Roody Yogurt Reviews Interactive Fiction

by **Lysander** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:32 am

Hey wow, sorry I missed this! That is actually a very good question. I never did think about it that way, but there might be some logic to it. It's hard for me to say either way because, as you don't have my experience, I don't have the experience of being sighted; so I've no idea how much I'd learn to filter out. In the back of my mind I've always wanted to write a whole IF game that won't allow you to use the verb >examine, because well... I don't see anyone else doing that better. I think it would be neat because >x is such a ubiquitous ; command, dating bak to adventure and not really touched since. Even the most experimental of IF (So Far etc) tries not relying on it for brief periods. There might be a good reason for that, but I'll never know until I try.

(Oh, and you are totally fine--I wasn't even mad earlier, I was just trolling the only other disabled person on the board. No room for friends in this world.)

by **Flack** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:15 am

Lysander, I wonder if your approach of adding descriptions to objects not specifically mentioned might have to do with your lack of sight? I was just thinking, as a sighted person, in a new environment I rely highly (perhaps initially solely) on visual clues, whereas a non-sighted person might be more apt to rely on previous experiences to assume what's in his or her immediate environment.

I don't think one approach is necessarily right or wrong. But in interactive fiction there are no pictures, so a sighted person could interpret a description as "this is everything you can see that's important" whereas a non-sighted person might not rely as heavily on the description, as they probably do more exploring of their local environment on a day-to-day basis and might be more apt to explore things not specifically listed in a game's description.

(If any of my terms in this message are not politically correct or offensive, I apologize in advance; it comes from ignorance, not malicious intent.)

by **Lysander** » Sat May 12, 2012 1:57 am

Marcus's entire plot line (accept a bit of history) is introduced and wrapped in the intro so I don't mind spoiling it to the max. Absolutely no one picked up on something I thought was inordinantly clever, which is that the entire graveyard scene is a metaphor. The creature that attacks is meant to be a physical embodyment of addiction--it has "wings," it has noxious chemical breath, and its attacks all center around incapacitation either by injection (IE when Marcus is speared) or contact poisons. It targets Marcus first because he's so firmly in its grip, but as she's delt with addiction in the past it also will just as soon go after the PC. Alone, neither of them are strong enough to face it; all they can do is run. If you fail the conversation, Marcus gives up, and lets addiction own him (AKA he gets "killed"). The PC can run, leaving the junky as a lost cause, and keep it at bay for a while, but as marcus says, it keeps coming back (and would again later on in the game, but we don't get there). The only way to truly put the whole mess behind you is to work together on literally burying both of their demons.

My favorit thing about this metaphor is that it's not anything overt; it's just... there. So if you like depth, then depth I have provided, but if you don't care at all then the game still works on a tangible level.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri May 11, 2012 9:10 pm

I feel we have covered basically everything I had something to say about, but I <i>did</i> want to mention one last thing before I put my end of this to rest. I just want to say that while exactly what closure was being attained when you save <spoiler> was unclear, that scene was surprisingly touching, making the most hectic part of the game also the most satisfying. So, good work on that!

by **Lysander** » Fri May 11, 2012 8:57 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:I don't think that the reader confuses your voice with the characters' voices, but the game swings issues around like weighty sledgehammers so its natural to infer a somewhat-shared worldview.

It does, and I do, but it's mostly just meant to establish "this person has extreme opinions"; you're not meant to agree as such, just understand where she's coming from. I get how that's distracting though so mayhaps I should dial it back. The thing that intrigues me is most of the people who have been really negative about her also expressed a desire to keep playing after the intro was done. That seems totally contradictary to me, but I think it would be kind of awesome to make a game where you start off hating yourself and then change those feelings over the course of it. That's fairly common to do with characters, NPCs, etc. But I don't recall it being done to a player character in a game before.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:I know you're trying to get us to empathize with the character, but it just feels a bit forced.

That's good feedback, I appreciate it. When I was writing it I kept worrying that she wasn't relatable enough and I had thought, then, that if people weren't feelin' it they'd stop playing. I can probably trim back on the angst some near the end.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:the way the game throws around big issues, it feels like it's trying to make statements, somewhat detracting from the narrative.

