The Simuloid Affair: Infinite Possibilities

Last night I got sidetracked into making a joke game for the REALLY BAD IF Jam.

If you play it, please forgive me.

May

 How It's Going

When I'm making a text adventure I like to make these big "to do" grids in a spreadsheet. Everything that needs doing, in every location, and then just a sprawling list of general things to do. The green squares are done; the yellow squares don't apply to that location.

By this measure, what I'm working on is just shy of 90% complete. Of course, that final ten percent may actually be a bit more consequential than it seems - it includes things like adding a hint system, for example. And I have also just decided that I want to add an expanded end-game.

But I did recently run into some issues where it turned out I was bumping into limitations of the Z-machine (the classic text adventure engine this thing uses), so we'll have to see just how much more I can expand it...

What It's Being

 My idea for these games set in the same universe as Killing Machine Loves Slime Prince is that each one will borrow some mechanics from a genre of video game not usually associated with text adventures or interactive fiction. I kind of got a start on this in KMLSP, which evokes the spirit of a Metroidvania, even if it shies away from fully embracing the mechanics (see Trouble in Sector 471 for an example of someone going all the way with this concept).

This next instalment is following its genre a little more closely, it being one that's very close to my heart. It's a bit difficult to tell at this point exactly how diluted it is, and how much of an acquired taste...

I do also have a good idea what I'll be doing for the third game, but at this point it's counterproductive for me to start planning it out in any detail.

Where It's From

I've played almost every mainline Resident Evil game they've ever made. I've never played the original version of the first game, and I still have to get around to the recent remake of the fourth one, but that's still a whole swathe of the most influential franchise in a particular (sub?)genre of games.

What I've been doing lately is playing through some of the other survival horror games. Your Silent Hills; your Dino Crises; your Parasites Eve. Compared to the homogenised (streamlined?) triple-A games of today, there's some real character to the way these games are put together. I mean the mechanics, the structure, the controls... Attempts were made. Things succeed magnificently and fail gloriously. (I'm not pretending there aren't still games made in this mould: your Signalises; your Heartworms.)

I don't know why I'm mentioning this. No reason, I guess.

2024: I Have Plans

So at some point I decided that I wanted to release a few small parser games set in the same universe as Killing Machine Loves Slime Prince. Which I think will qualify as the first time I've ever done a sort-of sequel?!

It took me a while to get started, but I'm now quite a way into making a new game... And actually, I'm not sure exactly how small it really is any more. (A blurry, cropped version of the map is presented above...)

It's also my aim to post here about once a month, just with an update on how things are going.

See you at the Event Horizon, denizen!

I'm still working out what I'm doing with this blog - should I give it a new coat of paint, replace it with something else, or just keep it chugging along like it is currently?

Either way, since it's here, I guess I'll post about my new parser game:

 

You can play it online here.

I posted about it in more detail on the intfiction forum and my tumblr.

And I commissioned the awesome art from nsjndd1.

The IFDB pages for Snowblind Aces and Six-Chamber Champion have now been updated with working links to play them online.

Still trying to get back into things, I've put together a Neocities page with (almost) all my games on it:

https://pacian.neocities.org/

This has helped me realise that two of my older games, Snowblind Aces and Six-Chamber Champion, have fallen off the internet. I've submitted them both to the IF Archive, so hopefully we can rectify that in a little while...

She walked with a terrifying metallic clatter that belied her elegance and precision.

https://intfiction.org/t/testers-wanted-for-small-weird-parser-game/63563