Get Your Creative On
Aug 11, 2016
With the amazing success of the Occult Bookstore book name crowdsourcing, we've decided to go back to the creative well again, but this time it's going to be more interesting (and more work).
The library in the mansion mansion contains around 100 books and not only do we need to name them all, we need two pages of text. When the player explores the mansion mansion library, they can look at any of the books and they'll get a close up showing two side-by-side pages. Players can't turn the pages, but the two pages can be from anywhere in the book. Imagine grabbing a book and just flipping it open.
Some of the books will be written by us and include background lore for the story and characters, but we also need books that are just fun to read and explore.
And that is where you come in. Make up a book, give it a title, and an author (that can be you), and write two pages of text consisting of around 100 words each. It's that simple. If your book is accepted, you'll also appear in the credits.
To submit your entries, you need to use this Google Form. Feel free to also post your books in the comments for everyone to read (or not), but if you don't submit them through the approved form, they won't make it into the game.
The rules are pretty simple:
1) Two pages of text. Each page is around 100 words and less than 650 characters.
2) Must be your original work. No public domain works.
3) Must have a title (25 characters or less).
4) Optional author and that can be made up, someone from history, or you.
5) Don't use copyrighted works or characters, including the author's name.
6) Must be 1987 appropriate.
7) Keep the content G or PG-13.
8) Books must be in English, but they will be translated.
Once again, submit all book entries HERE.
So... put on your smart glasses, grab a pencil, and most of all, have fun and be as serious or funny as you want.
The deadline is August 29th, 2016.
- Ron
I hate premature comment syndrome.
a) include pop culture references
b) use some titles (of my own) from the occult bookshop
c) write more than one book
?
b) Yes
c) Yes
Or can the text start in the middle of a book?
I would imagine that if you open a book to a random page that it would start mid-sentence. That's how I will be submitting my entry.
I wonder if in the case an entry goes over the allowed character limit how they will handle omitting words. I would think an easy algorithm would be to first omit the first word in the entry then (if necessary) the last word. If more words need to be trimmed, repeat.
I worry how a lot of this would seem to the average gamer...all this backer-supplied material that are chocked full of bad grammar and typos (book titles and page submissions). It would probably seem like amateur hour for those that aren't aware of the backer-provided material. But, then again, that's what makes this project extraordinarily special- that there's *a lot* of people's fingerprints all over the game that aren't actually part of the dev team. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and out.
Will there be a book title <--> text relation or can we just create some independent text?
1) who likes the idea, subscribes to a mailing list I create
2) we cooperate to create a penthalogy/eptalogy of books, related each one to the others,
just for fun
3) the relationships among the books may be: loose (just mutual reference of the titles, the Lord of the Thimbles saga for instance), or tight (a self-conclusive treasure hunt jumping from book to book, for instance)
Does the mighty Gilbert approve such approach in principle?
One question, if for some reason. My book gets in the game, is possible for me to do the translation, since english is not born lenguage ?
the first field says "You name", in the title and in the description, just under the title.
1) who likes the idea, feel free to subscribe at:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mansion-mansion-books
2) we cooperate to create a subset of books, related each one to the others, just for fun
3) the relationships among the books may be: loose (just mutual reference of the titles, the Lord of the Thimbles saga for instance), or tight (a self-conclusive treasure hunt jumping from book to book, for instance)
IMPORTANT NOTE: this is just a fan idea.
If a meteor hit the earth and the game never saw the light of day, I'd still be happy that I backed this project. :)
DON'T JINX IT! After what else that's been happening in 2016 I think that was more of a summon than a fear! :-P
I assume that the two text pages are supposed to be from the middle of the book?
Man. I want to submit at least two...but I will be disqualified, yes?
First book submitted ;)
I can't wait to play the game and read through every. single. one. of. these.
Had to shorten from 290 words to 201 because got excited with the idea and wrote a bit too much.
But I'll try to think another idea that doesn't include famous characters (sorry...)
The Adventurin’ Lad
I love adventurin’. Always done. Mother told me to forget about it.
"Too much danger and not enough treasures," she said. "That’s how father lost his arm. Fightin’ some dragon or golem or summat."
I always felt proud whenever I saw father strugglin’ on the farm. He couldn’t really farm, but, my god, he had been out adventurin’. He usually relied on me and mother, but I didn’t mind. Father had been out adventurin’. He was a hero. A former hero, perhaps, but hero nonetheless. Mother minded, of course. She had to do all the ploughin’, sowin’, waterin’, harvestin’ and whatnot.
"A woman’s place is by the stove and a man’s place is out in the fields," she used to say when we were out farmin’ the fields instead of father. Father stayed home and did the cookin’. He just laughed and threw another potato into the pot. We never had peeled potatoes because of his missin’ arm – how to you peel’em with one hand? – but I didn’t mind. One evenin’ I spat some potato peel and said:
"Mother. Father. I’m goin’ adventurin’. Tomorrow mornin’ I’m packin’ my things and I’m leavin’ home."
"What things?" father said.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Looks like Dr. Bundesmayer dislike the theories of a certain Dr. Fred Edison about a new type of meteorites... :D
For some reason I started thinking about filling the two pages with something akin to Douglas Adams' description of how big the universe is in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I then decided to check the publishing date of: 1979!). Knowing that my attempt would either be an unconscious plagiarism, or somewhat inferior, I got to hoping there would just be an entry for that book anyway... grumble grumble copyright grumble...
