Yearly Archives: 2009

Umberto or Geraldine?

By Rubes | Published: December 30, 2009

One of the interesting things about working on Vespers is that I’ve become so intimate with the original text and code that I probably know more about the game at this point than even the author, Jason Devlin. Often, I’ll come across an issue or question about the text game, and I’ll pop off an e-mail to Jason to see what he thinks we should do. The irony is that I’ve been so engrossed in every detail of the story for so long that I’m probably better able to address these things than Jason, who likely hasn’t even thought about the game in 3 or 4 years. (Mental note: really have to finish game soon.)

Throughout development, but particularly when Jason released the text [More...] Read the rest

Posted in story in games, Vespers | Leave a comment

“Get Lamp” Discount Deadline Approaches

By Rubes | Published: December 29, 2009

A gentle reminder for those interested enough in text adventures to be eagerly awaiting the arrival of Jason Scott’s sure-to-be-singular documentary on the matter, GET LAMP: the pre-order discount ends on January 1st.

According to Scott, the documentary will be priced at $40 for a 2-DVD set that will reportedly include additonal “wrap-ins” in the package, although no word yet as to what those are. It’s set to be released in March 2010, around the same time as the PAX East convention, where the movie will be premiered alongside (hopefully) a host of other interactive fiction-related panels and presentations, which is pretty neat.

But if you know you’re going to buy the documentary, you can pre-order it now for 25% off, or [More...] Read the rest

Posted in adventure games, interactive fiction, text in games | Leave a comment

2009: A Shecky Greene Kind of Year

By Rubes | Published: December 22, 2009

For Vespers, I’d say 2009 was a mixed bag. We started out with some nice momentum, on many fronts, and it lasted about half the year. N.R., as usual, was a model of consistency, churning out an impressive amount of material. He completed all of the models and textures for Act I, which was a nice accomplishment, in addition to all of our GUI and logo work. He’s already started chipping away at the additional models needed for Act II and beyond, with much of the work already done. We also got our web site up and running, and although it needs additional content, it’s good to have most of the structure already in place, with the connection to this blog. The forums are [More...] Read the rest

Posted in 3D/if, Vespers | 1 Response

Touché, aaronius

By Rubes | Published: November 23, 2009

Occasionally I surf around the IFDB looking for goodies. I really like the way it is set up, as it takes a number of cues from other community sites that encourage engagement and social interaction. Often I’ll find myself weaving my way through games, reviews, and lists before realizing how much time has passed, and typically I’ll come out with a couple of new games to add to the play list. I also absolutely love how it is so smoothly integrated with Zoom (and others, like iPhone Frotz), which so effectively feeds the immediate gratification beast. Anyway, I digress.

I was flipping through some IFDB pages the other day, looking for some choice information on this year’s IFComp winner, Rover’s Day Out, when [More...] Read the rest

Posted in 3D/if, game design, interactive fiction, Vespers | 2 Responses

Congratulations, You’ve Been Kickstarted

By Rubes | Published: November 21, 2009

In what will amount to essentially a formality, the Jason Scott Sabbatical is set to be officially Kickstarted in just a few hours.

Scott, the digital historian, archivist, and documentarian (not to mention unusually entertaining writer and speaker) responsible for such intense goodness as Textfiles.com, archiving Geocities, the highly recommended BBS Documentary, and the soon-to-be-almost-certainly-highly-recommended text adventure documentary GET LAMP, is going on paid sabbatical. Scott recently lost his day job, and since he was doing all of this wonderous stuff on the side in his spare time, not having a steady income seriously jeopardized future progress on these projects. So he took matters into his own hands and, thanks to Kickstarter, a whole mess of supporters stepped up to the [More...] Read the rest

Posted in miscellaneous | 1 Response