Jolt Country

Hey, all you (semi) tallented people. I call myself James Bond in a pathetic attempt to keep myself annonimous. Anyway, I thought I'd show up here and declare, for approximately the 69105th time (adjusted for inflation) that you guys rule. I've played all of Robb's games, except FOD. The fact that only two lines of text appear at a time on my screen *pisses me off*. Anyway, I like 'em all (although Revenger made me want to foam at the mouth and scream; it took at *least* 15 txds of the source code to figure out "scream bloody mary") and I'm eagerly awaiting new games, if any are coming. That actually leads me to an interesting idea I had a while back: how do you think A CRIMSON SPRING would do as a motion picture?

Before anything else, at some point you need to write in one of your messages, "Do you expect me to talk?" Just something to keep in mind.

At any rate, welcome to JC. I don't think I say "ICJ = Robb" anywhere on the site, so I'll say it here. Sorry about Revenger there. I probably could have written that a little bit better.

That actually leads me to an interesting idea I had a while back: how do you think A CRIMSON SPRING would do as a motion picture?

Now would be a good time for it, as there are a lot of comic and superhero movies in the Hollywood pipeline as of late. The special effects budget would just need to handle a guy with a pipe, a guy with claws and a chick that can fly, I guess. Oh, and the dude covered in snot, natch. I would probably want to take a good, hard, long look at the script, though: while it was as good as what I could devise in 2000, I've hopefully improved a bit.

But that is neither here nor there! Hope you have a great time with the BBS. Also, if I may, why is FOD only showing two lines on your display? Are you using a Palm device, or on a 640x480 resolution by any chance?

I had actually taken the time to write the damn thing out last year, but thanks to one of those ever-so-popular Hard Drive Crashes (TM) I lost it, and I haven't had the heart to start over. I pretty much ripped you completely off, with just about everything I could manage coming out of the debugged version of the source code. I had Marc narrating the whole thing via a Disembodied Voice (TM).. I wasn't sure which ending to use, so I put them all in. What I was thinking is that we could make it, like, a DVD-only release or something, so that we could put all 6 endings on. I think the full effect of the story isn't fully understood unless you see all the possible things Marc could have done, and their repercussions. But anyway, that's just my oppinion. :)
My problem with FoD was that I just downloaded the Hugo file, seeing as how I wantedd the raw game and no pictures, and I was running it on the DOS interpreter. Old goddamn computer; it was considered "up-to-date" in 1994, which is when I bought it. All it had was a 256-color VGA display. Fortunately I've got a new Dell (TM) so one of these days I'm gonna try it again.

James Bond wrote:I wasn't sure which ending to use, so I put them all in. What I was thinking is that we could make it, like, a DVD-only release or something, so that we could put all 6 endings on. I think the full effect of the story isn't fully understood unless you see all the possible things Marc could have done, and their repercussions. But anyway, that's just my oppinion. :)

Heh. If I had any testicles at all, and were going to re-tell that story in some fashion, I'd pick the one where Marc was being hunted down by the other members of the team because he killed so many people. But alas, I don't.

My problem with FoD was that I just downloaded the Hugo file, seeing as how I wantedd the raw game and no pictures, and I was running it on the DOS interpreter. Old goddamn computer; it was considered "up-to-date" in 1994, which is when I bought it. All it had was a 256-color VGA display. Fortunately I've got a new Dell (TM) so one of these days I'm gonna try it again.

Yeah, I kind of feel bad for not putting a text-only version of the game, but it was one of those trade-offs that I made at the last minute. I honestly couldn't remember, when I officially released the game, if I had any puzzles or events require use of info from the graphics display or not. I didn't think that was the case, but I couldn't say for sure. The game I am working on now will be setup the same way (graphics-only) but I think after this one I will pump out a few text-only games. That will certainly cut down on the development time, if nothing else.

You know, before I read the source code, I thought there were only two endings (the "Mucous blows everything up because you're a fucking psychopath ending and the gritty-yet-happy ending"). Yeah, the alts (especially the one you mention) feature some of your best writing, although I still rather object to the setup for reasons I won't go into.