Below is the correct procedure for maximizing your Perl happiness:
1. Open the GNU emacs editor
2. Visit a new file with Ctrl-X, Ctrl-F. Give it a .pl extension so perl-mode highlighting will be used.
3. Make extensive and ideally obfusctated used of regular expressions, the default variable, and while loops.
I especially use italics for internal dialogue. It can be confusing to the reader sometimes if you don't make the distinction; and alternatively, it can seem cumbersome or awkward to write: "he thought".
and for dialogues, you can use this syntax:
- "My name is Zak"
- "Hi Zak, My name is ROTFL"
(Zak made a footstep back)
Your thoughts?
Zak: "My name is Zak"
ROTFL: "Hi Zak, My name is ROTFL."
Zak made a footsep back.
Even better (using CR):
"My name is Zak"
"Hi Zak, My name is ROTFL."
Zak made a footsep back.
The best method:
One day Zak met ROTFL. He began to speak: "My name is Zak"
"Hi Zak, My name is ROTFL", answered his collegue.
Then, suddenly, Zak made a footsep back.
Have a look at books how they do that.
If you ditch the italics, the reader may not clearly understand that it is the character's thought or omniscient narration. And, again, like I said, having to say:
*Jane quickly shuffled in front of John, blocking the exit.
John thought, "Why is she harassing me?"*
is more jarring when you're already know the narration is omniscient, and you can do:
*Jane quickly shuffled in front of John, blocking the exit.
Why is she harassing me?*
Without italics in that second line, you start reading it as if it is the narrator. With italics, you understand that it's actually John's thoughts.
Having to add "John thought," feels clunky and awkward.
is more jarring when you're already know the narration is omniscient"
No. It's perfect. You have to tell the reader who is speaking or thinking. Even if the dialog goes on. If you can't read a paragraph "fluend" than you have to rewrite it. Italic formating is not natural for the reader, because italic and bold formats are there to "highlight" something. So the brain of the reader has to stop reading and to figure out "why is this italic thing here? Ah, I see. That is the person who thinks about that..." With italic text you interrupt the reading.
I'm talking about internal dialogue/thought.
See my response, further below.
Can you give an example? There are letters to distinguish dialogs:
"..."
'...'
- ... -
and so on. If they don't suffice, you should consider to rewrite the sentence.
This would usually apply to books written in regular third-person POV.
In Regular Third Person POV Use Only Italics…Or Don’t Use Anything
You have options if you’re writing third person point of view but aren’t bringing it to the intimate level of deep POV.
Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Liar. Where’s the $1000 you still owe me? “I’m maxed out this month.”
Because we’re in third person point of view, we’ll already know that any thoughts are Melody’s so we don’t need the “she thought” of omniscient POV. The italics clue the reader in that we’re now hearing Melody’s exact thoughts.
The italics also allow you to use present tense thoughts in an otherwise past tense story if you want, without jarring the reader. If you choose to give the thoughts in present tense, just remember to be consistent throughout and, whenever possible, set them off in their own paragraph in the same way that you would dialogue.
You could also write this as…
Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Melody yanked her hand away. Liar. Where was the $1000 he still owed her? “I’m maxed out this month.”
You don’t have to add the action beat in front of the internal dialogue to make it work without italics, but I wanted to show you that it sometimes helps to ground the reader. Also, if you don’t use italics, you should keep it in past tense (assuming the rest of the story is in past tense).
FROM: http://marcykennedy.com/2013/05/how-to-format-internal-dialogue/
No. In your example you mixed up two POVs: The third person and the first person. And that's a very bad habit. Third person is:
Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Then you switch to first person:
Liar. Where’s the $1000 you still owe me?
Don't do that. Never. Not in that way. The head of the reader goes crazy, even if you format it in italic. If you write in third person POV stay in it:
Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. "I’ll pay you back", he said.
Melody yanked her hand away. "Liar. Where’s the $1000 you still owe me?", she thought. Harshly she answered: “I’m maxed out this month.”
As I said above: Rewrite the whole sentence (or the paragraph). If you have to format your text, then something goes wrong.
The example I gave is not mine.
Once again. The POV is omniscient which can give you direct insight to a character's thoughts.
Why are you trying to argue something that is a common writing practice? In any case, italics cannot be used in our submissions, so I'll just move on.
there will be around 100 books in total, and the library has 25 topic sections.
That means there will be 4 books per section, or one or more sections will contain more/less than 4 books?
I need to know if I will buy the game or not, depending on if my book's made it into the game
Just joking :)
Physics and Astromomy?
Astro-mommy, lol.
Typos are great. ;)
Do we have an exact date?
"6) Must be 1987 appropriate."
If a book about current events was on store shelves on June 1st, 1987, the material in the book probably didn't cover the previous month (at least) considering the time it takes to publish and print. I suppose smaller independent publications or periodicals/magazines could require less time for editing and printing and publication.
by Kevin Lee Drum
Brown cars pose an additional challenge due to the lack of contrast between the dirt and your canvas. In this situation, the rear window is an acceptable medium (unless the vehicle is equipped with rear wipers). Remember that the rear side of the vehicle reaches the widest audience. Do you simply want the car owner to wash the car, or do you want to give voice to the neglected and abused?
