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| | Homebrew | |
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The Spectral Mask Head Librarian & Game Master
Posts : 3659
| Subject: Homebrew Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:14 pm | |
| - Quote :
- > Homebrew
A young man stands in his bedroom. He is looking rather fancy today, even fancier than usual; he has dressed up, because today is a special occassion, for many reasons.
Firstly, this dapper dan has donned his best, boisterous bowtie because he has been expecting you. Indeed, he is feeling a bit embarassed, for he is a little bit later than expected. You were supposed to rendezvous some time ago, as it happens, but as far as this fine sir is concerned, it's better late than never. He is a bit concerned that he doesn't look quite like you've pictured him. Indeed, the venue in which you have at last met is not quite the planned meeting place. Still, you are here, and he is here, in quite the zestful sweatervest.
Although this occassion would have been enough, by itself, for this fellow to dress up (most occassions are enough for him to dress up), it happens to coincide with other circumstances. This has been his last day of school before Christmas Vacation, and so, to wish his peers and teachers to have happy holidays, he wore this exquisite outfit throughout his classes.
Furthermore, this date marks the end of a long period of anticipation, beyond marking the end of school for the year. It is 12/21/12, the day which the Ancient Mayans supposedly foretold as the end of the world. And if the apocolypse is to occur sometime this evening, he would like to look his best.
But of course, what are the odds of that happening?
Assured that no meteors or reality-altering software will interrupt the rest of your stay with this young man, it is time for you to get to know each other.
What will the name of this young man be?
Last edited by The Spectral Mask on Sun Dec 23, 2012 12:38 pm; edited 3 times in total | |
| | | The Spectral Mask Head Librarian & Game Master
Posts : 3659
| Subject: Re: Homebrew Sat Dec 22, 2012 1:22 am | |
| - Cryomancer wrote:
- > Enter Name: Fatuous Stupidhead
Excellent. Now that you have entered his name, you and Mr. Stupidhead can get down to ...
... wait, what?
Your display appears to be bugging out. There's some kind of frame around the image, like a video? And the name you've entered is seriously lagging. Perhaps this game is incompatable with your computer.
You'll never understand why these developers don't just stick to gifs, or flash.
Yep, you're computer is officially FROZEN. You've lost control of the mouse, and the game is freaking out. There's some TEXT in the name entry field that doesn't make any sense, and the window is overlapping itself for some reason.
You could swear that Mr. Stupidhead is looking at you differently, too. It's a look that says, "Even though the computer is frozen, I am toasty warm in this beautiful, tacky sweater."
Last edited by The Spectral Mask on Sun Dec 23, 2012 12:39 pm; edited 1 time in total | |
| | | The Spectral Mask Head Librarian & Game Master
Posts : 3659
| Subject: Re: Homebrew Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:37 pm | |
| | |
| | | The Spectral Mask Head Librarian & Game Master
Posts : 3659
| Subject: Re: Homebrew Mon Dec 24, 2012 1:24 am | |
| - W. Gudmunzsun wrote:
- > Uh... I can see Arthur Freeman's not going to fit...
No. No it is not.
- W. Gudmunzsun wrote:
- > Enter name: Arthur Fowl
Well, you think that finally covers that. After all, you know what they say about names.
In fact, you know it so well, there's no need to repeat it here.
Your name is ARTHUR FOWL, or ARTY, to those who know you well. Or THE CRYOMANCER. Or AF. Or AK. Or LORD ARTHUR FOWL, HIGH MAGE OF COLD.
Today it is the WINTER SOLSTICE, 12/21/12, which, as previously mentioned, is one of many dates foretold to be THE END OF THE WORLD. You are more interested in the former happenstance, for you just so happen to be very enthusiastic about THE COLD and WINTER. As far as you are concerned, when the weather outside is frightful, the fire is so delightful. And that fire is THE FIRE OF GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN. In cold places, you can find warm hearts.
You charish the WISDOM and CLASSINESS of your elders. You enjoy wearing VESTS, SUITS, BOWTIES, and anything else that makes you FEEL LIKE A SIR. You also have a passion for POETRY, and, when you feel the need to modernize for a moment or two, RAP. RHYME and RHYTHM delight you, as do those magnificent individuals who embody such virtues, such as ROBERT FROST, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, and your idol, TED KOOSER. You use these linguistic devices to channel your SENSE OF HUMOR; you have written a number of COMICAL SONGS, often set to well-known tunes, which you often share with your numerous FRIENDS, both ONLINE and FACE-TO-FACE. Among some crowds, your CHARISMA and MATURITY have won you RESPECT and POPULARITY. Other crowds find your UNUSUAL DISPOSITION annoying.