Yeah, people seem nervous I'm going to turn it into some preachy message about the evils of <fill>. One of the Bruce's said something to this effect on a blog, I think. its not my intent at all. If there is any message, I suppose it would be not to condemn people you don't know well. But even that isn't the kind of stuff I'm consciously thinking about when I write. I'm just telling a story.

Roody_Yogurt wrote: I'm not suggesting throwing out the issues, but some more subtlety could be effective.

It is heavy handed. There are reasons for this but it would spoil things to say much more. I would hope that it would make sense in the context of the finished work. Time will just have to tell on that one. It doesn't help that I am not the most subtle of people. Lil from column a, lil from column b...

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Interesting. I didn't think the "other-world" section started until after the "crazy hick" part, so many of the tone things that bothered me the most happened in what I thought was the real world.

Everyone has had a different problem with that scene at the ranch house. Most people were mad that you had to examine gate twice. My thinking was that a person in that situation would look at the gate, move on, try abunch of crap and not be able to leave, then look at the gate again, hense "looking closer...". I was trying to be clever and atmospheric, working the "you can't go that way" into the experience. It was my attempt at pacing. But most people didn't think to do it a second time so that frustration ended up taking them out of the game, so that totally backfired. This is why I do heavy handed. ;)

My point is this: that scene has given me more trouble than any other, all told. I originally had players just go from mist to coffin, which worked much better because the lack of being gut shot meant the slow reveal of coffin that I intended was not completely obviously telegraphed, and actually worked and was unsettling. It also went and confused things--I was thinking that the "you are in a totally different place with no way out" would clue people into things being not as they seemed, but that clearly was not enough for everybody. I can defend all these points but it doesn't matter; no one seemed to get it, so I might just take it out, lest people give it more significance than it deserves.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri May 11, 2012 8:08 pm

Lysander wrote:Yeah, uh, no. If I ever do end up finishing it I don't want to spoil too much, but I wasn't going for an abortion angle at all--the lost child is more a thematic element than anything else. And she's not a whore, not even an x-whore--I didn't explain this right out because I intended to do it in trippy flashback at a later point in the game. Basically how it went was: she did a lot of drugs, then one of her friends died in front of her of an overdoce, so she tried to get off drugs, had a hard time coping with all that, so she turned to sex. As... stress relief.

Ah, ok, I got confused on the chronology there. I had read it as she and her friends were junkies, and in the last days of her using, things were so hard up that she started whoring for money, then her friends died and she decided to clean up... but yeah, I guess Marcus was already dead during her "whoring".

Lysander wrote:As a first time IF author people have no idea what to expect from me, so when they see that my protagonist is a crabby bitch who hates everything they come to the conclusion that I am a crabby bitch who hates everything. I'll touch on this more later, but I don't think people realize the degree to which I have divorced my PC's voice from my authorial voice.

Yeah, I don't think that the reader confuses your voice with the characters' voices, but the game swings issues around like weighty sledgehammers so its natural to infer a somewhat-shared worldview.

Lysander wrote:I don't think that's strange at all. Every story needs conflict; what better than to drop a girl into asetting where a lot of people don't like girls?

True, but I think it's kind of simplistic for that to be a female character's main conflict. I think a balanced character/world would combat several injustices per person, not just "world hates gay guy because he is gay" and "world hates girl because she is girl". I know you're trying to get us to empathize with the character, but it just feels a bit forced.

Lysander wrote:Fair enough. The tone of the game is somewhat unrelenting. I had hoped that all the custom responses (more on that later) would break up the dismalness but people seem to be coming away from it with a bad taste.

The humor is appreciated, but the way the game throws around big issues, it feels like it's trying to make statements, somewhat detracting from the narrative. I'm not suggesting throwing out the issues, but some more subtlety could be effective.

Lysander wrote:In my defense, she's in an other-world, at this point, so everything she sees is filtered through the lens of her perception and magnified to horror-level.

