Halothane, An Interactive Restoration ------------------------------------- Interactive fiction by Quentin.D.Thompson (Ravi.P.Rajkumar), 1999 philip@giasmda.vsnl.net.in stupid_q@my-deja.com ============================================================================= Two ways of solving the game, comments, and miscellaneous items of interest.. ============================================================================= NOTE: I completely realise that most of this information could just as easily be put into the game file, halo.z5 (I still get a kick out of that file name :-D), but I didn't want it to become halo.z8 and tempt fate at the hands of the two-hour rule - The Author. ============================================================================= TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1. A short walkthrough of Halothane (very few spoilers) 2. A detailed walkthrough of Halothane (PARENTAL ADVISORY: explicit spoilers) 3. Halothane: who, what, why, where, and how? 4. Future releases ============================================================================= SHORT WALKTHROUGH (in the style of Paul.J.Godfrey) ----------------- This is the absolute, no-fun, no-Easter Egg walkthrough for Halothane. (If you want a detailed one, see below.) (you begin playing this game as Harold Banks, an author) (you start in your bedroom) north (Or south, or any other direction...) (Now you know you need to get to bed) examine bed look under bed look under desk get fan put fan on chair switch on fan lie on bed sleep Chapter 1 --------- (In the operating theatre) west turn valve (This is the shortest solution.) Chapter 2 --------- (In your study) get manuscript throw manuscript in dustbin (depressing, but there it is..) Chapter 3 --------- (In the kidnappers' car) z.z.z.z.z.z.z.z (In the open field) north north Chapter 4 --------- (Outside the house) open window enter window east x woman say hello to Simone (you can ask Simone about many things here; this is a sample) ask Simone about Mr. Author ask Simone about herself ask Simone about Rosenberg ask Simone about Edward/Laura/Franklin (all give the same reply) ask Simone about future ask Simone about halothane ask Simone about plan ask Simone about successors ask Simone about novel (you can also ask Simone about other things, including the parallel dimension, the solution, the house she's staying in, and so on.) z (keep on waiting until Simone hands you a pen) Chapter 5 --------- (Red Lake) open trapdoor down (Floating on Clouds) north east east east up east get bottle x it read it west down west west west open bottle throw acid at gate (as per the inscription) ("Dissolve gate" and "Pour acid on gate" also work.) Chapter 6 --------- (in the Saloon) ask receptionist about saloon ask receptionist about legend (Strange, isn't it?) east look under table get device up north get manual read it south south get black disc north west put disc in computer switch on computer read screen (Note the two dates, and remember the manual inscription.) east north table, the code is 2187 search table get chip put chip in machine south east search bed get letter read it yes (You need to know what the letter says.) west down show letter to receptionist (the receptionist will now take out a key) examine key get key ask receptionist about key up up north x vase put pen in vase (As suggested by the doggerel verse.) (You play the rest of the game as Cassandra Anderson, one of Harold's characters) Chapter 7 --------- (outside Cassandra's house) north knock on door open door north north east east north look x bed search bed search sheet search mattress look x knife open wardrobe x corpse search it get cash card (you have to leave the house now) south west west south south east put cash card in machine (an earlier version of the game accepted 'put ID in machine' as well, but that's a bug.) Chapter 8 --------- (by the railway tracks) east east (entering Charlestown) x statue south examine black door (you need to know the name here. Remember it from Chapter Three?) down east east south smash bulb get key north west west up north east south east x woman ask woman about Sweeney (search woman. get knife, if you want to kill Sweeney that way.) west north west south east x sweeney x coffin put love-letter in coffin ('throw knife at sweeney', 'microphone, any' and just waiting for 17 turns or so also work, but this is the "optimal" solution). Chapter 9 --------- (in the hospital) north north east get gown wear it west north east get key west south south east up north unlock locker with platinum key get mask wear mask south up north east get cap wear cap west x student (no points for guessing who this is) (If you're not wearing the scrub suit by this time, the student will tell you what to do.) north north