Pagan-themed IF?
Lisa: DreaManiChicKuriouStarfire
fantasy out there, and in recent days I've been returning to fits of
text-adventure-mania. Has anyone written games with themes focused on
Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the evil
witch is going to get you")?
In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF games
circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences? This might
be an interesting and whimsical subject matter to tackle. ("Scenes of
Jesus's life seem to leap in vivid color from the patterns on your
wall. Suddenly there is a knock at the door! The wall turns to
rotting skulls and suddenly you are very frightened . . .")
--Lisa
entropic<at>cheerful.com
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atholbrose
<entropic.S...@cheerful.com> wrote:
>In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF games
>circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences?
Try any game by Rybread Celsius.
Paul O'Brian
> Has anyone written games with themes focused on
> Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the evil
> witch is going to get you")?
Well, depending on how broadly you want to interpret this idea. I don't
recall any games that feature witchcraft in the white magic, Wiccan sense.
Similarly, I can't bring to mind games in which paganism is portrayed in a
positive way as a major theme. Then again...
* Beyond Zork brings you face to face with what could only be considered
the pantheon of that universe.
* Anchorhead features all manner of Elder Nameless god-like scary beings.
* Christminster is all about alchemy
> In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF games
> circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences?
I found The Ritual of Purification quite hallucinatory, though its author
doesn't make any explicit claim that it's based on an actual trip. In
addition, I second the nomination of Rybread Celsius, though many of his
games (IMHO) only seem hallucinatory because they're so incoherent. Try
"Acid Whiplash" -- it's the only one I didn't find actively annoying.
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
SPAG is starving! Show your compassion by feeding it your interactive
fiction reviews -- deadline for issue #22 is September 10, 2000.
Jon Ingold
!!
Jon
Nick Montfort
wrote:
> Has anyone written games with themes focused on
> Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the evil
> witch is going to get you")?
As there are plenty of parents out there who are trying to provide
their children with a good pagan upbringing, and supply them with IF
that promotes strong pagan values, this is a very important question.
I certainly do hope some such games exist, or become available.
Yours in virility,
-Nick M.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Adam Atkinson
>> Has anyone written games with themes focused on
>> Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the evil
>> witch is going to get you")?
>As there are plenty of parents out there who are trying to provide
>their children with a good pagan upbringing, and supply them with IF
>that promotes strong pagan values, this is a very important question.
It depends how specific/accurate the contents need to be.
I remember a game called "El Diablo" that I played on my Dragon 32
many years ago. You needed to learn and employ magic to win the game.
It seemed less arbitrary than Enchanter etc. It was more in the style
of the "Indian spirit guide" milieu. Much of the magic you learned was
informational, IIRC.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
Poor Impulse Control
Carl Muckenhoupt
entropic.S...@cheerful.com (Lisa: DreaManiChicKuriouStarfire)
wrote:
> I'm curious. I know there's a lot of Pagan-themed science fiction and
> fantasy out there, and in recent days I've been returning to fits of
> text-adventure-mania. Has anyone written games with themes focused on
> Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the evil
> witch is going to get you")?
I'm sure I've seen some games based on Greek/Roman paganism. Let's
see... there's a TADS game called "Myth" that seems to involve Greek
gods, although perhaps not in any serious way... "Nectar of the Gods"
involves trespassing in the halls of the Olympians...
To delve into graphical IF for a moment, Sierra's "Conquests of
Camelot" was surprisingly pagan in tone, especially considering that it
concerns the quest for the Holy Grail. Basically, by the end, it's
clear that the Grail isn't literally the cup used by Christ, or at any
rate that Christ isn't the source of its power - that, indeed, it had
been sacred to Aphrodite, and probably other gods and goddesses as
well. The trials you face in order to find it are designed, not just
to test your personal worthiness, but the worthiness of Christianity
itself to inherit the Grail. The sort-of-sequel "Conquests of the
Longbow" (Sierra's Robin Hood game) also had pagan leanings: Maid
Marion was a "priestess of the greenwood", a Green Man is involved at
one point, etc.