Hey, semi-serious question for you, Robb. Have you ever considered doing old-fashioned straight-up non-interactive fiction? I'd always thought, had it been a short story-ish type thing rather than a game, Chicks Dig Jerks could have been seven or eight different kinds of awesome. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love you where you are to a large extent: You don't see writing of your style much at all in video games (while in, say, movies, it's been fairly prominent), but I've always wondered what you could put out if you weren't saddled with having to code and allow for player input.

Debaser wrote:Yeah, the alts (especially the one you mention) feature some of your best writing, although I still rather object to the setup for reasons I won't go into.

Well. the part that I personally find objectional, upon retrospect, is that I don't give any feedback during the game that killing people is going to have those kinds of consequences afterwards. In fact, I don't think I even make a distinction in the help section that "kill" is different from "attack." That was retarded on my part. The kill/attack distinction also makes ACS a game about being better to those that have ruined your life than they were to you, which comes out of left field, and one doesn't even really pick up on it unless they are scanning the source. Lousy, lousy, lousy.

Hey, semi-serious question for you, Robb. Have you ever considered doing old-fashioned straight-up non-interactive fiction? I'd always thought, had it been a short story-ish type thing rather than a game, Chicks Dig Jerks could have been seven or eight different kinds of awesome. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love you where you are to a large extent: You don't see writing of your style much at all in video games (while in, say, movies, it's been fairly prominent), but I've always wondered what you could put out if you weren't saddled with having to code and allow for player input.

Hey, thanks. I mostly don't think that the kind of stuff that I am able to write is engaging enough without active participation from the audience. For instance, if I have a hypercolor shirt on somebody in an IF game, the player can choose to >look at it. I can then go off on a riff regarding hypercolor shirts and feel okay about the effective non-sequiter, because it was the player who asked for it. Doing so otherwise, in static fiction, seems to me to be very self-indulgent. Like, "har, har, here's a comedy routine on... TEKWAR! Haw haw! Now here's one on... er... UPPER DECKERS! Mu-haw!!" I would think that writing like that -- riffing on objects -- would bug a lot of people who just wanted to read a book.

The other thing is, I really have no idea how an author creates an engaging plot without resorting to comedy at some point. I read books where this is the case (nobody was standing in front of a brick wall talking about religion and airplane peanuts in _Darkness at Noon_ and, in fact, I would hate to spend any time with any character anywhere near that book, but it's still one of my favorite reads) and there's this big blind spot when it comes to doing something like that on my own. I can recognize great plots in other novels, I just have trouble thinking in big terms like that on my own.

I do have two chapters of static fiction based on FoD on my hard drive, though. Eric Mayer said once that one of his dreams was being able to see one of his stories as a physical book, and that is the case with me as well. So hopefully someday. (So I will be saving all these messages to disk when I eventually start submitting the thing to agents and publishers, so that I have something to offset the volumes of rejection letters that I'll generate.)

"My Mom and Dad say if I'm a good boy and eat all my food/
I can go to the hardcore show and see FOD"

-Dead Milkmen, "Nutrition"


By the way, ICJ, the only game of yours I've played and finished was No Time to Squeal. It was real nice. I really enjoyed the Alice-esque stuff. Especially the snake's whispers and those two big heads that wanna eat'cha.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: For instance, if I have a hypercolor shirt on somebody in an IF game, the player can choose to >look at it. I can then go off on a riff regarding hypercolor shirts and feel okay about the effective non-sequiter, because it was the player who asked for it. Doing so otherwise, in static fiction, seems to me to be very self-indulgent. Like, "har, har, here's a comedy routine on... TEKWAR! Haw haw! Now here's one on... er... UPPER DECKERS! Mu-haw!!" I would think that writing like that -- riffing on objects -- would bug a lot of people who just wanted to read a book.

Seems like you could write a good article in Spin or Rolling Stone...you know those columnists on the back page that just describe something horrible but funny that happened to them or what not. Those columns/articles are small and concise enough that they're not self-indulgent, and yet they're very riff-y. In other words, seems that this style could be put to good use as a column, as opposed to a novel. I mean the riffing; I'm not saying you can only write columns. :)

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: The kill/attack distinction also makes ACS a game about being better to those that have ruined your life than they were to you, which comes out of left field, and one doesn't even really pick up on it unless they are scanning the source. Lousy, lousy, lousy.

