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Whoa, I haven't played Trinity in forever. I always thought it was one of Infocom's best from back in the day.
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Jan 25, 2023 04:25
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Huh. Huh. Horse Master will probably be the easiest to play for people who haven't played this type of game before, since it's a choice-based Twine game without puzzles. Counterfeit Monkey is very good and clever and unique. Maybe a bit too ambitious for newer players? Haven't played Trinity, but judging by my experiences with other Infocom games, the UX might become an issue. Never got around to playing Worlds Apart.
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Jan 25, 2023 13:45
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just a few hours left to vote! https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1618035524375285760
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Jan 30, 2023 13:36
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Not interested in the visual novel format so I'll sit this one out.
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Jan 30, 2023 17:56
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Is it visual novel? I thought IF was basically digital CYOA.
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Jan 30, 2023 18:09
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I voted for Trinity because I played it once but never finished it. I vaguely remember getting stuck at floating in orbit and decompressing, and I had a skink which didn't help. Unfortunately this was pre-internet so I had no access to hints and I was also just a little kid. It has no chance of winning though. I should have mentioned the skink earlier.
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Jan 30, 2023 19:56
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lol @ the absolute state of this forum recommending a thing that isn't a book for the book of the month
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Jan 31, 2023 11:08
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A human heart posted:lol @ the absolute state of this forum recommending a thing that isn't a book for the book of the month Expand your horizons! Anything's a book if you're brave enough Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 13:42
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Book of the Month for February is Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short! Information and link to free online copy here: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=aearuuxv83plclpl quote:Winner, Best Game; Winner, Best Setting; Winner, Best Puzzles; Winner, Best Individual PC; Winner, Best Implementation; Nominee, Best Use of Innovation - 2012 XYZZY Awards Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 13:44
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Expand your horizons! you're getting people on this forum to play a text adventure on the computer and pretend it's a book. it isn't
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Jan 31, 2023 19:43
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If it bothers you that much, don't participate. ETA: Stories are stories no matter the format. Lord Zedd-Repulsa fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 20:02
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Im gonna go read something else from the list after I finish oil! I think I'll stick to something short.
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Feb 1, 2023 15:44
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I am still working on Oil! but so far I'm a little disappointed in it. It's a weird book to read; every few paragraphs I'm like "ok, that's a nice bit of writing" but overall the story just isn't grabbing me. I think I'm waiting for the communist hero to show up and so far it's all just capitalists everywhere.
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Feb 3, 2023 15:08
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TBB maybe isn’t the best forum for it, but I really like Counterfeit Monkey. It’s a text-based game that couldn’t work in any other format, and the comprehensiveness of implementation is extremely impressive; Short really thought of every possible word. The only place where the seams show somewhat is the somewhat railroad-y conversation system, although the Alex personality coming to the fore provides a clever justification for this. Despite the goofiness of the concept, there’s obviously some serious political themes here, and I suppose that’s the obvious aspect to discuss in a TBB context. If there’s a theory of political change here, it seems to be one that revolves around abstract ideas in the minds of the masses rather than material factors, but of course to some extent this follows from the nature of the setting rather than being a straightforward statement about the real world. Emily Short has some interesting things to say about her writing process here: https://emshort.blog/2013/01/31/making-of-counterfeit-monkey-story/
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Feb 3, 2023 17:43
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Counterfeit Monkey is my favorite Interactive Fiction. For once it really uses the medium to it's full extend. But also, the world is really cool and the political themes were quite interesting.
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Feb 3, 2023 18:52
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Counterfeit Monkey can definitely end up being too much for people who've never tried this type of game, but it is indeed great and could have only been done in this medium. The interactive fiction does the IF equivalent of those "best movies of ALL TIME!" polls once every five years and Counterfeit Monkey was 3 and 1 in the two that were conducted since it was made.
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Feb 3, 2023 19:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I am still working on Oil! but so far I'm a little disappointed in it. It's a weird book to read; every few paragraphs I'm like "ok, that's a nice bit of writing" but overall the story just isn't grabbing me. I think I'm waiting for the communist hero to show up and so far it's all just capitalists everywhere. It almost frankly seems a bit sneering or something. I can't quite put my finger on it.
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Feb 4, 2023 01:38
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Can we do Steppenwolf for March?
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Feb 23, 2023 17:56
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Sandwolf posted:Can we do Steppenwolf for March? We will do steppenwolf in march.
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Feb 23, 2023 18:03
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igvP806798U
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Feb 23, 2023 18:48
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Megazver posted:Counterfeit Monkey can definitely end up being too much for people who've never tried this type of game, but it is indeed great and could have only been done in this medium.  I admit I do like IF but rely on guides to clear the content I ended up getting stuck in CF so I never completed it. I like Emily Short's blog and her other games which are more straightforward but the writing still works even though it's been a decade since I started IF. She is currently working on Mask of the Rose which is out in April soon.
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Feb 26, 2023 02:26
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I ran around deleting letters from things for a while, but then my online save got corrupted so I couldn't continue. Which is a pretty accurate recreation of how my old Infocom games went.
