Michael Coorlim's Blog, page 33

Radioactive Grace part 1: August 17, 2277

Radioactive Grace is a Let’s Play of the games Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, told in a narrative epistolary form. You can find the index page here.

My daddy gave me this diary when I was sixteen, said I could use it to write down my thoughts, deal with some of the anger I’d been feeling. It was kind of a big deal, really… paper’s hard to come by down in the vaults, and he had to pull some hardcore strings to get it. I threw it in a drawer and forgot about it until now, but that’s the kind of kid I was. Angry and ungrateful.

Maybe that’s why he left me here. There. In the vault.

I should start over.

My name’s Grace, and I grew up in a steel-walled vault set into the side of a mountain. Never saw the sun. Never saw the stars. Just six steel surfaces and recycled air at all times. It all seemed so normal then, living in a sealed jar, but what did we know?

Reminds me of this lame poem Butch’s mom gave me for my tenth birthday. Still got it on my pip-boy. I always thought it was so dark for such a cheerful woman, but now that I’m older I think I understand a little about the difference between who people are and who they pretend to be.

Gray Walls, impenetrable steel.

Suffocation! Condemnation!

Little hands groping in subterranean uncertainty.

Mommy? Daddy? Am I Dead?

Nay! Nay! Reborn into purifying fluorescence!

A face emerges, strong and male.

Father to me? Father to all!

Overseeing our lives, our eternities.

Harshness of discipline.

Harshness of love

Obedience my savior!

Larva to pupa, pupa to worker.

Buzz, buzz! One with the steel honeycomb.

10 lies within the 101, significant at last.

Till gray seeps from the walls to hair, to soul.

Then, eternal slumber, the sweet sleep of incineration.

Yeah. That’s sort of what it was like. Only now it’s gone all wrong, and I’m out, and breathing fresh air, and I just know it’s a matter of time before something kills me. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this, so that when you find my bleached bones out there under the sun you’ll know who I was. That I lived. That I mattered.

Okay, backing up.

A few hours ago Amata wakes me up and tells me that her dad — the Overseer — has gone nuts because my dad left.

Read that again.

My dad left.

Guy who found my corpse, I don’t know if you know what it’s like in the vault, but nobody leaves. Somehow, my dad slipped out the door without telling anyone. Without telling me.

I’m still trying to process that, but every time I think about why he would have gone and left me here I start getting a panic attack. Like this big sky over my head isn’t terrifying enough.

Okay. Easy, Grace, easy.

What happened next is a blur. Amata and I set up our pip boys to automatically take snapshots when our pulse-rates jump, but I… I don’t want to look at the pictures. Not yet.

First coherent memory I have is running through the cave, hearing the vault door closing behind me, and tripping out into the sunlight.

Sunlight. Real sunlight. Blinded me, so much brighter than the lights down in the vault. So much oranger. So much warmer.

But I’m alone. Amata’s not here. Whatever happened, she didn’t make it, and something about that makes me feel like the dirt on the bottom of a grave. My heart’s pounding, my lungs are burning, my limbs feel like rubber. It was all I could do to crawl over to the shade where I started writing this.

Ha. I don’t even remember grabbing it when I left, but it’s suddenly important that I record this, that I’m remembered.

I see some houses down the road. Will check them out. Hand hurts from writing. First let me scan in a pic of the Outside.

I just… feel so overwhelmed.

Technical details:

I’m playing Fallout 3 & NV as a single game using the Tale of Two Wasteland mods, and all the DLC. While it becomes feasible to travel between the capital wasteland and mojave midway through Fallout’s main quest, I don’t plan on doing so until after I’ve finished it — the story is more cohesive that way.

I’m not playing in a very optimized manner. My focus is on a good story, not efficiently. Further, I’m going to have a ton of XP by the time I hit New Vegas, so I’m not going to be a completionist.

This is going to be a long series involving a lot of screenshots.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Daily schedule and workflow

Some of you might be curious about what it’s like to be a full time professional author. While there’s no one single ‘way’ to go about it, here’s what I’ve found works for me.

Getting ready

I wake up at 7 or 8 AM, more so because I’m a light sleeper than out of any attempt to set a schedule for myself. Given the nature of my work I don’t really need to cleave to any hourly schedule, or weekly for that matter. Unless I need to go to the store, it doesn’t really matter when I’m active or working or not.

The biggest advantage is that I can do my laundry while everyone else is at work and have both of the building’s machines to myself.

As I said, though, I’m an early riser. I get up, check my email, answer any that needs answering, make coffee, feed the cats, and generally get ready for the day. I’m ready to start working at 9.

Pomodoro

I keep myself on task throughout the day through use of the Pomodoro technique. I have a little timer that goes off every 25 minutes, and after that I take a five minute break before starting up again. I schedule these in two hour blocks of four, with twenty minutes between blocks. Four blocks is eight hours of work.

Breaking up my time this way keeps my mind fresh, and scheduling the day’s task in terms of two hour blocks keeps me working steadily – I always know what I need to work on next. And because I always have a short break coming up, I can hold off getting a snack or other interruptions until they don’t break my creative flow.