Many of those who do like you around look to you as something of a LEADER, including your close-knit local gang of MINECRAFT PLAYERS. Minecraft is only one of the many COMPUTER GAMES which you play with your friends, some of whom are themselves AMATEUR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS. In fact, you know a fellow who has promised to arrange for you to play a NEW GAME, entitled SBURB, even before its beta release, and another chap who PLANNED TO MODIFY THE GAME CONSIDERABLY. However, these promises came years ago; SBURB PROPER, your SNEAK PREVIEW, and the MODDED VERSION have all been delayed so long, your sincerely doubt any of the three shall ever be released.
Still, you hang out with all of those PROCRASTINATING PETES nonetheless. Strangely enough, you all met due to a shared interest in the BIONICLE FRANCHISE, something which you rarely talk about anymore. This is most likely because the BIONICLE storyline has concluded, just a few years before your friends stopped reporting PROGRESS on SBURB. You have feared that you've been DRIFTING APART.
But what better time than WINTER SOLSTICE to COME TOGETHER?
With that decidedly WARM THOUGHT in mind, it's time for you to get down to business.
What do you want to do?
- voiceofKANE wrote:
- > retrieve arms from chest
You never know when you're going to need them, so you like to keep these WITHIN ARM'S REACH.
- voiceofKANE wrote:
- > look around your room for any posters or pictures or mysterious repeated scribbling on the walls that you are not aware of
Oh, no sir, you shaln't find such scribblings on these walls. You're SUBCONSCIUOUS is spick and span, ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO all in alignment. You couldn't imagine writing on your walls, awake or dreaming or awake whilst dreaming. For one thing, it would be untidy. For another, it would be totally illogical. You always have a NOTEBOOK in your POCKET; you never know when you're going to need it, so you like to keep it WITHIN ARM'S REACH.
You have NUMEROUS PICTURES on the various walls of your room, but your most PRIZED POSTER is this image of 13th AMERICAN POET LAUREATE, TED KOOSER. Or TEDDY, to those who know him well. Or THE KOOSE. Or TK. Or T KOOSE.
"To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long!
The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit- Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute- Well may the stars be mute!
Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely–flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours."
- Robert Fitzgerald, dedicated to LORD KOOSE, ARCHPERIDIGM OF RHYME.
No WALL SCRAWLINGS over here, either. Of course, there doesn't appear to be a WALL either, but you'll ignore that for the sake of IMMERSION.
Speaking of immersion, here is your COMPUTER, a relatively new piece of equipment perfectly suited for running gaming SERVERS and CLIENTS, whenever that becomes important. You spend a good deal of your time here, possible because you DON'T PARTICIPATE IN ANY SPORTS OR OTHER ACTIVITIES. You once joined a RAP BATTLE CLUB at your school, but you were kicked out for using INAPROPRIATE LANGUAGE. "Inappropriate", in this case, meaning "inappropriate in a rap battle". Apparently, cussing is okay. "Jiminy whiskers" is not.
Flanking your laptop are some of your BIONICLE ACTION FIGURES. You remember the times when you frequently constructed YOUR OWN CREATIONS, with almost as much dedication as your free-verse. You haven’t done any serious modeling in months, although you still alternate the torsos of your favorites to keep them in the HOLIDAY SPIRIT. They are outrageously well-dressed gentlemen.
Almost as outrageously well-dressed as you are.
Well, well, well, it appears as though one of your FRIENDS is trying to INITIATE A CHAT with you over your favorite INSTANT MESSAGING PROGRAM, THE CODREX MAGNA CHATBOX. This chap did mention that he was working on something this afternoon, something that would affect you in the near future.
On the other hand, this is one of the sorts which RARELY FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THEIR IDEAS.
You wonder what he wants. | |
| | | The Spectral Mask Head Librarian & Game Master
Posts : 3659
| Subject: Re: Homebrew Mon Dec 24, 2012 5:51 pm | |
| - voiceofKANE wrote:
- > Arty: respond in the chatbox
- Spoiler:
*swordsmansInkwell [SI] initiates chat with algidKelvins [AK]
SI: Um ... Arty? SI: I just thought I’d give you fair warning. SI: We may have a problem. AK: My good swordsman, how may I can be of service? AK: Is this related to that secret project of yours? AK: You’ve been positively tight-lipped about that.
What's this?
