[Comp99] Even more reviews (Jerome Plapp's)
Jerome Plapp
them all--it seems that I have missed many of the good ones. This is my
first year judging in the comp (I missed Comp98 by three hours!), and
so I've been quite caught up in the sheer pageantry of the thing. On a
whole, I thought there were quite a few excellent games; unfortunately,
there were also quite a few bad ones. I've made an attempt to be
constructive though.
Each game, of course, was rated on a scale of 1 to 10, but unlike
many (most?) people, I have normalized the scores to a certain extent,
with the games only being compared to the others in the comp, rather
than the likes of CURSES or PHOTOPIA. Also, the games are rated in the
order that I played them--this is important as I got a rather odd
distribution of games as you will see.
One more thing--I wrote most of these reviews during and
immediately after I played the game. I went over them before posting
and saw some things that I felt needed commenting on. These Post-Comp
notes appear in square brackets [].
On with the show!
Exhibition: A Special Collection of Twelve Paintings
Anatoly Domokov
This was the best one I played, actually. It certainly has its
flaws, but these are not too distracting from the game. [Looking back,
I think I gave this game a higher rating than perhaps I really meant...
I think it had something to do with the games that followed it]
The subtexts in this entry are lead up to in each other character,
allowing a glimpse of what is going on and then the metaphorical
"bursting of the bubble" in other sections. Very effective to my mind
and I quite enjoyed the implication that people think they know what is
going on but never really do, cliched as it may be. Also interesting is
the comparison between the wife and the hustler--she interprets these
images to be something entirely different from the hustler's own,
equally [more, actually] valid interpretation. It was quite depressing,
however. It's unsettling to think that people might be having the same
type of confusion about us and our life and works when we die [just
thought of what the post-mortem IF exhibitions of some writers might be
like. Amusing].
It does have its limitations, however--the fact that you must pick
one character first ruins the misconceptions you are exposed to during
that character's viewing. You have to take it as factual since you have
so little other information to base your judgement on. It is also
distastefully linear in a strangely non-linear fashion; you have the
semblance of choice but really there is none. This means its not really
a game [and when look at how I rip apart other games for the same thing
I cringe a bit] and thus has a limited entertainment value.
But, so does "literature," in my opinion. Yet it can still be good
if you're in the right mood. And, fortunately, I was.
RATING: 9
Bliss: An Interactive Harrowing
Cameron Wilkin
Following EXHIBITION, this was pretty scary. It got marked down
quite a bit because of the weird thing that happens if you look under
the cot (as is reasonable, given the description). "Under the bed you
see ." is a pretty scary thing to find on the fourth turn, and I almost
gave up in disgust, assuming that some item that I needed was under
there and I couldn't get it. The walkthrough set me straight though.
[Begin hints/walkthrough rant: So many games omitted this detail; as
you will see I had little mercy on them for it. Let me "spoil" the game
if I like--I think that a game is spoiled more by a puzzle that I can't
get past than it is by actually getting to read the text you worked so
hard to write, and I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually
*want* people to be unable to finish their game. I happen to be very
bad at puzzles--I play for the writing and general fun of it. I can
hear the whining now: "Oh, but the temptation is too great! I just go
straight to the hints and it ruins the game for me!" That is a truly
sad admission of your lack of willpower... It's hardly the equivalent
of crack or even sugar. Anyway, back to the review.]
There are also some problems with parsing of pronouns as well as
words like 'all' and such [though, to be fair, a lot of the games had
these types of problems].
I really wanted to like this game, and in a way, I did. The concept
and idea are very interesting, as is the character of the imp (it would
make a good adversary in a longer, different game too...). Again,
having said that, I had a problem with the adventure itself. I was so
depressed when I started playing, thinking I was in for a boring hack
and slash dungeon crawl with no thought or skills required. As it turns
out, that was just sort of a masquerade, but even after it became clear
something really weird (and certainly interesting) was going on, the
boredom of the first part remains, like an albatross. Because of this,
I have to give it a 5. Although it really has potential, and the true
plot of the game were quite good, the technical flaws, slightly
unpolished feel, and the lingering mundanity of the fantasy make me
reduce this from the 7 it would probably get otherwise.