Chapter 10 ---------- (in the hut) west kill troll with pen ("Attack troll" and "Throw pen at troll" also work.) (At some point in the game, type "help" to call up online help.) Obviously, if you've used this walkthrough to breeze through the game, you mightn't have got the entire story pat. (Not to mention that you missed out on a lot of silly humour scattered in a few of the zones.) But this is the shortest complete way of finishing Halothane. [Actually, it's not _the_ shortest method. It's the shortest continuous method. A stripped-down walkthrough would omit the conversational commands.] Below this is the verbose, prosy, Easter Egg-riddled Halothane walkthrough. Use it only if you've got time to spare. HALOTHANE Or, "It's A Wonderful Book!" Verbose Interactive Fiction by Quentin.D.Thompson. Foreword: Halothane is a pastiche. Each stage is written in a different style, is set in a different environment, so be prepared to adapt a little to some of the more obscure stages. There are no ways (as far as I'm aware) of shutting oneself out of a win. The game also features three optional stages, or 'interpositions'. You only get those when you're playing as Harold (see below about the player characters) because he is the author, after all. These stages give you a few points, and a few laughs, but they don't really do much. Halothane doesn't really mean much. It's a heroic quest (Save the parallel dimension from a bunch of trolls! Kill an ugly troll! Collect *Treasures*!) but an immensely silly one, and it was written for two reasons: one was entertainment, the other was to try different styles of writing and puzzles. Anything that appears serious is unintentional. Well, let me give you a little background on the story. In this game, you play the role of Harold Banks, twenty-odd, published author. His first book, "Before Our Time" (very complicated SF) sold precisely 46 copies, but Harold's not the type to get discouraged easily, so he's writing a second book, "The Decline And Fall Of The Colonial Empire", which (he hopes) will do better. The game opens in his bedroom-cum-study, where he's about to call it a day: [Harold bears little resemblance to the author, who hasn't even published his very complicated SF novel.] The Prologue ============ A bedroom. Nothing exciting. Let's see if we can move around first... north (or any direction for that matter) Too sleepy? Let's make do with "les moyens du bord", as Enrico Macias would put it, and see if there's anything interesting in the bedroom. examine bed examine desk examine bookcase examine chair Since we're sleepy, let's try going to sleep directly.. lie on bed sleep No ventilation. Now you have a purpose in life - to find ventilation. Since you can't leave the room - and this isn't Spider and Web - the fan's got to be nearby... look under bed Interesting....let's do as we're told. look under desk Hmm, a fan. Sounds good. But let's have a look at what's on the desk first. x manuscript search it This is the first intimation that something out of the ordinary is going to happen. Let's look into it a little closer: read note get flower examine it sniff it Strange flower. Let's check the last piece of furniture: open bookcase get novel examine it The quote boxes in this game are few in number, and this is the first. You could always read the novel but you're not in need of bedtime stories right now. Let's go to the land of Nod now..... switch on fan That chair should do the trick. put fan on chair switch on fan Now, sweet dreams! lie on bed sleep Do you get the feeling that something's going to happen? You're quite right. CHAPTER ONE: RESPIRATORY DISTRESS ================================= You wake up in an operating theatre. If you've read the note in your bedroom, the first puzzle here should be fairly simple. Well, there's nothing here except the mask, so let's just take it: stand (or 'get off table') take mask Anaesthetics can be dangerous (this game is called Halothane after all), so let's take our precautions: wear mask Now let's explore the next room: open door west examine cylinder I apologize to anyone who thinks that splitting up Read and Examine is an AGT dodge, but it's very useful in this game. The cylinder has writing on it, so.... read cylinder Next, examine the rest of the scenery (which isn't much, I admit).. examine LCD panel read it Can you detect the seeds of a very, very bad pun? (The idea isn't original; I pinched it from Maestro Asimov's "The Key", which also relies on a bilingual pun, albeit a more complex one). Well, the pun is "light-producer -> halogenos -> halogenated -> halothane". So let's let some halothane out.. open valve (you can also type 'turn valve') Now some letters have appeared on the panel, so read them: read panel Forget the negative attitude, and