Announce: Moonbase Indigo

Happy Speed IF New Year! I’ve written a new game! For the first time, in Inform 7!

Oddly enough, it seems exactly like one of those games written by the guy who made Tale of the Kissing Bandit and ASCII and the Argonauts. So I’m very pleased to point you to the URL for Moonbase Indigo:

http://raddial.com/if/games/moonbase.html

Happy new year! Enjoy.

Rob

I have hit a dead end:

[spoiler]>wear orange jumpsuit
You put on the orange jumpsuit.

An echoing voice announces, “All workers prepare for launch.”

take flight kit
Taken.

w

Evil Canaveral
A distant stream of scientists in lab coats and worker drones in colored jumpsuits busy themselves preparing a set of three specially-designed space vehicles for launch.

The nearest space shuttle is up a gantry from here. A room just east of here is labeled, “Changing Area.”

u

Vehicle Entry Gangplank
Across a small walkway to the north lies the entry portal for the spacecraft. A line of people in orange jumpsuits, carrying flight kits, waits to board.

n

Flight to the Moon
It’s going to be a long ride without something to read. Fortunately, your spy training enables you to slow your pulse rate, and you take a nice 82 hour nap.

wake
The dreadful truth is, this is not a dream.

The shuttle begins its docking procedure.

z
Time passes.

The shuttle door opens automatically.

out
But you aren’t in anything at the moment.

l
Flight to the Moon
It’s going to be a long ride without something to read. Fortunately, your spy training enables you to slow your pulse rate, and you take a nice 82 hour nap.

x door
You can’t see any such thing.

z
Time passes.

exit
But you aren’t in anything at the moment.

enter door
You can’t see any such thing.

dock shuttle
That’s not a verb I recognise.

n
You can’t go that way.

look
Flight to the Moon
It’s going to be a long ride without something to read. Fortunately, your spy training enables you to slow your pulse rate, and you take a nice 82 hour nap.

put capsule in noze
You can’t see any such thing.

put capsule in nose
You’ll need to keep that.

x flight kit
You can’t see any such thing.

i
You are carrying:
an oxygen capsule
a P59 Strafe

s

Vehicle Entry Gangplank
Across a small walkway to the north lies the entry portal for the spacecraft. A line of people in orange jumpsuits, carrying flight kits, waits to board.

x line
You look just like them now.

join line
That’s not a verb I recognise.

i
You are carrying:
an oxygen capsule
a P59 Strafe

d

Evil Canaveral
A distant stream of scientists in lab coats and worker drones in colored jumpsuits busy themselves preparing a set of three specially-designed space vehicles for launch.

The nearest space shuttle is up a gantry from here. A room just east of here is labeled, “Changing Area.”

e

Changing Area
A concrete and steel room that smells like it was recently packed with busy workers experiencing high stress levels. The launch hour being so close, the room looks pretty picked over.

The dead worker lies on the floor.

You can also see a row of pegs (on which are a red jumpsuit and a white jumpsuit) here.

n
You can’t go that way.

w

Evil Canaveral
A distant stream of scientists in lab coats and worker drones in colored jumpsuits busy themselves preparing a set of three specially-designed space vehicles for launch.

The nearest space shuttle is up a gantry from here. A room just east of here is labeled, “Changing Area.”

u
“Hey WHO ARE YOU?” come the obvious cries, when they see you don’t even have an orange jumpsuit. A scuffle ensues, after which you are locked into another small concrete chamber, one that turns out to be the exhaust catch for the giant rocket boosters. You recite the countdown to your own demise.

*** It goes something like 5-4-3-2-1-ow-yowie ***[/spoiler]

I was able to undo out of that, but what am I supposed to do? [ETA: Oh, hmm, the answer was “check the walkthrough” and… I think I had to do something else before then to trigger something there? OK, PSA:

It looks like you have to open the flight kit and eat the paste before you leave the changing area or the the next event won’t trigger.

By the way the game is playable in browser at http://iplayif.com/?story=http%3A//raddial.com/if/games/Moonbase%2520Indigo.gblorb, unless that’s leading to problems I’m missing. And it is quite charming and smooth-playing for a pretty big speed-IF, up to the point where I got stuck–see spoiler above. And with some multiple solutions too!

Yeah, I had exactly the same experience. After I’d gotten past that point, though, things ran smoothly again.

Overall, a lot of fun; in particular it does this thing (also common in some of Rob’s past games) where it cuts instantly to a new scene when you’ve run out of useful stuff to do in your current one, and that makes for a very cinematic feel and pacing that’s different from a lot of parser IF. And there were a couple of points where I had to do something a bit surprising in a timed situation and yet the game did such a great job of cluing me in that I did succeed at it – which makes for some above-average IF action and chase scenes.

I did flinch that you have to kiss a couple of women in dubious-consent situations; this is totally on-trope for the source material, though, and it fits in also with the ridiculous fight scenes towards the end.

And as Speed IF this has an amazing amount of content. Was this really done in three hours? Wow.

