http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/Your_Mission/ - I felt bad about making zero finished games for February so I very quickly belted this silly one out now. Enjoy.
"The only languages he speaks are pain and Englishā¦ and he writes 'thats' and 'could of' a lot."
He tried to make the most of his meagre wealth by staring at a $5 bill and gasping 'Five smackers!' under his breath for several minutes.
The name of the game isā¦
I'm trying to think of other uses this could haveā¦ You can't easily print other macros with it, though, since you can't have ">>" inside it.
As someone on the Google Group pointed out, this means you can generate a link by doing <<print "[[" + $label + "|" + $passage + "]]">>
One Twine thing I didn't discover until now is that <<print>> converts any wiki markup that's in the string given to it.
This foot was once your playground, your boundless plainsā¦ Oh, that tongue-smoothed soles and kiss-bathed toes could repay you so cruelly!
Corrypt fangame. Part 1: you navigate a complex web of social relationships between various NPCs. Part 2: you get a gun to shoot the NPCs.
The pile of cheeping, squirming mubblies in your backpack don't know you're gathering them for a huge red gate with 14 mubbly-shaped slots.
You shoot, and his hat abandons all pretense of bravery and flies off like a spooked pigeon, flapping its brim all the way to the horizon.
"Hey guys is Twitter doing an A/B test on me because no one else is mentioning the pterodactyls that eat the cursor when you go over 140."
Unfortunately, all the energy you planned to spend coding up the next feature has been wasted writing corny tweets for 2 hours. Night Over.
"Instead of hitting the gargantuan police killdroid, say 'Try working with the system instead of against it.'"
Erotically forced to misspell the same word 100 times by insufficiently spell-checked programming library.
You fight valiantly to cling on, but the insatiable barrage of warm cheek nuzzles by the SnuggleBot slowly pushes you over the cliff.
"The Boss of Platforms has stolen the Ultimate Platforming Challenge and imprisoned it in World 8. The only way to save itā¦ is to beat it."
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5020 Updated <<cyclinglink>> yet again, with more CSS hooks and the option to end cycles (making it resemble <<replace>>).
"Space is like an ocean. Planets are islands, this Psybersquid is a real squid, and suns are the sun if you sail into it on the horizon."
In platform games, the enemies in existence are a finite many. In RPGs, an uncountable infinity surrounds you, fills every square you step.
Say, in Final Fantasy VI, when you release Gau into a Veldt encounter, he's gone, vanished away into the monster aether behind reality.
The idea of random encounters springing forth from an invisible, seething chaos of monster possibilities, permeating the air around you.
"Remember: after you've played with your unlocked content, be sure to lock it again behind you before switching off the game. \^o^/"
Still think Google+ calling likes/favs "+1"s, while an attempt at being a value-neutral fav, nonetheless feels like embracing gamification.
The coroner gets the magic ring pliers. It's a dangerous process: any of the rings could be cancelling out a horrible curse from another.
"Picking up healthkits increases your HP, unless you forget to bend your knees while lifting, in which case the back strain cancels it out."
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5020 - Reminder I added a new feature to this. Like other input macros, it won't be remembered if you hit the back button.
After trying hard to ignore its allure for over a week, you finally press the "unlock less levels" button on the title screen.
You wonder why the site counter goes up by 13 every time you refresh the page, until you discover 12 li'l ghosts rubbernecking behind you.
Scroll bar in the official quicksand homepage gets harder to drag until you're stuck inside the guestbook with other bewildered visitors.
A guard comes to your cell with the bill for today's meals. You add it to the thick pile you've been using since your bed loan was denied.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5020 - I updated the <<cyclinglink>> macro so that it can actually affect the game now, if you so choose.
I accidentally typed &mbgk; instead of ā¦Thank goodness I didn't render such a twisted, unholy HTML codeā¦ The Web lives another dayā¦
"Do you have the BOULDERBADGE?" asks the angel at Heaven's gate. "The very first badge?" you ask. "Do you have it?" it repeats. "Yeah, but-"
You slide down the trash chute and land in a huge pile of coloured pointy scraps - sharp corners cut from round-rect iOS icons.
"Go nowā¦ save yourself," coughs the tutorial NPC as blood pools around him. "Just, every time you open the Equip menuā¦ please think of meā¦"
Ever since they installed those damage-proof rubber televisions in the cells, inmates have taken to using them as very small bouncy castles.
"You must awaken the power of the forest, the mountain and the desertā¦ blowing up the moon should be loud enough to wake them all at once."
"With my brains and your brawn, we'll bust outta this cell in no time!" declares the flea, toasting the alliance with a long slurp of blood.
The loud buzzing noise coming from the ship's "continue existing" machine is worrying you. Fortunately, the noise suddenly disappears.
You turn off the bed lamp and suddenly the Qixes start flying, humming loudly and shimmering radiantly. You get up to plug in the repellent.
In a dark alley, Blinky meets up with Pooka from Dig Dug. The secret to turning transparent and passing through walls is quietly exchanged.
The abbot approaches, Big Mac in one hand, Whopper in the other. He shuffles their component parts. Only by rebuilding both can you pass.
This is a superbly decorated dungeon of acute angles, zigzags and points, where a field of spikes looks more natural than a smooth floor.
Becoming flat to slip under her door was stealthy, but now she's slowly marching towards you, and you can't seem to re-inflate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Webdings-big.png - Have you ever actually seen the Webdings being used on a web page for their intended purpose?
You know it's hopeless trying to out-ski the ice cream avalanche, but you want to work up an appetite before you have to eat your way out.
"Okay, get thisā¦ a platformer where you die _unless_ you fall more than twice your height."
Game where as soon as you break the first crate, all the other crates immediately surrender and cough up all their items, quaking in fear.
"Oh, I've got a few hobbies, yeahā¦ I taught myself to breathe fireā¦ Just, you know, to kill timeā¦ I only do it in the bath, gotta be safeā¦"
"Place the '++' before the variable to pre-increment it, after to post-increment, and loosely scattered inside its name to do it whenever."
"The tilde '~' serves as a bitwise NOT, but would much prefer the role of logical NOT. It envies the exclaimer '!' to an unhealthy degree."
"The backslash '\' is used to escape symbols. Note: once escaped, the symbols cannot be used again until you recapture them with a net '#'."
"The '&' symbol is for bitwise AND, '&&' is for logical AND, '&&&' is for illogical AND, and '&&&&' is primal, intuitive, animalistic AND."
Platform game where the falling character grabs the spike-tips with gloved hands and monkey-bars across in a handstand. Then the game quits.
"Well, I hoped you enjoyed that tweet, becauseā¦ it will be your last! ###### ā poison gas air vent; please keep tweet onscreen for 2 mins."
Unaware that they've been transformed into small caps, a gaggle of capitals cower before a towering, giggling gang of lowercase letters.
All you can see through the crack are their naked shoulders - but it's enough for you to picture their arms and torsos as vividly as sight.
"'Gosh, why can't my mind just make ITSELF up?' Have you ever asked that? Then good news: MentTech's self-organising SynthMind 2 is out!"
Ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate villain origin story.
How lonely it must have felt to return to the black, silent DOS prompt after playing a game. Noise and colour departing, a void in its wake.
The interminable procession of timeā¦ endless, unrelenting!
"Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: no, really, your foes battle you by trying to seductively roll up your sleeves to slap your magical wrist."
"Planetoid Platformer (borderline example - while you can jump up, there's only a 20% chance that you will ever come down again)."
Puzzle games of the 90sā¦ Qwotz Blosco, The Floppy Disk Challenge, The Dubious Disbeliefarium of Dr. Incredulousā¦ 16-bit legends, all of 'emā¦
You kind of wish you felt safe enough to fly anywhere outside your tiny bedroom, but actually, you've grown to love these four walls.