just touch the panel (forgive me, Ian Finley; I wasn't even thinking of Babel when I wrote this....) touch panel (Actually, this is an optional puzzle. The fastest way out is not to wear the mask, and then open the valve; the halothane knocks you out, and you leapfrog over the stage below to land up at Chapter Two.) FIRST INTERPOSITION: INVASION OF PRIVACY ======================================== You're outside a house. First check your bearings: examine door examine plaque Now, quotes from your own works could only appear (a) in a fan's house [and you don't have any] or (b) in a fictitious universe peopled by your characters. The point first crops up here, but it reappears often throughout the game. Why you have been transported to the parallel dimension (that's what I called it myself) becomes evident after Chapter Two. open door No namby-pamby lock and key puzzles here. You're in the hall. There's another note here if you want: get memo read memo Feeling tired? sit on sofa Bummer. Check out that piece of paper. It's irrelevant, but read it anyway: get piece of paper read it You could also check out the rest of the room, examine sofa examine shawl wear shawl :-) or have fun with the shelf: open shelf read texts again again again There are four possible texts available. Most of them are bad jokes, though. [Except the one about highbrow writing, which was a _rant_. Give me five minutes in a dark alley with Raj Kamal Jha and my grimoire, and I'll frotz him until he'll never write another excrescence again.] There's nothing more here, so head north: north examine arch The arch is glowing, just like the LCD panel. Could we have an exit here? touch arch This is a Competition '97 joke; the game being alluded to, obviously, is Ian Finley's fine SF game, "Babel". There's plenty of IF in-joking in the game, as you'll see. We could go east or west here, but since this is a detailed walkthrough, head east: east examine bed examine chair examine wardrobe examine dresser get letter read it Relax, this game isn't a Mel Gibson movie, so young Simone hasn't been kidnapped. (You get to meet her in Chapter Four, by the way.) I tried to put some (very dumb) atmospherics here; to get them, try open window look close window and then head west: west west Voices? Listen again again again again again again again You can listen up to eight times here; please do so, to get as much of the story as possible. Now there's only one place left to head: west Any Harold could figure out that this was probably the Franklins' room. Well, you could look around a bit: examine bed examine table examine dresser But since what you actually need to do is raise the alarm (after all, it's their daughter, even if she does turn out to be your brainchild) you need to switch on the light Read the piece of text here carefully if you're following the story. Now we're off to this game's shortest chapter. CHAPTER TWO: ERRARE HUMANUM EST =============================== Hmm, we seem to be back to reality again. Read the messages that appear (they're thoughts coursing through your head), and check out the manuscript too... read novel At this point (it's a scene from your _possible_ future - read the "What really happened?" later) you think that you've written a piece of trash. Actually, you haven't, but - hell - we all are irrational some time. Let's dispose of the manuscript, then... tear novel Didn't work? Well, let's mutilate it.... crumple novel Still not enough? Ah, let's dispose of it.... throw novel in dustbin Something attempted, something done.......but before you can even think of the consequences, you're whisked out of your dimension and back to the dream-world of Chapter One, headed for.... CHAPTER THREE: DRIVING WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED ============================================ This chapter's title is derived from Don Henley's song about a French artist, which can be found on the album "Building the Perfect Beast". (It has nothing much to do with the game, but the first line goes "I met a Frenchman in a field last night", and most of this stage is an open field....) Well, you're tied up. Let's try getting out of this mess..... examine bonds untie them Stuck. Let's just listen to what the voices in the front seat have been saying. Actually, they're discussing you, which should be fairly obvious. listen again (until you're ushered out of the car) Now you're in an open field. There is nothing to do here, except examining some scenery: For example, examine wall examine grass lie on grass search grass take grass examine fence climb fence When you weary of this, just head north Oh, great, more open field, and you without a picnic basket. Forget about it, though, and continue your pastoral.... examine tree examine sign read sign