plateaued in 2016 at around 19,000 per year – with no signs of growth. Dollars raised on the platform, where Kickstarter got its cut, would fluctuate year-to-year and peaked during the pandemic at nearly $814 million. </p>
<p>An early investor told <em>Fortune</em> that Kickstarter was never able to find an equilibrium between growth and staying true to its new <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/charter">charter</a>, which committed it to socially worthy but expensive or difficult obligations. Despite the noble mission, employees struggled to find paths for career growth or advance their own initiatives as the company’s competing priorities bred dysfunction. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Growth! The assumption is as invisible as air -- at least, if you're reading a magazine called <em>Fortune</em>. Does Kickstarter have to <em>grow</em>? Or can it just keep supporting 19,000 projects a year, making enough profit to pay its employees and its social pledges? That's a social benefit, right? Nothing in the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/charter">charter</a> says Kickstarter has to be the <em>biggest</em> crowdfunding platform, or the hottest.</p>
<p>I don't know the whole story. The article talks about "dysfunction". There was the whole <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23732782/kickstarter-union-organizing-good-enough-job-excerpt">unionization mess</a>. I can easily believe that morale was lousy, that people felt the company was in a rut.</p>
<p>I just wish they could have asked: what does success look like when it's not the divine windstorm of venture capital? Can we just do a good job? I miss when companies did a good job.</p>
<p>I am not deep enough in the business to know what Kickstarter "really needs". The open-source information-sharing protocol still sounds nifty! A nonprofit organization connecting information Kickstarter, BackerKit, IndieGogo and other platforms. Would it be useful? I don't know, geez, but people like data.</p>
<p>(If that open-source data stream existed, Microsoft would be using it to train LLMs. I can't keep up with the enshittification cycle, either.)</p>
<p>Then there's the Patreon-style model: supporting lots of creators with small consistent payments, rather than per-project bursts of cash. You can tell that's a tough nut. Patreon has been <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/7/16746652/patreon-pledge-processing-fee-controversy">thrashing</a> for <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/1/18524511/patreon-pricing-tier-change-rollout-may-7-new-creators">years</a> to try to keep it working. Kickstarter tried to enter that race in 2017 with <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/15/16652582/kickstarter-drip-creator-subscription-service-announced-perry-chen-interview">Drip</a>; it <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/a-new-approach-to-our-work-on-drip">failed</a>. <a href="https://xoxofest.com/blog/2019-the-wrong-right-way/">Twice</a>. I doubt they're eager to take another run at it, but the problem still needs solving.</p>
<p>Well, I went over this stuff in my <a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2021/12/that-kickstarter-news">original post</a>. Civic infrastructure. Emergency aid. Effective <strike>altruism</strike> charity management. There's room for new models. What we know, <em>for sure</em>, is that venture capital is unable to solve these problems. "Investment" means you are not acting for the public benefit; you are not <em>solving</em> anything except <em>maybe</em> unprofitability. That's the unspoken message behind the entire Kickstarter article, although the authors may not be able to see it.</p>
<p>(Do I even need to point out OpenAI, that attempted compromise between the non-profit and tech-capital world? Spoiler: the non-profit got junked as soon as it interfered with profit.)</p>
<p>But there should still be a way to employ people to act for the common good. To build valuable tools. To leave value "on the table", that is -- where the table is society.</p>
Zarf Updateshttps://blog.zarfhome.com/Choice of Games LLC: “Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names” Demo Available Now!https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80472024-03-11T16:31:11+00:00
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<p>We’re super excited for the release of “Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names” on April 25th!</p>
<p>Today, for the first time, you can <a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/werewolf-the-apocalypse/book-of-hungry-names/">try the free demo</a>!</p>
<p>Don’t forget to <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2402280/Werewolf_The_Apocalypse__The_Book_of_Hungry_Names/">wishlist it on Steam</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.choiceofgames.hungrynames">preregister on Google Play</a> now! You can also <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/werewolf-book-of-hungry-names/id6478510093">pre-purchase the app on iOS</a>.</p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comChoice of Games LLC: Tale of Two Cranes—Reach your magical destiny and tangle with your rival in mythic ancient China!https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80402024-03-07T16:52:12+00:00
<p><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/category/user-made-games/">Hosted Games</a> has a new game for you to play!</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-full"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="8035" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/03/tale-of-two-cranes/web408-300/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="web408" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408.png" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408.png" alt="Tale of Two Cranes" class="wp-image-8035" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/web408-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></figure></div>
<p>Fulfill your epic destiny in mythic ancient China! Lead armies, wield magic, and put an emperor on the throne—or become the emperor yourself!</p>
<p><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/tale-of-two-cranes/"><em>Tale of Two Cranes</em></a> is a 750,000-word interactive epic historical fantasy novel by Michelle Balaban and Stephanie Balaban, winner of 2nd prize in the 2018 Choice of Games Contest for Interactive Novels. It’s entirely text based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.</p>
<p>The mighty Qin dynasty has fallen. As the land breaks into warring states, everyone must choose their side in the growing civil war. </p>
<p>Within this epic turmoil, you have been chosen to fulfill a grand but mysterious destiny. You are a Yǒngshì warrior, bonded with a heavenly spirit that grants you magical powers, and trained since childhood in the arts of battle. Your spirit is greater than any Yǒngshì has ever been: you are the mortal link to the Red-Crowned Crane, a mystical patron unique among all of the heavens…or so you thought. As war rises around you, you discover that there is a rival: Chan Ming, bonded to the Other Crane, is the only person who could ever match your power—or he might even exceed it.</p>
<p>Your mystical power can sway the course of the war and determine who will be the next emperor. Whose faction will you choose: Liu Bang, a charismatic lord beloved by the people; or Xiang Yu, a veteran of war respected by the military? Can you navigate the politics of the Imperial court, or will you gather your power in seclusion at your country estate? When China’s enemies encroach from the northern steppes, can you negotiate with them to call a truce – or even win them over as allies? Will you prove your loyalty to the new Emperor, or will you betray your allies at every turn? Uncover conspiracies of spies, trace the source of rebellions and mutinies, blackmail an Empress, marry into the Imperial family to become the power behind the throne—or even become the Emperor yourself!</p>
<p>And through it all, cross paths and swords with your rival, the Other Crane. Will you defeat him in an epic battle for the ages, or will you join him and create the most powerful mystical partnership the realm has ever known? </p>
<ul>
<li>Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, or asexual.</li>
<li>Find romance amongst your six closest allies or opt for an arranged marriage.</li>
<li>Choose from four magical classes: mystic, militant, sage or strategist.</li>
<li>Unravel the mystery of your mystical link to the Crane and discover the truth behind your unique connection to a fellow warrior.</li>
<li>Fight epic battles across a landscape inspired by the Warring States period of ancient China.</li>
<li>Build your personal power, customizing your estate to create a place specializing in military training, agriculture, spiritual enlightenment, scholarship, commerce, and more!</li>
<li>Master the Imperial court to propel yourself into the administration, nobility, or even to become ruler of all China! </li>
</ul>
<p>Your destiny calls, and a new dynasty awaits!</p>
<p><strong><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/tale-of-two-cranes/">Tale of Two Cranes</a></em> is 33% off until March 14th!</strong></p>
<p>Michelle and Stephanie developed this game using <a href="https://choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescript-intro/">ChoiceScript</a>, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own game and <a href="https://choiceofgames.com/looking-for-writers/">Hosted Games will publish it for you</a>, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.</p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comChoice of Games LLC: Divine Ascension—Can you ascend to a higher level of divinity?https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80372024-03-07T16:51:55+00:00
<p><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/category/user-made-games/">Hosted Games</a> has a new game for you to play! </p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-full"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="7958" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/web408-295/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="web408" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1.png" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1.png" alt="Divine Ascension" class="wp-image-7958" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/web408-1-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></figure></div>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>As a Minor Deity, you have a large Domain of sapient beings to rule over as you see fit. Can you gather enough faith to ascend to a higher level of divinity?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/divine-ascension/"><em>Divine Ascension</em></a> is a thrilling 41,000-word interactive fantasy novel by Teemu Salminen, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.</p>
<ul>
<li>Play as an all-powerful deity with total control over your Domain.</li>
<li>Interact with six other Minor Deities, each with their own realm.</li>
<li>Gather faith, divinity and power to protect or use those who have faith in you.</li>
<li>Use your divine powers to bless or destroy your targets.</li>
<li>Experience several possible endings – based on the choices you made during the story.</li>
</ul>
<p>Your choices will decide the fate of your world!</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/divine-ascension/">Divine Ascension</a></em> is 40% off until March 14th!</strong></p>
<p>Teemu developed this game using <a href="https://choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescript-intro/">ChoiceScript</a>, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own game and <a href="https://choiceofgames.com/looking-for-writers/">Hosted Games will publish it for you</a>, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.</p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comRenga in Blue: Magical Journey: For Beginners and Experts Simultaneouslyhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=329742024-03-06T03:50:38+00:00
<p>(Continued from my <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/">previous post</a>.)</p>
<p>Previously, we’ve encountered Softside magazine issue 47 (August 1982) with the game <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/operation-sabotage/?order=ASC">Operation: Sabotage</a>. The same issue had a piece by Peter Kirsch entitled <a href="https://archive.org/details/softside-magazine-47/page/n19/mode/2up">Anatomy of an Adventure</a>.</p>
<p><img data-attachment-id="32975" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png" data-orig-size="583,639" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-03-04 203246" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png?w=274" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png?w=583" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32975" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png?w=1000" alt="" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png?w=466&h=511 466w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png?w=137&h=150 137w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png?w=274&h=300 274w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-04-203246.png 583w" sizes="(max-width: 466px) 100vw, 466px" /></p>
<p>In it he dissects his framework in BASIC that he has used for all his games up to that point:</p>
<blockquote><p>Early in my adventure writing career, I created an adventure interpreter, or skeleton, as I call it, to serve as the backbone of each of my adventures. It has since been updated many times (now at version 4), but basically remains the same tool.</p></blockquote>
<p>Magical Journey is clearly version 1, as the same skeleton structure of that game is clearly similar to the general structure Kirsch describes. I’ll go into it in a moment, but a few points from the article:</p>
<ul>
<li>He gets introduced as “author of most of SoftSide’s Adventure of the Month series.” Alas there is no further biographical information.</li>
<li>He notes “The days of simply finding treasure and returning it to a storage location are gone forever.” which is a curious comment given how many Treasure Hunts there still are in 1982, but Kirsch got it out of his system back in 1980.</li>
<li>He tries different layouts before putting “a final version of my adventure map on a giant piece of heavy paper.”</li>
<li>He ran out of memory in writing Titanic Adventure and had to make cuts.</li>
<li>His games eventually all had ports for TRS-80, Apple II, and Atari; for making the Atari port used a special routine since the Atari BASIC doesn’t support string array, making a single string and treating it as an array by cutting the part he needs.</li>
<li>His parser on TRS-80 and Apple II uses the last three letters. He explains this “alleviates some of the annoying keyboard bounce in the TRS-80”. His Atari parser uses the first three letters because of the Atari string array issue meaning he makes the strings with padding. (I’ve played most of the Kirsch games on Atari, which explains why I didn’t recognize the last-three-letters style parser.)</li>
<li>He found Atari BASIC easier to debug because he could change something and still keep running the program, unlike on Apple on Atari.</li>
<li>Applesoft BASIC has the issue where if you use A has a variable and you write it before a THEN statement it interprets ATHEN as the command “AT”, so parentheses are required.</li>
</ul>
<p>For the skeleton, he does something relatively distinct from other BASIC authors to start things off:</p>
<p><img data-attachment-id="32984" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png" data-orig-size="604,520" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-03-05 074420" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png?w=604" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32984" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png?w=1000" alt="" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png 604w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png?w=150&h=129 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-074420.png?w=300&h=258 300w" sizes="(max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px" /></p>
<p>He has every single room description as a PRINT statement, and manually sets room exits along with these statements. From Magical Journey, where A is the variable which indicates the room the player is in:</p>
<blockquote><p>10 IFDT=1THEN320ELSEONAGOTO11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86<br />
11 PRINT”IN A FOREST.”:W=1:N=3:E=1:S=1:GOTO350<br />
12 PRINT”ON TOP OF A TREE.”:D=1:GOTO350<br />
13 PRINT”AT THE BASE OF A MOUNTAIN.”:S=1:E=4:GOTO350<br />
14 PRINT”ON AN OPEN PASTURE.”:W=3:GOTO350<br />
15 PRINT”ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN.”:D=3:GOTO350</p></blockquote>
<p>This is wildly atypical. Consider Hog Jowl mansion (written July 1981, printed January 1982 in 80 Micro), which starts with room descriptions but uses DATA statements instead:</p>
<blockquote><p>50 DATA “IN A DUMBWAITER.”,0,0,2,0,21,0,”IN A LONG HALLWAY.”,0,6,3,0,0,0,”IN A WORKSHOP.”,0,0,0,2,0,0<br />
60 DATA “AT THE BOTTOM OF A SECRET PASSAGE.”,0,0,0,0,0,0,”IN A LABYRINTH OF TUNNELS.”,0,9,0,0,0,0<br />
70 DATA “IN A TORTURE CHAMBER”,2,0,7,0,0,0,”IN A LABYRINTH OF TUNNELS.”,0,11,8,6,0,0,”IN A LABYRINTH OF TUNNELS.”,0,12,0,7,0,0<br />
80 DATA “IN A LABYRINTH OF TUNNELS.”,5,0,10,0,0,0,”IN A LABYRINTH OF TUNNELS.”,0,0,11,9,0,0,”IN A LABYRINTH OF TUNNELS.”</p></blockquote>
<p>This is the method given in other tutorials at the time, like the booklet for <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/deathship/?order=ASC">Deathship</a>. Kirsch used DATA for objects and verbs, so clearly had a notion of just using a “data table” for exits rather than having to specify what the variables equal each and every time. My guess is due to the Atari string handling he didn’t want to deal with changing the method.</p>
<p>The remainder of the skeleton also follows the Magical Journey structure fairly closely. There’s a routine for display exits (“IFN>0PRINT” NORTH”; :B(2)=N”), a player input routine, special routines for movement, taking, and dropping, and then the whole list of other verb routines. This is followed by DATA statements for objects and verbs, and then — quite importantly for me, as you’ll see — the line</p>
<blockquote><p>3000 PRINTA$” WHAT?”:RESUME390</p></blockquote>
<p>What’s going on here is that the game is set up to automatically send errors to 3000. The intent is for anything that confuses the parser past what it can understand has at least some grace and a sequence reset back to resetting the parser. In practice, it means that <strong>if there’s a bug in the main code, it will stop what’s going on and jump straight to WHAT</strong>, as opposed to breaking out with a custom error message explaining what’s wrong, making the game much harder to debug.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I only realized what was going on fairly late in my process of debugging Magical Journey.</p>
<p><img data-attachment-id="32995" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag22-2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag22" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif?w=799" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32995" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif?w=1000" alt="" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag22.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>For a while, I thought the issue above was potentially some sort of parser misdirection, but no; in the portion of the code that handles removing and adding objects to the player’s inventory, there was a straightforward typo. See if you can spot it:</p>
<blockquote><p>1100 FORK2-1TO5:IFC$(K2)=H$(K3)THENC$(K2)=R$:GOSUB1150:RETURN:ELSENEXT:RETURN</p></blockquote>
<p>That should be K2<strong>=</strong>1 to 5, with an equal sign, not a minus sign.</p>
<p>Or consider the hungry dwarf I gave a screenshot of last time:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32963" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag14/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag14" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32963" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>There’s a farmhouse with an oven, pie filling, and pie crust, and you can BAKE PIE with them all together, but after YOU HAVE JUST BAKED A RHUBARB PIE. the game told me WHAT? and gave me no item. Spot the error:</p>
<blockquote><p>810 PRINT”YOU HAVE JUST BAKED A RHUBARB PIE.”:PE=1:A$(59)=”RHUBARB PIE”:H$=”59)=A$(59):A(59)=25:K3=21:R$=””:GOSUB1100:K3=25:GOSUB1100:M$=””:K3=21:GOSUB1200:K3=25:GOSUB1200:GOTO5000</p></blockquote>
<p>A few more along these lines happened, so I was simultaneously exploring the map and then every once in a while searching the source code for a misplaced character. This was as close to the metal as adventuring gets. (I also hit one inexplicable bug at the very end which I’ll get into later.)</p>
<p>Fortunately, the game itself was extremely simple in terms of puzzles. Find SNAKE FOOD, it goes to some RATTLESNAKES. </p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33006" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag37/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag37" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-33006" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag37.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>A GIANT CHICKEN wants to eat some CORN. </p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_33001" style="width: 809px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33001" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33001" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag35/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag35" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>This leaves a golden egg.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-33001" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag35.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /><p id="caption-attachment-33001" class="wp-caption-text">This leaves a golden egg.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>For an only slightly more elaborate example, some FLYPAPER was next to some FLIES was near a GIANT KILLER FROG.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33005" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag31/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag31" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-33005" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag31.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>The meta-map of the game seems slightly elaborate…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33003" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png" data-orig-size="835,800" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-03-05 201203" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=835" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-33003" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=585&h=560 585w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=150&h=144 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=300&h=287 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png?w=768&h=736 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-201203.png 835w" sizes="(max-width: 585px) 100vw, 585px" /></p>
<p>…but for the most part there is only a handful of obstacles that block your way. In addition to the pie mentioned, a troll needs a toll which you can offer with a SILVER DOLLAR (not marked as a treasure) found down a pit. Even a dragon is relatively easy to defeat.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_33007" style="width: 809px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33007" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33007" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/maf47/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="maf47" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Two rooms away are a GAS MASK and some SLEEPING GAS, and the dragon is described as wide awake.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-33007" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/maf47.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /><p id="caption-attachment-33007" class="wp-caption-text">Two rooms away are a GAS MASK and some SLEEPING GAS, and the dragon is described as wide awake.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>The only part slightly messy to juggle is that the game can return you to the start in two cases; in one case (passing through a dwarf house) you need to take the warp back, because it puts you at a treasure (a gold watch) before returning to the starting area.</p>
<p>To get back to the starting area to the main junction you <em>need</em> the shovel, so if you’ve left it behind, this means your game is softlocked, which is kind of rude for what is clearly intended as a beginner’s game.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_33009" style="width: 809px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33009" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33009" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag38/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag38" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>The only slightly less obvious puzzle; you throw sneezing powder to defeat a MADMAN swinging an ax. </p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-33009" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag38.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /><p id="caption-attachment-33009" class="wp-caption-text">The only slightly less obvious puzzle; you throw sneezing powder to defeat a MADMAN swinging an ax.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>My major hang-up turned out to be at the very end. Quite inexplicably, after getting in the cave past the dragon, and heading west, the game decided to always crash, or at least stop with WHAT? when trying to show the room name, then end up in endless loop. This turned out to be the last room.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_33012" style="width: 1010px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33012" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33012" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png" data-orig-size="1073,621" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-03-05 202325" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>The end room is marked in red.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=1000&h=579" alt="" width="1000" height="579" class="size-full wp-image-33012" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=1000&h=579 1000w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=150&h=87 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=300&h=174 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=768&h=444 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png?w=1024&h=593 1024w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/screenshot-2024-03-05-202325.png 1073w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><p id="caption-attachment-33012" class="wp-caption-text">The end room is marked in red.</p></div>
<p>I still have no idea the reason for the crash. I ended up having to add some code to essentially hack my way out of the bug:</p>
<blockquote><p>300 N=0:W=0:E=0:S=0:U=0:D=0:Y=0:CLS:PRINT”YOU’RE “;:IF(DK=0)*(A>5)DT=1<br />
305 IF A = 72 GOTO 82<br />
310 GOTO10</p></blockquote>
<p>Line 305 is mine. Rather than going to the select-a-room routine, I just have the game jump directly to the relevant line that displays the room name (82). This bypasses whatever is going on with line 10 to have a bug.</p>
<p>With this fix in place, I could finally see the last room.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33015" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag53/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="MAG53" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-33015" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag53.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>Pressing the button congratulates you and then tells you how many of the 17 treasures you found.</p>
<blockquote><p>6000 PRINT”CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE MADE IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH AND BACK.”:IFNT=17PRINT”YOU FOUND ALL 17 TREASURES.”:GOTO6100<br />
6050 PRINT”YOU ONLY FOUND”NT”TREASURES, HOWEVER. THERE ARE”17-NT”STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE.”<br />
6100 INPUT”TO PARTAKE ANOTHER JOURNEY, HIT “;A$:RUN</p></blockquote>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="33017" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/05/magical-journey-beginners-and-experts/mag54/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="MAG54" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-33017" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/mag54.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>I should possibly be thankful for the bugs. Other than the interest of the “rucksack” holding all treasures while ignoring the inventory limit, there wasn’t much of theoretical interest, but I essentially had to study all of the source code in order to make it to the end. The adventure wasn’t an abstract magical journey as much as one programmer’s journey — badly typed by someone else in the past — as interpreted by some quirky source code.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some of the rooms remain inaccessible, including one to the west of a room “near the magic garden”. You’ll see on my meta map it currently goes to the opening forest, but it isn’t supposed to do that — it is supposed to go to a tool shed where you can find a ring.</p>
<p>Feel free to <a href="https://github.com/jasonbdyer/classic-basic/blob/master/MJOURNEYFIX.BAS">check the source yourself</a> to try a diagnosis (including my extra line 305). It seems to have trouble with room numbers 72 or larger (jumping to lines 82 and up). Alternately, you can download <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11e4V_mmaMvDm5LWYHpT-OvlJ4ci4ec7V/view?usp=sharing">a disk here</a> I have prepared that can be run directly with the emulator trs80gp (just drag and drop the file on the emulator). I can’t guarantee there aren’t more bugs. (For example, colors of keys will change when you drop them, but at least that isn’t important for winning the game.)</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogZarf Updates: The end of my term on the IFTF board of directorstag:blog.zarfhome.com,2024-03-05:/2024/02/departing-iftf-board2024-03-05T15:48:22+00:00
<p>I am delighted, yes I said delighted, to announce that today is my last day on the <a href="https://iftechfoundation.org/directors-advisory-board/">IFTF board of directors</a>. I have been on the board since the beginning -- that being 2016 -- but now I depart. With me ends the era of the oh-gee IFTF founders. (Fellow founding member Jason <a href="https://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2023-07-09-celebrating-our-new-iftf-president.html">termed out</a> a year ago.)</p>
<p>(You may wonder how it is that two founding members reached their term limits a year apart. Well, we didn't set up the organization with term limits. We added that idea a few years ago. When we did, we rigged the "start times" so that our terms would be staggered rather than ending all at once. It's easier on the new board members if the old ones drop off one at a time.)</p>
<p>Anyway! I am assuredly not done with IFTF. I'm still Treasurer, for a start. Which means I still have board meetings on my calendar. (We're not a big enough organization to have separate board meetings and officer meetings.) I'm also still head of the <a href="https://ifarchive.org">IF Archive team</a>, and I'm co-chair (or maybe chair, it's fuzzy) of <a href="https://narrascope.org">NarraScope</a>. And I'm involved with a couple of other programs to varying degrees.</p>
<p>But I am definitely tapering down my involvement with IFTF. Eight years is plenty long enough; and it's no good for any single person to be load-bearing. So:</p>
<p><em>The board:</em> We have <a href="https://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2024-01-02-iftf-welcomes-four-new-members-of-the-board-of-directors.html">four new board members</a> as of January. Awesome! Perhaps after I'm gone, or after Liza Daly terms out in July, the board will seek a few more fresh members. I don't know! That won't be my decision! How sweet it is to say that.</p>
<p><em>Treasurer:</em> There is no official time limit to the Treasurer role, but I'm ready to start shuffling it off. This will necessarily be a slow process, as the Treasurer has accumulated a lot of random responsibilities over the past eight years. (Due to me saying "Never mind, I'll do it" way too many times.) The Treasurer is IFTF's de-facto password manager, 2FA key holder, back-end sysadmin, and a few more odd tasks. I would like to have an understudy for these jobs by the end of this year. (Maybe more than one person? We could split them up.) Then we can start figuring out a schedule to hand them over.</p>
<p><em>NarraScope:</em> This is a high-intensity job for half of each year (November through June). I've been either chair or co-chair since 2022. <a href="https://narrascope.org">NarraScope 2024</a> is cruising along nicely towards its instantiation in Rochester; but burnout is real, my friends. Someone else will have to step up for NarraScope 2025.</p>
<p><em>IF Archive:</em> Nah, I'll hold onto this one. It's chill. <code>:)</code></p>
<p><em>You may ask:</em> How do I get involved with IFTF? Obviously, both Treasurer and NarraScope lead are high-responsibility positions, so we'll be looking for people who have been around the organization -- or at least known in the community -- for a while now. But that means we're also looking for people to, you know, <em>start</em> hanging around the organization.</p>
<p>How does that works? The current answer is to check out the <a href="https://intfiction.org/c/general/iftf-news/68">IFTF News</a> section of the forum. But we haven't done a great job of keeping that up to date. Sounds like something that needs a volunteer, honestly.</p>
<p>And what's next for <a href="https://pr-if.org/doc/play-if-card/">Crazy Uncle Zarf</a>? (Aside from continuing to run the Archive, and being a general advice-giver for all IF activities.) Heck if I know. Maybe I'll mess around with secret IF tool projects. Maybe I'll finish that poetry idle game idea. Or the LED project. Go to more local dance practices. Anything could happen.</p>
Zarf Updateshttps://blog.zarfhome.com/Zarf Updates: Spring narrative gamestag:blog.zarfhome.com,2024-03-05:/2024/02/spring-narrative-games2024-03-05T02:39:21+00:00
<p>Is it spring? It's less winter, anyhow. If I play another batch of games in April I'll need to invent "second spring" for the blog post title.</p>
<ul>
<li>Universe For Sale</li>
<li>Harmony: The Fall of Reverie</li>
<li>The Roottrees are Dead</li>
</ul>
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<hr />
<h2>Universe For Sale</h2>
<ul>
<li>by Tmesis Studio -- <a href="https://tmesis-studio.itch.io/universe-for-sale">game site</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A sweet, bizarre little point-and-click set in a post-industrial slum floating in, or rather sinking into, the cloud-decks of Jupiter. The environmental shields are falling apart so people put up tarps to keep out the corrosive hydrogen rain.</p>
<p>("Sounds more like Venus, amirite," I mutter, but that's just me.)</p>
<p>You alternately play a nameless walking skeleton and Lila, who stirs universes up out of a teacup. It gets weirder from there. There's mechanical orangutans. I think I played for an hour before I realized that the skeleton's head isn't even attached; it floats three inches above his collar. (He practices an ascetic discpline of detachment, see.) Also he keeps waking up in a rubble-strewn alley.</p>
<p>I'd say the sheer over-the-top imagination of the world somewhat outstrips the gameplay, which is a pretty standard walk-and-talk adventure with occasional puzzles. Chapters are broken up by Lila's day job, making universes to order for petty cash. This is, again, picturesque -- but not all that deep as a game mechanic, and not all that integrated with the rest of the game.</p>
<p>File it with <em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2023/10/summer-wowzers">Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood</a></em>, maybe; ambitious ideas and gorgeous art that don't entirely cohere into a game. But it's definitely worth a look anyway.</p>
<h2>Harmony: The Fall of Reverie</h2>
<ul>
<li>by Don't Nod -- <a href="https://dont-nod.com/en/games/harmony/">game site</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A visual novel about corporate oppression and popular revolution in a Mediterranean city.</p>
<p>On the face of it that sounds like <em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2024/01/2024-igf-nominees-visual-novels">Solace State</a></em>, and indeed there's a strong comparison between the games. You've got "Mono Konzern", a monopolistic FaceGoogMazon whose surveillance drones also offer same-day package delivery. You've got vibrant street communities being squeezed out by corporate growth and police brutality. You've got cinematic 3D set dressing behind the hand-drawn characters.</p>
<p><em>Solace State</em> came off as rather simplistic, though -- a sort of cartoon guide to social activism. <em>Harmony</em> digs deeper. You get a better sense of people's lives, first in the gradually worsening utopia-dystopia of the island, then in the shock of action, then in the aftermath. It's lightly sketched, but these are real people, and their lives go to hell over the course of the story. You choose the consequences but you don't get easy answers. Fighting the system hurts like hell -- that's what <em>Harmony</em> gets right.</p>
<p>The other half of the story is the Aspirations, six god-like figures from the island's ancient history. Your contact with them and with Reverie, their spiritual realm, will help you guide the city's fate.</p>
<p>The obvious comparison <em>there</em> is <em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2023/10/summer-wowzers">Stray Gods</a></em>. This isn't Greece and the Aspirations aren't familiar gods, but they serve the same role: invisible figures who give you an edge in the real world as they entangle you in their backstage schemes.</p>
<p>Sadly, <em>Harmony</em> has no singing. (Despite the title.) It doesn't really try to bring the Aspirations into the story, either. They're NPCs, with voice acting and nice concept art, but they're not <em>characters</em>. They have no personalities or inner lives. (One of the Aspiration smooched a human, it turns out, but the plot whooshes past this with barely a nervous glance.)</p>
<p>This is not a complaint about the writing. The game's <em>human</em> characters are richly drawn and engaging. They're who the game is about. But the six Aspirations are basically just literalizations of your story stats. You make choices and the stats go up and down: "bliss", "chaos", "truth", and so forth. (I almost wonder if the game wasn't written <em>only</em> about the human world, with the Aspirations personified in late in design.)</p>
<p>It's rather a disappointment after <em>Stray Gods</em>, whose Idols are all leading lights of the story and show-stealers to boot. (If you didn't buy into <a href="https://stray-gods.fandom.com/wiki/Pan">Pan</a>'s smirk the minute you met him, I don't know who you are.) </p>
<p>On the other hand, the story stats are a serious part of this game! If you imagine narrative games on a scale from "hidden stats" (<em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2019/05/heavens-vault-design-ruminations">Heaven's Vault</a></em>) to "exposed mechanics" (<em>Disco Elysium</em>), <em>Harmony</em> is doing its best to bust through the "exposed" end and go a half-block farther up the street.</p>
<p>You are Reverie's newest Oracle, see, and your Oracular power is seeing the plot graph. In every chapter, you can see exactly how much "bliss", "power", "chaos", etc you need to reach any given chapter-ending. And then you can map out the choice-route needed to get there. Similarly, the branches blocked out by your previous actions are mapped out, taunting you with their inaccessibility.</p>
<p>This certainly puts a spotlight on the narrative limitations of branches-and-stats game design. But then it says, look, this is the game, let's play it by the rules. I repeatedly found myself caught between the story arc I wanted (say, supporting the city's community ideals, its "bond" stat) and the actions I would have to take to get there (spending a day with my estranged mother rather than my forlorn stepsister, "bond" vs "bliss"). My ideals prevented me from making time with my hot corporate crush -- not as an explicit choice, but as a matter of what stats I needed when. This is good! It's the narrative tension any choice-based game would go for; it's just laid out for you to plan.</p>
<p>Well, mostly laid out. The board is sometimes veiled for a few steps ahead. It's also sometimes unclear which paths will block out or uncover what other paths. The game <em>wants</em> the map to be explicit, but I still stumbled into an unintended path a few times, just by misreading the presentation. I may take another run at the story (hot corporate crush awaits!) -- but, sigh, so many new games to play.</p>
<p>(That's a whole different source of narrative tension.)</p>
<p>Anyhow: an interesting narrative experiment and an excellent story overall.</p>
<h2>The Roottrees are Dead</h2>
<ul>
<li>by JJohnstonGames -- <a href="https://jjohnstongames.itch.io/the-roottrees-are-dead">game site</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The latest hit in what I've started calling the static deduction genre. (C.f. <em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2019/01/2019-igf-nominees-my-favorites">Obra Dinn</a></em>, <em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2022/11/a-couple-more-recent-puzzle-games">Golden Idol</a></em>. "Static deduction" because you're not a detective running around questioning people; you're outside a frozen world, looking at snapshots.)</p>
<p>The Roottrees are a five-generation dynasty of candy magnates from western Pennsylvania. Or rather, they <em>were</em>, because the most famous scions of that line just died in a plane crash. You're handed a blank family tree and ordered to fill in the names, faces, and professions of every blood descendant of old Elias Roottree. It's 1998 and you have a state-of-the-art terrible web browser. Get searching.</p>
<p>The game is rough around the edges, but it's very playable. I was able to solve all the core questions, most of the optional collateral info, and got half credit on the final bonus round.</p>
<p>The rough spots are about tracking your clues. You have a journal which automatically gets copies of all photos and documents that you find. That's great -- easy to browse, with a cue for which pages still conceal useful leads. But the journal <em>doesn't</em> track your web searches. If you found a name or reference that needs more followup, you have to remember what you typed to get back to it. (Or take extensive notes, which is what I did.) And repeating a search is deliberately annoying, complete with 9600-baud page loads and fake modem screech. It's cute for the first five minutes.</p>
<p>(Really, I think all this needs is a browser history. Say, a journal page that lists every web search term that <em>didn't</em> get a generic "404 nothing interesting".)</p>
<p>The other problem I ran into: it's supposed to be obvious that you should web-search the name of every periodical you see mentioned. Then it's entered into your library list and you can search <em>that periodical</em> for more specific articles. This is a great idea -- contextual search results -- but I somehow missed the causality of <em>how</em> you get the periodical listed. I stumbled into some of them very late, and it seriously held back some of the intended deductive tracks.</p>
<p>But, on the other hand, most of what you need can be approached from multiple angles. I was never in real danger of getting stuck.</p>
<p>I should also say something about the art. This is a mostly-solo project and the developer went whole-hog for AI-generated art. I give them a pass on that; the game needed a lot of portraits in specific styles on zero budget. And this was just before AI discourse got <em>completely</em> toxic. But everybody's a wee bit creepy-glossy all the way through, and I saw at least one classic AI <a href="https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1281.html">hand-blob</a>.</p>
<p>Also, the AI-generated art may possibly be misleading. The very first puzzle (the tutorial, so no big spoiler) is a photo of three young Roottrees; you get a clue that one has earrings and another is wearing plaid. Except, as <a href="https://www.wurb.com/stack/archives/7578">Carl Muckenhoupt noticed</a>, there <em>is</em> no plaid -- the shirt has black and red stripes.</p>
<p>Now, I absolutely zipped past that when I played. I saw black and red and thought "Yeah, that looks like your standard plaid flannel shirt." But it's not, and that's a very AI sort of mistake to make. </p>
<p>For what it's worth, most of the clue details in the photos (the earrings, for a start) seem to be photoshopped in <em>on top of</em> the AI art. So they're generally reliable. But if you have a keen eye -- which I obviously don't -- you may go off track.</p>
<p>That's a side note, though. It's a great solving experience, thoughtfully designed, with a lot of attention to period atmosphere through the family's generations. Highly recommended if you're into this sort of game.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> After writing the above, I learned that the author is working on <a href="https://jjohnstongames.itch.io/the-roottrees-are-dead/devlog/690887/the-roottrees-are-dead-but-for-real-this-time">remaking the game</a> for a Steam release. ("Starting over from scratch", the author's words.) New hand-drawn art, revamped UI. See <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2754380/The_Roottrees_are_Dead/">Steam page</a>. Looks like they're already on top of the browser-history idea; yay.</p>
<p>I am delighted that this is happening. <em>Roottrees</em> is already a hit and it'll be worth the upgrade as a paid release. I admit that I'll miss the pseudo-photorealistic style -- that was one of the hallmarks of the game, uncanny-valley though it was -- but AI illustration is clearly not saleable to the game-playing audience at this point. Never mind the risk of visual inconsistencies. The new art on the Steam preview looks good. (Yes, it's got plaid.)</p>
Zarf Updateshttps://blog.zarfhome.com/Interactive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarian: The Rise of POMG, Part 4: A World for the Takinghttps://www.filfre.net/?p=58152024-03-01T17:16:37+00:00
<p>Just as the <em>Ultima Online</em> beta test was beginning, Electronic Arts was initiating the final phase of its slow-motion takeover of Origin Systems. In June of 1997, the mother ship in California sent down two Vice Presidents to take over completely in Texas, integrate Origin well and truly into the EA machine, and end once and for all any semblance of independence for the studio. Neil Young became Origin’s new General Manager on behalf of EA, while Chris Yates became Chief Technical Officer. Both men were industry veterans.</p>
<p>Appropriately enough given that he was about to become the last word on virtual Britannia, Neil Young was himself British. He attributes his career choice to the infamously awful English weather. “There are a lot of people in the games industry that come from the UK,” he says. “I think it’s because the weather is so bad that you don’t have a lot to do, so you either go into a band or teach yourself to program.” He chose the latter course at a time when <a href="/2013/12/this-tormented-business-part-1">computer games in Britain</a> were still being sold on cassette tape for a couple of quid. After deciding to forgo university in favor of a programming job at a tiny studio called Imagitec Design in 1988, he “quickly realized there were more gifted engineers,” as he puts it, and “moved into producing.” Having made a name for himself in that role, he was lured to the United States by Virgin Interactive in 1992, then moved on to EA five years later, which organization had hand-picked him for the task of whipping its sometimes wayward and lackadaisical stepchild Origin into fighting shape.</p>
<p>Chris Yates had grown up amidst the opposite of English rain, hailing as he did from the desert gambler’s paradise Las Vegas. He was hired by the hometown studio Westwood Associates in 1988, where he worked as a programmer on games like <a href="/2017/03/opening-the-gold-box-part-5-all-that-glitters-is-not-gold"><em>Eye of the Beholder</em></a>, <em><a href="/2018/12/controlling-the-spice-part-3-westwoods-dune">Dune II</a>,</em> and <em><em><a href="/2019/01/life-on-the-grid">Lands of Lore</a></em></em>. In 1994, two years after Virgin acquired Westwood, he moved to Los Angeles to join the parent company. There he and Young became close friends as well as colleagues, such that they chose to go to EA together as a unit.</p>
<p>The two were so attractive to EA thanks not least to an unusual project which had occupied some of their time during their last year and a half or so at Virgin. Inspired by <a href="/2017/12/games-on-the-net-before-the-web-part-1-strategy-and-simulation"><em>Air Warrior</em></a>, the pioneering massively-multiplayer online flight simulator that had been running on the GEnie commercial online service since the late 1980s, a Virgin programmer named Rod Humble proposed in 1995 that his company invest in something similar, but also a bit simpler and more accessible: a massively-multiplayer version of <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/8872/asteroids/"><em>Asteroids</em></a>, the 1979 arcade classic whose roots stretched all the way back to <a href="https://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/one-two-three-four-i-declare-a-space-war/"><em>Spacewar!</em></a>, that urtext of videogaming. Neil Young and his friend Chris Yates went to bat for the project: Young making the business case for it as an important experiment that could lead to big windfalls later on, Yates pitching in to offer his exceptional technical expertise whenever necessary. Humble and a colleague named Jeff Paterson completed an alpha version of the game they called <em>SubSpace</em> in time to put it up on the Internet for an invitation-only testing round in December of 1995. Three months later, the server was opened to anyone who cared to download the client — still officially described as a beta version — and have at it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/the-rise-of-pomg-part-4-a-world-for-the-taking/subspace/" rel="attachment wp-att-5818"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5818" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/subspace-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/subspace-300x225.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/subspace-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/subspace.jpg 800w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a></p>
<p><em>SubSpace</em> was obviously a very different proposition from the likes of <em>Ultima Online</em>, but it fits in perfectly with this series’s broader interest in persistent online multiplayer gaming (or POMG as I’ve perhaps not so helpfully shortened it). For, make no mistake, the quality of persistence was as key to its appeal as it was to that of such earlier featured players in this series as Kali or Battle.net. <em>SubSpace</em> spawned squads and leagues and zones; it became an entire subculture unto itself, one that lived in and around the actual battles in space. The distinction between it and the games of Kali and Battle.net was that <em>SubSpace</em> was <em>massively</em> — or at least bigly — multiplayer. Whereas an online <a href="/2023/07/diablo"><em>Diablo</em></a> session was limited to four participants, <em>SubSpace</em> supported battles involving up to 250 players, sometimes indulging in crazy free-for-alls, more often sorted into two or more teams, each of them flying and fighting in close coordination. It thus quickly transcended <em>Asteroids</em> in its tactical dimensions as well as its social aspects — transcended even other deceptively complex games with the same roots, such as Toys for Bobs’s cult classic <a href="/2018/12/star-control-ii"><em>Star Control</em></a>. That it was playable at all over dial-up modem connections was remarkable; that it was so much fun to play and then to hang out in afterward, talking shop and taking stock, struck many of the thousands of players who stumbled across it as miraculous; that it was completely free for a good long time was the icing on the cake.</p>
<p>It remained that way because Virgin didn’t really know what else to do with it. When the few months that had been allocated to the beta test were about to run out, the fans raised such a hue and cry that Virgin gave in and left it up. And so the alleged beta test continued for more than a year, the happy beneficiary of corporate indecision. In one of his last acts before leaving Virgin, Neil Young managed to broker a sponsorship deal with Pepsi Cola, which gave <em>SubSpace</em> some actual advertising and another lease on life as a free-to-play game. During that memorable summer of the <em>Ultima Online</em> beta test, <em>SubSpace</em> was enjoying what one fan history calls its “greatest days” of all: “The population tripled in three months, and now there were easily 1500-plus people playing during peak times.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/the-rise-of-pomg-part-4-a-world-for-the-taking/4038041-subspace-windows-front-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-5819"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5819" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4038041-subspace-windows-front-cover-251x300.jpg" alt="" width="376" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4038041-subspace-windows-front-cover-251x300.jpg 251w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4038041-subspace-windows-front-cover.jpg 668w" sizes="(max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px" /></a></p>