[spoiler]I flinched at that too, though I only counted one woman I had to kiss (Erika at the warehouse), but her response definitely brought out the dubiety of the consent. The flavor may change a bit the more or less you talk to her, though.

…actually on another replay you don’t have to kiss her. If you talk to her enough you can just go down to the warehouse:

The first couple times through I just typed “take shotgun” and then “kiss her” because it seemed like the thing to do.[/spoiler]

There were other nice bits of streamlining too, like the way examining the spy gear auto-took it, and examining Ochs just moved you into the scene. (Though I suspect one of those contributed to the bug I hit, by auto-removing an item from my inventory.) And a lot of it gave me pleasure that as a reasonably experienced parser IF player I can only get from a parser game–when the game gives you something clear to do and understands the way you want to do it it can move along very nicely. Rogue of the Multiverse was like this too.

The “I’m back in Evil Canaveral, and don’t know how to keep going” bug is the bug of the game, introduced late in the process. I’m going to do a second release to correct it, but I believe the solution is to go >OUT rather than >SOUTH, and then the rest of the game continues.

Thanks for the feedback,

Rob

I decided, after some pacing around and chatting with a professional, that though my thing to do is kind of on-rails and gimmicky, it’s my thing that I do, so I better just get busy and do it, especially because I enjoy the process. Who else is writing IF that is like these things I keep doing? I asked myself. I’m already trying to think of the next one.

I acknowledge the flinch; I felt it when I was writing. But I was writing this particular thing, which has sexism built into it. Also, I marked it as being from 1982. But recent events in games and this particular issue have not escaped my notice or sensitivity.

Pretend I am John Cleese, your favorite IF author, because he wrote something 40 years ago, and you still like it.

“No.” It was not done in three hours, any more than the parrot is on its perch without having been nailed there. In 2003, I could write a game like this, in 15 hours. Now it takes a few more than that, but –

I’d like to introduce the concept, of “Speed-IF”, which means a player with no preconceptions, plays it fast – and intuitively – in a little while of playing. And, enjoys how it seems to go. When they type something, it goes along. Rather than, Speed IF meaning, regardless of quality, this was written in a short space of time.

Pretend I am John Cleese, one of Monty Python’s troupe.

“No.” And, “Could I go back to my hotel now, [i]I’m shagged out after a prolonged sqwawk.”

[/i]
Rob

Yeah, to be clear, I was citing that as a positive. I really like that aspect of your work, and it’s very identifiably its own style; I wouldn’t say “gimmicky” at all. Maybe some of Ryan Veeder’s stuff comes close, but I think it’s focused more on the fluid back-and-forth dialogue between parser voice and player, rather than on narrative pacing.

That is a good concept! And I admire how the game accepts a variety of input

for instance GIVE CAPSULE TO LENA as well as THROW CAPSULE AT LENA and probably other things.

The cinematic aspect Emily pointed out is also a good thing.

One suggestion for a new release: Include Modified Exit or something like that to convert “out” to going whenever there’s only one direction you can go. I think there are extensions that let you do that pretty much plug and play–I’m probably thinking of Small Kindnesses by Aaron Reed actually.

Another one:

[spoiler]If you get embroiled in a fight after the moonbase is exploding, I think the game should offer you the chance to turn tail and run by going the opposite direction you came. The action is hinted, it’s necessary to avoid a losing outcome, it’s funny in my opinion, and most importantly getting in a situation where you’re stuck for multiple turns without anything to do while waiting for the base to blow up–or rather, in which you UNDO until you get out of the mess–seems unspeedy. (And goes against general game design principles about having the game take over from the player.) Maybe there is a command to let you escape this situation? I didn’t find it.

Or you could cut off the combat much quicker–two turns of futile fighting and you can say something like “Even without a weapon, your dodging skills enable you to survive until the moonbase blows up. [rest of bad ending text]”[/spoiler]

Again, though, nice job. This was fun.

I like the concept you’re trying to express here, and I think we need a term for it, but the current meaning of “speed IF” is too entrenched to repurpose it. (Based on ifwiki.org/index.php/Speed_IF, people have been using “speed IF” to mean “the author wrote this superfast” since 1998.)

What about something like “bite-sized” or “smooth” or “easy-finish”? (I’m not wild about any of these, but maybe they’ll spark a good idea from someone else.)

Attack of the Yeti Robot Zombie-like?

Crumples up paper and throws it aside like Beck at the end of the Black Tambourine video

I’ve been thinking about this more and why I enjoy the effect so much. It actually kind of reminds me of partnered dance, where if you have a strong lead then you know where to go but also have a little bit of range for doing your own flourishy bits and have those incorporated into how things are moving.

I wonder how much of the reason this works is down to the trope-reliance. Like: we all know how Bond behaves, which means that we can easily apply Bond-style behavior in each situation, and that coupled with the game’s own narrative clues is enough to keep things moving along really smoothly almost all of the time. And Bond is a guy who always knows what to do in any absurd situation and always has a suitable gadget handy, so the fact that we-the-player are reacting to situations instantly rather than stopping to think out puzzles also feels correct.