I never had a problem with kill/attack. I mean, it's not like kill does anything unless the character is already down and out, yes? If you're trying to attack them at that point, I'd think you are probably planning something untoward anyway.

Nah, my problem (which I guess I will be going into) was the way the way it was "do the right thing, good (comparatively) things happen, do the wrong thing and bad shit goes down". It was okay, fine, make your point that "real heroes don't kill" but do it with some sort of thoughtfulness rather than having relatively arbitrary misfortune rain down upon the player. And yes, I understand that you were less making a moral message and more being thematically consistant with the battle for self-control in the face of horrible injustice that comes up from the initial conversations with Succubus onwards, and that the consequences aren't (for the most part) so arbitrary when you realize you've been told you were sitting on a powderkeg the entire game. But that's how it felt to me at the time.

Had you altered the "kill 'em all ending" so that, instead of getting blown up by snotrag's bomb, he instead got off consequence free but wracked with too much guilt to continue wearing the mask (maybe even succumbing to... whatever the fuck Red Wraith wanted him to succumb to), then you would have knocked that out of the proverbial ballpark.

Oh, and the one ending where Succubus dies and the game ends with a variation on the same line it started with. That was absolute gold, too.

Hey, thanks. I mostly don't think that the kind of stuff that I am able to write is engaging enough without active participation from the audience. For instance, if I have a hypercolor shirt on somebody in an IF game, the player can choose to >look at it. I can then go off on a riff regarding hypercolor shirts and feel okay about the effective non-sequiter, because it was the player who asked for it. Doing so otherwise, in static fiction, seems to me to be very self-indulgent. Like, "har, har, here's a comedy routine on... TEKWAR! Haw haw! Now here's one on... er... UPPER DECKERS! Mu-haw!!" I would think that writing like that -- riffing on objects -- would bug a lot of people who just wanted to read a book.

I think you'd be surprised. Bear in mind that all your IF has been essentially first person (even before you were using a code where changing the pronouns was easy). If you had a main character who was hyperactive and/or easily distracted (and/or hopped up on a fourth generation speed variant) and he just arbitrarily took broad swathes of time to wax rhetorical upon minor, stupid details of his landscape for paragraphs on end as a character trait, and then had him tell a story, I think it would be rather engaging.

One of my favorite books growing up was a novel by Steve Brust called The Phoenix Guards, which was basically a retelling of the three musketeers in this guy's "fantasy world based on a role-playing world" that all moderately successful fantasy authers seem to begin their careers working in. Really, the world itself was fairly ridiculous, and I only remember as much of the plot as I can map to movies I've seen on the original Dumas story, but stylistically I was fairly blown away. And really, the guy did just what I'm talking about (albeit in a pseudo-romantic rather than post-modern fashion). The narrator was this stuffy historian, who would go on for pages about the history of some incidental location the characters might visit , while the characters themselves all spoke in this very formal manner that forced them to take three or four lines to announce they were going down to breakfast. I don't know how well it would hold up now that I'm not fifteen, but that had the added disadvantage of describing things in a fictional world I had no inherent reason for caring about rather than things I can laugh at and say "yeah, righton, I hold the same opinion myself, high five!" about. The guy mentioned in a little meta-section at the end of the book that his target audience was people who enjoy the act of reading, of appreciating well put together strings of words, which is rather the whole reason I read you in the first place. Well, that and you're practically the only author in the entire legitimate IF scene willing to cuss and talk about boobies.

The other thing is, I really have no idea how an author creates an engaging plot without resorting to comedy at some point. I read books where this is the case (nobody was standing in front of a brick wall talking about religion and airplane peanuts in _Darkness at Noon_ and, in fact, I would hate to spend any time with any character anywhere near that book, but it's still one of my favorite reads) and there's this big blind spot when it comes to doing something like that on my own. I can recognize great plots in other novels, I just have trouble thinking in big terms like that on my own.