Sweeney and Stroll? The names come in handy later on, but for the moment they're not relevant. If you want to leave this place and head for the village, just head north again, but - that sign looks a bit loose. Let's adjust it a bit: turn sign This is becoming a habit. When you wake up, you now are in the Museum, ready for the..... SECOND INTERPOSITION: THINKING ALLOWED ====================================== A word of warning. This is just a silly puzzle. If you find it too annoying, just get out of here by typing omit However, having got this far, you're probably interested in having a bash. No fear - this is far simpler than your average Andy Philips Mensa Test. To get some instructions, head east: east examine brochure take brochure read brochure The brochure basically explains what you need to do to crack the puzzle: reduce the machine's potential (7mV) to the minimum possible. Using the sheet, block off the excitatory receptors and occupy the inhibitory receptors with the relevant models, but if you're feeling lazy, here goes... put clonidine in a2. read dial. put propranolol in b1. read dial. put dopamine in d4. read dial. put ondansetron in s3. read dial. push button Simple, wasn't it? Now off we go, to one of the most important chapters in the game...... CHAPTER FOUR: EVERYTHING CAN CHANGE =================================== Try moving around; it soon becomes obvious that there's nothing constructive to do except getting into the building. How does one achieve that? tap window Great, somebody's home. again Yes, it's safer, I agree. Let's be stealthy and _not_ knock this time. open window east Scary, isn't it? (There is a potentially more 'scary' episode further downstream, but so far...) east You can check out the scenery and shadows over here, but at some point you'll want to see who the woman really is, so head east again..... east Well, at least she seems friendly. Let's accept her invitation, and take a closer look: sit on sofa x woman x Simone "It's All Coming Back To Me Now", as Meatloaf's female counterpart would have it :). Well, this stage has no puzzles. You can ask Simone about quite a few things, or just wait around: here are some possibilities ask Simone about her mother/father/parents (same reply, though) ask Simone about Rosenberg ask Simone about house :) ask Simone about future ask Simone about politics/war/government (I put this in for a laugh..) ask Simone about halothane ask Simone about Mr. Author ask Simone about padre ask Simone about parallel dimension ask Simone about history/her job When you run out of ideas (there are more; these are just the ones I remember offhand), just keep on waiting z.z.z.....etc. until she hands you a fountain-pen. Before you can react, though, you're whisked off to the next zone: CHAPTER FIVE: THE FAR HORIZON ============================= Floating in liquid? Let's be venturesome. swim Bummer. Let's be _even_ braver.... drink liquid Interesting, but at some point you'll definitely want to get out of the lake. To do so, just examine that trapdoor: x trapdoor open it down And curiously enough, you're now floating on clouds. You can look at the clouds and pathway here, but if you're in a hurry, just head north: north Intriguing. Let's see if this is as simple as it looks: open gate Nope. How about force? attack gate Well, we'll just have to get our kicks on some other route. Let's head east first, up to that tower: east. east. east x spiral staircase climb it east Nice tower, isn't it? The acid and the key represent the two exits from this stage. Since we're playing it the long, hard way, we'll take the latter: get key and pause to admire alchemy at work..... x cauldron x liquid touch it taste it take it Well, time flies when you're having fun. Back down we go now: west. down. west. west. west and then head north to that locked building: north unlock door with key open door north Note that if you have the right key, you don't need to unlock and open it; just type 'north' and the legwork is done for you automatically. Let's explore the premises a little: north Intriguing. Well, what lies elsewhere? west x blackboard turn it (This is an Andy Philips easter egg). If you don't like trolls, you can always erase the blackboard though you don't get a Last Lousy Point for doing so. Let's check out the other room: east. east x box search it Aha! get handbag open handbag get handkerchief x it Marguerite? Wonder who _she_ is. get badge x it read it wear it Now let's try heading north: west north Bingo! Under the assumed entity of the faceless Mr. Price, you are now thrown into one of the most devilish parts of this game: THIRD INTERPOSITION: A ROMANTIC INTERLUDE ========================================= Aaah, a boudoir........no fear, this isn't Plundered Hearts, and you're no