Interesting. I didn't think the "other-world" section started until after the "crazy hick" part, so many of the tone things that bothered me the most happened in what I thought was the real world. If the entire game is in the other-world, I guess I was wrong.

Lysander wrote:
Roody_Yogurt wrote:The writing is quite flavorful throughout (something that it even comments on at one point).
I commented on my own writing? I don't quite recall what you're referring to.

The exact quote is:

The trees lean over the path, branches curling down, giving an impression of a set of teeth waiting for the perfect moment to clamp... You shake yourself. Now's not the time for flavor text.

I just felt it was funny since it seemed like 90% of the prose was flavor text.

Lysander wrote:]
Correct. That is exactly what I am doing. Did you try it?

(on allowing the player to refer to anything)

It is true. In most cases, I did not try to interact with most things, and when I saw a lot of things mentioned, I just thought to myself, man, I bet that's not implemented. I admire your goal and wish you the best of luck with it. It is that kind of dedication that will breed diehard fans.

Just the same, it could just be my own prejudices against verbose games (as I am annoyed when things command too much of my attention), but I speculate that past wordy games have trained me not to poke around with stuff, just as an under-described game might also do.

Still, your attitude towards implementation is to be commended.

by **Lysander** » Fri May 11, 2012 6:45 pm

Thanks a lot for this.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Disappointingly, it attacks somewhat easy targets like drug addicts and sexual deviants and abusers. Even the ex-junkie, ex-whore protagonist, after having cleaned up her life, is living in some kind of "cautionary tale" limbo (both figuratively and eventually literally). There's some foreshadowing that the game's central issue will be the protagonist's guilt over an abortion (going for some kind of botched-childhood trifecta)- I could be wrong; maybe that is not the case.

Yeah, uh, no. If I ever do end up finishing it I don't want to spoil too much, but I wasn't going for an abortion angle at all--the lost child is more a thematic element than anything else. And she's not a whore, not even an x-whore--I didn't explain this right out because I intended to do it in trippy flashback at a later point in the game. Basically how it went was: she did a lot of drugs, then one of her friends died in front of her of an overdoce, so she tried to get off drugs, had a hard time coping with all that, so she turned to sex. As... stress relief.

I am very character driven with my writing, and I think that that tripped me up a little bit when writing a lot of the PC's remarks to everything. As a first time IF author people have no idea what to expect from me, so when they see that my protagonist is a crabby bitch who hates everything they come to the conclusion that I am a crabby bitch who hates everything. I'll touch on this more later, but I don't think people realize the degree to which I have divorced my PC's voice from my authorial voice.

Roody_Yogurt wrote: The game has some sympathy for the PC and her drug-addled friends.

I have a ton of sympathy for my PC. I would like for the player to also have sympathy for this PC. More than that--if the player has no sympathy for the PC then the rest of the game is not going to be worth playing because it is literally all about her. The idea was to set up this girl as really bitter and resentful and not terribly personable, then peal back her onion, so to speak, over the course of the game, so you get a good look at how someone so jaded and unlikeable on the surface got that way.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:For a game with a female protagonist, it makes some odd choices, portraying the world as largely misogynistic.

I don't think that's strange at all. Every story needs conflict; what better than to drop a girl into asetting where a lot of people don't like girls?

Roody_Yogurt wrote:I can understand the reasoning for the abundance of this in the game, I think it loses its plausibility and effect when it's painted with such broad strokes.

Fair enough. The tone of the game is somewhat unrelenting. I had hoped that all the custom responses (more on that later) would break up the dismalness but people seem to be coming away from it with a bad taste. In my defense, she's in an other-world, at this point, so everything she sees is filtered through the lens of her perception and magnified to horror-level. I'm glad people are unsettled, that means I was able to communicate something but people seem to take that as a failing of the game so I'm not sure quite what to do. (besides, well, finish it, I guess)

The scary hicks attack because she is fixing their gate? Is that an attempt at some Southern dialect, like "she's fixing to break through our gate"?[/quote]

I hate to do this because it sounds so fucking pretentious, but that bit isn't supposed to make sense. It's actually a dream the person I'm basing this on had. It doesn't have much more significance than to be creepy.