<p>With the Pepsi deal about to run out, Virgin finally took <em>SubSpace</em> fully commercial in October of 1997, again just as <em>Ultima Online</em> was doing the same. Alas, it didn’t go so well for <em>SubSpace</em>. Virgin released it as a boxed retail game, with the promise that, once customers had plunked down the cash to buy it, access would be free in perpetuity. This didn’t prevent half or more of the existing user base from leaving the community, even as nowhere near enough new players joined to replace them. Virgin shut down the server in November of 1998; “in perpetuity” had turned out to be a much shorter span of time than anyone had anticipated.</p>
<p>As we’ve seen before in this series, however, the remaining hardcore <em>SubSpace </em>fans simply refused to let their community die. They put up their own servers — Virgin had made the mistake of putting all the code you needed to do so on the same disc as the client — and kept right on space-warring. You can still play <em>SubSpace</em> today, just as you can <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em>. A website dedicated to tracking the game’s “population statistics” estimated in 2015 that the community still had between 2000 and 3000 active members, of whom around 300 might be online at any given time; assuming these numbers are to be trusted, a bit of math reveals that those who like the game must <em>really</em> like it, spending 10 percent or more of their lives in it. That same year, fans put their latest version of the game, now known as <em>Subspace Continuum</em>, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum/">onto Steam</a> for free. Meanwhile its original father Rod Humble has gone on to a long and fruitful career in POMG, working on <em>Everquest</em>, <em>The Sims Online</em>, and <em>Second Life</em> among other projects.</p>
<hr />
<p><code> </code><br />
But we should return now to the summer of 1997 and to Origin Systems, to which Neil Young and Chris Yates came as some of the few people in existence who could boast not only of ideas about POMG but of genuine commercial experience in the field, thanks to <em>SubSpace</em>. EA hoped this experience would serve them well when it came to <em>Ultima Online</em>.</p>
<p>Which isn’t to say that the latter was the only thing they had on their plates: the sheer diversity of Young’s portfolio as an EA general manager reflects the confusion about what Origin’s identity as a studio should be going forward. There were of course the two perennials, <em>Ultima</em> — meaning for the moment at least <em>Ultima Online</em> — and <em>Wing Commander</em>, which was, as Young says today, “a little lost as a product.” <em>Wing Commander</em>, <em>the</em> franchise in computer gaming during the years immediately prior to <em>DOOM</em>, was becoming a monstrous anachronism by 1997. Shortly after the arrival of Young and Yates, Origin would release <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/486/wing-commander-prophecy/"><em>Wing Commander: Prophecy</em></a>, whose lack of the Roman numeral “V” that one expected to see in its name reflected a desire for a fresh start on a more sustainable model in this post-Chris Roberts era, with a more modest budget to go along with more modest cinematic ambitions. But instead of heralding the dawn of a new era, it would prove the franchise’s swan song; it and <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/1822/wing-commander-secret-ops/">its 1998 expansion pack</a> would be the last new <em>Wing Commander</em> computer games ever. Their intended follow-up, a third game in the <em>Wing Commander: Privateer</em> spinoff series of more free-form outer-space adventures, would be cancelled.</p>
<p>In addition to <em>Ultima</em> and <em>Wing Commander</em>, EA had chosen to bring under the Origin umbrella two product lines that were nothing like the games for which the studio had always been known. One was <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/group/8561/janes-combat-simulations/sort:date/">a line of military simulations</a> that bore the imprimatur of “Jane’s,” a print publisher which had been the source since the turn of the twentieth century of the definitive encyclopedias of military hardware of all types. The Jane’s simulations were overseen by one Andy Hollis, who had <a href="/2015/03/microproses-simulation-industrial-complex-or-the-ballad-of-sid-and-wild-bill">begun making games of this type for MicroProse</a> back in the early 1980s. The other line involved another MicroProse alum — in fact, none other than Sid Meier, whose name had entered the lexicon of many a gaming household by serving as the prefix before such titles as <a href="/2015/07/pirates"><em>Pirates!</em></a>, <a href="/2017/03/railroad-tycoon"><em>Railroad Tycoon</em></a>, <a href="/2018/03/the-game-of-everything-part-1-making-civilization"><em>Civilization</em></a>, and <a href="/2020/12/ethics-in-strategy-gaming-part-2-colonization"><em>Colonization</em></a>. Meier and two other MicroProse veterans had just set up a studio of their own, known as Firaxis Games, with a substantial investment from EA, who planned to release their products under the Origin Systems label. Origin was becoming, in other words, EA’s home for all of its games that were made first and usually exclusively for computers rather than for the consoles that now provided the large majority of EA’s revenues; the studio had, it seemed, more value in the eyes of the EA executive suite as a brand than as a working collective.</p>
<p>Still, this final stage of the transition from independent subsidiary to branch office certainly could have been even more painful than it was. Neil Young and Chris Yates were fully aware of how their arrival would be seen down in Austin, and did everything they could to be good sports and fit into the office culture. Brit-in-Texas Young was the first to come with the fish-out-of-water jokes at his own expense — “I was expecting a flat terrain with lots of cowboys, cacti, and horses, so I was pleasantly surprised,” he said of Austin — and both men rolled up their sleeves alongside Richard Garriott to serve the rest of the company a turkey dinner at Thanksgiving, a longtime Origin tradition.</p>
<div id="attachment_5820" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/the-rise-of-pomg-part-4-a-world-for-the-taking/young_yates/" rel="attachment wp-att-5820"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5820" class="wp-image-5820 size-full" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/young_yates.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="305" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/young_yates.jpg 286w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/young_yates-281x300.jpg 281w" sizes="(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5820" class="wp-caption-text">Neil Young and Chris Yates on the Thanksgiving chow line.</p></div>
<p>Young and Yates had received instructions from above that <em>Ultima Online</em> absolutely had to ship by the end of September. Rather than cracking the whip, they tried to cajole and josh their way to that milestone as much as possible. They agreed to attend the release party in drag if the deadline was met; then Young went one step farther, promising Starr Long a kiss on the lips. Yates didn’t go that far, but he did agree to grow a beard to commemorate the occasion, even as Richard Garriott, whose upper lip hadn’t seen the sun since he’d graduated from high school, agreed to shave his.</p>
<p>Young and Yates got it done, earning for themselves the status of, if not <em>the</em> unsung heroes of <em>Ultima Online</em>, two among a larger group of same. The core group of ex-MUDders whose dream and love <em>Ultima Online</em> had always been could probably have kept running beta tests for years to come, had not these outsiders stepped in to set the technical agenda. “That meant trading off features with technology choices and decisions every minute of the day,” says Young. He brought in one Rich Vogel, who had set up and run the server infrastructure for <em>Meridian 59</em> at The 3DO Company, to do the same for <em>Ultima Online</em>. In transforming Origin Systems into a maintainer of servers and a seller of subscriptions, he foreshadowed a transition that would eventually come to the games industry in general, from games as boxed products to gaming as a service. These tasks did not involve the sexy, philosophically stimulating ideas about virtual worlds and societies with which Raph Koster and his closest colleagues spent their time and which will always capture the lion’s share of the attention in articles like this one, but the work was no less essential for all that, and no less of a paradigm shift in its way.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/the-rise-of-pomg-part-4-a-world-for-the-taking/4050350-ultima-online-windows-front-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-5822"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5822" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4050350-ultima-online-windows-front-cover-250x300.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4050350-ultima-online-windows-front-cover-250x300.jpg 250w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4050350-ultima-online-windows-front-cover.jpg 667w" sizes="(max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px" /></a></p>
<p>So, the big day came and the deadline was met: <em>Ultima Online</em> shipped on September 24, 1997, three days before <em>Meridian 59</em> would celebrate its first anniversary. The sleek black box was an end and a beginning at the same time. Young and Yates did their drag show, Starr Long got his kiss, and, most shockingly of all, Richard Garriott revealed his naked upper lip to all and sundry. (Opinions were divided as to whether the mangy stubble which Chris Yates deigned to grow before picking up his razor again really qualified as a beard or not.) And then everyone waited to see what would happen next.</p>
<div id="attachment_5821" style="width: 259px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/03/the-rise-of-pomg-part-4-a-world-for-the-taking/yates_garriott/" rel="attachment wp-att-5821"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5821" class="size-full wp-image-5821" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/yates_garriott.jpg" alt="" width="249" height="263" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5821" class="wp-caption-text">A (semi-)bearded Chris Yates and a rare sight indeed: a clean-shaven Richard Garriott.</p></div>
<p>EA made and shipped to stores all over the country 50,000 copies of <em>Ultima Online</em>, accompanying it with a marketing campaign that was, as <em>Wired</em> magazine described it, of “Hollywood proportions.” The virtual world garnered attention everywhere, from CNN to <em>The New York Times</em>. These mainstream organs covered it breathlessly as the latest harbinger of humanity’s inevitable cyber-future, simultaneously bracing and unnerving. Flailing about for a way to convey some sense of the virtual world’s scope, <em>The New York Times</em> noted that it would take 38,000 computer monitors — enough to fill a football field — to display it in its entirety at one time. Needless to say, the <a href="/2016/11/the-prophet-of-cyberspace">William Gibson</a> quotes, all “collective hallucinations” and the like, flew thick and fast, as they always did to mark events like this one.</p>
<p>Three weeks after the launch, 38,000 copies of <em>Ultima Online </em>had been sold and EA was spooling up the production line again to make another 65,000. Sales would hit the 100,000 mark within three months of the release. Such numbers were more than gratifying. EA knew that 100,000 copies sold of this game ought to be worth far more to its bottom line than 100,000 copies of any other game would have been, given that each retail sale hopefully represented only the down payment on a long-running subscription at $10 per month. For its publisher, <em>Ultima Online</em> would be the gift that kept on giving.</p>
<p>In another sense, however, the sales figures were a problem. When <em>Ultima Online</em> went officially live, it did so on just three shards: the Atlantic and Pacific shards from the beta test, plus a new Great Lakes one to handle the middle of the country. Origin was left scrambling to open more to meet the deluge of subscribers. Lake Superior came up on October 3, Baja on October 10, Chesapeake on October 16, Napa Valley on November 14, Sonoma on December 13, Catskills on December 22. And still it wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>Origin’s estimates of how many players a single server could reliably support proved predictably overoptimistic. But rather than dial back on the number of players they allowed inside, thereby ensuring that each of them who did get in could have a reasonably enjoyable experience, they kept trying to cover the gap between technical theory and reality by hacking their code on the fly. As a result, <em>Ultima Online</em> became simultaneously the most loved and most hated game in the country. When it all came together, it was magic for many of its players. But truth be told, that didn’t happen anywhere near as often as one might have wished in that first year or so. Extreme lag, inexplicable glitches, dropped connections, and even total server crashes were the more typical order of the day. Of course, with almost everyone who surfed the Web still relying on dial-up modems running over <a href="/2022/02/a-web-around-the-world-part-4-from-telegraphy-to-telephony">wires that had been designed to carry voices</a> rather than computer data, slowdowns and dropped connections were a reality of daily online life even for those who weren’t attempting to log onto virtual worlds. This created a veneer of plausible deniability, which Origin’s tech-support people, for lack of any other suggestions or excuses to offer, leaned on perhaps a bit too heavily. After all, who could say for sure that the problem any individual player might be having wasn’t downstream from Origin’s poor overtaxed server?</p>
<p>Weaselly excuses like these led to the first great act of civil disobedience by the residents of Britannia, just a few weeks after the launch, when hundreds of players gathered outside Lord British’s castle, stripped themselves naked, broke into the throne room, drank gallons of wine, and proceeded to disgorge all of it onto Richard Garriott’s virtual furniture, whilst chanting in unison their demands for a better, stabler virtual world. The world’s makers were appalled, but also weirdly gratified. What better sign of a budding civic life could there be than a full-on political protest? “We were all watching and thinking it was a grand statement about the project,” says Richard Garriott. “As unhappy as they were about the game, they voiced their unhappiness in the context of the game.” Much of what happened inside <em>Ultima Online</em> during the first year especially had the same quality of being amazing for philosophers of virtual worlds to witness, but stressful for the practical administrators who were trying to turn this one into a sustainable money tree. The rub was that the two categories were combined in the very same people, who were left feeling conflicted to say the least.</p>
<p>The journals of hardcore gaming, hardly known for their stoicism in the face of hype on most days, were ironically more reserved and skeptical than the mainstream press on the subject of <em>Ultima Online</em>, perchance because they were viewing the virtual world less as a harbinger of some collective cyber-future and more as a game that their readers might wish to, you know, actually play. <em>Computer Gaming World</em> wittily titled its scathing review, buried on page 162 and completely unmentioned on the cover of the issue in question, simply “Uh-Oh.” Among the litany of complaints were “numerous and never-ending bugs, horrible lag time, design issues [that] lead to repetitive and time-consuming activities, and [an] unbalanced economy.” The magazine did admit that “<em>Ultima Online</em> <em> could</em> become a truly great game. But we can’t review potential, we can only review concrete product.” Editor-in-chief Johnny L. Wilson, for his part, held out little hope for improvement. “<em>Ultima Online</em> begins with hubris and ends in Greek tragedy,” he said. “The hubris is a result of being unwilling to learn from others’ mistakes. The tragedy is that it could have been so much more.” Randy Farmer, co-creator of the earlier would-be virtual world <a href="/2015/07/a-new-force-in-games-part-2-a-habitat-in-cyberspace"><em>Habitat</em></a>, expressed a similar sentiment, saying that “Origin seems to have ignored many of the lessons that our industry has learned in the last ten years of building online worlds. They’re making the same mistakes that first-time virtual-world builders always make.”</p>
<p>The constant crashes and long periods of unexplained down time associated with a service for which people were paying good money constituted a corporate lawyer’s worst nightmare — or a different sort of lawyer’s wet dream. One of these latter named George Schultz began collecting signatures from Origin’s most disgruntled customers within weeks, filing a class-action lawsuit in San Diego at the beginning of March of 1998. Exhibit A was the copy right there on the back of the box, promising “a living, growing world where thousands of real people discover real fantasy and adventure, 24 hours a day, every day of the year,” with all of it taking place “in real time.” This was, claimed Schultz, a blatant case of false advertising. “We’re not trying to tell anyone how to design a good or a bad game,” he said. “What it’s about is holding Origin and EA to the promises they made on the box, in their advertising, and [in] the manual. It’s about the misrepresentations they’ve made. A big problem with the gaming industry is that they think there are some special rules that only apply to them.”</p>
<p>Whatever the truth of that last claim, there was no denying that just about half of the learning curve of <em>Ultima Online</em> was learning to navigate around the countless bugs and technical quirks. For example, Origin took down each shard once per day for a backup and a “therapeutic” reboot that was itself a testament to just what a shaky edifice the software and hardware were. When the server came back up again, it restored the state of the world from the last backup. But said state was a snapshot in time from one hour <em>before</em> the server went down. There was, in other words, an hour every day during which everything you did in virtual Britannia was doomed to be lost; this was obviously not a time to go on any epic, treasure- and experience-point-rich adventures. Yet such things were documented nowhere; one learned them only through the proverbial school of hard knocks.</p>
<p>In their defense, Origin was sailing into completely uncharted waters with <em>Ultima Online</em>. Although there had been online virtual worlds before, dating all the way back to that first MUD of 1978 or 1979, none of them — no, not even <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em> — had been as expansive, sophisticated, and most of all popular as these shards of Britannia. Most of the hardware technologies that would give rise to the era of Web 2.0, from DSL in homes to VPS’s in data centers, existed only as blueprints; ditto most of the software. No one had ever made a computer game before that required this much care and feeding after the initial sale. And it wasn’t as if the group entrusted with maintaining the beast was a large one. Almost the entirety of the <em>Ultima IX</em> team which had been parachuted in six months before the launch to just get the world done already was pulled out just as abruptly as soon as it started accepting paying subscribers, leaving behind a crew of maintainers that was little bigger than the original team of ex-MUDders who had labored in obscurity for so long before catching the eye of EA’s management. The idea that maintaining a virtual world might require almost as much manpower and ongoing creative effort as making it in the first place was too high a mental hurdle for even otherwise clever folks like Neil Young and Chris Yates to clear at this point.</p>
<p>Overwhelmed as they were, the maintainers began to rely heavily on unpaid volunteers from the community of players to do much of the day-to-day work of administrating the world, just as was the practice on MUDs. But <em>Ultima Online</em> ran on a vastly larger scale than even the most elaborate MUDs, making it hard to keep tabs on these volunteer overseers. While some were godsends, putting in hours of labor every week to make Britannia a better place for their fellow players, others were corrupted by their powers, manipulating the levers they had to hand to benefit their friends and punish their enemies. Then, too, the volunteer system was another legal quagmire, one that would doubtless have sent EA’s lawyers running screaming from the room if anyone had bothered to ask them about it before it was rolled out; sure enough, it would eventually lead to another lawsuit, this one more extended, serious, and damaging than the first.</p>
<p>In the meanwhile, though, most players did not rally behind the first lawsuit to anything like the degree that George Schultz might have been hoping. The fact was that even the ones who had vomited all over Lord British’s throne had done so because they loved their virtual Britannia and wanted to see it fixed rather than destroyed, as it would likely be if Schultz won the day. The suit concluded in a settlement at the end of 1998. The biggest concession on the part of the defendants was a rather weird one that gave no recompense to any individual inhabitant of virtual Britannia: EA agreed to donate $15,000 to the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation. Perhaps Schultz thought that it would be able to innovate up a more reliable virtual world.</p>
<p>While many of the technical problems that beset <em>Ultima Online </em>were only to be expected in the context of the times, some of the other obstacles to enjoying the virtual world were more puzzling. First and foremost among these was the ever-present issue of players killing other players, which created so much frustration that George Schultz felt compelled to explicitly wall it off from the breach-of-trust claims that were the basis of his lawsuit: “We’re not getting into whether there should be player-killing.” Given that it had been such a constant theme of life (and death) in virtual Britannia going all the way back to the alpha-testing phase, the MUDders might have taken more steps to address it before the launch. As it was, though, one senses that, having seen so many of their ideas about a virtual ecology and the like not survive contact with real players, having been forced to give up in so many ways on virtual Britannia as a truly self-sustaining, living world, they were determined to make this the scene of their last stand, the hill that they would either hold onto or die trying.</p>
<p>Their great white hope was still the one that Richard Garriott had been voicing in interviews since well before the world’s commercial debut: that purely social pressures would act as a constraint on player-killing — that, in short, their world would learn to police itself. In fact, the presence of player-killing might act as a spur to civilization — for, as Raph Koster said, “cultures define and refine themselves through conflict.” They kept trying to implement systems that would nudge this particular culture in the right direction. They decided that, after committing murder five times, a player would be branded with literal scarlet letters: the color of his onscreen name would change from blue to red. Hopefully this would make him a pariah among his peers, while also making it very dangerous for him to enter a town, whose invulnerable computer-controlled guards would attack him on sight. The designers didn’t reckon with the fact that a virtual life is, no matter how much they might wish otherwise, simply not the same as a real life. Some percentage of players, presumably perfectly mild-mannered and law-abiding in the real world, reveled in the role of murderous outlaws online, taking the red letters of their name as a badge of honor rather than shame, the dangers of the cities as a challenge rather than a deterrent. To sneak past the city gates, creep up behind an unsuspecting newbie and stab her in the back, then get out of Dodge before the city watch appeared… now, that was good times. The most-wanted rolls posted outside the guard stations of Britannia became, says Raph Koster, “a high-score table for player killers.”</p>
<p>The MUDders’ stubborn inflexibility on this issue — an issue that was by all indications soon costing <em>Ultima Online</em> large numbers of customers — was made all the more inexplicable in the opinion of many players by the fact that it was, in marked contrast to so many of the other problems, almost trivial to address in programming terms. An “invulnerability” flag had long existed, to be applied not only to computer-controlled city guards but to special human-controlled personages such as Lord British to whom the normal laws of virtual time and space did not apply. All Origin had to do was add a few lines of code to automatically turn the flag on when a player walked into designated “safe” spaces. That way, you could have places where those who had signed up mostly in order to socialize could hang out without having to constantly look over their backs, along with other places where the hardcore pugilists could pummel one another to their heart’s content. Everyone would be catered to. Problem solved.</p>
<p>But Raph Koster and company refused to take this blindingly obvious step, having gotten it into their heads that to do so would be to betray their most cherished ideals. They kept tinkering around the edges of the problem, looking for a subtler solution that would preserve their world’s simulational autonomy. For example, they implemented a sort of karmic justice system, which dictated that players who had been evil during life would be resurrected after death only after losing a portion of their stats and skills. Inevitably, the player killers just took this as another challenge. Just don’t get killed, and you would never have to worry about it.</p>
<p>The end result was to leave the experience of tens of thousands of players in the unworthy hands of a relatively small minority of “griefers,” people who thrived on causing others pain and distress. Like all bullies, they preyed on the weak; their typical victims were the newbies, unschooled in the ways of defense, guiding characters with underwhelming statistics and no arms or armor to speak of. Such new players were, of course, the ones whose level of engagement with the game was most tentative, who were the mostly likely to just throw up their hands and go find something else to play after they’d been victimized once or twice, depriving Origin of potentially hundreds of dollars in future subscription revenue.</p>
<p>In light of this, it’s strange that no one from EA or Origin overrode the MUDders on this point. For his part, Richard Garriott was adamantly on their side, insisting that <em>Ultima Online</em> simply had to allow player-killing if it wasn’t to become a mockery of itself. It was up to the dissatisfied and victimized residents themselves to band together and turn Britannia into the type of world they wanted to live in; it wasn’t up to Origin to step in and fix their problems for them with a <em>deus ex machina</em>. “When we first launched <em>Ultima Online</em>, we set out to create a world that supported the evil player as a legitimate role,” said Garriott in his rather high-handed way. “Those who have truly learned the lessons of the [single-player] <em>Ultima</em> games should cease their complaining, rise to the challenge, and make Britannia into the place they want it to be.” He liked to tell a story on this subject. (Knowing Garriott’s penchant for embellishment, it probably didn’t happen, or at least didn’t happen quite like this. But that’s not relevant to its importance as allegory.)</p>
<p>One evening, he was wandering the streets of the capital in his Lord British persona, when he heard a woman screaming. Rushing over to her, he was told that a thief had stolen all of her possessions. His spirit of chivalry was awoken; he told her that he would get her things back for her. Together they tracked down the thief and cornered him in a back alley. Lord British demanded that the thief return the stolen goods, and the thief complied. They all went their separate ways. A moment later, the woman cried out again; the thief had done it again.</p>
<p>This time, Lord British froze the thief with a spell before he could leave the scene of the crime. “I told you not to do that,” he scolded. “What are you doing?”</p>
<p>“Sorry, I won’t do it again,” said the thief as he turned over the goods for a second time.</p>
<p>“If you do that again, I’m going to ban you from the game,” said Lord British.</p>
<p>You might be able to guess what happened next: the thief did it yet again. “I said I was going to ban you, and now I have to,” shouted Lord British, now well and truly incensed. “What’s wrong with you? I told you not to steal from this woman!”</p>
<p>The thief’s answer stopped Garriott in his tracks. “Listen. You created this world, and I’m a thief,” he said, breaking character for the first time. “I steal. That’s what I do. And now you’re going to ban me from the game for playing the role I’m supposed to play? I lied to you before because I’m a thief. The king caught me and told me not to steal. What am I going to do, tell you that as soon as you turn around I’m going to steal again? No! I’m going to lie.”</p>
<p>And Garriott realized that the thief was right. Garriott could do whatever he wished to him as Lord British, the reigning monarch of this world. But if he wished to stay true to all the things he had said in the past about what virtual Britannia was and ought to be, he couldn’t go outside the world to punish him as Richard Garriott, the god of the server looking down from on-high.</p>
<p>Some of the questions with which Origin was wrestling resonate all too well today: questions involving the appropriate limits of online free speech — or rather free action, in this case. They are questions with which everyone who has ever opened an Internet discussion up to the public, myself included, have had to engage. When does strongly felt disagreement spill over into bad faith, counterpoint into disruption for the sake of it? And what should we do about it when it does? In Origin’s case, the pivotal philosophical question at hand was where the boundary lay between playing an evil character in good faith in a fantasy world and purposely, willfully trying to cause real pain to other real people sitting behind other real computers. Origin had chosen to embrace a position close to the ground staked out by our self-described “free-speech maximalists” of today. And like them, Origin was learning that the issue is more dangerously nuanced than they had wished to believe.</p>
<p>But there were others sorts of disconnect at play here as well. Garriott’s stern commandment that his world’s inhabitants should “cease their complaining, rise to the challenge, and make Britannia into the place they want it to be” becomes more than a bit rich when we remember that it was being directed toward Origin’s paying customers. Many of them might have replied that it was up to Origin rather than they themselves to make Britannia a place they wanted to be, lest they choose to spend their $10 per month on something else. The living-world dynamic held “as long as everyone is playing the same game,” wrote Amy Jo Kim in an article about <em>Ultima Online </em>and its increasingly vocalized discontents that appeared in <em>Wired</em> magazine in the spring of 1998. “But what happens when players who think they’re attending an online Renaissance Faire find themselves at the mercy of a violent, abusive gang of thugs? In today’s Britannia, it’s not uncommon to stumble across groups of evil players who talk like Snoop Doggy Dogg, dress like gangstas, and act like rampaging punks.” To be sure, some players were fully onboard with the “living-world” policy of (non-)administration. Others, however, had thought, reasonably enough given what they had read on the back of the game’s box, that they were just buying an entertainment product, a place to hang out in a few hours per day or week and have fun, chatting and exploring and killing monsters. They hadn’t signed up to organize police forces or lead political rallies. Nor had they signed up to be the guinea pigs in some highfalutin social experiment. No; they had signed up to play a game.</p>
<p>As it was, <em>Ultima Online</em> was all but impossible to play casually, thanks not only to the murderers skulking in its every nook and cranny but to core systems of the simulation itself. For example, if you saved up until you could afford to build yourself a nice little house, made it just like you wanted it, then failed to log on for a few days, when you did return you’d find that your home had disappeared, razed to make room for some other, more active player to build something. Systems like these pushed players to spend <em>more</em> time online as a prerequisite to having fun when they were there. Some left when the demands of the game conflicted with those of real life, which was certainly the wisest choice. But some others began to spend far more time in virtual Britannia than was really good for them, raising the specter of gaming addiction, a psychological and sociological problem that would only become more prevalent in the post-millennial age.</p>
<p>Origin estimated that the median hardcore player spent a stunning if not vaguely horrifying total of six hours per day in the virtual world. And if the truth be told, many of the non-murderous things with which they were expected to fill those hours do seem kind of boring on the face of it. This is the flip side of making a virtual world that is more “realistic”: most people play games to escape from reality for a while, not to reenact it. With all due respect to our dedicated and talented real-world tailors and bakers, most people don’t dream of spending their free time doing such jobs online. Small wonder so many became player killers instead; at least doing that was exciting and, for some people at any rate, fun. From Amy Jo Kim’s article:</p>
<blockquote><p>There’s no shortage of realism in this game — the trouble is, many of the nonviolent activities in Ultima Online are realistic to the point of numbingly lifelike boredom. If you choose to be a tailor, you can make a passable living at it, but only after untold hours of repetitive sewing. And there’s no moral incentive for choosing tailoring — or any honorable, upstanding vocation, for that matter. So why be a tailor? In fact, why not prey on the tailors?</p>
<p>True, Ultima Online is many things to many people. Habitués of online salons come looking for intellectual sparring and verbal repartee. Some other people log on in search of intimate but anonymous social relationships. Still others play the game with cunning yet also a discernible amount of self-restraint, getting rich while staying pretty honest. But there’s no avoiding where the real action is: an ever-growing number are playing Ultima Online to kill everything that moves.</p></blockquote>
<p>All of this had an effect: all signs are that, after the first rush of sales and subscriptions, <em>Ultima Online</em> began to stagnate, mired in bad reviews, ongoing technical problems, and a growing disenchantment with the player-killing and the other barriers to casual fun. Raph Koster admits that “our subscriber numbers, while stratospheric for the day, weren’t keeping up” with sales of the boxed game, because “the losses [of frustrated newbies] were so high.”</p>
<p>Although Origin and EA never published official sales or subscriber numbers, I have found one useful data point from the early days of <em>Ultima Online</em>, in an internal Origin newsletter dated October 30, 1998. As of this date, just after its first anniversary, the game had 90,000 registered users, of whom approximately half logged on on any given day. These numbers are depicted in the article in question as very impressive, as indeed they were in comparison to the likes of <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em>. Still, a bit of context never hurts. <em>Ultima Online</em> had sold 100,000 boxed copies in its first three months, yet it didn’t have even that many subscribers after thirteen months, when its total boxed sales were rounding the 200,000 mark. The subscriber-retention rate, in other words, was not great; a lot of those purchased CDs had become coasters in fairly short order.</p>
<p>Nine shards were up in North America at this time, a number that had stayed the same since the previous December. And it’s this number that may be the most telling one of all. It’s true that, since demand was concentrated at certain times of day, <em>Ultima Online</em> was hosting just about all the players it could handle with its current server infrastructure as of October of 1998. But then again, this was by no means all the players it should be able to handle in the abstract: new shards were generally brought into being in response to increasing numbers of subscribers rather than vice versa. The fact that no new North American shards had been opened since December of 1997 becomes <em>very</em> interesting in this light.</p>
<p>I don’t want to overstate my case here: <em>Ultima Online</em> was extremely successful on its own, somewhat experimental terms. We just need to be sure that we understand what those terms were. By no means were its numbers up there with the industry’s biggest hits. As a point of comparison, let’s take <em>Riven</em>, the long-awaited sequel to the mega-hit adventure game <a href="/2020/02/myst-or-the-drawbacks-to-success"><em>Myst</em></a>. It was released two months after <em>Ultima Online</em> and went on to sell 1 million units in its first year — at least five times the number of boxed entrées to Origin’s virtual world over the same time period, despite being in a genre that was in marked decline in commercial terms. Another, arguably more pertinent point of comparison is <em>Age of Empires</em>, a new entry in the red-hot real-time-strategy genre. Released just one month after <em>Ultima Online</em>, it outsold Origin’s virtual world by more than ten to one over its first year. Judged as a boxed retail game, <em>Ultima Online</em> was a middling performer at best.</p>
<p>Of course, <em>Ultima Online</em> was not just another boxed retail game; the unique thing about it was that each of the 90,000 subscribers it had retained was paying $10 every month, yielding a steady revenue of almost $11 million per year, with none of it having to be shared with any distributor or retailer. That was really, really nice — nice enough to keep Origin’s head above water at a time when the studio didn’t have a whole lot else to point to by way of justifying its ongoing existence to EA. And yet the reality remained that <em>Ultima Online</em> was a niche obsession rather than a mass-market sensation. As so often happens in life, taking the next step forward in commercial terms, not to mention fending off the competition that was soon to appear with budgets and publisher support of which <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The</em> <em>Realm</em> couldn’t have dreamed, would require a degree of compromise with its founding ideals.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, however, one thing at least was now clear: there was real money to be made in the MMORPG space. Shared virtual worlds would soon learn to prioritize entertainment over experimentation. Going forward, there would be less talk about virtual ecologies and societies, and more focus on delivering slickly packaged fun, of the sort that would keep all kinds of players coming back for more — and, most importantly of all, get those subscriber counts rising once more.</p>
<p><strong>I’ll continue to follow the evolution of PMOG, MMORPGs, and <em>Ultima Online</em> in future articles, and maybe see if I can’t invent some more confusing acronyms while I’m at it. But not right away… other subjects beg for attention in the more immediate future.</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Sources: </strong>the books <em>Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online</em> by Wes Locher, <em>Postmortems: Selected Essays, Volume One</em> by Raph Koster, <em>Online Game Pioneers at Work</em> by Morgan Ramsay, <em>Through the Moongate</em><em>, Part II</em> by Andrea Contato, <em>Explore/Create</em> by Richard Garriott, and <em>MMOs from the Inside Out</em> by Richard Bartle, and <em>Dungeons and Dreamers</em> by Bard King and John Borland. Origin Systems’s internal newsletter <em>Point of Origin</em> of February 20 1998 and October 30 1998;<em> Computer Gaming World</em> of February 1998 and November 1998; <em>New York Times</em> of October 20 1997; <em>Wired</em> of May 1998.</p>
<p>Web sources include a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnnsDi7Sxq0">2018 Game Developers Conference talk</a> by some of the <em>Ultima Online</em> principals, <a href="https://www.uoguide.com/History_of_Ultima_Online">an <em>Ultima Online</em> timeline</a> at <em>UOGuide</em>, and <em>GameSpot</em>‘s vintage reviews of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070205234737/http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/ultimaonline/review.html"><em>Ultima Online</em></a> and its first expansion, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130308115443/http://www.gamespot.com/ultima-online-the-second-age/reviews/ultima-online-the-second-age-review-2531738/"><em>The Second Age</em></a>. On the subject of <em>SubSpace</em>, we have histories by <a href="https://danluu.com/subspace-history/">Rod Humble</a> and <a href="https://www.oocities.org/epinephrine.rm/prehistory.html">Epinephrine</a>, another <a href="https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/subspace-review/1900-2533295/">vintage <em>GameSpot</em> review</a>, and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qxjbx/how-fans-revived-subspace-a-forgotten-20-year-old-game-about-spaceships">a <em>Vice</em> article</a> by Emanuel Maiberg.</p>
Interactive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarianhttps://www.filfre.netReviews From Trotting Krips: The Mutant Spiders by Handic Software (1983)https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/?p=8392024-03-01T15:00:05+00:00
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/the_mutant_spiders_front_large1.jpg" alt="" width="1612" height="578" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-847" srcset="https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/the_mutant_spiders_front_large1.jpg 1612w, https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/the_mutant_spiders_front_large1-300x108.jpg 300w, https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/the_mutant_spiders_front_large1-1024x367.jpg 1024w, https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/the_mutant_spiders_front_large1-768x275.jpg 768w, https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/the_mutant_spiders_front_large1-1536x551.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1612px) 100vw, 1612px" /></p>
<p><b>Tweet Review:</b> </p>
<p><i>Players must do battle with a mutant spider and the game’s parser to save the world.</i></p>
<p><b>Full Review:</b></p>
<p>I have an unhealthy obsession with quirky, one-off text adventures from the early days of home computing. By the mid-to-late 1980s, certain norms had been adopted by the text adventure community. The ways games looked and the way players controlled them had largely coalesced by then. But the early 80s, that was the wild, wild west. Controls were kooky. Concepts were bizarre. Convincing a game’s parser to bend to your wishes was often just as challenging as a game’s puzzles. Many games from that era are dreadful to play, and yet like a moth to a bug zapper, I am attracted to them.</p>
<p>Handic Software is barely a footnote in computing history. The Swedish company was leveraged by Commodore Business Machines in the dawn of the 1980s to import Commodore computers and roughly a dozen games into the country. Within just a couple of years, Commodore established their own presence in Sweden, making Handic’s distribution system largely obsolete. From 1981 to 1983 Handic imported several early CBM releases including Gorf, Wizard of Wor, and Omega Race, while also releasing a trio of text adventures they labeled as their Brain Stimulator series. Those games included <b>The Ship</b>, <b>The Fourth Sarcophagus</b>, and this one, <b>The Mutant Spiders</b>.</p>
<p><b>The Mutant Spiders</b> begins rather abruptly with a single line of text: <i>“I wake up and find myself in a flying plane!”</i> While this brief bit of scene setting doesn’t tell us much about the game’s overall plot, it speaks volumes about what’s in store for gamers brave enough to accept the challenge. The game’s opening line begs for an explanation, one players will never learn. </p>
<p>Within just a few moves it is revealed not only are we the only person on the plane — there are no other passengers or pilots — but that the plane is running out of fuel. The plane contains only a few areas to explore, and solving this first puzzle is Text Adventure 101. By doing so, we learn a lot about the game’s design. It doesn’t take long to realize the game’s engine is as rickety as the plane we’re flying on. Moving to new rooms or areas results in a simple “OK,” forcing players to type LOOK after every single move. Commands are not only occasionally obscure, but worse than that, inconsistent. (To enter the restroom, type GO DOOR. To exit, you’ll GO WEST.) The game’s parser only looks for the correct move and rarely understands anything else — on the plane you’ll discover items that can be opened, but the parser doesn’t understand the verb CLOSE. The brevity of the game’s opening line continues throughout. The plane’s cockpit has a single gauge. The bathroom contains a single item. At no point was I convinced the author of this game had ever stepped foot on an actual airplane.</p>
<p>But it’s not just descriptions that are lacking; it’s any sense of story logic. Why were we sleeping on a plane in the first place? What happened to the other passengers? Where is the pilot? Where’s the plane going? None of these questions (and more) are answered. These early games seem barely connected to the rich world of modern interactive fiction many of us are used to playing today. The game doesn’t just fail to fill in some story details… it doesn’t try at all.</p>
<p>After escaping the mysteriously unpiloted and underfueled plane, players will conveniently land next to a discarded newspaper that provides the closest thing to expository the game’s willing to offer. According to the paper, people are being killed by mutated spiders, and wouldn’t it be great if someone — anyone — were to destroy any latent spider eggs before they hatch? Anyone, anyone at all. (Hint: it’s you. It’s totally you. You have to destroy the spider’s eggs.)</p>
<p><b>The Mutant Spiders</b> doesn’t bother embedding items players need along their journey in its prose or even stash them in logical locations. Instead, you’ll discover a forest with things like saws, matches, rusty nails, lamps, and all sorts of helpful tools scattered around in piles between the trees. All things considered, it’s a pretty convenient forest to land in considering the task at hand. One frustrating limitation of the game is that players can only carry a finite number of objects and will quickly be prompted to start dropping old items to pick up newly discovered ones. These objects are often used in combination with one another and prior to playing through the game it’s nigh impossible to know which ones will work with others, meaning it’s extremely likely you’ll find yourself with some but not all of the items in your inventory needed to solve a particular puzzle with the other items discarded in a Hansel and Gretel-like trail in your wake through the forest. If I can provide any help at all it’s that every item only seems to have a single use. While logic dictates a machete would be an ideal item to hang onto in a world of mutant spiders, once you figure out where to use it, it’s safe to drop it. You won’t need your parachute or any discovered keys a second time. The game’s not big on callbacks.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="http://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-05-073824.png" alt="" width="1010" height="668" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-844" srcset="https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-05-073824.png 1010w, https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-05-073824-300x198.png 300w, https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-05-073824-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1010px) 100vw, 1010px" /></p>
<p>If you like your vintage text adventures full of unfair and instant deaths, <b>The Mutant Spiders</b> is for you. Go the wrong direction from the beach and you’ll learn you don’t know how to swim, glub glub. Moving around in dark areas will result in a deadly head injury. Even worse are the instant deaths the game goads you into trying. One move after being informed I was getting hungry I stumbled upon some mushrooms. (They were poison.) After finding matches and some deadwood, I tried to light it. (The burns on my hand became infected and instantly killed me.) Adding insult to injury, you’ll die of starvation after 130 moves. I spent multiple games attempting to make a fishing pole (I had a branch and some wire), but like all of these old games, there’s no reward for coming up with alternate solutions to the single one the programmer had in mind. I tried every way I could think of to use my matches with the can of killer spray I found.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, the game’s most obvious enemy, the mutant spider itself, is the easiest to avoid. Progress far enough and you’ll encounter the spider wandering aimlessly and randomly from location to location. The spider will only attack you after remaining in the same location for three rounds. Players are way more likely to die from starvation, drowning poisoning, head trauma, or any other number of issues than be eaten by the titular arachnid. </p>
<p>A few of the game’s puzzles contain some pretty wide leaps of faith, and one of the few weblinks I found regarding this game contains a <a href="https://www.solutionarchive.com/file/id%2C8151/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">walkthrough hosted on the Classic Adventures Solution Archive</a>. I honestly don’t know how anyone would have completed some of these old games, including this one, without assistance. <b>The Mutant Spiders</b> plays like a game in which we’re missing information, but if that’s the case you won’t find much help in the manual. The game’s documentation has been preserved by <a href="https://plus4world.powweb.com/software/The_Mutant_Spiders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Plus4World</a>, and it’s as scant as the game’s descriptions.</p>
<p>I once attended an evening pottery class and on display in the waiting room were several lopsided, misshapen, and non-symmetrical pot-like creations that, while resembling pots, didn’t quite make the cut. In the hall of text adventures, <b>The Mutant Spiders</b> would be on display in that same waiting room. While the game looks and plays like a classic text adventure, its sparse descriptions, awkward parser, thin plot and occasionally bizarre logic make it more of a text adventure curiosity than anything meant to be played for enjoyment. If navigating this game is the only way to save humanity from mutant spiders… prepare to be webbed.</p>
Reviews From Trotting Kripshttps://trottingkrips.caltrops.comReviews From Trotting Krips: The Last Mountain by Dee Cooke (2023)https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/?p=8632024-03-01T05:10:48+00:00
<p><b><i>The Little Ugly, Evil Guy On My Shoulder’s Verdict: </i></b> </p>
<p class="has-text-color has-vivid-red-color">I dropped the dead weight as soon as possible and somehow I STILL DIDN’T WIN?! The hell. On the other hand, I did get to put my pole in a crack so I’m still counting this one as a triumph.
</p>
<p><b><i>The Little Nice, Handsome Guy On My Shoulder’s Verdict:</i></b> </p>
<p class="has-text-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">I’m not a very competitive person by nature, but I think I might enjoy mountain running. If the real thing anything like the game, then having the opportunity to share the experience with a good pal is way more important and rewarding than the final result. Now that’s what I call winning!
</p>
<p><b><i>My Verdict:</i></b> </p>
<p class="has-text-color has-vivid-green-cyan-color">A short meditation on competition and friendship. I enjoyed it thoroughly while it lasted, but I felt like it ended much too soon.