pirate anyway. Since there's a bed around, let's make use of it: lie on bed sleep again again again again The dreams should tell you what to expect in the next room. It takes twenty turns or so for that door to open; you can't get it done yourself, so just explore the rest of the room, and see if you can find the two Easter Eggs here. I'll give you my favourite one as a favour: look under bed get journal x it read it For the rest, just wait till the door opens, then go through it: north Ah, this looks interesting x bottle Remember your dream? Well, it has come true. Giacomo, whoever he is, is going to croak if he drinks this saturated solution of antimony, so prevent that simply with break bottle (There's a more aesthetic solution, but I'll leave you to find it out.) For the moment, though, we're off to.... CHAPTER SIX: THE SAD CAFE ========================= You're not sure where to go. Just hang around for a few turns, and examine the scenery. NOTE: The words in boldface are memories of this place (which actually exists in your second novel.) They are purely there for continuity and plot, but offer little help as far as puzzles are concerned. At some point, the receptionist will start talking about his hotel, so.... ask receptionist about hotel What old story? ask him about story Mouthful, isn't it? Well, as this might suggest, your puzzles here are connected to this story. Explore the dining-room first: east Wonder what that could be? look under table Aha! get device Now head upstairs: west up I'm deliberately not going into detail about the following sequence of puzzles, and I urge you to try and work them out yourself; they're fairly obvious when you come to think of it. Visit the rooms in the following order to solve it 'fairly': Four, One, Three, Two, Three, One and Four. For those of you who want it really bad, the solution is: south get disc north west put disc in computer switch on computer read screen Note down the two dates here. (They never change, don't worry.) east north read manual table, the code is 2187 look in table get chip put chip in device south east x quilt search it get letter read it yes [Adventurers aren't noted for manners anyway :)] west down The old chap might be interested in it, wouldn't he? show letter to receptionist Bingo! get key Now head straight for the gold. up up north [again, you don't have to unlock and open the door if you have the right key.] x vase Could it possibly be that this is what Simone's fountain-pen was meant for? put pen in vase And enjoy the interlude. The last four chapters are a lot more hectic, with more puzzles and stuff, and a different PC, Cassandra, who's one of Harold's characters. You start off in..... CHAPTER SEVEN: RECALLED FROM LIFE ================================= You want to get home right now, so let's do just that...... inventory north knock on door Strange. open door north north Stranger. east east Any work to do, Cassie? south G***some, isn't it? :) What you need is a good night's sleep, so...... north sleep Bummer. Well, let's change into something more comfortable. (Is this what they mean by m*****s?) open wardrobe In the words of Tintin comics, "EEEEEEEEEEEK!". Let's take a closer look: x corpse again search it That cash card is your ticket to freedom; this place ain't safe anymore. Let's leg it from here: south west west south south You can go away now, so.... east Now let's use the fictitious Ms. Bradbury's card: put cash card in machine It's a dramatic finale, perhaps inspired by my memories of writing BASIC text adventures......but right now, on with the show: CHAPTER EIGHT: WHERE THE SUN ALWAYS SHINES ========================================== In the desert? Let's find our bearings: x sign read it East sounds more promising. east east Whee! A town. A ghost town, even. (The solution below is minimalist. Please feel free to explore the newspaper archive, the shack, the kitchen, and any other part of Charlestown.) x statue south examine black door The same Sweeney as on the statue? Let's see. That cellar looks intriguing. down east east south x bulb north Oh, dear. It looks like you're trapped. No problem, just..... smash bulb ......and see what you've uncovered. look get key Now let's find the passage back to de place we were before, mon. north west west up north That key unlocks the mansion further down the street. east south east x woman Could Sweeney the mysterious have something to do with this? ask woman about Sweeney R.I.P. Well, let's avenge the poor woman: get black key west north west south That key unlocks Sweeney's door. east x sweeney x coffin ask sweeney about coffin read it Remember your inventory at the beginning of Chapter Seven? Could Janus's letter have a purpose? put love-letter in coffin Die Sweeney! Well done, Cassandra, the