[Announce] new game!
Michael Gentry
My very first game,
ANCHORHEAD: an interactive Tale of Lovecraftian Horror, by Michael
Gentry
is currently available at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/anchor.z8
Travel to scenic New England, discover an ancient family curse, rescue
your husband from a town full of foaming psychos. It's big, juicy and
fresh from the beta-testing. Play it while it's hot.
If you like it, look for my (much, much shorter) competition entry in a
few months:
LITTLE BLUE MEN: an interactive, interoffice bureaucratic nightmare.
Go nuts,
-M.
Allen Garvin
In article <355260...@ey.com>,
ANCHORHEAD: an interactive Tale of Lovecraftian Horror, by Michael
Gentry
is currently available at
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/anchor.z8
Travel to scenic New England, discover an ancient family curse,
rescue your husband from a town full of foaming psychos. It's big,
juicy and fresh from the beta-testing. Play it while it's hot.
Very good first game. This year is turning into a great year for IF
(with "Losing your Grip" and "Spider and Web" [and "Avalon" on the way]),
compared to last year, which was rather barren. 1996 was a good year, too.
Is there something special about even years?
Most of the puzzles have been seen before. The prose is very faithful
to Lovecraft's style, of which I'm not particularly fond. How many times
can one be expected to be frightened by ancient blasphemous texts full of
disturbing symbols and images? The game could have polished some more--
if there was no plan to use the candles and all the sorts of water and
such in the final version, why leave them in the game? And that second
maze was damned annoying! I cut off the steam pressure--shouldn't that
have halted the steam? Then I find out it it's completely optional, after
dying dozens of times... I also wonder if the programming could be
streamlined. By the end of the game it was lagging about 2-3 seconds after
every command I typed in (I'm a 486-66). Perhaps a bunch of global object
loops executed every turn?
I think the story managed to rise above the flaws. I became quite engrossed
as the tension the slowly built up. I played it for over 15 hours straight,
finishing it Sunday morning by around 7:30 am. A good job, overall.
--
Allen Garvin kisses are a better fate
--------------------------------------------- than wisdom
eare...@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu
http://faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu/~earendil e e cummings
ravi...@fast.net
>My very first game,
>
>ANCHORHEAD: an interactive Tale of Lovecraftian Horror, by Michael
>Gentry
>
>is currently available at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/anchor.z8
>
>Travel to scenic New England, discover an ancient family curse, rescue
>your husband from a town full of foaming psychos. It's big, juicy and
>fresh from the beta-testing. Play it while it's hot.
Hiyas. Reactions after about 10 minutes of playing (about all I can spare at
the moment, unfortunately. :(
Well, since I'm working (HA! He said working!) on a Lovecraftian based piece
of IF, I suppose I should comment on the references I noticed.
The glyphs at the center of town, of course, scream Lovecraft, as does the New
England setting. But the Miskaton? Did you change the name to avoid
copyright infringement? I don't think names can be copyrighted (shades of the
COPYRIGHT REDUX thread...) so I think you can get away with the full
'MISKATONIC'. But then, that'd make the town Arkham...wouldn't it? (evil
grin)
The side-alley reminded me very much of that short story about the
violinist...Eric Zahn? Yes? Is that the reference? The violinist and the
wall that can't be seen over?
The bubbling by the lighthouse -- Dagon? Illsmouth? The Deep Ones?
The asylum, of course. Everybody goes mad in Lovecraft eventually. :)
I think that's about it. I'm really hoping all of them end up paying off. A
story that does cross-tale Lovecraft (Eric Zahn versus the Deep Ones???
Charles Dexter Ward in the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath???) sounds
interesting.
So far, I don't think I've encountered any real puzzles. Just wandered around
enjoying the scenery. Nice descriptions. The town, the lighthouse, the
shantytown, the abandoned paper factory (and how it fits into the town's
history) ... all nice.
Promises to be fun, if I ever get time to play the damned thing. :(
d
michael...@ey.com
In article <6jad36$18v$1...@news1.fast.net>,
ravi...@fast.net wrote:
> Hiyas. Reactions after about 10 minutes of playing (about all I can spare
at
> the moment, unfortunately. :(
>
> Well, since I'm working (HA! He said working!) on a Lovecraftian based
piece
> of IF, I suppose I should comment on the references I noticed.
>
> The glyphs at the center of town, of course, scream Lovecraft, as does the
New
> England setting. But the Miskaton? Did you change the name to avoid
> copyright infringement? I don't think names can be copyrighted (shades of
the
> COPYRIGHT REDUX thread...) so I think you can get away with the full
> 'MISKATONIC'. But then, that'd make the town Arkham...wouldn't it? (evil
> grin)
I'm actually fairly sure that you can use any Lovecraftian name you damn well
please (including Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, etc.) with impunity. I just didn't
want to. The Miskatonic became the Miskaton simply because I couldn't think of
another name for the river that satisfied me, so I knocked off the last two
letters and called it a compromise. Arkham, if you read closely and ask
Michael the right questions, turns out to be only a short drive away from
Anchorhead. Danvers (the asylum) and Whateley (the bridge) are both minor
names taken directly from Lovecraft stories.
> The side-alley reminded me very much of that short story about the
> violinist...Eric Zahn? Yes? Is that the reference? The violinist and the
> wall that can't be seen over?
The story is called "The Music of Erich Zann" and it's appropriate that you're
reminded of it.
> The bubbling by the lighthouse -- Dagon? Illsmouth? The Deep Ones?
>
> The asylum, of course. Everybody goes mad in Lovecraft eventually. :)
>
> I think that's about it. I'm really hoping all of them end up paying off.
A
> story that does cross-tale Lovecraft (Eric Zahn versus the Deep Ones???
> Charles Dexter Ward in the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath???) sounds
> interesting.
The stories which had the largest influence on Anchorhead are "The Shadow Over
Innsmouth", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Dunwich Horror", and "The
Haunter of the Dark". Erich Zann is pretty much an Easter Egg.
--M.
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