Roody_Yogurt wrote: I'm also not sure how an ex-junkie working a crappy job somehow has the physique of a young Terminator 2 Linda Hamilton. I mean, it's kind of cute in its sheer insensibility, but still.

Years of training.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:The writing is quite flavorful throughout (something that it even comments on at one point).

I commented on my own writing? I don't quite recall what you're referring to.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Encourage the player to refer to one not-mentioned object and you're basically saying, okay, refer to anything you can think of.

Correct. That is exactly what I am doing. Did you try it?

I've implamented custom descriptions for the car's radiator, the radio, the air conditioning, the back seat, what's beneath the back seat, the trunk, the hood, trees on the twisty path, mist, ground, the gate, the stable house, the porch, and so it goes. Most of those have responses if you try and itneract with them in ways that make sense as well (climb a tree or turn on the radio, for instance). One of my favorit things about IF is the idea that you are walking about in a world. There is no reason to mention the glove compartment in the description of the car because it has no relevance to the story, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. If a player tries to >x glove compartment and is told there is no glove compartment when we all know cars have glove compartments, that reminds the player he's typing into a computer program, rather than inhabiting a world. Immersing a player into your world is, to me, the whole point. It may seem infesable to program in absolutely every object every player can think of, but I don't think it is. If someone complains to me "I tried to do <thing> but the game wouldn't let me," nine times out of ten I will implament that thing. Everywhere I can place custom text is an opportunity for the player to learn more about his character and the world he's in. Every one of these easter eggs is another gem for a player to discover on his third or fifth playthrough when he thought oh hey just for fun I'll >x seatbelts and finds out that not only did I write a joke there, but he can belt himself in and doing that reveals a character point way earlier than I intend to introduce it plot-wise. That stuff is fun. Games are supposed to be fun.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the "only expect to refer to objects I refer to in the flavor text" method is a reasonable suspension of disbelief agreement to make between author and player, and it works great in tons of games written by people who aren't me. But 13-year-old me always felt vaguely cheated whenever I couldn't refer to an object I felt should be in a scene, so when the time came to write my own IF I thought I'd chalenge myself to throw in as much crap as possible and find ways to tie it all into the character.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:It doesn't seem like there are a ton of choices per "scene"

Yeah, really, the only major decisionpoint in the intro is the scene in the graveyard. As a player, I love interactivity; as an author, a branching plotline is a nightmare. This was my attempt to meld those two concepts: few split points that lead to different endings, but each split gives you lots of leeway. As far as that goes I don't think it's a problem for a game to have rails, because... well... it's a game. The trick is to hide them. And from what I've read I think that I succeeded rather well in that, at least.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri May 11, 2012 2:28 am

Okay, Lysander, one Obituary review coming up!

Obituary- (Written by Drew Mochak. Programming by Johnny Rivera.)
This review makes no effort to hide major plot points about the game. As such, it is not intended for anyone curious and hoping to play the game yet.

I'm glad Lysander called me on this. I've been meaning to play this game for a while; I was pretty bad about staying on top of the IF scene from the mid-to-late naughts.

My overall impression of this game is a mixed bag. There are a lot of elements to discuss so I'm going to have to break this down into sections.

THEME- This game has a major boner for flawed morality. Disappointingly, it attacks somewhat easy targets like drug addicts and sexual deviants and abusers. Even the ex-junkie, ex-whore protagonist, after having cleaned up her life, is living in some kind of "cautionary tale" limbo (both figuratively and eventually literally). There's some foreshadowing that the game's central issue will be the protagonist's guilt over an abortion (going for some kind of botched-childhood trifecta)- I could be wrong; maybe that is not the case. The game has some sympathy for the PC and her drug-addled friends. More than sympathy, though, it even makes that entertaining from time to time. When the game is not getting its jollies being superior to everything, it's actually quite interesting, especially since it admits that disavowing these things doesn't make automatically make life all better.

ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN- For a game with a female protagonist, it makes some odd choices, portraying the world as largely misogynistic. Take, for instance, the response to >XYZZY:

A sinister voice hisses "Wrong game, dumb bitch!"

Or when the PC herself complains about her car being a crabby old bitch needing her Midol. It's like, sure, you want to make the creepy father a woman-hater, I'll give you a free pass (although it's still a bit silly when anyone says "uppity" in this day and age), but while I can understand the reasoning for the abundance of this in the game, I think it loses its plausibility and effect when it's painted with such broad strokes.

LOGIC- Overall, logic was a bit hard to follow at points. Like, the car only starts when the protagonist doesn't want it to? When does anyone not want a car to start? The scary hicks attack because she is fixing their gate? Is that an attempt at some Southern dialect, like "she's fixing to break through our gate"? I mean, especially in the first example, the prose is trying really hard to inject humor and characterization, but that shouldn't come at the cost of total believability.

I'm also not sure how an ex-junkie working a crappy job somehow has the physique of a young Terminator 2 Linda Hamilton. I mean, it's kind of cute in its sheer insensibility, but still.

WRITING- The writing is quite flavorful throughout (something that it even comments on at one point). It's a bit more overwritten than my ideal kind of prose, but there are still a lot of good ideas in there. I'd say about half of the jokes worked for me, but some of those that worked were really funny and it casts the entire thing in a better light. I'm not familiar with the other games entered in that Introcomp, but it's easy to see how it could win over other intro games (especially if they were creatively uninspired).

IMPLEMENTATION- Despite all of the little asides and twists and turns in the narrative voice, I take issue with the level of implementation. First off, it does the I-0 thing where your car has a glove compartment that you can open. The glove compartment is not mentioned, but we can open it since we know cars have glove compartments. Anyhow, from a design point of view, I disagreed with this in I-0 and I disagree with it here.

The objects that the player can interact with is a delicate agreement between the author and the player. Encourage the player to refer to one not-mentioned object and you're basically saying, okay, refer to anything you can think of.

For a game like Obituary, where there is a lot of things mentioned in the flavor text, because of the "glove compartment incident", the player will feel that interacting with all of those things should merit responses; after all, those things were actually mentioned. It's my feeling that things like glove compartments should be mentioned so that when players run into the upper limit of things-that-are-implemented, they can shrug it off and go, "Ok, I can only expect that much."

CONCLUSION- So, all in all, Lysander, I think you are off to a good start. I think the prose could be honed a bit so it doesn't meander quite as much (so things like the protagonist's antagonistic relationship with her car don't draw quite as much attention away from the situation at hand). Scattered among the cliches (like the Nightbreed-esque beginning where the protagonist is called to some mysterious town, scary hicks, being buried alive, etc) are some really interesting inclusions, and the mere variance of ideas makes for an entertaining ride.

I don't recall if there was much debate about switching to another language or what the main holdup has been in terms of continuing its progress, but personally, I think you should maybe look into transferring the game to Undum ( http://www.undum.com ). It doesn't seem like there are a ton of choices per "scene" and with how the game's major emphasis is on the writing, I can imagine how it could be redesigned for something like that.

And that is my Obituary review!

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri May 11, 2012 12:57 am

It's like, sure, I was able to get to "Africa" in the game and wander around and solve some puzzles back in the day, but I doubt I have the patience to get very far today. I can't even get to the island in Pirate Adventure anymore because I get too frustrated. Ah, the resilience of youth, I guess.

I know I figured out that mouse thing, though, so go me, I guess.

As far as African Adventure authorship goes, everything I see attributes the game to "R. & B. Fullerton". In fact, the 1997 PC port on the IF Archive has this note in the readme:

This is the MS-DOS port of an old Commodore 64 game called
African Adventure. This was ported to GW-BASIC, then compiled
using the excellent PowerBASIC compiler. This was ported in
September, 1997 by Tony Baechler with help from Audrey De Lisle.

by **Flack** » Tue May 08, 2012 4:33 am

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Huh, I have both read that blog and had African Adventure for my C64. That'd be crazy if it is the same guy.