Weekly Schedule

Three of each day’s blocks are usually dedicated to whatever novel I’m working on. The fourth rotates day by day. Mondays I write the week’s blog posts. Tuesday I work on writing the current audio drama. Wednesday I’m writing Interactive Fiction. Thursday is for Last Minute GM RPG projects. and Friday I produce and record That Which is Known.

Weekends are wild cards. I try to do my shopping on weekends. I also work on generally whatever is close to completion, though still in Pomodoro blocks.

So, there you have it. Writing is a full time job, at least 40 hours a week, plus whatever I manage on weekends. Using Pomodoro timing helps keep me on-task and focused; if I have permission to browse the web or whatever during the five minute blocks between breaks, I’m less tempted to do so while I should be writing.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Random Title Generator 2.0

Two years ago I wrote a little random short story generator as a way to teach myself html5 and javascript. It was a fun little thing, if limited in scope, and was even featured by Chuck Wendig in one of his flash fiction contests.

Version 2.0

I’m happy to unveil version 2.0. I haven’t exactly been spending all my time on this for the last two years, but in my spare time I’ve been able to add some exciting features:

Genre-specific toggles
WordPress integration
Expanded vocabulary
More syntactical options

Check it out. See if you can come up with anything fun.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Deprivation IntroComp 2015 Postmortem

 

IntroComp 2015 voting has ended, and the results are out. How’d I do?

Deprivation

Deprivation was my way of re-familiarizing myself with interactive fiction and TADS after a long absence. I remembered a lot, but had forgotten even more, so I was aiming for something a little less ambitious this time around. Since I’d been doing a lot of research on sleep deprivation a few months ago, I decided to use that as a central theme in a story about loss and psychological defense mechanisms.

I wanted to do something I’d finish, so I kept the scope relatively small, but layered it with a state machine governing your psychological mindset as you either grew more sleep deprived, or managed to combat your insomnia. That’s the fundamental choice in the game, between getting over what’s holding you back, or indulging in it. The bulk of this action takes place at 3am in your apartment on subsequent days.

The IntroComp Version:

The basic game loop has the protagonist puttering around his apartment from 3-5 am, trying whatever he can to fall asleep. Some of the things you can do will quiet your mind down and make sleep more likely. Others will have the opposite effect. If you manage to get restful before your alarm goes off you’ll get SOME sleep, at least. If not, you can try again the next night.

The version I released for IntroComp only covers the first night in your apartment, ending when you manage to sleep. I changed the alarm to give judges time to putter around and explore without having to restart every time the alarm went off.

Reviews:

Dutchmule at the IFDB
These Heterogenous Tasks
The Gaming Philosopher
PaulS at Intfiction.org forums
Stuff I have to say about Stuff, and Stuff
Winter of our Discontent
/r/srsgaming comment

Judges’ comments

I noticed you’re hardly a first-time writer, but it seems you concentrated on stuff that really doesn’t make a text adventure click. Despite these mis-steps, there’s some good writing, and it feels like you do have a plan for a full story. The problem is that “eye for detail” means something different in a text adventure than in a book, so we need to focus on that. I encourage you to read Aaron Reed’s book about programming with Inform 7, even though this was written in TADS. It helped me a ton.

Excellent point. Every media has different strengths and weaknesses, and different needs and elements, and I need to learn about IF’s little quirks. The book this person is talking about Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7 (affiliate link), and I’ve ordered a copy.

I don’t know if it’s a natively available TADS thing, but clickable words that auto-enter parser commands is both a nice way of appealing to those who prefer one or the other input method, as well as a good way of introducing newbies to parser IF conventions. It was weirdly satisfying to put stuff away nicely, and there were some nice details, but with only this to judge from, I don’t know whether I’d be super interested in a game just about trying to fall asleep.

Hyperlinked commands a HTML Tads thing, and a nice touch. One of my general goals is to leave these games as newbie friendly as possible. Friendliest would probably be making a choice-based game, but I really feel like working on a parser-based game is more of a puzzle, and that’s half of what I enjoy about the hobby.

I thought the implementation and writing were impressive here; I can’t say I was really gripped by the game. I’d like to encourage you to write more … but perhaps something else!

Thanks! I’ll be finishing this game, but I’ve got a few other ideas.

There is no actual alarm item – even if in this version there is not meant to be a time limit, that is odd.

I just hacked the alarm clock out because that’s where the fuse was hiding, but that’s a good point.

Well-written, but fits too closely to the My Crappy Apartment trope. I think you could do something with the same basic premise but set it somewhere else (or at least make the apartment nice, rather than crappy). I will say that I enjoyed shame-eating in the shower, though.

This was a common thread to the reviews I linked above. It was semi-intentional, as a homage to “first games”, but I can see how that might be distracting experienced IFers from the actual plot. The nights of the game are still going to be set in your bedroom, but I’ll make it less “crappy apartment.”

I liked the hyperlinks used as shortcuts for some of the examine and movement commands. Personally, not too into the real life sim of sleep deprivation, but I can see the appeal. Decently executed with interesting descriptions (like the book content).