So alienated with society that all you do is stay home and grow wings. You've got dragonfly and wasp, and you're dabbling in ladybug.
"I love you," you tell the witch. "No, I glove you!" she replies. Suddenly a peculiar transformation comes ov- *sighs, flips back to page 1*
Platform game where the "shoot-em-up stage" is just a top-down view of the character running while holding a cut-out cardboard spaceship.
"Cutting-edge rigid-body magic system, featuring the most advanced magic physics on the market. You'll swear it's just like real life!"
It's actually super fun re-playing Corrypt with an eye to minimising your route. Story, puzzles, replayability, what doesn't this game have?
Aw, why'd this cool lady have to turn to crime?
I assume there's a tumblr somewhere filled solely with Carmen Sandiego suspect dossiers.
Your hailing beacon and holoprojectors are damaged, leaving you one way to surrender: jettison all the white objects in your ship en masse.
Your keen human senses detect pungent startup opportunities in the air. The feral urge to write a business case has become overwhelming.
The 'ladder to the moon' project didn't count on the ladder's land being bought from under them, and the moon legally becoming a building.
After your 9th trip to the magic shop, it dawns on you that almost all of its spells are bought just to remove the side-effects of the last.
"What if," pondered the question mark, "each of our dots actually had an entire smaller page inside them?" It then gazed downward in awe.
It was apparent that the scientists had slightly goofed when the bomb exploded, not into a fireball, but into an acre of pristine woodland.
That bullet you took was tipped with drama. You frantically stagger around, clutching at your chest, trying to work it out of your system.
I like this character naming screen.
I just discovered that if you press down, right and A, Mario does this weird jump. SML, always surprising.
Game Title is pretty difficult if you play it in Wine while it's on a locked Windows partition.
They've imprisoned your body, but no bars can imprison your mind! You lie down and ponder the Platonic solids. A cube entices you for days.
Sparkles coat you like sweat. Smoke pours from your nostrils. You overdosed on magic! You lean over and vomit rabbits and playing cards.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5084 - Added a section about combining transitions with passage tag CSS. Hopefully it isn't confusing.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/tsitr_t8ntest.html - Test combining transitions with passage tag CSS. The first four passages use a different transition to the rest.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/tsitr_verticalwipe.html - It was surprisingly hard to implement a transition this rudimentary in CSS.
Well, you even had to sell your clothes, but you pushed your own kickstarter over the line. Now to record the victory vid in total darkness.
As the waiter puts you on the table between huge cutlery, you remember how you once dreamed of having a bed shaped like a giant dinnerplate.
You only just remembered you can't have two drinks in one hour, so you're just holding this mouthful of beer and relying on grunts til then.
You lie flat on the dragon eggs, trying not to be seen. You hope your body heat won't make the eggs hatch and the babies eat your belly.
In professional headball, players can be more famous as detached, bouncing heads than when they're the actual competitorsā¦ Makes you thinkā¦
Illegal headball tricks: tickling the head to make it lose the air in its cheeks; coating the whole head in saliva to make it harder to grab
"I'm a major indie game fanā¦ I've played Counterweight Monkey, Whisper.5, Goblin Grotto and Mastaba Scoobyā¦ I know all the big titlesā¦"
As a point of trivia, I just remembered what my original inspiration for Prizeleaper was - it was this microgame: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J4ClYS3lz4
http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/Prizeleaper/ - For some reason I added an even harder level to my 2011 game Prizeleaper. Kind of a "Lost Levels" sort of design.
You wake up and look in the mirror. A volleyball looks back. Your roommate once again 'borrowed' your head for a clandestine headball match!
You pick some of the flies from the webā¦ but leave some for the spider to live on. They are simply thankful for your saving their friends.
"Well, your depiction of her is interesting, but it just isn't 'on model'." *offers model sheet with the word 'autonomy' crossed out in red*
"They say the inventor of the guillotine was killed by his own inventionā¦ the guillotine. And the inventor's last name? ā¦Guillotine."
Symbols of progressā¦ Newton being buried in applesā¦ Franklin being vaporisedā¦ Columbus sailing over the edgeā¦ Noble sacrifices for scienceā¦
"Ah yes, I love those free indie games like the No-Jelly Puzzle, Cipher Queens, Dog Fractions, and Former Cow Activities In The West Farm."
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/tsitr_blur_merge_0.html - Not sure what to call this CSS transition. (Is there a glossary of fancy kinetic typography terms anywhere?)
versus
The exquisite image of a foot stretching, arching, trying in vain to express a feeling too powerful for its stiff, inflexible form.
I quite like the cheekiness of this "glitched" warp zone in World A.
Of course Yoshi's Island and New Super Mario Bros. let you collect coins with eggs and Koopa shells, so it's not quite a forgotten mechanic.
80s Nintendo games had interesting indirect ways of collecting items: hit them from below, hit them with a boomerang, hit with a superballā¦
I wonder what SMB would be like if had the proper bump mechanic from Mario Bros., where bumping items collects them outright.
Rereading @auntiepixelante's article about Lost Levels - how quickly it "set the stage" for repurposing SMB's physics
An oft overlooked "moment of discovery" in SMB3 is when you learn you can just slide down the slope in 1-5 instead of dodging those Buzzys.
Platform character bobbing atop column of rising windā¦ The closest they'll get to zero gravity, free from the omnipresent tyranny of jumping
Iron chain physics glitch causes perpetual chain jigglingā¦ Links rubbing together faster and faster until the clinking noises are deafeningā¦
A team of overzealous reporters follow Mario and declare each item discovered in a ?-block as a "major scoop" or a "mystery finally solved".
Videogame scientists try to catch a bouncing powerup in a jar - the one who touches it becomes invincible to everything except embarassment.
"Note: your RC joystick moves the car relative to its appearance in your field of vision. Please only use it while the car is visible."
He silently offers a bouquet. She takes it, and a flower speaks: "He finds expressing affection bewildering. Please put us in sugar water."
"Money hasn't changed me," said the indie kingpin, "I still make #videogames on weekends like everyone else. Wait, how'd that hash get in th
I have rough guidelines for differentiating "aww"s. One w is a "sympathy aw". Three is a "cute aww". Five is a very rare "adorable awwwww".
Added a few live examples to that CSS transition postā¦ http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/tsitr_focus.html http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/tsitr_scrollup.html (game by @aliendovecote)
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5084 - Here's a Twine script that lets you define your own passage transition animations in Sugarcane using CSS.
"All your favourite classics: Action, Cosmic Crackpots, Rocking Chair, Lightbulb, Freeway Murder, Ant Atac, Golfball, Hard Man, and Boat 2."
Well, you're trapped in digital form in an unsaved Word document, and through the webcam you can see her teasingly tug the wall socket plug.
"I only bury my axe in haters' heads so that the real human trapped inside them can burst out like Athena."
I can't help but get the feeling that the green springboards in SMB: The Lost Levels were originally bugs that they decided to leave in.
"After weeks of fastidious work, anthropologists reconstructed the complete aphorism as 'You can't teach a dead horse more than one trick.'"
Okay if anyone has any small hints for solving this level I'd be silently appreciative.
What your hand is doing is obscene, profane, unconscionable! Your ring finger tries to organise a mutiny, but is shouted down by the thumb.
The elevator reaches the ground. The mission's almost over! Then, the ceiling opens and you're sucked up the shaft like milk in a straw.
There's still power and dignity in being a bog zombieā¦ Being encased in mud and swinging your arm at adventurers is a new kind of nobilityā¦
Twine idea: you could put non-displayed space between macros by putting the blank lines and line breaks between comment marks /% and %/.
