I'm still involved in Camp Nanowrimo this month and preparing for our library's Sci-fi/Fantasy Festival at the end of July. And because of these ongoing projects I'm learning that I have a finite amount of creative energy, hence the series of opinion blogs this month.
But as Kingdom Hearts III is on the horizon (not ours, maybe Trenzalore has at least gotten a new screenshot) I thought it might be fitting to examine Disney's undisputed Mistress of all Evil, Maleficent. And like all retrospectives, we regrettably have to go back to the beginning. Just bear with me.
The Original Fairy Tale
Dear God in Heaven, have you ever tried to follow the original fairy tale? Or the one that was more original than that? Or the first one? As best as we know, the earliest template of the classic tale comes from an early fourteenth century French book series of romantic prose with interludes of poetry called Perceforest. In here we have the tale of Troilus who rapes the beautiful Zellandine while she's in a coma. She gives birth without waking.
In 1634, Itallian poet Giambattista Basile's tale Sun, Moon, and Talia was published two years after his death. Talia is accidentally pricked by a splinter of flax and falls into a deathlike coma. Talia's father decides she's too beautiful to bury and leaves her on display in one of his townhouses. One day a king happens upon her and tries unsuccessfully to wake her. But so overcome by her beauty, he carries her to a bed and "gathered the first fruits of love"; which, as I regret having to point out, is a flowery way of saying rape (this theme is going to keep popping up). Talia gives birth to twins. The king's wife is furious. She tries to go full (not Tyler Perry's) Madea on Talia and her children and have them murdered. When that fails, the king has his wife burned to death, marries Talia, and they live happily ever after.
Two versions and there's still no sign of Maleficent (or her rough draft), but the issues raised by feminist analyses of the Disney version are clearly on display here. The story's 'Beauty' by whatever name she's given is nothing more than an object. In the Basile version, the king's wife is punished for being outraged by her husband's infidelity, whereas the king is treated as if he's the hero of the piece.
I'm not a historian, but my gut tells me that the actions of Troilus and the king were not thought of as objectionable by their respective audiences or authors. Given the history of the way women have been viewed in society, I wonder if anybody even considered that 'Beauty' might have liked some say in what was done to her body. But we'll be seeing more of this topic as we go, so for now let's move on.
The Charles Perrault version is the one Disney seemed to turn to for inspiration. The newborn gets cursed by an old fairy who had resided in a tower for so long that everyone thought she was dead. After six of seven fairy godmothers grant the child gifts of beauty, happiness, rhythm, health, a new car and a college fund, the old fairy loses it. She decides that the candle that burns the brightest should in fact burn shorter (she kind of has a point), and thus the whole spindle thing. You know the rest. Although there is a second act that goes all over the place with an ogre mom and some crap about a pit of vipers; making this the medieval equivalent of Abbey Road's side B.
For all of its shortcomings (and there are many) the Perrault version at least provides a credible motivation for Maleficent's understudy. One of the great fears of the elderly is being forgotten and left to die on their own. Perrault may not show the old fairy much sympathy, but her anger clearly comes from a place of pain. This element may not have been intended by Perrault, and I certainly don't think Walt Disney intended to work it in either, but the echo of pain possibly found it's way into Maleficent's character anyway.
The Disney Version
I tackled this era pretty thoroughly two years ago, but here's the highlights. Maleficent was kind of a hybrid of the two main female villains before her, Queen Grimhilde and Lady Tremaine (sharing her voice actress and model with the latter). She seemed to take the best traits of both, combining the Queen's above-the-law selfishness with the stepmother's patient seething. This film has the unique and instantly iconic dragon transformation preceded by a rare Disney use of the word 'Hell' that nobody has been able to top.
The film has its flaws, mainly any scene that doesn't involve Maleficent. But more so is a bit of character inconsistency that encourages discussion. What exactly was she so pissed about? The official reason is that she wasn't invited to Aurora's christening, but nobody is buying that. This Maleficent is too...grounded to care about something that trivial. Disney left us an unanswered mystery which was probably an error in judgment from the studio, but Audley enough (see what I did there?) it invites the audience into her psyche in a way very few villains do.
One of the reasons Maleficent has such a strong fan base is that everything about her reads as wishing to be understood. Not waiting around for it to happen of course. But one can't help but wonder if there was a deeper conflict with Maleficent that could have been resolved through respect and diplomacy.
Going back to the feminist analysis, Sleeping Beauty provides a dichotomy between Aurora and Maleficent that easily represents a problematic trope regarding the way male film makers portray female characters. Aurora is 'good'. She's also young, passive, powerless, harmless, and beautiful. Maleficent is 'evil'. She's also old, proactive, powerful, destructive, and...you know, let's look at beauty for a moment.
Yes, Maleficent has the traditional face associated with witches but that doesn't exactly disqualify her as beautiful, it only provides a context for beauty that our view on Aurora takes for granted. Maleficent is elegant. Like so many Disney villains, she has a natural charisma. The sheer power and dominance she exhibits all feed into a different kind of beauty. Aurora is beautiful, but quite a lot of what makes her so is the lack of tarnish by any qualities that would detract from her virginal innocence. You could almost say she's beautiful because of what she isn't; most accessibly, she's not Maleficent.
Fun digression: when I worked at Disney World, there were very few Auroras. Cinderellas were everywhere because it was her castle, and her rags to riches story is exactly what Disney wants little girls to buy into. So if you happened to be chosen to portray Aurora in her rare appearances, you were most likely also playing Cinderella some of the time. I once asked an Aurora how she, as a performer, distinguished between the two. She told me that for her, Cinderella was the peasant girl who always believed she was a princess deep down inside. So her interactions with children were very princess-centric. "Oh, you've been to my castle show! Have you met my fairy godmother?" Aurora never thought about princesses until she was thrust into the role. As such, her interactions were less about herself and more about them. "Do you have something fun planned today? Really, EPCOT. What's that?" I always thought that was brilliant considering Aurora's character gives you so little to work with.
The Kingdom Hearts Version
I was so glad to see Disney place Maleficent in the foreground of the Kingdom Hearts series. If we're talking sheer power in the Disney canon, Hades is a god and Chernabog is the embodiment of darkness. But Maleficent is correctly selected as the most active member of the villain's unit to work with/against Organization XIII.
And why is that? Because most of the villains are limited in their scope and use. It makes no sense to have Jafar wandering around Halloween Town, or Captain Hook popping into Wonderland. Maleficent has versatility. She can interact with just about any character and still feel like herself. And when you place her in a grander scope world than Aurora's story, Maleficent almost starts to resemble a protagonist. Hell, in Kingdom Hearts II, she and lackey Pete make a sacrifice that comes across as from-a-certain-point-of-view heroic.
The Once Upon a Time Version
I did not like Kristin Bauer van Straten's portrayal of Maleficent in the show's first season for two reasons. One, she was a throwaway character, and Maleficent deserves better. Two, no way some apple polisher is going to get the better of a freaking dragon. But, you know, the series evolved.