It appears that your friend's new message has just appeared before your previous message. You've seen this sort of thing before, when you've been chatting on the road or while playing TEAM FORTRESS 2. It is LAG, a terrible process which delays communication, causing conversations to grow quite convoluted. But while SI doesn't have the fastest COMPUTER, it's strange that he'd be lagging this badly.
- Spoiler:
*swordsmansInkwell [SI] initiates chat with algidKelvins [AK]SI: Um ... Arty? SI: I just thought I’d give you fair warning. SI: We may have a problem. SI: As you know, I’ve been endeavoring to put together a little Christmas present for you, something long-awaited. SI: It looks like we may have waited a little too long. SI: I think I’m going to have to accelerate my plans.AK: My good swordsman, how may I can be of service? AK: Is this related to that secret project of yours? AK: You’ve been positively tight-lipped about that. AK: ...strange, that was a peculiar delay. AK: What else are you running?SI: I just said, yeah, it’s about your Christmas present. SI: I’m thinking you might have to open it a little early. SI: Whoa, ninja’d. AK: Heaven knows I respect my elders, but I fear that computer of yours is really aging. AK: But didn’t you mention there might be a new one under the tree this year? AK: Wait, what about my Christmas present? AK: My friend, I’d rather not.SI: I’m running the Cloud Software for a multiplayer game ...AK: It’s not really in the holiday spirit, now is it?SI: ... a game which just so happens to be my present to you. SI: I dropped it off a couple days ago.AK: Dear lord, the lag... AK: Wait, wait. AK: I understand that your computer is slower, but...SI: Look, Arty, tradition is great.AK: ...I appear to be getting your messages after a delay, too.SI: I respect ritual. It builds a mind open to the wisdom all around it.AK: I don’t think it works that way?SI: But this game is sort of a special case. SI: It’s not the sort of thing you can expect to accommodate you. SI: You have to make concessions to it.AK: *I don’t think lag works that way, I agree about ritual. AK: I don’t suppose you can close out of your Server?SI: I was just checking over the Cloud, and its activity has spiked. SI: It’s preparing for the first player to get started, and I can’t make it settle down. SI: ^Cloud, not Server. This game has both. Servers and Clients, in this case, refer to interactions between individual players.AK: But even if the game is “preparing” for a player, can’t we just let it prepare?SI: The Cloud is more like the big picture. A developer’s view into the superstructure, and, in my case, a place for making adjustments.AK: Can’t it wait?SI: That is, those changes the game will allow. Sort of like the switches inside of an arcade game.AK: I take it you can’t close out of it, then? AK: This game is sounding rather demanding.SI: So, to answer your earlier question, it would be a very bad idea to cut off my view into the Cloud. It would be akin to shooting myself in the foot before a marathon. SI: Yeah, it can be demanding. SI: If you don’t get started within a very small window of time, I don’t think you can ever get started at all.AK: Right, leave it open then, my all means. AK: *The Cloud Software AK: Why is it on such a tight schedule?SI: I have no idea. SI: The game is designed so that you can only play if you meet certain, oddly specific, parameters.AK: Oh. AK: Lovely.SI: If you don’t play very soon, you will not be able to play, you’ll have a useless Christmas present from me, and everything I have done will prove to be a colossal waste of time. SI: And, uh... SI: You don’t want to upset this game.AK: What, will it lock me out or something? AK: Couldn’t you get me back in, afterwards?SI: There might be other consequences.AK: Mr. Software Developer.SI: The game was originally set up so that something called a Seed would be imported in the atmosphere above your house. SI: Furthermore, there was code which calculated, based on trajectory and all that, how long it would take until the Seed hit. SI: Like a countdown. SI: I’ve talked to Althim about it. He’s been pretty cagey, since I suppose it’s a spoiler, but it sounds like these Seeds are going to hit all across the globe.AK: A missile!?SI: I think the game is intended to give you an interface with which to interact with the Seeds, while the news reporters are going on about it. SI: Conveys a sense of importance, if you’re helping to solve a worldwide problem.AK: Althim? Then you finally got your hands on SBURB? SI: Oh, come on, would Fieldworks do that? SI: *launch missiles at us, that is. SI: They need people to play the game, you realize. SI: I’m convinced that the Seeds are probably less tangible, like waves of energy. SI: Radio interference, that sort of thing. SI: I can buy Althim & co. inconviniencing people. But I don't think they'd blow anything up. SI: I don’t know the specifics. But as OT and IK would insist, this is an “immersion game”. It messes with your computer somehow.AK: Right-o, I understand. AK: Secret codes, static, Marble Hornets type shenanigans. AK: On a worldwide scale? AK: But you’ve made modifications?SI: You won’t be seeing any Seeds. SI: I’ve widened the guidelines considerably. The game is now designed to personalize a threat to you and your computer. SI: In all honesty, I tried to get rid of the immersive aspect of the game altogether.AK: Well, if there’s a threat, at least it’s personalized. SI: I love a good ARG, but as a rule, they’re paced much differently than the adventure-role-playing game that’s also involved. SI: But all these parts of the game are so tightly intertwined, the game insisted that the ARG portion remain, even if was kind enough to let me make some major changes.AK: Oh? AK: *You’ve already answered my question, sorry.SI: So unfortunately, if you don’t start soon, your computer is probably going to haywire.AK: In a very personable way.SI: Of course.AK: Very well, I'm off!* algidKelvins is away
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| | | The Spectral Mask Head Librarian & Game Master
Posts : 3659
| Subject: Re: Homebrew Tue Dec 25, 2012 6:34 pm | |
| - W. Gudmunzsun wrote:
- > Arty: Set computer to sleep in case of haywire-ness, and take a look into the adjacent room/hallway.