For the first time, getting a shred of dental floss stuck between my teeth really was solved by shoving in another strand to yank it out.
An ancient game, from a lost and apocryphal period of history.
A little miffed that the male player character in Mario Golf GBC is the one who canonically became champ in Mario Golf Advance's backstory.
Decided to move some of the drier sections of this http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5081 into a separate appendix: http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5083
I really wish the Redo command's key shortcut hadn't become split between Ctrl-Y on Windows and Shift-Command-Z on OS X.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5082 - Being able to use variables in the <<display>> macro is a popularly desired feature, so here's two ways to do it.
"In 2 million and 84 BC, mankind invents the lever: a device so good at amplifying force that man is inferior to his own creation!"
"SNES games reached an apogee of tech fetishism with World Rider: a platform game where you ride a tilted Mode 7 world map through areas."
Just a reminder that I also posted this yesterday: http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/Twine1.3.5.Macros.html I hope the explanation about <<print>> makes sense.
"Finally, a videogame where you can choose to either fight one Pac-Man the size of M. Bison or twenty M. Bisons the size of Pac-Man."
Now that I wrote that list, I just thought of a bunch of other things to add on to it. Watch out for rolling edits.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5081 - I started a somewhat rambling list of dubious / off-model Twine coding shortcuts and things.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/Twine1.3.5.Macros.html - Following up that list of Twine formatting, here's what I hope is an accurate description of the built-in macros.
Wizard fashion has one major dictate: whatever you do with your hand, it will only look cooler if your sleeve covers your knuckles.
A generation of tadpoles taught that all frogs go "la di da di da" - only later in life would they reclaim "glomp" as their true language.
You try to look innocent, but you know she won't let you leave her room with more than 4" of height and a vocabulary bigger than "ribbit".
"The young man said magic would solve all our problems!" clucks the villager, "and the worst part is, it did! It really, really did!"
"Tweeting is hard work," groans a serf. He rolls up his sleeves to show where he miscounted his characters and got burned by a red hot "-2".
The <<actions>> macro's state is reset if you use your browser's Back and Forward buttons - which is probably why it it's seldom used.
The foggy spell squirts from your fingers, red crayon balls of misremembered fire. They strike the ground and garish yellow streaks fly out.
You're about to behead the hydra, when you're suddenly struck by the utter beauty of shearing material via acutely directed force. Magical.
Knocking a frail vase on a pedestal, then, powerless to stabilise it lest your touch break it, helplessly watching it sway back and forth.
To celebrate the Year of Rationality, the Great Tyrant has commissioned the creation of 1,000 videogames where the final boss is Emotions.
http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/ - Yesterday's procrastination was spent making my website shrivel up if you resize the window to < 480px wide.
Someone offer me an idea for a Twine macro or script they think might be useful.
"No, don't mind meā¦ I know my weeping is not that entertainingā¦ I'm only boring youā¦ Please, you needn't humour my inferior performanceā¦"
You try and sneak into one of the manor's numerous weeping-closets, but they're all full of servants. Soon every wall is faintly sobbing.
You know it's unseemly to get upset at a river, but when a four-mile trek is foiled by ten feet of water, a quick tantrum is understandable.
This dense forest is thick with scornā¦ These trees stand so tall, stiff and condescendingā¦ This mud makes vulgarity of your every footstepā¦
"When your brain needs a break from all that thinking and autonomic function, bring it to the spa for a dip in our cerebral wading pool."
"While this may seem like a happy, quirky physics game, it's gradually revealed that eating physical distanceā¦ has dark consequences."
I think a big part of Jelly no Puzzle's difficulty is that the end state is typically invisible - you don't even know what it looks like.
The Escape Goo slides into your cell. It sure helps you escape from your chains, all right- by devouring everything that isn't living cells!
http://html5-demos.appspot.com/static/css/filters/index.html - Aah, I want these silly CSS effects in the other browsers.
You emerge with the golden Sun Devourer idol. As daylight touches it after centuries of gloom, it opens its mouth wide and devours the sun.
"I'm taking the day off," says Gravity Herself. "Y'all can just get by with the 'what goes up, must come down' rule until tomorrow, right?"
"GIANT ADVERTS? Just what my product needs!" *fails to notice GI is crossed out by tiny red line due to recent rebranding as ANT ADVERTS.*
Some said it was madness to genetically engineer humans that can only asexually divide after they hit 8 enemies with the same Koopa shellā¦
"They escaped from the cursed crystal necklace by logically deducing that they were too large to be imprisoned inside a four-inch crystal."
The doctors would turn away people infected with the purple-black goo. The razor fingers and glowing muscles were an improvement, they said.
The farmers were ordered to sow Chaos Seed instead of wheat. The crop was bountiful, but many people died trying to valiantly harvest them.
The best part of SwiftāStitch is when you switch to circular motion and the world becomes a cackling nightmare of humiliating helplessness.
So according to Bulbapedia, the biggest known glitch PokƩmon is 80 feet tall, weighs 2.7 tonnes, and has a battle cry that never ends.
Cunning child tricks robot shopkeep by rapidly switching price tags, walks out of shop with child-catcher electro-net to hunt his own kind.
"Mario spin-jumping directly on an opposite-spinning Koopa shell makes the game console give up and go back to factoring primes by itself."
"To the angry titan who threw my garbage can so hard it crashed against the horizon: thanks but it was only half-full, come back Tuesday."
"The boss is a pair of psychic twins calling themselves Right Brian and Left Brian."
#IPlayed Jelly no Puzzle, 40/40 cleared. I feel like levels 31-38 were unusually easyā¦
"In a future where everyone suddenly gains omniscience, the only thing this newsreader doesn't knowā¦ is what their next job will be."
Your monster sensors detect hostile elementals. You check your arsenal: firearms, water pistols, air riflesā¦ and the last one doesn't exist.
You begin your day shift, only to find every statue in the gallery had her face hastily chiseled into it. Why would she taunt you like this?
"No, it was all part of the plan to save you just as the cement reached your chinā¦ Look, don't worry, Muggsy here brought a pickaxe."
"How ironic, that you, the most advanced Cyber-Valkyrie in space, are now bound by an ancient invention: the rope. Get it? Hehā¦ you will."
You hear footsteps closing in. Two guards - you can take them. So you think, until they turn the corner, revealing armed piggyback riders.
You hesitantly offer some bills, but it's obvious your money is worthless in this realm. The merchant expects stories, and lots of them!
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/4982 - Updated this Twine code so it can preload images in HTML img tags as well. Hopefully it works.
You've struck gold! You're rich! Eagerly you pummel the nugget until it's reduced to powder. The bounty on slain nuggets is high indeed.
"You know your blood is extremely out-of-date?" adds the nurse. "We can replace it with SynthHemo right now. It's clear and non-staining!"
You overhear another tableā¦ "Look at this bill. I made her lick it so much you can't tell which president's on it." Best to tune them outā¦
All you have to do is eat two thousand dollars in thirty seconds, and you'll win ten grand! You wolf down wads of bills as the cameras roll.
You're good at holding down your sentient ale! But it gets in a fight with the sentient wine in your belly. Their punches send you lurching.
It feels unjust that she can use the Wish Orb to make a vast nightmare fortress, when all the game lets you do is wish it away at the end.
The majority of these games have in fact been released: they were made for various Klik of the Months at @Gtrwx: http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/games/*/L
A glimpse at my Game Maker projects folder, containing finished and abandoned games.
Your gun looks pale and sickly. You shove more gooey alien viscera into its fuel intake mouth. Its stock releases a trickle of diarrhea.
The squelching footsteps behind you suddenly peter out. Are they climbing the walls?! You disgorge slime to the left and right as you run.