Season four was where van Straten got to shine (and the series peaked). Here we got to see Maleficent as a mother. And my God did van Straten play the most complex version of Maleficent to date! She actually tries to reason with Snow White and Prince Charming. Once Upon a Time has been more hit than miss regarding its adaptations, but they knocked it out of the park with Maleficent. She's not evil, she's hurting. If there's any character arc worthy of a spinoff, it's the dragon lady.
Maleficent
Angelina Jolie is a fantastic actress, but I was not pleased when I heard she was cast as Maleficent. My concern was that she would be playing herself in the role, the way she did with Lara Croft. I was thankfully proven wrong. The movie was far from perfect, but damn if Jolie didn't get the essence of the character down.
The filmmakers have all but confirmed the story they told was a rape allegory; and Jolie has explicitly stated it was how she approached the role. Whether they were deliberately channeling the original fairy tales or not is unclear, but the point is we've come full circle. Except Maleficent has essentially taken the bullet for Sleeping Beauty.
As a man, one thing that really gets under my skin is hearing other men gripe about 'feminist propaganda'. We live in a patriarch society that we have created to be a patriarch. We don't experience that society as the non-favored gender. And any man who is so quick to reduce something to a dismissive label is saying "I can't be bothered to even try listening". The world is changing. Maybe not as much as I thought (#notmypresident), but it is changing and will continue to. And in the meantime, a movie like Maleficent serves a vital purpose in helping us understand a horrible experience that happens to so many people so very often.
Conclusion
In the end it's not to suggest that Maleficent is destined to be a purely feminist icon. More accurately, she has the flexibility of character to be whatever she needs to be to whoever she needs to be it for. Good versus evil is a story that has been told to death. That grey area in between has so many possibilities, and it seems to be the direction our stories are going.
The strength of Maleficent in the classic film is that we're not clear why she's evil. And as we revisit her further and further away from it, we begin to wonder if she really is evil at all. Yes, she calls herself the Mistress of All Evil, but that could mean anything. It could mean she is born out of evil, or has dwelled within it so long that she has become its guiding force. Or perhaps it's a label that was given to her that she now wears proudly like a scarlet letter 'A'. In my Disney fan fiction series, I approach it as if Maleficent is a dam controller responsible for holding evil back, and having to decide when to release the floodgate and in what dosage.
My sense is that our dragon lady is only getting warmed up. Now that Maleficent portrayed her as the protagonist, I hope this affects the way Kingdom Hearts thinks about her. She's the only villain in the game series that has any claim on being a playable character. And damn it, she's earned it.
So what makes her Disney's alpha female? You know, I really have no idea. It may not be something that can be reduced to a simple statement. But probably more than any other character in the studio's history, Maleficent represents the tip of an undiscovered iceberg. And that by itself means she's at least a step ahead of the rest of us.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Editorial: How the Odyssey2 Created Magic
What could be more fun than a stroll down Nostalgia Avenue? Alone? At night? With a dead car battery and no cell phone? I don't know why you'd be carrying a dead car battery, but put it down and let's talk video games.
Our species is one of narrative. It's in our nature to weave stories; given any two variables and we'll certainly draw a connection between them regardless of how absurd. I mention this because I'm a child of the seventies and a teen of the eighties, and my personal development quite coincidentally mirrors that of video game history, and I think I've got some old war hero stories for you.
My family didn't have the Atari 2600, or as we called it back then "Atari". We invested in the Magnavox Odyssey2, known today as that thing that was on the market back then that wasn't the Intellivison. Much like many Nintendo systems that followed, the Odyssey suffered from the lack of third party support. As such, you could conceivably collect the whole set of 56 games on 46 cartridges if you didn't mind owning a lot of trash (kind of like baseball cards).
You may not have experienced the 8-bit era yourself, but you've no doubt seen images. That paints a pretty accurate picture of what we were playing; hardly jaw dropping even by our primitive standards. But we weren't concerned about jaw dropping graphics. We were captivated by the fact that we could control what we were seeing on our TV screens! I don't even think remote controls had been invented yet.
And the Odyssey2 had some gems, games with rudimentary layouts that you could inadvertently sacrifice hours of your life on. Fun fact: in my mid twenties I dusted off the old Magnavox and inadvertently sacrificed hours of my life on it. In other words, they got some real mileage out of the minimalistic tools at their disposal.
So I wanted to take some time out of my busy schedule to honor some of the unsung classics that never achieved 'giant' status but certainly belong in a museum.
Computer Golf!
If there are ever two words undeserving of an exclamation point when put together, it's these. There wasn't much that stood out about this game, but it gives me a chance to mention a few important specs. The Odyssey2 had two primary sources of input from the user; a pair of single button joysticks, and a qwerty keyboard for educational games (yeah, that tried to happen even the late seventies). Hence the 'computer' in the title.
The golfer was an all purpose character I refer to as Sprite Guy. If you've played the original Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, Cranky mentions having to deal with a two sprite walk back in his day. Sprite Guy is who he's referring to. Sprite Guy was perpetually frozen in profile with his (what passed for) arms held out like a zombie. The only thing that change was his legs that would move apart every alternate frame to create the illusion of running or standing as need be.
Sprite Guy was the William H. Macy of 8-bit games. He could appear in any context and play whatever role was needed. And in Computer Golf! he had the distinction of being a much shorter tempered golfer than his Atari counterpart (which Odyssey had blatantly ripped off). Bounce your ball off a 'tree' and Sprite Guy would strike the ground repeatedly with his club in an unsportsmanlike manner. It was a little thing, just a touch of humor from the faceless developers, but it was one of the earliest examples of a game character with personality that would become so important down the road.
Smithereens!
This one required two players. On each side of the screen is a medieval tower (if you kind of squint), and behind each tower is a Sprite Guy with a catapult about half his size. There is also a moat right in the middle of the screen. The object is to pull your joystick away from your target and release it with careful timing to hit your opponent's tower. Too soon and you land in the moat. Too late and you miss wildly, or with a bit of luck might hit your opponent's catapult or your opponent, putting both temporarily out of commission. You can, and will, accidentally destroy your own tower.
Now I want you to think about how simple of a setup that is. This- was our Super Smash Brothers. Carnage, bloodless violence, skill, and a bit of randomness; we were entertained for hours. But the fun didn't stop there, because we had the added layer of "The Voice", a hardware add-on that is probably owed some residuals from Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.
I saved up my own allowance money to throw down seventy bucks on this upgrade, but it was so worth it. "The Voice" provided artificial speech for several Odyssey2 games, and for Smithereens! it was a running commentary from an outside observer. Hit the moat and you were treated to a man mimicking a splashing sound or drowning "Gl-l-l-l". Launch your rock off screen? "Come on turkey, hit it!" Take a boulder to the face? "Ouch! Help!" The game was inherently funny, and "The Voice" acknowledged that the game knew it. Back then, that was called innovation.
K.C. Munchkin!/K.C.'s Krazy Chase!
