Re: [ANNOUNCE] New Inform Game - The Awakening

[tanstaafl@my-dejanews.com]

>>snip<<
> >
> >Additionally, I found myself not wanting to hit RETURN after "look in
> >mirror"... :)
>
> I was vaguely curious how much of this game was purposely reffing
> other games and how much was coincidence. For instance, this is kind of
> similar to Babel. And the beginning scenes are *very* reminiscent of
> Losing Your Grip.
>

  Actually, no. The mirror scene is pretty much directly taken from the
Lovecraft story "The Outsider" in which the protaganist has returned from the
dead but doesn't realize it until they see themselves in a mirror. (And which
they initially think is an archway leading to another room until they touch
it.)  As for the opening scenes; they were not a deliberate reference to
"Grip". I *did* recognize the similarity but nothing else I could come up
with seemed to fit the game as well.

> [..]
> >The holes in the portrait's eyes were cool, but I didn't quite
> >understand the purpose.  Furthermore, I didn't figure out what had
> >happened in the office room with the burned pile of (ledger?) papers and
> >the broken bottle remnants therein.
>
   Silas used the holes to keep an eye on you while you preached.

> Well, the broken bottle in the fireplace was obviously the same sort
> of trap-the-soul devices that appear later on (which you can read
> about by looking at the book behind the bookcase). I don't really know
> what happened, but my theory is that this guy was some sort of evil
> priest type who controlled a wacky cult. One of the things he did was
> steal your soul and put it in a little bottle. Eventually the
> villagers got annoyed with his zany antics, as they always do
> eventually, and did the whole pitchforks-and-torches deal and trashed
> the church and killed all the cultists except the old man, who was
> hiding in the attic (though how he got up there, I'm not sure). They
> also killed you (who had been incidentally transformed into something
> funny-looking by metaphysical resonance with the old man's evil
> deeds), but since your soul was in a bottle, you weren't really dead,
> and were able to climb out of the grave, and finally get your revenge.
> Etc.
>

  OK, I had deliberately left much of the background vague. My theory of
horror is that the effect is *much* stronger if you leave as much as possible
to the reader's imagination. (*Showing* the monster is never as effective as
*hinting at* the monster.) Unfortunately, I apparently left things *too*
vague, since the standard comment I am getting is some variation of "what the
heck is going on!". This is my fault; I was concentrating too much on the
*interactive* portion of the game and neglecting the *fiction* part. This is
the biggest lesson I have learned from the feedback I have gotten.

  Here is the actual back-story for "The Awakening" (as I had seen it).  You
and Silas had been doing research on the soul. You had found a way to achieve
immortality by removing the soul from the body and storing in another
container. Silas had gone further, he had found that once souls had been
removed from the body you could "select" which soul received the "stain" for
any actions you performed. Further, you could slowly transfer the stain on
one soul to the other. He, of course, started transferring to you.  When you
discovered this you confronted him but could not do anything; he had both
bottles and was, of course, immortal. You contacted a woman from the village,
brought her into your confidance and removed her soul. You then started
transfering the sin on your soul to hers.  Eventually you decided you could
not do this to her and released her soul. She died. You snapped and attacked
Silas; blaming him. He "killed" you and buried you in the graveyard. He put a
slab carved with an elder sign on the top of your grave to cut off your
contact with your soul so you wouldn't get up again.  A bolt of lightning
from the storm shatters the slab and releases you. You have lost much of your
memory (since you have been decaying for some time) and only know that
something you need is in the area. This is when the game starts.

   Most of this is nowhere to be found in the game.

> >And most importantly, I don't understand why the old man didn't get
> >upset when I got the green bottle.  I mean, at that point I was only one
> >step away from hosing him, and he wasn't even concerned.
> [..]
> Well, he was crazy. Yeah, that's it.
>

  Actually, I had him doing nothing since I thought if he did it would become
too obvious that you needed to do something to the green bottle.  Silas is
the weakest point in the game (in my opinion). He *should* have been able to
convey most of the information above but he is not implemented near as well
as he should be.  Again, he's interactive, but doesn't advance the story
much.  I have learned.

   Thanks again to everyone for their feedback.

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp   Create Your Own Free Member Forum