It is your duty to speak for the car in the car's own words. The impact of your car-ligraphy relies on the emotional connection to the reader. There is humor in the anthropomorphism of a typically mute car, but the story does not have to end there. For example, "Wash Me PLEASE" conveys a stronger feeling of desperation, particularly for the filthier vehicles. "I'm So Dirty" is unconventional, but it adds a touch of sensuality.
Just because your limited to a few words doesn't mean the car has to be a flat, one-dimensional character. Is the car a youthful Dickensian chimney sweep or a starry-eyed, down-on-her-luck Midwestern farm girl? Is it a limo dreaming of the red carpet or a minivan struggling with a midlife crisis?
Such errors will not be tolerated.
Buuut: Isn't Wash Me™ (I'm pretty sure there was one pixel of dirt saying '™') now property of Disney? And even if Disney's lawyers don't get this reference: you used the word 'cars'! OMG!!
Actually I don't own any four-wheelers. But Monster Trucks can wheelie, so they are cool too.
Btw. I like this scene: https://youtu.be/cosi-n3dFDg?t=365
Casually cruising through the countryside...
I'm glad you like that scene. :-)
"A man with a paper face"
by Nikita "Tattoo" Sokolov
Once there lived a man with a paper face. He was born in the library and nobody was surprised. That was the surprise. He studied well but he had always problems with the school marks that they put on his face. So he often came home with red ink on his face and his parents thought that he was shy. He didnt like to walk in the rain because his face became soggy and wet..
Once upon he met a girl. He fell in love and tried to make an impression. He wrote her poems on his face, but when they met she couldn't read them because he writhed in fear. So she fell in love with another man with an ordinary face. Our hero was depressed and he crumpled his paper in agony and pain. And one stormy night when he was walking along the dark alley he met another girl. She had an envelope head. So they put the paper in the envelope and married..
I wonder how Ron will address (or is handling) that. Maybe the form should have counted each carriage return as 60 characters- or however many characters will fit in a line- (instead of 1 or 2 that I think it is counting it as).
Somewhere in the outskirts of the endless sea of worlds commonly known as universe, gave a star a long time ago light, in a last effort before its coming rest. Near the star was an insignificant blue planet. Around it hovered a spaceship in zero gravity of even bigger insignificance. Its insignificance was so big that no one ever seemed to have taken notice of naming either the spacecraft or planet it orbited around. And if ever been, their names now were long forgotten. In one of the ship's narrow nooks were a mechanical creature which was not an insignificant one. Her name was PI.
Also, thanks for letting us be a part of the game like this! It's fun :)
"Penso di essere piuttosto bravino."
Translation according to Google Translator:
"I think I'm pretty good player."
What it really means:
"I think I'm pretty good at that."
I really have no idea where does Google took the word "player" from !!! :-D
By Isaac RR Adams.
and Ivy knew this was a safe place. It was the diploma clad walls, mahogany desk with its cliché lamp and green sofa, all of which she’d seen in a photograph from a magazine on the ground that day. The doctor, gentle face and warm smile, had always been some one she could turn to and understood that when Ivy opened, without hesitation, would know where they’d finished their last session.
Session.
That ruffled something in Ivy and it was at or around this point she straightened herself, easily sliding across the leather sofa.
She feigned a brave front but the harsh reality was written all over her therapist’s face. Dr Ima Booke laid her clasped hands on the polished mahogany and began to speak. The lamp on the doctor’s desk gave Ima’s face an ominous glow. Ivy got shivers up her spine.
“You’re a book.”
There it was. Ivy’s heart shredded. She felt herself yellow and her stomach ripple like pages doused in water. That hard cover that had been her shield against the world turned soft. Her face went blank. She was about to speak but came to a full stop.
Can you guys help me to CUT CUT CUT?
Here's what I currently have:
Title: The Biggest Twist
and utterly shocked. She looked at the parchment with disbelief. All the clues were there, but she missed them all. Honestly, though, could you blame her? Was it not the biggest twist you've ever seen?
She had to act fast. She looked at Harrison. He was still holding a gun to her head, and his smirk grew even wider.
Without giving it a second thought, she grabbed the goat and jumped from the helicopter.
She imagined Harrison was now as shocked as she was. He wouldn't dare shoot her now, not while she has the goat. She would have paid good money to see that smirk wiped off his face.
Still, did she just jump to her death?
It's hard opening a parachute mid-air without any experience, but even harder opening it while carrying a goat. She was terrified and hugged Willy for comfort. Yes, she felt she can call him by name now. She grew quite fond of the goat. After all, he did save her life twice.
The wind was blowing and making more noise than she could master. She still haven't found the parachute in her backpack, and was starting to panic.
Willy, on the other hand, looked perfectly calm and serene. "It looks like it's not the first time you've been skydiving, hah, Willy?", she joked, trying desperately to calm herself.
That's when it hit her. it wasn't the first time he's been skydiving! Of course! That's how they switched the professor's body in the middle of the night!
Wow. This was an even bigger twist than the one before.
- Honestly, though, could you blame her? Was it not the biggest twist you've ever seen?
- It's hard opening a parachute mid-air without any experience, but even harder opening it while carrying a goat.