I mentioned this little guy in my Pac-Man blog a while back. K.C. Munchkin was Pac-Man with a happy face and antennae. Atari had exclusive rights to port Pac-Man to home consoles (and dear lord did they screw it up) while Magnavox beat them to the market with an obvious knock-off that was superior in every way to what Atari gave us. In the end the courts unfairly ruled against K.C. I mean, sure, the intellectual property was appropriated, but it's no different Mr. Pibb taking the Dr. pepper concept or Disney reworking Kimba the White Lion.
The coolest element of K.C. was the level editor, which you could design using the keyboard. I was prone to building a single tunnel that linked all the munchies linearly while the munchers were given the rest of the negative space to wander aimlessly in. Power gaming at it's finest! It was only through glitches that I'm not still playing my masterpiece today.
Krazy Chase gave us the Draterpillar as the antagonist as kind of K.C.'s F.U. to Atari's Centipede (and no, I didn't plan out that anagram). The "Voice" guy is back, but he's less MST and more softball bleachers dad. "Run!" "Hurry!" "Watch out!" Um, thanks, I can figure the threats out myself. But even if the overall quality of the sequel had ebbed, the little guy himself was a trip. If Pac-Man was William Hartnell, K.C. Munchkin was Patrick Troughton. Just, you know, awesome. Hey, speaking of timelords...
Attack of the Timelord!
Right behind Galaga, this is the greatest Space Invaders styled game ever created. You only have a fleet of eight ships to shoot down in each level but those punks can move! They snake around the screen frantically, only getting dispersed if you happen to hit the lead ship.
But strangely enough, you're given better rewards for shooting down their incoming missiles than in taking out the armada. It starts easy enough with a cluster of three white darts that rain straight down. But level two introduces the red dot homing missile that doesn't quite line up with your laser blast. Round three gives the green x's that land and then roll about a fifth of the screens length in your direction; you don't want to be in the corners anymore. Although if you really want to feel like a daredevil, slide your ship under them at the last possible second to confuse their tracking, they'll roll a little in the wrong direction before adjusting. Last and certainly the most high score inducing are the purple diamonds that behave like homing missiles on a caffeine binge.
Now if obliterating half a box of Lucky Charms isn't interesting enough for you, there's the character of the Time Lord, who appears before each stage to mock you (or just gnash his teeth if you didn't buy "The Voice"). "Defend your world!" he challenges you. "Goodbye earthling!" he threatens (either to destroy you or leave Facebook). And my personal favorite that I know I'm not hearing correctly, "Mop-head human!" Who you calling mop-head, laser breath? But when you get to the fourth stage, an odd thing happens. Old laser breath starts respecting you. "You're a worthy opponent!" With the full understanding that at some point you're going to eventually lose (these games didn't have victory endings) that's kind of a feel good way to watch your home world perish.
Monkeyshines!
Sprite Guy is back! And he's...okay how do I explain this? You and your buddy are zookeepers, maybe? Some fairly versatile yellow monkeys are loose. And it's up to you pick them up and throw them. And then they get pissed, turn red, and try to beat you into paralysis. I have no idea, maybe this was a long lost gladiator game?
So, yeah, that sounds pretty stupid, but damn if it wasn't something special. The monkeys had minds of their own, four in all. They would dance, laugh at you, hang from bars over head, typical monkey stuff. You wouldn't actually pick them up so much a you would let them crawl on you and then start jumping in place to keep them on you. This game would never be made today.
So what we did was use the real time level editor to take overhead bars away from the monkeys while they were on them to eventually get all four to fall on the same hopping Sprite Guy. Then we'd build an escape route for the second guy and minimize the monkeys' access to where he was hiding. Then we'd let hopping Sprite Guy rack up as many points as possible by throwing all four monkeys downwards and holding the button. This caused four angry monkeys to bounce off the ground and back into Sprite Guy who would keep taking advantage of the glitch as-he-was-dying. The second Sprite Guy then spent a few suspenseful minutes trying to avoid four hostile monkeys who took this act personally for some reason. Then repeat with the survivor. It was the single most awesome suicide pact, and I'm certain the Sprite Guys shared a plot with only their high score on the headstone.
Take the Money and Run!
You know I've counted five Odyssey2 games in total that don't feel the need to emphasize their thrills with an exclamation point. Some of my personal favorites purely by title are Keyboard Creations! Pocket Billiards! Turtles! and one I've actually played, Pachinko! which really does live up to it's self-hype.
This is a two player game, but for a change Sprite Guy is your antagonist(s). You and your friend are playing a pair of characters affectionately named Lumbering Oaf Man, or Lom. You're in a randomly generated K.C. Munchkin-esc maze designed for Sprite Guy. Lom is two and a half times the size of Sprite Guy, which means you're going to be hitting your head.
Fortunately the joystick's button allows you to duck, which slows your movement some but gets you through tight spots. The object is to get money, a life's lesson for us all. When Sprite Guy is white, it means he's worth money. The amount he's worth runs down like a timer, and he starts off very fast but gradually slows to a crawl. When Sprite Guy is pink, the opposite happens. he represents income tax. Here he starts out slowly with the higher amounts but gets faster and greedier as the counter goes down.
That's pretty much the intended game play, but there were a few quirks that made this game really special. One was learning the algorithms. Tax collector Sprite Guys would often get stuck running in loops that could protect you. And glitches. If you pressed Lom against the wall in a lower corner you could make him vibrate, which had the inconsistent advantage of tax collector Sprite Guy not actually being able to reach into his pocket. This same glitch could be used in a few other creative ways, like hitting the wall and moving slightly up or down would cause Lom to slowly creep the wall in the opposite direction. Player one could actually slip into the money counter area where Sprite Guys couldn't go. I can think of few childhood experiences more frustrating than me straining my hand muscles trying to avoid my tax collector while my buddy casually wandered around in the safe zone singing "I'm in the money."
But the best element of all was the way Lom moved. He had at least a four frame walk (a luxury) where his arms swung freely. The guy just looked groovy as he roamed. And there was a sadistic delight to be had positioning him under a low bar and watching his head get batted over and over. Lom may have been the first video game doofus; just so inherently laid back you couldn't help but love him.
So that's my memory lane jog; old school stuff, but true gems. Although if you're familiar at all with the Odyssey2 library you may have noticed a curious omission from the games I've discussed. And yes, there is one more game that I believe is the actual diamond of the whole system. I was going to include it here, but this blog got a bit longer than I'd planned, and I feel it deserves a bit more attention than I can give it right now. So be on the lookout sometime in the future for a retrospective on dungeon crawls. Until then, always make time for play.
Our species is one of narrative. It's in our nature to weave stories; given any two variables and we'll certainly draw a connection between them regardless of how absurd. I mention this because I'm a child of the seventies and a teen of the eighties, and my personal development quite coincidentally mirrors that of video game history, and I think I've got some old war hero stories for you.
