Acetio | Blogma

(latest revision: 2010/12/20)

This was entered into the 9th Casual Gameplay Design Competition where it lost the 3rd-place slot by something like 1/100 of a point.

The engine is the ChoiceScript engine, which is essentially a set of JavaScript libraries and is intended for the creation of interactive naratives, somewaht similar to the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories from the 1980s.

There are no graphics, but there is no typing either, as there was in Zork and those other classic Infocom games. Instead, every few paragraphs the reader is presented with a multiple choice about how the plot should unfold. It's a fascinating and unique genre.

The prior examples of ChoiceScript games I had seen were quite dramatic, so I wanted to do something more whimsical. With the 1980s on the brain I decided that "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" would be an appropriate starting point and I tried to channel the spirit of Douglas Adams as I wrote the game.

I'm in discussion with the guys who wrote ChoiceScript about porting the game to a mobile app, but that is still in the works.

Jay Bibby is hosting the 9^th CasualGameplayDesignCompetition

I submitted a game called Zebulon, a "Choice" text-based adventure using ChoiceScript - similar to those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books from the 1980s.

There is a spectrum between completely top-down narrative and totally immersive interactive game, and this genre falls closer to the former than the latter. "Interactive fiction" may be the best description.

When thinking about educational games ("serious games") I think about this genre of interactive experience. It has more potential to lead to meaningful choices and thought than simple shooting games do, and thus more potential to yield an educational experience.

I entered NPR's 5^th three-minute fiction contest, where you have to write a "flash fiction" story in 600 words or less. The constraints were that the stories had to begin with the line, "Some people swore that the house was haunted," and end with the line, "Nothing was ever the same again after that."

I didn't win, or even get into the final round, which is fine because the winning story was quite good. The winning stories in these contests tend to be more "literature" and less "popular", which is more my style.

Regardless, here's mine.

TV Tropes is a site that is easy to get lost in. Once you see what they're doing it's difficult to not be impressed with the exhaustive and comprehensive listings.

The idea is to list every device used in television scriptwriting, although it applies to all storytelling.

Examples: Applied Phlebotinum

Phlebotinum is the magical substance that may be rubbed on almost anything to cause an effect needed by a plot. Some examples: nanotechnology, magic crystal emanations, pixie dust, a sonic screwdriver. Oh, and Green Rocks. And wishes. In essence, it is the stuff that makes the plot go. Without it, the story would grind to an abrupt halt. It's science, it's magic, it's strange things unknown to science or magic - the reader does not know how Phlebotinum would work and the creators hope he doesn't care...

Or: Crazy Enough To Work

In real life, when someone is in serious trouble, they, even on the fly, have to think of a logical, sensible and reasonable strategy that can get them out of it with as little loss as possible, in the best conditions possible as well.
In movies, the characters can make the most irrational, nonsensical or plain dumb decisions, and it works!
Why?
Because it's Crazy Enough To Work, that's why. Sometimes characters will even credit it TO it being crazy (enough to work). A possible example would be something along the lines of "What about patching up the nuclear reactor with a pack of gum and peeing on the fire from the top of the reactor? That's so crazy, it just might work!"
While heroes of every genre will come up with these, expect a lot of them from Badass Unintentionals, since they lack the knowledge, strength, and sometimes even the courage to come up with a better idea...

There was an electrical outlet (everyone but my father called it a "plug") near the floor, near the bathroom.
The plastic cover had cracked long ago and when my sister accidentally kicked it while running down the hall, the cover fell off in pieces. Later, at dinner, my father announced, "The Face Plate is broken." I looked at my dinner plate, wondering what he could possibly be talking about. My sister looked at me, accusingly, and I kept my mouth shut.

After dinner my father muttered to himself while he covered the hole in the drywall with bits of masking tape. Without looking up he said, "This is for the time being."

The pancakes were stacked three-high and were tender enough that I needed no knife.
I sipped from my mug and carved an inch of breakfast from the stack, then speared the bite of pancake and made figure-8 patterns in the syrup.
The inside of my cheeks were still wet with coffee when I put the fork in my mouth and allowed everything to sit for a moment.
I breathed slowly and deeply through my nose in order to smell the sweet cake and maple with a smoky hint of coffee.
I chewed slowly and continued to take deep breaths through my nose.
I closed my eyes.
I swallowed almost as slowly as I could, hastened only by the thought that I was making room for the next bite.