hardest part is done; the last two stages are a breeze, and I won't need to help you out here. For the record, they are: CHAPTER NINE: BIRTH OF A NOTION =============================== This level is just a treasure hunt, so I can't give you much detail here. You just need to find a cap, mask and gown, and enter ward 10. Make sure to read those medical reports if you can find them! :) The gown first.... north. north. east get gown wear it Then the mask.... west. north. east get key west. south. south. east. up. north unlock locker with platinum key get mask wear mask And finally the cap. south up north east get cap wear cap west x student A cameo. I copied the idea from good old Hitchcock. north north And that's it. Now get that adrenaline up, for the final chapter.... ENDGAME: IT TAKES A VILLAGE =========================== Voices? listen. again. again Not very interesting. What did Laura hand me there, anyway? inventory This is like a boomerang, ain't it? Let's head out of the hut: west Horrors! How g***some can this get? x troll troll, hello troll, go away Well, they say the pen is mightier than the sword. kill troll with pen And that's it. Enjoy the ending. Be sure to check out the list of AMUSING options, and to go back as many times as possible to see if you're missing out on something. ============================================================================= About the game: -------------- WHO: --- "Halothane" was written, in its entirety - excepting the quotes from Don Henley, Pearl Jam, William.F.Ganong and Agatha Christie - by Ravi Philip Rajkumar (alias Quentin.D.Thompson.) No pieces of hardware except a rather fragile power pack were harmed during the making of this game. Programming, I'm afraid, was rather a different matter. I may be fairly good at writing, but the last time I coded anything big was when I wrote a cricket programme in QBASIC :-D, so most of the coding in this game was done by Graham Nelson, L. Ross Raszewski and Jay Goemmer, and I just filled in the blanks and wrote some corny routines here and there. So I can't say, as Adam Cadre honestly can, that this was written and programmed by myself. [Translated, the above paragraph means that I've used the Inform library and compiler, L. Ross Raszewski's Hints and Utilities header files, and a patch for the hint system that Jay very kindly sent me a few months ago. The actual coding, slipshod as it is, was done by the author.] WHAT?: ----- [The section below contains what might pedantically be considered "spoilers", though I can't see how a game as low-puzzle as this can have spoilers. :)] Exactly. What? This is a slightly stoned game, I admit it - though no mind-expanding substances were ingested by the author, either during its production or at any other point in his life. (I have vague memories of taking a few tabs of pheniramine here and there, but there's a whole lot of difference between relieving one's stuffy nose and expanding one's mind.) The philosophy behind _designing_ this game was simple; that behind _writing_ it leaves me groping for words even now. While designing it, from a purely "IF" point of view, I had a few clear objectives: to tell a story; to try and integrate it into a perpetual-motion environment; to include puzzles, but not to put them anywhere above beginner-to-intermediate level; to create a game that the player could never make "unwinnable"; and, most importantly, to create something enjoyable and entertaining. If I've succeeded in at least one of these objectives, do let me know. The philosophy of "no shut-outs" is not originally mine; its most famous exponent is Mike.J.Roberts, the creator of TADS. (It's a little ironic that I'm using a design system whose author's games shut me out time and again for forgetting to pick up stuff or unlock doors every now and then, but that's life. :-D) The writing, however, lacks cohesiveness, and that's because I chopped and changed innumerable times before arriving at the final version that you're playing now. I started planning Halothane as a non-stop, 100 per cent parody, which just took a player character and threw him into a series of weird, comical and satirical landscapes just for the heck of it. When exactly I gave this game its underlying plot, I can't remember, but it can be summarised thus: "Unsuccessful author tosses the manuscript of his second novel in the trash can, to be abandoned evermore, and is immediately abducted by his befuddled and/or irate characters, who have been thrown into chaos by his rash act, and made to undo the damage he's caused." (Cheezy, isn't it? - Ed.) Of course, there are twists. The game's subtitle is one of them. I billed this game as "An Interactive Restoration", which, on the surface, makes sense....after all, the player character's objective