My family didn't have the Atari 2600, or as we called it back then "Atari". We invested in the Magnavox Odyssey2, known today as that thing that was on the market back then that wasn't the Intellivison. Much like many Nintendo systems that followed, the Odyssey suffered from the lack of third party support. As such, you could conceivably collect the whole set of 56 games on 46 cartridges if you didn't mind owning a lot of trash (kind of like baseball cards).
You may not have experienced the 8-bit era yourself, but you've no doubt seen images. That paints a pretty accurate picture of what we were playing; hardly jaw dropping even by our primitive standards. But we weren't concerned about jaw dropping graphics. We were captivated by the fact that we could control what we were seeing on our TV screens! I don't even think remote controls had been invented yet.
And the Odyssey2 had some gems, games with rudimentary layouts that you could inadvertently sacrifice hours of your life on. Fun fact: in my mid twenties I dusted off the old Magnavox and inadvertently sacrificed hours of my life on it. In other words, they got some real mileage out of the minimalistic tools at their disposal.
So I wanted to take some time out of my busy schedule to honor some of the unsung classics that never achieved 'giant' status but certainly belong in a museum.
Computer Golf!
If there are ever two words undeserving of an exclamation point when put together, it's these. There wasn't much that stood out about this game, but it gives me a chance to mention a few important specs. The Odyssey2 had two primary sources of input from the user; a pair of single button joysticks, and a qwerty keyboard for educational games (yeah, that tried to happen even the late seventies). Hence the 'computer' in the title.
The golfer was an all purpose character I refer to as Sprite Guy. If you've played the original Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, Cranky mentions having to deal with a two sprite walk back in his day. Sprite Guy is who he's referring to. Sprite Guy was perpetually frozen in profile with his (what passed for) arms held out like a zombie. The only thing that change was his legs that would move apart every alternate frame to create the illusion of running or standing as need be.
Sprite Guy was the William H. Macy of 8-bit games. He could appear in any context and play whatever role was needed. And in Computer Golf! he had the distinction of being a much shorter tempered golfer than his Atari counterpart (which Odyssey had blatantly ripped off). Bounce your ball off a 'tree' and Sprite Guy would strike the ground repeatedly with his club in an unsportsmanlike manner. It was a little thing, just a touch of humor from the faceless developers, but it was one of the earliest examples of a game character with personality that would become so important down the road.
Smithereens!
This one required two players. On each side of the screen is a medieval tower (if you kind of squint), and behind each tower is a Sprite Guy with a catapult about half his size. There is also a moat right in the middle of the screen. The object is to pull your joystick away from your target and release it with careful timing to hit your opponent's tower. Too soon and you land in the moat. Too late and you miss wildly, or with a bit of luck might hit your opponent's catapult or your opponent, putting both temporarily out of commission. You can, and will, accidentally destroy your own tower.
Now I want you to think about how simple of a setup that is. This- was our Super Smash Brothers. Carnage, bloodless violence, skill, and a bit of randomness; we were entertained for hours. But the fun didn't stop there, because we had the added layer of "The Voice", a hardware add-on that is probably owed some residuals from Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.
I saved up my own allowance money to throw down seventy bucks on this upgrade, but it was so worth it. "The Voice" provided artificial speech for several Odyssey2 games, and for Smithereens! it was a running commentary from an outside observer. Hit the moat and you were treated to a man mimicking a splashing sound or drowning "Gl-l-l-l". Launch your rock off screen? "Come on turkey, hit it!" Take a boulder to the face? "Ouch! Help!" The game was inherently funny, and "The Voice" acknowledged that the game knew it. Back then, that was called innovation.
K.C. Munchkin!/K.C.'s Krazy Chase!
I mentioned this little guy in my Pac-Man blog a while back. K.C. Munchkin was Pac-Man with a happy face and antennae. Atari had exclusive rights to port Pac-Man to home consoles (and dear lord did they screw it up) while Magnavox beat them to the market with an obvious knock-off that was superior in every way to what Atari gave us. In the end the courts unfairly ruled against K.C. I mean, sure, the intellectual property was appropriated, but it's no different Mr. Pibb taking the Dr. pepper concept or Disney reworking Kimba the White Lion.
The coolest element of K.C. was the level editor, which you could design using the keyboard. I was prone to building a single tunnel that linked all the munchies linearly while the munchers were given the rest of the negative space to wander aimlessly in. Power gaming at it's finest! It was only through glitches that I'm not still playing my masterpiece today.
Krazy Chase gave us the Draterpillar as the antagonist as kind of K.C.'s F.U. to Atari's Centipede (and no, I didn't plan out that anagram). The "Voice" guy is back, but he's less MST and more softball bleachers dad. "Run!" "Hurry!" "Watch out!" Um, thanks, I can figure the threats out myself. But even if the overall quality of the sequel had ebbed, the little guy himself was a trip. If Pac-Man was William Hartnell, K.C. Munchkin was Patrick Troughton. Just, you know, awesome. Hey, speaking of timelords...
Attack of the Timelord!
Right behind Galaga, this is the greatest Space Invaders styled game ever created. You only have a fleet of eight ships to shoot down in each level but those punks can move! They snake around the screen frantically, only getting dispersed if you happen to hit the lead ship.
But strangely enough, you're given better rewards for shooting down their incoming missiles than in taking out the armada. It starts easy enough with a cluster of three white darts that rain straight down. But level two introduces the red dot homing missile that doesn't quite line up with your laser blast. Round three gives the green x's that land and then roll about a fifth of the screens length in your direction; you don't want to be in the corners anymore. Although if you really want to feel like a daredevil, slide your ship under them at the last possible second to confuse their tracking, they'll roll a little in the wrong direction before adjusting. Last and certainly the most high score inducing are the purple diamonds that behave like homing missiles on a caffeine binge.
Now if obliterating half a box of Lucky Charms isn't interesting enough for you, there's the character of the Time Lord, who appears before each stage to mock you (or just gnash his teeth if you didn't buy "The Voice"). "Defend your world!" he challenges you. "Goodbye earthling!" he threatens (either to destroy you or leave Facebook). And my personal favorite that I know I'm not hearing correctly, "Mop-head human!" Who you calling mop-head, laser breath? But when you get to the fourth stage, an odd thing happens. Old laser breath starts respecting you. "You're a worthy opponent!" With the full understanding that at some point you're going to eventually lose (these games didn't have victory endings) that's kind of a feel good way to watch your home world perish.
Monkeyshines!
Sprite Guy is back! And he's...okay how do I explain this? You and your buddy are zookeepers, maybe? Some fairly versatile yellow monkeys are loose. And it's up to you pick them up and throw them. And then they get pissed, turn red, and try to beat you into paralysis. I have no idea, maybe this was a long lost gladiator game?
So, yeah, that sounds pretty stupid, but damn if it wasn't something special. The monkeys had minds of their own, four in all. They would dance, laugh at you, hang from bars over head, typical monkey stuff. You wouldn't actually pick them up so much a you would let them crawl on you and then start jumping in place to keep them on you. This game would never be made today.