RATING: 5
Strangers in the Night: An Interactive Gothic Hunt
Rich Pizor
Ok, so I'm not a goth. Still, I'm pretty gothic for someone who
dresses as mundanely as I do, so my dislike of this game is not because
I hate the concept. First off, the technical errors:
Not near enough synonyms, not enough manipulable objects, setting
rather bare, horrific NPC bugs such as:
>ASK BOUNCER ABOUT TICKET
The bouncer is in a rather public place; that kind of interaction isn't
advisable.Surely, you can't think the bouncer knows anything about it!
And then the writing... am I the only one who found the behavior of
the pastor to be completely mimesis-breaking? Now, to be sure, most of
the writing is competent; nothing to rave about, sure, but not bad per
se. That pastor, though... Nothing breaks a dark mood quite like that.
This game does show good room descriptions in many points. Oh, yes,
I also hate having *all* of the entrances and exits to separate
locations be secondary compass directions.
But the killer the game type isn't really very interesting. I'm not
talking about the gothic/vampire type, I'm talking about the "go out
and get at least three drinks of blood before the sun comes up, etc,
etc... it is too sharply defined. If there were effective description
and stuff, most people would never even see it because there are no
clues or anything needed, just locate a person and >BITE PERSON
I think there is a bug in the ending too--three drinks aren't
enough to keep the Hunger at bay? Isn't that what I was told in the
README? A day (night?) in the life of a vampire is an interesting idea
(I don't think it's been done before, at least not in IF) but the
execution could be better. The saddest thing is that, again, like
Bliss, we have a game that could be better with some more work, but
this is version I have to judge.
RATING: 3
Chicks Dig Jerks
Robb Sherwin
First impressions were good; the Australian(?) language and slang
lend color to the situation. I see he chose to go with the menu talk
interface... brave!
Very incoherent yet somehow attracting--it has a really unusual
tone, like some alternate universe... GRAVE ROBBERY?!?!?!
Well, this is a bizarre game. Unfortunately, while it seemed
relatively bug-free up until the graveyard, now the incoherency mounts,
and shitwanks appear out of nowhere, kill people, threaten you, and at
no time are actually present [though, unlike many others, I had no
difficulty in finishing the game]. It reminds me of "Bordello of Blood"
or "From Dusk Till Dawn," actually.
After that short excursion into technical errors and confusion,
though, the rest of it is pretty interesting. It is a pretty good
story... just needs a little more coherence [though, on reflection,
that might ruin it], and the fence puzzle seems thrown in as an
afterthought. This game might do better without it, or maybe with more
different puzzles as well.
Ok, one more note: the language. I don't have any problems with bad
language/sexual situations and in fact I thought this was pretty
appropriate and realistic in this game. It's just that I think the
author was Australian, and, well, their slang is a LOT different from
American slang. Some of the remarks seemed completely foolish and way
out there to an American ear. This made it funnier, though.
Oh yes, and I liked the ending... it all came together pretty well,
like the punchline of a joke. It is also a sentiment that many people
have had before, as well, though hopefully the author won't get an
earfull for it; we are all intelligent people here, and I don't think
he meant to say ALL women EVERYWHERE love only jerks... just a comment
on a strange behavior on the part of some women that I have also seen
many times over.
RATING: 6
Thorfinn's Realm
Roy Main and Robert Hall
Oh my. A dungeon crawl without a dungeon (I have to admit that was a
nice touch, though). Most descriptions (almost all) are only one or two
lines. I especially love that nice touch of not placing the exits in
the description also... you just gotta love
Woods
You're in the woods. There is an ancient mausoleum here.
>W
The woods are way too thick. You'd need a machete to go that way.
>E
The woods are way too thick. You'd need a machete to go that way.
>S
Woods
You're in the woods.
Maybe it's supposed to be a maze? If it is, at least it's not very
hard, though the woods are even non-bidirectional!
Straight to walkthrough--again with the time limits on games to
make them (I can only guess) more tedious.
Did I mention that very few things even have a description when you
look at them, or, if they do, it usually is meaningless (with the
author assuring you of it's meaninglessness). It's like he feels
compelled to point out every single red herring in the game (except he
doesn't, at least not the urn... I thought I was supposed to use it to
find my way through the Woods of Spacial Distortion).
The really unfortunate thing is that the walkthrough is buggy. The
timing is also so tight that I don't think you can possibly make it
through the game without restarting over and over until you end up
duplicating the walkthrough. There's not really much else I can say,
other than there's a reason why dungeon crawls have fallen out of
favor.