- Wow. This was an even bigger twist than the one before.
Maybe change the title, but keep it enigmatic and only vaguely related to the excerpt, something like "The Disappearance," for example.
I removed those lines (and a few more as it wasn't enough, apparently) and submitted.
What the Z!
Hello? Mary? You there? It's me, honey. What? Well, yes, I'm in trouble. Yeah, with a capital Z. No, no, I'm safe at the moment. In a phone booth. The one I'm calling from. Oh, the one outside the grocery store. Sure, I got the milk. How many? Well, at least three of them. Of course I can count. Well, yes, ONLY three of them, but they're really scary. Arms streched out. Unruly eyes. Frayed clothes. And the smell. Phew! Stings the eyes. Well, they caught up with me. It's a beautiful day, isn't it, and I was in no hurry. I know, stupid of me. But listen, honey, you gotta help me. Please. Okay. Yes. I promise. So. A clean shot to the head? Got it. Avoid the splatter? Will do. No, I didn't bring the gun. Well, we keep it in the bedroom and I had my shoes on. Yeah, but honey, how many times didn't you lecture me about shoes and carpets? Not again, honey. Not now. Please, can you just bring the car and pick me up? Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top? Great! Owe you one. And fetch the gun. Love ya, hon. Love you too. Please hurry. Yes, I'll wait. No, I won't forget the milk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX_K387EKoI
If you're interested, you can find my lip-sync tool on GitHub:
https://github.com/DanielSWolf/rhubarb-lip-sync
Could you name (some of) the others free tools?
And: Your tool is limited to english voices only at the moment?
My tool is currently limited to English, correct.
Daniel Wolf - Feb 21, 2016 at 15:08
http://dannad.de/xchg/doornail2.mp4
The official repo is here: https://github.com/DanielSWolf/rhubarb-lip-sync
@Zombocast: I'm glad you enjoyed the old video. It felt like quite an accomplishment to me at the time. Since then, I spent a lot of time tuning the algorithm and I believe it really shows in the new video. The new mouth animation is much smoother and better in-sync. :-)
* It starts with an R sound, followed by an OO sound. A human speaker would "anticipate" the OO when speaking the R, forming puckered lips even for the R sound. That's what the new version does, too. The old version would have treated the two sounds independently.
* Following that is a B sound. Like the P sound, its timing is special. You'd think the sound is make with a closed mouth, but actually it is make by briefly closing, then opening the mouth. What you hear is actually the opening part, so the closing has to happen before the actual sound in order to look synchronous.
* The next sound is an AA sound with wide-open mouth. Showing a wide-open mouth directly after a closed mouth looks a bit jerky, so I'm inserting an in-between mouth shape with slightly opened mouth to make the transition smoother.
These are a few examples of the kind of improvements I made for the latest version.
There is (may be) just 1 small glitch (best seen when playing half speed) 0:19f "..key to this mystery.." there is no transition after "key" to the "to" and to the "this".
This is not intended to be nitpicking. Its just a small detail and one have to play it in slow motion to recognize. I think it shows how mature your system is.
"key to this" are 3 small words in a short period of time. The TTS system may have a hard time here. And having 3 facial expressions in this short period of time may look even more awkward, so it may be no glitch after all :)
As text is not final and voice recording haven't started yet i really hope your system will be used in the end. It greatly adds up to the (pixelated) atmosphere and immersion.
Thanks for making it open source and free to use!
Regarding the "key to this": I noticed it, too, but the explanation is a bit involved. The text ("key to this") is recognized correctly. Now there are two possible ways to pronounce "to": like "too" or like "teh". The first one leads to visibly puckered lips, while the second one leaves the mouth in a rather neutral position with clenched teeth.
It turns out the voice artist chose the second pronunciation (which my tool correctly recognized). So the resulting phrase is something like "thekeetethis". Say that aloud in front of a mirror. Don't over-enunciate, say it quickly and lazily. You'll notice your mouth hardly moves at all; all you'll see is clenched teeth and your tongue coming forward for the TH sounds. Now my tool doesn't use a dedicated TH mouth drawing, but instead re-uses the generic clenched-teeth drawing. Which means that given the limitation of 9 mouth shapes (based on 6 core shapes), this is really the best it can do.
Or is it? I haven't come up with a better solution for cases like this so far, but maybe there is one. If you're interested, do have a look at my project site (the mouth shapes in particular). I appreciate any suggestions!
For the "to" i hear too not teh?! Ok, maybe you're thinking of a more emphasized version, like the Brits do, "tiuu" :D
Ok, i looked at your page, and i have seen that you have mouth shapes with tongue (like for the L). So while with key-to-this the mouth shape stays almost the same, the tongue is involved in the latter two. So one possibility would be to add another slighly changed mouth shape. Adding each edge case sounds impractical though(?).
I've seen that your output file is not transition based, but actually word based. Thats great, because now you maybe could change the inside mouth color (dont know how the correct word is :) when the shape is not changing but the word. I'm thinking of a really slight color/brightness change (using the alpha channel of the very same shape?). Just enough to make out a difference, this would "simulate" a slight position change of the tongue. Therefore the mouth shapes seem to be more synced with every word.