The thought occured to me that there was a maximum of joy one could feel at any moment and I was currently at that maximum - no more neurons could fire, no more chemicals could be released.
Then I wondered whether I was worthy of this bliss; should a man be permitted to feel such complete joy at 8:00 am?

I expressed this to my wife. She said, "I'm glad you liked the pancakes, but you should know the day will only get worse from here."

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations Of Jasper Morello [CZ subs] from Ludik on Vimeo.

From Variety:

"Elton John's Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends."

From the New York Times:

"The movie “Pride and Predator,” directed by Will Clark and written by Mr. Clark with Andrew Kemble and John Pape, will juxtapose brooding aristocrats with a brutal alien that lands in 1800s-era Britain, attacking residents and leaving them with neither sense nor sensibility."

Hemlock from Tyson Ibele on Vimeo.

I'm not the young man I used to be and I recently decided to undergo the event known-as a "check-up" - the event that used to be, in my life, relegated to cars and old people.
My fear was that it involved some "extreme" version of the thing where the doctor pushes up on the soft tissue between the scrotum (plural, "scrota") and the anus (plural, "ani") and asks me to "turn my head and cough".
From what I understood, as someone who avoids health care professionals in the same way that I avoid venomous snakes (I don't really think about avoiding them, but if trapped in the same room with one, I leave the room and close the door), there is a little finger condom that the doctor puts on (his finger) and proceeds to insert it into the patient's (my) anus and wiggle it around - something to do with the prostate.

A friend of mine who is a little older than me said that his doctor is a woman, and the prostate exam is not so bad. Another friend, who is a doctor (female), said that women doctors don't give prostate exams. So one of them is not being completely truthful.

I've never had to pick a doctor. My only experiences with doctors in medical situations have been in the E.R. when I was not altogether altogether, or as a child at the pediatrician's, when I was hyper-alert. So most of my memories of doctors are from when I was quite young, back when people in their 50s seemed positively ancient.
This is probably why I selected Old Doc McGuire as my doctor. He was very old, or at least he looked old: lots of wrinkles, shuffling walk, long pauses between my questions and his answers, etc. He reminded me of the pediatrician I saw when I was a kid.

Now, Old Doc McGuire used to be a vet - a veterinarian, a doctor of animals - before he decided to get his M.D.
When in vetrinary college, veterinarians have to select which of three specialties they wish to specialize in: Pets (cats and dogs), Farm Animals (cows and horses), or "Exotics" (snakes and birds). McGuire chose Farm Animals because, at the time, there was a need for people to do that kind of thing.
There was a British show called "All Creatures Great and Small" that was shown here on PBS that portrayed the life of James Herriot, a veterinarian in post-war England. I thought of that show when I went to see Old Doc McGuire.

I waited in the waiting room (naturally) and looked for a magazine that might interest me for a while (did you know that they've changed the illustration style of "Goofus and Gallant" in Highlights Magazine?), but didn't. I'm not in the habit of carrying my New Yorker with me, nor having an iPod (like everyone else) on hand at all times.
So I waited in the old-fashioned way: made sounds with my mouth while looking around, hoping maybe to have a conversation. And I didn't have to wait too long.
Another guy put down his copy of "Better Homes and Gardens" (I just read it for the articles) and began the same foot-tapping that I was engaged in and he saw me and gave the head-nod: "Hey."

"How's it going?" I said.

"Not much reading here, eh?"

"Nope. You been here before?"

"Eh?"

"You been to see McGuire before?"

"Oh, yeah. Once or twice. He's funny."

"..." I didn't know how to take that. "How do you mean?"

"Oh, you know. Old Doc McGuire's never forgotten his days pulling dead calves out of the backsides of sick cows. Sometimes I think he forgets that he's a people doctor now."

I smiled a little but didn't know what to say. The conversation continued a little after that, but to tell the truth, the other guy was kind of annoying and I was relieved when he was called in.

I had to wait a bit longer and then finally, annoying guy came out, gave me the thumbs-up and flirted with the receptionist.

I finally got called in to Old Doc McGuires inner sanctum and undressed at his command. I stood shivering and nearly-naked for a few minutes before he arrived.

After the joyless pleasantries we proceeded, and my thoughts turned to the lives of prostitutes. They are also paid to have forced intimacy with strangers. Do they have the same thoughts as doctors seeing patients?

Eventually the time came and McGuire put on the rubber glove and reached under my scrotum. He told me to "Turn your head and clomp your hoof."

I jerked my head around to his - ready to laugh at his joke, but with a tightened brow.

He wasn't laughing. Not at all.