The Gamer's Quarter

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I seem to be late on this and it doesn't really qualify as a game, but The Dionaea House is worth the read.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

SuperWes · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:37 pm Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

SuperWes · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:47 pm Post subject:

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Man, I still haven't finished with House of Leaves. I've started with The Whalestoe Letters first, for some reason. I read Nabokov's Pale Fire before that, and if you haven't, you should, because it's beautiful and aims for the same sort of stimulation.

Oh yeah, this thread is also about ergodic literature, whatever the medium be, because I find those to be playful and paralelling it with games pleases me.

Other neato artsy websites:
http://www.qrime.com/ : Japan hate Internet. Sick yes, but art ain't got no need to be pretty.
http://www.99rooms.com/ : Street art goes creepy, and I bloody love it.
http://www.jakalope.net/petridish.html : Sure, it's basically a NIN advert, but it's a damn cool one.
http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/holt/books/maze/index.html : It's a maze!
http://thisisnotporn.com/ : Obvious, but necessary. Possibly one of the most befuddling puzzles to hit the Web.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Pretty much any of the old radiohead sites would fit here.

http://www.radiohead.com/archive.html

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Yeah, but Radiohead are icky. :(
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

: (

Listen to their songs 'cuttooth' and the more recent versions of 'arpeggi' (this is a new song. they wrote it as some kind of side project but they've recently brought the whole band in on it and it sounds great).

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

dhex · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:38 am Post subject:

isn't this essentially a one woman soap opera?

also, my dream in life is to teach people the difference between stealth marketing, viral marketing and memes. then we can move on to the basics of rhetoric and logic, and then THE WORLD!
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

dhex · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:36 am Post subject:

i know.

i know.
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GSL · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:00 am Post subject:

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:37 pm Post subject:

have you been a fifteen-year-old girl lately?

it's pretty dramatic.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject:

id like to think the fbi only hires dudes who really get into their roles in catching cyberpedoes. watch 3 hours of mtv a day as research, etc.
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Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

The Cortana Letters and I Love Bees, maybe?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Yeah, it was the stronger part of it, and I see the intention there, but the whole thing still came across (to me at least) as too loose to properly hinge on such intentionally vague language and structure. Like a ghost story with a "he could be in these woods right now!" ending that fails to establish its antagonist as anything more than a travelling salesman.

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:58 pm Post subject:

GSL · Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 1:20 pm Post subject:

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

It's pretty tough to be subtle using the blogosphere, especially with the sort of story they went for. For better or worse, you expect facts and sources on the Web. I think it's a noble effort considering the format, but it's not one I'll remember much. A footnote of a good idea.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Tablesaw · . Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 303 Location: LACAUSA

Does nobody read Henry Jenkins's blog?

The recent Lonelygirl15 article has a lot of different thoughts about drawing the lines between epistolary storytelling, hypertext, ARGs, hoaxes, and astroturfing.
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It's the saw of the table!

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

http://www.aperturescience.com/
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

What I said.

P.S. Try out the Aperture Science site, okay?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:37 am Post subject:

shit, is it that time of year again already?

i'm inclined to agree with people who think that the competition is doing more harm for if development than good. and last year's entries were pretty bad. except for chancellor, which i loved, but which received criminally bad scores.

anyway, at some point i'll break down and play through these to find the one or two that are clever or well-written.

or at least to play emily short's entry.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Care to expand on that comment? Is it because hurried deadlines and other such pressure mean low grade forgettable stuff?

Also, what is Chancellor like and what were the complaints?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:52 am Post subject:

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:57 am Post subject:

oh, and chancellor is vivid and fantastic, with reality and fantasy wrestling with one another and the wrestling turns into wet, passionate lovemaking. it's like one of those old fairytales - before they were defanged - a fairy tale with teeth, and it got spilled all over a contemporary if empty dorm story.

i don't even remember what the criticisms were. someone felt guilty over one of the actions the protagonist was forced to take, which i would consider more a credit to the game than anything otherwise.
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dessgeega · Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:31 pm Post subject:

the ifcomp results are in. they're not as bad as last year's, but how hard is it to pick winners when there are only six good games? okay, i only played the inform games, but still. i guess i should play elysium enigma since it came in third, but people seem to be comparing it to floatpoint, and i can't imagine the same subject being written about with as much breadth and detail as emily short has.

stephen bond's reviews are mostly accurate to my impressions of the games (floatpoint, the primrose path, wallpaper and legion are the interesting games in the competition for me), though i feel that interactive fiction just isn't the medium in which to implement wallpaper's first puzzle, and the two halves of the game are really rather disparate (as much as i admire the second half). and i like legion quite a bit, even if the points he raises are legitimate.
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dessgeega · Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:20 pm Post subject:

actually, the results make me question the reasoning behind the competition even more. i love emily short's work, but how could she possibly have entered the competition not knowing she would win?

well, i guess that's the idea. for some reason i thought she'd won previously with metamorphosis, but looking on the site i see that isn't the case.

if the goal of the competition is to foster creativity and get more newcomers interested and involved, though, i'm not really sure what the point of such an established writer entering the competition is, though. couldn't floatpoint have been released on its own to as much fanfare and critical reception, owing to the reputation of its author?
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