This is an excellent point. Like in the flinchy bit:

[spoiler]In just about any other game “kiss her to go to the next area” would have been an unforgivable read-the-author’s mind puzzle, subcategory “Actions have completely unpredictable consequences.” But here both of us knew it was The Thing To Do, even if we didn’t actually want to.

(Thinking about it more maybe it might be de-flinchified a bit just by changing Erika’s response? If she acts surprised but then falls into Chas.'s arms I feel like I can suspend disbelief or someone, but the dialogue as written makes it hard for me to get past “‘Stop’ means stop.” I feel somewhat mansplainy as I make this suggestion.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Possibly, though then it would partake of another trope I’m not totally crazy about, namely “Bond’s sexual magnetism is so great that no woman is able to retain independent thought in its presence.” (I have been known to yell WHY ARE YOU KISSING HIM WHY WHY at the screen, though only in the privacy of my own home.)

Admittedly some of the movies are better about this than others; also admittedly that is still a step up from dubious-consent situations.[/spoiler]

Very interesting discussion here about “the flinchy bit”. Do continue, but also allow me to ask, was anyone similarly uncomfortable with Tale of the Kissing Bandit? Honest question, as no reviews I can find mention it, but there may have been some discussion.

I don’t recall being uncomfortable with Tale of the Kissing Bandit – I remember it as fun and cute, especially given (what I remember of) the frame story. That said, I haven’t played it since 2001, and I’ve become a bit more sensitive to this kind of issue since then. So I’m not certain how I would feel about it if I replayed now.

So the “flinchy bit” in this game has more to do with things that happened recently outside of IF than with the game itself, making some issues too sensitive to tackle even in a Bond parody, and “Kissing Bandit”, which was received as cute and sweet and generally heart-warming at the time, might now be flinchworthy as well.

Thank you, carry on. That’s all I wanted to clarify.

I never played “Tale of the Kissing Bandit” (oh, zipped files of multiple competition games, why?) but I don’t think that being uncomfortable with something that undermines the principle that “Stop” means stop is something that comes from “things that happen recently” for me; except insofar as things that happened recently (and less recently) have made me more aware of how much harm the “No means yes” attitude can cause.

By all means play the game. It was considered very cute and very sweet at the time, and I’d be only too relieved if that’s still the consensus.

Because if it isn’t, things have changed, but not for the better. But if it is, there’s still hope. I’m not going to fight the “Brothers” battle all over again, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s exactly the same issue.

EDIT - Matt w, I know you are especially sensitive to some issues, and I don’t mean this in a bad way (being sensitive is a good thing), just stating what I perceive as fact, so I should expand a little on what I’m saying to ensure I’m not misinterpreted or start another brothers-style thing. Being concerned as how some issues are treated in fiction, because of how that means those issues are interpreted in general and probably an indicative that there’s a problem in the general mentality that has to be corrected - and part of that correction is by making sure that, in fiction, negative situations are not rewarded - is a good thing. A very good thing.

It worries me a lot, though, that all it takes is a shift in perception for a cute game to potentially become a finchy game. Potentially, mind - I’m establishing a parallel between what worried you in MI and TTotKB, but so far no one’s come out and said “Yeah, Kissing Bandit is a horrible game!”. I’m hoping no one does. But the bit you’re “flinching” at here is the whole basis of KB - done differently, of course.

My point has always been to judge the fiction on its own merits, and that fiction is fiction and should be allowed to get away with some things depending on context - historical context, or genre, or the PC being the bad guy, or whatever - and if you don’t like it, you don’t play it or talk about it, and if enough people don’t like it because the work does go too far, it sinks into obscurity (or becomes infamous, which is just as well - it doesn’t perpetuate those too-negative ideals). I got cruficied for that once, I don’t feel like getting cruficied again, I won’t belabor the point. I just know how you feel about these issues, matt w, and I’d really like for this exchange of ideas to replace the hot-headedness (on my part) of our last conversation. If I wasn’t talking to you now, I wouldn’t have written this EDIT.

To be clear, I also didn’t say that Moonbase Indigo is a horrible game, and I didn’t say that the issue of dubious consent was “too sensitive to tackle.” (If anything, what made me flinch is the way the game included this element without acknowledging that it WAS an issue.)

Anyway, it’s possible to like problematic things; it’s possible to discover new problems in things that you formerly liked. For that matter, there’s stuff of my own that makes me flinch – I occasionally find vocabulary like “lame” or “crazy” in old blog posts, though I try not to use those words now. Pretty much the entirety of Pytho’s Mask is built on a set of YA romance tropes that I would not do the same way any more. Etc. I’m fully capable of a) knowing for a fact that I didn’t have a conscious sexist or ableist intention in writing those things while b) not wanting to write that way any more, and regarding past instances as unfortunate/unhelpful.