So what we did was use the real time level editor to take overhead bars away from the monkeys while they were on them to eventually get all four to fall on the same hopping Sprite Guy. Then we'd build an escape route for the second guy and minimize the monkeys' access to where he was hiding. Then we'd let hopping Sprite Guy rack up as many points as possible by throwing all four monkeys downwards and holding the button. This caused four angry monkeys to bounce off the ground and back into Sprite Guy who would keep taking advantage of the glitch as-he-was-dying. The second Sprite Guy then spent a few suspenseful minutes trying to avoid four hostile monkeys who took this act personally for some reason. Then repeat with the survivor. It was the single most awesome suicide pact, and I'm certain the Sprite Guys shared a plot with only their high score on the headstone.
Take the Money and Run!
You know I've counted five Odyssey2 games in total that don't feel the need to emphasize their thrills with an exclamation point. Some of my personal favorites purely by title are Keyboard Creations! Pocket Billiards! Turtles! and one I've actually played, Pachinko! which really does live up to it's self-hype.
This is a two player game, but for a change Sprite Guy is your antagonist(s). You and your friend are playing a pair of characters affectionately named Lumbering Oaf Man, or Lom. You're in a randomly generated K.C. Munchkin-esc maze designed for Sprite Guy. Lom is two and a half times the size of Sprite Guy, which means you're going to be hitting your head.
Fortunately the joystick's button allows you to duck, which slows your movement some but gets you through tight spots. The object is to get money, a life's lesson for us all. When Sprite Guy is white, it means he's worth money. The amount he's worth runs down like a timer, and he starts off very fast but gradually slows to a crawl. When Sprite Guy is pink, the opposite happens. he represents income tax. Here he starts out slowly with the higher amounts but gets faster and greedier as the counter goes down.
That's pretty much the intended game play, but there were a few quirks that made this game really special. One was learning the algorithms. Tax collector Sprite Guys would often get stuck running in loops that could protect you. And glitches. If you pressed Lom against the wall in a lower corner you could make him vibrate, which had the inconsistent advantage of tax collector Sprite Guy not actually being able to reach into his pocket. This same glitch could be used in a few other creative ways, like hitting the wall and moving slightly up or down would cause Lom to slowly creep the wall in the opposite direction. Player one could actually slip into the money counter area where Sprite Guys couldn't go. I can think of few childhood experiences more frustrating than me straining my hand muscles trying to avoid my tax collector while my buddy casually wandered around in the safe zone singing "I'm in the money."
But the best element of all was the way Lom moved. He had at least a four frame walk (a luxury) where his arms swung freely. The guy just looked groovy as he roamed. And there was a sadistic delight to be had positioning him under a low bar and watching his head get batted over and over. Lom may have been the first video game doofus; just so inherently laid back you couldn't help but love him.
So that's my memory lane jog; old school stuff, but true gems. Although if you're familiar at all with the Odyssey2 library you may have noticed a curious omission from the games I've discussed. And yes, there is one more game that I believe is the actual diamond of the whole system. I was going to include it here, but this blog got a bit longer than I'd planned, and I feel it deserves a bit more attention than I can give it right now. So be on the lookout sometime in the future for a retrospective on dungeon crawls. Until then, always make time for play.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Shows in Need of a Reboot: Snarfquest
One thing right out of the gate: no, this was never a show. I've just had quite a bit of success with my previous blog Shows in Need of a Reboot: Ranma 1/2 that I'm less than compelled to mess with the formula.
In the mid 1980's (essentially the time period where nerd culture developed its autonomy) Dungeons and Dragons was experiencing the apex of its alternative-to-mainstream identity, complete with a Saturday morning cartoon; that's when you knew you'd made it. This was also a golden period for magazines. Movies were being released at a manageable enough pace for the satires of MAD to stay fresh. Will Shortz's creation GAMES was deconstructing common magazine facets in the name of puzzle solving. And at the heart and hub of every role player's connection to a perceived community of passionate clerics and paladins was Dragon.
Dragon magazine was D&D's expansion pack, fleshing out new monsters, character classes, fiction, even new approaches to playing the game. The artwork was magnificent and the adventures that were semi-regularly published rivaled many of the official modules of the time. And if you didn't connect with anything else in a particular issue, you could always rely on the final couple of pages to justify your continued subscription.
For three reasons. One, "Dragonmirth", a series of (usually) single paneled comics related to fantasy gaming; conceivably a precursor to The Far Side. Two, "Wormy", a better-than-it-ever-needed-to-be exploration of D&D's most famous members of the Monster Manual and what their private lives might consist of. "Wormy" was abruptly discontinued mid story arc(s) when artist David Trampier left TSR (the circumstances of which will likely remain a mystery) and went into seclusion until his death in 2014. Three (and this is what all this has been leading up to), "Snarfquest".
Larry Elmore is one of fantasy's most recognizable artists. If you've ever been to a gaming convention or browsed through D&D books at the bookstore, you've undoubtedly come across his work. And once you have a passing familiarity with Elmore's style you can naturally single his drawings out from a lineup. It's not that his work is deliberately distinctive, most fantasy artwork tends to conform to a certain visual vocabulary, but a Larry Elmore piece just has a certain beat to it that I'm sure someone smarter than me could explain. I don't know of any other artist who can capture that ~pause~; it's a moment where something life-changing has either just happened or is just about to, and the whole story is reflected in the central figure's expression and demeanor. Suffice to say, Elmore's artwork has graced many a cover of Dragon.
"Snarfquest" was a chance for Elmore to relax a little and presumably have a bit of fun. The serial ran for several years in the mid-eighties until Elmore admitted (in-universe no less) to simply not having the time or strength to continue it amidst the rest of his professional obligations. But I say "Snarfquest" is a real gem that deserves to be reworked into a (probably animated) series; maybe Bruce Timm's interested? Let me explain why.
The comic series
Snarf is a Zeetvah (Google it), with an anteater-like snout, bat-winged ears, and a personality kind of akin to Daffy Duck if he weren't corrupted by Hollywood. After the death of his village's king, it's decreed that any Zeetvah can lay claim to the throne, with the ruler selected based on how much treasure and/or heroic deeds he or she can acquire over the following year. So Snarf sets out on his titular quest and meets a colorful cast of characters based on, and pushing against, your typical fantasy quest tropes.
What works
It's a great premise for one thing. Treasure for the sake of it was an instant cliché whenever the first story of greed was written down, but treasure for a higher goal is engaging. Despite the fact that Snarf starts off a bit on the amoral side you can't help but root for him. He's inexperienced and prone to attracting challenges beyond his skillset, but you have to admire the 'I can't believe that actually worked' methods he uses to overcome them.
Larry Elmore's drawing style is wonderful. The characters are incredibly expressive, and many panels are laugh out loud funny with or without the dialogue included. "Snarfquest" has been favorably compared to Jeff Smith's "Bone"; and I totally get it, but I see a bit more Bill Watterson in it (or "Snarfquest" in "Calvin and Hobbes").
