Hey, I'm a total n00be, please eat me with butter.

[James Bond]

What the Wraith is trying to show is that Marc couldn't help these people, even if he had the gift of omnicients, able to see into the future and become budds with everyone to sty to fix them. I'd say that HA never met AIDS archer in real life, but what the wraith is saying is that even if he *did*, *and* was able to see the future, there is nothing he could have done to change it. But Avenger screws up Wraith's plan by prooving him completely wrong. Unless, of course, you're a total goober like me and fuck them all up. ;)

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, Venger got thrown into those roles Quantum Leap style; I didn't mean for it to come off like he knew the Succubus back then and was the AIDS Archer's roommate.

Incidently, if I had written the game with a modicum of proper depth, it would have been clear that the Succubus had dated a number of other guys in the super-hero community and got badly dumped by every single one, thus expotentially increasing her self-esteem problems that had already started as a teenager. So that's what that scene was supposed to be about.

Do you still plan on doing The Art of Heartbreak?

You betcha. Current plan is like so:

3/31/03: Submit the current thing to the Spring Thing

4/25/03: Submit this little idea I had for Doe's IF Art Show

5/03 -- ??: I would love to work with Ben "Pinback" Parrish on a game, especially since I said that I would put all his columns into .z5 format (and did not) and since I said I'd help him out with Burning Down The House (and did not). I had mentioned this a few months ago, but then realized that it was going to be months before I finished the current one... so I immediately stopped talking about it before I dug myself into a third hole. Actually, what would be great would be if the bunch of us all got to Vegas and we made a graphical text adventure with YOU GUYS starring in it! But more on that in a couple more months.

?? -- ???: Code & release 'Art of Heartbreak,' either for the 2003 competition if Ben and I don't get together on a game, or right after that if we do.

[Dana Carvey]

No reason to be so mean Mister Carvey.

WRONG!!

Insulting others gives me an erection!

STILL WRONG!!

The Red Wraith, for whom the Holy Avenger has been a project since childhood, was testing his experiment to see if he still cared enough to find solutions for other people's problems in the depths of his own despair.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

This is Dana Carvey as that MachLaughlin guy, right?

[Dana Carvey]

This is Dana Carvey as that MachLaughlin guy, right?

WRO... yeah, pretty much.

[CDJ Groupie]

Whew, that's a relief. You have no idea how disappointed I was when Pantheon never materialized.

[James Bond]

How about Magic Jar? Did that regenerate into a different game or something?
ACS-wise, I just think its interesting that if you choose to not kill Sparky, the wraith shows you the torture scene, whereas when you say "killthe motherfucker" you get the sublime pleasure of killing him, but without seeing exactly how it would work. I realize that it works like a charm thematically, but if I were the wraith I'd show him the torture scene and *then* ask.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

How about Magic Jar? Did that regenerate into a different game or something?

Oh wow, that's a serious blast from the past.

Just so everyone knows what we're talking about: after I put CDJ in the 1999 competition, I created a little webpage for it on my Geocities site. I had decided what I wanted my next game to be, and it was going to be based on the Dungeons and Dragons spell called "Magic Jar." Magic Jar is a spell that basically revolves around possession: you have a gem or a crystal or something that one's "soul" goes into, and from there you'd (if you were the caster) be able to hop into another body... displacing the soul that was in that body into the jar. Anyway, the beginning of the game would relate how a bunch of adventurers went to stop a wizard and (here my memory gets a little fuzzy) either the wizard casts magic jar and displaces the player character, or else the player character does it and his body dies. Either way, there is a cave-in and the PC is trapped in a gem.

A bunch of years pass until there is an earthquake, and a single spider gets down to where the gem is. You basically possess the spider and then a bunch of different animals until you can get yourself into a freshly killed body. From *there*, you'd go get yourself a heaping of revenge on the wizard you were trying to whack all those years ago.

Anyway, I made the mistake of advertising the game way, waaaaay before I was ready. It could still be an alright game, I guess, but at the time there was a lot of people in the IF community who didn't like games set in a lazy / D&D fantasy setting, so much to the point where they wouldn't even play it if it looked like that was the genre that the game was in. I eventually took the game down from the page, and now I am firmly in the "don't mention your game as anything but "my work-in-progress" camp. Luckily for me, I didn't announce that I was working on it on raif or anything.

To answer your question, I don't currently have any plans for that game, JB. In retrospect, it'd probably make a better first-person perspective game, or Morrowind mod or something than it would a text game. Good job remembering that one, though. I had a bit of a flashback when I saw your message. Heh.

[Debaser]

Hey, I remember Magic Jar! Sort of. The description sounds like something Coktel Vision would have produced. Don't ask me why, bu I mean it in a good way. I think. <s>Geisha</s> Gobliins was good fun, right?

[Lex]

I am depressed now; I always thought Magic Jar was the name of the next CDJ game; Avandre is scared-shit of having a son in CDJ, and Kieron says something along the lines of "Christ, it's not like she had a Magic Jar of your man-sperm sitting on her mantlepiece for 5 years."

I always thought it would be about him finding out this was exactly the case.

But, boo hoo. Where's the beef?

Also: Robb, slowly uploading throughout the nights, some more pictures have been appearing in my account; I know it's too late to use them, but one might be interesting for "Insertion" somewhere ;)

Also; Just took that one of my lifting and X-Box, but I guess you don't need that anymore.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Keep sending them. If I can fit them in I will fit them in. Better to have them than not -- I will be working on this thing pretty much every single night from here until the 31st, so there may still be time.

Re: X-box big lol: Yes, send that one, blast you to Hades! Send it or everyone on this bus dies!