RATING: 3
L.U.D.I.T.E. : Not Quite Poetry. Not Quite Prose.
Rybread Celcius
OK, well, I have to say that I am the last one to hate Rybread
Celsius... I feel that often his work has a lot of bizarre appeal,
somewhat similar to a crazy man's translation of Alice in Wonderland.
The problem with this game (as well as his other games) is that they
are *too damn hard*. It requires telepathy on the part of the player to
get through these games. This game deposits you in a room where there
appears to be no exit (there are no items or anything in the room,
neither are there items in the other rooms). You cannot leave by any
method I have tried (all compass directions, up, down, out, exit,
leave...). Now, this seems like it is a puzzle, but it is so hard I
can't solve it and there is no walkthrough. I am not very good at
puzzles, I must say [I did eventually finish the game when I found out
the verb that gets you out of the void. I wasn't really impressed].
[As it turns out that's basically all of it--I wasn't missing much
by failing to get out of the room.]
RATING: 2
Pass the Banana
Anonymous
This is not a game. It is not even really interactive. Puzzleless
IF is ok in my book, nothing instrinsically wrong with it (especially
since I don't like exceedingly hard puzzles). But... this just isn't
very interesting. The NPC's were amusing for a little while but I would
have hoped in such a simple game that they would be far more developed.
About the only puzzle element in it is that you have to pass the damn
banana to the robot over and over again. I thought you just had to pass
it, and proceeded to set up a confusing melange of timed daemons and
whatnot passing bananas back and forth, spewing incoherent babble to
the screen (like four or five things happening in the same turn). It
just really can't carry an entire comp game (nor, I suspect, was it
meant to originally). Unfortunate.
[As it turns out, this is an in-joke game--and I wasn't in. At
least SINS AGAINST MIMESIS was a funny game otherwise...]
RATING: 2
Music Education
Bill Linney
I don't really like those games that recreate a college area, dorm,
etc. But this one was passable compared to most. It wasn't bad, it
wasn't great. It was, on one hand, better written than most of them. On
the other hand, it suffered from the "too many ideas, not enough flesh"
syndrome typical to many comp games. The cop, for example. I never had
anything happen with that; I never put money in the meter but nothing
ever came of it. The area was also quite depopulated for a college. The
football players do nothing of interest that I found. All of the other
NPC's are quite one-dimensional, bring-x-to-y problems (with the
exception of the guy sitting on the loading dock). His problem was
that, as a hint system, he wasn't very helpful, in fact, virtually all
of my questions and comments were ignored by him, and some of the other
responses didn't notice that I hadn't seen something (I'm referring to
the piano--I meant the one in the professor's room, not the *real*
one). I didn't even pick up on the fact that there was a piano in the
auditorium (though that's my failing). But the piano thing is quite
absurd. There is a perfectly suitable piano that the professor is
using. When you give him the disk, he leaves. I thought (until I
consulted the walkthrough--I actually persisted for quite some time)
that was the piano that the depressed piano player needed. Needless to
say, I was wasting my time. On the whole, I think that this game could
do with a little more development.
RATING: 5
Jacks or better to murder, Aces to win
J. D. Berry
Oh, my, what a cool idea. This is the kind of subject that I feel
has been sadly overlooked (I practically had an orgasm over VARICELLA);
politico/religious intrigue, particularly those set in a sort of
medieval alternate universe. The plot was interesting, the PC was
practically cascading personality and potential (I do not mind if the
PC has a defined character, in fact, I encourage it... I like trying to
think like other people). The socio-political system was so interesting
that it drew me into the game even further. Even comedy and drama are
mixed superbly, to great effect (the behavior of the speaker at the
beginning of the game, as well as the sort of dryly humorous thoughts
of the PC).
So what's the problem? Not enough. Most of the game consists of
cutscenes that drive forward the plot. Again, not that I have a
particular problem with cutscenes, it's just the ratio of interactivity
to non- is particularly low in this game, causing me to feel like I'm
really not able to affect the outcome of the game (though one may, I
haven't tried a lot of different things yet). Another problem is the
fact that the universe presented gives such an impression (much like
the Zork, Enchanter, etc. series) that it is much vaster than the area
covered by the game. This is good, but it left me wanting more. What
exactly is the political situation here? What is the name of the place?