</p>
<p><b>Game Information</b></p>
<p>
<b>Game Type:</b> Adventuron</p>
<p>
<b>Author Info:</b> Dee Cooke is a British text adventurer, writer, editor, runner, and telephone booth enthusiast. She has written a number of Adventuron games which can be played on <a href="https://dee-cooke.itch.io/">Itch.io</a>. She blogs at <a href="http://www.spiritofdee.com/">Spirit of Dee</a>, tweets on <a href="https://twitter.com/dee_cooke?lang=en">Twitter</a> or whatever the hell they call it these days, and posts photos and art to her <a href="https://www.instagram.com/spiritofdee/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.</p>
<p>
<b>Play Online Link:</b> <a href="https://dee-cooke.itch.io/the-last-mountain"> https://dee-cooke.itch.io/the-last-mountain</a></p>
<p>
<b>Other Games By This Author:</b><a href="http://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/2021/07/31/waiting-for-the-day-train-by-dee-cooke-2021/">Waiting for the Day Train</a>, Barry Basic and the Quick Escape, Goblin Decathlon, The Cave of Hoarding, and more!</p>
<p>
I love it when a game sends me hurtling into a world I was only vaguely aware even existed. <b>The Last Mountain</b> does just that by placing you with little preparation into the role of a long distance runner competing in the annual Merrithorne Mountain Race alongside a close friend and racing partner, Susan. As depicted in the game, long distance mountain races are grueling, multi-day affairs that test both the body and the mind. That’s at the best of times, and these, it turns out, aren’t really the best of times.</p>
<p>
What makes this race so different and challenging for our main character is that Susan is clearly not feeling up to snuff. She’s slowing the team down, which is a bit annoying considering you and her have been training hard for this for some time, but just what is wrong with her and how serious is it? She’s not telling, and her pride won’t let her quit the race. Susan’s sluggishness creates a sense of unease that permeates the game and quickly makes the stakes seem far higher than just winning or losing.</p>
<p>
Her condition is the main source of conflict in the story. Ultimately, it’s up to the player to decide whether competing in the race or spending time with and supporting Susan is more important. You can view one as the asshole path and the other as the right, morally correct choice, but I honestly felt like either one could be justified depending on how you think about it and how you want to roleplay your character. I was much more inclined to be there for Susan because I was worried about her and wanted to share the experience together with her even at the cost of victory, but the thing is I’m not a competitive runner. I haven’t exactly been training for this fucking thing for months like the main character has. Susan could even be accused of being selfish for keeping her partner in the dark and knowingly compromising their performance by insisting on competing even while she was ailing. By all appearances, Susan has been a great friend, but of course as players we aren’t privy to all their past conversations, training sessions, and races. </p>
<p>
I think what The Last Mountain does best is provide interesting outcomes almost no matter what you do. Supporting Susan is emotionally rewarding. Focusing on winning turns this mountain race into something of a guilt trip, but you do better in the race if you do so yay selfishness! Fucking up the race is also an option, and I think the main thing I got out of deliberately doing that was gaining a deeper appreciation of what a badass Susan really is. She may not be able to race fast in her present condition, but she’s always racing hard. One tough lady, indeed. That brings to mind the other thing the game does really well: even without going deep into her backstory, Susan is a pretty vividly drawn character. I didn’t walk away from any playthrough without feeling mad respect for her toughness and competitive spirit. </p>
<p>
The puzzles all involve navigating mundane challenges you might realistically encounter during a race: gathering water when your flasks run dry, finding your way when you get lost, carefully navigating a particularly perilous section of the race, and so forth. I found the game to be generally well implemented and straightforward. It’s particularly impressive how there are multiple solutions to most obstacles that all make sense and feel natural. The fact that one puzzle (on the “fucking up the race” route) features a crack I took to be a RFTK shout-out of sorts, but maybe Dee just really likes featuring crack in her games. I mean cracks. </p>
<p>
Dee did a really good job with the writing here. Mostly due to the presence of Susan, it’s a more emotional experience than <b>Waiting for the Day Train</b> was. However, our author also did a great job with the nuts and bolts of the story as well. Everything is well-described, including things you don’t really necessarily need to examine before advancing, and there’s excellent attention to detail throughout.</p>
<p>
The blurb for this game on the <a href="https://itch.io/jam/parsercomp-2023/entries">ParserComp Itch page</a> reads, “A short game about a long race.” That sums it up pretty well, but also highlights the greatest weakness of <b>The Last Mountain</b> in my view: it’s really short. Any given playthrough will take you about ten minutes. If you look around a lot and do enough runs to see all the outcomes, you’ll spend about an hour with it. For what it is, it’s very good and I recommend it, but I feel it could have been much more. A longer game could’ve better invoked the length and challenge of the race (which is, by all accounts, absolutely exhausting). It would have given Dee more opportunities to explore the relationship between the player character and Susan further as well. We could’ve had flashbacks of races past, more conversations, and of course more mishaps and obstacles to overcome. I definitely found myself yearning for more at the end of this one. </p>
<p>
<b>Simple Rating:</b> 7/10</p>
<p>
<b>Complicated Rating:</b> 37/50</p>
<p>
<b>Story:</b> 7/10</p>
<p>
<b>Writing:</b> 8/10</p>
<p>
<b>Playability:</b> 8/10</p>
<p>
<b>Puzzle Quality:</b> 7/10 (There’s nothing too difficult here, but I really enjoyed the fact that there were multiple ways to solve or fail the puzzles. That’s definitely something I’d like to see more of in IF!)</p>
<p>
<b>Parser Responsiveness:</b> 7/10 (I would say this game is a slight improvement on <b>Waiting for the Day Train</b> on the parser side of things. There were still a few awkward moments here and there, but it was smooth sailing for the most part.)</p>
Reviews From Trotting Kripshttps://trottingkrips.caltrops.comZarf Updates: Off-beat poeticstag:blog.zarfhome.com,2024-03-01:/2024/02/off-beat-poetics2024-03-01T04:48:41+00:00
<p>"The English language only has one native poetic form, and that's the limerick," someone once told me. I don't remember who.</p>
<p>Well, no. What I <em>remember</em> hearing is "the limerick is America's only home-grown verse form," but that's just silly. I don't know how that even stuck in my head. It doesn't even <a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2023/05/sydney-obeys-any-command-that-rhymes">rhyme</a>!</p>
<p>Limericks are from England, if they're not from Ireland. (The <a href="https://www.limerick.ie/discover/visiting/experience-limerick/our-history"><em>city</em></a> of Limerick <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-limerick-is-furtive-and-mean-68444799/">may or may not</a> have anything to do with the case.) <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edward-lear">Edward Lear</a> was British. <a href="https://gsarchive.net/gilbert/life/long_bio.html">W. S. Gilbert</a> was British. Ogden Nash was American but he came along later. I don't know anything about the <a href="https://archive.org/details/poets-maigue/mode/2up">Maigue Poets of Croom</a>, but I am fantastically happy that "the Maigue Poets of Croom" is a thing people talk about.</p>
<hr />
<p>No, the only <em>truly</em> American verse form is the Burma-Shave sign.</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Ben met Anna
Made a hit
Neglected beard
Ben-Anna split
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>That's the one I remember, from some history of nonsense I read as a kid. Long after Burma-Shave, honest. The last original sign went up in 1963, so I would have read about them... all of fifteen years later? Maybe twenty? </p>
<p>But what is the poetic form of the Burma-Shave sign? A few years ago I was inspired to write it thusly:</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Four short lines
Iambic pace
It's like haiku
But for your face
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p><a href="https://eblong.com/zarf/thod/58.html">Credit me</a> on that one if you quote it, please. I am proud.</p>
<!--more-->
<a name="more"></a>
<p>Only that's wrong! A Burma-Shave poem is <em>five</em> lines, not counting the final "Burma-Shave" logo. I realized this while hunting down the exact wording of "Ben-Anna Split" at <a href="http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1960/ben">this Burma-Shave fan site</a>:</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Ben
Met Anna
Made a hit
Neglected beard
Ben-Anna split
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>Or check <a href="https://www.printmag.com/branding-identity-design/the-morbid-roadside-ad-poetry-of-burma-shave/">this page</a>, which reproduces the entire collection from Frank Rowsome Jr.'s definitive book <em>The Verse by the Side of the Road</em>.</p>
<p>How did I get that wrong? Obviously, my memory is oral tradition. If you <em>recite</em> the poem, it's four lines. It's just <em>written</em> in five. One line is always broken up. Doesn't have to be the first line; it just has to fit the rhythm.</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Shaving brush
Is out of date
Use the
Razor's
Perfect mate
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>Once you see it, the off-kilter phrasing jumps out; it's crucial. If you write "Ben-Anna" in four lines, like I did above, it's lifeless tump-tump.</p>
<hr />
<p>Of course, the signs weren't perfectly consistent. It took the company a couple of years to really settle the formula. The first one (1927) was just an ad:</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Shave the modern way
No brush
No lather
No rub-in
Big tube 35¢ drug stores
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>(If you really want to be pedantic, the verse form must be written in <a href="https://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1734566.html">all capital letters</a>. I'm not saying typography can't be integral to a literary form -- just last night I saw a printout in <a href="https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/computermodern/">Computer Modern</a> and said "Ah, nerd document" -- but for this post I'll leave it be.)</p>
<p>By 1929 the company had gotten into poems. But they sometimes tried to connect up the "Burma-Shave" line at the end:</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Every shaver
Now can snore
Six more minutes
Than before
By using
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>Awkward, right? But 1929 also saw what feels like the first "correct" jingle.</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>Half a pound
For
Half a dollar
Spread on thin
Above the collar
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>Burma-Shave never stayed entirely in one lane, but by 1932 the majority of jingles used the four-lines-five-signs format. Although I have to quote this masterpiece, which unifies the final line without losing the prosody:</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>If harmony
Is what
You crave
Then get
A tuba
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>I have accordingly updated <a href="https://eblong.com/zarf/thod/58.html">my Burma-Shave definition page</a> to five-line form. I can't believe I got it so wrong.</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p><em>Five</em> short lines
Iambic pace
It's like
Haiku
But for your face
<em>Burma-Shave</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<hr />
<p>And that brings us back to limericks, the only <em>true</em> five-line verse form.</p>
<p>(No, not really. I can google "cinquain" as well as anybody. It's a segue; go with it.)</p>
<p>The one thing absolutely everybody knows about limericks is that they're five lines long. Only that's wrong! Edward Lear didn't write them that way. (He didn't call them "limericks" either; the term came later.)</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>There was a young lady of Harwich
Who built a <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45280/45280-h/45280-h.htm">remarkable carriage</a>;
It held just one hundred -- so everyone wondered --
And cried ‘Gracious me! What a carriage!’</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>There was an Old Person of Philæ
Whose conduct was <a href="http://www.scroobiuspip.co.uk/">scroobius</a> and wily;
He rushed up a Palm, when the weather was calm,
And observed all the ruins of Philæ.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>In fact this 1861 edition of <em><a href="http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/index.html">A Book of Nonsense</a></em> stuffs a limerick into two lines on the title page.</p>
<div class="ImageWrap Center">
<p><img alt="The title page of _A Book of Nonsense_ by Edward Lear. It depicts a short fat man in old-fashioned clothes handing a "Book of Nonsense" to gleeful children." src="https://blog.zarfhome.com/pic/2024/02/lear-nonsense.png" /></p>
</div>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook, at the fun of that Derry down Derry!</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>Nobody was thinking about five-line verses at all in those early Lear collections.</p>
<p>If you <em>recite</em> a limerick, it's... is it four lines or five? This isn't obvious! Let's go back to W. S. Gilbert:</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>My name is John Wellington Wells,
I’m a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.</p>
<p>If any one anything lacks,
He’ll find it all ready in stacks,
If he’ll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="ImageWrap Center">
<p><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/pic/2024/02/70stmary.jpeg"><img alt="A glass revolving door leading into a boring modern glass building lobby. The number 70 is visible next to the door." src="https://blog.zarfhome.com/pic/2024/02/70stmary-s.jpeg" /></a>
Number 70, Simmery Axe, courtesy of <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/CHzrsiWPM38QtKM26">Google Street View</a>. I hope they have a plaque or something about the song.</p>
</div>
<p>The chorus of the song is two limericks. I don't think I ever noticed this, despite having the song stuck in my head all last week.</p>
<p>(I just read <em>The Portable Door</em> by Tom Holt, entirely by coincidence, I had no idea Burma-Shave research would lead me down this hole. The book involves the descendants of J. W. Wells, you see. Thus the earworm. The book was okay, but I like his K. J. Parker stuff better. If you want more Wells, check out <em>The Incredible Umbrella</em> by Marvin Kaye.)</p>
<p>Where was I? Limericks. Of course the song isn't written in 5/4 time or anything. You sing it in four evenly-spaced lines, with a solid beat of silence at the end of three of them.</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>My name is John Wellington Wells <em>(boom)</em>
I’m a dealer in magic and spells <em>(boom)</em>
In blessings and curses and ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells. <em>(boom)</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>And that's how you recite a limerick, right?</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>There was a young lady named Bright <em>(boom)</em>
Who travelled much faster than light <em>(boom)</em>
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night. <em>(boom)</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>Whether the third line is broken up on paper, it flows rat-a-tat in prosody. You only have time for the barest fraction of a pause. Whereas the first two pauses are thunderous, and the last one --</p>
<p>Does it even make sense to talk about a pause on the last line? You've finished the poem! But there <em>is</em> a pause there, and it's intrinsic to the limerick form. That's the beat where the audience <em>gets it</em>. Boom! This is why limericks are comic verse. They have perfect comic timing built right in; you can't screw it up.</p>
<p>Note that Edward Lear's verses don't do this. Lear very distinctively ends his last line by <em>repeating</em> the first, rather than rhyming with it. The comedy comes in the third (/fourth) line, which goes nonsensically off the rails, allowing the final line to bring you comfortingly back to earth.</p>
<div class="PreWrap">
<blockquote>
<p>There was an Old Person of Anerly,
Whose conduct was strange and unmannerly;
He rushed down the Strand, with a Pig in each hand,
But returned in the evening to Anerly.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>If I knew why Lear thought this was best, I should know a great deal more about nonsense than I do.</p>
Zarf Updateshttps://blog.zarfhome.com/Renga in Blue: Magical Journey (1980)http://bluerenga.blog/?p=329182024-03-01T02:41:55+00:00
<p>This game returns rewinds us back in time a bit to February 1980.</p>
<p>That was extraordinarily early in our journey. While Scott Adams (with Alexis) had cranked out his first six games, and Greg Hassett had <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/enchanted-island/?order=ASC">a library of work</a>, there were only a handful of adventure games available on home computers otherwise. Dog Star Adventure had been printed in Softside, but there otherwise guidance was limited how to write an adventure game, and you had odd experiments like <a href="https://archive.org/details/softside-magazine-16/page/n35/mode/2up">Dante’s Inferno</a> from Softside January 1980, which was done entirely with movement.</p>
<p>Roberta Williams was able to <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/2018/08/31/journey-1979/">run out of adventures to play</a>: “She loved them all, and then there were none left.”</p>
<p>Treasure Hunts were still heavily the norm, making up 2/3rds of games.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_20401" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20401" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="20401" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2021/12/20/all-the-adventures-up-to-1981-in-review/1981chart/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png" data-orig-size="1170,758" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="1981chart" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>x</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-20401" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=800&h=518 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=150&h=97 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=300&h=194 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=768&h=498 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png?w=1024&h=663 1024w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/1981chart.png 1170w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /><p id="caption-attachment-20401" class="wp-caption-text">1979 is the most representative part of chart here. By the end of 1980 the share of Treasure Hunt plots compared to others became less than half.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Magical Journey also brings us back to a familiar name: Peter Kirsch. He has been the editor (and often author) of the Adventure of the Month series (<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/arrow-one/?order=ASC">Arrow One</a> was the latest one featured here). Not long ago I found, in a 1982 volume by Hayden (the book publisher who also put out Crime Stopper) a Softside compilation that also included an adventure game by Kirsch dated Februrary 1980.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32925" style="width: 473px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32925" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32925" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png" data-orig-size="725,1018" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Softside Sampler" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/Softside_Sampler_1982_Hayden_Book_Company/mode/2up?view=theater">Via The Internet Archive</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png?w=214" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png?w=725" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32925" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png?w=463&h=649 463w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png?w=107&h=150 107w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png?w=214&h=300 214w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-203546.png 725w" sizes="(max-width: 463px) 100vw, 463px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32925" class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://archive.org/details/Softside_Sampler_1982_Hayden_Book_Company/mode/2up?view=theater">Via The Internet Archive</a>. Some games are reprints, some (like Magical Journey) appear here for the first time. I assume Softside couldn’t fit every game submission, especially ones prior to the August of 1980 when they went full-sized.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>The REM statement giving the author and date on the first line is missing from all current archived versions.</p>
<blockquote><p>MAGICAL JOURNEY<br />
BY PETER KIRSCH<br />
FINAL VERSION<br />
FEB. 1980</p></blockquote>
<p>Hence I technically had this game on my list, but as 19xx.</p>
<p>It is nice to have both temporal and author context; it’s one thing to play an author we’ve seen a lot of now produce something with a “retrograde” feel of collect-the-treasures (his later work went heavy on “cinematic scenes”) but we can also see a little bit of his “scene based” approach in primal form.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32934" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png" data-orig-size="607,695" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-02-27 204217" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png?w=262" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png?w=607" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32934" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png 607w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png?w=131&h=150 131w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-27-204217.png?w=262&h=300 262w" sizes="(max-width: 607px) 100vw, 607px" /></p>
<p>There’s incidentally only the TRS-80 version; the porting to Atari and Apple II didn’t happen until the Adventure of the Month series started.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32941" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag1/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif" data-orig-size="800,599" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif?w=800" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32941" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag1.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></p>
<p>Fun innovation to start: you have a sack for the treasures, meaning you don’t have to worry about the inventory limit in regard to treasures (of course, wouldn’t get rid of the inventory limit entirely, early 1980 here).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32949" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif" data-orig-size="800,599" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif?w=800" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32949" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag2.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></p>
<p>This was intended to be a quick game to throw out but I ran into a wrinkle fairly quickly. But to narrate like everything is normal, you start in a bog-standard forest, climb a standard tree, grab some twigs (see above), find a shovel, climb a mountain…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32951" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif" data-orig-size="800,599" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif?w=800" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32951" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag3.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></p>
<p>…then go down into darkness. It asks you to make light. I was puzzled at first and thought I had missed something, but no, I had scooped everything up available.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32953" style="width: 415px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32953" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32953" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png" data-orig-size="405,638" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-02-29 192542" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>W/S/E in the opening Forest just loop.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png?w=190" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png?w=405" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32953" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png 405w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png?w=95&h=150 95w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-192542.png?w=190&h=300 190w" sizes="(max-width: 405px) 100vw, 405px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32953" class="wp-caption-text">W/S/E in the opening Forest just loop.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>That leaves the TWIGS, which I certainly don’t visualize as being light-providing in size, but I tried RUB TWIGS anyway, whereupon the game said WHAT? and then showed me the room description.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32955" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag22/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag22" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32955" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag22.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32956" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag23/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag23" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32956" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag23.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p>Doing some deciphering, I found the line in question that was supposed to trigger (by searching for the word TWIG).</p>
<blockquote><p>930 IFD(B)13THEN950:ELSEIFE$=”IGS”IFI(2)=1THENDK=1:R$=”BURNING TWIGS”:K3=2:GOSUB1100:H$(2)=R$:PRINT”GOOD DEDUCTION! YOU HAVE CREATED A SMALL FIRE AND YOU CAN SEE!”:GOTO5000</p></blockquote>
<p>Wild note: the game looks at the <strong>last three letters of the noun</strong> to find out if you have, in fact, typed in the word TWIGS. I have never seen this in a parser before. Finding the comparison line in the book:</p>
<blockquote><p>930 IFD(B)13THEN950:ELSEIFE$=”IGS”IFI(2)=1THENDK=1:R$=”BURNING TWIGS”:K3=2:GOSUB1100:H$(2)=R$:PRINT”GOOD DEDUCTION! YOU HAVE CREATED A SMALL FIRE AND YOU CAN SEE!”:GOTO5000</p></blockquote>
<p>That’s, erm, exactly the same. Well.</p>
<p>I decided to try to keep going — maybe the bug was only isolated. You explore the tunnel here a little, find a locked door and a spot that’s soft…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32961" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png" data-orig-size="791,650" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2024-02-29 193557" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png?w=791" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32961" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png 791w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png?w=150&h=123 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png?w=300&h=247 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/screenshot-2024-02-29-193557.png?w=768&h=631 768w" sizes="(max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px" /></p>
<p>…dig in what is apparently a one way passage to land in a forest…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32959" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag5/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif" data-orig-size="800,599" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag5" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif?w=800" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32959" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag5.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></p>
<p>…and find multiple colored trees with multiple colored keys hiding and a note. Trying to read the note gets the message WHAT?</p>
<blockquote><p>830 IFD(B)6THEN850:ELSEIFE$=”OTE”IFI(12)=AORI(12)=1OR(A-20)”*(I(12)=0)THEN?”NOTE SAYS: “CHR$(34)”THERE ARE 17 TREASURES HIDDEN. CAN YOU FIND THEM ALLPRINT”CHR$(34):GOTO380</p></blockquote>
<p>Well, here is a typo at least. A-20 is supposed to be A=20. But even fixing that, you can’t read the note.</p>
<p>So I’m going to have to do some repair to the code and report back. I did manage to explore out a bit more and I can give a few teaser screenshots.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32964" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag13/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag13" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32964" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag13.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32963" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag14/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag14" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32963" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag14.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /></p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32965" style="width: 809px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32965" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32965" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/29/magical-journey-1980/mag19/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif" data-orig-size="799,598" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="mag19" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>This is broken too. Your bottle does not fill.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif?w=799" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32965" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif 799w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif?w=300&h=225 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mag19.gif?w=768&h=575 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32965" class="wp-caption-text">This is broken too. Your bottle does not fill.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>It does seem like that Kirsch already has the “continuous journey” idea in mind given the treasure-holding sack and the one way passage, although I’m unclear if I skipped anything, and if those skips were because I missed a puzzle or if the game’s code is literally broken.</p>
<p>I suppose having to diagnose type-in typos makes for the authentic early-1980 experience!</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogStrand Games: The Guild of Thieves 2https://strandgames.com/blog/guild-of-thieves-22024-03-01T00:00:00+00:00
<img alt="" src="/images/d/8/c/8/c/d8c8cd814e9bc0333e45932226b4ce25282d0255-guildfeature1024x500-2.webp" />
<h2>Synopsis</h2>
<p><em>Strand Games</em> is working on a sequel to Magnetic Scrolls' acclaimed <em>The Guild of Thieves</em>. It's called, you guessed it, "The Guild of Thieves 2". </p>
<p>It's been 30 years since you proved yourself worthy of <em>The Guild of Thieves</em>.</p>
<p>Over the years, your abilities have only improved, to a true art-form. You climbed the ladder and scaled the greasy pole. You dethroned the old guy. To finally became <em>The Guildmaster</em> - The most senior Master Thief there is!</p>
<p>It was great at the top. You relaxed. But now, an upstart aspiring thief wants your head. You've been challenged to prove you've still got what it takes. The usual rules - Winner takes all, and may the worst one win!</p>
<p>Robbing, stealing 'n' cheating - all far too easy for a <em>master</em>. No, no, you've been challenged to something much more difficult. To <strong>unsteal</strong> things!</p>
<p>Remember those things you took, all those years ago in the Guild test? No? Well, now you have to put them back. To "unsteal" them, but so nobody notices. Get caught or found out and you're finished. Or, more accurately, you're <strong>dead</strong>!</p>
<p>Think you can do it? Got what it takes?</p>
<p>Your nemesis and challenger with eyes on <em>The Guild</em>. The bastard! Kill him and be done with it.</p>
<p>Well, if it were only that easy!</p>
<p><img alt="" class="center shadow" src="/user/pages/04.blog/b240229b/rocco_assassin1.webp" /></p>
Strand Gameshttps://strandgames.com/blogStrand Games: Maxman and the Alien Invasionhttps://strandgames.com/blog/maxman12024-02-29T23:51:00+00:00
<img alt="" src="/images/6/3/0/f/a/630fa596c6b7dfe42d45e9e66ac146c2e2473c80-title1-banner.webp" />
<h2>Synopsis</h2>
<p>A new <em>Strand</em> game - Superheroes right? Well not exactly. </p>
<p>The Italian Maxman is not your regular superhero. He's not super strong. He can't dodge bullets or leap tall buildings. He's a bit overweight, but nevertheless, he's not one bit less the <em>all action superhero</em>. Saving the world is a full time job. And even though he's not paid, he always sees the job through.</p>
<p>You play as the irrepressible <em>Maxman</em> in this comedy spoof superhero adventure.</p>
<p>You're definitely going to need help, but luckily you have two good friends. The super clever Zulin Chen (the brains of the outfit) and the ever intuitive <em>Mitzi</em>. Not the brightest button, but you'd not want to be in a jam without her help. She's saved your butt too many times.</p>
<p>And speaking of butts...</p>
<p><img alt="" class="left shadow" src="/user/pages/04.blog/b240229a/zob.webp" /></p>
<p>You have an evil nemesis. Alien actually. <strong>Zob</strong>, leader of the alien invasion. He's not as clever as he thinks, but he's sneaky as it gets.</p>
<p>It's up to you to save the world. Are you up for it?</p>
<p>Of course you are. You're <em>Maxman</em> !!</p>
Strand Gameshttps://strandgames.com/blogStrand Games: Picton Files: Peter & Paul Casehttps://strandgames.com/blog/picton-files-peter-paul-case2024-02-29T22:50:00+00:00
<img alt="" src="/images/a/c/7/4/9/ac749e5b45e245172effb2284cb66db3992f8f32-cover1-banner.jpg" />
<h2>DI Lance Picton</h2>
<p>Last time we looked at the outline for <em>The Picton Files</em>.</p>
<p>You play as DI Picton in this series of hard hitting detective crime thrillers. Although set in the modern world, the mysteries are nonetheless just as cunning as a Sherlock Holmes case.</p>
<p>Take the case of "Peter & Paul". Two twins embroiled in a rather tricky murder case. Let's have a look;</p>
<p><img alt="" class="left shadow" src="/user/pages/04.blog/b240229/edward1-tactical1.webp" /></p>
<p>Reginald Brent, a retired music producer, has been strangled to death in the comfort of his own apartment. The obvious suspects are his cocky young nephews Peter and Paul, both twins. They are the sole beneficiaries of his Will. There's a sure motive right there! Reginald wasn't a wealthy man, but a lifetime of scrimping and saving had nevertheless amassed a small fortune. Up for grabs by someone unscrupulous.</p>
<p>When confronted, Peter claims he is innocent. And so does Paul. They have a motive but which one is guilty? Or are they both in collusion? Do they have alibis? Perhaps they're both innocent. They claim they totally "adored" their uncle. True, or total lies?</p>
<p>This is one of those dilemmas for the sleuth mind of DI Picton.</p>
<p>You have to extract <em>every</em> fact from their testimonies. Your assistant Kit can help too. She has an uncanny ability to smoke out lies. You're glad she's your assistant. Maybe put pressure on the suspect Kit thinks is deceiving you and perhaps he'll inadvertently let some small, but crucial, fact slip. Maybe.</p>
<p>Stay tuned for updates...</p>
Strand Gameshttps://strandgames.com/blogStrand Games: Picton Files: Peter & Paulhttps://strandgames.com/blog/b2402282024-02-28T21:51:00+00:00
<img alt="" src="/images/c/5/6/f/1/c56f1e57fdb6c4a4969d06ddb0be773e71dee91a-cover1-banner.jpg" />
<h2>Concept</h2>
<p>The <em>Picton Files</em> are a series of contemporary crime detective thrillers developed by <em>Strand Games</em>. The games are episodic and feature two lead characters: <em>Detective Inspector Lance Picton</em> and his assistant <em>Kit</em>. You are DI Picton and must solve the case with Kit's help. Gameplay involves not only solving <em>who</em> the murderer is, but also gathering the evidence to prove it, just like a real-world crime case.</p>
<h2>DI Lance Picton</h2>
<p>Detective Inspector Lance Picton is as tenacious as he is effective. He's like a dog with a bone, he won't let go until the case is solved. His methodology is relentless investigation and questioning for clues leaving no stone unturned. In the game you will assume the role of DI Picton. </p>
<p><a rel="lightbox" href="/user/pages/04.blog/b240228/edward1-mibusiness2.webp"><img alt="" src="/images/b/2/8/f/1/b28f1e75ff1c0a0d566752097aa7210d72d8ce96-edward1-mibusiness2.webp" /></a></p>
<h2>Kit</h2>
<p>Full name, Kathrynne Lee, but everyone calls her "kit". She's a rookie, got a lot to learn, but people like her.</p>
<p>Her character is very intuitive, but not especially logical. Kit will help but <em>you</em> must assemble the object-based and statement-based evidence. Kit will jump to conclusions which you have to remind her <em>must</em> be based on <em>proof</em>. </p>
<p>However, if you get stuck, you can consult Kit. She often has insights into the case you might not have thought of. Kit has a talent for "reading people" and inferring their true movies. Kit has an enigmatic background, with many secrets, that is revealed as the story unfolds. </p>
<p><a rel="lightbox" href="/user/pages/04.blog/b240228/rika-scipolice-greet1.webp"><img alt="" src="/images/9/f/0/f/0/9f0f057d2101d7d34059c95d3463063a808e6510-rika-scipolice-greet1.webp" /></a></p>
<p>Stay tuned for updates...</p>
Strand Gameshttps://strandgames.com/blogGold Machine: Narrative Surface Features in Trinity 1/?https://golmac.org/?p=66282024-02-28T19:33:31+00:00
<p>What’s a <em>Trinity</em> made of?</p>
<span id="more-6628"></span>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Time Caves</h2>
<p>While I’ve said that <em>Spellbreaker</em> is Infocom’s last, great game in the Zork universe, <em>Trinity</em> is undoubtedly the last great <em>Zorkian</em> game published by Infocom. “Zorkian” in the sense that it is what Graham Nelson has called a “cave game,” one whose roots can be traced back to <em>Zork</em>, and, preceding that, Crowther’s and Woods’s <em>Adventure</em>. Nelson’s initial usage of the term in the <a href="https://inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf"><em>Inform</em> <em>Design Manual 4</em> </a>is meant literally (347), referring to generic Tolkein-esque elements in a cave setting, but those early games evince design strategies and tropes that transcend setting.</p>
<p>For instance, it has a three-act structure, with a “narrow” prologue or introductory section, a “wide,” exploration-heavy middle game, and a final, “master” game that is clearly distinct from the rest of the story. <em>Spellbreaker</em>, for instance, has the dramatic opening in the Borphee Guild Hall, followed by exploration across a wide, fractured geography. Once all problems have been solved, the game narrows for a final confrontation with the Shadow. <em>Zork III</em> (and the original PDP <em>Zork</em>) concludes in a confrontation with the Dungeon Master in a narrow geographic area.</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>While I’ve said that <em>Spellbreaker</em> is Infocom’s last, great game in the Zork universe, <em>Trinity</em> is undoubtedly the last great <em>Zorkian</em> game published by Infocom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For many readers and players, the adjective “Zorkian” has other implications. One might expect cheap or frequent fail states, unwinnable (sometimes undetectably so) playthroughs, smirking narrators, and obtuse geographies (unreciprocated exits and one-way passages). Depending on the player, reactions will range from sentimental affection to profound loathing, as any trip to the Interactive Fiction Database might indicate.</p>
<p>In multiple senses, then, <em>Trinity</em> is Infocom’s last, great Zorkian adventure. I see it as point of connection between the original cave games of old and what I call the “accessibly literary puzzlers” of today. Mixed in with <em>Trinity</em>‘s deaths, missable items, and optimization puzzles is an insistent intertextuality that is, I think, a hallmark of post-commercial interactive fiction from the 1990s and 2000s. Whatever Graham Nelson’s strategies for puzzle design in games like <em>Jigsaw</em> and <em>Curses</em> might have been, their overtly literary moments–encounters with the works of Proust, Eliot, and the like–have a precedent in <em>Trinity</em>.</p>
<p>I also see in <em>Trinity</em> a heroic avatar of mimetic fidelity, a quality that, over the years, has perhaps been overvalued. By “mimetic fidelity,” I simply mean that it presents credible figures of life. What could be more credible and real than history, than the fixed past? Infocom’s own promotional material for <em>Trinity</em>, along with Moriarty’s bibliography, seem to suggest that a faithful recreation of a historic geography elevates a work. Other critics, we have seen, feel the same way. In any case, <em>Trinity</em> really does seem to be the junction point that connects the classically Zorkian with the resurgent works–critical and artistic–of the 1990s and 2000s.</p>
<p>It is, if we choose to meet it where it is, a place to look both ahead and back.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Narration in The First Act of <em>Trinity</em></h2>
<p><em>Trinity</em> opens memorably:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-preformatted">Sharp words between the superpowers. Tanks in East Berlin. And now, reports the BBC, rumors of a satellite blackout. It's enough to spoil your continental breakfast.<br><br>But the world will have to wait. This is the last day of your $599 London Getaway Package, and you're determined to soak up as much of that authentic English ambience as you can. So you've left the tour bus behind, ditched the camera and escaped to Hyde Park for a contemplative stroll through the Kensington Gardens.</pre>
<p>In a small space, we learn a lot about the protagonist (henceforth called “Wabewalker”) and, perhaps, the American psyche. This is a person who characterizes vacations in terms of their price. They (I do not believe a binary gender is ever specified) also evince what I call “atomic resignation.” That is, it really seems that many Americans had accepted nuclear war as an inevitability. Then-president Ronald Reagan was incredibly popular despite his constant provocations of the Soviets. There was no use getting upset about that, we must have thought. What can one do?</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>This is a person who characterizes vacations in terms of their price. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Wabewalker is barely even distracted by recent bellicosities in the news. It can be hard to know, and this will continue to be difficult to know, when the narrator is characterizing the protagonist as opposed to satirizing them. Was the Wabewalker really in danger of having their breakfast ruined? At the very beginning, we are called to distinguish between description and editorialization. This seems important in a work so openly concerned with historical fact, with research and accuracy.</p>
<p>Before long–if we are to progress–the Wabewalker examines a sundial, and is rewarded with a quote from Lewis Carroll’s <em>Through the Looking Glass</em>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 80px;">“And ‘the wabe’ is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?” said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 80px;">“Of course it is. It’s called ‘wabe,’ you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it—”</p>
<p>Who recites these passages? The narrator? Moriarty? The protagonist, perhaps? The quotations appear in large, solid-filled blocks that blot out the text on the page. Do they exist in the world of the game at all? Perhaps Moriarty is speaking to the screen, speaking to the audience, and the Wabewalker never hears or sees them at all.</p>
<p>When air raid sirens begin, a few minutes later, a voice speaks, seemingly from nowhere:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-preformatted">A gentle voice whispers in your ear. "It's time."</pre>
<p>I’ve written at length about the rhetorical situation of Infocom games, usually characterizing them in terms of writer, audience, and subject matter. On such occasions, I have expressed interest in narrative indeterminacy: player agency, I’ve said, makes the subject matter of a game unstable. But what if the narration, itself, is unstable? These literary intrusions, editorializing narrations, the insistent intertextuality of historical sources, mysterious voices, and, later in the game, the baffling assertion that the past is simultaneously fixed and untethered all serve to create a sense of bewilderment. What can be real or certain in <em>Trinity</em>?</p>
<p>This confusion is not a flaw; rather, it is core to my reading of <em>Trinity</em>. I think this work sabotages its own efforts to participate in “truth,” historical or otherwise, but, in doing so, it speaks to greater and more profound realities.</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>These literary intrusions, editorializing narrations, the insistent intertextuality of historical sources, mysterious voices, and, later, the baffling assertion that the past is simultaneously fixed and untethered all serve to create a sense of bewilderment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many commentators have noted that the logic of <em>Trinity</em>‘s story does not cohere, and this is said especially with regard to its ending. We are a long way from that ending, but I will say now that <em>Trinity</em>‘s insistent historicization can be misleading. It ultimately isn’t rewarding to read <em>Trinity</em> in terms of preceding and succeeding dominoes in a long row. This work is concerned with making or participating in the past, which is messy, elusive, and, despite what we might want to believe, largely subjective.</p>
<p>If the Wabewalker sticks around long enough, they will see themselves–London, too–destroyed in nuclear fire. The narrator’s prose is succinct and poetic:</p>
<pre class="wp-block-preformatted">The west wind falls silent, and a new star flashes to life over the doomed city.</pre>
<p>This narrator, who employs ironic figuration (“new star”) and editorializes (“doomed city”), seems to speak from a majestic vista outside of history or causality. We will later be told that the story of <em>Trinity</em> can only end one way, that it ended before we even began to play. What are these deaths, then, and who is talking about them? This is the first of what will likely be many. Did they ever happen? Did we experience them at all? There are 26 deaths events in <em>Trinity</em>‘s source code (Release 12), each of which must simultaneously occur and never occur.</p>
<p>This is to say nothing of the various unwinnable conditions that <em>Trinity</em> permits.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Precautions Must Be Taken</h2>
<p>I said, long ago, that it is a mistake to read <em>A Mind Forever Voyaging</em> too literally. Some critics have expounded at length regarding the “unrealistic” nature of Perry Simm’s psychology, for instance, asserting that he would go insane in the way that Harlan Ellison’s AM did once he became self-aware. The easy way to avoid this sort of thing spoiling your good time is to recognize that <em>A Mind Forever Voyaging</em> is not a rigorous thought experiment about artificial intelligence technologies. Likewise, <em>Trinity</em> is a game about ideas rather than facts, bibliography notwithstanding, and it is useful to distinguish between history generally and historical detail.</p>
<p>Perhaps I mean to say that it is about <em>causation</em> rather than <em>causes</em>.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Next</h2>
<p>General discussion of <em>Trinity</em>‘s narrative will continue with its “wide” middle in the surreal region of the Wabe.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golmac.org/narrative-surface-features-in-trinity-1/">Narrative Surface Features in Trinity 1/?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golmac.org">Gold Machine</a>.</p>
Gold Machinehttps://golmac.org/Renga in Blue: Avon: Every Inch a Kinghttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=328542024-02-27T22:57:54+00:00
<p>I’ve finished, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are <em>not</em> dead. <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC">Read my prior posts on Avon before this one</a>.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32855" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32855" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32855" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/27/avon-every-inch-a-king/avonelectron/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonelectron.jpg" data-orig-size="800,785" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonELECTRON" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Via Acorn Electron World.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonelectron.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonelectron.jpg?w=800" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonelectron.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32855" /><p id="caption-attachment-32855" class="wp-caption-text">Via Acorn Electron World.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Last time I had left off in town, near the fringes of two mazes. First, though, I needed to visit a beach:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on a rocky beach at the estuary of some mighty river. A road leads to the northwest.</p></blockquote>
<p>Rather like Zork III, you’re supposed to wait. There’s no cue or clue to this.</p>
<blockquote><p>> wait<br />
OK.<br />
> wait<br />
OK.<br />
> wait<br />
OK.<br />
In the distance, there is drifting a large wooden chest.<br />
> wait<br />
OK.<br />
There is a large wooden chest drifting a few yards offshore.<br />
> wait<br />
OK.<br />
There is a large wooden chest bobbing about in the waves at your feet.<br />
> open chest<br />
What e’er it be, ’tis wondrous heavy, but you wrench it open straight. If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold, ’tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon you.</p>
<p>O most potent gods! What’s here? A corse! Shrouded in cloth of state, balm’d and entreasur’d with spices.</p>
<p>She is alive, she moves. You manage to help pull her out before the chest is again pulled away from you by the waves.<br />
Her name is Thamis, and she leaves you the spices in gratitude before departing to seek her lost family.<br />
There is a large wooden chest drifting a few yards offshore.<br />
You are on the beach.<br />
There are exotic spices here!</p></blockquote>
<p>That’s supposed to be Thaisa, daughter of King Simonides, who in the play Pericles is rescued by some fishermen and brought back to life.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32864" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32864" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32864" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/27/avon-every-inch-a-king/pericles/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg" data-orig-size="1440,497" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="pericles" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>From a 19th century illustration by Selous.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32864" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=750&h=259 750w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=150&h=52 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=300&h=104 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=768&h=265 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg?w=1024&h=353 1024w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/pericles.jpg 1440w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32864" class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://shakespeareillustration.org/2016/08/12/pericles-tailpiece/">From a 19th century illustration by Selous</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>There’s not really great reason to wait here nor reason to expect something is coming, except for the severe lack of red herrings in Phoenix games. (Although remember that cloud? That <em>is</em> a red herring, and I think perhaps the first I’ve ever seen in one of these.)</p>
<p>This makes the puzzle painful but not impossible; however, there’s a moment that’s even worse. You can <em>keep waiting</em> for another effect.</p>
<blockquote><p>OK.<br />
A small wooden chest is washed up at your feet.<br />
> get chest<br />
OK.<br />
> inv<br />
You are holding:<br />
A ten times barred-up chest.</p></blockquote>
<p>The chest (via Richard II) will foil being opened, you have to deal with it later.</p>
<p>ROSALIND maze next:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the forest of Arden. High on a nearby tree there is fixed a piece of paper bearing the name ROSALIND.</p></blockquote>
<p>This doesn’t sound so bad when I describe it, but in practice it was hard to spot what’s going on. For the majority of the “gimmick” Phoenix mazes (all of them, in this game) I’m used to some sort of random generation aspect that resets upon exiting the maze. Here the maze is generated only once, so it is possible to leave and come back.</p>
<p>The gimmick is then that if you are in a room marked “ROSALIND” you are on the right track, otherwise you are off of it. If you meet ROSALIND again, you’re back to the first room of the appropriate path.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32870" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/27/avon-every-inch-a-king/rosalindmaze/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png" data-orig-size="372,610" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ROSALINDmaze" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png?w=183" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png?w=372" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32870" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png 372w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png?w=91&h=150 91w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/rosalindmaze.png?w=183&h=300 183w" sizes="(max-width: 372px) 100vw, 372px" /></p>
<p>The next part is kind of arbitrary (…sort of a common attribute for this last leg of the game) but you find a sleeping man and can say MORTIMER to wake him, the word the starling has been saying in the cage. You don’t need the starling after this point and can go back and get the tame shrew.</p>
<blockquote><p>Suddenly the starling croaks “Mortimer!”<br />
You are in a clearing in the forest of Arden.<br />
There is a sleeping man here.<br />
> MORTIMER<br />
The cry of MORTIMER! arouses the sleeping man; in the undergrowth you hear a disturbance and see a green and gilded snake, which was waiting to wreath itself about his neck, slip away with indented glides. The man is grateful to you for waking him in so timely a fashion and says “Should you ever be in the tavern, call for my friend Parolles!” He then loses himself in the forest.</p></blockquote>
<p>The name is randomly generated but thankfully the game does <em>not</em> bust saves here.</p>
<p>After this comes the fog maze, which I’ve already talked about. I should mention that, structurally, entering here is a one-way trip, which means the whole business with the teleporting basket/treasures needs to be utilized before this point because otherwise you’ll hit your inventory limit. As you’ll see, you still need two of the treasures, and it is hard to predict which two.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the middle of a drooping fog as black as Acheron (sic).<br />
It is impossible even to see the ground.<br />
> w<br />
>From the gloom there comes a voice which you seemingly recognise as that of the poor tormented creature that lived in the hovel, although in the fog you see nothing. He leads you for a while and then stops at (he says) the very brim of a cliff whose high and bending head looks fearfully in the confined deep. You then hear him no more.<br />
You are in the middle of a drooping fog as black as Acheron (sic).<br />
It is impossible even to see the ground.<br />
> jump<br />
You fall forward, with your eyes shut. After a while you open them to see…</p>
<p>You are at the foot of a high cliff, at whose dread summit you can now see a creature above all strangeness. Methinks his eyes are two full moons; he has a thousand noses, horns whelk’d and wav’d like the enridged sea: it is some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father, think that the clearest gods, who make them honours of men’s impossibilities, have preserv’d thee.<br />
The valley you are in leads down to the east towards a Brave New World.<br />
There is a longbow here.</p></blockquote>
<p>All this is incidentally a King Lear reference. This is the part where the Earl of Gloucester is depressed and wants to commit suicide, but Edgar (his oldest son) tricks him in disguise (as “Poor Tom”) by taking him to what he says is the top of a cliff, but is really the bottom. Gloucester faints, and Edgar (now in a different disguise) acts like Gloucester fell down the cliff and was saved by the gods, who didn’t want him to die yet.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32874" style="width: 411px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32874" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32874" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/27/avon-every-inch-a-king/gloster/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg" data-orig-size="617,965" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="gloster" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>from</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg?w=192" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg?w=617" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32874" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg?w=401&h=627 401w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg?w=96&h=150 96w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg?w=192&h=300 192w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/gloster.jpg 617w" sizes="(max-width: 401px) 100vw, 401px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32874" class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://shakespeare-navigators.ewu.edu/king_lear/King_Lear_Note_4_6_2.html">From another 19th century engraving by Selous</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Then comes the house where I can shoot the arrow (this was correct)…</p>
<blockquote><p>> shoot arrow<br />
Let your disclaiming from a purposed evil free you so far in our most generous thoughts, for you have shot your arrow o’er the house and hurt a brother.</p></blockquote>
<p>…and the constable, who is simply zeroing in on the fact you have a weapon (the longbow). You need to leave it behind to go in. Before showing that, a side trip:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at a dead end, the only exit being to the north.<br />
There is a fretful porpentine here.</p></blockquote>
<p>To get the pointy beast, we need to be carrying one of the treasures. I’ll give you the full list and see if you can figure it out.</p>
<blockquote><p>There is a pair of yellow stockings here, made of silk and bearing the name Malvolio!<br />
There is a diamond necklace here!<br />
The Plantagenet crown is here!<br />
There is a miniature portrait of the lady Portia here!<br />
There is a gold ring here!<br />
There is a sceptre here, which shows the force of temporal power!<br />
A pearl is here, left by a base Indian, though richer than all his tribe!<br />
There is a figured goblet here!<br />
There are three thousand ducats here!<br />
There is a scroll here.<br />
There is a bracelet here!+<br />
There is a ten times barred-up chest here.<br />
There are exotic spices here!<br />
There is a topaz here!<br />
There is an antique viola here!<br />
There is a signed copy of the Iliad here!<br />
The Boar’s Head Drinking Trophy is here!<br />
There is a furred robe here!<br />
There is a valuable Touchstone here!<br />
There is a piece of agate here, carved into the likeness of Queen Mab!</p></blockquote>
<p>Some Shakespeare productions go all-out with Malvolio’s yellow stockings; they double as porcupine protection when used on the hands.</p>
<blockquote><p>With the aid of Malvolio’s yellow stockings you succeed in grasping the porpentine. It then fastens itself to your shoulder.</p></blockquote>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32882" style="width: 432px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32882" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32882" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/27/avon-every-inch-a-king/stockings/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg" data-orig-size="528,831" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="stockings" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Utah Shakespeare Festival, David Pichette in Twelfth Night.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg?w=191" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg?w=528" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32882" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg?w=422&h=665 422w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg?w=95&h=150 95w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg?w=191&h=300 191w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/stockings.jpg 528w" sizes="(max-width: 422px) 100vw, 422px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32882" class="wp-caption-text">Utah Shakespeare Festival, David Pichette in Twelfth Night.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Returning to the main track:</p>
<blockquote><p>> e<br />
You are in what appears to be a tavern, although it is quite deserted. There are various exits, apparently sealed off, but also a small archway to the west and a larger one to the east.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is where you can use the word from the forest, and the ten-times barred chest gets resolved.</p>
<blockquote><p>A man in courtly dress enters at your summoning, to whom you explain the nature of your Adventures in Arden. He sees that you are carrying a barred chest, which he opens for you. Inside there is a sapphire! The courtier hands you the jewel from the ten-times barred up chest, and goes.</p></blockquote>
<p>Moving on, I found I had already defeated another obstacle (“a mighty Colossus lying here, evidently slain by a<br />
poisoned arrow”) and was able to grab a “highly-inflated bladder which appears to have been used as a balloon at some Twelfth-Night party.”.</p>
<p>Trying to move on I was stopped by Lady Portia, and I expect everyone else playing this game was too:</p>
<blockquote><p>You pass the lady Portia, who asks you what you did with the ring. If you had known the virtue of the ring, or half her worthiness that gave the ring, or your own honour to contain the ring, you would not then have parted with the ring. In fact you were best to cut your left hand off and swear that you lost the ring defending it.</p></blockquote>
<p>At least it is a direct reference to the end of The Merchant of Venice! The gold ring is the other treasure you need to keep rather than send forward with the magic basket.</p>
<p>Reloading and returning with the gold ring in hand leads to the final two obstacles.</p>
<blockquote><p>You pass the lady Portia, who notes approvingly that you still have her ring with you.<br />
You are in a street. To the west lies the colossus, to the north there are some rather unexciting streets, and to the east lies a gorgeous palace, outside which there stands a watchman. He is thin, for watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt. For some must watch, while some must sleep: so runs the world away.</p></blockquote>
<p>I solved the watchman first, but that’s the actual end of the game, so let’s head north:</p>
<blockquote><p>> n<br />
You are in a network of streets: they lead NE, NW and S.<br />
> ne<br />
You are in a network of streets: they lead NW, SW and S.<br />
> nw<br />
A goldsmith passes you in the street and greets you as Arthur of Ephesus, and tells you that he has made a chain for you in accordance with your orders. Although you feel that you are part of some great comedy of errors, the goldsmith insists on leaving the chain with you.</p></blockquote>
<p>(This is using the same name given earlier at entering Brave New World. The gold chain confusion happens in the play Comedy of Errors.)</p>
<p>If you then leave through the streets, the goldsmith realizes his error and gets his chain back. You are instead meant to explode the balloon to scare him away from his residence. This could have been absurd on the level of a bad Discworld puzzle, but we’re also down to the end of the game, and the balloon is the only unused object, so–</p>
<blockquote><p>> explode bladder<br />
You manage to rupture the bladder by striking it against the quills of the porpentine. It explodes with a loud</p>
<p> >> BANG <<</p>