Also a lot of the characters draw you in. Pick a favorite: Prince Raffendorf (a one-eyed human turned into a giant rat), the evil time-jumping wizard Suthaze (whose introduction involves teleporting into his tower while riding a motorcycle), Willie (the dragon who believes he's a duck), Leech (the in-house voice of MST3K), or Aveeare (a stranded robot from the future who nearly usurps Snarf as the series protagonist). And then there's Telerie who I'll be saying more about shortly. For now just remember her name (no, I don't know which syllable is supposed to be emphasized). Even Dorque da Wanderer left a bit of a smile on my face.
What doesn't work
I obviously don't have access to Larry Elmore's brain, but based on the way the narrative plays out I imagine he was kind of making it up as he went. This gives the story a really nice unpredictable quality but it also leads to some inescapable rough spots. Side characters appear out of nowhere and are unceremoniously dropped. Certain obstacles that have a buildup are suddenly deemed irrelevant. And there's the fate of spaceship pilot Fred which never sat well with me.
The 'Snarf who would be king' arc wraps up in what could be considered Act One. Act Two involves Snarf and Telerie time traveling to Aveeare's period (the future) for significantly weaker motivations where they encounter a new cast of characters that don't really add up to much. In fact there was only one really memorable scene in Act Two that managed to uncover what the story was really about.
In other words, it's a good story overall, but the great characters and ideas of the first act are just begging to be better. They demand a finesse that Larry Elmore truly couldn't afford to give them the first time around. And not that I have any sway with anyone who could do anything about it, but Snarf and company are at least calling to me to open up a discussion about them.
What would I revise?
Two words. Telerie Windyarm; a surname ridiculous even by fantasy standards. Telerie is a competent warrior. When she first meets Snarf she's at the presumed end of her own offscreen adventure. I originally thought she had no backstory until I went and looked it up. It turns out she has a rich backstory that gets waved away in a few sentences (something about a stolen sword, her father, and a betrayal by Suthaze's more powerful but less interesting expy Whats-his-face the Grumpy).
Telerie quite accurately resembled a lot of the exercise models of the eighties, in build and hair. Funny looking Snarf was pretty easy for the average nerd (mostly presumed to be male) of the time period to see themselves reflected in. The relationship between these two characters is ultimately what Snarfquest is about, even if Elmore himself hadn't planned it that way.
So in the revision, Telerie needs to be front and center from the get go in her own fleshed out quest running concurrently with Snarf's. It would be through Telerie we would understand the structure of the world in which Snarfquest takes place, i.e. the hierarchy of races and classes, and how the fantasy 'rules' apply. Then through Snarf we see how difficult for someone on the low end of the totem pole to muddle through the world. Snarf is at his best when he's a step behind, while Telerie is usually a step ahead.
It was at the romantic angle between Snarf and Telerie where Elmore excelled, mainly because it wasn't simply a case of opposites attracting. Telerie believed in Snarf before he believed in himself, but his motivation to live up to the way she perceived him actually made him better. But Telerie's draw to Snarf was implied a lot more than explored, and it's here that the story deserves some intentional choices.
The fantasy world no doubt views Snarf as beneath Telerie's station, and even Telerie demonstrates a discomfort at saying the L-word, at least until Act two when she thinks he's been killed (arguably the best couple of panels in the whole series). Her initial pleasantness towards him is similar to that of a pageant contestant who is trained to exude congeniality combined with the way people react to hounds that are just so cute. But she also sees who he is when his back is to the wall, which may have an honesty that most people she deals with don't show. The changes in both of them are gradual, but in the end it's realized that the 'quest' of the title isn't about becoming king or reclaiming treasure but finding the life that matters to you.
Every character is judged based on believability. Good characters feel real. Great characters feel metaphorical. Snarf and Telerie are good characters with a potential for greatness when they're together. Elmore did a good job, especially considering he was making it up as he went. But the adventure just calls for a revision to help it achieve greatness. Keep the characters that work, even if only sporadically. Lose the ones that don't (B. B. Bird was a waste of space). And always keep the characters driving the story.
In the mid 1980's (essentially the time period where nerd culture developed its autonomy) Dungeons and Dragons was experiencing the apex of its alternative-to-mainstream identity, complete with a Saturday morning cartoon; that's when you knew you'd made it. This was also a golden period for magazines. Movies were being released at a manageable enough pace for the satires of MAD to stay fresh. Will Shortz's creation GAMES was deconstructing common magazine facets in the name of puzzle solving. And at the heart and hub of every role player's connection to a perceived community of passionate clerics and paladins was Dragon.
Dragon magazine was D&D's expansion pack, fleshing out new monsters, character classes, fiction, even new approaches to playing the game. The artwork was magnificent and the adventures that were semi-regularly published rivaled many of the official modules of the time. And if you didn't connect with anything else in a particular issue, you could always rely on the final couple of pages to justify your continued subscription.
For three reasons. One, "Dragonmirth", a series of (usually) single paneled comics related to fantasy gaming; conceivably a precursor to The Far Side. Two, "Wormy", a better-than-it-ever-needed-to-be exploration of D&D's most famous members of the Monster Manual and what their private lives might consist of. "Wormy" was abruptly discontinued mid story arc(s) when artist David Trampier left TSR (the circumstances of which will likely remain a mystery) and went into seclusion until his death in 2014. Three (and this is what all this has been leading up to), "Snarfquest".
Larry Elmore is one of fantasy's most recognizable artists. If you've ever been to a gaming convention or browsed through D&D books at the bookstore, you've undoubtedly come across his work. And once you have a passing familiarity with Elmore's style you can naturally single his drawings out from a lineup. It's not that his work is deliberately distinctive, most fantasy artwork tends to conform to a certain visual vocabulary, but a Larry Elmore piece just has a certain beat to it that I'm sure someone smarter than me could explain. I don't know of any other artist who can capture that ~pause~; it's a moment where something life-changing has either just happened or is just about to, and the whole story is reflected in the central figure's expression and demeanor. Suffice to say, Elmore's artwork has graced many a cover of Dragon.
"Snarfquest" was a chance for Elmore to relax a little and presumably have a bit of fun. The serial ran for several years in the mid-eighties until Elmore admitted (in-universe no less) to simply not having the time or strength to continue it amidst the rest of his professional obligations. But I say "Snarfquest" is a real gem that deserves to be reworked into a (probably animated) series; maybe Bruce Timm's interested? Let me explain why.
The comic series
Snarf is a Zeetvah (Google it), with an anteater-like snout, bat-winged ears, and a personality kind of akin to Daffy Duck if he weren't corrupted by Hollywood. After the death of his village's king, it's decreed that any Zeetvah can lay claim to the throne, with the ruler selected based on how much treasure and/or heroic deeds he or she can acquire over the following year. So Snarf sets out on his titular quest and meets a colorful cast of characters based on, and pushing against, your typical fantasy quest tropes.
What works
It's a great premise for one thing. Treasure for the sake of it was an instant cliché whenever the first story of greed was written down, but treasure for a higher goal is engaging. Despite the fact that Snarf starts off a bit on the amoral side you can't help but root for him. He's inexperienced and prone to attracting challenges beyond his skillset, but you have to admire the 'I can't believe that actually worked' methods he uses to overcome them.