Aren't we going to get revenge? The game tries to answer these
questions, and does so partially, but it's not really enough for the
possible richness of the setting. This isn't really too much of a
problem for a comp game, however. They need to be short. I guess I just
wish it wasn't a comp game so it could be expanded on.
RATING: 6
The HeBGB Horror!
Eric Mayer
I was unable to fully test this program due to a nasty bug
(probably in the Mac port of Arun, though nobody really bothered to
confirm this when I posted about it). I have not rated it, which is
probably a good thing because I don't think I would have given it a
very nice rating.
RATING: N/A
Erehwon
Richard Litherland, as Josaih Pinkfoot
This was a really cool game. I myself am interested in weird
mathematics/physics/cosmology so this was a welcome change from the
usual (though, really, there hasn't been much of the usual in this
comp). Very, very clever. I could wish for some more description
though--many of the places seemed rather bland. Exceedingly difficult
in some places--the Klein Desert drove me mad for quite a while, and
the constant topological distortions were hard to work out properly. I
also liked the way it had several branches--none of them crucial but
they changed the outcome of the game at least. Quite good.
RATING: 8
Stone Cell
Middle Edge
This seems like it's a good offering--excellent atmosphere and ok
writing (though a bit over-flowery), a sort of quaint, old-fashioned
style that fits the setting. I was surprised, however, by the way the
cell changes after you sleep--it goes from rich description to sentence
fragments. I also have a 'bone' to pick... there is no way to find the
bone other than through the walkthrough. There is nothing to search
except the floor, which shows nothing, nothing appears in the
description, there is no way to find it except >X BONE
There also are guess the verb puzzles, like hiding behind the
tapestry. >HIDE BEHIND TAPESTRY fails, so does >GET BEHIND TAPESTRY and
>GO BEHIND TAPESTRY you have to use >E.
This game turned out to be a little too overblown and simplified for
me. This combined with the other annoying verb guessing made me deduct
a few points. However, the author definitely shows some promise. I
would suggest taking more time to flesh out some of the drab areas
(they show up really bad against the somewhat-overblown prose of the
rest of the game), as well as repairing some bugs (there are a lot
similar to the bone one, where people and things don't appear in the
description--as they're just daemons or something without an actual
object).
RATING: 6
A Day for Soft Food
Tod Levi
This is a cute game... I love my kitten and a good job at capturing
the mind of a cat was done. I also like the word mew, which was used
quite often.
A couple of minor errors (mostly duplicate descriptions and a few
minor guess-the-verb puzzles). Nothing annoying.
I don't know, maybe I just like cats too much, but this was a
really bittersweet story to me. The whole situation with a stupid
animal that doesn't know what anything is and a bitter, depressed
Provider that doesn't give him any love is very sad in interesting. I
also liked the way the Provider's ill health was foreshadowed
throughout the game, and the way in which the story turns from selfish
interests (finding soft food) to more selfless interests (though that
could be argued to a certain extent).
Again, great descriptions... It's always interesting to see a game
that explores emotion, motivations, etc... from a non-standard
viewpoint (I liked AISLE and PHOTOPIA, EXHIBITION, even BLISS, etc...).
As far as the bad side goes, really, there's nothing that a
post-Comp release couldn't easily fix. A few minor bugs, but this game
seems like it's basically done... the new version probably isn't more
than a few days of mild labor.
RATING: 8
Spodgeville Murphy and The Jewelled Eye of Wossname
David Fillmore
This is a funny game, though not very long (it only took me like 10
minutes, mostly because I thought the umbrella was supposed to protect
you from the walls). There's not much you can say about it... it was
whipped up pretty quickly and an OK job was done.
I would like to see maybe a full-length game with Spodgeville Murphy in
it... could be cool.
I can't give it a higher rating because I docked points from others
for being too short, and this really was (though the intro was nice).
It had buglets and needed to be proofread as well (had some odd
indentation too, not sure exactly what's wrong but it looks weird to
the eye). The worst problem is that the big gimmick has been done
before--and without that it's not really too interesting. A full game
could still be good, though.
[Strangely enough, I didn't run into the ledge problem. I thought I
saw it and just typed the correct action. I have no explanation for
this, maybe I'm just psychic.]