> In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF games
> circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences?
"Fear" (Chuan-Tze Teo, 1996) has a premise involving hallucinogens, but
it lacks the degree of incoherence you seem to want. I vaguely
remember someone describing a game set in a mental institution, in
which you spend most of the game exploring the "worlds" you reach by
taking various substances.
Scott Zielinski
>
>I'm curious. I know there's a lot of Pagan-themed science fiction and
>fantasy out there, and in recent days I've been returning to fits of
>text-adventure-mania. Has anyone written games with themes focused on
>Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the evil
>witch is going to get you")?
>
That would be a wonderful idea. I was thinking about how to create one that was
along the lines of an educational game, similar to the TADS game called The
Penach Adventure (I think that was the title). When I saw that, which was a
well done game, but in which I didn't do to well because of my lack of Judaism,
I wanted to start coding a game along the same lines, but centered aorund
educating gemneric Pagan ways. I would love to know of any other Pagan IF games
there might be.
>In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF games
>circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences? This might
>be an interesting and whimsical subject matter to tackle. ("Scenes of
>Jesus's life seem to leap in vivid color from the patterns on your
>wall. Suddenly there is a knock at the door! The wall turns to
>rotting skulls and suddenly you are very frightened . . .")
>
That would be an intersting idea to see...
>--Lisa
>entropic<at>cheerful.com
>
Steve Young
news:Pine.GSO.3.96.100090...@ucsu.colorado.edu...
> On Fri, 8 Sep 2000, Lisa: DreaManiChicKuriouStarfire wrote:
> > In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF games
> > circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences?
, I second the nomination of Rybread Celsius, though many of his
> games (IMHO) only seem hallucinatory because they're so incoherent.
Try
> "Acid Whiplash" -- it's the only one I didn't find actively annoying.
I Found it intolerable. If this nonsense is the best, I shudder to think
how bad the rest are.
Zimri
news:8ph42n$h6s$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <39b8d400...@news.psn.net>,
> entropic.S...@cheerful.com (Lisa:
DreaManiChicKuriouStarfire)
> wrote:
> > I'm curious. I know there's a lot of Pagan-themed science fiction
and
> > fantasy out there, and in recent days I've been returning to fits
of
> > text-adventure-mania. Has anyone written games with themes
focused on
> > Pagan gods or witchcraft (portrayed in any light other than "the
evil
> > witch is going to get you")?
>
> I'm sure I've seen some games based on Greek/Roman paganism. Let's
> see... there's a TADS game called "Myth" that seems to involve Greek
> gods, although perhaps not in any serious way... "Nectar of the
Gods"
> involves trespassing in the halls of the Olympians...
There are plenty of IF games which make you pay off a skeletal
boatman. King's Quest II, Zork Grand Inquisitor, that game off the
CoCo Ads newsletter, Trinity. The Descent into Hell has been expected
of the epic hero since Gilgamesh, Orpheus, and Odysseus; a Charon
cameo is a cheap way to flatter the player without taking him/her to
the same damned place.
But I don't know any IF that has as its main theme a "pagan" message
or is structurally "pagan". Paganism is vague, but I understand you to
mean Wicca/Gaia-centric thought. There are no Wicca games in the way
that Perdition's Flame is post-Christian and Photopia is humanist.
> To delve into graphical IF for a moment, Sierra's "Conquests of
> Camelot" was surprisingly pagan in tone, especially considering that
it
> concerns the quest for the Holy Grail. Basically, by the end, it's
> clear that the Grail isn't literally the cup used by Christ, or at
any
> rate that Christ isn't the source of its power - that, indeed, it
had
> been sacred to Aphrodite, and probably other gods and goddesses as
> well. The trials you face in order to find it are designed, not
just
> to test your personal worthiness, but the worthiness of Christianity
> itself to inherit the Grail. The sort-of-sequel "Conquests of the
> Longbow" (Sierra's Robin Hood game) also had pagan leanings: Maid
> Marion was a "priestess of the greenwood", a Green Man is involved
at
> one point, etc.