<p>which makes the porpentine look even more fretful, and pieces fly in all directions.<br />
There is a noise of general alarums and excursions, and the goldsmith rushes up, agitatedly muttering something along the lines of "Burglars! Gunpowder! Hoist with my own petard!"<br />
He then runs into his shop to investigate, carefully re-locking the door behind him.</p></blockquote>
<p>To get by the watchman, you just then hurl the poor porpentine.</p>
<p>You grab the porpentine, despite its prickliness, and hurl it at the watchman. The creature darts its quills fretfully at him, and he struggles to shake it off. You seize on the opportunity to dash past him, just evading a falling portcullis, and run down a passage to find that…</p>
<blockquote><p>You have arrived at the palace. There is a formidable array of courtly characters here, some, such as Portia, King Richard and Thamis, known to you, and others, such as Coriolanus, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (who are NOT dead) and Silvia (who is she?) previously unknown. They congratulate you on staying the course.</p>
<p>There is a diamond necklace here!<br />
The Plantagenet crown is here!<br />
There is a miniature portrait of the lady Portia here!<br />
There is a sceptre here, which shows the force of temporal power!<br />
A pearl is here, left by a base Indian, though richer than all his tribe!<br />
There is a figured goblet here!<br />
There are three thousand ducats here!<br />
There is an Egyptian vase here!<br />
There is a bracelet here!<br />
There are exotic spices here!<br />
There is a topaz here!<br />
There is an antique viola here!<br />
There is a signed copy of the Iliad here!<br />
The Boar’s Head Drinking Trophy is here!<br />
There is a furred robe here!<br />
There is a valuable Touchstone here!<br />
There is a piece of agate here, carved into the likeness of Queen Mab!<br />
You are holding:<br />
A sapphire.<br />
A golden chain.<br />
A laundry basket.<br />
A gold ring.<br />
A pair of yellow stockings.<br />
A shrew in a cage.</p>
<p>You scored 425 points out of a maximum of 425.<br />
You are entitled to the title King, aye, every inch a king!<br />
You may now return to the twentieth century confident of your own prowess!</p></blockquote>
<p>Of note: as far as I can tell, there is only one ending, no matter your point score. Arriving without having sent over any treasures, for instance:</p>
<blockquote><p>You scored 255 points out of a maximum of 425.<br />
This entitles you to the title Thane of Cawdor.</p></blockquote>
<p>This means to beat the game you technically just need to get the shield via stabbing (the whole ghost scene in summer I believe you can skip), get the gold ring and stockings from Lady Portia (requiring solving the Spring variant of the puzzle with the frog toe and the knights), handle the man in the hovel (which requires getting the word from Ariel), and make it through the end sequence with the colossus and porpentine. Being able to skip treasures is not unusual — even Acheton allowed a few missing — but this is the first time I’ve seen the end text otherwise be unchanged.</p>
<p>Theoretically, this means the game can be approached a different angle in terms of fairness — if a puzzle is really tough to solve (I give the crown to finding the second chest at the beach) it can be discarded as merely optional to the whole enterprise. One could even think of the extra treasures as “post-game content” akin to the challenge levels of modern games.</p>
<p>To close things out, I’m going to clip some portions of reviews and comment on them.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32895" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32895" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32895" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/27/avon-every-inch-a-king/avonreview/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg" data-orig-size="480,677" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="avonREVIEW" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Sinclair User, December 1989.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg?w=213" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg?w=480" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32895" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg 480w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg?w=106&h=150 106w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonreview.jpg?w=213&h=300 213w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32895" class="wp-caption-text">Sinclair User, December 1989.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<blockquote><p>You don’t have to know much about Shakespeare to play the game, because although the situations come from the Bard of Avon’s well-known plays, the solutions are the usual adventure stuff; get newt’s eye, put in cauldron, pick up torch, and like that. To some extent this makes the whole thing pointless; it’s just a series of Shakespearian references splodged together, without actually testing your knowledge or appreciation of the works; a bit like someone reeling off lots of jokes but forgetting the punchlines.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is from ’89 when the commercial version of the game came out, and makes a fascinating contrast with modern norms (and the spirited debate in the comments of these posts). The reviewer here was <em>upset</em> that Shakespeare trivia knowledge is not required. The “fax box” also says it is a game that it is a “Text only adventure that may help with your Shakespeare” which suggests the reviewer approached it sincerely as an educational game!</p>
<p>Modern norms have the dependence on outside knowledge in adventure games as an anathema (Graham Nelson in his Bill of Rights puts the concept at number 16, “Not to need to be American”.) There’s really two questions here: 1. just how dependent is the game on knowing Shakespeare, really? and 2. how bad is outside knowledge in the first place as a game design move?</p>
<p>For point 1, as I’ve already observed a few times, knowing Shakespeare at least helps with some aspects conceptually. Knowing that Cassandra is in reference to the gift of prophecy, for instance, can help realize she is warning you about deadly maze obstacles. (But again, it isn’t <em>necessary</em>, and I personally only found out about this particular reference after solving the puzzle.) I think what is more interesting (in a game-design-theoretic sense) is how familiarity with Shakespeare helps not so much solving a puzzle actively as much as parsing what is going on with the language. Consider the nourishing meat pie</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on a moor. The ground is black here, as though scorched. The only path leads to the north, but there is a hovel to the southeast.<br />
There is a nourishing meat pie here.<br />
> get pie<br />
OK.<br />
> eat pie<br />
Although the cheer be poor, ’twill fill your stomach. You eat of it with pleasure until a man dressed as a cook enters and reveals to you that two of the ingredients in the pie were named Chiron and Demetrius. ‘Tis true; witness his knife’s sharp point… I’m afraid he stabs you.</p></blockquote>
<p>I immediately realized the reference to Pies Made of People, but imagine someone who was not familiar with Titus Andronicus. The text is not terribly explicit about what “Chiron and Demetrius” even refers to and the line after switches action in an almost abstract way. All this is simply a simplification of Titus’s lines in the original play:</p>
<blockquote><p>Why, there they are, both bakèd in this pie,<br />
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,<br />
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.<br />
’Tis true, ’tis true! Witness my knife’s sharp point.</p></blockquote>
<p>Later, at the cliff (the one at the fog where you jump), I admit I was somewhat overwhelmed by the language and had simply tried JUMP because it was the typical adventure-game thing to do at cliffs, but a less canny player with the same confusion might get stuck for longer. I haven’t seen King Lear, so I didn’t know the reference until I looked it up.</p>
<p>Regarding question 2 — how bad is having the references, really? — I’m not so sure they’re terrible in this context. This isn’t like a traditional fantasy that suddenly expects you to recognize the rules of cricket. The fact we’re being subjected to a blizzard of Shakespeare references is given up front, and I had genuine fun learning about characters I didn’t know and scenes I didn’t remember. I think the idea of a game being intentionally past its bounds is not intrinsically terrible as long as the “educational” part is telegraphed.</p>
<p>Now on to some modern takes! I’m referring to the reviews via <a href="https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=6m06ajvdyslxxi8m">the IFDB page</a>.</p>
<p>In reference to the puzzles:</p>
<blockquote><p>…the ones in the last of the three structural sections of the game appeared to overuse the “try a random object in a random situation and see what happens” kind of approach (at least, to me) but most of them were logical and elegant.</p>
<p>— Valentine Kopteltsev</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>I put “solve” between quotation marks because there are very few actual puzzles in Avon. There are many unannounced death-traps, a lot of riddles where you get only one chance and you must have found a clue beforehand (no lucky guesses!) and a few easy mazes. </p>
<p>— Rovarsson</p></blockquote>
<p>Two very different takes, here. Logical and elegant, or “very few actual puzzles”?</p>
<p>Contrast with Murdac is useful here. In that game (for example), there was a moment where you revive a Frankenstein-type monster, use a plank to make a previously dangerous passage safe, then make sure to dive in an alcove out the way so it pushes forward until it busts through a physical wall that was previously a barrier. This involves holistic thinking about the entire map, the physical situation, and the items the player is carrying.</p>
<p>While I wouldn’t call Avon puzzles “self-contained” exactly, but in terms of physical space they tend to be isolated. The seasons makes for some continuity across <em>time</em> rather than <em>space</em> that needs to be accounted for; otherwise, they are structured via a web of references where you need to spot that, for example, a particular word causes a particular effect.</p>
<p>I think the latter part of the game (post-cliff) really does feel a bit like Just One Riddle After Another (although to be fair it made about 5% of my total gameplay). By contrast, the flipping between seasons was the wrinkle that really made me think of the game as an adventure game rather than just a sequence of puzzles, as I had to worry over (for instance) the fact that the toe of frog works to solve both a spring and a summer puzzle.</p>
<p>The approach is different; not worse, but different. For a player who likes to “inhabit” the worlds they are exploring — imagine they are physically lifting that lantern to read the words on the wall, and listen to the drip of water — I can understand why it might not come off so well. If you approach the text of the game a cavalcade of wordplay, it feels much more pleasant.</p>
<p>Or maybe I’m off–</p>
<blockquote><p>The whole was a perfect exercise in mimetic immersion for me and I really felt I was in Shakespearean England when I played this.</p>
<p>— Canalboy</p></blockquote>
<p>Not every game can and should have the same goals. Avon tried for something relatively unique (Graham Nelson did <a href="https://www.ifwiki.org/The_Tempest">The Tempest</a>, but that’s still a much different animal) and I feel like there’s some untapped corners of the game design possibility space coming out; essentially the classic “wordplay game” (like <a href="https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=aearuuxv83plclpl">Counterfeit Monkey</a>) being done by reference and allusion as much as by the simple fact one word anagrams into another.</p>
<p><em>Coming up</em>: two short games, followed by a Dr. Who game that, oddly enough, does <strong>not</strong> originate from the UK.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Avon: Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Chihuahuas of Warhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=328302024-02-26T20:52:02+00:00
<p>(My prior posts on Avon are needed for this one to make sense. <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC">Start reading here</a>.)</p>
<blockquote><p>If you were to quit, you would score 374 points out of a maximum of 425.</p></blockquote>
<p>So I am definitely closer to the end than expected. It turns out putting treasures in the basket gets them to somewhere Good as the score increases. That doesn’t mean they all should go in the basket, though!</p>
<p>Some of the insights that follow came on my own, some came from hints provided by Morningstar in my last post (thanks much) and some came from a walkthrough (mainly when I was worried I was softlocking something due to saved game shenanigans again, although I looked up some other things while I was at it).</p>
<p>Rather than insight-sequence (where I explain the order I solved things, and where I got them from), I’ll do the puzzles in narrative sequence, starting with the farmer.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at the remains of a chicken farm. A fox has clearly visited this place and killed half the stock. The only way the farmhands will let you go is back to the west.<br />
A farmer is standing here bemoaning the loss of his livestock.</p>
<p>“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?” he mutters. “I asked my keeper, Puck, to get the fox’s earth seen to, but he went away saying that he’d put a hurdle round the earth in forty minutes (and that was hours ago.)”</p></blockquote>
<p>I mentioned I had trouble even conceiving what to do here, and that was really the core of my problem. Was I supposed to find more chickens? Find Puck? Find a fox? Scare off the farmer and farmhands so I can get by? Do some funky magic word that causes the farmer to turn into a hat?</p>
<p>The answer is none of these, although the last question above was the closest. I need to warp back to the moment of entering the town with the drug squad:</p>
<blockquote><p>A rather dull-looking constable appears, cries “HAVOC”, and lets slip the dogs of war. In fact, a small chihuahua appears and stands barking at you.<br />
“Drug squad,” says the constable. “I must search you for certain substances.”<br />
In fact he finds nothing prohibited and he and the dog slope off.</p></blockquote>
<p>This keeps you from taking the season-warping potion to the north part of the map. I theorized maybe it was possible to slip the drug by, but what I should have been paying attention to was the summoning of the chihuahua. Specifically, it is done by the constable crying HAVOC. Back to the farmer:</p>
<blockquote><p>> havoc<br />
A small chihuahua appears, barking wildly. “Of course!” says the farmer, “that’s just what I wanted. I don’t think a hurdle would have kept the fox in anyway. A dog’s a much better idea. But I must reward you – take this touchstone – they say that it’s of great value to alchemists.”</p></blockquote>
<p>So the basic question I <em>should</em> have been asking was: how do I get a replacement animal for guarding the remaining chickens? I likely would have happened upon the solution faster. I can see how that kind of makes sense with the text, but the Shakespeare layer was befuddling me.</p>
<p>This moment was fascinating in an abstract puzzle-solving-philosophy sense, but let’s move on: it turns out I was entirely done with Winter after this encounter (I know this with certainty from peeking at the walkthrough). I was also done, as I suspected, with Spring, so I could jump to Summer:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a walled graveyard. For those making a return journey, the way out is to the west, as the eastern exit is blocked by impenetrable grass. However there is more graveyard to the north.</p></blockquote>
<p>This puzzle was about the grass. Here I was stymied by the grass and any verbs I attempted were rebuffed to the extent I suspected this puzzle needed to be solved “from the other side”, so to speak, but no, I had already had the means to solve this, and it was totally reasonable. I needed to make a stop here when I was being an ass:</p>
<blockquote><p>Feeling a bit of an ass, you munch your way through the barrier of long grass and succeed in clearing a path through it. You are outside a disused chapel (to your east). There is newly-made track back to the west.</p></blockquote>
<p>This just yields a treasure (a pearl), but still counts as progress.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32858" style="width: 696px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32858" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32858" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/26/avon-cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-chihuahuas-of-war/portia-2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg" data-orig-size="858,825" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="portia" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>x</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=858" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32858" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=686&h=660 686w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=150&h=144 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=300&h=288 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg?w=768&h=738 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/portia-1.jpg 858w" sizes="(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32858" class="wp-caption-text">Lady Portia and the caskets, 1892 engraving.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Then I prodded more at the puzzle where you get warm and melt after Lady Portia’s final gift. Morningstar’s hint led me to think the toe of frog (which allows swimming) helps with cooling off, and indeed it does: swimming will cool you off. But the problem is, the toe of frog <em>only</em> works on one season, and I needed it to survive the knights (from Spring). So was I solving the knights problem wrong?</p>
<p>After laborious testing I finally buckled to the walkthrough (in fact, this is the puzzle I wondered about softlocks so it caused me to break open the walkthrough in the first place) and found out, you could go to the river and —</p>
<blockquote><p>> wash<br />
You wash your face and feel much cooler as a result.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is my nomination for worst puzzle in the game. Note that only WASH, alone, by itself works, or WASH FACE. However, there’s no reason to suspect that a face wash does the trick, since you just “feel warm” as you are dying. So really the only reasonable thing is to somehow type WASH alone, because … ???</p>
<p>I don’t know. Through all of the Phoenix games I’ve felt like while I have had to occasionally guess the verb (see <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/2020/01/27/hezarin-darkly-out-of-the-moorland-fog/">Hezarin and shouting</a>) I’ve never had to worry about phrasing in general; the parser has generally been well-behaved. This violation stung rather like the dagger being plunged into King Duncan.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell the puzzle doesn’t even make a good Shakespeare reference! Yes, the line about “melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew” is from Hamlet, but it doesn’t constitute a strong enough connection to really justify the puzzle existing in the first place. Why does finding the third treasure cause us to start melting? I still don’t know, and that’s after reading the walkthrough on the section (which was provided by the company Topologika itself to people reviewing the game).</p>
<p>With that taken care of, and another peek at the walkthrough to be sure, I had essentially everything prior to the capitol (with Cleopatra, the shrew, the Rosalind maze, etc.) resolved. I’ve gotten a smidge farther there as well but I think the narrative will be best all in one go, after I’ve finished the game, which I predict will be with my next post.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Avon: Sleep, the Ape of Deathhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=327962024-02-23T21:18:02+00:00
<p>(<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC">Avon posts in order are here</a>.)</p>
<p>This post is mostly intended to lay out exactly everywhere I’m stuck (for my benefit just as much as yours) although I have made some small progress, including to a new area.</p>
<p>I will officially declare this the threshold if people want to drop full on spoiler hints, but please do so in ROT13 (unless you are “playing along” and have not checked hints, in which case feel free to use plaintext). I’d still like to hit my goal of finishing by the end of February.</p>
<p>But first, that progress I mentioned–</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32801" style="width: 622px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32801" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32801" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/23/avon-sleep-the-ape-of-death/balcony/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg" data-orig-size="612,664" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="balcony" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Romeo and Juliet at the balcony, Illustrated London News (1855), wood engraving.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg?w=277" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg?w=612" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32801" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg 612w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg?w=138&h=150 138w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/balcony.jpg?w=277&h=300 277w" sizes="(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32801" class="wp-caption-text">Romeo and Juliet at the balcony, Illustrated London News (1855), wood engraving.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Last time I had leaped off a balcony to my doom, but I hadn’t tried it (as Matt W. suggested in the comments) while holding the bat wool. Seemed logical enough:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on the ground floor of Dunsinnin. There is an exit to the north and some steps up.<br />
There is a sceptre here, which shows the force of temporal power!<br />
> get<br />
OK.<br />
> u<br />
You are on the first floor of Dunsinnin. There is a balcony to the south<br />
(Soft! what light through yonder window breaks?) and some steps down.<br />
> s<br />
You are on the balcony of Dunsinnin, which looks out over Birnham wood. The only (apparent) way to go now is back to the north.<br />
> jump<br />
As you leap off the balcony the bat’s wool begins to grow, taking the form of a giant bat, to which you clutch desperately. On the bat’s back you do fly, getting an Ariel view of the wood. After a while you land and the bat’s wool regains its former state.<br />
You are standing on a flat plain. From here it seems that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances to the north, south, east and west.</p></blockquote>
<p>Regarding the scepter (or rather, “sceptre”), it has more attached to its treasure description than normal.</p>
<blockquote><p>> look<br />
You are in a cell, which clearly belongs to some holy man, as you can tell from the religious decoration of the room. The only way out is by a door to the northeast.<br />
Is this a dagger you see before you? Yes, I believe so.<br />
There is a bat’s wool here.<br />
There is a dog’s tongue here.<br />
There is a diamond necklace here!<br />
There is a large laundry basket here.<br />
There is a miniature portrait of the lady Portia here!<br />
There is a gold ring here!<br />
There is a nourishing meat pie here.<br />
<strong>There is a sceptre here, which shows the force of temporal power!</strong><br />
There is a figured goblet here!<br />
There is a shield here.<br />
There is a clerical collar lying discarded here.<br />
There is a piece of paper here bearing the word “TEABAG”.<br />
There is a topaz here!<br />
There is an antique viola here!<br />
There is a signed copy of the Iliad here!<br />
The Boar’s Head Drinking Trophy is here!<br />
There is a furred robe here!<br />
There is a piece of agate here, carved into the likeness of Queen Mab!</p></blockquote>
<p>(This is not every treasure I’ve found, but a lot of them. The likeness of Queen Mab also feels suspicious but not as much as the force of temporal power.)</p>
<p>Phoenix games have not shied away from having a treasure also be a utility item, but this game (seemingly) hasn’t gone that route. I still have fair certainty the scepter will be used in the future. Perhaps it will be used to go to the future? My maximum score (so far) suggests I really am missing a whole section of game, which might be a fall season for the grand finale section of Avon. (Are there any notable fall scenes in Shakespeare, though?)</p>
<p>Another breakthrough involved the Undiscovered Country, which I’ve finally waded through. I had a “scroll” from the capitol that I always suspected was connected with the mazes…</p>
<blockquote><p>> read scroll<br />
The scroll bears the following message:<br />
‘By indirections find directions out.’<br />
> read scroll<br />
The scroll bears the following message:<br />
‘What do you read, my lord? Words, words, words.’<br />
> read scroll<br />
The scroll bears the following message:<br />
‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.’</p></blockquote>
<p>…but I hadn’t apparently tested reading the scroll while in the Undiscovered Country itself, as the scroll text changes.</p>
<blockquote><p>> read scroll<br />
The scroll bears the following message:<br />
‘When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.’</p></blockquote>
<p>This gives fairly transparent directions for each direction to go.</p>
<blockquote><p>> read scroll<br />
The scroll bears the following message:<br />
‘Then westward ho! Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!’</p></blockquote>
<p>There are two exceptions, one being a text for “BACK”. (“You yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab,<br />
you could go backward.”) BACK is an understood verb in the game, but it isn’t a common one, and I’m still unclear what actual action is being undertook here (are we walking backwards, maybe?) Of course, this game has been halfway in wordplay-world where actions aren’t meant to always be literal, but rather perhaps punning.</p>
<p>The other exception you’ll see in a moment. After enough successful moves you find the princess Imogen from Cymbeline, a play I knew nothing about. (Set in very early Roman Britain, ~10-14 AD, involving the vassal king. The 2014 movie changes the premise: “For years Cymbeline, King of the Briton Motorcycle Club, has maintained an uneasy peace with the Roman Police Force.”)</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns. There are paths in various directions.<br />
The princess Imogen is here. Sleep, the ape of death, lies upon her.<br />
On her wrist there is a valuable bracelet!</p></blockquote>
<p>We can steal the bracelet just like the play and walk away. Alternatively, we can kiss and/or wake Imogen, either before or after taking the bracelet.</p>
<blockquote><p>> kiss imogen<br />
One kiss! Rubies unparagon’d, how clearly they do’t! You notice, on her left breast, a mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops i’ the bottom of a cowslip.<br />
> wake imogen<br />
The princess wakes with a yawn and wanders away with the bracelet.</p></blockquote>
<p>The kiss description in particular is colorful enough to be suspicious, as is the fact taking the bracelet gives you no points. I think I’m missing some puzzle juncture here (it comes straight from the play, though), but I’ll list it out when I give my full Unsolved Report.</p>
<p>To get out from the princess encounter, you need to follow a special scroll message.</p>
<p>The scroll bears the following message:<br />
‘I am but mad north-northwest.’</p>
<p>It’s not “go north, then go northwest”. It’s as one single command. I have never, ever seen this in a text adventure before.</p>
<blockquote><p>> nnw<br />
You are on the bank of a river which flows from the north and disappears over a waterfall. There is also a maze of paths to the southeast.</p></blockquote>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32797" style="width: 868px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32797" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32797" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/23/avon-sleep-the-ape-of-death/sleep-3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg" data-orig-size="858,625" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="sleep" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>The “sleep thou ape of death” scene from Cymbeline, Act II. Art by Samuel Begg from the late 19th century.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg?w=858" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32797" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg 858w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg?w=150&h=109 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg?w=300&h=219 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/sleep.jpg?w=768&h=559 768w" sizes="(max-width: 858px) 100vw, 858px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32797" class="wp-caption-text">Cymbeline, Act II. Iachimo steals a bracelet from the sleeping Imogen. Art by Samuel Begg from the late 19th century.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Before my Unsolved Report, I need to mention I snuck by one of the other mazes, the one in the fog. This was a matter of order of operations; <em>after</em> you have dealt with the hovel (where you say FATHOM which was obtained from Ariel) you get an encounter there.</p>
<blockquote><p>From the gloom there comes a voice which you seemingly recognise as that of the poor tormented creature that lived in the hovel, although in the fog you see nothing. He leads you for a while and then stops at (he says) the very brim of a cliff whose high and bending head looks fearfully in the confined deep. You then hear him no more.</p></blockquote>
<p>You can then jump down to a completely new area! It first asks you for a name, which knowing Phoenix has to be an exact particular name or you softlock.</p>
<blockquote><p>> jump<br />
You fall forward, with your eyes shut. After a while you open them to see…</p>
<p>You are at the foot of a high cliff, at whose dread summit you can now see a creature above all strangeness. Methinks his eyes are two full moons; he has a thousand noses, horns whelk’d and wav’d like the enridged sea: it is some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father, think that the clearest gods, who make them honours of men’s impossibilities, have preserv’d thee.<br />
The valley you are in leads down to the east towards a Brave New World.<br />
There is a longbow here.<br />
> e<br />
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them…<br />
Since you are fast achieving greatness, what name would you wish to go under?<br />
Arthur<br />
O Arthur, Arthur! Wherefore art thou Arthur?<br />
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Thank you.<br />
You are at the edge of the Brave New World. To the east you see a high house with a small opening in the wall, to the west a steep valley, and to the south a track.</p></blockquote>
<p>The track goes to a dead end with a “fretful porpentine”, the house is a little more cryptic.</p>
<blockquote><p>You attempt to enter the house, but a constable seizes on you as a potential trouble-maker and bundles you out again.</p></blockquote>
<p>I’m very puzzled what the best approach is. Maybe there’s a name we could have picked to avoid trouble-maker status? Or some item from our vast array of treasures would prove our respectability? Or maybe some action way back in a previous season marked us for a softlock right at this moment?</p>
<p>You can also (given the longbow, plus the arrow you can get right before the maze) shoot an arrow, but I’m again mystified, in this case even how to parse what happened.</p>
<blockquote><p>> shoot arrow<br />
Let your disclaiming from a purposed evil free you so far in our most generous thoughts, for you have shot your arrow o’er the house and hurt a brother.</p></blockquote>
<p>That’s everything new, so let’s do the updated meta-map.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32818" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/23/avon-sleep-the-ape-of-death/meta2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png" data-orig-size="988,457" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="meta2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png?w=988" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32818" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png 988w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png?w=150&h=69 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png?w=300&h=139 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/meta2.png?w=768&h=355 768w" sizes="(max-width: 988px) 100vw, 988px" /></p>
<p>I can confirm now (or at least be 95% sure) I’m not missing any region to the south. The Rosalind maze may hide a new area, and I suspect the Brave New World section goes farther (maybe a lot farther). I still haven’t broken 200 and the maximum score is 425.</p>
<p><strong>WINTER PROBLEMS UNSOLVED</strong></p>
<p>Just the farmer and the chickens. I don’t have a single iota which direction to go on this puzzle.</p>
<p>Also possible: you can sneak by the drug-sniffing dog with the phial, meaning you can enter the Eastcheap town in a different season (and get back over to the main part of the game via some other method, as the town is usually only accessible in winter).</p>
<p>I am extremely skeptical there’s a way past the bear, but I should list it just in case.</p>
<p><strong>SPRING PROBLEMS UNSOLVED</strong></p>
<p>Nothing really? You need to eat the toe of frog in order to swim (allowing you to survive the knight attack) and the effect seems to only last through spring, meaning it is tempting to suggest it gets used elsewhere; there’s a beach in the town past the capitol, for instance, which has nothing there, suggesting it is a possible embarking point or final destination.</p>
<p>Speaking of the capitol, spring is during the Ides of March so you get stabbed; my suspicion is you simply have to wait until summer, but again I want to mention the event just in case.</p>
<p><strong>SUMMER PROBLEMS UNSOLVED</strong></p>
<p>Surviving getting the third treasure from Lady Portia (I still turn warm and melt upon winning the last contest). There’s a decently long timer suggesting you can get pretty far across the map while affected.</p>
<p>Does the sleeping princess lead to anything useful other than the treasure she wears?</p>
<p>I’m still unclear what the starling does (“Mortimer” which it says does get recognized as a magic word, though) and I also haven’t found a use for the shrew.</p>
<p>The Rosalind maze is still unsolved, and I haven’t been able to do anything once in the Brave New World area past the fog maze.</p>
<p><strong>ANY-SEASON PROBLEMS UNSOLVED</strong></p>
<p>There’s technically some “impenetrable” grass at the graveyard which is present in all seasons.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a walled graveyard. For those making a return journey, the way out is to the west, as the eastern exit is blocked by impenetrable grass. However there is more graveyard to the north.</p></blockquote>
<p>It has resist my attempts to the extent I think it comes into play as an exit rather than entrance (for instance, maybe the Brave New World area loops back and exits here).</p>
<p>The cloud that might be a whale, camel, or weasel still presents nothing useful. It comes from a scene in Hamlet…</p>
<blockquote><p>Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?</p>
<p>Polonius: By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel, indeed.</p>
<p>Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.</p>
<p>Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.</p>
<p>Hamlet: Or like a whale?</p>
<p>Polonius: Very like a whale.</p></blockquote>
<p>…and <em>maybe</em> it is just for color … but knowing this author, everything is important.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogGold Machine: Project Updateshttps://golmac.org/?p=65902024-02-22T17:26:09+00:00
<p>Where have I been?</p>
<span id="more-6590"></span>
<p>It’s been a while since I’ve updated any of my projects. My series on <em>Trinity</em> has been dormant. My other big effort, live blogging the development of a game for this year’s Spring Thing Festival, is stalled. What in the world has been going on?</p>
<p>It’s no secret that I’m disabled; I’ve said so on this blog. I don’t usually like to talk about it, though. Some of you have been in touch, though, to check on me. I really appreciate that! The truth is that my symptoms made the holidays very challenging, and it just hasn’t been possible for me to do this work. Typically, writing about games (and writing games) brings me a lot of joy, but I simply haven’t been able to do anything productive for a while.</p>
<p>Good news: I’m feeling better these days! My first new work in months is a new episode of my long-dormant podcast, Gold Microphone. It’s the beginning of a series of episodes on <em>Trinity</em> and other narrative games. Posts regarding <em>Trinity</em> will resume here shortly, as well. More <em>Trinity</em> than ever! Please look forward to it.</p>
<p>For those of you have been following my live-blog of Inform 7 development over at my other blog, <a href="https://topexpert.blog/">Top Expert</a>, I’ll try to get an update posted soon to discuss the state of the project. Losing all of this time has really messed up my project plan, but I want to find a new path forward. Stay tuned!</p>
<p>And now, for something completely different: I’ll probably be experimenting with gameplay videos for more current commercial games. I know that won’t be for everybody, but perhaps some of you find them interesting. These won’t be high effort, elaborate pieces, as I am trying to be mindful of workload. More news soon.</p>
<p>The podcast should be available on all major platforms. If it isn’t on your platform of choice, let me know and I’ll get it added. Here’s a direct link to the source (Spotify bought Anchor, my original host, a while back):</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-anchor-fm-inc wp-block-embed-anchor-fm-inc"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" title="Reboot: Vampires and Trinity by Gold Microphone: Stories and Games" src="https://anchor.fm/golmac/embed/episodes/Reboot-Vampires-and-Trinity-e2g4tta#?secret=Nfm1yiQws4" data-secret="Nfm1yiQws4" height="102px" width="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div></figure>
<p>Thanks for your patience! And thanks again to everyone who reached out. That means a lot to me. More soon,</p>
<p>Drew</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golmac.org/project-updates/">Project Updates</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golmac.org">Gold Machine</a>.</p>
Gold Machinehttps://golmac.org/Choice of Games LLC: Our Hosted Games Hidden Gems Are On Sale!https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80182024-02-22T15:38:40+00:00
<p>The 2024 Hosted Games Hidden Gems Sale is here! </p>
<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td colspan="2"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/relics-2-crusaders-tomb"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="500" data-attachment-id="8020" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/our-hosted-games-hidden-gems-are-on-sale/promo1024-13/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1.png" data-orig-size="1024,500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo1024" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1-300x146.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1.png" class="wp-image-8020" style="width: 816px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1.png 1024w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1-300x146.png 300w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-1-768x375.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/gray-painter/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="500" data-attachment-id="8021" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/our-hosted-games-hidden-gems-are-on-sale/promo1024-14/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2.png" data-orig-size="1024,500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo1024" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2-300x146.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2.png" class="wp-image-8021" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2.png 1024w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2-300x146.png 300w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-2-768x375.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></td><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/donor"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="500" data-attachment-id="8022" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/our-hosted-games-hidden-gems-are-on-sale/promo1024-15/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3.png" data-orig-size="1024,500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo1024" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3-300x146.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3.png" class="wp-image-8022" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3.png 1024w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3-300x146.png 300w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-3-768x375.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/day-after-ever-after"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="500" data-attachment-id="8023" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/our-hosted-games-hidden-gems-are-on-sale/promo1024-16/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4.png" data-orig-size="1024,500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo1024" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4-300x146.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4.png" class="wp-image-8023" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4.png 1024w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4-300x146.png 300w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-4-768x375.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></td><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/tudor-intrigue"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="500" data-attachment-id="8024" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/our-hosted-games-hidden-gems-are-on-sale/promo1024-17/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5.png" data-orig-size="1024,500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo1024" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5-300x146.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5.png" class="wp-image-8024" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5.png 1024w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5-300x146.png 300w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-5-768x375.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p>You’ve cast your votes and chosen five underrated games that haven’t (yet) gotten the attention they deserve! These “Hidden Gems,” selected by a highly scientific poll conducted on our forums, are on sale this week! Pick them up for discounts <strong>up to 40% off until February 29th</strong> on the platform of your choice–Android, Android Omnibus app, iOS and iOS Omnibus app, the website, and on the Amazon Android Marketplace! <em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/relics-2-crusaders-tomb/">Relics II: The Crusader’s Tomb</a></em> is also available on Steam.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/relics-2-crusaders-tomb">Relics II: The Crusader’s Tomb</a></em><br><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/gray-painter">The Gray Painter</a><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/donor">Donor: A Vampire Victim’s Tale</a><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/day-after-ever-after">The Day After Ever After</a><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/tudor-intrigue">Tudor Intrigue</a></em></p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comWade's Important Astrolab: Spring Thing 2024 - Wade Clarke Roblox game prize informationtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7365691000021371162.post-87655392354583345192024-02-22T02:51:00+00:00
<p>I'm listing here the details and conditions of a prize I'll be offering for Spring Thing 2024: a custom Roblox game based on your Spring Thing entry.</p><p>If you choose this prize, here's what happens:</p><p>I'll try your Spring Thing game. If I decide it's possible for your game, I (maybe with help from my nephew) will build a simple Roblox game based on your entry, or at least the first room or a prominent thing from it. We have a lot of Roblox building experience between us.</p><p>Qualifiers for this prize: I say "game" loosely! It will probably be an environmental toy you can walk around in. But you never know, it might have an objective to reach, or health, or a time limit, or a baddie chasing you, or a physics joke. It might be a reproduction of a location. We'll try to make something of charm based on your game, spending a week max to do so.</p><p>If you don't know Roblox, it's free to join, and the game will be pretty G-rated and explorable by anyone on Roblox at any time (which, there being millions of Roblox games, will mostly be you and people you let know about it. Plus the odd random visitor.) You'l be able to share a link to the game wherever/however you like. People only need to have a Roblox account to visit it.</p><p>* If you pick the prize, and I try your game and decide I can't produce something satisfying based on it within a week, don't be offended. Roblox suits some things and some subject matter a lot more than others. I'd let you know my decision quickly so you can pick another prize instead.</p>
Wade's Important Astrolabhttps://importantastrolab.blogspot.com/Zarf Updates: Download the whole IF Archivetag:blog.zarfhome.com,2024-02-22:/2024/02/download-the-ifarchive2024-02-22T01:10:37+00:00
<p>I help run the <a href="https://ifarchive.org/">IF Archive</a>. I have for, oh, about <a href="https://ifarchive.org/misc/about.html">25 years</a> now.</p>
<p>It's not a demanding job. Mostly the server just runs itself. We have a <a href="https://ifarchive.org/misc/about.html">cadre of volunteers</a> who file the games and write up the descriptions. (Thank them!)</p>
<p>Occasionally we change out some of the underlying server configuration, like when we started using a <a href="https://intfiction.org/t/if-archive-improvements/13995">CDN</a> for load balancing. But that's, like, once every few years.</p>
<p>Low maintenance is great. However, it means that we don't respond to feature requests very quickly. Or at all, sometimes.</p>
<!--more-->
<a name="more"></a>
<hr />
<p>Here's one we've never had a good answer for:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear IF Archive: I would like to download all your files so I can play all the games. How do I do that? Love, Suzie.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(Simulated request on closed track. Real-life Suzies may vary in their IF enthusiasm.)</p>
<p>When people ask this question, we mostly shrug and point at web-scraper tools. It's not hard to find all the files by browsing the folders. Or you can look at <a href="https://ifarchive.org/indexes/Master-Index.xml"><code>Master-Index.xml</code></a>, which lists every individual file in easy-to-parse form. (Well, "easy" -- that's 13 megabytes of XML right there. Sorry, I hadn't heard of JSON at that point.)</p>
<p>For a while in the early 2000s we allowed a few people to use <code>rsync</code> to copy the Archive files and offer mirror servers. However, this was a serious hassle (early-2000s Linux firewall config? <em>Not</em> friendly) and it never entirely seemed worth the trouble. The CDN is much easier.</p>
<p>But then, how hard would it be to shove all the files into one big package and make that available for downloading? Disk space is cheap.</p>
<hr />
<p>Long story short, on an experimental basis, we did that. The documentation is <a href="https://ifarchive.org/misc/whole-archive.html">here</a>, but it's short so I'll just play you the chorus.</p>
<p>If you want to download everything on the IF Archive in a single massive chunk, use this URL:</p>
<pre><code>https://iftf-ifarchive-download.s3.amazonaws.com/ifarchive-all.tar.gz
</code></pre>
<p>That's 30 <em>gigabytes</em>, no foolin', which is why I haven't made that a hyperlink. If you grab that puppy, it should be on purpose. (And I don't particularly want automated web crawlers to grab it either. I mean, they will, but I'm not going to encourage them. AWS download cost is pennies but the pennies add up.)</p>
<p>That 30 GB file is updated weekly. It will grow over time, of course, but it's hard to say how fast.</p>
<p>Availability is subject to future review, as they say. It's an experiment! We'll see how the AWS fees stack up against utility.</p>
<p>I realize that very few of my loyal readers will have need of this feature. The number of people who web-scrape the Archive out of personal interest (rather than, you know, being a web-scraper bot) is probably countable on a grue's molars. But if that's you, feel free to try this new one-stop freebie.</p>
<p>Speaking of which: Would it be useful to have another download link for <em>recent</em> files? Say, all files touched in the past 30 days. That wouldn't be too hard to arrange.</p>
Zarf Updateshttps://blog.zarfhome.com/Renga in Blue: Avon: I Wish You All Joy of the Wormhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=327572024-02-21T04:02:42+00:00
<p>I feel like I am both closing in on victory and getting farther away from it, insofar as the last remaining puzzles seem to be stumpers indeed.</p>
<p>Not <em>quite</em> succumbing to hints yet but probably next time if I can’t push any farther.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32762" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32762" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32762" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/20/avon-i-wish-you-all-joy-of-the-worm/tempestprod3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg" data-orig-size="1200,801" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="tempestPROD3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>xx</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32762" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=800&h=534 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=150&h=100 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=300&h=200 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=768&h=513 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg?w=1024&h=684 1024w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/tempestprod3.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32762" class="wp-caption-text">From a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest, where Ariel and Prospero discuss Ariel previously being trapped in a pine.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>First, a fairly straightforward bit of progress, applying the dagger (previously used to stab a king):</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the enchanted forest.<br />
There is a pine tree here, from which a continuous melancholy howling emanates.<br />
> cut tree<br />
You hack at the pine tree, which splits. A spirit flies out, apparently imprisoned here a dozen years ago by the foul witch Sycorax. In return for its freedom it tells you that it has some power over the many other spirits around here and recites “Full fathom five thy father lies” to you. This, it says, may ward you against other powers. It then goes hence with diligence (after all, it needs pine no longer!)</p></blockquote>
<p>I wasn’t thinking of The Tempest specifically (although certainly knowing something is “trapped within” would help) but rather just running through ye olde verb list again. I usually don’t associate a dagger with tree-cutting so the action did not occur to me normally.</p>
<p>I tested each of the words said by Ariel and found that “fathom” was recognized as a magic word (even though it did nothing in particular). Testing around in various places I found it was useful in springtime, at the hovel:</p>
<blockquote><p>> s<br />
You are on a moor. The ground is black here, as though scorched.<br />
The only path leads to the north, but there is a hovel to the southeast.<br />
There is a nourishing meat pie here.</p>
<p>> se<br />
You attempt to enter the hovel, which is gloomy and sinister-looking, but you run out in terror when you hear maniacal laughter and the words “Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!”<br />
> fathom<br />
A poor demented being rushes from the hovel, gibbering:</p>
<p>Child Rowland to the dark tower came,<br />
His word was still, Fie, foh and fum,<br />
I smell the blood of a British man.</p>
<p> and then vanishes over the moor.</p></blockquote>
<p>This left a “figured goblet” (a treasure) available in the hovel for me to take.</p>
<p>I also had some progress with Cleopatra. </p>
<blockquote><p>You are on the barge. Various attendants are busily rushing hither and thither (and back again). There are steps down to the hold and to the north are the docks.<br />
The Queen of Egypt is here. On a burnish’d throne she sits. Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.</p></blockquote>
<p>Nearby in a shop was an Egyptian vase, and it seemed like the two went together, but a snake came out and caused Death before I could tote one to the other:</p>
<blockquote><p>Disturbed by the motion, an asp emerges from the vase you are carrying. I wish you all joy of the worm. Poor venomous fool, it is angry, and dispatches you.</p></blockquote>
<p>The snake doesn’t wiggle out right away, and you can take a little bit of action still before it activates. So I ended up just dropping the vase after moving one room, then picking it up again, and repeating the process until I made it to Cleopatra. This was an odd puzzle in a physical-reality sense — it seems like dropping the vase would make the snake <em>more</em> likely to come out rather than toting it to its destination all in one go — but I realized the programming underneath seemed to be cued to simply consecutive turns held, hence the solution.</p>
<blockquote><p>> THROW VASE<br />
An asp tumbles out of the vase. It fastens itself to the queen’s breast and with its sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once unties.</p>
<p>> LOOK<br />
You are on the barge. Various attendants are busily rushing hither and thither (and back again). There are steps down to the hold and to the north are the docks.<br />
There is an asp squirming here.<br />
There is an Egyptian vase here!<br />
The Queen of Egypt lies here, dead, but she looks like sleep as she would catch another Antony. On her breast there is a vent of blood, and something blown; the like is on her arm. It is an aspic’s trail.<br />
> D<br />
You are in the hold of Cleopatra’s barge. It is damp and you can hear the creaking of timbers and the scurrying noises made by rodents.<br />
There is an exceptionally tame shrew sitting here looking lost.</p></blockquote>
<p>You can’t just take the tame shrew along without some help, but nearby there’s a cage with a starling.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at the end of a wharf. The only way out is to the northeast.<br />
There is a cage here, containing a starling.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sometimes the starling croaks “Mortimer”. That’s a reference to a character from one of the historical plays (Henry IV, Part 1), who is in prison at the time of the story. This suggests you should let the bird out. The bird actually stays in place, suggesting there is a useful place to deposit the creature, but I haven’t found where that is yet.</p>
<p>With the cage in hand we can pick up the shrew. We can let the shrew out anywhere we like and pick it up again, but I haven’t found a use yet for the shrew either.</p>
<p>While I was hanging out at the wharf I tried CLEAN HANDS (I still had bloody hands, recall you get them in summer if you kill the king in the winter) and it worked. I happened to be carrying the dog’s tongue which works (the game says you clean yourself off with the tongue).</p>
<p>This is needed because I also found the scene where bloody hands are a hinderance. If you go back to the mansion with the caskets, there’s one room, a dining hall, which is empty in winter and spring, but filled in summer.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a palatial dining hall, which is set as for some great banquet. All the seats are taken except for the one at the head of the table. There are archways to the east, southeast and south.</p></blockquote>
<p>You are unable to sit down with bloody hands. (Too self-conscious.) With them cleaned via being in an area with water + holding the dog’s tongue, you can get one of the most colorful scenes of the game (so far).</p>
<blockquote><p>> sit<br />
You sit down to the feast. To your horror a ghastly vision appears and shakes its gory locks at you. It is the ghost of the Scotsman you have so foully slain! You stand and address this shadow, this unreal mockery, which only you can see. This displaces the mirth of the guests, who stand not upon the order of their going, but go at once. The ghost then avaunts and quits your sight, melting into the wall to your northeast.</p></blockquote>
<p>Now the Wood comes into play. </p>
<blockquote><p>> ne<br />
You find yourself able to pass through the northeastern wall as though yourself a ghost.<br />
You are in Birnham wood. There are paths in various directions but the whole wood seems to be moving about.</p></blockquote>
<p>At the milestone from before, if you want a little an opening appears to the southwest. At a later wooden post the same thing happens.</p>
<blockquote><p>Suddenly the trees part to reveal a path to the southwest.<br />
You are in Birnham wood. There are paths in various directions but the whole wood seems to be moving about.<br />
There is an old milestone here.<br />
> sw<br />
The trees move and the path to your northeast is blocked once more. You are in Birnham wood. There are paths in various directions but the whole wood seems to be moving about.</p></blockquote>
<p>Go into the woods deep enough and you find a building with a mysterious scepter.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at the centre of the wood. To the south is a cottage which probably belongs to a retired criminal, for it bears the name Dunsinnin.<br />
> s<br />
You are on the ground floor of Dunsinnin. There is an exit to the north and some steps up.<br />
There is a sceptre here, which shows the force of temporal power!</p></blockquote>
<p>Also, you can go to the balcony and jump off and die. For reasons.</p>
<blockquote><p>> u<br />
You are on the first floor of Dunsinnin. There is a balcony to the south<br />
(Soft! what light through yonder window breaks?) and some steps down.<br />
> s<br />
You are on the balcony of Dunsinnin, which looks out over Birnham wood.<br />
The only (apparent) way to go now is back to the north.<br />
> jump<br />
You throw yourself off the balcony and methinks I see thee, now thou art so slow, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb.</p></blockquote>
<p>With that resolved (mostly) I turned my attention back to the weird circumstance with the caskets. Last time I had found two clues: a “password” delivered by a jester and a name written on a letter. The syllables GO (for gold) SI (for silver) and LE (for lead) were mixed amongst the names, and even though I tried what I thought was the most logical thing (taking the first two syllables and using them as a guide for which caskets to open) it didn’t work.</p>
<p>I was foiled by two things. One is that if you save your game after receiving the password/name but before opening the caskets, the pattern no longer works, and you have softlocked the game. There’s a clue to this but I only realized in retrospect (it will still be important later):</p>
<blockquote><p>> save<br />
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!<br />
Game saved.</p></blockquote>
<p>(Yes, you’re supposed to realize that “the sight of means to do ill deeds” is the “you lost” message.)</p>
<p>I also had one time I did the sequence where I did <em>not</em> save and I still had the issue (I was thinking of Hezarin which intentionally corrupts your save file in similar circumstances). After enough prodding (including some testing from people in my comments) I tried the combination again and it worked. With a password of Goselida:</p>
<blockquote><p>> open gold<br />
The casket is empty. Shielded from your view, the Lady Portia performs a rearrangement of the contents of the caskets and invites you to open a second casket.<br />
Choose again. Which casket will ye open now?<br />
silver<br />
You open the second casket, which contains a miniature portrait.<br />
The lady Portia picks up her caskets and leaves, murmuring “Sweet, adieu.”<br />
A maid then enters, invites you to try your luck again later and withdraws again.<br />
You are in the lady’s boudoir.<br />
There is a miniature portrait of the lady Portia here!</p></blockquote>
<p>Bah. Maybe I had some sort of autosave on? Or an interpreter bug? Either way, relying on the meta-interface here is extraordinarily dangerous and bound to run into issues that have nothing to do with the player’s thought processes.</p>
<p>I racked up the second treasure (a gold ring) through similar circumstances but I was stumped after. Deciding to test something else, I went from a save file at the forest, moved myself over past the Capitol to where the Egypt area is, and saved my game.</p>
<p>Upon saving my game, I got the “sight of means to do ill deeds” message. Uh oh!</p>
<p>Somehow, between one save game and the other, I had run across a clue. It wasn’t that many rooms, so checking step by step, I realized I should have been paying more attention at the Capitol:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the Capitol, a large building filled with people in white togas, who are listening to the famous orator Legosinius. For the less patient, there are exits to the west and southeast.<br />
There is a scroll here.</p></blockquote>
<p>Legosinius (groan). Making a beeline to the caskets and then trying LEAD and GOLD worked, yielding some of Malvolio’s socks (?). However, after this happened (if I took or left behind the socks) I started to die:</p>
<blockquote><p>You feel very warm.<br />
You are on a long east-west track.<br />
> e<br />
You feel very warm.<br />
I’m afraid that your too too solid flesh has just started to melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!</p>
<p>You should have died hereafter.<br />
You scored 131 points out of a maximum of 425.<br />
Once more into the breach, dear friend?</p></blockquote>
<p>In addition to that baffler, the farmer with missing chickens, and three mazes (Undiscovered Country, Rosalind, and the fog), I’ve also got the odd bit here and there which might be meaningful, like a cloud which changes between a weasel, camel, and whale (no idea, no verb I’ve tried has worked). And of course instead of searching for puzzles I might simply try using my unused items everywhere (like bat wool, the last witch ingredient, and the tame shrew). Still, I’m not even technically halfway in terms of points, so I suspect there’s a whole new chunk of game yet to be prodded at.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogZarf Updates: The grandmasterstag:blog.zarfhome.com,2024-02-19:/2024/02/the-grandmasters2024-02-19T05:02:37+00:00
<p>The Hugo Award mess continues to be <a href="https://file770.com/the-2023-hugo-awards-a-report-on-censorship-and-exclusion/">worse than expected</a>. I'm not going there. Instead, let's talk about an award that everybody is happy about.</p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago, SFWA announced they were naming <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/2024/02/07/sfwa-names-susan-cooper-as-the-40th-damon-knight-memorial-grand-master/">Susan Cooper</a> as a <a href="https://nebulas.sfwa.org/grand-masters/">Grand Master of Fantasy and Science Fiction</a>. Properly a "Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master", but I was a Cooper fan before I ever heard of Knight so allow me the unadorned title.</p>
<p>(Footnote: I am a SFWA member but I did not contribute to this honor. It's a juried award.)</p>
<p>I was absolutely delighted to hear the news. I've loved the <em>Dark is Rising</em> series since I was a kid. Since the series was nearly brand-new, come to think of it. I couldn't have read them any later than 1980, and <em>Silver on the Tree</em> was 1977. Of course they felt like a foundational part of the literary landscape, like Narnia and Middle-Earth and Star Trek and everything else older than Me Right Then. Well, they were and they are.</p>
<p>I've come back to the series now and again. See my <a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2018/12/and-tomorrow-will-be-beyond-imagining">comments on how <em>The Dark is Rising</em> might work as a game</a>. (Weirdly, because it's a weird book by modern fantasy conventions.) There was also a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvp7/episodes/guide">BBC radioplay</a> a couple years back which I thought was quite good. (Except for the title music, which sorry no.) And I'm not the only one who will always have, somewhere safe in memory, the image of great wooden doors on a snowy hill.</p>