Anyhow, without looking at the walkthrough, I remember using some some smelly balm or something to get wood without being bitten by a poisonous spider, giving some trinkets to some natives (the game is kind of racist, yeah), killing the snake in the tree, and jumping over some quicksand. I remember at one point, you "escape" the game and enter a computer world. I never got more than, say, half way through the game, though.

The behind-the-curtain computer room really broke my young mind, though, as it just caught me so off-guard that this seemingly serious game (I thought the beginning quote about Dr. Livingston had such gravitas) actually didn't take itself seriously at all.

Ok, think I'll read that walkthrough now.

Oh, you were saying that dude is only responsible for the PC port. Gotcha.

I'm not sure if he's responsible for the C64 version or not. The C64 version says "Green Valley Publishing" and the PC version just has his name. I will e-mail him and find out.

You got way, way further (farther?) in the game than I ever would have. It's funny how quickly modern IF spoils you. In the first room I typed LOOK CLOSET and GO CLOSET and LOOK CLOSET again and never found anything. But I never typed OPEN CLOSET (there's no hint of a door) to get some of the things you need for the adventure.

The game revolves around getting treasure from natives, but there's no real rhyme or reason as to who will take what in trade. And not only can you get the game in an unwinnable state, but it hovers there at all times. In the beginning you find a mouse which, at some point, you let loose and an animal chases it, freeing up an area for you. Let it go at the wrong time and it disappears and well that'll be the end of the game.

I also found the map pretty confusing. At the beginning of the game you are in a boat and can only head E, to shore. Once on shore, you can go S, and then W, and repeat those directions indefinitely. And what's worse is, while on land, most of the locations repeat, so every other location has a pile of wood with a spider in it.

by **Lysander** » Tue May 08, 2012 2:55 am

These posts are making me want to get out the old, unfair IF that nobody remembers like The House At The Edge Of Time or a Conrad Button game and see how long it takes me to throw the piece of shit out the window.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Mon May 07, 2012 10:45 pm

Oh, you were saying that dude is only responsible for the PC port. Gotcha.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Mon May 07, 2012 10:38 pm

Huh, I have both read that blog and had African Adventure for my C64. That'd be crazy if it is the same guy.

Anyhow, without looking at the walkthrough, I remember using some some smelly balm or something to get wood without being bitten by a poisonous spider, giving some trinkets to some natives (the game is kind of racist, yeah), killing the snake in the tree, and jumping over some quicksand. I remember at one point, you "escape" the game and enter a computer world. I never got more than, say, half way through the game, though.

The behind-the-curtain computer room really broke my young mind, though, as it just caught me so off-guard that this seemingly serious game (I thought the beginning quote about Dr. Livingston had such gravitas) actually didn't take itself seriously at all.

Ok, think I'll read that walkthrough now.

by **Flack** » Mon May 07, 2012 10:00 pm

Flack wrote:Text adventures on the C64 were ev-ery-where. I just picked up a disk the other day (one of those magazine-style disks) and there were two on there that I couldn't find in Google. And yeah, they were horrible, both in writing and in coding.

I still haven't figured out a good way to transcribe them other than manually. Maybe I'll end up doing that.

I played "African Adventure" earlier this evening. The version I played shows (c) 1985, although Abandonia has a version for the PC that was released in 1997. That version is attributed to Tony Baechler, who apparently is still active in IF circles. I believe this is Tony's blog:

http://www.inthecompanyofgrues.com

I would be curious to see how far any of you guys can get in this game without peeking at the walkthru. I read it and can't believe that anyone could possibly ever get even halfway through this game.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/842/A ... nture.html

by **Lysander** » Mon May 07, 2012 2:14 am

Probably, but I don't recall signing anything. Unless someone slipped me something and signed for me while I was asleep, and that'll never stand up in court.

Besides, hey--content!

by **RetroRomper** » Sun May 06, 2012 6:36 pm

Lysander wrote:Okay, if you have a problem with personal attacks, then you really should leave this board because that is kind of all we do around here.