Adding a new mouth shape for "TH" is definitely an option. My guess is that team Thimbleweed will stick to the core six mouth shapes. Still, I might do some tests to see if that leads to a visible improvement, then add the new mouth shape as optional.
Introducing small fluctuations into otherwise constant mouth shapes is a clever idea. I hadn't thought of that one. I wouldn't make them word-based, though; word boundaries don't really matter for mouth movement. The problem, as you already said, would be how to represent them visually. For low-res sprites, fiddling with alpha values might be all it takes. For high-resulution artwork, however, it gets trickier. Hmm...
Unfortunately, I don't know Ron's current thoughts on the matter. Last I heard, he said he'd look into it, but that was several months ago. And I don't even know whether Ron's following this conversation. He's probably only looking at the comments at the bottom, and this discussion is way up. I'd love to make him aware of it, but I don't know how. (And of course, I don't want to pester him -- I know he's a lot on his plate.)
There's one thing you might want to look into earlier, though. This isn't something you'd need to do personally, it's more of an artist thing. Lip-sync requires six specific mouth shapes. These probably differ to some extent from the mouth shapes you're drawing at the moment. It might make sense to compare these mouth shapes now, before you spend more time drawing actors.
If one of your artists can spare a few minutes, they can have a look at my project page (see link in header), where I've described the six core mouth shapes in detail. That might give you a quick indication of how feasible lip-sync is for you.
Do let me know if there's any way I can be of assistance to you or your team.
Deconstructing Leni
I almost cracked my head open after tripping the next morning with a mount of pieces scattered in the middle of the corridor.
‘Watch out, you stupid idiot! Or you will end up mixing me the computer with the washing machine!’ She blurted flourishing her Robertson screwdriver. She is certainly not in her best mood when she wakes up, I thought, but I started to worry.
That same afternoon, when I arrived home, I found the little rabbit Len having a nap inside the microwave oven housing, I had no need to use the key, Chan had already dismantled the front door, the hinge and the door knob laid on the sofa beside a gutted walkman, two transistor radios and some other disassembled devices I couldn’t identify.
Late that night, when she unscrewed the last nut of the last shelf of the last corner of the last room in the house, she said she felt so tired and we finally got together in bed.
I had a hard time to fall asleep, but I was finally dreaming me trying to mount myself (disabled as I was in a mount of small pieces that didn’t quite fit), when I felt something cold poking inside my ear, it was Chan’s screwdriver, it obviously was, voraciously unscrewing my guts.
Field Manual for Transoceanic Espionage
I had to change it to:
Transoceanic Spy Manual
Some nice news screenshots but i still think that a well defined smaller palette would have been better.
On the 3rd floor, I picked up a friend to play tennis: Friend: “Hello You, let’s go, I really need to take a dump now, but I can do that in the club house.” Me: “Okay if you say so.” At the tennis court: Friend: “Darn, the clubhouse is closed. Let’s just play.” After 25min of tennis (friend playing a strange style): Friend: “I really, really need to go to the john now, maybe behind those bushes?” After not finding a suitable place where friend can do his business: Friend: “No chance, let’s continue playing.” After seeing friend struggling and restraining himself for another 20min: Friend (in agony): “It’s no use, we have to go, I can’t stand this any longer.” While crossing town again: Me: “Why don’t you go here, here or over there?” Friend (with twisted face): “I can’t, I prefer to go at my home. Let’s step up the pace!” On the 2nd floor, my friend, in full swing, shitting in his pants: Me: “Life teaches us many lessons, this was one of the stranger ones.”
Mastery of Cliffhangers
by Prof. Sue Spence
and always will play a major role in story telling.
Prehistoric and Protohistoric archaeologists discovered that even as early as the stone age, Neanderthal men facilitated cliffhangers to make their cave paintings most intriguing.
The Mastery of Creating the Perfect Cliffhanger
In order to create a powerful but also significant cliffhanger the following three golden rules should be observered.
(1) Engage your audience, spellbound them and make them curious. A cliffhanger without a compelling story prior to that is worth nothing. Your story telling need to be impeccable to a point where your audience feels like they have to know every single detail about it. That way you secure to capture the audience until the Sequel comes out.
(2) Due to the Zeigarnik-Effect the cliffhanger should be on the most significant part of your story. The audience will remember the cliffhanger better than the self-contained story you were telling afore. Make sure the cliffhanger involves the quintessence of what people should bear in their minds.
(3) The last and possibly most important rule of creating the perfect cliffhanger is
Nice job, hope it will maje it into the game.
And anyways, violence is more of fun, innit? :-)
Our bulletin board systems (BBS) are rich and varied, and each one typically attracts calls from the local area, because long distance phone calls cost so much more. Finding the right BBS for you to call can take a good while. Many BBS will typically show you a list of more BBS along with their current phone numbers, in the logout screen - many of them connected to the same hub. It's the theme of the BBS, and the other users that should matter the most to you. And of course, any good BBS is connected to all the most widely used mail networks. Try to settle down on well connected local BBS, to call home. With luck, advanced chat with other users through multi-line chat systems is possible! You will find that the community is usually very helpful, with discussions on every topic! Sometimes, a BBS will even have regular user meetings! If real names are used on the BBS, you won't have that awkward moment where everyone calls you by ...
Title: My First Login
This idea has been appreciated very much!
RUNNY NOSES
ever will reach the North Pole.