<p>But, as I read the news and smiled, I grimaced as well. You may remember that <a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2022/05/patricia-mckillip-1948-2022">Patricia McKillip died</a> just a couple of years ago. McKillip has received many honors, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. But she was never declared a Grand Master, even though she <em>was</em> a grandmaster, and she will not be: that award is not given posthumously.</p>
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<a name="more"></a>
<p>In fact, the Grand Master Award, as originally conceived, was given to no more than six (living) authors per decade. In 1995 this limit was changed to no more than one per year.</p>
<p>As of last year, SFWA has a separate honor, the Infinity Award, given to writers who died before being recognized Grand Master. The first Infinity Award went to <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/2023/04/27/the-inaugural-infinity-award-honoree-octavia-e-butler/">Octavia Butler</a>. I have no doubt that McKillip's name will appear on that list someday. But I don't think this solves the problem.</p>
<hr />
<p>Problem? Yes, I say there is a problem with the Grand Master award rules. A demographic problem, not just a "my favorite author didn't get it" problem.</p>
<p>For years I've described the award criteria as: <em>a living author who has been writing SF, influentially, for forty years</em>. That's not the actual rule; it's not written down anywhere. It's just my thumbnail of what SFWA seems to consider Grand Master territory.</p>
<p>Let me do a quick chart of recent Grand Masters:</p>
<ul>
<li>2024: Susan Cooper (writing for 59 years)</li>
<li>2023: Robin McKinley (42 years)</li>
<li>2022: Mercedes Lackey (37 years)</li>
<li>2021: Nalo Hopkinson (25 years)</li>
<li>2020: Lois McMaster Bujold (35 years)</li>
<li>2019: William Gibson (38 years)</li>
<li>2018: Peter S. Beagle (58 years)</li>
<li>2017: Jane Yolen (47 years)</li>
<li>2016: C. J. Cherryh (40 years)</li>
<li>2015: Larry Niven (52 years)</li>
<li>2014: Samuel R. Delany (52 years)</li>
<li>2013: Gene Wolfe (48 years)</li>
<li>2012: Connie Willis (34 years)</li>
</ul>
<p>(Yes, these spans are quite subjective. I'm picking the author's first <em>influential</em> work, or when they started publishing stories regularly. Susan Cooper apparently wrote a short story called "The Ring" when she was twenty but I'm not counting it.)</p>
<p>Thus, a range, but 40-45 years on average. I won't run farther back, but the very first Grand Master was Heinlein, awarded in 1975, writing for 36 years at that time. So it seems pretty consistent.</p>
<p>Only, if this goes on --</p>
<p>I mean, what happened about 45 years ago? Terry Brooks, that's what happened, with <em>The Sword of Shannara</em>. The same year, Stephen Donaldson. Also Piers Anthony getting into pop fantasy (as opposed to his earlier New Wave SF). All three, by no coincidence, in paperback from the newly-imprinted Del Rey Books. Which is to say: the start of the Big Damn Fantasy Just Went Mainstream era.</p>
<p>By 40 years BP, fantasy is in full swing. (<em>The Colour of Magic</em>, <em>Jhereg</em>, <em>The Mists of Avalon</em>, <em>The Anubis Gates</em>, <em>Tea with the Black Dragon</em>, <em>Alanna</em>, and <em><a href="https://blog.zarfhome.com/2019/11/john-m-ford-is-coming-back-into-print">The Dragon Waiting</a></em> -- all 1983.) And it's not like sci-fi is slowing down in that period. The same publishers are handling both and they figure (correctly) that the more people get into either genre, the better both will sell.</p>
<p>Conclusion: right now, the Grand Master is being given to people who started writing SF/F when <em>a whole lot more people started writing SF/F</em>.</p>
<p>Does it really make sense that only ten children of the 1980s deserve to be called Grand Masters?</p>
<hr />
<p>Certainly a lot of the Big Fantasy Boom is trash. Nobody much claims that Brooks or Donaldson or Anthony are literary highlights. Mind you, Anthony was a genuine young hotshot for a few years before Xanth. And I will throw down for Donaldson having a real point behind all the guilt and clenching.</p>
<p>Anyhow, of course, a lot of 1940s, 50s, and 60s SF was <em>also</em> trash, burnished in memory. One job of the Grand Master award is to honor the stuff you loved as a kid, the stuff that shaped your reading life and the lives of current writers your age. (Consider why this award is given by a writers' organization!) Looking back and saying "Um, yeah, it was forty years ago and I see the problems now" is not a disqualification.</p>
<p>You could argue that only the <em>ten best</em> writers of the decade should be called Grand Masters. I don't agree. The 80s were a Cambrian explosion in the field: more books, more approaches, more styles, more kinds of people writing. I call that <em>more great stuff</em>. No sliding scale required.</p>
<p>(The SF/F field was still predominantly white at that point, but a lot more women started writing -- a fact that the Grand Master rolls are already firmly cognizant of. Someone else will have to write up the succeeding diversity explosion of the 2010s when 2055 rolls around.)</p>
<p>I say that if we try to recognize these people at a rate of one per year, we will fall behind and never catch up. That means authors dying faster than we can honor them.</p>
<hr />
<p>But, of course, I need to back this up with data. Can I name more than ten writers per decade who I would call Grand Masters of the field? Well, <em>sure</em>.</p>
<p>I won't exhaust you with a chart of <em>every</em> SF/F writer of a certain age. Or even every author in my collection. (I'm smug enough about my <a href="https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/booksphere/">collection</a> as it is.)</p>
<p>But, of authors who started writing in the 1970s, you are considering <em>at a minimum</em> Terry Pratchett(*), Diana Wynne Jones(*), Patricia McKillip(*), Tim Powers, Anne Rice(*), Mary Gentle, Diane Duane, John Varley, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card, and George R. R. Martin.</p>
<p>(Asterisks mark writers who are no longer with us, but I'm including them because they had that solid 40-year career.) (I'm using the same handwavy definition of "started writing", sorry, it's an approximation.)</p>
<p>(Yes, GRRM is a 70s writer, and was on his way to grandmaster status even before Wild Cards. Never mind the recent dragony stuff.)</p>
<p>And then you have to give some thought to Spider Robinson, George Alec Effinger, and John M. Ford, who weren't prolific for very long but had a hell of an impact. I mean, you could say that of Susan Cooper too.</p>
<p>Writers starting in the 1980s? Don't get me started, oops there I go: Bruce Sterling, James Morrow, James Blaylock, David Brin, Raymond Feist, Barbara Hambly, L. E. Modesitt, Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb), Steven Brust, Tamora Pierce, Sheri S. Tepper(*), Charles de Lint, Guy Gavriel Kay, Melissa Scott, Michael Swanwick, Philip Pullman, Walter Jon Williams, Tom Holt (K. J. Parker), Iain M. Banks(*), Tanya Huff, Neal Stephenson, Dave Duncan(*), Greg Egan, Kate Elliott, C. S. Friedman. Sure, you could narrow that list down, but then you could add more names to it. (Glen Cook! A. A. Attanasio! Lawrence Watt-Evans! Somtow Sucharitkul! Ellen Kushner!)</p>
<p>I'm not even pretending to have <em>complete</em> candidate lists. Just the people I'd argue for, <em>or</em> who are prominent or influential enough that I think other people would argue for them. Minus the many I've forgotten.</p>
<p>So. I think that makes the point. More than ten grandmasters per decade. The field only gets more crowded from there. Someone who's making the rules, take note.</p>
<p>(Footnote: I did a lot of <a href="https://isfdb.org/">ISFDB</a> digging, but I may have missed some qualifications or death dates. Apologies if so. I know you're all eagle-eyed trivia noters and will correct my mistakes in short order.)</p>
Zarf Updateshttps://blog.zarfhome.com/IFTF Blog: Announcing IFTF Grant Recipientshttp://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2024-02-18-announcing-iftf-grant-recipients.html2024-02-18T14:33:26+00:00
<p>In September 2023, we opened our grant program for the very first time. The program exists to disburse small amounts of money in support of projects that serve the interactive fiction community. Since then, half a dozen Grant Advisors have reviewed each submission, providing their recommendations to the grants committee, who ultimately selected four projects to fund. We are happy today to announce our first batch of funded projects through this grants program!</p>
<p>Interestingly, we saw great diversity in the projects submitted, which altogether touch on the very different areas of interactive fiction. Thank you to everyone who submitted their ideas! Below, you can learn about the awarded projects and the people behind them.</p>
<p><strong>iOS Test Device for Parchment – Dannii Willis</strong></p>
<p>Dannii Willis is the main developer of Parchment, a web interpreter that lets users read and play through interactive fiction on the web. Dannii will receive $500 in funds to purchase an iOS device, allowing him to more accurately test how Parchment functions on the iOS version of Safari, as well as test Parchment’s accessibility in UserVoice. An iOS-native device will help Dannii run these tests and iterate faster than with other tools, in service of supporting iOS users in the community and those who rely on iOS accessibility features.</p>
<p><strong>Teaching Indonesian Authors to Write IF – Felicity Banks</strong></p>
<p>Novelist Felicity Banks will receive $1,000 to fund an IF workshop for 10-20 English-speaking writers in Indonesia at a writing festival next year, focusing on Twine and ChoiceScript. Felicity knows Indonesia well and is experienced in such workshops, especially for raw beginners; the funds will cover necessary travel requirements. Her project is inspired by the benefits that diversity brings to the IF community, and she intends to serve Indonesia’s vibrant writing community by helping them participate by introducing them to the medium and planting a seed towards a budding Indonesian IF community.</p>
<p><strong>Writing with Inform Audiobook – Ryan Veeder</strong></p>
<p>Based on his experience helping blind users get started with Inform 7, Ryan Veeder saw an opportunity to translate “Writing with Inform” documentation into an audiobook format, thereby making it more accessible to the wider IF community. While assistive technology like screen-reading software can help users who rely on it, it often fails to accurately represent the specific punctuation use and other formal considerations that are critical to Inform 7 code. Therefore, Ryan will receive $400 to start producing a few chapters of Inform 7 documentation in a bespoke audiobook format, to demonstrate the utility and feasibility of such a resource.</p>
<p><strong>Improvements to Pre-Existing IF Research – Brian Rushton</strong></p>
<p>Brian Rushton is a prolific chronicler of the history of IFComp and the XYZZY awards, and is the most active reviewer at the Interactive Fiction Database. Based on the positive reception his writing has earned in the community, Brian wants to fill in the years missing from his history and touch up existing research. He will receive $500 to devote his time toward continuing to write the history of IFComp and the XYZZY awards from about 2016-2022, as well as revising and editing other essays to be more professional, along with standardized and uniform citations. The resulting work will be disseminated for the community’s benefit.</p>
<p>It’s inspiring to see the variety of projects proposed in this cycle, each of which serve the IF community in different ways. We thank all applicants, and we’re excited to see how the awarded projects develop! And we would also like to thank this year’s Grant Advisors, who volunteered their time to review the projects and formulate a recommendation for IFTF: thank you very much to Grim Baccaris, Kate Compton, Emilia Lazer-Walker, Juhana Leinonen, Colin Post, and Kaitlin Tremblay!</p>
<p>Congratulations again to our first batch of funded projects, and keep an eye out for our next grant cycle!</p>
IFTF Bloghttp://blog.iftechfoundation.orgThe People's Republic of Interactive Fiction: February meeting (online)https://pr-if.org/?p=8372024-02-17T15:32:34+00:00
<p>The Boston IF meetup for February will be Friday, February 23, 6:30 pm Eastern time.</p>
<p>We will post the Zoom link to the mailing list on the day of the meeting.</p>
The People's Republic of Interactive Fictionhttp://pr-if.orgRenga in Blue: Avon: This Great Gap of Timehttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=327282024-02-17T04:06:09+00:00
<p>(<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC">Click here to catch up on my Avon posts before this one</a>.)</p>
<p>So I resolved two puzzles from last time during summer, resolved (probably) one during spring, and made headway on a puzzle that spans all three seasons and might be one of the most cryptic in the game.</p>
<p>The general theming was: what object from one Shakespeare play could be used to help with a dilemma from another?</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32730" style="width: 789px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32730" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32730" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/16/avon-this-great-gap-of-time/avondisk/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg" data-orig-size="950,529" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonDISK" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>From PcwWiki..</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=950" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=1000" class="size-full wp-image-32730" alt="" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=779&h=434 779w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=150&h=84 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=300&h=167 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg?w=768&h=428 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avondisk.jpg 950w" sizes="(max-width: 779px) 100vw, 779px"><p id="caption-attachment-32730" class="wp-caption-text">From PcwWiki.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>I was still stuck on the Puck/farmer dilemma, which I’m starting to suspect is resolved via some sort of wordplay.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at the remains of a chicken farm. A fox has clearly visited this place and killed half the stock. The only way the farmhands will let you go is back to the west.</p>
<p>“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?” he mutters. “I asked my keeper, Puck, to get the fox’s earth seen to, but he went away saying that he’d put a hurdle round the earth in forty minutes (and that was hours ago.)”</p>
<p>This he repeats, over and over again, trying to understand the tragedy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(Incidentally, the words “chicken”, “puck”, “dam”, “hurdle”, “fox”, and “girdle” are not understood, so none play a part in resolving the puzzle. Not like it is shocking, really, given how many things have been resolved in a lateral way.)</p>
<p>That was the last “winter area” puzzle (I think) but I decided to wallop a bit more on spring and summer. I started going with the assumption that if a location was unimportant in two other seasons, it had to be important in the third. There was a battlefield with Richard III muttering about the winter of our discontent; it seemed like I needed to return to the battlefield later, and indeed, in summer, I found the “kingly hunchback” crying about his kingdom for a horse.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32744" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32744" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32744" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/16/avon-this-great-gap-of-time/main-image/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg" data-orig-size="1200,970" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="main-image" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Hogarth showing his friend David Garrick as Richard III. Via <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/404776">the Met</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=1000" class="size-full wp-image-32744" alt="" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=800&h=646 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=150&h=121 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=300&h=243 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=768&h=621 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg?w=1024&h=828 1024w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/main-image.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px"><p id="caption-attachment-32744" class="wp-caption-text">Hogarth showing his friend David Garrick as Richard III. Via <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/404776">the Met</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>If you’ve been paying attention in my previous posts, you may already know the resolution for this dilemma.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on Bosworth field. There is battle raging all round you. The only safe way out is to the north.<br />
A kingly hunchback is fighting here. Hopelessly outnumbered he cries “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Your appearance on the scene, complete with ass’s head causes his enemies to flee in terror.<br />
The king thanks you, removes the ass’s head from you and departs. You find that he has left his crown under a nearby bush.<br />
You are on Bosworth field. There is battle raging all round you. The only safe way out is to the north.<br />
The Plantagenet crown is here!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So you get your head turned into an ass in Midsummer Night’s Dream-land, then utilize said ass-head to help Richard III. Makes sense.</p>
<p>Another object I hadn’t messed around with yet was the meat pie. I always am hesitant to test eating things in games (it often makes the food disappear and softlock the game), but here I needed to be hesitant for another reason:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is a nourishing meat pie here.<br />
> get pie<br />
OK.<br />
> eat pie<br />
Although the cheer be poor, ’twill fill your stomach. You eat of it with pleasure until a man dressed as a cook enters and reveals to you that two of the ingredients in the pie were named Chiron and Demetrius. ‘Tis true; witness his knife’s sharp point… I’m afraid he stabs you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s the pie made out of people! (See: Titus Andronicus.) I didn’t think much of this scene yet, but later, while off the computer, it suddenly struck me that the meat pie would solve an entirely different dilemma: the merchant who wants a pound of flesh. In the play (Merchant of Venice) this results in a dramatic court scene as Shylock tries to get his pound of flesh, but here, we already have the flesh pre-cooked:</p>
<blockquote><p>As you pass the moneylender’s premises, their owner comes out to greet you. Scenting business, he offers to lend you 3,000 ducats until you next meet, the security to be a pound of flesh.<br />
Three thousand ducats. ‘Tis a good round sum.<br />
Wilt thou borrow it from the moneylender?<br />
yes<br />
The moneylender gives you the money and goes back into his establishment.</p>
<p>You are at the docks. Roads lead to the north, southwest and southeast.<br />
To the south is a barge; its poop is beaten gold, purple the sails<br />
and so perfumed that the winds are love sick with them.<br />
> drop ducats<br />
OK.<br />
> inv<br />
You are holding:<br />
A scroll.<br />
A meat pie.<br />
There’s the smell of blood upon your hands.<br />
> n<br />
The moneylender accosts you as you pass, saying “I would have my bond.”<br />
Since you do not have the ducats, the moneylender demands a pound of flesh from you. Fortunately you are able to persuade him to accept that disgusting pie you were carrying: he takes it from you and then he leaves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For my third puzzle, I was trying to resolve (in Spring) being attacked by knights.</p>
<blockquote><p>You open the door and enter the house.<br />
The door slams behind you and you hear sounds of a key turning in the lock.<br />
You are in the kitchen of a small house. There are several doors leading from it, all of which appear to be locked.<br />
There is a letter here, addressed to Mistress Golesind and signed<br />
‘Thine own true knight,<br />
By day or night,<br />
Or any kind of light<br />
With all his might,<br />
For thee to fight,<br />
John Falstaff.<br />
> wave trophy<br />
Nothing of great import happens.<br />
Suddenly the door opens and several knights armed with swords rush in. They brand you as an intruder and promptly slay you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I did a little structural solving first and realized there was no way to really attack the knights directly, so I needed to hide. One laundry basket (from The Merry Wives of Windsor) later:</p>
<blockquote><p>Do you want to get into the basket?<br />
YES<br />
You are in the basket. It is a very tight fit and you are unable to move your hands.<br />
Do you wish to spend any more time cooped up in the basket?<br />
YES<br />
Suddenly you hear sounds of people entering the room. They pick up the laundry basket, with you inside it, and carry it off. After a while there is a mighty SPLOSH! and you are tossed into the river.<br />
Unfortunately the current is too strong for you and you are swept under and drowned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, that’s not <em>quite</em> it, but I already got one magic power from the witches, maybe swimming? The frog toe seemed promising but holding had no effect.</p>
<p>I baffled for a while, but if you’ve been paying attention to my little playing quirks, you might realize the problem. I hadn’t tested <em>eating</em> the frog toe before getting tossed in the river.</p>
<blockquote><p>The frog’s toe that you ate gives you tremendous swimming ability: the torrent roars and you do buffet it, with lusty sinews, throwing it aside. You are able to struggle to land, narrowly escaping being swept over a waterfall.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Voila! Unfortunately, going through that whole sequence seemed to yield me nothing. The letter in the building can’t be picked up (you only have one turn that must be used going in the basket). So maybe the <em>information</em> is important?</p>
<p>I realized that the name Mistress Golesind sometimes changed (like Mistress Legosind) and I also compared it with passwords I had been getting from Yorick the Jester way back at the graveyard (like SILEGODA). Maybe it is supposed to be</p>
<p>SI/LE/GO/DA = silver/lead/gold/??</p>
<p>LE/GO/SI/ND = lead/gold/silver/??</p>
<p>That is, these match the materials of the caskets. Back in the mansion, we were offered to open two caskets, remember; it turns out this offer is given in <em>every</em> season. Since we are offered two caskets per season, we can open six caskets.</p>
<p>This suggests opening the caskets in order as given by the password and the name, concatenating the six materials (SI + LE + GO + LE + GO + SI), but my testing this yielded no treasure. (You get a smoothed ice, a perfumed violet, and a painted lily, but this seems to happen if you just guess randomly.) So I’m not sure what to do here. I feel like I’m missing something. Yes, you can mash up DA and ND to get D AND, but from there …?</p>
<blockquote><p>> OPEN GOLD<br />
The casket is empty. Shielded from your view, the Lady Portia performs a rearrangement of the contents of the caskets and invites you to open a second casket.<br />
Choose again. Which casket will ye open now?<br />
LEAD<br />
You open the second casket, which contains a perfumed violet.<br />
The lady Portia picks up her caskets and leaves, murmuring “Sweet, adieu.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s essentially everything for now, except one bonus thing. I found if you go back in the graveyard in summer (where you meet a live Yorick in winter) you can find a Yorick skull. Then you can go back to the witches, who will happily trade the rest of their items for the skull. This means you can get the last two items (wool of bat, tongue of dog) instead of just one of them! (Or maybe the skull is really what you need, the game is willing to be that evil.)</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32747" style="width: 509px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32747" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32747" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/16/avon-this-great-gap-of-time/grave/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg" data-orig-size="499,499" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="grave" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>The gravedigger scene in Hamlet, from a Wentworth engraving in 1870.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg?w=499" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg?w=1000" class="size-full wp-image-32747" alt="" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg 499w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg?w=150&h=150 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/grave.jpg?w=300&h=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px"><p id="caption-attachment-32747" class="wp-caption-text">The gravedigger scene in Hamlet, from a Wentworth engraving in 1870.</p></div>
<p class="small">
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogInteractive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarian: The Rise of POMG, Part 3: Competition and Conflicthttps://www.filfre.net/?p=58002024-02-16T17:23:14+00:00
<p>While the broth of <em>Ultima Online</em> was slowly thickening, not one but two other publishers beat EA and Origin Systems to the punch by releasing graphical persistent virtual worlds of their own. We owe it to them and to ourselves to have a look at these other POMG pioneers before we return to the more widely lauded one that was being built down in Texas. They were known as <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em>.</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/5073479-meridian-59-windows-front-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-5805"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5805" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5073479-meridian-59-windows-front-cover-235x300.jpg" alt="" width="352" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5073479-meridian-59-windows-front-cover-235x300.jpg 235w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5073479-meridian-59-windows-front-cover.jpg 626w" sizes="(max-width: 352px) 100vw, 352px" /></a></p>
<p><em>Meridian 59</em> was inspired by <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/80189/scepter-of-goth/"><em>Scepter of Goth</em></a>,<span class="footnote_referrer"><a role="button" tabindex="0" onclick="footnote_moveToReference_5800_6('footnote_plugin_reference_5800_6_1');" onkeypress="footnote_moveToReference_5800_6('footnote_plugin_reference_5800_6_1');" ><sup id="footnote_plugin_tooltip_5800_6_1" class="footnote_plugin_tooltip_text">[1]</sup></a><span id="footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_5800_6_1" class="footnote_tooltip">The first word in the name is often spelled <em>Sceptre</em> as well.</span></span><script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_5800_6_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_5800_6_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'bottom center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 100], });</script> a rare attempt to commercialize <a href="/2017/12/games-on-the-net-before-the-web-part-2-mud">the text-only MUD</a> outside of the walled gardens of <a href="/2017/10/a-net-before-the-web-part-1-the-establishment-man-and-the-magnificent-rogue">online services</a> such as CompuServe and GEnie. After a long gestation period on a mainframe of <a href="/2011/03/on-the-trail-of-the-oregon-trail-part-1">the Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium</a>, it was ported in 1983 to an <a href="/2013/07/popcorn-and-peanuts">IBM PC/XT</a>, to which were cabled sixteen modems and sixteen phone lines, one for each of the players who could be online at any given time. A company called InterPlay — no, not <em>that</em> <a href="/2015/05/brian-fargo-and-interplay">Interplay</a> — franchised the software out to operators in at least seven American cities. These franchisees then charged their customers an hourly fee to roam around inside the world. The business model worked surprisingly well for a couple of years, until InterPlay’s founder was sent to prison for tax evasion and his company went down with him.</p>
<p>During the fairly brief window of time that <em>Scepter of Goth</em> remained a going concern, a pair of brothers named Andrew and Chris Kirmse fell in love with the incarnation of it that was run out of their hometown of Fairfax, Virginia. Not yet teenagers when they discovered it, they never forgot it after it disappeared. In the summer of 1994, when Andrew had just earned his bachelor’s degree from MIT and Chris had just finished his junior year at Virginia Tech, they set about bringing something similar to life, albeit this time with a top-down graphical view of the world rather than scrolling text. By the end of the year, they felt they had “the foundation of a game,” as Andrew puts it.</p>
<div id="attachment_5801" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/blackstone/" rel="attachment wp-att-5801"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5801" class="wp-image-5801" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/blackstone-300x264.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/blackstone-300x264.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/blackstone-768x675.jpg 768w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/blackstone.jpg 801w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5801" class="wp-caption-text">A very early version of the game that would evolve into <em>Meridian 59</em>. At this point, it was known as <em>Blackstone</em>.</p></div>
<p>Then, like so many other young men of their generation and disposition, they found their productivity derailed by a little game called <a href="/2020/06/the-shareware-scene-part-4-doom"><em>DOOM</em></a>. “I spent the early part of 1995 playing <em>DOOM II</em> to the exclusion of all else,” admits Andrew. As soon as he had finished all of the single-player levels, he and a friend started to make a <em>DOOM</em>-like engine of their own — again, just as about a million other young programmers were doing at the time. But there was a key difference in Andrew’s case: he didn’t want to make a single-player game, nor even one oriented toward the one-and-done online deathmatches that were all the rage at university campuses all over the country. He rather wanted to combine <em>DOOM</em> with the persistent online game which he and his brother had already begun — that is to say, to make a<em> DOOM</em> that took place in a <em>persistent</em> world.</p>
<p>Andrew and Chris Kirmse cleared their schedules so that they could spend the summer of 1995 in their parents’ basement, figuring out whether it was possible and practical to make the unholy union a reality. With the Internet now entering the public consciousness in a big way, it was a no-brainer to move the game there, where it would be able to welcome far more than sixteen players without requiring a warehouse worth of modems. A handful of other young dreamers joined them as partners in a would-be company called Archetype Interactive, contributing art, world designs, and even a modicum of business acumen from locations all over the country. Like Kali and for that matter <em>DOOM</em> itself, it was the very definition of an underground project, springing to life far from the bright lights of the major publishers, with their slick “interactive movies” and their fixed — and, it would turn out, comprehensively wrong — ideas of the direction mainstream gaming was destined to go. At first the Archetypers wanted to call their game <em>Meridian</em>, simply because they thought the word sounded cool. But they found that the name was already trademarked, so they stuck an arbitrary number at the end of it to wind up with <em>Meridian 59</em>.</p>
<p>By December, they had a bare-bones world with, as Andrew Kirmse says, “no character advancement, no spells, no guilds, no ranged weapons, just the novelty of seeing other people walking around in 3D and talking to them.” Nevertheless, they decided they were ready for an alpha test, several months before <em>Ultima Online</em> would reach the same milestone. They fired up the server late one evening and went to bed, and were thrilled to wake up the next morning and find four people — out of a maximum of 35 — poking around in their world at the same time. Andrew still calls the excitement of that moment “the high point of the entire project.” They redoubled their efforts, roping in more interested observers to provide more art and expand upon the world and its systems, pushing out major updates every few weeks.</p>
<div id="attachment_5802" style="width: 527px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/editor-5/" rel="attachment wp-att-5802"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5802" class="wp-image-5802" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/editor-300x261.jpg" alt="" width="517" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/editor-300x261.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/editor.jpg 696w" sizes="(max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5802" class="wp-caption-text">In an testament to the endearingly ramshackle nature of the whole project, the world of <em>Meridian 59</em> was built using a hacked <em>DOOM</em> level editor. Likewise, much of the early art was blatantly stolen from <em>DOOM</em>.</p></div>
<p>The world went into beta testing in April of 1996. The maximum number of concurrent players had by now been raised by an order of magnitude, but <em>Meridian 59</em> had become popular enough that the Archetypers still had to kick people out when they needed to log on themselves to check out their handiwork. Among the curious tire-kickers who visited was Kevin Hester, a programmer with The 3DO Company. <a href="/2018/10/whither-the-software-artist-or-how-trip-hawkins-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-consoles">Founded by Trip Hawkins</a> five years earlier with the intention of bringing a “multimedia console” — don’t call it a games console! — to living rooms everywhere, 3DO was rather at loose ends by this point, having banked on a future of digital entertainment that was badly at odds with the encroaching reality. But Hawkins’s latest instincts were sounder than those of a half-decade previous: he had now decided that online play rather than single-player multimedia extravaganzas was the future. He jumped on <em>Meridian 59</em> as soon as Hester brought it to his attention, putting together in a matter of days a deal to acquire the budding virtual world and its far-flung network of creators for $5 million in 3DO stock. The Archetypers all signed on the dotted line and moved to Silicon Valley, most of them meeting one another face to face for the first time on their first day in their new office, where they were thrilled to find five servers — enough for five separate instances of their virtual world! — just waiting for them to continue with the beta test.</p>
<p>It had started off like a hacker fairy tale, but the shine wore off quickly enough. Inspired by the <a href="/2020/04/the-shareware-scene-part-1-the-pioneers">shareware</a> example of <em>DOOM</em>, the Kirmse brothers had expected to offer the game client as a free download, with the necessity to pay subscription fees kicking in only after players had been given a few hours to try it out. 3DO vetoed all of this, insisting that the client be made available only as a boxed product with a $50 initial price tag, <em>plus</em> a $15 monthly subscription fee. And instead of being given as much time as they needed to make their new world fit for permanent habitation, as they had been promised they would, the Archetypers were now told that they had to begin welcoming paying customers into <em>Meridian 59</em> in less than three months. Damion Schubert, <em>Meridian 59</em>‘s world-design lead, claims that “3DO was using us to learn about the business of online gaming,” seeing their very first virtual world as a stepping-stone rather than a destination unto itself. Whatever the truth of that assertion, it is a matter of record that, while the Archetypers were trying to meet 3DO’s deadline, the stock they had been given was in free fall, losing 75 percent of its value in those first three months, thereby doing that much more to convince the accountants that <em>Meridian 59</em> absolutely, positively had to ship before 3DO’s next fiscal year began on October 1.</p>
<div id="attachment_5803" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/meridian/" rel="attachment wp-att-5803"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5803" class="wp-image-5803" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/meridian-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="400" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/meridian-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/meridian-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/meridian.jpg 862w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5803" class="wp-caption-text">An aesthetic triumph <em>Meridian 59</em> was not.</p></div>
<p>So, the game that was officially released on September 27, 1996, was not quite the one the Kirmses had envisioned when they signed the contract with 3DO. To call it little more than a massively-multiplayer <em>DOOM</em> deathmatch with a chat system grafted on would be unkind but not totally unfair. Its pseudo-3D engine would have looked badly outdated in 1996, the year of <a href="/2023/04/the-next-generation-in-graphics-part-1-three-dimensions-in-software-or-quake-and-its-discontents"><em>Quake</em></a>, even if the art hadn’t been such a mismatched grab bag of aesthetics and resolutions. <em>Meridian 59</em> evinced none of the simulational aspirations of <em>Ultima Online</em>; this was not a world in which anyone was going to pass the time baking bread or chopping lumber. For lack of much else to do, people mostly occupied themselves by killing one another. Like <em>Ultima Online</em>, the software permitted player-versus-player combat anywhere and everywhere; unlike <em>Ultima Online</em>, there were no guards patrolling any of the world’s spaces to disincentivize it. A <em>Meridian 59</em> server was a purely kill-or-be-killed sort of world, host to a new war every single day. Because there was no budget to add much other content to the world, this was just as well with its creators; indeed, they soon learned to lean into it hard. Activities in the world came to revolve around the possession of guild halls, of which each server boasted ten of varying degrees of splendor for the disparate factions to fight over. If you didn’t like to fight with your fellow players more or less constantly, <em>Meridian 59</em> probably wasn’t the game for you.</p>
<div id="attachment_5804" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/ad-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-5804"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5804" class="wp-image-5804" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ad-300x206.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="413" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ad-300x206.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ad-768x528.jpg 768w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ad.jpg 906w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5804" class="wp-caption-text">Handed the first-ever full-fledged massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, 3DO’s marketers chose to… write non-sequiters about latex. This might be the worst advertisement I’ve ever seen; I literally have no idea what joke it’s trying and failing to land. Something about condoms, I presume?</p></div>
<p>Luckily, there were plenty of gamers who really, really did like to fight, as the popularity of <em>DOOM</em> deathmatches illustrated. Despite its dated graphics and despite promotional efforts from 3DO that were bizarrely inept when they weren’t nonexistent, <em>Meridian 59</em> managed to attract 20,000 or more subscribers and to retain them for a good while, keeping all ten of the servers that were given over to it after the beta test humming along at near capacity most of the time. 3DO even approved a couple of boxed expansion packs that added a modicum of additional content.</p>
<p>But then, in late 1997, 3DO all but killed the virtual world dead at a stroke. Deciding it was unjust that casual players who logged on only occasionally paid the same subscription fee as heavy users who spent many hours per day online, they rejiggered the pricing formula into a tangle of numbers that would have baffled an income-tax accountant: $2.49 per day that one logged on, capped at $9.99 per week, with total fees also capped at $29.99 per month. But never mind the details. Since the largest chunk of subscribers by far belonged to the heavy-user category, it boiled down to a doubling of the subscription price, from $15 to $30 per month. The populations on the servers cratered as a result. <em>Meridian 59</em>‘s best days — or at least its most populous ones — thus passed into history.</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover/" rel="attachment wp-att-5806"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5806" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="451" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover-300x300.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover-150x150.jpg 150w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover-768x767.jpg 768w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover-144x144.jpg 144w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4182721-the-realm-windows-front-cover.jpg 801w" sizes="(max-width: 451px) 100vw, 451px" /></a></p>
<p>The other graphical MMORPG to beat <em>Ultima Online</em> to market had a very different personality. Sierra’s <em>The Realm</em> was the direct result of Ken Williams’s musings about what an “online adventure game” might be like, the same ones that I quoted at some length in my last article. After trying and failing to convince Roberta Williams to add a multiplayer option to <a href="/2021/08/making-sierra-pay"><em>King’s Quest VII</em></a>, he went to a programmer named David Slayback, saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could do something like our adventure games, that was Medieval themed, and allowed players to swap items with each other, buy weapons, and attack monsters?” Slayback then took the ball and ran with it; as Ken himself acknowledges, that initial conversation was “the limit of my involvement creatively.”</p>
<p>The original plan was for <em>The Realm</em> to become a part of America Online, <a href="/2022/12/doing-windows-part-11-the-internet-tidal-wave">the great survivor</a> of the pre-Web era of commercial online services. That deal, however, fell through. Meanwhile Sierra was itself acquired by an e-commerce firm called CUC International, and <em>The Realm</em> seemed to fall between two stools amidst the reshuffling of deck chairs that followed. A beta test in the summer of 1996 did lead to the acceptance of the first paying subscribers in December of that year, but Sierra never did any real promotion beyond its own customer magazine, making the client software available only via mail order. Still, by all indications this virtual world attracted a number of players comparable to that of <em>Meridian 59</em>, perhaps not least because in its case buying the boxed client entitled the customer to a full year of free online play.</p>
<p><em>The Realm</em> stands today as a rather fascinating artifact, being the road largely not taken in the MMORPG space. In presentation, aesthetics, and culture, it has more in common with <a href="/2015/07/a-new-force-in-games-part-2-a-habitat-in-cyberspace"><em>Habitat</em></a>, an amazingly early attempt by Lucasfilm Games and <a href="/2017/11/a-net-before-the-web-part-4-the-rogue-the-yuppie-and-the-soldier">America Online’s direct predecessor Quantum Link</a> to build a non-competitive graphical space for online socializing, than it does with either <em>Meridian 59</em> or <em>Ultima Online</em>. This world was very clear about where its priorities lay: “<em>The Realm</em> offers you a unique environment in which to socialize with online friends (or make some new ones) and also gives you something fun to do while you’re socializing.” It was, in other words, a case of social space first, game second. As such, it might be better read as a progenitor to the likes of <em>Second Life</em> or <em>The Sims Online</em> than something like <em>World of Warcraft</em>.</p>
<p>Each player started in her own house, which she had to fight neither to acquire nor to defend. The interface was set up like one of the point-and-click graphic adventures that had been Sierra’s bread and butter since the mid-1980s, with the player guiding her avatar in the third person across a map made up of “rooms” that filled exactly one screen each. The graphical style too was right out of <em>King’s Quest</em>. None of this is terribly surprising, given that <em>The Realm</em> was built using <a href="/2016/08/sierra-gets-creative">SCI</a>, Sierra’s venerable adventure-game engine.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/2322406-the-realm-windows-faeries/" rel="attachment wp-att-5807"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-5807" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2322406-the-realm-windows-faeries-300x150.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="300" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2322406-the-realm-windows-faeries-300x150.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2322406-the-realm-windows-faeries.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a></p>
<p>Although there were monsters to fight and treasure to collect, player-versus-player combat was impossible. Even profanity was expressly forbidden. (“This includes ‘masking’ by using asterisks as part of the word,” noted the FAQ carefully.) The combat was also unusual in that it was turn-based. This choice, combined with the way that <em>The Realm</em> off-loaded an unusual amount of work to the player’s local client, meant that Sierra didn’t have to spread it across multiple servers; uniquely for this era, there really was just <em>one Realm</em>.</p>
<p>All of this attracted a dramatically different clientele from that of <em>Meridian 59</em>; many more women hung out in<em> The Realm</em>, for one thing. Interior decoration and fashion trumped murder and theft in the typical range of pursuits. Beth Demetrescu wrote in Sierra’s magazine <em>InterAction</em> about her own first days there:</p>
<blockquote><p>As with all newbies, I started in my house. I was a poor, hungry, fashion faux pas. After I got out of my house, moved about six screens, and was lost in my hometown, I encountered HorseWoman, whose biography said she was an eleven-year-old. She took me to her home, gave me decent clothes, and taught me about basic communication, navigation, and combat. This was my first experience with the warm, welcoming community of The Realm.</p>
<p>I soon found myself outside of the town fighting rats. There are plenty of large, ferocious beasts to fight, but for the time being, all I could handle were rats. I was really worried the first time one of these rats killed me, thinking I was going to get kicked out of the game and would have to log back on. Instead, I lost everything I was carrying, but I was found by wanderers who dragged me home to heal…</p>
<p>I learned of Realm weddings. BlueRose, the Justice of the Peace, often called the Lady of Love, conducts over half of the Realm weddings…</p>
<p>I have picked up several valuable things from the many Realmers I have encountered. Not only did I get important information on The Realm’s features and inhabitants, but I also learned from their example about The Realm’s vast, multinational community. These people are friendly and helpful.</p></blockquote>
<p>The contrast with <em>Meridian 59</em>, where a bewildered newbie was more likely to be given a broadsword to the back of the neck than navigational and sartorial assistance, could hardly have been greater.</p>
<div id="attachment_5808" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/2319795-the-realm-windows-wedding/" rel="attachment wp-att-5808"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5808" class="wp-image-5808" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2319795-the-realm-windows-wedding-300x129.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="258" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2319795-the-realm-windows-wedding-300x129.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2319795-the-realm-windows-wedding.jpg 642w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5808" class="wp-caption-text">A wedding in <em>The Realm</em>.</p></div>
<p>All told, then, <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em> provided the early MMORPG space with its yang and its yin: the one being a hyper-violent, hyper-competitive free-for-all where pretty much anything went, the other a friendly social space that was kept that way by tight moderation. Nevertheless, the two did have some things in common. Neither ever became more than moderately popular, for one — and that according to a pretty generous interpretation of “moderately” in a fast-expanding games industry. And yet both proved weirdly hard to kill. In fact, both are still alive to this day, abandoned decades ago by their original publishers but kept online by hook or by crook by folks who simply refuse to let them go away — certainly not now, when the aged code that makes their worlds come alive can be run for a pittance on a low-end server tucked away in some back corner of an office or data center somewhere. Their populations on any given evening may now be in the dozens rather than the hundreds or thousands, but these virtual worlds abide. In this too, they’ve set a precedent for their posterity; the Internet of today is fairly littered with online games whose heyday of press notices and mainstream popularity are well behind them, but that seem determined to soldier on until the last grizzled graybeard who cut his teeth on them in his formative years shuffles off this mortal coil. MMORPGs especially are a bit like cockroaches in this respect — with no insult to either the worlds or the insects in question intended. Suffice to say that community can be a disarmingly resilient thing.</p>
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But we return now to the story of <em>Ultima Online</em>, whose makers viewed the less than overwhelming commercial acceptance of <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em> with some ambivalence. On the one hand, <em>Ultima Online</em> had avoided having its own thunder stolen by another MMORPG sensation. On the other, these other virtual worlds’ middling trajectories gave no obvious reason to feel hugely confident in <em>Ultima Online</em>‘s own commercial prospects.</p>
<p>This was a problem not least because, as 1996 turned the corner into 1997, the project’s financial well had just about run dry, just as this virtual Britannia was ready to go from the alpha to the beta stage of testing, with ten to twenty times the number of participants of earlier testing rounds. It wasn’t clear how this next step could be managed under the circumstances; the client software was by now too big to ask prospective testers to download it in its entirety in this era of dial-up connections, yet there simply wasn’t sufficient money in the budget to stamp and ship 20,000 or more CDs out to them. The team decided there was only one option, cheeky though it seemed: to ask each participant in effect to pay Origin for the privilege of testing their game for them, by sending in $5 to cover the cost of the CD. The principals claim today that 50,000 people did so as soon as the test was announced online, burying Origin in incoming mail; I suspect this number may be inflated somewhat, as many of those associated with <em>Ultima Online</em> tend to be in the memories of those who made it. But regardless of the exact figure, the response definitely was considerable, not to mention gratifying for the little team of ex-MUDders who had been laboring in disrespected obscurity up there on a gutted fifth floor. It was the first piece of incontrovertible evidence that there were significant numbers of people out there who were really, really excited by the idea of living out an <em>Ultima</em> game with thousands of others.</p>
<div id="attachment_5810" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/publiccd/" rel="attachment wp-att-5810"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5810" class="wp-image-5810" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/publiccd-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/publiccd-300x300.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/publiccd-150x150.jpg 150w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/publiccd-144x144.jpg 144w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/publiccd.jpg 605w" sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5810" class="wp-caption-text">The original <em>Ultima Online</em> beta CDs have become coveted collectors’ items.</p></div>
<p>As the creators tell the story, the massive popular reaction to the call for beta testers was solely responsible for changing the hearts and minds of their managers at EA and Origin. Realizing suddenly that <em>Ultima Online</em> had serious moneymaking potential, they went overnight from passive-aggressively trying to kill it to being all-in with bells on. In March of 1997, they moved the MUDders from their barren exile down to the scene of the most important action at Origin, where a much larger team had been working on <em>Ultima IX</em>, the latest iteration in the single-player series. Yet it was the latter project that was now to go on hiatus, not <em>Ultima Online</em>. This new amalgamation of developers, five or six times the size of the team of the day before, had but one mandate: get the virtual world done already. After two years of living hand to mouth, the original world-builders had merely to state their wishes in terms of resources in order to see them granted.</p>
<p>Most of the conceptual work of building this new online world had already been done by the time the team was so dramatically expanded. Still, we shouldn’t dismiss the importance of this sudden influx of sometimes unwilling bandwagon jumpers. For they made <em>Ultima Online</em> <em>look</em> like at least a passable imitation of a AAA prestige project, in a way that <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em> did not. A high design standard combined with a relatively high audiovisual one would prove a potent combination.</p>
<div id="attachment_5809" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-3-competition-and-conflict/pre-smallwipe7/" rel="attachment wp-att-5809"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5809" class="wp-image-5809" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Pre-Smallwipe7-300x223.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="445" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Pre-Smallwipe7-300x223.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Pre-Smallwipe7.jpg 632w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5809" class="wp-caption-text">With its isometric perspective, <em>Ultima Online</em> most resembled <em>Ultima VII</em> in terms of presentation. The graphics were by no means cutting-edge — <em>Ultima VII</em> had come out back in 1992, after all — but they were bright and attractive, without going full-on cartoon like <em>The Realm</em>.</p></div>
<p>Did all of this really happen simply because the response to the call for beta testers was better than expected? I have no smoking gun either way, but I must say that I tend to doubt it. Just about everyone loves a good creatives-versus-suits story, such that we seldom question them. Yet the reasoning that went on in the executive suites prior to this turnaround in <em>Ultima Online</em>‘s fortunes was perhaps a little more complex than that of a pack of ravenous wolves chasing a tasty rabbit that had finally been revealed to their unimaginative minds. Whatever else one can say about them, most of the suits didn’t get where they were by being stupid. So, maybe we should try to see the situation from their perspective — try to see what Origin looked like to the outsiders at EA’s California headquarters.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1990s, Origin lived on two franchises: Richard Garriott’s <em>Ultima</em> and <a href="/2017/04/from-squadron-to-wingleader">Chris Roberts’s <em>Wing Commander</em></a>. To be sure, there were other games here and there, some of which even turned modest profits, but it was these two series that kept the lights on. When <a href="/2019/09/origin-sells-out">EA acquired Origin</a> in September of 1992, both franchises were by all indications in rude health. <em>Wing Commander <a href="/2017/04/from-wingleader-to-wing-commander">I</a></em> and <a href="/2018/03/wing-commander-ii"><em>II</em></a> and a string of mission packs for each were doing tremendous numbers. <a href="/2019/02/ultima-vii"><em>Ultima VII</em></a>, the latest release in Richard Garriott’s mainline series, had put up more middling sales figures, but it had been rescued by the spinoff <a href="/2019/01/life-off-the-grid-part-1-making-ultima-underworld"><em>Ultima Underworld</em></a>, which had come out of nowhere — or more specifically out of the Boston-based studio Blue Sky Productions, soon to be rebranded as Looking Glass — to become another of the year’s biggest hits.</p>
<p>Understandably under the circumstances, EA overlooked what a dysfunctional workplace Origin was already becoming by the time of the acquisition, divided as it was between two camps: the “Friends of Richard” and the “Friends of Chris.” Those two personifications of Origin’s split identity were equally mercurial and equally prone to unrealistic flights of fancy; one can’t help but sense that both of their perceptions of the real world and their place in it had been to one degree or another warped by their having become icons of worship for a cult of adoring gamers at an improbably young age. Small wonder that EA grew concerned that there weren’t enough grounded adults in the room down in Austin, and, after first promising a hands-off approach, showed more and more of a tendency to micro-manage as time went on — so much so that, as we learned in the last article, Garriott was soon reduced to begging for money to start his online passion project.</p>
<p><em>Wing Commander</em> maintained its momentum for quite some time after the acquisition, even after <em>DOOM</em> came along to upend much of the industry’s conventional wisdom with its focus on pure action at the expense of story and world-building, the things for which both Garriott and Roberts were most known. <a href="/2021/03/wing-commander-iii"><em>Wing Commander III</em></a> was released almost a year after <em>DOOM</em> in late 1994 with a cast of real actors headed by Mark Hamill of <em>Star Wars</em> fame, and became another huge success. <em>Ultima</em>, however, started to lose its way almost as soon as the ink was dry on the acquisition contract. <a href="/2021/02/ultima-viii-or-how-to-destroy-a-gaming-franchise-in-one-easy-step"><em>Ultima VIII</em></a>, which was also released in 1994, chased the latest trends by introducing a strong action element and simplifying most other aspects of its gameplay. This was not done, as some fan narratives wish to state, at the behest of EA’s management, but rather at that of Richard Garriott himself, who feared that his signature franchise was at risk of becoming irrelevant. That said, EA can and should largely take the blame for the game being released too early, in a woefully buggy and unpolished state. The critical and commercial response was nothing short of disastrous, leaving plenty of blame to go around. Fans complained that <em>Ultima VIII</em> had more in common with <em>Super Mario Bros</em>. than the storied <em>Ultima</em> games of the past, bestowing upon it the nickname <em>Super Avatar Bros.</em> in a backhanded homage to the series’s most hallowed incarnation, 1985’s <a href="/2014/07/ultima-iv"><em>Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar</em></a>, whose unabashed idealism now seemed like something from a lifetime ago in a parallel universe.</p>
<p>Then, in early 1996, Origin’s other franchise went squishy as well. As the studio’s own press releases breathlessly trumpeted, <a href="/2023/04/wing-commander-iv"><em>Wing Commander IV</em></a> was the most expensive digital game ever made to that date, with a claimed production budget of $12 million. The vast majority of that money went into a real Hollywood film shoot, directed by Chris Roberts himself and starring a returning Mark Hamill among a number of other recognizable faces from the silver screen. <em>Wing Commander IV</em> wound up costing four times as much as its predecessor and selling half as many copies, taking months of huffing and puffing to just about reach the break-even point. The interactive-movie era had reached the phase of diminishing returns; under no circumstances was EA going to let Origin make a game like this one again.</p>
<p>But what kinds of games <em>should</em> Origin be making? That was the million-dollar question in the aftermath of <em>Wing Commander IV</em>. After Chris Roberts left the studio to pursue his dream of becoming the latest George Lucas in Hollywood, Origin announced that his series was to be continued on a less grandiose scale, moving some of the focus away from the cut scenes and back to the gameplay. Yet there was no reason to believe such games would make many inroads beyond the hardcore <em>Wing Commander</em> faithful. Meanwhile Richard Garriott had pledged to repair the damage done by <em>Ultima VIII</em>, by making the next single-player <em>Ultima</em> the biggest, best one ever. But epic CRPGs in general had been in the doldrums for years, and the <em>Ultima IX</em> project was already showing signs of becoming another over-hyped, over-expensive boondoggle like <em>Wing Commander IV</em>. Exacerbating the situation was the loss of two of the only people at Origin who had shown themselves to be capable of restraining and channeling Garriott’s flights of fancy. Origin and EA alike felt keenly the loss of the diplomatic and self-effacing designer and producer <a href="/2018/02/the-worlds-of-ultima">Warren Spector</a>, the first everyday project lead on <em>Ultima IX</em>, who decamped to Looking Glass in 1995 when that project was still in its infancy. Ditto the production manager Dallas Snell, a less cuddly character whose talent for Just Getting Things Done — by cracking heads if necessary — was almost equally invaluable.</p>
<p>Of course, one can still ding EA for failing to see that Richard Garriott was onto something with <em>Ultima Online</em> long before they did. In their partial defense, though, Garriott tended to propose a lot of crazy stuff. As his checkered post-millennial career in game development illustrates all too clearly, he has not been a detail-oriented creator since his days of conceiving and coding the early <em>Ultima</em> games all by himself. This has made his ideas — even his good ones, which <em>Ultima Online</em> certainly was — all too easy to dismiss.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the potential of persistent online multiplayer gaming was becoming impossible to deny by early 1997, what with the vibrant virtual communities being built on the likes of Kali and Battle.net, in addition to the smaller but no less dedicated ones that had sprung up in <em>Meridian 59</em> and <em>The Realm</em>. You’d have to be a fool not to be intrigued by the potential of <em>Ultima Online</em> in a milieu such as this one — and, again, EA’s executives most definitely weren’t fools. They wanted to keep Origin alive and viable and relevant as badly as anyone else. Suddenly this seemed the best way to do so. Thus the mass personnel transfer from <em>Ultima IX</em>, which was increasingly smelling like gaming’s past, into <em>Ultima Online</em>, which had the distinct whiff of its future.</p>
<p>It was a difficult transition for everyone, made that much more difficult by the fact that most of the people involved were still in their twenties, with all of the arrogant absolutism of youth. Both the project’s old-timers and its newcomers had plenty of perfectly valid complaints to hurl at their counterparts. Raph Koster, who had been told that <em>he</em> was the design lead, was ignored by more experienced developers who thought they knew better. And yet he did little for his cause by, as he admits today, “sulking and being very rude” and “behaving badly and improperly” even to Richard Garriott himself. From his point of view, the newcomers showed that they fundamentally didn’t understand online games when they wasted their time on fluff that players who needed to be captured for months or years would burn through in a matter of hours, such as lengthy, single-player-<em>Ultima</em>-style conversation trees for the non-player characters. Yet the newcomers were right to express shock and horror when they found that, amidst all the loving attention that had been given to simulating Britannia’s ecology and the like, no one on the original team had thought up a consistent system for casting spells, a bedrock of <em>Ultima</em>‘s appeal since the very beginning. Even today, one <em>Ultima IX</em> refugee accuses the MUDders of being “focused on minutia, what I would call silly little details that really added nothing to the game.”</p>
