Normally I would come up with some sort of witty title but this particular piece was very serious. Before I get into the story of the game, let me discuss some of the game's mechanics. "Maybe Make Some Change" uses a two word parser. The first word must be one of the seven words that you can unlock throughout your play-through. The second word must be one of the yellow words that are displayed in the text.
The game starts you off telling you the basics. You are soldier and can only do what do what you already know how to do. Unfortunately, the only thing you know how to do at the beginning is shoot. The game starts you off in Afghanistan. The player sees a hajji (slur for middle-eastern man) ahead of the troop. The game requires you to "shoot hajji." Then you have to continually shoot the same person but described with different nouns until you learn threaten. Throughout this game, eventually words such as hug, calm, hear, warn, and miss are learned. The user is then thrown into different situations in which you answer basically the same question but it is worded differently. During this period, each sequence has the character speaking to a different person. During this phase, using the words on the people you are speaking with causes the word to disappear permanently. An example of this would be "hug uncle". Once you eliminate all of the words but shoot. Then you have to react one last time. After this you see Facebook messages from the soldier's Dad and his squad mate. The most powerful part of this story is finding out that it actually is not a story. The ending of "Maybe Make Some Change" is an article that talks about the real events that this game was based.
This piece definitely classifies as interactive fiction. "Maybe Make Some Change" puts you in the shoes of a soldier that was actually in this situation. It also requires you to make the same decision regardless of if you want to of not. The user must input to move the story forward. The voice clips and sound effects help immerse the user into the experience.
I really enjoyed this piece. Throughout my blog I referred to this as a game but honestly it is more like an empathy simulator, putting you into the shoes of this soldier and even the Middle-Eastern man's wife in a smaller way.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
The Sweet Old Mr. Plimpton's Last Performance.
Today we are going in a different direction from my previous posts. "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge", "The Sweet Old Etcetera", and "The Last Performance" do not fall into your cookie cutter types of Interactive Fiction.
"Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" is a type of Interactive Fiction that utilizes Google Maps and several websites to show you the path that the author takes on his journey. He uses fifteen different entries each happening in different locations. Many of these locations are in the Pittsburgh area but some are in Harrisburg, New York, and Baltimore. Throughout the entries he posts the websites, phone numbers, pictures, or addresses of the locations that the event occurred.
The story of "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" begins at the University of Pittsburgh campus travels to many different places. The author starts by acting as a chauffeur for Mr. Plimpton and ends up meeting him in many unlikely places. The author also seems to be a bit of a drug user. Honestly, I would love to hear the story of when they dropped acid in Chinatown and rode to the top of the World Trade Center.
The other two pieces of Interactive Fiction that I looked at were "The Sweet Old Etcetera" and "The Last Performance." In my opinion, both of these pieces should be generalized as art more so than literature or Interactive Fiction. "The Last Performance" had more text but, from my experience, the wording was rather nonsensical and I could not determine any sort of plot. The whole experience was set up like a dance. I also could not determine when this piece ended. It seems to continuously repeat. On the other hand, "The Sweet Old Etcetera" was setup to look like a painting. The further one goes the more beautiful the painting becomes. This one also was hard to follow. See below for a sample of this piece.
Of the three pieces I definitely enjoyed "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" the most. I still think the others were good; I personally enjoyed the artistic part of them but the literary aspect had me lost.
Sample of "The Sweet Old Etcetera"
"Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" is a type of Interactive Fiction that utilizes Google Maps and several websites to show you the path that the author takes on his journey. He uses fifteen different entries each happening in different locations. Many of these locations are in the Pittsburgh area but some are in Harrisburg, New York, and Baltimore. Throughout the entries he posts the websites, phone numbers, pictures, or addresses of the locations that the event occurred.
The story of "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" begins at the University of Pittsburgh campus travels to many different places. The author starts by acting as a chauffeur for Mr. Plimpton and ends up meeting him in many unlikely places. The author also seems to be a bit of a drug user. Honestly, I would love to hear the story of when they dropped acid in Chinatown and rode to the top of the World Trade Center.