Larry Elmore's drawing style is wonderful. The characters are incredibly expressive, and many panels are laugh out loud funny with or without the dialogue included. "Snarfquest" has been favorably compared to Jeff Smith's "Bone"; and I totally get it, but I see a bit more Bill Watterson in it (or "Snarfquest" in "Calvin and Hobbes").
Also a lot of the characters draw you in. Pick a favorite: Prince Raffendorf (a one-eyed human turned into a giant rat), the evil time-jumping wizard Suthaze (whose introduction involves teleporting into his tower while riding a motorcycle), Willie (the dragon who believes he's a duck), Leech (the in-house voice of MST3K), or Aveeare (a stranded robot from the future who nearly usurps Snarf as the series protagonist). And then there's Telerie who I'll be saying more about shortly. For now just remember her name (no, I don't know which syllable is supposed to be emphasized). Even Dorque da Wanderer left a bit of a smile on my face.
What doesn't work
I obviously don't have access to Larry Elmore's brain, but based on the way the narrative plays out I imagine he was kind of making it up as he went. This gives the story a really nice unpredictable quality but it also leads to some inescapable rough spots. Side characters appear out of nowhere and are unceremoniously dropped. Certain obstacles that have a buildup are suddenly deemed irrelevant. And there's the fate of spaceship pilot Fred which never sat well with me.
The 'Snarf who would be king' arc wraps up in what could be considered Act One. Act Two involves Snarf and Telerie time traveling to Aveeare's period (the future) for significantly weaker motivations where they encounter a new cast of characters that don't really add up to much. In fact there was only one really memorable scene in Act Two that managed to uncover what the story was really about.
In other words, it's a good story overall, but the great characters and ideas of the first act are just begging to be better. They demand a finesse that Larry Elmore truly couldn't afford to give them the first time around. And not that I have any sway with anyone who could do anything about it, but Snarf and company are at least calling to me to open up a discussion about them.
What would I revise?
Two words. Telerie Windyarm; a surname ridiculous even by fantasy standards. Telerie is a competent warrior. When she first meets Snarf she's at the presumed end of her own offscreen adventure. I originally thought she had no backstory until I went and looked it up. It turns out she has a rich backstory that gets waved away in a few sentences (something about a stolen sword, her father, and a betrayal by Suthaze's more powerful but less interesting expy Whats-his-face the Grumpy).
Telerie quite accurately resembled a lot of the exercise models of the eighties, in build and hair. Funny looking Snarf was pretty easy for the average nerd (mostly presumed to be male) of the time period to see themselves reflected in. The relationship between these two characters is ultimately what Snarfquest is about, even if Elmore himself hadn't planned it that way.
So in the revision, Telerie needs to be front and center from the get go in her own fleshed out quest running concurrently with Snarf's. It would be through Telerie we would understand the structure of the world in which Snarfquest takes place, i.e. the hierarchy of races and classes, and how the fantasy 'rules' apply. Then through Snarf we see how difficult for someone on the low end of the totem pole to muddle through the world. Snarf is at his best when he's a step behind, while Telerie is usually a step ahead.
It was at the romantic angle between Snarf and Telerie where Elmore excelled, mainly because it wasn't simply a case of opposites attracting. Telerie believed in Snarf before he believed in himself, but his motivation to live up to the way she perceived him actually made him better. But Telerie's draw to Snarf was implied a lot more than explored, and it's here that the story deserves some intentional choices.
The fantasy world no doubt views Snarf as beneath Telerie's station, and even Telerie demonstrates a discomfort at saying the L-word, at least until Act two when she thinks he's been killed (arguably the best couple of panels in the whole series). Her initial pleasantness towards him is similar to that of a pageant contestant who is trained to exude congeniality combined with the way people react to hounds that are just so cute. But she also sees who he is when his back is to the wall, which may have an honesty that most people she deals with don't show. The changes in both of them are gradual, but in the end it's realized that the 'quest' of the title isn't about becoming king or reclaiming treasure but finding the life that matters to you.
Every character is judged based on believability. Good characters feel real. Great characters feel metaphorical. Snarf and Telerie are good characters with a potential for greatness when they're together. Elmore did a good job, especially considering he was making it up as he went. But the adventure just calls for a revision to help it achieve greatness. Keep the characters that work, even if only sporadically. Lose the ones that don't (B. B. Bird was a waste of space). And always keep the characters driving the story.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
So You're Locked in a Room...
I'm really fortunate to have a job that I love, in this case working as a library assistant in the Adult Fiction department. It's given me a few surprise creative outlets that I'm rather proud of, with another batch around the corner at our third annual Sci-fi/Fantasy festival this July.
One of the things we tried last year was a pair of room escape games (which were really popular). I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. But just in case, the rundown is like this. You go with a group of around eight people (strangers, if you don't think to bring anyone with you) to a preexisting location designed to look like whatever fictional setting the room is themed for. Then you get locked in, and are given a time limit to scrounge the room for clues to unlock cabinets and so forth. If you escape, you get to feel superior to everyone around you. If you fail, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you took seven other schmucks down with you.
I've never been through one of these games myself, but I've certainly played every room escape game I've found online. I don't know what it is, there's just something satisfying about pretending you're in a precarious situation with your brain as your best/only tool. And so what I wanted to share for this blog is the approach I've taken to write up the premises of our past and future room escapes.
The easiest setup is the one that started the Saw franchise, where multiple people wake up in a room of deathtraps with no memory of how they got there. It's a simple formula and it's accessible to everyone. Of course being a public library, there is a degree of horror we don't need to delve into. So the compromise point is to create a template of characters for the participants to 'play' and thus laugh sadistically about the deaths thereof.
One of the things we tried last year was a pair of room escape games (which were really popular). I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. But just in case, the rundown is like this. You go with a group of around eight people (strangers, if you don't think to bring anyone with you) to a preexisting location designed to look like whatever fictional setting the room is themed for. Then you get locked in, and are given a time limit to scrounge the room for clues to unlock cabinets and so forth. If you escape, you get to feel superior to everyone around you. If you fail, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you took seven other schmucks down with you.
I've never been through one of these games myself, but I've certainly played every room escape game I've found online. I don't know what it is, there's just something satisfying about pretending you're in a precarious situation with your brain as your best/only tool. And so what I wanted to share for this blog is the approach I've taken to write up the premises of our past and future room escapes.
The easiest setup is the one that started the Saw franchise, where multiple people wake up in a room of deathtraps with no memory of how they got there. It's a simple formula and it's accessible to everyone. Of course being a public library, there is a degree of horror we don't need to delve into. So the compromise point is to create a template of characters for the participants to 'play' and thus laugh sadistically about the deaths thereof.
Here is the first example.
Alien Invasion
This is it. Officer Elliot Hayes spent his final weeks researching the aliens from within this bunker. You will be safe here, but you need to understand that the invasion cannot be stopped. Once this door closes, it’s very likely that the people in this room will be all that remains of humanity.