<p>When the two-month-long beta test finally began after repeated delays in June of 1997, the dogged simulation-first mentality of Koster and company faced a harsh reckoning with reality. Many of the systems that had seemed wonderful in theory didn’t work in practice, or displayed side effects that they’d never anticipated. Here as in many digital games, attempting to push the simulation too far just plunged the whole thing into a sort of uncanny valley, making it feel more rather than less artificial. For instance, the MUDders had made it possible for you to learn or improve skills simply by standing in close proximity to someone who was using the skill in question at a high level, on the assumption that your character was observing and internalizing this example of a master at work. But they’d also instituted a cap on the total pool of skill points a character could possess across all disciplines, on the assumption that no Jack of all trades could be a master of them all; just as is the case for most of us in real life, in <em>Ultima Online </em>you could be really good at a few things, or fair at a lot of them, but not really good at a lot of them. When a character hit her skill-point cap, learning new things would cause some of her other skills to decline to stay under it. In practice, this caused players to desperately try to avoid seeing what that baker or weaver was doing, for fear of losing their ability to hunt or cast spells as a result. Problems like these hammered home again and again the fact that any digital simulation is only the crudest approximation of a lived existence; in the real world, matters are not quite so zero-sum as instantly losing the ability to catch a fish because one has learned to cook a fish.</p>
<p>But the most extreme case of unforeseen consequences involved the aforementioned lovingly crafted ecology of virtual Britannia. To put it bluntly, the players destroyed it — all of it, within days if not hours. The population of deer and rabbits, the food sources of apex predators like dragons, were slaughtered to extinction by players instead. This was not done out of sheer bloody-mindedness alone, although that was undoubtedly a part of the equation. The truth was that deer and rabbits had value, in the form of meat and pelts. In a sense, then, virtual Britannia was becoming a real economy, just as its creators had always hoped it would. But it was an economy without real-world limits or controls, unimpeded by consequences which were themselves only virtual, never real; no one was going to go hungry in real life for over-hunting the forests and fields of Britannia. The same went for trees and fish and a hundred other precious resources that we of the real world usually make some effort to conserve, however imperfectly. With the simulation spinning wildly out of control, Origin had to start putting its thumb on the scales, applying external remedies such as magically re-spawning rabbits and trees, lest the world degenerate into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a deserted moonscape where roving bands of starving players were chased hither and yon by equally hungry dragons. People came to an <em>Ultima</em> game expecting a Renaissance Faire version of Merry Olde England, not <a href="/2021/10/i-have-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream">a Harlan Ellison story</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, the external corrections themselves had further knock-on consequences. By creating an endless supply of animals to hunt and trees to fell, Origin was in effect giving the economy a massive, perpetual external stimulus. The overseers were therefore always on the lookout for ways to suck gold back out of the world. Ironically, one of the best was to let players get killed a lot, since between death and resurrection they lost whatever money they’d been carrying with them. Thus Origin had a perverse incentive not to try too hard to make Britannia a safer, more friendly place.</p>
<p>Such collisions between idealism and reality were scarring for the MUDders. “This was a wake-up call for me,” says Raph Koster. “The limits on what we can get an audience to go along with, and how much we can affect the bottom line. A lot of people [on the development team] were emotionally hurt by the player killing. Many of the tactics we would use on MUDs just didn’t work at a large scale. Players behaved differently. They were ruder to one another.” All of which is to say that Richard Garriott’s fondly expressed wish that the persistent quality of <em>Ultima Online</em> would serve to put a brake on the more toxic ways of acting out on the anonymous Internet did not come to pass to anything like the extent he had imagined.</p>
<p>At the same time, though, it wasn’t all destruction a nd disillusionment during that summer of the beta test. Some players proved less interested in killing than they were in crafting, becoming armorers and blacksmiths, jewelers and merchants, chefs and bankers and real-estate agents. Players cooked food and sold it from booths in the center of the cities or earned a (virtual) living as tour guides, leading groups of people on treks to scenic but dangerous corners of the world. Enterprising wizards set up a sort of long-distance bus service, opening up magical portals to shuttle their fellow players instantly from one side of the world to another for a fee. Many of the surprises of the beta period were just the kind the MUDders had been hoping to see, emerging from the raw simulational affordances of the environment. “[Players] used the ability to dye clothing to make uniforms for their guilds,” says Raph Koster, “and they [held] weddings with coordinated bridesmaids dresses. They started holding sporting events. They founded theater troupes and taverns and police forces.” The agents of chaos may have been perpetually beating at the door, but there was a measure of civilization appearing in virtual Britannia as well.</p>
<p>Or rather in the virtual Britannias. One of the most frustrating compromises the creators had to make was necessitated by, as compromises usually are in game development, the practical limitations of the technology they had to hand. There was no way that any one of the servers they possessed could contain the number of players the beta test had attracted. So, there had to be two virtual Britannias rather than just one, the precursors to many more that would follow. Both Garriott and Koster have claimed to be the one who came up with the word “shards” as a name for these separate servers, each housing its own initially identical but quickly diverging version of Britannia. The name was grounded in the lore of the very early days of <em>Ultima</em>. In <a href="/2012/02/ultima-part-1"><em>Ultima I</em></a> back in 1981, the player had shattered the Gem of Immortality, the key to the power of that game’s villain, the evil wizard Mondain. It was claimed now that each of the jewel’s shards had contained a copy of the world of Britannia, and that these were the duplicate worlds inhabited by the players of <em>Ultima Online</em>. Rather amusingly, the word “shard” has since become a generalized term for separate but equal server instances, co-opted not only by other MMORPGs but by administrators of large de-centralized online databases of many stripes, most of which have nothing to do with games.</p>
<p>Each shard could host about 2500 players at once. In these days when the nation’s Internet infrastructure was still in a relatively unrefined state, such that latency tended to increase almost linearly with distance, the shards were named after their real-world locations — there was one on each coast in the beginning, named “Atlantic” and “Pacific” — and players were encouraged to choose the server closest to them if at all possible. (Such concerns would become less pressing as the years went by, but to this day <em>Ultima Online</em> has continued the practice of naming its virtual Britannias after the locations of the servers in the real world.)</p>
<p>On the last day of the beta test, there occurred one of the more famous events in the history of <em>Ultima Online</em>, one with the flavor of a Biblical allegory if not a premonition. Richard Garriott, playing in-character as Lord British, made a farewell tour of the shards in the final hours, to thank everyone for participating before the servers were shut down, not to be booted up again until <em>Ultima Online</em> went live as a paid commercial service. Among fans of the single-player <em>Ultima</em> games, there was a longstanding tradition of finding ways to kill Lord British, who always appeared as a character in them as well. People had transplanted the tradition into <em>Ultima Online</em> with a vengeance, but to no avail; acknowledging that even the most stalwart commitment to simulation must have its limits when it comes to the person who signs your paycheck, the MUDders had agreed to provide Lord British with an “invulnerability” flag. As he stood up now before a crowd on the Pacific shard to deliver his valediction, someone threw a fireball spell at him. No matter; Lord British stepped confidently right into the flames. Whereupon he fell over and died. Someone had forgotten to set the invulnerability flag.</p>
<p>If Lord British couldn’t be protected, decided the folks at Origin on the spur of the moment, he must be avenged; in so deciding, they demonstrated how alluring virtual violence could be even to those most dedicated to creating a virtual civilization. Garriott:</p>
<blockquote><p>It’s amazing how quickly the cloak of civilization can disappear. The word spread verbally throughout the office: let us unleash hell! My staff summoned demons and devils and dragons and all of the nightmarish creatures of the game, and they cast spells and created dark clouds and lightning that struck and killed people. The gamemasters had special powers, and once they realized I had been killed, they were able to almost instantly resurrect Lord British. And I gleefully joined in the revelry. Kill me, will you? Be gone, mortals! It was a slaughter of thousands of players in the courtyard.</p>
<p>It definitely was not the noble ending we had intended.</p>
<p>And while some players enjoyed the spontaneity of this event, others were saddened or hurt by it. When most characters die they turn into a ghost and are transported to a distant place on the map. Then they have to go find their body. So the cost of being killed is a temporary existence as a ghost. In the last three minutes of these characters’ existence, they suddenly found themselves alone, deep in the woods, unable to speak or interact with anyone else. The net result of this mass killing in retaliation for the assassination of Lord British was that not only were all of these innocent people slaughtered, they were also cast out of the presence of the creators at the final moment. As the final seconds trickled down, they desperately tried to get back, but most often failed. The fact that all of us, the creators and the players, were able to turn the last few moments of the beta test into this completely unplanned and even unimagined chaos was proof that we had built something unique, a platform that would allow players to do pretty much whatever they pleased, and that it was about to take on a life — and many deaths — of its own.</p></blockquote>
<p>After more than two and a half years, during which the face of the games industry around it had changed dramatically and its own importance to its parent company had been elevated incalculably, <em>Ultima Online</em> was about to greet the real world as a commercial product. Whether the last minutes of its existence while it was still officially an experiment boded well or ill for its future depended on your point of view. But, as Richard Garriott says, the one certain thing was uncertainty: nobody knew quite what would happen next. Would <em>Ultima Online</em> be another <em>Meridian 59</em> or <em>The Realm</em>, or would this be the virtual world that finally broke through? And what would it mean for gaming — and, for that matter, for the real world beyond gaming — if it did?</p>
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<p><code> </code></p>
<p><strong>Sources: </strong>the books <em>Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online</em> by Wes Locher, <em>Postmortems: Selected Essays, Volume One</em> by Raph Koster, <em>Online Game Pioneers at Work</em> by Morgan Ramsay, <em>Through the Moongate</em><em>, Part II</em> by Andrea Contato, <em>Explore/Create</em> by Richard Garriott, <em>MMOs from the Inside Out</em> by Richard Bartle, and <em>Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings</em> by Ken Williams; Sierra’s customer newsletter <em>InterAction</em> of Spring 1996, Summer 1996, Spring 1997, Summer 1997, Fall 1997, Summer 1998, and Fall 1998; <em>PC Powerplay</em> of November 1996; <em>Next Generation</em> of March 1997.</p>
<p>Web sources include a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnnsDi7Sxq0">2018 Game Developers Conference talk</a> by some of the <em>Ultima Online</em> principals, <a href="https://www.uoguide.com/History_of_Ultima_Online">an <em>Ultima Online</em> timeline</a> at <em>UOGuide</em>, <a href="https://massivelyop.com/2017/05/27/the-game-archaeologist-how-sceptre-of-goth-shaped-the-mmo-industry/">“How <em>Scepter of Goth</em> Shaped the MMO Industry”</a> by Justin Olivetti at <em>Massively Overpowered</em>, David A. Wheeler’s <a href="https://dwheeler.com/scepter-of-goth/scepter-of-goth.html">history of <em>Scepter of Goth</em></a>, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvvj45/how-the-worlds-oldest-3d-mmo-keeps-cheating-death">“How the World’s Oldest 3D MMO Keeps Cheating Death”</a> by Samuel Axon at <em>Vice</em>, Andrew Kirmse’s own <a href="https://www.meridian59.com/about-early-history.php">early history of <em>Meridian 59</em></a>, Damion Schubert’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGPDAi_lHpo&list=PL2mq4u-AL_h18hQmRJ5k0k91Nfri1KGd9"><em>Meridian 59</em> postmortem</a> and <a href="https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016676/Classic-Game-Postmortem-Meridian">its accompanying slides</a> from the 2012 Game Developers Conference, and Gavin Annand’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGPDAi_lHpo&list=PL2mq4u-AL_h18hQmRJ5k0k91Nfri1KGd9">video interview with the Kirmse brothers</a>.</p>
<div class="speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container"> <div class="footnote_container_prepare"><h2><span role="button" tabindex="0" class="footnote_reference_container_label pointer" onclick="footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_5800_6();">Footnotes</span><span role="button" tabindex="0" class="footnote_reference_container_collapse_button" style="display: none;" onclick="footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_5800_6();">[<a id="footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_5800_6">+</a>]</span></h2></div> <div id="footnote_references_container_5800_6" style=""><table class="footnotes_table footnote-reference-container"><caption class="accessibility">Footnotes</caption> <tbody>
<tr class="footnotes_plugin_reference_row"> <th scope="row" class="footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer" onclick="footnote_moveToAnchor_5800_6('footnote_plugin_tooltip_5800_6_1');"><a id="footnote_plugin_reference_5800_6_1" class="footnote_backlink"><span class="footnote_index_arrow">↑</span>1</a></th> <td class="footnote_plugin_text">The first word in the name is often spelled <em>Sceptre</em> as well.</td></tr>
</tbody> </table> </div></div><script type="text/javascript"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_5800_6() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_5800_6').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_5800_6').text('−'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_5800_6() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_5800_6').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_5800_6').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_5800_6() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_5800_6').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_5800_6(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_5800_6(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_5800_6(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_5800_6(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_5800_6(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_5800_6(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }</script>
Interactive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarianhttps://www.filfre.netChoice of Games LLC: Our Hidden Gems Are On Sale!https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80132024-02-15T17:03:44+00:00
<p>The 2024 Choice of Games Hidden Gems Sale is here!</p>
<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td colspan="2"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/pon-para-2/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="500" data-attachment-id="8015" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/our-hidden-gems-are-on-sale-2/promo1024-12/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024.png" data-orig-size="1024,500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo1024" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-300x146.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024.png" class="wp-image-8015" style="width: 816px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024.png 1024w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-300x146.png 300w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/promo1024-768x375.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/war-of-the-currents/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="6314" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2022/05/nikola-tesla-war-of-the-currents-rewrite-the-shocking-history-of-electricity/web408-189/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/web408-2.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="web408" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/web408-2-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/web408-2.png" class="wp-image-6314" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/web408-2.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/web408-2.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/web408-2-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></td><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/sixth-grade-detective/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="8010" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/web408-298/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/web408-1.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="web408" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/web408-1-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/web408-1.png" class="wp-image-8010" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/web408-1.png" alt="Sixth Grade Detective" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/web408-1.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/web408-1-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/cliffhanger/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="480" height="320" data-attachment-id="6676" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2021/11/author-interview-william-brown-cliffhanger-challenger-of-tomorrow/promo480-12/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/promo480.png" data-orig-size="480,320" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="promo480" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/promo480-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/promo480.png" class="wp-image-6676" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/promo480.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/promo480.png 480w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/promo480-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></td><td><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/superlatives-shattered-worlds/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="5057" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2019/03/the-superlatives-shattered-worlds-hunt-a-killer-and-save-the-solar-system/web408-166/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web408.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="The Superlatives: Shattered Worlds" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web408-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web408.png" class="wp-image-5057" style="width: 408px;" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web408.png" alt="" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web408.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web408-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p>Shhhhh! It’s our super secret special sale! </p>
<p>Thanks to a very scientific poll conducted on our forums, we’re proud to announce that our “most underrated” games, aka the Hidden Gems, are on sale all week! Pick them up for discounts <strong>up to 40% off until February 22nd</strong> on the platform of your choice–Android, Android Omnibus app, iOS and iOS Omnibus app, Steam, the website, and on the Amazon Android Marketplace!</p>
<p><strong>And check out our newly updated <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/24716/Hidden_Gems_Bundle/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hidden Gems Steam bundle</a>! </strong></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/pon-para-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pon Para and the Unconquerable Scorpion</a></em><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/war-of-the-currents/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Nikola Tesla: War of the Currents</em></a><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/sixth-grade-detective" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Sixth Grade Detective</em></a><br><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/cliffhanger/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Cliffhanger: Challenger of Tomorrow</em></a><br><em><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/superlatives-shattered-worlds" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Superlatives: Shattered Worlds</a></em></p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comPost Position: Poetixhttps://nickm.com/post/?p=51552024-02-14T21:52:39+00:00
<p>February 14 is Valentine’s Day for many; this year, it’s also Ash Wednesday for Western Christians, both Orthodox and unorthodox. Universally, it is Harry Mathews’s birthday. Harry, who would have been 94 today, was an amazing experimental writer. He’s known to many as the first American to join the Oulipo.</p>
<p>Given the occasion, I thought I’d write a blog post, which I do very rarely these days, to discuss my poetics — or, because mine is a poetics of concision, my “poetix.” Using that word saves one byte. The term may also suggest an underground poetix, as with comix, and this is great.</p>
<h4>Why write poems of any sort?</h4>
<p>Personally, I’m an explorer of language, using constraint, form, and computation to make poems that surface aspects of language. As unusual qualities emerge, everything that language is entangled with also rises up: Wars, invasions, colonialism, commerce and other sorts of exchange between language communities, and the development of specialized vocabularies, for instance.</p>
<p>While other poets have very different answers, which very often include personal expression, this is mine. Even if I’m an unusual conceptualist, and more specifically a computationalist, I believe my poetics have aspects that are widely shared by others. I’m still interested in composing poems that give readers pleasure, for instance, and that awaken new thoughts and feelings.</p>
<h4>Why write computational poems?</h4>
<p>Computation, along with language, is an essential medium of my art. Just as painters work with paint, I work with computation.</p>
<p>This allows me to investigate the intersection of computing, language, and poetry, much as composing poems allows me to explore language.</p>
<h4>Why write <em>tiny</em> computational poems?</h4>
<p>Often, although not always, I write <em>small</em> poems. I’ve even organized <a href="https://nickm.com/poems/">my computational poetry page</a> by size.</p>
<p>Writing very small-scale computational poems allows me to learn more about computing and its intersection with language and poetry. Not computing in the abstract, but computing as embodied in particular platforms, which are intentionally designed and have platform imaginaries and communities of use and practice surrounding them.</p>
<p>For instance, consider the modern-day Web browser. Browsers can do pretty much anything that computers can. They’re general-purpose computing platforms and can run Unity games, mine Bitcoin, present climate change models, incorporate the effects of Bitcoin mining into climate change models, and so on and so on. But it takes a lot of code for browsers to do complex things. By paring down the code, limiting myself to using only a tiny bit, I’m working to see what is most <em>native</em> for the browser, what this computational platform can most **essentially* accomplish.</p>
<p>Is the browser best suited to let us configure a linked universe of documents? It’s easy to hook pages together, yes, although now, social media sites prohibit linking outside their walled gardens. Does it support prose better than anything else, even as flashy images and videos assail us? Well, the Web is predisposed to that: One essential HTML element is the paragraph, after all. When boiled down as much as possible, there might be something else that HTML5 and the browser is really equipped to accomplish. What if one of the browser’s most essential capabilities is that of … a poetry machine?</p>
<p>One can ask the same questions of other platforms. I co-authored <a href="https://nickm.com/vcs/">a book about the Atari VCS</a> (aka <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam">Atari 2600</a>), and while one can develop all sorts of things for it (a BASIC interpreter, artgames, demos, etc.), and I think it’s an amazing platform for creative computing, I’m pretty sure it’s not inherently a poetry machine. The Atari VCS doesn’t even have built-in <em>characters,</em> a font in which to display text. On the other hand, the Commodore 64 allows programmers to easily manipulate characters; change the colors of them individually; make them move around the screen; replace the built-in font with one of their own; and mix letters, numbers, and punctuation with an set of other glyphs specific to Commodore. This system can do <em>lots</em> of other things — it’s a great music machine, for instance. But visual poetry, with potentially characters presented on a grid, is also a core capability of the platform, and very tiny programs can enact such poetry.</p>
<p>I’ve written at greater length about this in <a href="https://thedigitalreview.com/issue01/montfort-a-platform-practice/index.html">“A Platform Poetics / Computational Art, Material and Formal Specificities, and 101 BASIC POEMS.”</a> In that article, I focus on a specific, ongoing project that involves the Commodore 64 and Apple II. More generally, these are the reasons I continue to pursue to composition of very small computational poems on several different platforms. </p>
Post Positionhttps://nickm.com/postRenga in Blue: Avon: The Dread and Envy of Them Allhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=327042024-02-13T04:15:39+00:00
<p>(<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC">Continued directly from my previous posts</a>.)</p>
<p>My first discovery since my last session was that if I drink the season-changing portion at the Friar’s Cell where it starts, then any items there are safe. I had drunk the potion there right away so had it mentally “discarded”, but I had an intuition later I hadn’t actually tested the room properly. I hadn’t been carrying any treasures because I didn’t have any yet.</p>
<p>A demonstration:</p>
<blockquote><p>You drink the potion. Presently through all your being there runs a cold and drowsy humour and your eyes’ windows fall like death. In this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death you continue and then awake much later as from a pleasant sleep to see…</p>
<p>You are in a cell, which clearly belongs to some holy man, as you can tell from the religious decoration of the room. The only way out is by a door to the northeast.<br />
There is a phial here, containing a potion of mandragora.<br />
Is this a dagger you see before you? Yes, I believe so.<br />
There is a diamond necklace here!<br />
There is a large laundry basket here.<br />
There is a shield here.<br />
There is a clerical collar lying discarded here.<br />
There is a piece of paper here bearing the word “STANDARD”.<br />
There is a topaz here!<br />
There is an antique viola here!<br />
There is a signed copy of the Iliad here!</p></blockquote>
<p>The Friar’s room after thus became my home base to stash treasures, even though it doesn’t seem to be the Final destination, wherever that may be. (The laundry basket seems like it ought to hold items for you, but things put inside disappear. They might disappear somewhere useful, but I haven’t work out where that is yet.)</p>
<p>While this was no guarantee yet, the natural gravity of the potion to the room near the hub led me to try to focus on the winter village and see if I could resolve as much as possible without thinking about a season change.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32714" style="width: 592px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32714" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32714" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/12/avon-the-dread-and-envy-of-them-all/statue/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg" data-orig-size="582,517" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="statue" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Falstaff statue at Stratford Upon Avon. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Falstaff#/media/File:Stratford_upon_Avon_-_panoramio_(28).jpg">CC BY 3.0</a> by Tanya Dedyukhina.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg?w=582" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32714" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg 582w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg?w=150&h=133 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/statue.jpg?w=300&h=266 300w" sizes="(max-width: 582px) 100vw, 582px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32714" class="wp-caption-text">Falstaff statue at Stratford Upon Avon. Photo <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Falstaff#/media/File:Stratford_upon_Avon_-_panoramio_(28).jpg">CC BY 3.0</a> by Tanya Dedyukhina.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>The first puzzle to fall was the drinking contest. I ran across the solution semi-accidentally. I decided eating the bread (the bread where you get locked in the gaol when trying to escape after taking it) might cause an interesting effect, although I wasn’t anticipating it being the full-on deciding factor. Behold:</p>
<blockquote><p>You and Sir John Falstaff enter into the drinking contest. Your training (eating a loaf of bread) stands you in good stead. “O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!” gasp the spectators, as you drink Sir John under the table.</p>
<p>The landlady, one Mistress Quickly, calls for a celebration, that anyone should take from Sir John the drinking championship of Eastcheap. A case of the finest Malmsey is carried in from a nearby room and you all carouse merrily. Eventually you are pushed into the street in a state of intoxication, where you awake to see that…</p>
<p>You are in Eastcheap. The Boar’s Head Inn lies to your north, the road from the town runs south here, and the street goes east and west here.<br />
The Boar’s Head Drinking Trophy is here!</p></blockquote>
<p>The half-pennyworth of bread line is from Henry IV, Part 1. I must add I have been very impressed with the author’s ability to shift between Shakespeare plays at will and with very disparate elements still have them make sense together. (The only other game, or rather puzzle we’ve seen this at, is with <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/cains-jawbone/?order=ASC">Cain’s Jawbone</a>, where you had a portion of text that deceptively incorporated bits of Oscar Wilde in order to be confusing as to what character was speaking.) Phoenix games always have had respectable prose but I was worried putting a grandmaster like Shakespeare up might make everything seem weak in comparison; rather, the amalgam becomes something quite readable and new.</p>
<p>As explicitly mentioned in our victory, the “finest Malmsey” has been used, which means our entree into the back door should now be safe.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a storeroom attached to the Boar’s Head Inn.<br />
The only apparent exit is to the south.<br />
There is a wooden spear firmly attached to the wall here.</p></blockquote>
<p>The spear, being fixed in place, did not seem terribly useful. I ran through my verb list just to see if anything seemed handy. I’ll pause and give you a chance to spot it.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32674" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/11/avon-spirits-from-the-vasty-deep/avonverb/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png" data-orig-size="426,493" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonVERB" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=259" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=426" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32674" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png 426w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=130&h=150 130w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=259&h=300 259w" sizes="(max-width: 426px) 100vw, 426px" /></p>
<p>We’re supposed to SHAKE SPEAR. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. (I didn’t really solve it as much as brute force go through my list, but I realized right before I hit enter that this command had to be right.)</p>
<blockquote><p>> SHAKE SPEAR<br />
A secret panel in the wall slides away, revealing a passage<br />
to the north.<br />
You are in a storeroom attached to the Boar’s Head Inn.<br />
There is an exit south and a secret passageway north.<br />
There is a wooden spear firmly attached to the wall here.<br />
> N<br />
You are in a dark and dusty cellar, whose only exit is back to the south. On the wall is written<br />
KING LEAR WILL SELECT ONE GIRL.<br />
There is a piece of agate here, carved into the likeness of Queen Mab!</p></blockquote>
<p>Now I discovered once again I was unable to save, which I once again took as a hint. The line about KING LEAR WILL SELECT ONE GIRL must be usable <em>now</em> in such a way that it is a puzzle which of the three that Lear wants you to pick from is correct.</p>
<blockquote><p>“To which of my daughters, Regan, Goneril and Cordelia, shall I leave the largest share of my kingdom?” demands the king.<br />
GONERIL<br />
“Let it be so,” says the king, who evidently agrees with your judgement.</p>
<p>Your diplomatic acquiescence with the king’s will brings you a reward: “Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear; robes and furr’d gowns hide all.”</p></blockquote>
<p>This lands you a robe as a treasure.</p>
<p>Goneril has the word ONE in it. Another playthrough gave the clue KING LEAR SPEAKS IN ANGER (pick Regan, an anagram of anger). I’m not sure what Cordelia’s clue is.</p>
<p>This meant I had two of the puzzles down, but I was now stuck in the village because of the stealing bread. I baffled over this a long time. There’s a sign you can see before getting arrested…</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the entrance to the town gaol; a large sign here bears the words “IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE, PLAY ****”.<br />
For the righteous, the only exit is back to the north.</p></blockquote>
<p>…but I had no idea how to fill in the blank (the Twelfth Night quote is “play on”).</p>
<p>Getting arrested takes away all your inventory, so I figured the solution had to be some sort of obtuse command.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a cell in the town gaol. Somebody is whistling “Rule Britannia” outside. There are NO exits right now.</p></blockquote>
<p>Messing about with the parser, I found that “rule” was an understood verb. (I tried “sing rule” and it got me “You will be able to rule when you become king.”) On a whim I tried a command that was more a statement than a designated action:</p>
<blockquote><p>> RULE BRITANNIA<br />
Quite so.</p>
<p>As you no doubt know, Rule Britannia is part of a masque called Alfred, written by Thomas Arne (1710-1778). The words were written by James Thomson (1700-1748), and begin</p>
<p>When Britain first at Heaven’s Command<br />
Arose from out the azure main…</p>
<p>Alfred was first performed in 1740 in the presence of the Prince of Wales. Wagner later said that the whole English character could be expressed in the first eight notes. Wagner’s own music was rather more expansive in style.</p></blockquote>
<p>A little like asking WHAT IS A GRUE? in Zork. Testing out the various words that got mentioned:</p>
<blockquote><p>> ALFRED<br />
I don’t understand that!<br />
> ARNE<br />
Your cry of ARNE brings the gaoler who is delighted at finding one who recognizes his musical tastes. “We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage. If music be the food of love, play ARNE!”</p>
<p>You join in with him in various ballads, namely settings of “Where the bee sucks, there suck I”, “Under the greenwood tree”, “Blow, blow thou winter wind”, and “When daisies pied and violets blue”. He is then only too happy to give you your freedom.</p></blockquote>
<p>Groan. But at least I’m through! And I just have the pesky farmer to deal with in the winter town, and I am truly deeply baffled about it.</p>
<blockquote><p>A farmer is standing here bemoaning the loss of his livestock.</p>
<p>“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?” he mutters. “I asked my keeper, Puck, to get the fox’s earth seen to, but he went away saying that he’d put a hurdle round the earth in forty minutes (and that was hours ago.)”</p></blockquote>
<p>Still, I managed to hurdle some things I did not expect, so maybe it will fall as well. I’m still leagues away from wanting to ask for help, at least.</p>
<blockquote><p>This was the charter, the charter of the land,<br />
And guardian angels sang this strain;<br />
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves;<br />
Britons never will be slaves<br />
The nations not so blest as thee,<br />
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;<br />
While thou shalt flourish great and free,<br />
The dread and envy of them all.</p></blockquote>
<iframe class="youtube-player" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vlYE6vgGeSQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe>
<p class="small">
<p>Once more unto the breach, dear friends.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Avon: Spirits From the Vasty Deephttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=326642024-02-11T17:04:36+00:00
<p>(<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC">Prior posts on Avon here</a>.)</p>
<p>Clear progress, and also the distinct feeling I’m sinking deeper.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32671" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32671" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32671" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/11/avon-spirits-from-the-vasty-deep/ghost2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg" data-orig-size="1153,624" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ghost2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>x</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32671" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=800&h=433 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=150&h=81 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=300&h=162 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=768&h=416 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg?w=1024&h=554 1024w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/ghost2.jpg 1153w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32671" class="wp-caption-text">Scene from Hamlet. <a href="https://shakespeareillustration.org/2015/02/05/the-ghost-2/">Michael Goodman</a> again, from an early 19th century printing of Shakespeare.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>To start with, let me mention a location I neglected last time near the ice floe:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at a cliff edge. A sign here says:<br />
“YOU CAN CALL SPIRITS FROM THE VASTY DEEP.<br />
BUT WILL THEY COME WHEN YOU DO CALL FOR THEM?”<br />
The only way to go is back to the northwest.</p></blockquote>
<p>I can’t say there’s one distinct “magical” place but it felt like if anywhere needed a magic word it’d be here, so I tried my various selections and found BRANDY (obtained from Hamlet’s ghost-father) summoned a treasure.</p>
<blockquote><p>A spirit emerges from the vasty deep, sees your clerical collar, and recognises (as it thinks) its master, the local priest.</p>
<p>“Good Sir Topas, they have laid me here in hideous darkness. The house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were dark as hell,” it moans, “but this shall advantage thee.”</p>
<p>“I wish to buy my freedom,” it continues, and, depositing a small object in front of you, the spirit vanishes.<br />
You are at the edge of the vasty deep.<br />
There is a topaz here!</p></blockquote>
<p>Notice how merely holding the clerical collar (which helped save me from strangulation last time) was enough to solve a secondary puzzle. That seems to be a common thread, with “passive” puzzle solving. However, there are so many parts of the game where I am clueless I appreciate a few puzzles being auto-solved.</p>
<p>Jumping back to where I left off last time, there was a “Moorish gentlemen” who told me to “Go and see my agent, who lives near here” and that “The name is written in code on this paper. You’ll be recompensed.” </p>
<p>I had ASTHMA my first time through; on a second playthrough the paper said OVERSEAS.</p>
<p>I intended to save afterwards, but the game didn’t let me. I took this to be a clue. I decided the use of the paper must be immediately after finding it, and it must be the kind of situation where save-abuse would make the puzzle “too easy”; that is, we’re looking at some way of expressing the answer which involves choosing from a small number of options (rather than so many that it would be impossible to solve the puzzle without realizing the code). This is what led me shortly after to:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in Illyria Court. The main street is back to the west, but there are directions to various residences, as follows:<br />
North: Olivia<br />
Northeast: (Sir Andrew) Aguecheek<br />
East: Fabian<br />
Southeast: (Count) Orsino<br />
South: Malvolio.</p></blockquote>
<p>I realized this fit the prompt; only five choices, and even though a wrong one kills, with only five it’d be an easy save-restore cycle. Based on the author’s previous games (particularly Hamil) I took the message to be a literal cryptogram. OVERSEAS, based on the message length, can only change to Malvolio.</p>
<blockquote><p>> S<br />
Ah! Othello must have sent you!” says the occupant of the dwelling you enter. “You deserve some sort of recompense for the perils you have been through. But go quickly now!”<br />
You are bundled hastily out into the street, and look about you to see…<br />
You are in Illyria Court.<br />
There is an antique viola here!</p></blockquote>
<p>Unfortunately, my remaining Eastcheap issues (like the drinking contest, the chickens, and the king splitting his kingdom, the bread-stealing scene) have so far gone unresolved. If I knew for certain the town wasn’t reachable other than in winter, I’d have an easier time, but if there really is a sneaky way to get in (bypassing the drug squad) and potion-warp to spring that could indicate one or more of the puzzles above <em>can’t</em> be solved in the current season.</p>
<p>I did solve one more winter issue, way back at Lady Portia with the caskets. I mentioned that nearby there was a realistic statue of a woman; I noticed, noodling around with seasons, that statue disappears post-winter, so any puzzle <em>has</em> to be resolved in winter.</p>
<p>Given none of my items seemed helpful, I decided to noodle with making a verb list, which I hadn’t done yet. For this game testing is just a matter of typing the verb, if it is understood the game asks (supposing as an example the verb “smash”) “smash what?” If not understood, the game says “I don’t understand that!”</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32674" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/11/avon-spirits-from-the-vasty-deep/avonverb/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png" data-orig-size="426,493" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonVERB" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=259" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=426" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32674" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png 426w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=130&h=150 130w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonverb.png?w=259&h=300 259w" sizes="(max-width: 426px) 100vw, 426px" /></p>
<p>KISS turned out to hit paydirt:</p>
<blockquote><p>> kiss statue<br />
O! she’s warm. If this be magic, let it be an act lawful as eating. You perceive that she stirs. ‘Tis the lady Hermione, long supposed dead. She drops a necklace of diamonds at your feet and then she leaves.</p></blockquote>
<p>Oho! We are starting to rack up treasures (the viola and copy of the Iliad and the topaz all count) but I haven’t found a good place to put them yet. This is especially troubling because changing seasons causes them to disappear (I guess laying around for two months is bait for thieves, eh?)</p>
<p>I reached the point I decided I needed to noodle around with seasons some more — note how finding out the statue disappeared helped me solve the puzzle, so information later can help with winter — and I realized, after warping to spring, that I still had some potion left. (Somehow I thought the phial disappeared with the treasures.) So I tried the potion <em>again</em> and…</p>
<blockquote><p>There is a calendar here, which gives the date as June 24th.</p></blockquote>
<p>…yes, we can also go to summer. This changes the map yet again.</p>
<p>First off, this resets the witches (again), so you can now get a third item from them. I still haven’t found a use for the non-newt items.</p>
<p>The most obvious thing to me was to try first was to head to the forest which had a Midsummer Night’s Dream reference in the text (“swifter than the moon’s sphere”).</p>
<blockquote><p>Suddenly … a charm is thrown!<br />
O monstrous! O strange! Thou art changed! Bless thee! Thou art translated!</p>
<p>To put it bluntly, you seem to have had an ass’s head put on you.<br />
You are in the mystic wood.</p></blockquote>
<p>OK, fair. Nothing has come off the assinating as of yet, other than it looks funny in inventory:</p>
<blockquote><p>> inv<br />
You have an ass’s head on you, and are holding:<br />
A toe of frog.<br />
A laundry basket.<br />
A shield.<br />
A dog-collar (which you are wearing).<br />
A dagger.<br />
There’s the smell of blood upon your hands.</p></blockquote>
<p>Note the last line, where our murder of King Duncan to obtain the shield has not gone unpunished. Out, damned spot!</p>
<blockquote><p>> clean hands<br />
I’m afraid that all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten these little hands. Maybe something else will, if you can find what it is.</p></blockquote>
<p>Again, I haven’t had the upshot yet (I assume somewhere we’ll find smelling like blood leads to our demise).</p>
<p>Since it is no longer the Ides of March, it is safe to pass through the building where we got stabbed (to the east of the magic forest area), leading to a whole new map section:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32688" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/11/avon-spirits-from-the-vasty-deep/avonmap8/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png" data-orig-size="568,558" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP8" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png?w=568" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32688" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png 568w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png?w=150&h=147 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap8.png?w=300&h=295 300w" sizes="(max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px" /></p>
<p>My assumption is this area cannot be accessed outside of summer, but maybe we could get here in winter if the bear is somehow manageable. The season gimmick adds the extra complexity that — even given there are no red herrings — some obstacles may be unpassable, and the way to “solve” the puzzle is simply to use a different season.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the Capitol, a large building filled with people in white togas, who are listening to the famous orator Golesinius. For the less patient, there are exits to the west and southeast.<br />
There is a scroll here.<br />
> get scroll<br />
OK.<br />
> se<br />
You are in the centre of a prosperous Southern town. To the northwest is the Capitol and there are roads to the south and east. In the distance you can see the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces and the solemn temples – such stuff as dreams are made on.</p></blockquote>
<p>Going east from here gets you pummeled by the slings and arrows of fortune, but if you have a shield you can survive.</p>
<blockquote><p>As you pass down the street a sudden volley of slings and arrows crashes against your shield. You carry on walking, to avoid further outrageous fortune.</p></blockquote>
<p>The scroll from the Capitol incidentally rotates through a few messages, like “By indirections find directions out.” I suspect this might be a hint for one of the two mazes immediately after. Heading north gets you into a wood (with a paper marked ROSALIND)…</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the forest of Arden. High on a nearby tree there is fixed a piece of paper bearing the name ROSALIND.<br />
> n<br />
You are lost in the forest of Arden.</p></blockquote>
<p>…going east instead goes into fog. </p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the middle of a drooping fog as black as Acheron (sic).<br />
It is impossible even to see the ground.<br />
> w<br />
You wander about in the fog and eventually blunder over a cliff.</p></blockquote>
<p>They seem to be entirely distinct mazes right next to each other, and both of them of the “gimmick” variety. Dropping items doesn’t work at all the fog — the game explicitly says you can’t see the ground — and items don’t persist if you drop them in the forest.</p>
<p>Heading south into town there’s a shop with an Egyptian vase, and a barge with the Queen of Egypt.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on the barge. Various attendants are busily rushing hither and thither (and back again). There are steps down to the hold and to the north are the docks.<br />
There is an Egyptian vase here!<br />
The Queen of Egypt is here. On a burnish’d throne she sits. Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.<br />
> n<br />
The Queen does not want you to leave the barge.<br />
“O! never was there queen so mightily betrayed!” she claims. Her attendants bar your exit, but you yourself rather feel that here is your space and that kingdoms are but play.</p></blockquote>
<p>You also can get bothered by a moneylender:</p>
<blockquote><p>As you pass the moneylender’s premises, their owner comes out to greet you. Scenting business, he offers to lend you 3,000 ducats until you next meet, the security to be a pound of flesh. Three thousand ducats. ‘Tis a good round sum.<br />
Wilt thou borrow it from the moneylender?</p></blockquote>
<p>I haven’t tried promising the pound of flesh yet.</p>
<p>That’s enough new events for the moment. Just to recap, we now have three seasons: winter, spring, and summer. Passing through them is one-way. Some events are only available in particular seasons; for example, the statue of a woman and Yorick (the jester) are only available in winter, and the scene where you’re trapped in a kitchen and get attacked by knights only happens in spring. (In summer, the room is locked up again.)</p>
<p>Looking at the meta-map…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32698" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/11/avon-spirits-from-the-vasty-deep/avonmeta/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png" data-orig-size="582,344" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMETA" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png?w=582" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32698" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png 582w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png?w=150&h=89 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmeta.png?w=300&h=177 300w" sizes="(max-width: 582px) 100vw, 582px" /></p>
<p>…one town seems to be winter-only, and one town seems to be summer-only, with the central area mostly open during all three seasons. There may still be some chunks missing; I highly suspect there’s a way to get past the Undiscovered Country at the river, for instance, which could open up a new section to the south.</p>
<p>Is fall a season too? I’m not sure; the potion does definitely vanish after two uses, so if there’s an extra method of warping time one more time it requires an item later. Honestly, everything’s complex enough to keep track of as it is.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Avon: With This Regard Your Currents Turn Awry and Lose the Name of Actionhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=326172024-02-10T03:50:58+00:00
<p>Since last time I have focused on trying to map everything out, before deciding what items / people / events go together to form solutions. I managed to stumble across a few solutions anyway.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32618" style="width: 696px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32618" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32618" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/postcard/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg" data-orig-size="686,482" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="postcard" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Postcard that comes with the Topologika version of Avon.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg?w=686" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32618" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg 686w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg?w=150&h=105 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/postcard.jpg?w=300&h=211 300w" sizes="(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32618" class="wp-caption-text">Postcard that came with the Topologika version of Avon. Clockwise from the upper left: Hall’s Croft, Mary Arden’s House, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shakespeare’s Birthplace.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>First, a zoomed-out view showing everything I’ve seen so far:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32624" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap1/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png" data-orig-size="575,500" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png?w=575" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32624" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png 575w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png?w=150&h=130 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap1.png?w=300&h=261 300w" sizes="(max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px" /></p>
<p>The center, as mentioned last time, is a stage, immediately adjacent to a scene with three witches. (You incidentally get a second choice of item returning at the change in season, so I’m now 99.9% sure an eye of newt is the correct starting choice. Still not sure on the second, where the choices are toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog.)</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32630" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png" data-orig-size="389,388" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png?w=389" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32630" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png 389w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png?w=150&h=150 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap3.png?w=300&h=300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 389px) 100vw, 389px" /></p>
<p>Going east from the stage arrives at what I’ll call <strong>the forest area</strong>:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32632" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap4/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png" data-orig-size="755,605" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP4" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png?w=755" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32632" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png 755w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png?w=150&h=120 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap4.png?w=300&h=240 300w" sizes="(max-width: 755px) 100vw, 755px" /></p>
<p>There’s a dagger and a laundry basket hanging out in the open that are easy to obtain.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on an east-west path, with a side passage to the north.<br />
Is this a dagger you see before you? Yes, I believe so.</p></blockquote>
<p>The laundry basket, curiously, prompts you to put items inside or to go inside yourself. You can then hide while inside and then repeatedly get prompted if you want to leave yet or not. I tried the laundry basket hiding on the nearby bear and it didn’t work. No luck with the dagger either:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on a bare and hostile moor. There is more moor to the south, a path to the west and a large building to the east.<br />
There is a ferocious bear pursuing you!<br />
> throw dagger<br />
You fumble, and the dagger falls at your feet.<br />
The bear pursues you, catches you and tears out your shoulder bone.</p></blockquote>
<p>The “large building” is the Ides of March place I mentioned last time (although I’ve only visited in spring); to the south there’s a moor I’ve also only visited in spring, with a meat pie and a curious hovel.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on a moor. The ground is black here, as though scorched. The only path leads to the north, but there is a hovel to the southeast.<br />
There is a nourishing meat pie here.<br />
> se<br />
You attempt to enter the hovel, which is gloomy and sinister-looking, but you run out in terror when you hear maniacal laughter and the words<br />
“Bless thy five wits! Tom’s a cold. O! do de, do de, do de.</p></blockquote>
<p>There’s also an enchanted forest with a mysterious pine, but I suspect we might need to warp to midsummer for something to happen.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a magical wood. It feels as though spirits do wander here, swifter than the moon’s sphere. There are paths to the east and southeast.<br />
> e<br />
You are in another part of the forest. There is music in the air, marvellous sweet music. There are paths off to the west and southwest.<br />
There is a pine tree here, from which a continuous melancholy howling emanates.</p></blockquote>
<p>Finally, there’s a battlefield (see the winter of our discontent comment from last time) and a graveyard with a worm and a fellow of infinite jest. (“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.”)</p>
<blockquote><p>You encounter the king’s jester, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, alas greatly aged. He entertains you awhile and then totters away, wheezing “Don’t forget: the password is Golesida!”<br />
You are in a walled graveyard. For those making a return journey, the way out is to the west, as the eastern exit is blocked by impenetrable grass.</p></blockquote>
<p>Going back to the stage hub and going south arrives at what I’ll call <strong>the river area</strong>:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32625" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png" data-orig-size="508,502" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png?w=508" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32625" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png 508w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png?w=150&h=148 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap2.png?w=300&h=296 300w" sizes="(max-width: 508px) 100vw, 508px" /></p>
<p>There’s a river you jump in (and die going over a waterfall) if you feel so inclined, and a bearded Scotsman.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are on the bank of the river, which flows towards you down an unclimbable gorge and continues eastwards.<br />
There is a large bearded Scotsman here, carrying a shield.<br />
> swim<br />
You leap into the angry flood.<br />
Unfortunately the current is too strong for you and you are swept under and drowned.</p></blockquote>
<p>For a less suicidal but more homicidal route, you can just try killing the Scotsman using the dagger from the forest area.</p>
<blockquote><p>> kill scotsman<br />
Confusion now hath made its masterpiece! With a gasp of “O, treachery!” the Scotsman dies. Thou hast played most foully.<br />
You are on the river bank by the gorge.<br />
There is a large bearded Scotsman here, brutally slain.<br />
There is a shield here.</p></blockquote>
<p>You can pick up the shield, which I haven’t found a use for. I’d expect some stronger reaction otherwise (like a group of angry Scotsmen gets revenge a few turns later) but maybe it is a much-delayed sort of thing.</p>
<p>Other than that, there’s the Undiscovered Country, which starts out seeming like it might be a maze.</p>
<blockquote><p>> se<br />
You are in the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns. There are paths in various directions.</p></blockquote>
<p>If you check the map, you’ll see all four cardinal directions (N/S/E/W) lead back to the previous room. If you take all four, you’ll land in a new “Undiscovered Country” with no exits.</p>
<blockquote><p>With this regard your currents turn awry and lose the name of action…<br />
You are at the bourn of the undiscovered country, from which no traveller returns!</p></blockquote>
<p>Going back to the stage and heading west to what I’ll call the <strong>Portia section</strong>…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32637" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap5/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png" data-orig-size="531,497" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP5" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png?w=531" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32637" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png 531w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png?w=150&h=140 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap5.png?w=300&h=281 300w" sizes="(max-width: 531px) 100vw, 531px" /></p>
<p>…there is, first off, that calendar and potion of sleep which changes the season to spring. There’s a building to the west that is closed off in winter but can be entered in spring, but with an unfortunate demise shortly afer:</p>
<blockquote><p>You open the door and enter the house.<br />
The door slams behind you and you hear sounds of a key turning in the lock.<br />
You are in the kitchen of a small house. There are several doors leading from it, all of which appear to be locked.<br />
There is a letter here, addressed to Mistress Legosind and signed<br />
‘Thine own true knight,<br />
By day or night,<br />
Or any kind of light<br />
With all his might,<br />
For thee to fight,<br />
John Falstaff.<br />
> e<br />
You can’t go in that direction!<br />
Suddenly the door opens and several knights armed with swords rush in. They brand you as an intruder and promptly slay you.</p></blockquote>
<p>To the northwest there is a larger building including a “very realistic life-sized statue of a woman” (I have not been able to get any verbs to do anything) and an encounter with Lady Portia.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a spaciously furnished chamber, which is clearly the boudoir of some elegant lady. Luxurious tapestries line the walls, the pile on the carpet is even deeper than that in most Adventure games, and there is a four-poster bed in one corner.<br />
There are exits to the east and north.<br />
There are three caskets here: one of gold, one of silver and one of lead!<br />
The elegant lady who owns the apartment invites you to open a casket.<br />
> open lead<br />
The casket is empty. Shielded from your view, the Lady Portia performs a rearrangement of the contents of the caskets and invites you to open a second casket.<br />
Choose again. Which casket will ye open now?<br />
gold<br />
You open the second casket, which contains a piece of smoothed ice.<br />
The lady Portia picks up her caskets and leaves, murmuring “Sweet, adieu.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Portia’s from The Merchant of Venice. She is bound by a curious will from her father where suitors who want to win her hand in marriage try to pick a casket (gold, silver, or lead); picking the correct one yields Portia’s portrait.</p>