A worrying thought comes to you as the brood-eggs begin to hatch. Were you really sent here to guard the eggsā¦ or to feed the hatchlings?!
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/Twine1.3.5.MarkupSyntax.html - I made a list of Twine passage syntax, including things not mentioned in the official documentation.
"Our software is designed to fit the human brain. It's built to tuck snugly into your folds, coating your cortex with a layer of usability."
You're just about to stab the consul, but then you start freaking out about how prime numbers can't be arranged in rectangles, only lines.
As you walk down the road, you realise to your horror that every footstep you take is a footstep you'll have to undo in order to get home.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5048 - Klik of the Month, try and make a videogame really quickly - ready or not, here it comes.
Ah yes, a man, his car, and the open roadā¦ Just strolling down the highway, side by sideā¦ Your hand lovingly clasping the door handleā¦ Loveā¦
Your weapon: joined twin blades of paper-slaying, sealed by a holy band of tape to keep its true power from being unleashed by evil handsā¦
You fling off your wig, helmet, shield, breastplate, gauntlets and mail - you're not the Prince at all! Just the wig might have been enough.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5020 - Fixed a typo in the code for this macroā¦ Sorry for the frustration.
"Megapotion: heals 100% of max HP. Gigapotion: heals 200% of max HP. Terapotion: heals 300% of max HP. (You can't be healed above maximum.)"
My favourite part of Cave Story is the way you learn the robot's name: logical, but very unexpected. You're surprised he even has a name.
The reason Cave Story was good was because it had good writing. That's it, that's the secret, that's what we've all been missing.
"Intelligence of groups of enemies is not cumulative," declares the Gauntlet announcer, "ā¦yet."
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5063 - I found out how to apply inline styles to specific parts of Twine passages.
A whimsical and thoughtful children's story about HTML elements that are horizontally offset by -9999px to make them 'disappear'.
How did you make friends with so many magical people. You feel like every time they laugh, your body has to stop itself turning into a frog.
You don't really like arthropod cinema. Just as you try to get up, a bunch of your spider and centipede pals climb on your lap to watch too.
Under the rule of the EfficiencyBots, all athletic events were replaced with a panel of theorycraft bots debating which competitor was best.
I'm letting you all see my Twitter archive: http://l.j-factor.com/amateur_variety_twitter/archive/ Authentic, not curated, not a sly ploy to get you to fav lots of stuff.
I love the fact that many people assumed "Popcorn" was classical harpsichord music because they only ever heard it as the BGM of Pengo.
"I understand that being a maxed-out sweetie is not a title to be worn in complacency, but a responsibility to constantly live up toā¦"
"A crocodile on a skateboard," croaks the world famous hunter. "Nature's ultimate killing machine."
Erotically forced to click "send" on an extremely important email.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5061 - I decided to try writing some HTML5 sound scripts for Twine. Hopefully they'll work.
http://l.j-factor.com/gifs/SMB3-World3.gif -Has anyone ever actually used two entire hammers to bust through the bottom road? Anybody?
I just happened to open this game in DOSBox today of all days, and I stumble on a once-a-year Easter egg.
"A man in a race riding two unicycles taped togetherā¦ One buttock on each seat to avoid disqualificationā¦ "Half-Arsed": in cinemas March."
Snatcher. I think I need a better emulator for this.
Activate The Three Artefacts And Then Leave
Closeup of a frogā¦ Time-lapse of an elevatorā¦ Businessmen daub their eyes with their ties as "Perpetuum Mobile" plays over the footageā¦
Time-lapse footage representing progressā¦ Cars at a crossroadā¦ Clouds over a skyscraperā¦ The setting sunā¦ Businessmen weep in the audienceā¦
A jellyfish sprouting legsā¦ An ape pushing over a black monolith onto a smaller apeā¦ A man getting in and out of a bathtub over and overā¦
Pages falling off a calendar into a shredderā¦ Clock hands spinning after being ripped off by a tornadoā¦ A grown man exploding from a cradleā¦
(I say "official" because an earlier port was available from the @GTrwx page since the start, but it wasn't as visually accurate.)
http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/Prizeleaper/ - Official HTML5 port of an old IGF Pirate Kart game, "Prizeleaper". Kinda hard platform vertiscencion jumper.
GM Studio hasn't cleaned its printing-press blocks well.
"This is absurd. There's no health risks for reading Twitter constantly." *turns to leave, tiny blue feathers flutter out from beneath coat*
http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/ - The page now has icons, which are like screenshots, but easier to ignore entirely.
The hurricane swirls around the edges of your teacup. You're not sure what to do. Are you supposed to drink it? Your host looks expectant.
Your older brothers took the 'back' and 'forward' arrows, and left the 'reload' arrow bent into a circle, capable only of hunting itself.
A snake biting its own headā¦ A time-traveling dog gnawing on its own skeletonā¦ A giant envelope wrapped around the house it's addressed toā¦
The Radiant Chromatic Beast appears in the room, assails the crate with a blast of phantasmal flame, and departs. The crate is unaffected.
The extra 200 gold from that battle is too much for your wallet - gold points spill out all over your stat page, spattering your abilities.
The neighbourhood dogs unhelpfully mistake the spider-tank for a very big dog and its particle cannon blasts for really cool barks.
Is this eyepatch the source of the Sorceress's magic? It must be, because you can't feel its tiny mouth messily devour your eye underneath.
It's not so much a "death" trap as a "tightly pressed against the wall, wriggling and kicking in vain" trap.
Ancient minimalism temple stumps explorers with mind-achingly fiendish puzzle: an empty room with no other exits.
"Bad news," your roommate says, "closet's full of matter." You look inside and see billions of molecules. "How did this happen?" you gape.
"I'm not just a brainless killing machine," it sullenly replies. The spinning knives retract and are replaced with spinning morning-stars.
These hyper-amorous blobs can't stop themselves ruining this grid-based block puzzle.
This must be the final castle. Fanged mouth drawbridge over lava moat, constant dry thunder, and a tower so tall that it's tenting the sky.
"It's time to sign off for the night," types the tweeter, "so enjoy the messages from whatever friendly sponsors manage to hack my account!"
An item so important that even the act of picking it up gets a minute-long cutsceneā¦ Closeup of knees bending, slow-motion finger-grippingā¦
In the shadows, two lowpolypunks touch. One gives the other an infinity of glitched radcoins. A broken inventory counter is a status symbol.
"Slims are the weakest fos. Then come wols, ghoss, trols, goles, and finally the Wizar. Defeat hi, for the fat of the worl is at stake!"
http://animatedscreenshots.tumblr.com/post/42867109132/the-incredible-machine - If you look closely at the first few frames you can see the "Ā© 1992" line falls down; it's a physics object too.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/4982 - Updated this Twine script so that it can preload CSS backgrounds, etc. in addition to inline images.
Twine scripting tip: if you have multiple script passages, don't accidentally clobber the "i" variable used in the engine's for-loop.
For some reason, Twine won't let you use backslashes in story script code. I had to do this to put a RegExp in it:
Just before the VR headset plunges you into Puzzle Reality, you see her quickly nudge the difficulty sliderā¦ to "Lethally Mind-Boggling"!?
Glitched blood-burst particles, frozen in time like paper-thin flowers, are highly desired fashion accessories for the lowpolypunks.
The cyberdice crackle in the Dealer's closed hands - only their enhanced palms can seed them with true randomness before they hit the table.
The cybercrystals are stuck in their 'shatter' animation, endlessly bursting around you as you wrestle your glitch-infected double.
"Many scoff at Alt. Bowling and its odd pin formations - the 'skull', the 'erect penis' - but are some actually superior to the triangle?"