Plot's always been my Achilles heel as well, which I do think is part of the attraction of IF: you set up the characters and setting, and let the player do the heavy lifting of having them interact. But, really, ACS was already pretty straightforward and plot intensive. Granted, you'd need to space the conversations in the beginning out a bit for pacing's sake, but otherwise. Most of the humor in that one is either largely incidental, or the result of characters insulting each other which is fairly "natural" in terms of... um... which doesn't seem wedged in the way, say, all the video game descriptions in FOD might seem if they suddenly popped up in a novel.

Just wanted to say that I've been hitting the end of this thread a few times over the course of the day. Looper -- thanks for the kudos on No Time to Squeal. That was a fun one to do, and Mike Sousa is a genius. He got more work out of me than any manager I've ever had at a real job in my life.

Also: I agree with you, Debaser, regarding what you wrote regarding ACS. Thanks on that; I hadn't considered that at all until you said it... lots of good stuff there.

The guy mentioned in a little meta-section at the end of the book that his target audience was people who enjoy the act of reading, of appreciating well put together strings of words, which is rather the whole reason I read you in the first place.

That is a great take. Certainly, the books that I have gotten the most pleasure out of are written that way. My two favorite books are probably _When Gravity Fails_ and _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_, and they are definitely written that way. If an author has a Good Thing going, I don't personally care if he meanders for a bit. I want that author writing as long a book as possible. I certainly didn't think that I look at novels in a way that is alien from how everyone else does, but it's solid to know that there are other people -- people whose opinions are really quite valuable to me -- that feel the same way.

I don't know why, but I instinctively understood from the start the distingtion between hit and kill in ACS. And if I do remember correctly, you *did* put it into the help file; "you can only use the kill command if the NPC is passed out." or something to that effect. When I first played, I completely missed the trip to the commic store, and had no idea I'd missed anything. This is because I was in a "puzzleless IF" mode when I was playing the game, and not in the mood to randomly search everything I ran into. While we're on the subject I'd like to add that you don't need to ask the scriptkiddy what the ticket says; you can just go to the cabby and tell him to drive you to the store. You don't even have to read it, if I remember correctly. Oh, and I thought it was odd that none of the other guys in the club made much of a fuss when the fight broke out;
I hit AIDS Archer!
AIDS Archer collapses to the ground, unconscious.
Johnny hits Pounder!
Pounder's fists mutate into gigantic, deformed punching blocks!
Iron Lung laughs, and blows a 100MPH wad of shrapnel at me! That really hurt!
"Damnit!" a kid shouts, pounding a machine after losing his last life.
The DJs turn the music up."
Ah-heh, a little strange there, neh? Anyway, I had no clue that I had missed anything until I got stuck in the snot cage and went to the transcript for help. Speaking of bugs, I found a couple more in that scene:
When you're caught in the snot cage, you can try hitting Mr. Mucous, and get the following response:

I can't hit Mr. Mucous!
I hit Mr. Mucous!

Additionally, if you try to do anything to Mr. Mucous when you're at the western end of the graveyard and he's about to fly over that way with his cell, (not quite sure which turn it is though) you get this response:
Which Mr. Mucous do you mean, Mr. Mucous or Mr. Mucous?
Heh heh heh. Yeah.
<blink> How the hell did I get on this huge tangeant? *I* don't know! Anyway, uh, I understood instinctively that killing people would have different effects on the plot. I think what it was was realizing that not only did I have the choice of leaving Snowman for dead or killing him, but the author implamented a custom response for killing him. This made me think "Hey, I'll bet that there'll be different endings, depending who I kill!" I was pretty much convinced after I got to the torture scene (Damn, Robb, that's the most brutal shit I've read, I think, *ever*!) Speaking of the Red Wraith scenes, I have to admit that I really didn't "get" them at first. I mean, I was kind of like "okay, I see that I've done something here, but what does it matter?" I think I missed AIDS Archer and the father scene, and didn't know there was anything I could have done. I was kinda mistified at the time.
...I just realized that this post has no point to it at all. Jesus Christ. Why the hell did I decide to post this? I'm *sure* there was a point to this post when I started, but now I have no frigging clue what it was. Um, I'll shut up now.

omg

how did u do that?!?!!!!!! i have 2 gnow

I recently replayed it and just FUCKING LOVE when you go to war! For the AIDs archer you give him your pipe. For the Father I really quite forget. Though Snowman pissed me off.