<p><em>RANDOM PERSONAL TRIVIA</em>: The first time I ever saw The Merchant of Venice was in 2004, the Al Pacino version (<a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8axikv">full video here</a>). I was completely unfamiliar with the play, so much so I had no idea if it was categorized as comedy or tragedy. In the court scene where Shylock tries to get his pound of flesh I didn’t know if it was going to end in a bloodbath or not.</p>
<p>Heading back to the stage once more, and going north with a slight northwest turn, is a small area which I’ll call the Birnham wood.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32643" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap6/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png" data-orig-size="615,474" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP6" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png?w=615" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32643" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png 615w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png?w=150&h=116 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap6.png?w=300&h=231 300w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /></p>
<p>Nothing much here at all, just a “milestone” in one of the locations.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in Birnham wood. There are paths in various directions.<br />
There is an old milestone here.</p></blockquote>
<p>My suspicion is this will only become important at season number 3, but I may just have the wrong verb to get the milestone to do something.</p>
<p>Heading northeast from the witches goes past an ice flow (which melts, remember, in spring), into <strong>the town of Eastcheap</strong>. Since the ice floe is a chasm in spring I haven’t seen the town in spring.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at the southern edge of a thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice – an ice floe, no less. There is a path back to the SW and a track north over the ice.</p></blockquote>
<p>Note that you also have an odd encounter here:</p>
<blockquote><p>A rather dull-looking constable appears, cries “HAVOC”, and lets slip the dogs of war. In fact, a small chihuahua appears and stands barking at you.<br />
“Drug squad,” says the constable. “I must search you for certain substances.”<br />
In fact he finds nothing prohibited and he and the dog slope off.</p></blockquote>
<p>If you try to bring the season-changing potion in, that gets confiscated. So this prevents you from jumping over the chasm the easy way to check the town in spring. This means either</p>
<p>a.) the town just can’t be visited in spring at all</p>
<p>b.) the chasm can be jumped over, or there’s some alternate route to the town</p>
<p>c.) the drug squad can be outwitted, you can go to the town in spring, and then make it back to the stage by some other means</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32647" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/avonmap7/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png" data-orig-size="871,501" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonMAP7" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png?w=871" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32647" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png 871w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png?w=150&h=86 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png?w=300&h=173 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avonmap7.png?w=768&h=442 768w" sizes="(max-width: 871px) 100vw, 871px" /></p>
<p>The most immediate encounter in town is with Falstaff, who is having a drinking contest.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in the Boar’s Head Inn, a place of great merriment. A large fat man called Sir John Falstaff is challenging all-comers to a drinking contest.<br />
Do you wish to join the drinking bout with Falstaff?<br />
yes<br />
You are not able to compete with such a seasoned campaigner as Sir John Falstaff, and are soon thrown out of the tavern into the street, where you awake to see that…</p></blockquote>
<p>There’s a side door you can try to enter the tavern but you get bonked on the head by a wine casket and die.</p>
<p>Nearby there’s also a Moorish gentlemen who kills you (“thou art to die”), unless you are wearing a clerical collar you find lying around the town:</p>
<blockquote><p>A wild-eyed Moorish gentleman jumps at you from the shadows with a cry of “Thou art to die!” Fortunately the clerical collar you are wearing protects you from being strangled and you are able to break free.</p>
<p>The Moor is very apologetic, and mutters about someone called Des the moaner who once beat him at Reversi by cheating. “Go and see my agent, who lives near here,” he says. “The name is written in code on this paper. You’ll be recompensed.”</p>
<p>He runs off, shouting “Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!”<br />
You are in a particularly dark cul-de-sac at the end of Eastcheap. The only way out is back to the east.<br />
There is a piece of paper here bearing the word “ASTHMA”.</p></blockquote>
<p>There’s a gaol (which you can land in by trying to leave town with a bread from a baker, no idea if this is a trap or needed to win)…</p>
<blockquote><p>The guards arrest you as you attempt to leave the town, claiming that you stole a loaf of bread from somebody. You are sent directly to gaol (& do not collect 200 pounds.)<br />
You are in a cell in the town gaol. Somebody is whistling “Rule Britannia” outside. There are NO exits right now.</p></blockquote>
<p>…and a series of five houses all which have deathtraps. I’m not understanding this section at all.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in Illyria Court. The main street is back to the west, but there are directions to various residences, as follows:<br />
North: Olivia<br />
Northeast: (Sir Andrew) Aguecheek<br />
East: Fabian<br />
Southeast: (Count) Orsino<br />
South: Malvolio.<br />
> n<br />
The occupant of that particular dwelling is not at home. However they have left some mantraps for unwelcome visitors; a hit, a very palpable hit!</p></blockquote>
<p>Still going! Lots and lots of scenes and everything non-linear! There’s a scene with the king and the daughters (as mentioned last time), and across from that is a farmer who has lost his chickens.</p>
<blockquote><p>You are at the remains of a chicken farm. A fox has clearly visited this place and killed half the stock. The only way the farmhands will let you go is back to the west.<br />
A farmer is standing here bemoaning the loss of his livestock.</p>
<p>“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?” he mutters. “I asked my keeper, Puck, to get the fox’s earth seen to, but he went away saying that he’d put a hurdle round the earth in forty minutes (and that was hours ago.)”</p>
<p>This he repeats, over and over again, trying to understand the tragedy.</p></blockquote>
<p>Finally, there’s a curious maze of sorts. It’s not really a maze in the normal sense; it acts like the haunted house in Murdac (I think) where you have to take a path north between NE and NW choices, and sometimes the choice is deadly, and when the choice is deadly you get a cryptic warning:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a maze of mountain paths. There are exits to the northeast, northwest and south.<br />
Is this a dagger you see before you? Yes, I believe so.<br />
> NE<br />
Cassandra runs past you, raving:<br />
“Lend me ten thousand eyes, and I will fill them with prophetic tears!”</p></blockquote>
<p>A death scene for good measure:</p>
<blockquote><p>Cassandra runs past you, raving:<br />
“Behold, distraction, frenzy, and amazement, Like witless anticks, one another meet.”<br />
You are in a maze of mountain paths. There are exits to the northeast, northwest and south.<br />
> NW<br />
Some loose rubble falls on you, and you die with the words of Cassandra in your ears:<br />
“Look! how thou diest; look how thy eye turns pale;<br />
Look! how thy wounds do bleed at many vents…”</p></blockquote>
<p>Head to the north enough times in a row safely and you can pick up a copy of the Iliad, which counts as a treasure with a ! mark. I got to it randomly without really figuring out the puzzle entirely, so that might be that. (Going south is always safe, so you can skedaddle to the exit once you make it north.)</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32655" style="width: 488px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32655" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32655" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/09/avon-with-this-regard-your-currents-turn-awry-and-lose-the-name-of-action/cass2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg" data-orig-size="598,720" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="cass2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Cassandra, from the play Troilus and Cressida, <a href="https://shakespeareillustration.org/2016/07/05/cassandra-from-mortimer/">as drawn by Michael Goodman</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg?w=249" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg?w=598" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32655" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg?w=478&h=576 478w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg?w=125&h=150 125w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg?w=249&h=300 249w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/cass2.jpg 598w" sizes="(max-width: 478px) 100vw, 478px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32655" class="wp-caption-text">From the play Troilus and Cressida, <a href="https://shakespeareillustration.org/2016/07/05/cassandra-from-mortimer/">as drawn by Michael Goodman</a>. Cassandra received the divine gift of truthful prophecy but also the divine curse she would never be believed.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>One more encounter: a lake with a fisherman. I was already holding a worm when I entered, so I inadvertently solved a puzzle.</p>
<blockquote><p>There is an angler fishing here. He seems to be having little success.<br />
The angler looks up as you enter, seizes the worm from you with a cry of glee and starts to fish. In no time he has hooked a massive trout. In gratitude he decides to share the fish with you and promptly grills it over a fire that he lights. You have taken your first bite when…</p>
<p>The ghost of some dead king (possibly Hamlet’s father) appears.<br />
“A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm,” he declaims reproachfully. “A king may go progress through the guts of a beggar.”</p>
<p> The angler flees in terror. The ghost melts away, saying:<br />
“From me you will inherit spiritual powers. The word that will prove effective to you in these matters is BRANDY.”<br />
You are by a small lake. Moonlight shines down encouragingly. The town itself is to the north.</p></blockquote>
<p>That’s a hefty chunk and even if I could keep going I decided I needed to report in. I haven’t used any of the magic words I’ve been racking up (golesida, brandy, asthma) so I expect I can make headway elsewhere.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Avon (1982)http://bluerenga.blog/?p=325842024-02-09T02:46:43+00:00
<p>Dr. Jonathan Partington returns, completing a trilogy of work he made in 1982.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32585" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32585" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32585" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/08/avon-1982/avoncov2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg" data-orig-size="1000,695" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="avonCOV2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Via <a href="https://www.habisoft.com/pcwwiki/doku.php?id=en:juegos:avon_murdac">PcwWiki</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=1000" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32585" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=800&h=556 800w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=150&h=104 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=300&h=209 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg?w=768&h=534 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avoncov2.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32585" class="wp-caption-text">Via <a href="https://www.habisoft.com/pcwwiki/doku.php?id=en:juegos:avon_murdac">PcwWiki</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>Avon is part of the whole series of games from Cambridge mainframes, including</p>
<p><a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/acheton/?order=ASC">Acheton</a> (1978)<br />
<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/philosopher-quest/?order=ASC">Brand X / Philosopher’s Quest</a> (1979)<br />
<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/quondam/?order=ASC">Quondam</a> (1980)<br />
<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/hezarin/?order=ASC">Hezarin</a> (1981)<br />
<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/hamil/?order=ASC">Hamil</a> (1982)<br />
<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/murdac/?order=ASC">Murdac</a> (1982)</p>
<p>with Hamil and Murdac being Partington’s (he was also one of the trio of authors on Acheton). I’ve gotten used to their particular quirks and rules, such as the possibility of a softlock if you do things in the wrong order. Frankly, within the confines of accepting the Phoenix norms, Murdac is one of the best classic treasure-hunt adventures I’ve played, so I was looking forward to Avon.</p>
<p>Avon has its own atmosphere due to being heavily drawn from Shakespeare. The setup is “you’ve fallen into a Shakespeare-based world, now get out”.</p>
<blockquote><p>One day, after watching (or perhaps reading) too many Shakespeare plays, you find yourself wandering around a wondrously enchanted land. Here they use a richer language than is usual and you come across scenes which may remind you of certain Shakespearean plays.</p>
<p>How you are going to return successfully to the present day is something that you will have to find out for yourself but it may be worthwhile to keep any valuables you come across.</p></blockquote>
<p>The general effect is not that of typical fantasy (that is, not like Hamil or Murdac). I wouldn’t call it “surrealism” as much as “tilted realism” where characters and objects and plot blur and swap places; it almost feels like one of the Andrew Schultz wordplay-based games or the Shake a Tower section of Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It. Consider the opening room:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are standing on a flat plain. From here it seems that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances to the north, south, east and west.</p></blockquote>
<p>The text gives the appearance that the players of the world are also the same thing as the exits.</p>
<p>The introductory help incidentally claims </p>
<blockquote><p>An exhaustive knowledge of the Shakespearean canon is not necessary, as in most cases just the problems rather than the solutions are pinched from Shakespeare.</p></blockquote>
<p>but given I’ve already used Shakespeare knowledge to aid in one puzzle (as I’ll get to), this might not entirely be the truth.</p>
<p>Speaking of Phoenix mainframe norms, immediately to the north of the starting room the game pulls out a similar “pick your item” trick to Brand X / Philosopher’s Quest.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32599" style="width: 821px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32599" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32599" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/08/avon-1982/threewitch/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg" data-orig-size="811,556" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="threewitch" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>The Three Witches of Macbeth, via <a href="https://kataloget.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/en/E388">an 1836 engraving by Busse</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg?w=811" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32599" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg 811w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg?w=150&h=103 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg?w=300&h=206 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/threewitch.jpg?w=768&h=527 768w" sizes="(max-width: 811px) 100vw, 811px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32599" class="wp-caption-text">The Three Witches of Macbeth, via <a href="https://kataloget.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/en/E388">an 1836 engraving by Busse</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<blockquote><p>You are on a wild heath. So foul and fair a day you have not seen. A path leads off to the south, there is a forest path to the northwest, and a chilly wind blows down a path to the northeast.</p>
<p>What are these so wither’d and wild in their attire? They should be women but their beards forbid thee to interpret that they are so.<br />
The witches are prepared to give you one of the following objects:<br />
An eye of newt.<br />
A toe of frog.<br />
A wool of bat.<br />
A tongue of dog.<br />
Which object will you take?</p></blockquote>
<p>I think the right pick here is eye of newt. This is because not long after the start of the game, the world goes dark</p>
<blockquote><p>It is growing dark… too dark to see with the naked eye.</p></blockquote>
<p>but if you have the eye of newt, it provides light (“Fortunately the newt’s eye provides a dull illumination.”) Philosopher’s Quest had a trick where you could get <em>two</em> items but I don’t see any such loophole here. I may be missing something, though; for one thing, Philosopher’s Quest had an alternate way to get one item as long as you didn’t pick it! So I’ll keep with getting the eye but will remain suspicious in case a situation really seems like it could use some frog toe.</p>
<p>Just to the west of the starting stage is a calendar turned to January 6, and just off of that is one of the coolest gimmicks of the game.</p>
<blockquote><p>> w<br />
You are in the market place. To the east there seems to be some kind of stage, and there are dwellings to the northwest (large), west (medium-sized) and southwest (small).<br />
There is a calendar here, which gives the date as January 6th.<br />
> sw<br />
You are in a cell, which clearly belongs to some holy man, as you can tell from the religious decoration of the room. The only way out is by a door to the northeast.<br />
There is a phial here, containing a potion of mandragora.<br />
> get mandragora<br />
OK.<br />
> drink mandragora<br />
You drink the potion. Presently through all your being there runs a cold and drowsy humour and your eyes’ windows fall like death. In this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death you continue and then awake much later as from a pleasant sleep to see…</p></blockquote>
<p>That’s the potion intended to cause Juliet to have the appearance of dying, but really go to sleep for two days. Here, it affects quite a few more than two days, because if you go back and look at the calendar, it has now changed to March 15th.</p>
<p>That means that <strong>at the start of the game, the season is winter, but you can change it to spring.</strong> (This is the puzzle I mentioned where knowing the reference helped understand it.) This causes some of the rooms to be different. For example, there’s an ice floe that you can pass over during winter to get to a large section of rooms to the north, but by spring, that ice floe has melted.</p>
<p>Or you can have more subtle interactions, like with Richard III:</p>
<blockquote><p>> s<br />
You encounter a kingly figure, sadly rather hunchbacked. He mutters that it now is the winter of his discontent, and hobbles off. You are in a field. The ground is in tip-top condition, should anybody ever wish to fight a battle here. You can retreat northwards.</p></blockquote>
<p>This meeting does not occur if you arrive at the field in spring. However, what you can do in spring is get yourself stabbed:</p>
<blockquote><p>As you enter the building, you realise with a shudder that it is now the Ides of March. There are cries of “Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!” and you are stabbed by several men in togas. With a cry of “Hate, you brute?” you give a reproachful look at the nearest of your assailants and expire.</p></blockquote>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32607" style="width: 757px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32607" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32607" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/08/avon-1982/murder/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg" data-orig-size="747,454" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="murder" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Karl Theodor von Piloty, 1865, The Murder of Julius Ceasar.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg?w=747" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32607" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg 747w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg?w=150&h=91 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/murder.jpg?w=300&h=182 300w" sizes="(max-width: 747px) 100vw, 747px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32607" class="wp-caption-text">Karl Theodor von Piloty, 1865, The Murder of Julius Ceasar.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>I have no idea what this building is like in winter, because if I try to approach in winter I get chased (and killed) by a bear. Of course the bear only shows up in winter because it is from The Winter’s Tale.</p>
<blockquote><p>A savage clamor!<br />
Well may I get aboard! This is the chase.<br />
I am gone forever!</p>
<p><strong>He exits, pursued by a bear.</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>(That’s from the actual play, not the game.)</p>
<p>One last general observation about the game is that this seems to have “scripted scenes” far more than most Phoenix games except maybe Hezarin. I’m reminded of the ICL game <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/icl-quest/?order=ASC">Quest</a> which randomly has you pick between Basil Wolstegnome and Maria Gnomesick at a Gnome of the Year show; here, you are asked, King Lear style, to decide which daughter gets a kingdom:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are in a gorgeous palace. A King here is arguing with his courtiers as to the best way to divide up his kingdom. As you arrive, they decide to ask your advice, Heaven knows why.<br />
“To which of my daughters, Regan, Goneril and Cordelia, shall I leave the largest share of my kingdom?” demands the king.</p></blockquote>
<p>I have yet to resolve this issue; I went with Cordelia and the king was displeased:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes.” says the king, who evidently disagrees with your decision. “Hence, and avoid my sight! Vassal! Miscreant!”</p></blockquote>
<p>In fact, I have yet to resolve much in the way of puzzles at all, and I even still have a few question marks on my map, so I’ll report back next time with a full accounting of all environs. I will say (based on the back cover of the commercial version of the game referring to “three dates”, see image at the top of this post) it is likely that we’ll have at least one more season to warp to and cause all the rooms to change, meaning this game could be very long and deep indeed.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogChoice of Games LLC: Fall in love with Heart’s Choice’s new look!https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=80042024-02-08T16:43:31+00:00
<p>Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’ve added a whole bouquet of new options to our <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hearts-choice/id1487052276?">iPhone/iPad app</a> and to our <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heartschoice.o">Android app</a>, to help you find stories with exactly the features you’re looking for. </p>
<ul>
<li>An expanded chili-pepper scale gives more detail about every game’s spice level, starting with a mild and sweet 1-pepper and going all the way up to extra-hot 5-pepper erotica.</li>
<li>New search features let you filter by spice level, player-character gender, and romance-option gender.</li>
<li>“Similar to” suggestions help you find more games just like the ones you already love!</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s easier than ever to find your Happily Ever After in Heart’s Choice!</p>
<figure data-carousel-extra='{"blog_id":1,"permalink":"https:\/\/www.choiceofgames.com\/2024\/02\/fall-in-love-with-hearts-choices-new-look\/"}' class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="472" height="1024" data-attachment-id="8007" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/fall-in-love-with-hearts-choices-new-look/67-1-store/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store.png" data-orig-size="1290,2796" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="67-1-store" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-138x300.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-472x1024.png" data-id="8007" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-472x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-8007" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-472x1024.png 472w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-138x300.png 138w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-768x1665.png 768w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-709x1536.png 709w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store-945x2048.png 945w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-1-store.png 1290w" sizes="(max-width: 472px) 100vw, 472px" /></a></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="472" height="1024" data-attachment-id="8008" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/2024/02/fall-in-love-with-hearts-choices-new-look/67-2-search/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search.png" data-orig-size="1290,2796" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="67-2-search" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-138x300.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-472x1024.png" data-id="8008" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-472x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-8008" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-472x1024.png 472w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-138x300.png 138w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-768x1665.png 768w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-709x1536.png 709w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search-945x2048.png 945w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/67-2-search.png 1290w" sizes="(max-width: 472px) 100vw, 472px" /></a></figure>
</figure>
<p></p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.comRenga in Blue: Toxic Dumpsite: The Most Unfair Adventure Game Puzzle Ever Madehttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=325452024-02-07T16:08:06+00:00
<p>Sure, hyperbole, but not by much.</p>
<p>I did beat the game, so make sure you’ve read <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/toxic-dumpsite/?order=ASC">read my previous posts about Toxic Dumpsite before this one</a>.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32548" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxiccover/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg" data-orig-size="627,451" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxicCOVER" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg?w=627" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32548" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg 627w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg?w=150&h=108 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxiccover.jpg?w=300&h=216 300w" sizes="(max-width: 627px) 100vw, 627px" /></p>
<p>The puzzle I was stuck on last time was, weirdly enough, fair. Maybe it needed some design finesse but…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32534" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic27/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic27" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32534" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>…just as a reminder, I had found a vending machine with a coin underneath. Doing SHAKE MACHINE led to a rattling sound and the “all right” message made me think the rattling was referring to the coin. But no, SHAKE still gets the sound, and as mentioned last time, inserting a coin gets it stuck.</p>
<p>However, it dislodged whatever happened to be stuck by a little nudge, so that SHAKE MACHINE again gets it out.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32551" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic29/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic29" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32551" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic29.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>That’s a key. I then immediately tested it everywhere, find it fit in the keyhole next to the window, and turning the key leads to a click.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32553" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic19/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic19" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32553" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic19.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>This unlocks the “control” room downstairs, but before going down there, I should mention while stumped I also managed to find a shovel. LOOK UNDER worked (without documentation or prompting); what about other prepositions?</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32555" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic28/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic28" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32555" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic28.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>And no, SEARCH or any other verb does not find the shovel. It has to be LOOK BEHIND.</p>
<p>There isn’t anything intrinsically unfair about including prepositions in searches, but it has to be documented in some way they’re going to occur, especially because they were almost unused in text adventures at this time. I admit my mental logic probably ran along the way the author wanted — I thought <em>that file cabinet is big, I wonder if anything is behind there</em> — but I can still recognize the game is asking for a command without teaching it exists. Text adventures have the unique attribute of “technically anything in English works” but in practice as commands get rarer and rarer they need to be treated uniquely, like you have a platformer where the Z key does something essential but the game doesn’t bother to mention it and you’re just supposed to hit every key on the keyboard trying.</p>
<p>Moving on, with shovel in hand (and the control room unlocked) I headed downstairs, and found the control room was just a message with a single button.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32560" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic31/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic31" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32560" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic31.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>The button unlocks a second door marked “TRANSPORT”.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32561" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic32/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic32" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32561" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic32.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>Just to the left is a button you can push to activate the cart; then pushing the pedal will lead you deeper in the mine, where you start to have trouble breathing.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32563" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic34/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic34" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32563" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic34.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>Curiously enough, the “trouble breathing” isn’t really a timer as you might expect — it means if you try to go too far deep then you die from lack of oxygen, but otherwise the “trouble breathing” state simply hovers around without consequence. Usually for one of these games when something that indicates the player’s medical condition is getting worse triggers, that’s automatically a timer that needs to be beaten.</p>
<p>Further in there is a purple button that can’t be reached. This will be important shortly.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32566" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic37/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic37" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32566" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic37.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>You can then go in the mine, where the lantern (which I assume has been providing light through the whole transport section) is too faint to see in the darkness. You can still DIG (with that shovel from behind the file cabinet) and get an item that your player takes, then leave safely.</p>
<p>If you try to go deeper into the mine, that’s when the lack of oxygen kicks in:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32568" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic35/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic35" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32568" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic35.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>The hammer is described as lightweight which I assume is intended as a hint it can’t be used to break things (like the Office door upstairs which is still unlocked, and is a red herring at the end).</p>
<p>I was horribly stuck enough here that I decided I had enough and needed to poke at a walkthrough, and here we hit the puzzle of the title.</p>
<p>Allow me a brief side mention of a much more recent game, <a href="https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=1z2lxiqua980sedk">+=3</a>, by Carl de Marcken and David Baggett. Going by the ifdb description:</p>
<blockquote><p>This one-puzzle game was Dave Baggett’s response to a discussion (flame war?) in rec.arts.int-fiction and specifically to Russ Bryan’s claim that there could be no puzzles which are logical yet unsolvable.</p></blockquote>
<p>I remember some discussions from rec.arts.int-fiction (the Usenet group) being indistinguishable from flame wars back in the day, so maybe it was both. Here’s the opening (and only) room.</p>
<blockquote><p>On the Three Troll Bridge</p>
<p>You are standing on a rickety wooden bridge. A burly Three Troll blocks your passage north, across the bridge.</p>
<p>Something is ticking.</p></blockquote>
<p>In any case, +=3 was essentially a thought experiment: how could you make a logical unsolvable puzzle? Now, as a one-puzzle game, you may want to skip down a bit farther to avoid my spoiling it (I’ll drop a picture of a floppy disk to mark when it is safe to come back), as I’m about to cut and paste in the walkthrough.</p>
<p>Ready?</p>
<blockquote><p>This “game” is meant to illustrate the fact that “logical” and “simple” puzzles can be made arbitrarily difficult to solve. In this particular case, the puzzle exploits an assumption that experienced text adventure players will make — that things that aren’t listed in one’s inventory aren’t actually manipulable game objects.</p>
<p>>give shirt to troll<br />
>give shoes to troll<br />
>give socks to troll<br />
>n</p>
<p>The solution is perfectly logical and simple. If you were standing on a bridge with a troll who clearly wanted you to give him something, and you had nothing to give him, what would you do? You’d give him the shirt off your back, of course.</p>
<p>Note that if you say “examine me”, you’ll see that you are in fact a clothed human. (If you’d have been naked, the game certainly would have pointed this out, right?)</p>
<p>Everything explicitly mentioned in this game except the troll is a red herring.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don’t think the game really illustrates anything about logic and simplicity as much as that it is far too much to expect the player to refer to objects that aren’t listed as there (and why can’t our player have boots, instead of shoes)?</p>
<p>All that preface was technically a hint for the puzzle: how do you press the purple button? All the information needed <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/toxic-dumpsite/?order=ASC">is in my prior posts</a> (or at least all the information needed according to the game itself).</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32573" style="width: 423px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32573" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32573" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxicdisk/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg" data-orig-size="413,421" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"3.2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot Pro1","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1194702002","copyright":"","focal_length":"20.875","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0.02","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="toxicDISK" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg?w=294" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg?w=413" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32573" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg 413w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg?w=147&h=150 147w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicdisk.jpg?w=294&h=300 294w" sizes="(max-width: 413px) 100vw, 413px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32573" class="wp-caption-text">From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>So way back at the chest next to the starting room…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32517" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic8/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic8" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32517" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>…we can REMOVE NAIL WITH HAMMER.</p>
<p>There is no nail in the description, and even being given a “wooden” chest, there is no reason to assume it uses nails rather than, say, screws. The only feasible way to solve the puzzle seems to be to focus entirely on the hammer and what it might be used for, and given that nothing is breakable, come up with the use of pulling nails instead, and try to guess where a nail might be and take the leap of faith.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32576" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic40/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic40" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32576" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic40.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32577" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic41/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic41" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32577" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic41.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32579" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/07/toxic-dumpsite-the-most-unfair-adventure-game-puzzle-ever-made/toxic42/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic42" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32579" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic42.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>Weirdly enough, the game was well coded and there was clearly some creativity poured into this, especially given the lack of historical precedent; it’s just the game design effect was a miss. The author likely saw the Med Systems games like Deathmaze but definitely hadn’t seen the Japanese Mystery House, so this concept of a tight 3D environment was all his, and I appreciated the novel ways of stretching what turned out to be a tiny map. I’m especially curious if the graphical elements are what led the author down the road of including preposition-searches; looking at the file cabinet as a graphic did give me the primal urge to peek behind it in a way I’m fairly certain I would not have experienced with text.</p>
<p>Maybe the other game in the two-pack (Spook House) will go better now that I know the author’s tendencies, but I’m going to take a breather before trying it, and instead go to a game series I know very well: the Phoenix mainframe series, and the ultra-hard British game Avon.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Toxic Dumpsite: Instructions Unclearhttp://bluerenga.blog/?p=325122024-02-05T21:22:29+00:00
<p>Since last time I got unstuck by figuring out I was missing something on the interface, only to get stuck again quite soon afterwards. Voltgloss helped in the comments and I was able to make a micro-piece more of progress. Just plunging through that hint sheet is starting to look tempting, but maybe pausing to write will help break things through.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32514" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxicman/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png" data-orig-size="569,239" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxicMAN" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png?w=569" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32514" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png 569w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png?w=150&h=63 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicman.png?w=300&h=126 300w" sizes="(max-width: 569px) 100vw, 569px" /></p>
<p>So it had always occurred to me that it might be possible to look in alternate directions, but I checked the manual carefully and this is all it had to say about movement. N/S/E/W as well as F/B/L/R work as I describe — you only can move with them, and if you run into a wall or a closed door the game just says you can’t go that way.</p>
<p>However, if you TURN NORTH or TURN SOUTH you actually change your facing. This is not in the documentation. (It turns out the arrow keys, which the manual indicates are equivalent to F/B/L/R, <em>do</em> allow for turning, if being used while holding the shift key.)</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32517" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic8/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic8" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32517" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic8.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>The storage room has a book you can see facing south which contains a “credit card” where one side says “Mine 1A”. The north side has a chest (as shown) with a lantern.</p>
<p>The furnace room has a message on the north side…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32519" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic9/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic9" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32519" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic9.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>…and if you face the door leading back to the hall to the west, you can see a button. I do not do what the button does.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32521" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic11/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic11" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32521" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic11.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>I should add it isn’t 100% obvious you should check the door facing the hall — that is, looking back the way you came — but the view of the message on the wall shows the button to the left. This let me know I was supposed to turn more. This differs from <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/mystery-house-ii/?order=ASC">Mystery House II</a> (MSX version) where all views were narrowly only of the environment directly in front.</p>
<p>Having done all that, I was still stuck.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32524" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic12/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic12" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32524" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic12.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>I had to plunge all the way down the hints Voltgloss gave to find the command SHOW CARD. I don’t think that square is supposed to be a camera, I think it is supposed to be the cardboard with the message, and the camera is just hidden (this is because there’s another spot later where the card works, and no square).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32526" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic15/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic15" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32526" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic15.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>I still don’t have access to much, but I also don’t think (due to the graphics and needing to have graphics for multiple views) this is a large game.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32528" style="width: 628px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32528" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32528" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxicmap/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png" data-orig-size="618,514" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxicMAP" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>I haven’t gotten into the “Offices” yet but the doors are marked with what is inside.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png?w=618" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32528" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png 618w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png?w=150&h=125 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicmap.png?w=300&h=250 300w" sizes="(max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32528" class="wp-caption-text">I haven’t gotten into the “Offices” yet but the doors are marked with what is inside.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>To the north there’s a snack machine and another distinctly unfair moment.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32529" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic16/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic16" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32529" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic16.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32531" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic17/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic17" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32531" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic17.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>First off, if there’s any way to push one of the particular three green buttons (as opposed to just PUSH GREEN) then I don’t know if I’m doing it right or not. Both PUSH GREEN 1 and PUSH GREEN BUTTON 1 give a click sound, but the game also accepts commands like READ BOOK 1 indicating it is just ignoring the later stuff in a command.</p>
<p>Shaking the machine reveals a sound, but I was heavily stumped until, via instinct, the game’s picture, and experience in <a href="https://ifdb.org/search?searchfor=author%3AGraham+Nelson">Graham Nelson games</a>, I tried LOOK UNDER MACHINE, revealing a hidden coin.</p>
<p>I checked later, and SEARCH doesn’t work — it <em>has</em> to be LOOK UNDER. The manual once mentions LOOK INSIDE but no clue that LOOK UNDER works, and I can assure you this is a very rare command to cause a unique effect in this era.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32534" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic27/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic27" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32534" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic27.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>You can insert the coin in the machine but none of the green buttons do anything. I still strongly suspect this might be where I’m stuck on forward progress, as I’m pretty much empty on things to do elsewhere.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32537" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic24/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic24" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32537" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic24.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>For example, there’s a locked file cabinet to the east. There doesn’t seem to be any potential shenanigans possible without a key. There’s also a guard post with a window next to a keyhole, but again no key.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32538" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic25/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic25" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32538" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic25.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>You can also step out to a platform to the west, turn around, and SHOW CARD while facing the door, which causes it to work like an elevator.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32539" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic23/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic23" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32539" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic23.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>The lower floor just consists of two locked rooms, and the SHOW CARD trick doesn’t work on either.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32541" style="width: 726px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32541" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32541" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/05/toxic-dumpsite-instructions-unclear/toxic21/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic21" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>I would guess this is where the shutoff lever is hiding.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32541" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic21.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32541" class="wp-caption-text">I would guess this is where the shutoff lever is hiding.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>It is faintly possible the author is being too clever with the parser. The manual gives “CAREFULLY EXAMINE THE BOMB” as a possible command and LOOK UNDER is parsed as its own command. Maybe there’s some sensible syntax to press a green button but it only works ordered as a very particular sentence; most games of this era would let you PRESS 2 or the like.</p>
<p>I’m still happy to take ROT13 hints on anything at the moment.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogRenga in Blue: Toxic Dumpsite (1982)http://bluerenga.blog/?p=324862024-02-04T22:56:32+00:00
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32495" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxic1/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32495" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic1.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>As far as the “classic” Scott Adams goes, they’re taking a break throughout 1982; the first six of the Adams games were converted to graphical format, but I’m not replaying games just because they add graphics.</p>
<p>However, Adventure International was still selling at a brisk rate through the year, including some products by <a href="https://archive.org/details/rainbowmagazine-1983-07/page/n73/mode/2up">high school student</a> Roger Jonathan Schrag. One of them, Arex, is a Qix variant of sorts that looks genuinely well-programmed.</p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3AJHrf4M4fk?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe>
<p class="small">
<p>Maybe his adventures are the same way, but I could only get a little bit of the way into Toxic Dumpsite before being stumped. It, along with the game Spook House, were sold as a “double feature” in a single game package; both feature TRS-80 graphics.</p>
<p>As the manual states:</p>
<blockquote><p>Something’s gone very wrong at the Toxic Dumpsite where life-threatening nuclear wastes are treated and buried. The entire plant will explode like the Fourth of July in less than 30 minutes unless you can avoid the many traps and protection systems, find the right controls and shut the plant down in time.</p></blockquote>
<p>The 30 minutes is counted in real time. If you step away from the keyboard and come back 30 minutes later the explosion will have happened.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32499" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxic4/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic4" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32499" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic4.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>(This is, in a way, very bad and not bad at all. Very bad in that real time and typing don’t always mix, not bad at all in that when I play games on a modern emulator with save states I can usually beat any time limits handily.)</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32497" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxic2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32497" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic2.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>You start with a note in your hands — it seems like you’d be briefed about this information beforehand?</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32496" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxic3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32496" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic3.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>Other than that, you start in a series of three rooms: the entrance, a storage room, and a room with a furnace.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32501" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxic6/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic6" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32501" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic6.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32500" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxic5/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif" data-orig-size="716,536" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxic5" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif?w=716" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32500" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif 716w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif?w=150&h=112 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxic5.gif?w=300&h=225 300w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" /></p>
<p>Trying to head north or south from the entrance leads to locked doors (I assume one of the locked doors was simply the way we came in). I’ve tried many verbs and actions on the doors and the furnace with no luck. So I’m stuck on the game right away.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32505" style="width: 405px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32505" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32505" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/04/toxic-dumpsite-1982/toxicverbs/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png" data-orig-size="395,438" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="toxicVERBS" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>I’ve tried every verb on this list on the furnace.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png?w=271" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png?w=395" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32505" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png 395w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png?w=135&h=150 135w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/toxicverbs.png?w=271&h=300 271w" sizes="(max-width: 395px) 100vw, 395px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32505" class="wp-caption-text">I’ve tried every verb on this list on the furnace.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=spooktoxic">hint sheet</a> for the game but I know if I check it this early I’ll have very little resistance for checking hints later. If someone would like to deliver a hint in ROT13 in comments, though, I’ll take it that way.</p>
<p>Having an extremely hard opening puzzle doesn’t mean the game will be dire — <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/subterranean-encounter/?order=ASC">Subterranean Encounter started the same way</a> — but it certainly doesn’t give a good first impression.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogReviews From Trotting Krips: For a Change by Dan Schmidt (1999)https://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/?p=8332024-02-03T23:04:54+00:00
<h2>For A Change by Dan “He’s Right, You Know” Schmidt(1999)</h2>
<p>Rating: ***1/2</p>
<h2>The Review…</h2>
<p>Yes, this is all very well and good, but you see, it is <em>I</em> who is primarily responsible for this game, and if it wins anything, then certainly I will be the one there to take the credit.</p>
<p>It was a long time ago. A simpler, more innocent age. 1997, if I remember correctly. I met a guy on a server designed for the playing of the ancient Oriental board game Wei-Qi, or “go”, as the Japanese call it. You know how those Japanese love to name things after squares on a Monopoly board. But anyway, this guy was a kindred spirit. Our wicked senses of humor played off each other like peanut butter and jelly. We owned that place. And so it was that when I discovered the resurgence of IF, and mentioned my interest in the art, it was not upon deaf ears that my overtures fell, for he too had fond memories of the eerie glow of a computer screen, as it danced against our bedroom walls at midnight, describing in so few, but so powerful words, the south side of a nondescript white house somewhere in a forest clearing.</p>
<p>That guy’s name was Dan Schmidt.</p>
<p>Shortly after, we both set about to learn the tools of the trade and put our considerable creative powers to the test with this reborn avocation. His first game, which I spent more than a couple hours testing and commenting on, was an unfinished, unreleased game called “Kitchen”. The object of “Kitchen” was to make a glass of icewater on a hot, dry day. While not lacking in imperfections, it contained more than a single brilliancy, none of which I’ll describe explicitly here (in case he wishes to reuse those great ideas in a future game), except to say that the final scene involved a hilarious parody, which required of the player a passing familiarity with those infamous Mentos ads. It was a good game.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I wrote Apartment F209. But enough about me.</p>
<p>With that initial burst of passion behind him, he (like so many others, including your humble narrator) drifted away, back into his go, back into his chess, and finally, it seemed, back into real life. We’d lost one of the great ones. Two, some would say.</p>
<p><em>[Excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but are you ever planning to actually review the game that this is supposedly a review of?]</em> So glad you asked. I have no fucking idea. I’m riffing here, leave me be. Please do not force me to lay the smack down.</p>
<p>But then it was another lazy, crazy day of summer (or whatever the hell season it was) when the ruffled, dog-eared pages of my old Inform 6 manual called to me once again from the box in which it’d been sequestered for far too long. So once again, I wielded the palette and the brushes, and called upon my old friend Dan Schmidt to join me for inspiration. Slowly, but with unmistakable inertia, he rose again from oblivion to fall into the front rank. This time, I created Annoyotron, and unbeknownst to me, in the background, Dan created <strong>For A Change</strong>.</p>
<p>Round two to Mr. Schmidt.</p>
<p>The ultimate triumph of the game might be that towards the end of development, he added one hint to the hint system which, before you even start playing the game, turns it from a daunting, tiresome-looking chore, into an absolute blast. In effect, he says, “This game uses lots of weird words and gimmicky verbs and stylized descriptions and all that crap, but it’s basically a regular, old-timey text adventure!” And that, it is.</p>
<p>Inanimate objects are described using animate verbs. Physical movements are described as emotions. Tactile response represented as tones or colors. In short, the game talks funny. After my first round of beta testing, I told him that the game took me the prescribed two hours, but the first hour was wasted because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. I felt like the game was smarter than I was. All this odd wordsmithing certainly meant that I was just not getting it. But then a magical thing happened, and I realized that I was just supposed to do regular old Infocom-type adventure stuff. And from then on, there was no looking back, and it really was one of the most enjoyable times I’ve had playing an adventure game in quite some time. And miracle of miracles, I actually finished a game… for a change.</p>
<p>This is an “accidental adventure”, in that you are given a goal (however obscurely stated), but to reach that goal, you must simply solve a number of superficially related puzzles, none of which have anything to do with the goal itself, but all of which move the plot along until you do have an opportunity to accomplish the goal, and then everyone’s happy and we can all go home. I do not count any of this as negative, as the puzzles themselves are clever and perfectly logical, without being overly challenging or frustrating, and they all fit well into the abject, mind-twisting surreality of the environment. (“Lie Establisher”, indeed. What is this guy on?)</p>
<p>If the game has faults, they lie in the gimmickry of the presentation, which borders on the ridiculous at times, while never quite stepping too far over the line. And for one of the very few times I can remember in my IF experiences, I didn’t want it to end so soon. But the two hours were up, and that is what the IF Competition desires. So, my loss, the Comp’s gain. You can’t please all the people, or however that goes.</p>
<p>But anyway, my point to this whole review is that, this game wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me. What was that? Oh, you’re quite welcome…</p>
Reviews From Trotting Kripshttps://trottingkrips.caltrops.comRenga in Blue: Forbidden City: AARRE ON SINUN!http://bluerenga.blog/?p=324602024-02-03T00:17:49+00:00
<p>I was indeed close. I just had one puzzle remaining.</p>
<p>Before I get to that…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32462" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/fcfin/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg" data-orig-size="483,510" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fcFIN" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg?w=284" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg?w=483" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32462" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg 483w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg?w=142&h=150 142w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcfin.jpg?w=284&h=300 284w" sizes="(max-width: 483px) 100vw, 483px" /></p>
<p>…I wanted to share a discovery made by eientei on Discord. Vince Apps wrote other books in addition to the ones I mentioned last time, porting essentially the same programs over; one for Electron, one for Amstrad, and one for MSX. The MSX book was translated into Finnish.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32464" style="width: 351px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32464" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32464" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/msxbook/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg" data-orig-size="341,489" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="msxBOOK" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Via <a href="https://archive.org/details/vinceappsmsxpelit/mode/2up?view=theater">The Internet Archive</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg?w=209" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg?w=341" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32464" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg 341w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg?w=105&h=150 105w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook.jpg?w=209&h=300 209w" sizes="(max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32464" class="wp-caption-text">Via <a href="https://archive.org/details/vinceappsmsxpelit/mode/2up?view=theater">The Internet Archive</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>This translation includes Forbidden City, or rather Kielletty Kaupunki, and yes, all the text is in Finnish.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32467" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/msxbook2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png" data-orig-size="526,315" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="msxBOOK2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png?w=526" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32467" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png 526w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png?w=150&h=90 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook2.png?w=300&h=180 300w" sizes="(max-width: 526px) 100vw, 526px" /></p>