is to restore the balance of things in his own fictitious universe. But it can also be read otherwise (I promise this occured to me only after I thought up the title; I don't generally go in much for profundity); it's his characters who have put the player character back on track; without their intervention, he might have stopped writing, taken up a slightly more boring career (such as, as Isaac Asimov would have it, the Presidency of the U.S. or surgery) and led a life (as Adam Cadre put it) out of Human Resources Stories :) Another twist occurred to me while I was playing Anchorhead (Michael Gentry, take a bow.) My original intention was just a riff on the game, a slightly eerie episode with the same player character, but I soon abandoned that for an entirely new idea; in the first six chapters, the PC (in the game, his name is Harold, and I'll just refer to him that way for brevity's sake from now) has to overcome a series of (not too difficult) obstacles before confronting the only two people in the parallel dimension who have greater powers than him: one of them is the local version of a God (but he's ersatz, purely a fictitious concept, and hence I refer to him as the Little Tin God), and the other is just a personification of all the authors whose works live there. After this, his talents are made use of to create another fictitious character, who will complete the actual quest without disrupting the separateness (or continuum, or whatever highbrow term one wants to use) between the two dimensions. Thus, Chapters One to Six of this game feature Harold, and Seven to Ten feature Cassandra, his latest character. No points for guessing that Cassandra's first adventure is heavily and semi-comically Gothic. But all this sounds mind-bogglingly serious, and it isn't meant to be. It's just _plot_, for Heaven's sake; it's a convoluted and involved fantasy plot, but that doesn't mean the game is as complicated as its story. It's a fairly even-paced game, with lots of detail, several Easter Eggs, a few IF in-jokes and riffs here and there, and simple puzzles. Having said this, I'm still not sure if I'm immune to allegations (my word) of symbolism and the like. Trust me, there is nothing symbolic in this game. (There was, but I've pruned it out.) The long tale in Chapter Six, for example, is not a sort of nostalgic episode, but just a take on the long, semi-supernatural stories that people in Dickens' "Pickwick Papers" take turns telling each other. The troll in Chapter Ten doesn't symbolise Evil (TM), or The End Of The Innocence (R), or even Human Resources Stories (Copyright 1998, Harry.M.Hardjono), but is just a Zork riff. Sweeney in Chapter Eight is just a corny arch-villain (and not a satire of Jack Canfield _or_ Marshall Appleton, or anyone else) but I will concede that this whole stage does make fun of New Age a great deal. If this game has any message, it's this: it's all too easy to take oneself (or one's works and concepts) seriously, but taking them a little more lightly brings us down to earth. The pen is mightier than the sword (ask the troll) but humour can score over both of them most of the time. WHY?: ----- (following the lead given by Adam J. Thornton, author of my second favourite parody game, "In The End 2"....) THE ARTISTIC REASONS: 1. I sort of had a feeling that there would be at least ten experimental games and one Rybread game this year, and wanted to make sure there was at least _one_ straight game :) 2. While attracted to the simple-puzzles concept of Photopia, I didn't want people to say that they could breeze through this game by typing 'z' and pressing Enter repeatedly... 3. Games with women as player characters are so scarce I thought I'd put a spin on it, and have both male and female PCs in the same game. 4. I wanted to see if it was possible to commit all the nine Crimes Against Mimesis in the same game, while not writing an Andy Philips clone. 5. I kind of liked the idea of optional puzzles, though this game isn't a patch on Varicella. THE REAL REASONS: 1. Bad attack of writer's block following the rough draft of my first novel; if I couldn't write fiction, it had to be IF. 2. I was tired of seeing Inform 6.15 sleeping in its directory. 3. Having actually learnt how to write Inform without obtaining 97 compile errors per compile, I couldn't stay still. 