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Feb 26, 2023 17:29
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BOTM this month is Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf; sorry I was a little late getting the thread up this month, I was on vacation and away from a desktop for a while.quote:The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a short preface of his own and then has the manuscript published. The title of this "real" book-in-the-book is Harry Haller's Records (For Madmen Only). quote:In 1924, Hermann Hesse married singer Ruth Wenger. After several weeks, however, he left Basel, only returning near the end of the year. Upon his return, he rented a separate apartment, adding to his isolation. After a short trip to Germany with Wenger, Hesse stopped seeing her almost completely. The resulting feeling of isolation and inability to make lasting contact with the outside world led to increasing despair and the return of Hesse's suicidal thoughts. You can listen to Sidney Bechet here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgWNU_wiSKw quote:On September 15, 1925, Bechet and other members of the Revue Nègre, including Josephine Baker, sailed to Europe, arriving at Cherbourg, France, on September 22. The revue opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées[8] in Paris on October 2. The show was an example of negrophilia in France at the time.[9] He toured Europe with multiple bands, reaching as far as Russia in mid-1926. In 1928, he led his small band at Chez Bricktop (run by the popular Ada "Bricktop" Smith) in Montmartre, Paris. This book should be out of copyright as of this year, so free versions should soon start becoming available online. The only one I've found so far is: http://www.kkoworld.com/kitablar/Herman_Hesse_Yalquzaq_eng.pdf
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Mar 8, 2023 12:59
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I hope your vacation was good, HA  Excited for this because I haven't really read any Hesse aside from Demian when I was in K-12, which I barely remember. Maybe this will get me back into Hesse in a bigger way.
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Mar 8, 2023 13:29
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This sounds neat. I'll read it after I'm finished with Before the Coffee gets cold which shouldn't take that long, I think.
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Mar 8, 2023 16:45
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I’m gonna start this today, and I will try to post my thoughts on it as I read.
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Mar 8, 2023 18:18
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Lawman 0 posted:This sounds neat. I'll read it after I'm finished with Before the Coffee gets cold which shouldn't take that long, I think. Hah, it shouldn't and just remember it was written as a play.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:31
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This was a gift to me from a Secret Santa last year and I read it early 2022. Strangely I never had before. And I really liked it and could not predict where it ultimately went, and am still puzzling my way through what it means. The first half or so is a typical misanthropic character that most teens would idolize, but then, it winds up much more optimistic than I had expected--certainly for the interwar period. Very good. Funny story: when I went to shelf the book there was a coverless book where it belonged, and when I removed it, it turned out to be ANOTHER copy of Steppenwolf! I have vague memories of saving this from being trashed at a workplace waaaaaay back when but never read it. I donated that copy to one of the mini free libraries we have in the neighbourhood and the following Saturday saw a bottle picker/ homeless dude sitting on a park bench reading it. A couple months later, also on a Saturday (we have our routines) I saw him again with another book I donated, this time a Swedish crime novel I got in an airport. Clearly I need to put more books out for him.
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Mar 10, 2023 06:57
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Is this why characters are so often named Harry
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Mar 14, 2023 05:37
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Because wolves are?
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Mar 14, 2023 06:10
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I'm working on it, only like 1/4 of the way in. Out of curiosity, is steppe wolf a thing? Like as a saying. Prior to this were people described that way? And just this guy is not A steppe wolf but The Steppenwolf?
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Mar 14, 2023 20:27
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Bilirubin posted:Because wolves are? I've felt for a long time that the name "Harry" is overrepresented among fictional protagonists I wonder if that starts here
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Mar 14, 2023 20:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I've felt for a long time that the name "Harry" is overrepresented among fictional protagonists I'll assume you got the joke... I honestly can't think of any myself that I read. I mean that kid wizard school series character but I never read it
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Mar 15, 2023 05:48
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Bilirubin posted:I'll assume you got the joke... I think i caught the tail end of it Harry Potter of course yeah but also Harry Dresden, Dirty Harry, Harry Bosch, Harrier Du Bois in Disco Elysium, etc. I've never met a Harry in person. It's a name that only seems to exist in fiction
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Mar 15, 2023 06:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think i caught the tail end of it Prince Harry? Bellafonte? Houdini? Rosen?
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Mar 18, 2023 05:55
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I'm about a fourth or fifth of the way through and look I've been using "werewolf brain" and the werewolf in general as allegory for my experiences as a woman with bipolar I disorder for years and the book is beating my rear end right now. For god's sake
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Mar 19, 2023 20:00
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I'm up to page 69 (nice) and I like the funny Wolfman ramblings.
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Mar 19, 2023 21:57
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Read it in one sitting at the bar because I don't have any plans other than giving my friend who works here a ride home. Some initial thoughts: - The writing is very pretty which is part of what made it so easy to plow through in a day. - The incoherence and hedonism of the ending sequences are fun and the journey enjoyable to follow on the whole but ultimately I don't know that I got more out if this than I did out of similar texts. Of Human Bondage comes to mind. - With that said, plenty for me to take personally in the first third or so. The excerpts about suicide were personally poignant, as someone who craves the grave The abruptness of the last fourth or so really diminishes the elegance of the beginning introspections about the wolf and suicide, which to me aren't just personally enjoyable to read but are lush subjective observations. Still, I had fun! Probably not in a huge hurry to read more Hesse as I think this scratched some particular itches, but I'm happy to hear opinions to the contrary.
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Mar 19, 2023 22:57
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I gather mostly that I can get over my existential dread by watching Tik Tok.
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Mar 20, 2023 20:04
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This dinner with his professor friend is giving me social anxiety by proxy
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Mar 23, 2023 17:13
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