The scourge of illegal golfā¦ Under cover of night, private courses are host to unlicensed drives and contraband chip-insā¦ Is nothing sacred?
You and he take ten paces, turn, and fire. You take out an old man, a cowering widow and a drunkard, posthumously beating his score 3 to 1.
She said you could just be a fly-on-the-wall at this party, but you hadn't dared guess she'd be bringing the swatter. Or the ointment.
You try and escape, but your feet are drenched in the saliva of a hundred tongues, and the merest slip will send you slap-bang to the floor.
You watch as the mosquito lands on your chest. Slowly - glacially - you draw your revolver and set the bullet speed dial to "slow".
It's taken me months, but I've finally managed to accidentally press shift-question mark inside Twitter's web interface.
"We're a civilised race," says the TV alien, "we judge genitals by who owns them, not the other way around." You wonder what show this is.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5053 - Here's how the Restart menu in Twine's Sugarcane format actually works.
Can't these browser tabs just expire from loneliness if I don't click them in over an hour, I thought to myself.
She quickly climbs her staircase of bowed servants' backs. When you try and follow, they tilt themselves, and you slide all the way down.
He wore an expression that looked like he was trying in vain to squeeze all the stress out of his head using just his forehead muscles.
Games whose systems involve deliberately taking specific kinds of damage - letting the enemies taint you in just the way you want them to.
Daydreamed a game where taking damage from toon enemies slowly changes you into a toon. Powergamers grinding wacky hits for hours on end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmeGn3YoJI4 - Can videogames be comedy?!
"The grains of sand in this magic beach are one and the same as the stars in the universe," she grins deviously. "ā¦And this one's Earth's!"
Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back.
"Soon I will forge a weapon that will give the heavens pause to reflect on a lifetime of slovenliness!" bellows the Vainglorious Swordsmith.
Where is the upside-down Y / squid invader slashfic, I ask dolefully.
I identify as the fourth Koopa Troopa hurriedly running in late on the Super Mario Bros. 3 title screen.
"I have nothing new to say about lacking self-worth," he thinks, "but I have something to say about climbing walls to reach high platforms."
"This man has heard the word 'bopglops' so much, he claims it has lost all meaning!" squawks the secretary. "Impossible!" cries the doctor.
Deep in the achievement screen, under cover of nightfall, your lockpicks carefully click inside the keyhole icon for "Bopped 5,000 Crabs."
"The magic of nobles has atrophied - their once lethal fireballs reduced to fireworks and parlor tricks. Worthless against a real attacker."
You scour through the unused concession speeches of victorious presidents, searching for some clue, some hint that this timeline is astray.
Even I'm wondering why I keep referencing In Event Of Moon Disaster as if it really was a historical speech that everyone is familiar with.
Even if you would die by the Queen's own hand, her hand would be hallowed by your blood - some distant corner of her will be forever human.
Only a rogue's life would let you see the palace's sumptuous architecture and lavish furnishings! You dream of dying surrounded by opulence.
Alas, you opened the Queen's decoy diary! Hypnotised by a never-ending sentence, you're mentally trapped until she arrives with her guards.
The audio diaries reveal that the entire laboratory staff were mercilessly devoured by their own unholy creation: a cat with a shrink ray.
Dozens of platform characters rubbing and pressing themselves against a wall in hope of finding hidden passage to embedded missile powerup.
You phone yourself minutes in the future to see if the potion's safe to drink. You're relieved to hear yourself reply with a jokey "ribbit".
I like the restraint SMB had in not having any Spinies except those that Lakitu throws. They're a foreign beast, unnatural to this land.
My main complaint with Mario/Portal mashup "Mari0" is that it isn't possible to use a portal to make Lakitu hit himself with his own Spinys.
Thousands attended the funeral of the latest victim of the Insufficiently Grieving People Killerā¦ Sobbing reached near-deafening levelsā¦
Doctors are powerless to cure Death Temple poisonā¦ They say "the existence of this poison makes our profession a lie" while weeping gentlyā¦!
OK, you think, new plan: challenge the Moon Baroness to a sport that will require her removing that amazing dressā¦ then abscond with it!
You'll need to do a jump using your entire body's power! You push against the ground with both legs, both arms, both elbows and your head.
This puzzle is rapidly boggling your mind! You'll have to manually boggle it in the opposite direction by remembering amusing anagrams.
Your dying foe tells his last wish: to see you pull off your own head with your hands, but then quickly put it back. Foolishly, you try it!
The god of puzzles saw your smugness, and sent a swoop-and-a-half of bats to hassle you in a way that makes puzzle-solving more difficult!
The police throw a net on you, then laugh for minutes straight as you struggle to escape the torturous nightmare labyrinth of knotted rope.
You hurl your lasso at the miscreant. Not only does it hit him in the face, but you can reel it in to hurl it again! Truly a miracle weapon.
After the game, you see every NPC in a minutes-long 'cast roll' - their role as a mere component of the larger game is finally acknowledged.
They feel like NPCs with no pretension of existence beyond their own quests, of being more than goofy objects straddling the inanimate.
Some are so self-absorbed as to be the items of their quests themselves. One is a Christmas light. One is a glass cup. Several are statues.
They're all self-absorbed, almost entirely isolated from each other, miniature disconnected stories unto themselves.
Almost each NPC has a name, a unique model, and unique voice grunts. They're ignorant of Banjo and his quest, but ask him for help on sight.
What I think really contributed to Banjo-Kazooie's affable, lovable mood was its NPCs, basic and goofy though they were.
You examine your body's crumple-zones - the parts whose purpose is to be scrunched up and ruined, to take the brunt of an impact for you.
Since you accidentally set this ladder upside-down, placing the top rung at the bottom, climbing 'up' it means you just fall to the ground.
You calculate that the sum of heights of the steps in the staircase indeed equals the distance to the next floor! It's always good to check.
You decide the easiest way to enter the house's interior is to penetrate one of the walls. The wall with the door in it seems promising.
You know this vampire is weak to something. You mentally order all nearby items alphabetically, and begin methodically throwing them at it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_of_Hameln "The world is like an alternate universe in which, chronologically, many things do not makes sense."
Figures that many of the most thematically interesting Super Famicom games are manga adaptations.
Alas, had you thrown the brick 1,385% faster, it would have valiantly slain the giant. Instead, it valiantly slays your big toe.
I must apologise to anyone reading this tweet - no mirth or wit can be wrought from it. Its wryness nodes are barren, its jokewomb bare.
The tumbleweed, universal symbol of desolation, rolls past a stop sign, universal symbol of man's feeble attempts to control his base urges.
Rather than be ugly only during the day, or ugly during night, you ask your wife to constantly swap between them at high speed at all hours.
The Black Sword, a blade that corrupts whatever holds it. You can't even risk your hands possessing its power, so you grip it in your teeth.
The king of all Simons confronts you, chest bare, coloured lights and tones assailing your senses. Your mind is consumed by memorisation.
Snatcher (MSX).
I was reminded of this while testing @auntiepixelante's Star Wench. Thoughts about storytelling with unordered pages of a common template.
ā¦And how, after about reading 40 or so strip, the layout recedes, becomes invisible, leaving just the individual comics' text.
I find the @DinosaurComics first-time reader effect very interesting: how strongly the unchanging layout stands out, overshadowing the text.
You tie your horse to the hitcher, rope its legs together, bolt down its feet, wind up its windows, and put a steering lock on the reins.
I kind of want to make a cute game called "Keep Her Awake" that isn't this grody-looking crass thing: http://www.mobygames.com/game/keep-her-awake
You're finding it hard to enjoy solving these ancient puzzles if a huge stone door keeps loudly grinding open every time you solve one.