Isn't the unspoken pact we have to leave Tdarcos alone, based on the fact his arguments are too easy to invalidate and numerous enough that to refute him, is a complete waste of our time?

by **bruce** » Sun May 06, 2012 6:13 pm

Lysander wrote: Wow, you threaten me with lible the very next sentence after making up shit I said, that's fantastic. I'd give you a golden statue of internet douchebaggery, but fear you'd think it was delicious chocolate and hurt yourself.

I've missed you, Lysander.

Bruce

by **Lysander** » Sun May 06, 2012 2:54 am

Tdarcos wrote:Your inability to engage in a rational discussion without resorting to personal attacks shows that your intellectual capacity, and the validity of your opinions, is zero.

Okay, if you have a problem with personal attacks, then you really should leave this board because that is kind of all we do around here. But more to the point, the -point- goddamnit, which you seem to have missed despite me saying it 6 ways, is this: with that "we," you claimed yourself to be suffering from afflictions you do not in fact suffer. As one who does, I find that offensive. And DEMAND an apology!

Tdarcos wrote:I did not make any statements criticizing other people or insulting them.

No, you just insinuated that blind people: can't use computers without someone helping them, can't type at all, are unaproachable, unable to communicate, penny pinch worse than the jews, and oh, yeah--can't love art. But that's not insulting *people*, because--

Tdarcos wrote:your comments make you a creature I must exclude from the class of entities known as human beings, and as that creature you are at least a thousand times worse.

--We're actually inhuman. Nice, guy. Really nice.

Tdarcos wrote:if you disagreed, the answer would have been to say where you thought I was wrong, not to try to claim my opinions are wrong because I'm overweight.

I did say where your opinions were wrong, you just chose not to quote them in the message responding to me to say you're not responding to me. What I didn't say, is "you are wrong because you are fat." What I actually said was more along the lines of, "you are fat, not blind, and also wrong about blind people. So stop pretending otherwise."

Tdarcos wrote:I never said any such thing and you know it. I find your vapid and sophomoric commentary to be at a minimum ridiculous and more likely, intentionally disingenuous, bordering on libel.

Wow, you threaten me with lible the very next sentence after making up shit I said, that's fantastic. I'd give you a golden statue of internet douchebaggery, but fear you'd think it was delicious chocolate and hurt yourself.

Tdarcos wrote:I have done nothing but state my opinions

You said that blind people can't code without expensive software. That is not an opinion, you were stating a fact. And it's false. Hense, I corrected you. You're welcome.

Tdarcos wrote:And yet, another example of your incompetence is shown by your misspelling of what I believe you meant, the word 'syphilis',

Did... you seriously just... on purpose go "hurr durr that blind guy can't see the words, he is so stupid! Durr durr hurr."? You know what else is hilarious? You, trying to escape an earthquake.

Tdarcos wrote:I don't bother with and stay away from incompetents; I have enough brain damage to deal with from environmental causes; I don't need to acquire more by responding to them.

Well you just did. Neaner neaner!

by **Tdarcos** » Sun May 06, 2012 1:04 am

Lysander wrote:The hell is this we shit? Look pal, until your corpulence reaches the point where the only thing you can see is your own swelling, mammoth teets, then don't go putting yourself in a group with me. Kthx.

Your inability to engage in a rational discussion without resorting to personal attacks shows that your intellectual capacity, and the validity of your opinions, is zero.

I did not make any statements criticizing other people or insulting them. Your inability to do the same means that I won't even bother trying to respond to your incompetence.

I made statements about something, and if you disagreed, the answer would have been to say where you thought I was wrong, not to try to claim my opinions are wrong because I'm overweight.

Lysander wrote:Are you... suggesting blind slave labor?

I never said any such thing and you know it. I find your vapid and sophomoric commentary to be at a minimum ridiculous and more likely, intentionally disingenuous, bordering on libel.

Lysander wrote:You are a truly horrible person who should have died of cyphalus . Good DAY, sir!