Day 42. Snow everywhere. Behind us. Before us. Even in our underpants. Decide I have made my last snow angel.
Day 43. Jim's foot still not recovered. Reinforce the strecher-cum-sledge. Crew take turns pulling Jim along. Jim complains of seasickness.
Day 45. Jim is out cold due to a strained ankle. Crew suspects indolence but hard to prove.
Day 47. Doctor insists on amputation. Jim miraculously recovered. Crew cheers.
Day 65. Anders is gone missing. Crew spend whole day searching but to no avail. Memorial ceremony held before bedtime. John sheds a tear. Long night.
Day 66. Anders turns up. Unwilling to account for his whereabouts. Says he needed time to his own. Won't meet John's eyes. March continues.
Day 86. Out of bacon. Eggs dumped.
Day 89. Food is running short. March back for eggs.
Day 100. Or is it Day 101? Hard to say when sun never goes down. Have dreams about off switch.
Day 110. Crew starving. Down to our last bag of gummy bears.
Day 113. Jim gulps down half of our last bag of gummy bears. Claims it's his birthday. As if that is an excuse.
Day 114. My birthday. Have rest of gummy bears.
Day 120. Anders admits to having lost his toothbrush. Crew decide to
Thug life!
It it possible to include a small illustration on one page? or top half of one page?
Thanks... I can hardly wait for this game
Bladder Runner, a police that hunts red heads from Mars.
Beach of Amazement, a poem by Lady Signa, from the weavers
A new recipe for Grog
Two crime tales by the grand niece of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, one about a Santa Claus doll that by some obscure arts can walk (in one foot) and another about a crime in a theater where a spectator appears hanged from the ceiling above his seat, apparently killed by an actor.
And a non fiction essay by this author.
Extreme Library Design
Left Page:
as depicted in Figure 12-A in the previous section, you can see that the diffusion bonded titanium supports, when properly configured, are able to provide structural stability for a wide range of extreme-library designs. One such real-world example is the library found in the city of Thimbleweed Park. As this library is well established as being the centre-du-monde for questionable literary works from all over the world, the structure needed to be able to maintain several hundred metric tons of hardcover books. In addition, the unique building codes of Thimbleweed Park required the library to have a largely vertical design.
Right Page:
The access ladder proved to be an even greater design challenge, due to the dynamic load applied by the climber librarian over the near 1/8 mile vertical span. Titanium fibers applied in a composite structure provide the ladder with a natural look when painted properly, giving the library it's desired old architectural feel, with the engineering necessary to last for centuries. The precise cost of the library is unknown as the funding source was never revealed. It is assumed to exceed that of the "Space Shuttle" which NASA has been planning for several years, and uses a similar design techniques.
Extreme Bookstore Design (Physics and Astronomy Section)
and as depicted in Figure 12-14 above, you can see that the diffusion bonded titanium supports, when properly configured, are able to provide structural stability for a wide range of extreme structural designs. One such real-world example is the Occult Bookstore found in the city of Thimbleweed Park. As this bookstore is established as being the centre-du-monde for questionable mystical literary works from all over the world, the structure needed to be able to support several hundred metric tons of hardcover books. In addition, the unique building codes of Thimbleweed Park required the bookstore to have an extreme vertical design.
The access ladder proved to be an even greater design challenge, due to the dynamic load applied by the climber, over the near 400 meter vertical span. Titanium fibers applied in a composite structure provide the ladder with a natural look when painted, giving the bookstore its desired old architectural feel, with the engineering requirement to last well into the next century. The precise cost of the library is unknown as the source of funding has never been disclosed. It is assumed to exceed that of the recently designed Space Shuttle, which NASA built using similar design techniques. This has
TITLE
Die & retry: Lord of Xar
PAGE 1
-128- You wake up in an empty room, the floor is really cold and wet. As the light replaces the darkness, you realize you are in some sort of cell, the door wide open. You have got a spoon in your right hand. In a flash you remember you ate something sweet, it was like a warmth in your stomach... But you can't focus on last night's events more clearly, as if you thoughts were blurry. If you're having 15HP or more, either go to 212 to fulfill a natural need, or hurry and leave the cell by going to 319. If you have 14HP or less, you need to rest a little bit longer, go to 49.
PAGE 2
-129- You were right, it was eventually a bad idea to jump from that wall. You knew it was tall, and the fact that you didn't see what lied below was in fact a good starter to consider not jumping. You're falling, and while you're at it, you can think about how bold your decision was. Well, bold doesn't sum it up. Stupid. That's the word. You might try to convince yourself there is water down there, and a nice loot to find. Nah! You must now face the truth. You stuck your finger between pages 14 and 15, and thought that you could go back, and continue reading and playing this book. But between us, you're not only DEAD, you also cheated!
Should we consider submission to be around 500 characters, spaces included?
So you have to write less than 650 characters. :)
Page1
The moment I opened up my parents’ gift that day... woah... .Have I ever felt like this again? Well, requited love and job career are definitely the most delightful moments of a person’s life, but seriously, when was the last time I ever felt so fascinated? No, okay, that was it. That was the pearl that made my childish eyes shine. It’s been so many years since then and still skateboard won’t let me go. I skate in this small town, alone, and I can feel what freedom is.