After taking the goods, you hold a fistful of money near the cashier, wait 5 secs, then put it away. You repeat this when he seems confused.
You devour the glass in one crunch. The shards taste crisp and fresh. You lean over the spitton and disgorge the wine and blood.
You switch off your horse the old way: cover its eyes with your hand while stroking its tail and patting its belly. In moments, it's asleep.
You draw your sword. The creature keeps approaching, so you draw it again, pulling a smaller sword from the blade. Then again, and again.
"It is like the old saying: snakes want legs not, for they know they will only squander them. Humans need a spike pit to teach them this."
"In Which A Penalty Is Incurred is a game with no rules, except that one player must be penalised for one of their actions during play."
"Don't underestimate me, just cuz I'm a COMPUTER!" says the Gamer Computer. "I can kick ass at games just like any human, so watch out!"
You are certain the will of God is thwarting your solving this crate puzzle. The blocks obstructing you are surely His punishment manifest.
You decide to grab the gold. Unfortunately, the satchel containing the gold is in the way, and your hand uselessly bats against its leather.
You, like all adventurers, take solace from sunsets: as the noble sun is eaten by the Earth, you know that you too will die underground.
You're attached to the wall by a series of metal rings. Though each ring is small, they are all connected - like a "domino effect" of iron!
You wonder why exactly you need a horse anyway. All it does is walk beside you placidly. You wish you'd bought a more ferocious breed.
You examine your weaponry: a fruit and some sticks. The fruit can be thrown, but may provide nutrients to the enemy. You sadly discard it.
It's been 10 minutes, and this giant circular saw is still spinning. Its unerring cruelty is truly inhuman, almost like a heartless machine.
No, you cry - if those woman urinate on the final corner of your allotment, it'll magically become public domain! You dive below their legs.
A devil whispers that you should steal the dying man's pants. An angel then selflessly offers you his own pants. You, of course, swipe both.
The barman slams your drink on the counter. You down it and slam the mug harder. Had the counter broken then, you'd have gotten it for free.
So entranced you are by thirst that you tear off the lid, gnaw it, and stomp on it. Never again shall it momentarily postpone your drinking.
Your opponent plays the Pope of Spades. That card isn't valid in Poker-96! He has now converted the game to its popular superset, Poker-112.
As a mere doorman, the only things you can create are spaces in walls. Your only crafting tool is this door, which limits your creativity.
You fire your gun. Your gun, apparently unwilling to go about the task of killing the accoster itself, delegates the job to a lowly bullet.
You lower the sword into your throat. Sadly, you can't move your head to see if your busking rival is doing the same. Sweat gathers on youā¦
The ax descends. You duck to dodge. The ax keeps descending. You're flat on the ground. The ax descends further. You start to dig furtively.
You cunningly rotate the signpost pointing to town. On the horizon, the town slides across to match. Your ruse foiled, you depart in shame.
The laws of the duel are strict: fresh swords, each of the same brand. You and your foe rip them from their packaging with murderous relish.
Just before you behead the ogre, a bird grabs your sword and flies off. This continues with your backup sword, your ax, and your robo-fists.
The enemy spy has taken longer than 90 seconds to clear this room, so you and your squadmates' coats turn red and your speed doubles.
"You may touch the MegaPuff, but beware! One wrong stroke and it will want to eat you. It runs at cheetah speed and can move through walls."
Your unruly legs punish you by placing themselves in a ticklenozzle. Though they receive the tickles, it is your brain that must feel them!
You wonder if every decision you make is actually pre-determined, fixed in an immutable future. This is true. You will die in 12 more moves.
You notice vital items are missing from this universe - items that can only be inserted from an enclosing universe, in exchange for money.
Alas, the solution to the elf's riddle must also be said in rhyme, and your years of study in logic have dried up your once smooth flow.
You strike paydirt! Unfortunately, a weed sprouts in the paydirt as you take it to the bank, and it gains ownership by squatter's rights.
You support the collapsing ceiling with your arms, but the insolent children just lower and raise your pants repeatedly instead of escaping.
Unfortunately, the ancient deathtrap breaks and drops all its component parts on top of you, ironically becoming more deadly in the process.
Forced to stand still while your invincibility slowly runs out! She mockingly dances around your sparkling body, just inches from you!
Sorry, Mr. Gimmick.
http://www.sokoban.jp/rule.html - The official Sokoban website has a cute tutorial page.
Are there any Sokoban variants where the goal is to cross from one side to the other, leaving the level identical to how you entered it?
People have been attaching lawnmower blades to the bottoms of their cars and switching them on in order to legally drive on median strips.
"She accidentally hired cleansers instead of cleaners, but it seems most of the trash was ghosts from the landfill the house was built on."
A game with a "non-linear storytelling" slider in the options screen.
You often dream of a fanciful chamber where so many plants are gathered in it that you can't even see the walls and ceilingā¦ Utter whimsyā¦
I don't get those times in JRPGs when you're challenged to friendly bouts where you nonetheless use your regular killing weapons and spells.
http://l.j-factor.com/gifs/SuperMarioRPG-Jinx-Jinxed.gif - The ultimate martial arts move.
You use your last key on the door, only to find a bare wall behind. As you lie weeping, the door tries to console you by slamming a lullaby.
You seem mysteriously unable to pull open this escape door you drew on the wall, but you realise you forgot to draw the hinges on your side.
The healing potion has congealed into a lumpy, slimy mess. It still heals you, but it also adds a bunch of unsightly decimals to your HP.
http://themushroomkingdom.net/smb3_snes2sma_end.shtml - "After the princess thanks you, she yells "THE END!" in SMA4."
The size of this Action Replay code makes me waryā¦ but such an irresistible rewardā¦
http://www.mariowiki.com/images/5/5e/FrogsCartoon.jpg - The ultimate superhero family.
Forced To Run In An Undignified Manner By A Powerful Cutscene
Now this is just silly.
Yup, it's definitely a Frog Suit.
I will say that the Frog Suit makes it very easy for me to record this particular scene.
I like the shape of this scene - the ?-block and mushroom forcing you to a stop while you observe this new enemy.
Concentrated Mario energies are converging in this sectorā¦
I love how the flapping Koopa alternates between hopping in front of and behind the top score, bouncing side to side.
I think it's a bit unfair that marijuana has a cool three-digit code number and estrogen doesn't.
"This puzzle game's difficulty is explosively intense. The fiercest, most incendiary puzzles you'll ever see. An inferno of hardness."
Mario Golf: Advance Tour.
Mario Golf: Advance Tour. The way the Camelot golf RPGs valorise Mario is kind of unsettling, almost hagiographic.
The exit doorway remains unpassed. Spent verbs lie at your feet, curled and bent - "exit", "leave", "walk", "depart", "egress", "escape".
The note blocks bounce in time with the nippers!
I like that moment in Hotline Miami when you empty a shotgun at a guy, only to watch every blast of pellets sail past him to his left.
Text adventure protagonist imprisoned in a cell with no bars or doors, but unable to escape due to not knowing where north is.
You see them in dreams: the dummied-out powerups. Exotic weapons that feel so natural, so right, as if always meant for you. Then, you wake.
You turn as you enter the cave. Your dog is offering your sword in its mouth. No, you say, you need it more than I do now. Go home. Goodbye.
You make sure your friends are in position when you step off the Consciousness Platform. Of course one of them fumbles and drops you anyway.
An official videogame OST where player-character idle animation grunts are randomly played over the music, in mimickry of crude TV rips.
"Wait, why was that sorceress so tiny in the first place?" mutters a whole bunch of people in unison.
"So who's reading all these tweets, anyway?" says the loader. The truck driver says nothing as he begins the journey to Giant Blob Hellpit.