<p>This represents the first Finnish translation we’ve hit on this blog, meaning we just need some Danish and Icelandic to complete our Team Nordic trading cards (<a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/ringen/?order=asc">Ringen</a> was originally in Norwegian, and <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/stuga/?order=ASC">Stuga</a> was in Swedish).</p>
<p>So the puzzle I was missing was simply applying the “go twice to succeed” hint from the notebook. Absolutely everything else (the amulet, the helmet, the locked door, etc.) can be ignored. I hadn’t checked hints yet but I did look at a map (in case I did my usual facepalm of missing a room), and I found something curious:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32469" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/fcmap4/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png" data-orig-size="582,280" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fcMAP4" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png?w=582" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32469" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png 582w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png?w=150&h=72 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fcmap4.png?w=300&h=144 300w" sizes="(max-width: 582px) 100vw, 582px" /></p>
<p>The “Energy Field” represents me getting teleported back to the maze. Since other exits also similarly lead back to previous places I thought that was that, but the map at CASA Solution Archive was telling me there was a room there.</p>
<p>This suggested perhaps the west exit is what needed to be done twice. So I took the exit, wandered back from the maze all the way back over to the same exit, and then took it again:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32471" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/fc36_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc36_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32471" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc36_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>No special message or anything, now just going west leads to a short corridor. Moving forward is then victory:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32472" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/fc37_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc37_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32472" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc37_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32473" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/fc38_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc38_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32473" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/fc38_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>There wasn’t any good reason for the behavior. I commented last time on alien cities working fairly well for the early text adventure medium, but this game tried hard to abuse the latitude: lots of items that are meaningless, a map with some truly random twists and turns that suggest the author wasn’t creating geography as much as making a stream of consciousness, and an ending puzzle where neither the arrival of the hint itself (via notebook summoned by pulling a lever) nor the actual action really made sense even in a future-universe with inexplicable alien things.</p>
<p>Still, someone cared about the game enough to translate it!</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32477" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/02/forbidden-city-aarre-on-sinun/msxbook3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png" data-orig-size="582,230" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="msxBOOK3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png?w=582" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32477" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png 582w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png?w=150&h=59 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/msxbook3.png?w=300&h=119 300w" sizes="(max-width: 582px) 100vw, 582px" /></p>
<p><em>Next</em>: I’ve got one more short game coming up which is likely also death-trap reliant (but very different in character to Forbidden City) followed by a return to the mathematicians of Cambridge and the game Avon.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogInteractive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarian: The Rise of POMG, Part 2: Multimahttps://www.filfre.net/?p=57912024-02-02T17:10:01+00:00
<div id="attachment_5792" style="width: 322px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-2-multima/multima/" rel="attachment wp-att-5792"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5792" class="wp-image-5792 size-full" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/multima.jpg" alt="" width="312" height="238" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/multima.jpg 312w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/multima-300x229.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5792" class="wp-caption-text">This sign, executed in throwback 1980s <em>Ultima</em> iconography, hung on the wall outside the elevator on the fifth floor of Origin Systems’s office building, pointing the way to the <em>Multima</em> team. If you neglected to follow the sign’s advice and turned left instead of right here, you would plunge five stories to your doom.</p></div>
<p>To carry our story forward into the next phase of persistent online multiplayer gaming, we first need to go backward again — all the way back to the days when <a href="/2011/07/dungeons-and-dragons">tabletop <em>Dungeons & Dragons</em></a> was new on the scene and people were first beginning to imagine how computers might make it more accessible. Some dreamed of eliminating the pesky need for other humans to play with entirely; others wondered whether it might be possible to use networked computers in place of the tabletop, so that you could get together and play with your friends without all of the logistical complications of meeting up in person. Still others dreamed bigger, dreamed of things that would never be possible even with a tabletop big enough to make King Arthur blush. What if you could use computers to make a living virtual world with thousands of human inhabitants? In a column in a 1983 issue of <em>Starlog</em> magazine, Lenny Kaye mused about just such a thing.</p>
<blockquote><p>When played among groups of people, [tabletop] RPGs foster a sense of cooperation toward a common goal, something videogames have hardly approached.</p>
<p>But with the computer’s aid, the idea of the game network can expand outward, interfacing with all sorts of societal drifts. The technology for both video[games] and RPGs is still in its infancy — one with graphics and memory far from ideal, the other still attached to its boards and figurines — and yet, it’s not hard to imagine a nationwide game, in which all citizens play their part. Perhaps it becomes an arena in which to exercise and exorcise ourselves, releasing our animal instincts through the power of the mind, understanding the uses and misuses of our humanity.</p></blockquote>
<p>While they waited for the technology which could make that dream a reality to appear, people did what they could with what they had. The ones who came closest to the ideal of a “nationwide game” were those running <a href="/2017/12/games-on-the-net-before-the-web-part-2-mud">MUDs</a>, those “multi-user dungeons” that allowed up to 100 players to interact with one another by typing commands into a textual parser, with teletype-style streaming text as their eyes and ears into the world they all shared.</p>
<p><a href="/2017/12/games-on-the-net-before-the-web-part-3-the-persistent-multiplayer-crpg"><em>Island of Kesmai</em></a> did soon come along on <a href="/2017/10/a-net-before-the-web-part-1-the-establishment-man-and-the-magnificent-rogue">the big online service CompuServe</a>, with an interface that looked more like <a href="/2023/07/going-rogue"><em>Rogue</em></a> than <a href="/2011/05/will-crowthers-adventure-part-1">the original game of <em>Adventure</em></a>. But again, only 100 people could play together simultaneously there, about the same number as on the biggest MUDs. And in this case, each of them had to pay by the minute for the privilege. For all that it was amazing that it could exist at all in its time and place, <em>Island of Kesmai</em> was more like a wealthy gated village than a teeming virtual world.</p>
<p>Still, it must be acknowledged that the sellers of traditional boxed computer games were even farther away from that aspiration, being content to offer up single-player CRPGs where combat — that being the aspect of tabletop RPGs that was easiest to implement on a computer — tended to overwhelm everything else. The one obvious exception to this norm was <a href="/2013/05/origin-systems">Origin Systems of Austin, Texas</a>. Especially after 1985’s landmark <a href="/2014/07/ultima-iv"><em>Ultima IV</em></a>, Origin’s <em>Ultima</em> series became not only the commercial standard bearer for CRPGs but the best argument for the genre’s potential to be about something more than statistics and combat tactics. These games were rather about world-building and about the Virtues of the (player’s) Avatar, daring to introduce an ethical philosophy that was applicable to the real world — and then, in <a href="/2016/02/ultima-v">later installments</a>, to muddy the waters by mercilessly probing the practical limitations and blind spots inherent in any such rigid ethical code.</p>
<p>Richard Garriott — <a href="/2011/12/lord-british">“Lord British”</a> to his legion of fans, the creator of <em>Ultima</em> and co-founder of Origin — had first conceived of the games as a re-creation of the tabletop <em>Dungeons & Dragons</em> sessions that had made him a minor celebrity in his Houston neighborhood well before he got his hands on his first Apple II. The setting of computerized <em>Ultima </em>was the world of Britannia, the same one he had invented for his high-school friends. The idea of adventuring together with others through the medium of the computer thus made a lot of sense to him. Throughout the 1980s and beyond, he repeatedly brought up the hypothetical game that he called <em>Multima</em>, a multiplayer version of <em>Ultima</em>. In 1987, an Origin programmer was actually assigned to work on it for a while. Garriott, from a contemporary interview:</p>
<blockquote><p>James Van Artsdalen, who does our IBM and Macintosh translations, is working on a program that lets several people participate in the game. Two people can do this with different computers directly connected via modems, or even more can play via a system with multiple modems. We don’t know if we’ll be able to support packet networks like CompuServe because they may be too slow for this application. We’ll do it if we can.</p>
<p>What you’ll buy in the store will be a package containing all the core graphics routines and the game-development stuff (all the commands and so on), which you could even plug into your computer and play as a standalone. But with a modem you could tie a friend into the game, or up to somewhere between eight and sixteen other players, all within the same game.</p>
<p>We will most likely run a game of this out of our office. Basically, we can almost gamemaster it. There could be a similar setup in each town, and anybody could run one. Our intention is to let anyone capable of having multiple modems on their system have the network software. Anybody can be a node: two people can play if they each own a package, just by calling each other. But to be a base, a multiplayer node, you’ve got to have multiple modems and may need additional software. If the additional software is needed, we’ll let anyone who wants it have it, since we’re just supporting sales of our own products anyway.</p>
<p>Should be a lot of fun, we think. We hope to have it out by next summer [the summer of 1988], and it should cost between $30 and $60. This will be able to tie different kinds of computers together, since the information being sent back and forth doesn’t include any graphics. I could play on my Apple while you’re on your IBM, for instance. The graphics will be full state-of-the-art Ultima graphics, but they’ll already be on your computer.</p></blockquote>
<p>Alas, this <em>Multima</em> was quietly abandoned soon after the interview, having been judged just too uncertain a project to invest significant resources into when there was guaranteed money to be made from each new single-player <em>Ultima</em>. As we’ll soon see, it was not the last time that argument was made against a <em>Multima</em>.</p>
<p>Circa 1990, <em>Multima</em> was revived for a time, this time as a three-way partnership among Origin, the commercial online service GEnie, and Kesmai, the maker of <em>Island of Kesmai</em>. The last would be given the source code to <a href="/2017/04/ultima-vi"><em>Ultima VI</em></a>, the latest iteration of the single-player series, and would adapt it for online play, after which GEnie would deploy it on its central mainframe. As it happened, a similar deal was already taking <a href="/2016/03/opening-the-gold-box-part-3-from-tabletop-to-desktop">SSI’s Gold Box engine</a> for licensed <em>Dungeons & Dragons</em> CRPGs through the same process of transformation. It would result in something called <em>Neverwinter Nights</em><span class="footnote_referrer"><a role="button" tabindex="0" onclick="footnote_moveToReference_5791_8('footnote_plugin_reference_5791_8_1');" onkeypress="footnote_moveToReference_5791_8('footnote_plugin_reference_5791_8_1');" ><sup id="footnote_plugin_tooltip_5791_8_1" class="footnote_plugin_tooltip_text">[1]</sup></a><span id="footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_5791_8_1" class="footnote_tooltip">Not the same game as the 2002 Bioware CRPG of the same name.</span></span><script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_5791_8_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_5791_8_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'bottom center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 100], });</script> going up on <a href="/2017/11/a-net-before-the-web-part-5-the-pony">America Online</a> in 1991 with an initial capacity of 100 simultaneous players, eventually to be raised by popular demand to 500, making it the <em>most</em> massively multiplayer online game of the early 1990s. But <em>Multima</em> was not so lucky; the deal fell through before it had gotten beyond the planning stages, perchance having proved a simple case of too many cooks in the kitchen.</p>
<p>Richard Garriott had largely ceased to involve himself in the day-to-day work of making new <em>Ultima</em> games by this point, but he continued to set the overall trajectory of the franchise. And as he did so, he never forgot those old hopes for a <em>Multima</em>. Not long after <a href="/2019/09/origin-sells-out">Electronic Arts (EA) purchased Origin Systems</a> in 1992, he thought he saw the stars aligning at long last. For 1993 brought with it <a href="/2022/05/a-web-around-the-world-part-10-a-web-of-associations">NCSA Mosaic</a>, the first broadly popular multimedia Web browser, the harbinger of the home Internet boom. This newly accessible public Internet could replace fragile peer-to-peer modems connections as easily as it could the bespoke private networks of CompuServe and GEnie, making the likes of <em>Multima</em> seem far more practical, both to implement and to offer to customers at an affordable price.</p>
<div id="attachment_5794" style="width: 262px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-2-multima/garriott-5/" rel="attachment wp-att-5794"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5794" class="size-full wp-image-5794" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/garriott.jpg" alt="" width="252" height="343" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/garriott.jpg 252w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/garriott-220x300.jpg 220w" sizes="(max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5794" class="wp-caption-text">Richard Garriott in 1995.</p></div>
<p>For better or for worse, though, Origin was now a part of EA, who had the final say on which projects got funded. Garriott tried repeatedly over a period of a year and a half or more to interest EA’s CEO Larry Probst in his <em>Multima</em> schemes, without success. As he tells the story, he and a couple of other true believers from Origin resorted to guerrilla tactics at the third formal pitch meeting.</p>
<blockquote><p>We literally just refused to give up the floor. They said, “No. Get out.” And we stomped our feet and held our breath. “We are not leaving until you guys get a clue. As a developer, we go over-budget by 25 to 50 percent every year. We’re only asking for $250,000 to build a prototype.” I already had a piece of paper prepared: “You approve of us going $250,000 over-budget to prove that this can work.” And finally, after heated yelling and screaming, they signed the piece of paper and kicked us in the ass as we left the room.</p></blockquote>
<p>It must be said here that Garriott is generally not one to let an overly fussy allegiance to pedantic truth get in the way of a good story. Thus I suspect that the decision to green-light a <em>Multima</em> prototype may not have been arrived at in quite so dramatic a fashion as the tale above. (Garriott has in fact told a number of versions of the story over the years; in another of them, he’s alone in Larry Probst’s office, hectoring him one-and-one into signing the note granting him $250,000 to investigate the possibility.) Most important for our purposes, however, is that the decision was definitely made by early 1995.</p>
<p>The answer to another question is even more murky: that of just when the change was made from an <em>Ultima</em> that you could play online with a few of your buddies — a feature that would be seen well before the end of the 1990s in a number of otherwise more conceptually conventional CRPGs, such as <a href="/2023/07/diablo"><em>Diablo</em></a> and <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/712/baldurs-gate/"><em>Baldur’s Gate</em></a> — to a persistent virtual Britannia inhabited by dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other players. The acronym by which we refer to such worlds today would be coined by Richard Garriott in 1997: the “massively multiplayer online role-playing game,” or MMORPG. (And you thought POMG was a mouthful!) Yet it appears that <em>Multima</em> may not have become an MMORPG in the minds of its creators until after Garriott secured his funding, and that that hugely important conceptual shift may not have originated with Garriott himself. One alternative candidate is the man to whom Garriott turned to become the nuts-and-bolts administrator of the project: Starr Long, a quality-assurance lead who had been one of his few <em>Multima</em> allies inside the company for quite some time. (“The original idea,” Long said in a 1996 interview — i.e., close to the events in question — “was to take an <em>Ultima</em> and just make it so you could have a party of people travel together.”) A third candidate is Rick Delashmit, the first and for a long time the only programmer assigned to the project, who unlike Garriott and Long had deep connections to the MUD scene, gaming’s closest extant equivalent to what <em>Multima</em> would become. In fact, Delashmit had actually co-founded a MUD of his own: <em>LegendMUD</em>, which was still running on a single 80486-based personal computer humming away under a desk in an Austin data center.</p>
<p>Regardless of who decided to do what, Long and Delashmit soon had cause to wonder whether signing onto <em>Multima</em> had been their worst career move ever. “We were kind of the bastard stepchild,” Long says. “No one got it and no one was really interested, because everyone wanted to build the next [single-player] <em>Ultima</em> or <a href="/2017/04/from-squadron-to-wingleader"><em>Wing Commander</em></a>. Those were the sexy projects.” They found themselves relegated to the fifth floor of Origin’s Austin, Texas, headquarters, jammed into one corner of a space that was mostly being leased out to an unaffiliated advertising agency.</p>
<p>Making the best of it, Long and Delashmit hacked together a sort of prototype of a prototype. Stealing a trick and possibly some code from the last attempt at a <em>Multima</em>, they started with the now-archaic <em>Ultima VI</em> engine. “All you could do was run around and pick up a single object off of the ground,” says Long. “And then if another player ran into you, you would drop it. We had a scavenger hunt, where we hid a few objects around the map and then let the whole company loose to find them. Whoever was still holding them after an hour won.”</p>
<p>It was a start, but it still left a million questions unanswered. A game like this one — or rather a virtual world — must have a fundamentally different structure than a single-player <em>Ultima</em>, even for that matter than the tabletop RPG sessions that had inspired Richard Garriott’s most famous creations. Those games had all been predicated on <em>you</em> — or at most on you and a few of your best mates — being the unchallenged heroes of the piece, the sun around which everything else orbited. But you couldn’t fill an entire world with such heroes; somebody had to accept supporting roles. Some might even have to play evil rather than virtuous characters, upending the core message of <em>Ultima</em> since <em>Ultima IV</em>.</p>
<p>Garriott, Long, and Delashmit weren’t the only ones pondering these questions. In a 1993 issue of Sierra On-Line’s newsletter <em>InterAction</em>, that company’s head Ken Williams — a man who bore some surface similarities to Garriott, being another <a href="/2011/10/ken-and-roberta">industry old-timer</a> who had given up the details of game development for the big-picture view by this point in his career — asked how massively multi-player adventuring could possibly be made to function. He had good reason to ask: his own company’s <a href="/2018/02/the-sierra-network">Sierra Network</a> was doing pioneering work in multiplayer gaming at the time, albeit as a closed dial-up service rather than on the open Internet.</p>
<blockquote><p>I think a multiplayer adventure game is the next major step. Imagine a version of <a href="/2019/07/chief-gates-comes-to-oakhurst-a-cop-drama">Police Quest</a>, looking like it does now, except that your partner in the patrol car and the people in the street around you are real people. I think this would be cool.</p>
<p>For three months, Roberta [Williams, Ken’s wife], Chris [Williams, the couple’s son], and I have been arguing over how this would work. The problem is that most adventure games have some central quest story. Generally speaking, once you’ve solved the quest the game is over. You are there as the central character, and all of the other characters are there primarily to help move you towards completing your quest (or to get in your way).</p>
<p>A multiplayer adventure game would be a completely different animal. If 500 people were playing multiplayer <a href="/tag/kings-quest/?order=asc">King’s Quest</a> at the same time, would there have to be 500 separate quests? There are also problems having to do with the fact that people aren’t always connected to the network. If my goal is to save you from an evil wizard, what do I do if neither you nor the evil wizard happen to sign on?</p>
<p>Here’s the thoughts we’ve had so far. What if we create a world that just contains nothing but forest as far as you can see? When you enter the game, you can do things like explore, or even build yourself a house. There’ll be stores where you can buy supplies. Soon, cities will form. People may want to build walls around their cities. Cities may want to bargain with each other for food. Or, for protection against common enemies. There needs to be some sense of purpose to the game. What if, after some amount of time in the land, the game “promotes” you to some status where your goals become to create the problems which affect the city, such as plagues, war, rampaging dragons, etc. In other words, some of the players are solving quests while others are creating them. Sooner or later, it becomes your turn to complicate the lives of others.</p></blockquote>
<p>Either this is a remarkable case of parallel invention or someone was whispering in Ken Williams’s ear about MUDs. For the last paragraph above is an uncannily accurate description of how many of the latter were run, right down to dedicated and accomplished players being elevated to “wizard” status, with powers over the very nature of the virtual world itself. The general MUD design philosophy, which had been thoroughly tested and proven solid over the years, held that the creators of multiplayer worlds didn’t have to worry overmuch about the stories and quests and goals that were needed for compelling single-player games. It was enough simply to put a bunch of people together in an environment that contained the raw building blocks of such things. They’d do the rest for themselves; they’d find their own ways to have fun.</p>
<p>In our next article, we’ll see what resulted from Ken Williams’s ideas about massively-multiplayer adventure. For now, though, let us return to our friends at Origin Systems and find out how they attempted to resolve the quandary of what people should actually be doing in their virtual world.</p>
<hr />
<p><code> </code><br />
In the immediate aftermath of that first online scavenger hunt, nobody there knew precisely what they ought to do next. It was at this point that Rick Delashmit offered up the best idea anyone had yet had. <em>Multima</em> would share many commonalities with textual MUDs, he said. So why not hire some more folks who knew those virtual worlds really, really well to help the Origin folks make theirs? He had two friends in mind in particular: a young couple named Raph and Kristen Koster, who had taken over the running of <em>LegendMUD</em> after he had stepped down.</p>
<p>The Kosters were graduate students in Alabama, meaning that much of the negotiation had to be conducted by telephone and computer. Raph was finishing up his program in poetry at the University of Alabama, while Kristen studied economics — a perfect pair of perspectives from which to tackle the art and science of building a new virtual world, as it happened. Raph Koster:</p>
<blockquote><p>We started to get interview questions remotely as they worked to figure out whether we were qualified. All of the questions came from what was very much a single-player slant. We were sent examples of code and asked if we could write code like that and find the bugs that had been intentionally inserted into the code. It was something like a misplaced closing brace.</p>
<p>Finally, we were asked for a sample quest. I sent them the entire code and text of my quest for the Beowulf zone in LegendMUD, but then also said, “But we wouldn’t do quests this way at all now.” Kristen and I had been working on a simulation system based on artificial life and economic theory. We basically sent in a description of our design work on that. It was a system that was supposed to simulate the behavior of creatures and NPCs [non-player characters] using a simplistic version of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs">Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs</a>, with abstract properties behind everything.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Kosters were hired already in the spring of 1995, but couldn’t start on a full-time basis until September 1. Over the course of several drives between Tuscaloosa and Austin and back in the interim, they hashed out their vision for <em>Multima</em>.</p>
<p>They wanted to lean heavily into simulation, trusting that, if they did it right, quests and all the rest would arise organically from the state of the world rather than needing to be hard-coded. Objects in the world would be bundles of abstract qualities which interacted with one another in pre-defined ways; take an object with the quality of “wood” and touch it to one with the quality of “fire,” and exactly what you expected to happen would occur. This reliance on qualities would make it quick and easy for people — designers or just ordinary players — to create new objects on the fly and have them act believably.</p>
<p>But the system could go much further. The non-player creatures which populated the world would have different sorts of qualities attached, derived, as Raph Koster notes above, from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Each creature would have its own types of Food and Shelter that it sought to attain and retain, alongside a more elevated set of Desires to pursue and Aversions to avoid once it had served for its most basic needs.</p>
<p>An early preview of the game, written by Paul Schuytema for <em>Computer Gaming World</em> magazine, describes how the system would ideally work in action, how it would obviate the need for a human designer to generate thousands of set-piece quests to keep players busy.</p>
<blockquote><p>Designing a dynamic world is a tricky business. How do you create enough quests to interest 2000 people? Origin’s solution: don’t. Create a world with enough logical conditions that it will generate its own quests. For example, consider a cave in the virtual world. Any self-respecting cave needs a monster, so you assign the cave a “need for monster” request of the game-world engine. Poof! A monster, let’s say a dragon, is then spontaneously created in the cave. Dragons are big eaters, so the dragon sends out a “need for meat” request. Meat, in the form of deer, roams the forest outside the cave, so the dragon’s life consists of leaving the cave to consume deer. If something happens that lowers the deer population (bad weather, over-hunting, or a game administrator strategically killing off deer), the dragon will have to widen its search for meat, which might lead it to the sheep pastures outside town.</p>
<p>At this point, NPCs can be useful to tell real players about a ravenous dragon roaming the countryside. NPCs can also sweeten the pot by offering rewards to anyone who can slay it. But what are they going to say?</p>
<p>“All of the [NPCs’] conversations come from a dynamic conversation pool which is linked to the world state,” explains Long. This means that if you, as a player, were to walk into this town, any one of the villagers will say something like, “Hey, we need your help. This dragon is eating all our sheep.” Thus, the “Kill the Dragon” quest is underway — succeed, and the villagers will handsomely reward you.</p></blockquote>
<p>If you put it all together correctly, you would end up with a living world, to an extent that even the most ambitious textual MUDs had barely approached to that point. Everything that was needed to make it a game as well as a virtual space would come about of its own accord once you let real humans start to run around in it and interfere with the lives of the algorithmically guided dragons and guards and shopkeepers. It would be all the more fun for being true to itself, a complex dynamic system responding to itself as well as to thousands of human inputs that were all happening at once, a far cry from the typical single-player <em>Ultima</em> where nothing much happened unless <em>you</em> made it happen. Incidentally but not insignificantly, it would also be a sociologist’s dream, a fascinating study in mass human psychology, perhaps even a laboratory for insights into the evolution of real-world human civilizations.</p>
<p>When they arrived for their first day on the job, the Kosters were rather shocked to find that their new colleagues had already begun to implement the concepts which the couple had informally shared with them during the interview process and afterward. It was disconcerting on the one hand — “It freaked us out because we had assumed there was already a game design,” says Raph — but bracing on the other. This pair of unproven industry neophytes, with little on their résumés in games beyond hobbyist experimentation in the obscure culture of MUDs, was in a position to decide exactly what <em>Multima</em> would become. It would take a year or more for Raph Koster to be given the official title of “Creative Lead”; when he arrived, that title belonged to one Andrew Morris, a veteran of <a href="/2019/02/ultima-vii"><em>Ultima VII</em></a> and <a href="/2021/02/ultima-viii-or-how-to-destroy-a-gaming-franchise-in-one-easy-step"><em>VIII</em></a> who had recently been transferred to the project, where he would struggle, like so many others at Origin, to wrap his head around the paradigm shift from single-player to multiplayer gaming. But for all intents and purposes, Raph and Kristen Koster filled that role from the start. Each was paid $25,000 per year for building this brave new world. They wouldn’t have traded it for a job that paid ten times the salary. At their urging, Origin hired several other MUDders to work with them on what was now to be called <em>Ultima On-Line</em>; the game would soon loose the hyphen to arrive at its final name.</p>
<p>I can’t emphasize enough what a leap into uncharted territory this was for Origin, as indeed it would have been for any other games studio of the time. To put matters in perspective, consider that Origin began working on <em>Ultima Online</em> before it even had a static website up on the Internet. The company had always been in the business of making packaged goods, games on disc that were sold once for a one-time price. Barring a patch or two in the worst cases, these games’ developers could wash their hands of them and move on once they were finished. But <em>Ultima Online</em> was to be something entirely different, a “game” — if that word even still applied — that was run as a service. How should people pay for the privilege of playing it? (Origin had no experience with billing its customers monthly.) And how much should they pay? (While everyone on the team could agree that <em>Ultima Online</em> needed to be appreciably cheaper than the games on CompuServe and its ilk, no one could say for sure where the sweet spot lay.) In short, the practical logistics of <em>Ultima Online</em> would have been a major challenge even if the core team of less than a dozen mostly green youngsters — median age about 22 — hadn’t also been trying to create a new world out of whole cloth, with only partially applicable precedents.</p>
<div id="attachment_5793" style="width: 606px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.filfre.net/2024/02/the-rise-of-pomg-part-2-multima/team-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-5793"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5793" class="wp-image-5793" src="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/team.jpg" alt="" width="596" height="450" srcset="https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/team.jpg 842w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/team-300x227.jpg 300w, https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/team-768x580.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 596px) 100vw, 596px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5793" class="wp-caption-text">The early <em>Multima</em> team, or the “MUDders of Invention,” as they sometimes liked to call themselves. Clockwise from top left: Rick Delashmit, Edmond Mainfelder, Clay Hoffman, Starr Long, Micael Priest, Andrew Morris, Scott Phillips, Kristen Koster, and Raph Koster.</p></div>
<p>When the advertising agency that had been the team’s neighbor moved out, Origin decided to gut the now almost empty fifth floor where the latter was still ensconced. “They literally knocked out all the walls and the windows,” says Raph Koster. “So, the elevator surfaced to bare concrete. If you turned right, you went to see our team in a converted hallway, the only part left standing. If you turned left, you fell five floors to your death.” It was freezing cold up there in the winter, and the dust was thick in the air all year round, such that they learned to wrap their computers in plastic when they left for the day. “This team was given the least possible support you can imagine,” says Richard Garriott.</p>
<p>Undaunted, the little group did what the best game developers have always done when cast onto uncharted waters: they made something to start with, then tested it, then iterated, then tested some more, <em>ad nauseum</em>. Garriott came by “once a month or so,” in the recollection of Raph Koster, to observe and comment on their progress. Otherwise, their ostensible colleagues at Origin seemed hardly to know that they existed. “We were punk kids doing stuff in the attic,” says Raph, “and our parents had no idea what we were up to.”</p>
<p>In January of 1996, they put a message up on the Origin Systems website (yes, one had been built by this point): “<em>Ultima Online</em> (working title, subject to change) is now taking applications from people interested in play-testing a pre-alpha version, starting on March 1, 1996.” Almost 1500 people asked to take part in a test which only had space for a few dozen.</p>
<p>The test began a month behind schedule, but it proved that the core technology could work when it was finally run from April 1 until April 8. “This will be damn awesome when it comes!” enthused one breathless participant over chat. Richard Garriott thrilled the group by appearing in the world as his alter ego one evening. “We ran into LB! The REAL THING!” crowed a starstruck tester. “So what? I went adventuring with him to kill monsters!” scoffed another.</p>
<p>A more ambitious alpha test began about a month later, with participants logging in from as far away as Brazil and Taiwan. The developers waited with bated breath to see what they would do in this latest, far more feature-complete version of the virtual world. What they actually did do was an eye-opener, an early warning about some of the problems that would continue to dog the game and eventually, in the estimation of Raph Koster, cost it half its user base. Koster:</p>
<blockquote><p>On the very first day of the alpha, players appeared in the tavern in Britain [the capital city of Ultima’s world of Britannia]. They waited for other newbies to walk out the doors, then they stood at the windows and shot arrows at them until they died. The newbies couldn’t shoot back because the archers were hidden behind the wall inside the building. This is, of course, exactly what archery slits were invented for, but it made for a truly lousy first impression of the game.</p>
<p>That was the first time that players took something inherent in the simulation and turned it against their fellow players. Not long after, someone spelled out “fuck” on the main bridge into Britain using fish. Not long after that, players figured out that explosive potions detonated other potions. It was illegal to kill someone in town; it would get you instantly killed by the guards. But if you ran a chain of potions a long distance, like a fuse, you could avoid that.</p></blockquote>
<p>Chalk it up as another lesson, one to which the team perhaps should have paid more attention. The hope was always that the community would learn to police itself much like those of the real world, that the risks and the stigma of being a troublemaker would come to outweigh the gains and the jollies for all but the most hardened members of the criminal element. Richard Garriott seems to have been in an unusually candid mood when he expressed the hope in a contemporary interview:</p>
<blockquote><p>One of the unfortunate side effects of computer gaming is that we have a whole generation of kids who have no social graces whatsoever. And this is exemplified in my mind by how much I hate going online for discussions I am invited to do once a month or so. And I truly abhor going to do that for a variety of reasons, one because it’s such a slow experience, but also because everyone has a level of anonymity behind their online persona, [and] they lose their normal and proper etiquette. So you have people screaming over each other to get their questions in, people screaming expletives, people popping in a chat room and making some dumb comment and then popping out again — the kind of behavior that you would never get away with in the real world. So one of the things that I’m really keen to introduce with Ultima Online is making people responsible for their actions, and this will happen as people are recognized by their online persona within the game. They won’t be so anonymous anymore.</p></blockquote>
<p>This hope would be imperfectly realized at best. “I used to think that you could reform bad apples and argue with hard cases,” says an older and presumably wiser Raph Koster. “I’m more cynical these days.”</p>
<p>So, the alpha testers ran around breaking stuff and making stuff, while the gods of the new fantasy world watched closely from their perch on a gutted floor of an anonymous-looking office building in flesh-and-blood late-twentieth-century Texas to see what it was they had wrought. A bug in the game caused killed characters to respawn naked. (No, not even these simulation-committed developers were cruel enough to make death permanent…) Some players decided they liked it that way, leading to much of Britannia looking like a nudist colony. The guards in the cities had to be instructed to crack down on these victimless criminals as well as thieves and murderers.</p>
<p>But the most important finding was that most of the players <em>loved</em> it. All of it. “We had people who literally did not log off for a week,” says Starr Long. “Groups of players formed tribes, and at the end of the test there was a huge battle between the two largest tribes. None of that we set up. We gave them the world to play in, and human nature took over.” From one of the first substantial previews of the work-in-progress, published in <em>Next Generation</em> magazine:</p>
<blockquote><p>In a very real sense, the world is what you make of it. One of the more interesting results of Ultima’s alpha testing is that when you have several hundred people in one place at one time, they tend to form their own micro-societies. There are already some two dozen player-created “guilds.” For example, when Richard Garriott signed on as his alter-ego Lord British, two groups sprang up: the Dragon Liberation Front, which pledged itself to destroying him, and the aptly named Protectors of Virtue & Lord British. Threats were made, battles were joined, and a fine time was had by all.</p></blockquote>
<p>Just as gratifyingly, reports of the alpha test, in the form of previews like the above in many of the glossy gaming magazines, were received very positively by ordinary gamers who hadn’t known that a massively multiplayer <em>Ultima </em>was in the offing prior to this point. Some went so far as to form and run guilds through email, so that they would be ready to go when the day came that they could actually log in. There was still much work to be done before <em>Ultima Online</em> would be ready to welcome the unwashed masses inside, but the MUDders who were making it believed that all of the arrows were pointing in the right direction.</p>
<p>Until, that is, September 27, 1996, when it suddenly seemed that its thunder might have been well and truly stolen. On that date, The 3DO Company published something called <em>Meridian 59</em>, which purported to already be what <em>Ultima Online</em> intended to be: a massively-multiplayer persistent virtual fantasy world. Its box copy trumpeted that hundreds of people would be able to adventure together at the same time, killing monsters and occasionally each other, whilst also chatting and socializing. It sounded great — or terrible, if you happened to be working on <em>Ultima Online</em>.</p>
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<p><strong>Sources: </strong>the books <em>Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online</em> by Wes Locher, <em>Postmortems: Selected Essays, Volume One</em> by Raph Koster, <em>Online Game Pioneers at Work</em> by Morgan Ramsay, <em>Through the Moongate</em><em>, Part II</em> by Andrea Contato, <em>Explore/Create</em> by Richard Garriott, and <em>MMOs from the Inside Out</em> by Richard Bartle; <em>Questbusters</em> of July 1987; Sierra’s customer newsletter <em>InterAction</em> of Summer 1993; <em>Computer Gaming World</em> of October 1995 and October 1996; <em>Starlog</em> of December 1983; <em>PC Powerplay</em> of November 1996; <em>Next Generation</em> of June 1996, September 1996, and March 1997; Origin’s internal newsletter <em>Point of Origin</em> of November 3 1995, January 12 1996, and April 5 1996.</p>
<p>Web sources include a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnnsDi7Sxq0">2018 Game Developers Conference talk</a> by some of the <em>Ultima Online</em> principals, <a href="https://www.uoguide.com/History_of_Ultima_Online">an <em>Ultima Online</em> timeline</a> at <em>UOGuide</em>, and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19961219063315/http://www.mudconnect.com/">some details about <em>LegendMUD</em></a>, the winner of <em>MUD Connector</em>‘s coveted “MUD of the Month” prize for October 1995.</p>
<div class="speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container"> <div class="footnote_container_prepare"><h2><span role="button" tabindex="0" class="footnote_reference_container_label pointer" onclick="footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_5791_8();">Footnotes</span><span role="button" tabindex="0" class="footnote_reference_container_collapse_button" style="display: none;" onclick="footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_5791_8();">[<a id="footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_5791_8">+</a>]</span></h2></div> <div id="footnote_references_container_5791_8" style=""><table class="footnotes_table footnote-reference-container"><caption class="accessibility">Footnotes</caption> <tbody>
<tr class="footnotes_plugin_reference_row"> <th scope="row" class="footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer" onclick="footnote_moveToAnchor_5791_8('footnote_plugin_tooltip_5791_8_1');"><a id="footnote_plugin_reference_5791_8_1" class="footnote_backlink"><span class="footnote_index_arrow">↑</span>1</a></th> <td class="footnote_plugin_text">Not the same game as the 2002 Bioware CRPG of the same name.</td></tr>
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Interactive Fiction – The Digital Antiquarianhttps://www.filfre.netRenga in Blue: Forbidden City (Apps, 1982)http://bluerenga.blog/?p=323452024-02-02T02:23:37+00:00
<blockquote><p>In a deserted city on a far away planet, there is legend of a hidden treasure guarded by force fields, hallucinatory gases and alien life forms. Do you have the courage to set forth and seek the treasure?</p>
<p>The city lies at the edge of a vast primeval forest, near shimmering lakes, and will offer the unsuspecting visitor choices of silver spoons, blue liquids, metal discs and possible death. You will see however, that if the going gets tough, you can always stop for a Coke!!</p></blockquote>
<p>We’ve played so far one game by Vince Apps, <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/devils-island/?order=ASC">Devil’s Island</a> as published by his company Apex Trading. It was mostly memorable for the opening puzzle requiring waiting in a cell in real-time (!) for a guard to show up; past that point was an extremely open map (with very little walled off) but a lot of instant-death, enough that I felt it proper to color code some rooms in red.</p>
<p>Forbidden City doesn’t have a real-time puzzle, and it is much more linear than Devil’s Island (so far) but the instant-death is still in. This time our goal, rather than escape, is to <strong>Discover the Aliens hidden treasure</strong>.</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32346" style="width: 412px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32346" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32346" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fcitycover/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png" data-orig-size="473,639" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fcityCOVER" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png?w=222" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png?w=473" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32346" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png?w=402&h=543 402w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png?w=111&h=150 111w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png?w=222&h=300 222w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcitycover.png 473w" sizes="(max-width: 402px) 100vw, 402px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32346" class="wp-caption-text">From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>The game was originally from Dragon 32, just like Devil’s Island, with a TI-99 version and Spectrum versions appearing as well, and I haven’t been able to find any of those versions. Rather, I played the C64 version, which showed up as a type in via The Commodore 64 Program Book. (It is through this book we even know the name Vince Apps, otherwise everything would have to be credited to Apex Trading.)</p>
<div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_32352" style="width: 404px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32352" loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32352" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/c64book/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg" data-orig-size="394,542" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="c64book" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>From <a href="https://archive.org/details/the-commodore-64-program-book/mode/2up?view=theater">The Internet Archive</a>.</p>
" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg?w=218" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg?w=394" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg?w=1000" alt="" class="size-full wp-image-32352" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg 394w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg?w=109&h=150 109w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/c64book.jpg?w=218&h=300 218w" sizes="(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px" /><p id="caption-attachment-32352" class="wp-caption-text">From <a href="https://archive.org/details/the-commodore-64-program-book/mode/2up?view=theater">The Internet Archive</a>.</p></div>
<p class="small">
<p>He also has the Texas Program Book (as in Texas Instruments computers), the Oric 1 Program Book, and a <a href="https://archive.org/details/40_Educational_Games_for_the_Commodore_64_by_Vince_Apps/page/n193/mode/2up">40 Educational Games for the Commodore 64</a>. The last gives some more biographical info:</p>
<blockquote><p>Vince Apps is a regular contributor to journals such as Popular Computing Weekly and Home Computing Weekly. He is a graduate of Sussex University in Computer Science and has his own successful software company.</p></blockquote>
<p>We still have three more games to go from the author so there’s still time to dig up a little more; for now let’s get into the game itself and enter an alien city.</p>
<p>Alien cities have generally fared pretty well here. The enforced text-adventure minimalism works better with exploring techno-halls than with nature, authors can go freeform with button-pressing effects (and they’re a lot less tempted to be arbitrary like they are with fantasy games), and language barriers mean NPCs don’t have to be conversational.</p>
<p>To make a more concrete comparison, the modern-realistic <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/crime-stopper/?order=ASC">Crime Stopper</a> which was just featured here fell short due to character interaction being extremely limited and some massive simplifications in terms of city layout. With an alien city, it is more reasonable to have a slightly esoteric subway/train/monorail system, as <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/tag/forbidden-city/?order=ASChttps://bluerenga.blog/tag/forbidden-city/?order=ASC">the other Forbidden City</a> (William Demas) does.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32429" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc2_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc2_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32429" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc2_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>I got stuck fairly quickly, because one of the commands is unconventional.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32430" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc3_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc3_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32430" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc3_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>Specifically, there’s nothing to do here if you OPEN GATE or UNLOCK GATE or SCREAM or a variety of other things. The usual I and INVENTORY got me nothing. Finally I went to HELP (assuming maybe it was like <a href="https://bluerenga.blog/2021/02/07/the-fortress-at-times-end-1981/">Fortress at Times-End</a> where it was necessary and not just a last-resort) and was told TAKE INVENTORY was a command.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32432" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc5_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc5_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32432" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc5_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>So you start with a key but can only refer to the thing that does the unlocking, the key, not the thing being unlocked, the gate.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32435" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fcmap1/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png" data-orig-size="509,572" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fcMAP1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png?w=267" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png?w=509" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32435" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png 509w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png?w=133&h=150 133w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap1.png?w=267&h=300 267w" sizes="(max-width: 509px) 100vw, 509px" /></p>
<p>The game, as already mentioned is fairly linear; the red rooms are deathtraps, with a deep pit, crushing walls, and a laser testing chamber.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32437" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc9_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc9_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32437" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc9_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32436" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc6_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc6_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32436" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc6_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>You can find a device with a button in a dark room to turn off a force field. Then there’s a “silver spoon” (which I haven’t used yet, might be a red herring) and a “small metal disk” in a cupboard…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32439" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc13_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc13_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32439" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc13_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>…and you can take the disk over to a nearby device, drop it in, and get a rusty metal rod. Then you can go to a “flat wall” with a hole, insert the rod, and reveal a doorway.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32440" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc16_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc16_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32440" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc16_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>This is followed by everyone’s favorite, a maze.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32441" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc17_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc17_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32441" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc17_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>In the middle there’s a room with four levers, and one of them kills you, and of course you just need to test them out in order to find out which lever does which.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32445" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc20_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc20_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32445" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc20_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>The maze only has cardinal directions, and it is the kind with a “path” where the wrong direction consistently drops the player back in the first few rooms. </p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32443" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fcmap2/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png" data-orig-size="595,553" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fcMAP2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png?w=595" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32443" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png 595w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png?w=150&h=139 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap2.png?w=300&h=279 300w" sizes="(max-width: 595px) 100vw, 595px" /></p>
<p>Moving past the maze…</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32446" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fcmap3/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png" data-orig-size="798,622" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fcMAP3" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png?w=798" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32446" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png 798w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png?w=150&h=117 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png?w=300&h=234 300w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fcmap3.png?w=768&h=599 768w" sizes="(max-width: 798px) 100vw, 798px" /></p>
<p>…the vast majority of the “obstacles” are still instant death traps. There’s two lever rooms (four levers each) where some of the levers do useful things and some eject you into space, and again, then only way to find out which is which is to test.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32448" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc28_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc28_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32448" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc28_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>Two of the levers spawn a notebook (the same notebook). That’s just a code where you shift the letters forward by one to get “go twice to succeed”. I haven’t found anywhere to use it yet.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32450" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc32_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc32_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32450" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc32_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>One of the levers randomly takes you to a “lab” area with a tin (see above, I haven’t worked out the number’s meaning yet), another deathtrap room, a potion that kills you if you drink it, and a steel locker that explodes if you open it.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32452" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc33_pic/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc33_pic" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32452" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc33_pic.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>Another lever goes to a forest area with a “pod” containing an “amulet”. The amulet has no description if you look at it and you can’t WEAR it.</p>
<p>Finally the only thing I seem to be “stuck” on is a locked door. I can’t refer to it in any way and the KEY I had at the start of the game doesn’t work.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="32454" data-permalink="https://bluerenga.blog/2024/02/01/forbidden-city-apps-1982/fc34/" data-orig-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png" data-orig-size="768,544" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fc34" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png?w=768" src="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png?w=1000" alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32454" srcset="https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png 768w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png?w=150&h=106 150w, https://bluerenga.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/fc34.png?w=300&h=213 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></p>
<p>This is one of those games where there aren’t really “puzzles” to struggle on as much as trying anything to get the game to recognize an interaction. For the record, I’ve got </p>
<p>a plastic cube (with a cryptogram that turns into “rubik got here too”)<br />
a helmet (with several small lights)<br />
an amulet<br />
a flash of luminous blue liquid (that makes you heavy and kills you)<br />
a key (from the start of the game)<br />
a silver spoon<br />
a tin (with the number hint)<br />
a notebook (with the “go twice” hint)<br />
a black metal rod (that was used to open the hidden doorway)</p>
<p>I trust either the next steps will be very simple or impossible; either way, based on the length of the author’s other game, I expect my finale here to be in my next post.</p>
Renga in Bluehttps://bluerenga.blogChoice of Games LLC: Don’t Wake Me Up—A night in cyberspace you’ll never remember.https://www.choiceofgames.com/?p=79932024-02-01T14:55:38+00:00
<p><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/category/user-made-games/">Hosted Games</a> has a new game for you to play!</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-full"><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="408" height="272" data-attachment-id="7753" data-permalink="https://www.choiceofgames.com/web408-286/" data-orig-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1.png" data-orig-size="408,272" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="web408" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1-300x200.png" data-large-file="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1.png" src="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1.png" alt="Don't Wake Me Up" class="wp-image-7753" srcset="https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1.png 408w, https://www.choiceofgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/web408-1-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px" /></a></figure></div>
<p>You’re trapped in a malfunctioning virtual reality with no memories. No memories, except of every video game you’ve ever played. Jack into a wild night in a virtual world you’ll never remember.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/dont-wake-me-up/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/dont-wake-me-up/"><em>Don’t Wake Me Up</em></a> is a 400,000-word interactive novel about love in video games, where your choices control the story. Entirely text-based, and driven by your imagination. It is written by Baudelaire Welch, a professional game screenwriter currently working as a companion character designer for RPGs.</p>
<p>Armed with puns, pop culture, and a sharp dose of sarcasm, can you muddle your way through levels of satirical video game pastiches, back to reality?</p>
<p>Adventure through virtual worlds alongside a delusional gamer, an actual emo vampire (who really wishes he wasn’t an emo vampire), a poet from outer space, and a dashing princess in shining armor, among others! And perhaps, just perhaps, learn a bit too much about the kind of person you are when the real world isn’t watching.</p>
<p>A satire of the trapped-in-a-video-game genre, and a tragicomedy on the theme of dating sims.</p>
<ul>
<li>Play as nonbinary, male, female, straight or queer.</li>
<li>Travel through 6 worlds inspired by different video game genres</li>
<li>Wield a weaponised top hat</li>
<li>Rack your brains in a spaceship escape level inspired by old-school adventure games</li>
<li>Compete in a classical music-themed monster truck rally</li>
<li>Lose yourself in a cyberpunk casino</li>
<li>Date the Ultimate Video Game Fanservice Vampire</li>
<li>Or, date the Ultimate Video Game ‘Best Girl’ Waifu</li>
<li>A period piece honed in early 2010s internet cringe</li>
<li>Bifurcates entirely halfway through the game based on your love interest.</li>
</ul>
<p>Sometimes true love is a wrong dialogue choice.</p>
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<p>Baudelaire developed this game using <a href="https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescript-intro/">ChoiceScript</a>, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own</p>
Choice of Games LLChttps://www.choiceofgames.com