RATING: 5
Winter Wonderland
Laura A. Knauth
This is a charming little game in the fairy-tale vein. There are a
few technical errors (nothing serious) and some minor spelling and
grammer problems. Still, it is very deftly executed, with interesting
descriptions that enhance the fairy-tale atmosphere, as well as some
quite clever and original puzzles, though nothing too difficult. On the
whole, it was a good effort if you're in the mood for a fairy-tale. One
good thing was that it was a reasonable length (not too long for a comp
game, but not like some of the ultra-short games we've gotten this
year). Charming, sweet, and delectable!
I can tell she put a lot of work into this game and it shows.
[Congratulations! Hard work has its rewards.]
RATING: 8
Guard Duty: An Interactive Vigil
Jason F. Finx
This game has a really really bad error--I can't play it so I won't
rate it. Too bad, it looked like it would be really good.
UNRATED
The Water Bird
Athan Skelley
I don't think it's finished. You get stuck in the room "Overlooking
Cholok" when you get the passalu plant. The only exit, sw, leads right
back into the same room.
This is a fatal bug. There are also other bugs (many of them also
relating to exits) earlier on. Needs some more debugging, though
otherwise it would probably get a fair-to-middlin' score.
UNRATED
On the Farm
Lenny Pitts
This was ok I suppose. I'm not much into farms and rural life (had
enough of that already). There is nothing really I can put my finger
on, the game just fails to jell for me. A lot of good puzzles, though
some were really hard.
RATING: 6
Death to my Enemies
Roody Yogurt
Well, this was pretty funny. I was reminded of of FRENETIC FIVE,
which I also enjoyed. It had the whole "slimeball as hero" thing going
which I thought worked well and was pretty interesting. The ending was
sort of a copout though, and most of the objects were red herrings...
this is what leads me to hope that there will be a revision that's
bigger. By the way, my mother is the manager of a health food store,
and I've actually seen the Dr. Bronner's soap. I recommend that you all
go find some--the label is even more bizzare than what was shown in the
game (much longer too). It's hours of bizarre nutso fun (well, not
*hours*, more like minutes but you get the idea).
RATING: 7
Outsided
Chad Elliott
Um. I'm not sure what to say. The idea was clever and interesting,
once I finally figured it out. But, it was very similar to Detective,
and not the MST3K version. Instant death, hardwired daemons, bad
grammar and spelling, confusing and senseless plot, clear-as-mud
puzzles, entirely too many cutscenes and setting changes handled
without means of standard IF systems (the cutscenes showed up tres
weird on my interpreter). All is this is very strange, because the
_idea_ is excellent! I just wish it had been handled better.
RATING: 1
Only After Dark
Anonymous
I couldn't finish this game--I got to a point where it was
impossible to do _anything_ [and I still don't know how to finish it,
nor do I really care]. It had a good idea and, in the beginning at
least, good writing, but it was basically cutscenes separated by
guess-the-verb puzzles. The transfiguration was not handled as well as
I've seen, either--I expected more emphasis on scent [though really, it
was the same way all the way through]. It just wasn't very much fun
(and another reason to include a walkthrough!).
RATING: 4
Beat the Devil: An Interactive Spree
Bredon
Ah, a comedic hell game! This is pretty funny in most places, and
only a few technical errors relating to descriptions. Quite jolly, and
pretty well written, apart from the occasional missing ' or other small
misspelling. The tone is a little juvenile at times but that isn't
necessarily a bad thing (see CHICKS DIG JERKS). The puzzles and story
were clever as well. I think that the author shows promise, and I hope
to see more from him.
RATING: 7
Chaos: An Interactive Explosion
Shay Caron
Because there was no walkthrough, and this game was so confusing, I
couldn't really figure out how to do anything. I didn't really have the
time, though, so I didn't rate this game. Didn't much like it, though.
UNRATED
CONCLUSION:
From reading a few of the reviews that have already been posted, it
seems like I missed many of the really good games. I will be playing
the rest of the games (and I will send a review to the authors as well)
but I am depressed that I couldn't give them the attention that they
deserve (I even wish I could have given the games I did review more
attention). I do enjoy playing these games, though, even the worse ones
and I encourage everyone who entered a game to try again--writing takes
practice, even IF writing. I apologize deeply to anyone who may feel
that I was overly mean--I tried to keep a positive tone as much as
possible and none of my comments are meant to discourage anybody.