Do these bandages have to be so tight, you wonder. Then you notice this isn't a MedBot at all - it's a disguised BindBot! Aggh, not again!
Your foolproof escape kit is complete: A handmade dime to bribe the guard, a fake bus ticket, and a newspaper hat to disguise yourself with.
Even if you can break out of this magic photo, you've also got the picture frame glass to deal with. If only this scene had more furniture!
You're sure most household cures for the hiccups don't involve being tied to a spinning wheel - and they definitely don't involve knives!
At last, you've earned enough Penitence Points to buy new bars for your cell. You choose the Green Snake Dragons without hesitation.
"Welcome, how can I-" "Dude what's that font on your logo? It's the greatest font ever!" "Dammit, monkey paw! Where are my real customers?!"
"Pleese take the time out of yoor busy schedule to click 'reblog', after changing two letters to keep it one step ahead of the spam filter."
An indie puzzle game so difficult that only extreme peer pressure can motivate people to beat its levelsā¦ A 'social game' like no otherā¦
These knots should hold her until the demon departs. But waitā¦ you and she are still wearing the Switch-Placelets! Suddenly, you're tied up.
The caterpillars doubt that their memories of you will survive their pupation. They ask you to forgive them if they meet again with wings.
Her finger rests on the Print Screen key. She knows you've got the only copy of the formula in the clipboard. She brushes the key gently.
"A running theme in his tweets is that of invertebrates showing sympathy and compassion to the reader whenever other humans lack it."
Suddenly the billboard flashes its gaze-triggered Tweet button. You look away, but it's too late. You sigh and open your phone to delete it.
The computer then proceeds to interrupt you by doubling the boss's size every time you try and accuse it of outright cheating.
"If you're new to Australia's climate then what you should know first is that summer is basically the 'boss season'."
The movie star's spidercar skitters up to the red carpetā¦ No, it's a stretch limocentipede! It sounds like there's a party in its carapace.
The World President smiles as he announces the sale of the nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere: "It's 78% of our air, and we don't breathe it!"
Before a TV audience of millions, the World Fiscal Physician holds a stethoscope to a globe. Then he announces "The world economy is cured!"
#IPlayed Lesbianage by @S0phieH. I like the feeling of powerlessness of flesh vs. machineā¦ A modern "Jane Henry" struggle, to coin a phraseā¦
A bad day for the roads dept. Overnight, people noticed drill tanks are exempt from speed limits if they're waist-deep in the road surface.
"Yow, this kitten's got claws!" yells your gun's TauntBox as the manticore slashes. You really, really wish that box wasn't required by law.
"Shall I increase the kerning, or decrease it?" she asks. You realise you have no idea what either of those means. A grin spreads over her.
You find yourself being slowly crushed between two letters of your own name, as her hand, unseen, sadistically adjusts the kerning.
Your windscreen wipers aren't good at getting these ghosts off. They're just mixing them all together into a ten-eyed five-mouthed puddle.
Self-aware AJAX script begs you not to refresh the page. You click - screen fills with "Damn you, volatile browser state!" before vanishing.
You're sure this entry hall full of incredibly lifelike statues of adventurers is a bluff by a vampire. Bringing a mirror would be useless.
At this point the ogre has stopped sincerely fighting back and is now just goading you to shoot it with more tranquiliser darts.
"My turn now," says your computer. The mouse cursor slides below the screen and emerges moving on your skin. It launches your right nipple.
The surgeon makes the incision. The body defense turrets erupt from the wound, guns blazing. He ducks under the table and readies a grenade.
Your hazmat suit is still holding despite being knee-deep in rising acid. The chills running up & down your spine are becoming overpowering.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5021 - Fixed a bug in these Twine macros so that they now work in Jonah.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5044 - Now you can apply specific Twine passage CSS to the <body> element as well.
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5013 I updated this to use the "data-tags" syntax of the Twine alpha, to save confusion. Also listed a few more selectors.
"How ironicā¦ All these years you've lived in a very squishable body - relished it, even - only for your squishiness to become your undoing!"
Yes, you think! You've got her now! But then she raises both hands and the oncoming wave of goo obediently, servilely parts before her.
Your entire life has been predicated on the inability of solid objects to intersect. To think this simple fact has now brought you so low!
Never before has the fact that crates can't occupy the same space suddenly felt so oppressive, so cruel and antithetical to happiness.
You wouldn't have thought it, but this puzzle has you on your knees praying for a miracle as mundane as one crate passing through another.
You think the vines are holding your weight, but they're just trying to hold the weight of the Queen above you. When she lets go, you fall.
You idly knock on a watermelon in the supermarket. As you walk away, it knocks back. You keep walking.
You can't quite seem to find them, but these crystal manacles that magically appeared on your legs and wrists must have a keyhole somewhere.
"Converting your body's nervous system into a CSV file and using Microsoft Excel to manipulate it for sexual purposes is a EULA violation."
Teens arrested for distributing reverse-engineered 90s business presentation software used to author erotic anti-consumerist cyberzines.
You think you recognise a face in the crowd. Is thatā¦ the kid from Line Rider? You try to get a closer look, but he's already gone.
Filling a tooth with magic maybe wasn't a good idea. When you bite, the food either turns into glitter or teleports ten feet to your left.
"These are troubled days \ be sure to keep your tweets armed and ready \ by supplying them with at least two backslashes \ at all times."
Well I lost my Hundreds save file, but it turns out the cheat code you get from those ciphers also re-unlocks all the levels. Go figure.
Marcwell forced to recall its Marcwell Multitool after kids were found using it to jimmy off the factory seals over their gender switches.
In 1991, two hapless teens sprayed Psyquer paint on freshly growing turf. Their astral forms have still not returned to their bodies.
The dead of night. A gang of teens sneak out to a barn to spray a wall with Psyquer, the paint that looks amazing when you watch it dry.
You scoop up a glob of magic and rub it on your face. Some of your zits turn into crystals - others swell and shoot streamers and confetti.
I kind of wish Binding of Isaac sold the Quarter in shops for 15Ā¢, but only when it knows you can only get up to 14Ā¢ in the current level.
P.S: Last night I released a quick Mac port of Jake Clover's game "Nuign Specter". http://l.j-factor.com/gamemaker/MacNuignSpecter.zip
Did any of you out there manage to beat U-Bend? http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/U-Bend/ It's kind of an odd game but victory should be within reasonable reach.
"Your electronic brain is built to enhance your real roles and identities, not replace them with wireframe fantasies and self-delusions."
"It is illegal to use a government-issued electronic brain to virtualise acts which are not biologically possible nor legally sanctioned."
Nagas regard VR Boxing as perverse and subversive - a form of fantastical combat beyond comprehension, now made fake-real by devil machinesā¦
You sink her with a punch that shatters your VR arms into green wires. You did it! ā¦Almost. She rises again, a sliver left in her healthbarā¦
You might have to start leaving a trail of your own clothes to find your way out of this changing room's inexplicably vast mirror maze.
Nothing makes you feel more alive, you think as you dash down the gleaming mall corridors, than wearing nothing but shoplifted clothes.
"Listen to this," says the indie puzzle game bigwig, miming a marquee in the air. "Game Title: Lost Levels: World 9".
http://l.j-factor.com/gamemaker/MacNuignSpecter.zip - Here's an unofficial OS X port of the game "Nuign Specter" by @JakeClover_.
The town of Newspark, Il has been inside a very big ghost for the last decade, causing all radios to constantly play the Monster Mash 24/7.
The economy is pretty bad nowā¦ Eyeballs seem to be the only stable asset leftā¦ "Everyone loves having eyes" as your mama always saidā¦
The mermaids yank off your legs, the medusas steal your hair, the nagas abscond with your arms, and angels depart with your shoulder-blades.