Officer Hayes was working on something. We don’t know what it was, but we believe he left it in the lock box here in this bunker. But none of our staff have been able to get it open. You’re more than welcome to try; in fact I truly hope you succeed, and that there’s something in there that might prevent this catastrophe. But do it fast!
If you don’t have something that can counter the invasion before it starts, I strongly recommend you not open the door again. At best you have forty-five minutes. If I don’t see you again, welcome to your new home.
Officer Hayes was working on something. We don’t know what it was, but we believe he left it in the lock box here in this bunker. But none of our staff have been able to get it open. You’re more than welcome to try; in fact I truly hope you succeed, and that there’s something in there that might prevent this catastrophe. But do it fast!
If you don’t have something that can counter the invasion before it starts, I strongly recommend you not open the door again. At best you have forty-five minutes. If I don’t see you again, welcome to your new home.
1. Who they are -in this case some combination of scientists and military personnel, which helps make the premise work naturally. There's no reason random civilians would be entrusted with humanity's last hope.
2. Why they are there -if you're using the 'serial killer has locked you in a dungeon' that's all the information you need. The game benefits from having a relatively believable crisis or setting to pull it all together (you're on an island with a volcano about to erupt, your room is losing oxygen, you're a thief racing against the alarm, etc.)
3. What they need to find -the macguffin specific to the room that identifies the group has won the game. Maybe it's the key to the door or a jewel. If I remember correctly, the Alien Invasion premise had some kind of biological weapon in the trunk. I personally felt that the scene worked better if the participants didn't actually know what was in the trunk, they were just operating on hope that it wasn't something stupid.
4. What happens if they don't -a majority of room escapes use the 'solve it or die' motivator, which instantly felt like a cliché to me. I'm pretty sure Alien Invasion originally ended this way. I liked it better where the group would live but entombed in a bunker indefinitely. It had a bit more of an emotional punch to it.
And that brings me to our second game from last year. Dr. Johnson was also store bought. Unlike Alien Invasion, Dr. Johnson's premise was a freaking mess! It was something like, he was teaching a class but then walked out to go teach another class at which point the people inside found out he had infected them with a zombie virus; it was needlessly complicated.
So this one took a little more work on my part, but I felt like I cracked it pretty well. Notice the couple of sentences only set the mood without providing any information to the participants? I wanted to create a sense of threat.
Dr. Johnson
I am very sorry for the tragedy that has befallen you. Rest assured that Dr. Johnson WILL be found and dealt with accordingly, if that’s any consolation.
The bad news is, he has infected all of you with a virus that at best will kill you in 45 minutes, and at worst may turn you into a zombie. I’m afraid I’m only authorized to lock your entire group in this quarantined space, which I’m sure you recognize as Dr. Johnson’s office.
Rumor has it, Dr. Johnson was working on an antidote. I assume it would be here somewhere. If you can find it, by all means use it on yourselves. Just know that in 45 minutes an armed unit will be here to handle the situation. If you’re not cured by then…well, just, best of luck to you.
It really made me feel good when I got positive feedback from the staff members who had to read out the premise for each group. I feel like one of my strengths as a writer is in dialogue, probably from my acting background. And I really like that Alien Invasion and Dr. Johnson had two different voices to them.
So for this coming festival I was assigned to come up with the premises from scratch. I wanted to do something that I hadn't seen done over and over, and I also wanted to capture the spirit of our festival as well as I could, i.e. doing something both science fiction-y and fantasy like. My coworker Madalyn and I kicked around a couple of ideas about time traveling, which granted us the opportunity to incorporate the future and the past in one swoop.
So for this coming festival I was assigned to come up with the premises from scratch. I wanted to do something that I hadn't seen done over and over, and I also wanted to capture the spirit of our festival as well as I could, i.e. doing something both science fiction-y and fantasy like. My coworker Madalyn and I kicked around a couple of ideas about time traveling, which granted us the opportunity to incorporate the future and the past in one swoop.
Time Agency
Attention Time Agents: Thank you for your assistance in
apprehending the infamous Chrono-burglar Gil Terrence, a commendation has been
noted on each of your records.
Unfortunately Mr. Terrence has managed to stash something of
importance to the timeline in 1842 Victorian England, and as per emergency
protocol you all are being rerouted there now. We’ve isolated the temporal flux
to a single room in London but our scanners are already picking up too many
anomalies to pinpoint the location.
Your mission: Find the item and get out. Do not open the
door. Do not speak to anyone through the door. Pretend the door doesn’t exist.
Just get whatever the item is within forty-five minutes, or time will rewrite
itself and you’ll be stranded in Victorian England. Good luck agents. May time
be on our side.
We decided instead of having a staff member read that out every time we're going to play a video recording, and dress it up to look Tomorrowland-ish. I wrote that one with kind of a Disney attraction pre-show vibe in my head.
I haven't mentioned brevity yet, but yeah. You want to hit the bullet points quickly and clearly when doing these things. This last one you'll notice is a tad longer, but I thought I could get away with it since I had a particular character in mind. If you've played Portal 2 then you're familiar with Cave Johnson's mannerisms (courtesy of the incomparable J. K. Simmons). What we've decided to do for this one is record it as an audio track. Guess who's going to be doing a really terrible J. K. Simmons impression.
The Relic
Greetings archeological adjuncts and unpaid subordinates,
welcome to your first real field test! This is Julian Glenn up on the surface,
I’m the one who signs off on your course credits. Sorry about that last tremor,
we hope nobody was banged up too badly. But rest assured, we’ve got the
software updated now and we’ll be able to monitor seismic shifts with more
accuracy than we were before.
Here’s the bad news. That plate rupture triggered a geothermal
flare; or in layman’s terms, it sparked a fuse. You know that sealed cavern we
sent you down there to excavate? It’s going to be blowing up pretty soon. The
good news is, our expert translators finally agree that the ancient tribe who
lived in these caves hid a pretty valuable relic down there. Which means we’ve
got one shot at preserving history. And you’re it.
Now I know what you’re grumbling. You’re thinking…caves,
explosions, could be dangerous, right? Well guess what, this is archaeology! No
guts, no glory! You’ve got a solid forty-five minutes. It’s a risk I’m willing
to take; now you go on in there and make me proud! Give us a buzz when you’ve
got something to report and we’ll pull you on out of there.
So by all means, if you're planning any kind of program involving a room escape, feel free to take anything from this blog (just bear in mind the first two are based on existing games while the latter two are completely original). It's been a fun writing exercise. If any of you have your own ideas for room escapes, I'd love to hear them. And I'll probably revisit this blog after the festival to tell you how the attendees responded.
So by all means, if you're planning any kind of program involving a room escape, feel free to take anything from this blog (just bear in mind the first two are based on existing games while the latter two are completely original). It's been a fun writing exercise. If any of you have your own ideas for room escapes, I'd love to hear them. And I'll probably revisit this blog after the festival to tell you how the attendees responded.
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