I never could pick up the Green Knights sword and leave with it. Oh, and Rad's programmer friend is refered to as she as in "She is unconscious".

REPLY-O-RAMA!!!

And if I do remember correctly, you *did* put it into the help file; "you can only use the kill command if the NPC is passed out."

Ahhh.... ok. I do feel a bit better about the kill/punch thing, then.

When I first played, I completely missed the trip to the commic store, and had no idea I'd missed anything.

I think the comic store was an optional bit. Either the trip into the store was optional, or the encounter with Klan Man was. I really need to go back and play the game myself to recall correctly.

"Damnit!" a kid shouts, pounding a machine after losing his last life.
The DJs turn the music up."
Ah-heh, a little strange there, neh?

Heh. In a perfect world, that would have been intentional, and commentary on just how routine a bunch of mask-wearing thugs beating one another up was, but yeah. I blew it.

Speaking of the Red Wraith scenes, I have to admit that I really didn't "get" them at first. I mean, I was kind of like "okay, I see that I've done something here, but what does it matter?"

That was the thing: I wanted to get Venger's arch-nemesis in the game, but at the same time I didn't want the game to be about his first encounter with said arch-nemesis. I was at one time hoping to make a trilogy out of ACS ("Suicide Pose" was supposed to be the name of the second one) and have the Red Wraith appear in all three, with the trilogy ending with a final showdown between the HA and the RW. But I nixed that idea to make Fallacy of Dawn.

LOLLORS!! wrote: how did u do that?!?!!!!!! i have 2 gnow

Actually, I don't know if this is Lex or Ben. I was going to make fun of Lex. But then Ben is now back. You're ALL gonna pay.

Worm wrote: I never could pick up the Green Knights sword and leave with it.

That one was intentonal -- in beta-test, Lurd took the sword and used it through his entire play session. I kind of didn't want the PC to have that as his weapon, so I attempted to make it so that there was an "honor amongst thieves" in so much that nobody took anyone else's schtick / weapons. I hope I wrote a conditional statement to that effect, but I may not have.

seriosly how do u make blinky!!?
[blinky[does this work?[b/link[

Right. Ahem. Uh, when I said "Red Wraith Scenes" in my earlier post I was referring to the scenes he makes you go through, like the Succubus scene and the drifter scene and whatnot.
The trip to the store was optional, and so was the scene with Clan Man. Actually, I kinda blew it the first time, because I thought that I was supposed to handle Anthraxia and Clan Man *first*. Actually, I'm not sure if you can just leave without the Clan Man scene or not. And I'm too lazy to go and look. :p
Speaking of Anthraxia, that girl gives me fucking *strokes*. I mean, I keep asking myself questions, such as "what the fuck was she doing in the store? Why did she leave so quickly? And why the *fuck* was she going down a dark alley at *midnight*?" And, of course, the million dollar question: "Holy shit, does she wear that in real life?" 'cause if she doesn't, that means that that the Red Wraith dressed her in it, which means he has leather miniskirts around his secret lare, and then I get an image of the Red Wraith in drag, and... I've got another fucking headache. Damn you, Robb Sherwin! Daaaaamn yoooooooou! ; )

Do you still plan on doing The Art of Heartbreak?

I think Wraith was going back to all the different things you could of prevented and done. I mean you created the AIDs archer by not giving a shit in the past you are reliving things that happened in your past.

Well, The Knight was the only one you could search and see a weapon. When I searched the Archer I didn't see a bow.

Worm wrote:I think Wraith was going back to all the different things you could of prevented and done. I mean you created the AIDs archer by not giving a shit in the past you are reliving things that happened in your past.

WRONG!!

If you look at Succubus in the beginning of the game, it clearly states that you have never seen her eyes, thereby proving you did not know her as a gangly teenager and could not have hugged her and told her what a hottie she would grow up into.

Well, I guess only a few are in the past. No reason to be so mean Mister Carvey.