4. None of my other game ideas were working out. They were (for the record): "Time Traveller", a parody of historical novels. "Tuxedos and Sarongs", a family feud/culture-shock sitcom, with a stuffed animal as PC and deus ex machina. (No points for guessing what game made me give up on this idea.) "Over My Counter", a riff on Arthur Hailey's novel "Strong Medicine". "A Summer Romance" (originally titled "Amuse"), an NPC-intensive, Wizard-of-Oz meets Kurt Vonnegut, puzzle-heavy adventure. A few ideas from here ended up in Halothane, but not too many. 5. It being the summer holidays, I had lots of free time. WHERE?: ------ The entire game, except for the first scene, takes place in a partially unshaped parallel dimension, which explains why the settings are so surreal. HOW?: ---- HARDWARE -------- 1. One slightly dated PC486/100MHz, which scores around 2.3 using Norton Benchmark, with a 1.2GB hard disk, a malfunctioning CD-ROM drive and a rather creaky mouse (The keyboard's fine, though.) 2. One malfunctioning voltage stabilizer, trashed halfway through the filming :) 3. One dysfunctional ceiling fan. 4. A tower fan, which is a sort of poor man's air-conditioner. (And that's an understatement.) 5. Ink and paper from various sources. SOFTWARE -------- 1. Inform version 6.15, library version 8. 2. Library extensions by Ross Raszewski and Jay Goemmer. 3. MS-DOS version 7, MS-DOS Editor 2.0.026. 4. No Windows was used in the making of this game. BIBLIOGRAPHY ------------ 1. The complete Pearl Jam album collection, Sony Music. 2. "The End of The Innocence", Don Henley, Geffen. 3. "The Unforgettable Fire", U2, Island. 4. "Breakfast of Champions", Kurt Vonnegut. [Probably the book that started me thinking on the author-character equation, but Kurt's not to be held responsible for any harm arising from this game :)] 5. An untitled manuscript by yours truly. No publication date fixed. 6. "Marguerite du Valois", Alexandre Dumas. [This is a great book. No kidding. A more complete IFication of this book, and "The Three Musketeers", is in the works. See Future Projects, below.] 7. "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck", Keno Don Rosa. (which I read, irony of ironies, in French translation.) RIFF-O-GRAPHY ------------- GAGS (Generic Adventure Game System), Softworks. TADS (Text Adventure Development System), Mike.J.Roberts. Curses, Graham Nelson. Spider & Web, Andrew Plotkin. Muse, Christopher Huang. Zork I, Infocom/Activision/whoever it might concern. Babel, Ian Finley. IRRITANTS --------- My ISP, VSNL. The local Electricity Board. The weather (And changes in it). Kattula Dheeraj, self-professed junior preacher, who's firmly convinced that I will burn in hell for writing computer games and visiting a den of iniquity called the (shock) Internet :) ============================================================================= Further releases: ---------------- I've got several Inform projects lined up; at least one of them should hit freeware stores (read: ftp.gmd.de and its mirrors) by next year, and - for better or worse - I'll try to push for two. For the record, and so you can be warned in advance, the games I have in development now are: Lottery, An Interactive MiSTing ------------------------------- This is another of those crazy MST games where I have Tom, Crow and the gang heckle a pretty lame GAGS game by E.V.Cheney. Have a laugh. CyberCraig: The Case of the Wide-Open Beavers --------------------------------------------- (An Interactive Action Movie) This is actually two games in one: the story (which is set in a world of intelligent animals, humans excluded) is dated 3,000 years in the future, and you - I mean CyberCraig, Paw Officer Second Class, the greenest koala bear on old Weller's crime-enforcement panel - are sent to the bovine planet of Lavache to clear up a series of apparently senseless killings among the minority beaver population. From this point, based on the choices you make, the game either becomes a classic detective game (along the lines of, say, Guilty Bastards) or a historical adventure, along the lines of Alexandre Dumas. It sounds like a game full of political and sociological points, but it isn't. It's an action movie in design and conception, full of absurdly laughable situations. This will probably end up a .z8 file. The French Resolution, An Interactive Authorial Responsibility(!) ----------------------------------------------------------------- [NOTE: Further development of this game depends solely on the response to Halothane, as this is set in the same universe; so, if you don't want this game to see the light of ftp.gmd.de, just troll Halothane as much as you want, give it 3 or less out of 10, etc., etc. :-D] Set twenty years after Halothane, this game has Harold, in the role of successful author, writing a book with a lot of untied loose ends. Naturally, his friends on the other side aren't pleased, and issue him an ultimatum: come back and clear up the mess you made, or else...:-) If this goes right, you can choose which of Harold's six characters you play in this game, and try and set the lives of the other five on course. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for playing Halothane! -- Quentin.D.Thompson