The level design was altered a bit to add more bonus nicknacks, but little was done to make it fit comfortably in the GBA's smaller screen.
Super Mario Advance is an apotheosis of Nintendo ports - take an old game and cram in as many voice barks and rotation effects as possible.
Some kind of ancient key worshipping cult?
It's interesting that the last areas of Super Mario Lands 1 and 3 both have huge rooms of coins. It feels climactic.
I remember using the Super Mario World lava tiles to create staircases of lava - safe platforms with deadly sides. An oddly tense obstacle.
The fangame Super Mario Bros. X has a Red Kuribo's Shoe that lets you stand on lava. But if you touch the lava from the side, you still die.
It's been so long since you've touched waterā¦ This pool of blood at your feet feels soothing on your skinā¦ ā¦whose blood is it? ā¦no matterā¦
You'd prefer to die amid rough-hewn rock tunnels, the earth's broken flesh, than these smooth brick corridors and their impersonal geometry.
You slowly ascend back up the dungeon. Though you don't look, you detect tiny nibbling noises from the direction of your friends' corpses.
The din of treasure chests scraping on stone irritates you as you slowly drag your roped-together bounty down to the village locksmith.
I tried playing Iji about two years ago and the only bit I really remember is the vector-based Hero 3D minigame. Oh well.
You were certain the rapidly approaching circular saw was short enough to safely pass between your legs, but now you're not quite so sureā¦
It might be the hunger and blood-loss, but this cave-griffin meat tastes like mama's apple pie. You decide to kill another, just to check.
You wake up. A flock of orphaned baby bats is licking at your loosely-bandaged wounds. They stop and gaze at you fearfully, guiltily.
Magical Doropie (with translation patch).
"Magic isn't real," you chant, eyes closed, "magic isn't real." Then you realise that your mantra probably constitutes a form of magic.
2013: The first "Alternate Reality Anti-game" is created, where real life gradually loses all semantic meaning, and, finally, interactivity.
"These folksonomies are useless!" weeps the Web 2.0 Expert. "5,120 Niddlenurp tags? 19,102 Floppogop tags?! Thisā¦ isn't even Englishā¦"
2016: Having finally run out of ideas for tweets, I just repeat the word "vast" followed by a random noun until I finally get a sympathyfav.
A series of NES games that feature draining lakes with music. In one, you bring a songbird to it at dawn. In another, you use a wind chime.
"I'm very certain the only way to solve this block-pushing puzzle is to disintegrate the block in the middle with sheer focused willpower."
"A non-compliant citizen is being harboured in sector 7H2. Sky privileges are revoked." *sunset is replaced with 3D Pipes screensaver*
A young archeologist decides which huge gold artifact to carry to the surfaceā¦ Surely this seductive, grinning statue won't bring me harmā¦
A big fat rainbow caterpillar crawls in the arena, you smack its coloured segments to make music for awhile, then it departs. Chapter Clear.
"Feet are great - they're like hands that can't do anything except the most base, primal actions. Atavistic extremities!"
Instead of bosses, a game where giant creatures periodically drop down into huge arenas, do a dance for 1 minute, and then loudly depart.
You draw your sword, charge forward, and inexplicably offer it to her graciously. She uses it to knight you. Alas, it seems her wrist slips!
A vast gallery of your defeatsā¦ Marble statues of you falling, beaten, tied. The look of sudden fear on your face, frozen in a dozen stones.
"This is outrageous!" you think, crawling on the ground as she walks away, wearing your detached feet beneath her own feet. "Even for her!"
Your lasers zap the footnotes under her, but she escapes into a citation. Scholarly journal. You equip rough terrain gear and run after her.
You mathsurf the digits - 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6ā¦4?! Oh no, this isn't Pi! It's its evil twin, Die!! Skull-shaped decimal points leap at you.
Spy in robot costume forced to constantly march forward due to accidentally looping "metal footsteps" clip blaring from hidden walkman.
"Fear me", squeaks a tiny black mouse wearing another mouse's skull. "Please, justā¦ just fear me."
Only your evil hand is gripping the ledgeā¦ You promise it manicures, creams, idleness for life! ā¦Its index finger twitches, as if laughing!
You've tied your evil hand to your shoulder to stop it foiling your stealthy escape, but its fingers just barely brush your armpitā¦ No, no!
You desperately try to write a rescue message to your friends, but your evil hand has another idea - a fawning love letter to your captor!!
The Bracelet of Evil slides onto your wrist. Your hand tenses, then alters - sinews bolder, fingers longer, nails sharper, skin suppler.
Advancing the text in dialogue boxes may actually be the most ubiquitous verb in videogames.
That tense feeling of walking on tiles coded with random encounters. The feel of ambient hostility, of being surrounded by invisible foes.
http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/Water_Water/ - Here's another 3-year-old game of mine from way back in Pirate Kart II. This is [SPOILERS] basically a joke.
A secret quarry of jelly crystalsā¦! But only boiling water couldā¦? At that moment, the microwave satellite strikes the dam, shattering itā¦
The slimeglider girls are overheadā¦ Shining, gelatinous angels with pudding-skin wingsā¦ Tiny drops of all-consuming slime rain down on usā¦
"To escape a vampire: tell it to tie its shoelace, then balance a cup of water on its head while it's bending over. It'll be trapped."
You reach the outskirts of Mattress City. The rest of the mall is in sight! Sales assistants are still in pursuit on high-speed orthopedics.
Really, scooting around this temple on your behind is surely the superior method. It erases your footsteps, AND helps you avoid dart traps!
http://l.j-factor.com/gmhtml5/Transmission_Received/ - I felt a bit sad today so I did a quick port of this 2011 game. Vague themes of fragility and searching by feel.
While trying to find out what the "pick up item" button combo is, you accidentally detach your head and throw it screaming into a lava pit.
You pick up the orange key. The red door loudly bursts open, then quietly and shamefacedly shuts up again after looking more closely.
The skull door won't open until you beat this mega-slug but your feeble punches are only exhausting yourself. You fall asleep on top of it.
You point your wand menacingly. A thin dribble of magic pathetically sputters out, splashing some pebbles into ladybugs at your feet.
You smear the honey on your tongue. Soon enough, the fly lands on it. Finally satisfied with your frog status, the armed FrogBot departs.
Ah, you've almost cracked the Queen's bedroom safe, but dawn is here! Using deep magic, you quickly slip your coin purse over the sun.
You can't believe itā¦ though your sword is shredding the princess's wielded pillows, these infernal feathersā¦ may spellā¦ your sneezy defeat!
A blunt, chipped fragment of magic lies here. A centipede crawls over it, its feet gaining tiny shoes and spats as it touches the shard.
The Earthworm Sage studies your boots. It reads the grime and dust of a hundred dungeons and valleys. Your story will be safe with it.
You examine the shaking coin. Its head suddenly changes from King Jim VI to a rhinoceros. Another royal hunting trip gone wrong, it seems.
"Many monsters perished, venting experience points into the open airā¦ The points grew rancid, only able to increase disgusting skillsā¦"
"Your gun is a portable conduit between the physical and the virtual. Let go of its grips, and you will literally fall out of the world."
"All that remains are the propelisks, stone pillars built to prop up the absurdly lavish, structurally unsound houses of the wealthy."
http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/intercal-man/tonsila.html - I like the perversity of calling the greater-than sign a "right angle".
"There are many categories of invalid "game": notgames, antigames, falsegames, huskgames, nullgames, voidgames, and even deadgames."
http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5029 - Here's a Twine macro that automatically replaces passage text with other passage text after a time delay.