The other two pieces of Interactive Fiction that I looked at were "The Sweet Old Etcetera" and "The Last Performance." In my opinion, both of these pieces should be generalized as art more so than literature or Interactive Fiction. "The Last Performance" had more text but, from my experience, the wording was rather nonsensical and I could not determine any sort of plot. The whole experience was set up like a dance. I also could not determine when this piece ended. It seems to continuously repeat. On the other hand, "The Sweet Old Etcetera" was setup to look like a painting. The further one goes the more beautiful the painting becomes. This one also was hard to follow. See below for a sample of this piece.
Of the three pieces I definitely enjoyed "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge" the most. I still think the others were good; I personally enjoyed the artistic part of them but the literary aspect had me lost.
Sample of "The Sweet Old Etcetera"
Monday, February 9, 2015
It's 9:05! Your late for someone else's job!
9:05 is probably my favorite piece of interactive fiction that I have played thus far. The best parts of this piece in my opinion were the language, the story, and the multiple endings.
The language is very easy to use. The parser accepts many different variations of the same phrases. For example, leave bed, exit bed, and get out of bed are all capable of getting you out of bed. The only part of the game that was a little tricky was when you had to remove your watch and clothes and also drop them to allow your character to get into the shower but otherwise it was a very smooth experience.
The story starts you out in bed and your phone rings. If you decide to answer it, a man yells at you and tells you your presentation was supposed to be at 9:00 a.m. and basically that your boss is probably going to fire you. This is where the game gets interesting. If you decide to look under the bed you find a corpse of the man that owns the house that you just slept in. If you want to leave the house you have to get a shower at some point. Then you are free to leave. If you choose to do so make sure you grabbed the wallet and keys so you can unlock the car door. Once you get in the car and drive you can either go to work or drive off into the distance.
This story has four possible endings. I ended up getting three out of the four endings. The first was the ending where you end up getting arrested for going to work and posing as Hadley. Next, if you decide to just keep driving on the highway, you will end up dying in a fiery car crash. The final ending that I found was an ending that you had to basically wait out the clock but end up dying from internal injuries from the previous night.(see screenshot below).
I highly recommend 9:05 to anyone wanting to try Interactive Fiction, beginner or experienced veteran. Even though it was fairly short, the multiple endings will keep you coming back for more.
Screenshot of successfully getting the death by internal injuries ending.
The language is very easy to use. The parser accepts many different variations of the same phrases. For example, leave bed, exit bed, and get out of bed are all capable of getting you out of bed. The only part of the game that was a little tricky was when you had to remove your watch and clothes and also drop them to allow your character to get into the shower but otherwise it was a very smooth experience.
The story starts you out in bed and your phone rings. If you decide to answer it, a man yells at you and tells you your presentation was supposed to be at 9:00 a.m. and basically that your boss is probably going to fire you. This is where the game gets interesting. If you decide to look under the bed you find a corpse of the man that owns the house that you just slept in. If you want to leave the house you have to get a shower at some point. Then you are free to leave. If you choose to do so make sure you grabbed the wallet and keys so you can unlock the car door. Once you get in the car and drive you can either go to work or drive off into the distance.
This story has four possible endings. I ended up getting three out of the four endings. The first was the ending where you end up getting arrested for going to work and posing as Hadley. Next, if you decide to just keep driving on the highway, you will end up dying in a fiery car crash. The final ending that I found was an ending that you had to basically wait out the clock but end up dying from internal injuries from the previous night.(see screenshot below).
I highly recommend 9:05 to anyone wanting to try Interactive Fiction, beginner or experienced veteran. Even though it was fairly short, the multiple endings will keep you coming back for more.
Screenshot of successfully getting the death by internal injuries ending.
The beginning of the adventure
My attempting to get the ending by waiting to die.
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