Page2
Wait, I’m not alone, recently my brother decided to go skating too, but not in this town, we are apart and yet feel connected to each other. Growing up and working in a small country town didn’t make much difference than in the city to me. But growing up skating... it did. When you are a kid you feel like an adult when skating and when you are an adult you feel like a kid when skating. And this board... it makes all the unfriendly strangers come out from the shadow and skate, as if saying Hey, I’m alive. This muggy town has a reason to live.
Microsoft Stand:
https://twitter.com/AdventureTreff/status/765890122315341824
Great proposal this!
I have a little doubt about the "no internet handles" condition for the author's name-for-the-credits:
is it valid there to use my artist alias or not?
I dont see clearly what is the difference between an alias and a not-ok-for-the-credits-nickname.
Also, can i use my alias for both, the book's author and the credit's name?
Sorry for my ignorance, i want to be sure to submit the form right.
Salutes.
thanks for your answer, but the l33t-etc refeers to the book author name,
my question is about the credits name, for is there where the "no handles" condition is.
Is that per page - or overall
More importantly - it doesn't say that on the google form page - so I was only trying to keep under 100 words, not 100 words and 650 characters :( THat might mean some of my work is disqualified. Ouchie.
Sonnet at 6:15
I hold your perfect body in my hand.
Your form delights my mind – I'm enamored.
The chubby bottom and bald top, so warm.
I feel your skin, it's hard – and white, I see.
The thought of you always waters my mouth.
I want to put my teeth in your white meat,
and taste the creamy juice inside of you.
I long for you to let it out, like that.
But only in the early morning hour,
together with a cock-a-doodle-doo.
And by the kitchen table, eyes all tired,
salt sprinkled on each spoonful I devour.
When I have picked your shell and emptied you,
I brush my teeth, and off I go to work.
"How to be you" by M. E. Wise (section: self help)
them all. Others will try to convince you to be yourself, but that is a catch that will alienate you, because you are not you, you are I, and so, you have to be me as I am me. I am very happy because I am me, and you will be as happy as me when you be me as I say you to be. Furthermore, others will try to convince you to be your true self, but that also is a catch, because the self is a delusional mirror. If you want to be happy, you have to do what I am telling you.
Now you listen to me: You don't trust at all on no one, because all of them are wrong even if they sound right. Believe me, I know this very well. They want to steal you and do to you no good at all. I tell you this because I am your friend and I want you to be happy like me. Let me guess: You sure have lots of other books. That is so bad, they can confound you very much. So, the best you can do is to burn them to
I have a question: English is one of the shortest modern languages (in terms of quantity of characters of the words) of the western world. To say the same thing in Spanish, French, German or Italian it takes sometimes between 1.1 and 1.2 times the characters that it takes in English. Since there are two pages, the original text is in English, and there will be transalations, is this the reason why you suggest to write 600 character per page instead of 650, so the translations have 50 character more for the correspondent longer words of other languages? Thank you.
In case anyone wonders, I was in the south of France wearing my Thimbleweed Park(TM) T-shirt supporting the game...
Now, come here into my fish bowl, hurry up!!
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!
how they worked was a mystery that would have to be solved later. Mike and Lucy’s discovery would have an unimaginable effect on the history books. Once Lucy was bought up to speed on what the room was, she commented: ‘We need to adjust something as proof’.
Mike agreed, but he wanted to be cautious. ‘We should find something that won’t cause devastation. Imagine what will happen if we shrink the day? We could destroy the weather patterns’.
One of the dials caught Mike’s eye. It was set to zero. It’s translation was ‘Moon Rotation Rate’. This was the one to try.
First one (had to crop some of that for the submission):
was gone.
It was a strange feeling. For many years, basically most of my life, he had been at my side. We had grown up together, learned together, fought together. There had barely ever been more than a couple of days we ever had been separated. On more than one occasion had I saved his life. And at least twice as often he had saved mine. We always knew we could blindly trust one another in happy times as well as in dark times. He may have been a Yeti and I a human but he was a brother to me more than any other person could ever have been.
And now my big scruffy companion had to go. He was on his way to save one fool's life and with it perhaps the whole world. Little did I know that this would be the last time I would ever see him, though I had feared it all the same. Had I but known, perhaps I would have tried harder to convince him. Convince him that there had to be another solution. Maybe we should have traveled together to the City of Scarlet Crystals, faced the Darrgon Lord together. Maybe we should have seeked out the help of the Elven King, or the Dwarven Chieftang. Maybe. Just maybe.
With a lump in my throat the size of a dragon's head and a feeling in my heart as if part of my body had just been lopped off I gathered my bag, my sword and shield, and my saddle, killed the last remnants of our campfire and walked over to my horse.
Second one:
get out of here", she said, "If we don't make it before the tanks run out, we will not make it halfway towards the next quadrant alive."
As she put on the helmet of her space suit the light, reflected by the visor, momentarily blinded Ben. Rubbing his eyes he grabbed a suit of his own and clumsily started putting it on.
"How do you get in and out of these things so fast all the time?" he asked with more than just a little annoyance. "This alone would be enough to make me not want to be an Intergalacto Ranger ever."
"Believe me, that's the least of the reasons you would not make it to even to the rank of recruit."
"Very funny."
"I was not joking." Sinn Atra replied dryly.
