I've got something kind of cool for you. I think it might be of a sort of historical interest to the newsgroup, as well as just being something interesting.
A few months ago, I found an old strongbox at a garage sale. It was part of the effects of a dead and long-forgotten relative of the folks holding the sale. It was weird enough that I felt I had to buy it. But I didn't expect what I found when I got it home and managed to force it open.
The box was full of papers written by a woman named Laura Bryant. Through some letters in the box, I was able to figure out that she was born in the early 1940s. She worked as a middle-school English teacher, enjoyed Elvis, and wrote poetry. The majority of the stuff in the box, though, was a collection of what she called "story worlds."
These story worlds are akin to interactive fiction or roleplaying games; they're designed for one player and one mediator who serves as the parser or the game master. The earliest date on a story world in the box is 1964, which means these works predate Crowther and Woods's Adventure, Dungeons & Dragons, or Wesely's Braunstein. There's no sign that Bryant ever got into computers, or was aware of her works' similarities to interactive fiction, RPGs, and video games.
You can see an example of a page from one of these story worlds on my web space: http://ludusnovus.net/images/bryant-paper-24a.png I apologize for the quality of the scan; this page was stuffed into the back of the box, and I've yet to find the rest of the pages for that particular story world.
I would have posted about this find earlier, but I thought it'd be fun to write up a few of these story worlds as pieces of IF, in a form that modern IF players would be comfortable with. The task turned out to be trickier than I thought, but I've finally finished transliterating five of the story worlds into IF form. I've compiled them into a game called The Bryant Collection. You can download it from my website at http://ludusnovus.net/games/bryantcollection.zblorb or from the IF Archive once it percolates through to the right place.
The Bryant Collection contains the five stories that I found the most interesting and feasible to convert to IF: "The End of the World" is a story about lunch. "Morning in the Garden" is a story about dealing with annoying people. "Tower of Hanoi" is a rather interesting little puzzle, but not what you think. It came with a sort of feelie in the strongbox, which is included as an IF object. "Going Home Again" is a story about growing up. "Undelivered Love Letter" is a story about airports.
I hope you find Ms. Bryant's work as cool as I did. If you have any bug reports, you can send them to Gregory.W...@gmail.com .
> I've got something kind of cool for you. I think it might be of a > sort of historical interest to the newsgroup, as well as just being > something interesting.
> A few months ago, I found an old strongbox at a garage sale. It was > part of the effects of a dead and long-forgotten relative of the folks > holding the sale. It was weird enough that I felt I had to buy it. > But I didn't expect what I found when I got it home and managed to > force it open.
> The box was full of papers written by a woman named Laura Bryant. > Through some letters in the box, I was able to figure out that she was > born in the early 1940s. She worked as a middle-school English > teacher, enjoyed Elvis, and wrote poetry. The majority of the stuff > in the box, though, was a collection of what she called "story > worlds."
> These story worlds are akin to interactive fiction or roleplaying > games; they're designed for one player and one mediator who serves as > the parser or the game master. The earliest date on a story world in > the box is 1964, which means these works predate Crowther and Woods's > Adventure, Dungeons & Dragons, or Wesely's Braunstein. There's no > sign that Bryant ever got into computers, or was aware of her works' > similarities to interactive fiction, RPGs, and video games.
> You can see an example of a page from one of these story worlds on my > web space:http://ludusnovus.net/images/bryant-paper-24a.png I > apologize for the quality of the scan; this page was stuffed into the > back of the box, and I've yet to find the rest of the pages for that > particular story world.
> I would have posted about this find earlier, but I thought it'd be fun > to write up a few of these story worlds as pieces of IF, in a form > that modern IF players would be comfortable with. The task turned out > to be trickier than I thought, but I've finally finished > transliterating five of the story worlds into IF form. I've compiled > them into a game called The Bryant Collection. You can download it > from my website athttp://ludusnovus.net/games/bryantcollection.zblorb > or from the IF Archive once it percolates through to the right place.
> The Bryant Collection contains the five stories that I found the most > interesting and feasible to convert to IF: > "The End of the World" is a story about lunch. > "Morning in the Garden" is a story about dealing with annoying people. > "Tower of Hanoi" is a rather interesting little puzzle, but not what > you think. It came with a sort of feelie in the strongbox, which is > included as an IF object. > "Going Home Again" is a story about growing up. > "Undelivered Love Letter" is a story about airports.
> I hope you find Ms. Bryant's work as cool as I did. If you have any > bug reports, you can send them to Gregory.W...@gmail.com .
On Mar 31, 11:53 pm, Gregory Weir <gregory.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, folks.
> I've got something kind of cool for you. I think it might be of a > sort of historical interest to the newsgroup, as well as just being > something interesting.
Wasn't this posted about 7 minutes too early?
Or maybe I'm being too paranoid; after all, David Welbourn's mapping tool seems to actually be a real thing, and I know the Spring Thing games really are up. Hmm.
> On Mar 31, 11:53 pm, Gregory Weir <gregory.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi, folks. > Wasn't this posted about 7 minutes too early?
> Or maybe I'm being too paranoid; after all, David Welbourn's mapping > tool seems to actually be a real thing, and I know the Spring Thing > games really are up. Hmm.
I'm in the Eastern time zone, so I posted it at 12:53 AM.
> I'm in the Eastern time zone, so I posted it at 12:53 AM.
> Gregory
Congratulations, you've added your own small stink to the glut of unfunny overdone failures.
A _good_ April 1 joke makes the person fooled laugh about it. Your attempt causes the reaction "oh, that's kinda cool", and then falls utterly flat when when it turns out not to be true.
> Congratulations, you've added your own small stink to the glut of > unfunny overdone failures.
> A _good_ April 1 joke makes the person fooled laugh about it. Your > attempt causes the reaction "oh, that's kinda cool", and then falls > utterly flat when when it turns out not to be true.
This is a standard envelope stuffed with fifteen sheets of triple- folded lined paper. The pages are loose, and are covered in neat writing in blue pen. In a few places, the ink has bled where drops of moisture fell on the pages. The envelope is unaddressed and unstamped, and the words "UNDELIVERED LOVE LETTER" are writted across the front. Where the return address would be is the date "1975."
You have "writted" in the place of "written."
I just started, but it looks to be quite interesting.
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