As a precautionary measure, you decide to restart your computer before going downstairs. If SI's LAGGINESS is any indication, you'll want a CLEAN SLATE before getting started anyway, but more importantly, this offers to defend against the INDESCRIPT THREAT he mentioned. You're still not sure you understand what he was going on about, there. You guess FIELDWORKS, the software development company which announced its development of SBURB moe than a year ago, is going to be sending out artificial solar flares or something.
Will HERORBINE show up and start leaving messages in MORSE CODE? YOU DON'T KNOW.
But whatever they were planning, they won't do it whilst you're out of the room.
NICE TRY GUYS, BUT YOU'VE BEEN THWARTED.
That is, assuming SI is right and the SEEDS are computer programs and not METEORS.
Which you sincerely doubt. You're not even sure where that thought came from. A game that launches meteorites? That would just be stupid.
You felt the urge to leave your room, through one of its two DOORS. One leads to your ANNEX, a small room ajoining your bedroom through both a door and a rectangular FRAME in your wall. There is some pretty INTERESTING STUFF in there, and you were tempted to go CHECK IT OUT.
However, you need to be getting downstairs, and this helps you get started on that, while also fulfilling your desire to take a look into an AJOINING ROOM OR HALLWAY.
This is the UPSTAIRS HALL. The door in front of you leads to the STAIRS. You keep a door there so that your CAT, DUSK, doesn't get on to the SECOND FLOOR. If you were to go deeper into this floor, you would have found your PARENTS' ROOM and your MOM'S SCRAPBOOKING ROOM, where see is undoubtably WRAPPING THE LAST OF THE PRESENTS.
On the wall is a poster of some PENGUINS. Your MOM loves these WELL-DRESSED BIRDS, as well as ARCTIC FISH.
Despite your love of COLD and CLASSINESS, and PENGUINS' OBVIOUS AFFILIATION WITH THEM BOTH, you are not overly enthusiastic about all of the penguin-related media throughout this house.
You don't mind. You actually sort of appreciate the alignment of your interests. You might describe your attitude towards them as ABSOLUTELY APATHETIC.
- W. Gudmunzsun wrote:
- > Arty: Get to your Christmas tree and open that gift before bad things happen.
Phew!
You rushed past those STAIRS so quickly, it's like you SKIPPED OBVIOUSLY WARRANTED TRANSITION PANELS. Considering how speedily you descended, you are a little suprised you didn't FALL DOWN THE STAIRS.
But you are far too careful for that to ever HAPPEN.
It's usually fair to assume that anything SI does will be affiliated with the color PURPLE. He just loves that color.
You feel a little guilty about opening this early, but if you're not going to be able to use it otherwise...
You remove the paper (very neatly) and find the TENEO SERVER DISK and TENEO CLIENT DISK.
...IT'S GLORIOUS. EXACTLY WHAT HE PROMISED. THE GOOD FELLOW REALLY CAME THROUGH FOR YOU THIS TIME.
It is as though it was CHRISTMAS DAY and WINTER SOLSTICE at the same time.
Is that possible, actually?
Christmas is on a set date, sure, but doesn't the solstice fluxuate? Does it ever fall on the 25th?
It's not like your a WINTER EXPERT or anything. You just don't know these things. | |
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