2013 Archives

[x-post] “The northen Hawk Owl is an explosive killer, and extremely hard to capture. 1/2000 of a second shutter speed and 5 hours in -22 Celsius got me the shot :)”

This link was originally posted to /r/thesuperbowl. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: http://i.imgur.com/p9alKLA.jpg

My first thoughts on Outside.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/outside. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I’ve been playing for a little while now, and here’s my thoughts so far:

I love the open world aspects of the game; I’ve never played anything where there’s been quite so much freedom (especially when you’re just starting out). It’s taken a while to get used to the areas which are only accessible at certain times of day, though, like some of the shops. Also: the quest-givers who seem to give me the most money seem to want me to complete missions during the same hours that the shops are open, so I have to choose one or the other – what’s with that?
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck, but I’ve discovered that if you try enough things, eventually something will work. If you go around picking everything up, it’ll probably be useful at some point (but be careful because the NPC guards will stop you “stealing” things!), and you can sometimes get great results by using combinations of things (for example, I tried imbibing a potion of drunkenness and then wearing a traffic cone the other day, and I’m pretty sure it gave me an invisibility buff: no matter how much I sang, everybody ignored me!). Inventory management is a bit of a pain, but picking up a rucksack has really helped.
Not so impressed with the NPCs. I’ve learned that the best approach to getting information and quests is to talk to everybody, but most of the people I talk to don’t want to say anything, or just repeat the same few phrases over and over (“Go away,” “Stop bothering me,” etc.). I’ve tried offering things for trade, but most of them aren’t interested in my traffic cone or my crayons or my rucksack: I’m honestly not sure what most of them are for!
Anyway: I know that some of you must have been down this quest track, too – I’ve seen you wandering around wearing your traffic cones and carrying your rucksacks. So I’ll jump ahead a bit and save from spoiling it… Here’s where I’m stuck: I’m in the padded room in the hospital, and I can’t get past the boss of the doctors. I tried eating the crayons, to see if they’d give me strength (one of the NPCs here suggested it), but it doesn’t work. The doctors are a seriously creepy monster, by the way – they keep talking about you having “delusions” or something – but I’m sure there’s a way to get back to the main quest track. Any tips?

Earlier this year, I played Emily Short‘s new game, Counterfeit Monkey, and I’m pleased to say that it’s one of the best pieces of interactive fiction I’ve played in years. I’d highly recommend that you give it a go.

What makes Counterfeit Monkey so great? Well, as you’d expect from an Emily Short game (think Bee, which I reviewed last year, Galatea, and Glass), it paints an engaging and compelling world which feels “bigger” than the fragments of it that you’re seeing: a real living environment in which you’re just another part of the story. The island of Anglophone Atlantis and the characters in it feel very real, and it’s easy to empathise with what’s going on (and the flexibility you have in your actions helps you to engage with what you’re doing). But that’s not what’s most-special about it.

What’s most-special about this remarkable game is the primary puzzle mechanic, and how expertly (not to mention seamlessly and completely) it’s been incorporated into the play experience. Over the course of the game, you’ll find yourself equipped with a number of remarkable tools that change the nature of game objects by adding, removing, changing, re-arranging or restoring their letters, or combining their names with the names of other objects: sort of a “Scrabble® set for real life”.

You start the game in possession of a full-alphabet letter-remover, which lets you remove a particular letter from any word – so you can, for example, change a pine into a pin by “e-removing” it, or you can change a caper into a cape by “r-removing” it (you could go on and “c-remove” it into an ape if only your starting toolset hadn’t been factory-limited to prevent the creation of animate objects).

This mechanic, coupled with a doubtless monumental amount of effort on Emily’s part, makes Counterfeit Monkey have perhaps the largest collection of potential carryable objects of any interactive fiction game ever written. Towards the end of the game, when your toolset is larger, there feels like an infinite number of possible linguistic permutations for your copious inventory… and repeatedly, I found that no matter what I thought of, the author had thought of it first and written a full and complete description of the result (and yes, I did try running almost everything I’d picked up, and several things I’d created, through the almost-useless “Ümlaut Punch”, once I’d found it).

I can’t say too much more without spoiling one of the best pieces of interactive fiction I’ve ever played. If you’ve never played a text-based adventure before, and want a gentler introduction, you might like to go try something more conventional (but still great) like Photopia (very short, very gentle: my review) or Blue Lacuna (massive, reasonably gentle: my review) first. But if you’re ready for the awesome that is Counterfeit Monkey, then here’s what you need to do:

How to play Counterfeit Monkey

Install a Glulx interpreter.
I recommend Gargoyle, which provides beautiful font rendering and supports loads of formats. Note that Gargoyle’s UNDO command will not work in Counterfeit Monkey, for technical reasons (but this shouldn’t matter much so long as you SAVE at regular intervals).
Download for Windows, for Mac, or for other systems.

Download Counterfeit Monkey
Get Counterfeit Monkey‘s “story file” and open it using your Glulx interpreter (e.g. Gargoyle).
Download it here.

(alternatively, you can use experimental technology to play the game in your web browser: it’ll take a long time to load, though, and you’ll be missing some of the fun optional features, so I wouldn’t recommend it over the “proper” approach above)