By now Ben had learned all too well that she and her people had no sense of humor whatsoever. But he had a feeling that she had to be considered grouchy even by Gronda standards. It was probably a requirement to make it to Captain with the Rangers.
"So," he added, desperate to change the subject, "how much time do we have until everything blows up?"
If there are any categories without sufficient entries, I hope they are identified so we can take a stab at them.
as a programmer I can answer you without any doubt: YES.
A character is every single symbol, including space.
Hey, in what time zone do you live anyway? 1969? Are you on Mars just like the real Zak?
(Great Mars Time)
If some entries do not make it into the game, could you please NOT allow double fan entries UNTIL everyone else has been included once?
Thank you.
I tried to make a novelization of a short point and click adventure I developed a while ago (of course I made no mention of such thing in the text).
Can't wait to check the library in the game!
"The Disappearing Donuts"
by Tim E. Clare
PAGE1
Rebecca took a deep breath, knowing it was time to confront her best friend Artie. She had suspected him of theft in her home before but had been hesitant to accuse him without any evidence. After this latest incident, she believed she would finally uncover the truth.
“Artie… have you been stealing my donuts?” Rebecca anxiously asked as she approached him in the kitchen. “These are really special to me and my favorite one was sitting here on the table earlier. I left the room for only a minute, and when I came back it was gone.”
PAGE2
Artie sat silently in front of her with his head lowered towards the floor. As he looked up at her with a great big smile, Rebecca could see from his face that he had been the culprit all along.
“Wipe that stupid look from your face because I finally caught you. Outside! Now!" Rebecca exclaimed with stern disappointment.
Artie whimpered and slowly stood up. Almost mockingly, he licked up the remainder of the powdered jelly donut from around his mouth and nose, wagged his tail a few times and merrily scampered through the doggy door outside.
In the end, entirely inspired by a typo in the list of categories: Physics and Astromomy - which I read as astro-mummy and got into an ancient Egyptian space theme. Now hoping no one else had the exact same inspiration...
Just imagine all the work for the translators!
However, for your consideration™: Wonderful World of Words!
Page one:
===
Chapter 27: Pangrams.
A pangram is a sentence that uses all the letters in the alphabet at least once. There are several types of different pangrams.
For instance, a "perfect pangram" contains every letter only once. These are extremely hard to create as they usually would have to contain rare loan words.
A self-enumerating pangram on the other hand is a sentence that counts its own letters. It can be easily done by simply using digits ("This pangram contains 5 a's, 1 b, ... and 1 z") and recounting all the extra "s" letters.
A more challenging aspect would be to spell out the numbers, writing "five" instead of "5".
===
Page two:
===
However this would be very hard to achieve since every time the count of a letter changes - for instance from "five" to "six" - it results in an avalanche effect where a lot of the numbers need to be changed whenever a single number is changed.
One example of a self-enumerating pangram of unknown origin is as follows:
"This sentence first seen at ThimbleCon contains four As, two Bs, four Cs, two Ds, thirty-four Es, eight Fs, four Gs, ten Hs, thirteen Is, one J, one K, three Ls, two Ms, twenty-three Ns, seventeen Os, one P, one Q, eleven Rs, twenty-nine Ss, twenty-eight Ts, six Us, four Vs, eight Ws, two Xs, five Ys and one Z".
===
by Nicholas J. Tashiro
[First Page]
The guests having taken their seats in the grand dining hall and the conversation in full swing, a veritable parade of lavish dishes of every imaginable size and succulence suddenly erupted through the serving room doors. A chorus of resounding endorsement issued forth from the table, and before long the din of chatter fell to the clinking of forks and knives busy at work.
It was at that moment a tiny voice pierced the noise of gobbles and ingurgitations.
"Has anybody seen Mr. Fluffy?" piped little Mary Sue, the youngest of the Belvedere children, "I've called and called, but haven't been able to find him all day lon—"
[Second Page]
But her query was interrupted by an abrupt gasp from Mrs. Belvedere, who had discovered what appeared to be a small strand of an inedible something upon her plate. It was a miniature leather necklace of some sort, caked in crusted streaks of a brilliant vermilion hue. Attached to it was a kind of flat, metallic bauble which appeared to have been broken roughly in twain with one hemisphere having gone altogether missing.
Turning the trinket over in her hands, Mrs. Belvedere could make out the faintest of lettering. She brought the necklace close to her face, squinting to make out the word inscribed thereupon. "UFFY," it read.
In your darkest hours they reveal things you cannot see. Any other time
you'd never know they were still actually there. What are they?
The stars.
When I fall, It's usually never quite completely. When you try to catch me,
I will always seem quite fleeting. What am I?
A Meteor.
Though I lie here by day and night, only those who know me by name
cry at my sight. What am I?
A tombstone.
In warmth I prefer to wear green. When its cooler I prefer yellow. When
its coldest I prefer nothing at all. What am I?
A tree.
Did i miss the deadline?:(
I'm trying to send the text book, but google form doesn't work. Is it right? Deadline isn't 29th August Included? Patience!
Thanks
Same here:(
I guess the form was available until aug. 29 00:00 :(
Anyway, after i finish the englush translation, i will post it here.
Dr. Fred sir, at your service, sir.
...
*brzzt*
...
I'm just a dancebot!