Having said that, I wonder what will happen next year... this was a
*lot* of games and the number is sure to increase. I'm not sure if we
can handle even more games in the same way. Perhaps we need to look
into alternative methods of handling the Competitions--I have heard
suggestions of splitting it so it takes place twice a year but that
doesn't seem to be much better for some reason. It's a thorny problem;
but I'm sure with all of the bright people we have working on IF
something can be worked out.
With a big thank-you to everyone who entered,
--
Jerome Plapp
vox...@asu.edu
Jerome Plapp
Australian... perhaps the use of the term 'wank' coupled with the fact
that you obviously weren't British confused me. Although I'm not
entirely sure if they use that term in Oz, I think that was it.
In any case, it didn't really get in the way of _understanding_ the
game really... In most cases it was obvious to me what was meant. I
just found it quite strange (though perhaps some of the slang I have
used would confuse others as well) and amusing.
I always found it interesting the way that slang mutates and
migrates and transforms into the most utterly bizarre terms you could
ever imagine... unless one uses them oneself :)
In article <3831fd12....@news.frii.com>, Robb Sherwin
<robb_s...@juno.com> wrote:
> Actually, I was born and raised in upstate New York. As for the slang,
> it's mostly an amalgam of words, expressions and concepts I
> experienced / helped create at college, Cyrix and the New Orleans
> Saints bulletin boards.
>
> I hadn't thought that it would get in anyone's way of understanding
> what was going on, but I think in a lot of cases it did. If I write
> another game with that tone, I am definitely including a "what does
> xxxx mean?" routine.
--
Jerome Plapp
vox...@asu.edu
Robb Sherwin
wrote:
> Ok, one more note: the language. I don't have any problems with bad
>language/sexual situations and in fact I thought this was pretty
>appropriate and realistic in this game. It's just that I think the
>author was Australian, and, well, their slang is a LOT different from
>American slang. Some of the remarks seemed completely foolish and way
>out there to an American ear. This made it funnier, though.
Just to clarify:
Actually, I was born and raised in upstate New York. As for the slang,
it's mostly an amalgam of words, expressions and concepts I
experienced / helped create at college, Cyrix and the New Orleans
Saints bulletin boards.
I hadn't thought that it would get in anyone's way of understanding
what was going on, but I think in a lot of cases it did. If I write
another game with that tone, I am definitely including a "what does
xxxx mean?" routine.
Thanks for playing, I appreciate you posting your review. =)
-- Robb
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Robb Sherwin, Fort Collins CO
Reviews From Trotting Krips: http://ifiction.tsx.org
Knight Orc Home Page www.geocities.com/~knightorc
Lucian Paul Smith
: On Tue, 16 Nov 1999 16:02:21 -0700, Jerome Plapp <vox...@asu.edu>
: wrote:
: >It's just that I think the
: >author was Australian, and, well, their slang is a LOT different from
: >American slang.
: Just to clarify:
: Actually, I was born and raised in upstate New York. As for the slang,
: it's mostly an amalgam of words, expressions and concepts I
: experienced / helped create at college, Cyrix and the New Orleans
: Saints bulletin boards.
This is very odd--because I, too, thought the game was set in Australia.
Nothing specific, just a general impression I got from the opening.
Trying to pinpoint this feeling, I thought to myself, "Well, maybe because
Australia is a standard setting for a post-apocalyptic millieu." -- but I
don't know why I thought the game was post-apocalyptic, either! Anyone
else get an Australian vibe from this game?
-Lucian
Fraser
>This is very odd--because I, too, thought the game was set in Australia.
This is particularly odd. The word 'jerk' is only known in Australia
from US television. We never use it ourselves. I'm not suggesting that
everybody should have been aware of that; just that it's odd for me to
hear about people mistaking a game with such an obvious (to me) use of
American slang in the title.
Now, if the game had been called "Sheilas Dig Dickheads" we'd be on
to something.
Just on reading opening paragraph: 'chaps' and 'lavatory' sound English;
'you couldn't nail', 'lucked out', 'military school', 'assjack', 'stiffs'
and 'knock outs' sound anything but Australian. I have to wonder how
you think we talk. Mate.
Fraser.