Sierra games were all about faerie tales and mythology. Pretty much
anything your mom read to you ended up in a King's Quest game
(excepting that piss poor finale).
> > In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF
games
> > circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences?
>
> "Fear" (Chuan-Tze Teo, 1996) has a premise involving hallucinogens,
but
> it lacks the degree of incoherence you seem to want. I vaguely
> remember someone describing a game set in a mental institution, in
> which you spend most of the game exploring the "worlds" you reach by
> taking various substances.
And then there's the altered state / virtual reality theme of
Delusions. I think the trippiest game I've played has to be Trinity,
again (this was actually the theme of my IF-In-A-Minute parody). All
that Alice In Wonderland stuff, about a decade prior to the Matrix. Is
that a mushroom cloud or a mushroom haze...
Although it is nice to see a pagan / LSD troll to match the anti-bible
troll. I'm going to write a game where you have to burn a heretic in
the light of a crescent moon to win and YOU'RE GOING TO BE FORCED TO
PLAY IT!!1!!! MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!1!!!!!! ;^)
--
-- Zimri
***********
"No adult human really knows anyplace. You have to crawl everywhere
you can crawl, lick anything interesting, trace all the smells to
their sources, listen to ants trooping across walls, and eat a few
spiders before you really know a place."
-- Corey the Cat ("All Too Familiar", J Robert King, Dragon #259)
Joe Mason
>There are plenty of IF games which make you pay off a skeletal
>boatman. King's Quest II, Zork Grand Inquisitor, that game off the
Do you mean Return to Zork, or did ZGI do this too?
>But I don't know any IF that has as its main theme a "pagan" message
>or is structurally "pagan". Paganism is vague, but I understand you to
>mean Wicca/Gaia-centric thought. There are no Wicca games in the way
>that Perdition's Flame is post-Christian and Photopia is humanist.
Curses has its Druidic sections, but that's just window dressing. Worlds
Apart is an interesting take on nature-worship (sort of). At least one of the
raif regulars is pagan, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's some pagan IF
lurking in the archive, too.
>> To delve into graphical IF for a moment, Sierra's "Conquests of
>> Camelot" was surprisingly pagan in tone, especially considering that
>it
>> concerns the quest for the Holy Grail. Basically, by the end, it's
Infocom's Arthur had its pagan moments, too.
>> > In another, mostly unrelated question, also, are there any IF
>games
>> > circulating which are based on hallucinogenic experiences?
There's Busted!, of course. But I don't think that's what you were really
asking about...
Joe
Paul O'Brian
> Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.colorado.edu> wrote:
> > "Acid Whiplash" -- it's the only one I didn't find actively annoying.
>
> I Found it intolerable. If this nonsense is the best, I shudder to think
> how bad the rest are.
Well, yeah. Maybe the reason I liked "Acid Whiplash" is because it seemed
to be making fun of the Rybread style at the same time it enacted that
style. But perhaps you have to have experienced a few Rybread games before
playing AW in order to get the joke.
In any case, I didn't claim they were good -- just hallucinatory.
(By the way, I've just been reading about how ergot poisoning from bad rye
bread can cause massive, horrific, and sometimes deadly hallucinations.
Coincidence?)
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
SPAG #22 is out, with a cornucopia of reviews and articles, including an
interview with Scott Adams! Check it out at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag
Zimri
news:nwax5.195671$c5.43...@news2.rdc1.on.home.com...
> Zimri <zim...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >There are plenty of IF games which make you pay off a skeletal
> >boatman. King's Quest II, Zork Grand Inquisitor, that game off the
>
> Do you mean Return to Zork, or did ZGI do this too?
I forgot about RTZ... but yeah, ZGI definitely did it (in its own
style).
Right now - although this is OT - I'm playing Nemesis and some of the
stuff I'm reading and watching has affected me like no other game
since... well, Photopia. It's genius. And yes there is humour and
Zork-related material in it! I'm enjoying it far more than ZGI. I have
no idea why certain Zork zealots dis the game. All I can advise is
that the naysayers and kunkels play it again; the backstory and
setting do get more interesting...