Look who's talking. I have done nothing but state my opinions, you on the other hand have thrown ad-hominem attacks at me, and wished me dead of a horrible and sickening disease, while I have done nothing to you. If my comments make me a horrible person then your comments make you a creature I must exclude from the class of entities known as human beings, and as that creature you are at least a thousand times worse.

And yet, another example of your incompetence is shown by your misspelling of what I believe you meant, the word 'syphilis', a type of venereal disease.

I think I was wrong; I make jokes about the 'cretinous reprobates' on Caltrops. Looks like at least one has infested his inability to think upon this community.

I don't bother with and stay away from incompetents; I have enough brain damage to deal with from environmental causes; I don't need to acquire more by responding to them.

by **Lysander** » Sat May 05, 2012 7:25 pm

Haha. Hiya everyone!

Rooty, if you would review my intro of Obituary sometime, that would be very nice of you. I am kind of irritated that that thing will probably never get finished but then again I could always go learn I7 myself if I cared enough, so, obviously I don't. In any case...

Tdarcos wrote:Considering that we don't have the ability to program through voice commands,

The hell is this we shit? Look pal, until your corpulence reaches the point where the only thing you can see is your own swelling, mammoth teets, then don't go putting yourself in a group with me. Kthx.

Tdarcos wrote:e.g., to write programs if you're not sighted, it is very hard without expensive software (or having a sighted assistant) to work on a program to run on a machine if you actually are blind.

Two things.

1:

http://www.nvda-project.org/

2: Shut it.

Seriously? Don't, like, tell me what I can't do, okay? Because you know nothing about this.

Tdarcos wrote:Or the guy would have to find someone who is blind and run the game through him and get his comments.

Sure, but that'd never happen. Blind people are a skiddish lot, always scurrying from shadow to shadow for fear of being squashed by Big Sighted. Capturing one in the wild may be difficult; bring tranqualizers, as their bite will infect you with blind. It is known.

Tdarcos wrote:I mean, there are a lot of things I know only as a result of being in a wheelchair that I otherwise wouldn't realize. There are also things I know as a powered wheelchair user that I did not know during the two years I was using a manual wheelchair

That's great, Paul, and exactly how much of that time did you spend being blind? You're right, up there--you don't know what it's like until you are actually in that situation. That seemed to me to be the gist of this paragraph, right? Which is fine, apart from it completely invalidating the entire rest of the goddamn post. What is, like, wrong with you?

Tdarcos wrote:Again, considering that the amount of money available for developing a text adventure is essentially zero, someone is only going to do this because of their love of the genre. I mean, at least writing fiction has lots of paying outlets, writing interactive fiction has almost no paying outlets except perhaps for games written for cell phones and tablet computers, by purchasers interested in a text-type adventure, a very small market. Regular games have much larger markets and there is a much bigger range of targets for those apps.

Which is why there are so many mainstream games that have the thoughts of the blind in m--hahaa, just kidding. There are actually 0 mainstream games that have any interest in courting the blind community. The lazy, fat and immobilized market, on the other hand, seems to be the only demographic mainstream game developers appear to care about--lucky break! Blind people play text games because blind people can play text games. This makes them a larger percentage than normal. I don't know why you seem to think that blind people can't also love the genre, but, uh, you're wrong. About this, and so many other things.

Tdarcos wrote:So again, given this, to be able to actually develop in such a manner that the way the game operates shows descriptions in a way that a blind person would, would require that the author find a blind person and ask them if the descriptions were good or if they would use different descriptions, presuming the person was able to do so.

Again! Yeah, it's true, blind people are very difficult communicators in person. I was born blind, understand, so I never saw how to make the mouth sounds that form human speech. I had to learn to speak in mime, which is fuckin' retarded, because I can't even see my own motions. So for all I know i'm giving everyone the jerk-off gesture when I'm just trying to say hi. What can I say, inner city school disctrict sucked.

Tdarcos wrote:And unless they are going to pony up money out of their own pocket to do so, they'd have to get this blind person to do so for free, too.

Are you... suggesting blind slave labor? You are a truly horrible person who should have died of cyphalus . Good DAY, sir!

Roody Yogurt Reviews Interactive Fiction

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