(I'm not knocking youse, fair dinkum)
Jake Wildstrom
Fraser <blanc...@blancolioni.org> wrote:
>Just on reading opening paragraph: 'chaps' and 'lavatory' sound English;
>'you couldn't nail', 'lucked out', 'military school', 'assjack', 'stiffs'
>and 'knock outs' sound anything but Australian. I have to wonder how
>you think we talk. Mate.
Well, that's probably it--they don't sound much like English or American slang
either (or at least, _I've_ never heard "assjack". Maybe I lead a sheltered
life), and, when all's said and done, the majority of colorful slang in the
English language is either American, from some or other part of the UK (varying
a lot from place to place), or Australian. Since most of us (read: unwashed
American heathens) know the least about the particulars of Australian slang, we
assume anything unknown's from there, I guess.
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into |
| theorems. -Paul Erdos |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jake Wildstrom |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Joe Mason
>Just on reading opening paragraph: 'chaps' and 'lavatory' sound English;
>'you couldn't nail', 'lucked out', 'military school', 'assjack', 'stiffs'
>and 'knock outs' sound anything but Australian. I have to wonder how
>you think we talk. Mate.
You know, if it seems to be a mixture of Brit and U.S. slang, I would've
guessed Canada. I just figured it was slang from a slightly different crowd
- I know every time I walk into a bar in a new city, I hear expressions I've
never heard before. Usually they're pretty easy to grok from context,
though - same thing here.
Joe
okbl...@my-deja.com
indeterminite time and place in the future?
:-)
--
[ok]
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Adam Cadre
> indeterminite time and place in the future?
I assumed the same thing -- perhaps because my novel contains a fair
bit of made-up slang, created in order that it not seem immediately
dated.
But I didn't think Chicks Dig Jerks was set in the future. Just an
alternate present.
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
http://adamcadre.ac
Adam J. Thornton
>Am I the only one who figured it was just made-up slang, set in some
>indeterminite time and place in the future?
I hope you're talking about Chyx Dig Jerx.
It sounded really mid-80s to me. In fact the whole game had a really
mid-80s feel to it. Indeed, I think the only lens through which it makes
coherent sense is to view the game as a late-night Cinemax schlock-horror
softporn splatter flick.
I'm going to post something on this when I have the time.
Adam
P.S. I've added "shitwank" to my heavy-traffic vocabulary. And "assjack"
to describe, well, people like the guys at the bar in CDJ.
--
ad...@princeton.edu
"My eyes say their prayers to her / Sailors ring her bell / Like a moth
mistakes a light bulb / For the moon and goes to hell." -- Tom Waits
okbl...@my-deja.com
ad...@princeton.edu (Adam J. Thornton) wrote:
>
> It sounded really mid-80s to me. In fact the whole game had a really
> mid-80s feel to it.
OK, sure, but the way an indeterminate place and time would have been
depicted in the '80s. ;-)
>Indeed, I think the only lens through which it makes
> coherent sense is to view the game as a late-night Cinemax
> schlock-horror softporn splatter flick.
It's splatterpunk(*). It's the first splatterpunk IF I've seen. It
gets a certain slack (from me) just for attempting what it attempted.
--
[ok]
* For the uninformed, splatterpunk is a genre that emerged in the '80s
which combines horror and pornography. It's a literary outgrowth of the
proliferation of pornography and the '60s and '70s "splatter films" like
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Blood Spattered Bride" and others. Suitable
topics for splatterpunk are things like snuff films, necrophilia, and
other really distasteful things.
okbl...@my-deja.com
re...@adamcadre.ac wrote:
>
> I assumed the same thing -- perhaps because my novel contains a fair
> bit of made-up slang, created in order that it not seem immediately
> dated.
>
> But I didn't think Chicks Dig Jerks was set in the future. Just an
> alternate present.
I'm sticking with "indeterminite time and place".
--
[ok]
Geoff Bailey
In article <80ul5c$j52$1...@joe.rice.edu>,
Lucian Paul Smith <lps...@rice.edu> wrote:
> This is very odd--because I, too, thought the game was set in Australia.
> Anyone else get an Australian vibe from this game?
I didn't, but maybe that's because I am Australian. :)
Cheers,
Geoff.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoff Bailey (Fred the Wonder Worm) | Programmer by trade --
ft...@cs.usyd.edu.au | Gameplayer by vocation.
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