The books are all actual books written by actual authors, and I used their excerpts with permission. I’ll credit all of them in the actual release, and provide links to where the books can be acquired should players find their interests’ piqued.

I did a bunch of things but nothing would let me sleep. Eventually I asked for hints and managed to get to sleep, but I’m not exactly sure what exactly caused me to be able to sleep. The shower “shame-cake” episode sounded like it would help, as did watching a movie that helped me reflect, but it seemed like I then had to do some other things as well. Making these effects a bit more explicit might help, as well as some clues ahead of time about what things I need to do (and don’t need to do?). There are intriguing references to Shannon, presumably the protagonist’s (now former?) girlfriend, which presumably would be fleshed out in a continuation. I liked the green tower too.

Some things helped. Some things made it worse. If you did a lot of both, you’d end up going nowhere, basically. I’ll figure out a way to make this more explicit.

This is decently implemented, but I’m not sure how much it offers beyond the “my shabby apartment” trope that has been a long-running thing in parser IF. There are occasional hints about some specific history for the protagonist that would explain why things are so bad — the cake they won’t eat in the fridge, for instance — but if there’s a way to unlock more details about what happened, I wasn’t able to get at them. I did manage to take a shower, make my bed, throw out a bunch of junk from my fridge, and watch some of a movie on TV, which seems to have made me feel better enough to go to bed very briefly… but why do we care about all this, again? On the positive side, the implementation seems (as I said) solid, and I was able to navigate quite a lot of the game using the hyperlinks. If there’s some backstory I missed, the game needs to do a bit more to bring it forward, I think.

The backstory is intentionally a bit vague, as I wanted some ambiguity about what exactly happened. There are hints scattered around throughout letting players put together an image of what exactly happened to the protagonist, but I can make them a bit more apparent.

The Full Version

I’m now working on the full version of Deprivation, keeping in mind the feedback offered above. Changes:

Shifting the location from My Crappy Apartment to My Lonesome Hotel Room
More feedback about what sort of things help you sleep and what don’t
Clearer initial goal
More background hints

Sounds like a plan.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken Kickstarter postscript

The kickstarter for the next Galvanic Century novel, Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken, wrapped up to an astounding 1100% of goal.

Astounding! Almost double what I’d even imagined we’d reach. The keys to my success:

I was funding one specific part of production, not the entire book’s creation. It’d been written and mostly revised, so the kickstarter was just for the cover.
This allowed me to set a very low initial goal, covering the cost of stock art and layout.
The rewards I offered were of good value for their prices, but didn’t cost me very much to fulfill. Most popular was the $15 rewards – all six books in the series. Fulfillment costs me nothing, and hopefully snags me some new readers for the next title.

So I’ve got enough to commission professional cover art for the next two books. I’d say, overall, this was a success.

Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken is scheduled for a September release, and the followup Steam and Samsara is going to be released in late Fall or early Winter. Sign up for the mailing list if you want notification when they’re released.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Interactive Fiction and InfoComp

Remember interactive fiction? Text adventure games? Infocom? Zork? No? A little?

I blathered on about it a month or so ago on That Which is Known. Go ahead and give that a listen if you’re so inclined. If not, Interactive Fiction are games where the input and output are both text, telling a story. Do you remember Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books? Sort of like that.

What’s up with Interactive Fiction?

Those who donate to my Patreon have been hearing me go on about this for a while now, but basically I used to play around with making interactive fiction games in the 90s. It was more of a hobby than a commercial prospect back then, too – IF games died out as soon as computers gained enough processing power to reliably present graphical applications.

As a writer who liked games but had no talent for the visual arts, though, they were perfect for single-person projects. I never finished anything, but for me it was more about coding-as-puzzle. Can I make the game do what I want it to? Can I figure out how to make this happen? I remember coming up with my own text parsers and OCEAN personality-trait focused NPCs, just to see how efficient I could make it.

Back into Interactive Fiction

Now I’m working on games again, exploring the new tools available, and regaining familiarity with old ones. It’s a hobby, a side-project at best, maybe a way to make something fun that ties-in to my books. I don’t know yet.

What I do know is that “finishing projects” is a skill I’ve picked up in the last twenty years. To that end, I’ve submitted my first game, Deprivation, to the IntroComp.

The requirements of IntroComp are deceptively simple: All entrants must submit the beginning of a new, never before seen work of interactive fiction that is not yet complete and for which the ending is somewhat uncertain. The introduction can be as short or as long as the author likes, so long as it is 1) a working, playable game and 2) interactive fiction. Only introductions to games which are slated for non-commercial release may be entered in the competition.

So I started a project, submitted it, and now I get to see what people think of it. If you want to give it a go and play the other 5 entries as well, you can get them over at the IntroComp site. Register while you’re there! Vote!

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Kickstarter Ending Soon

The kickstarter campaign to fund Iron Horses Can’t be Broken’s cover art ends soon. As of this writing we’re at 700% funded and we smashed through most of our stretch goals:

$250 saw donors at $25 and up getting a digital download of the audio drama adaptation
$350 saw the adaptation lengthened from 8 to 11 episodes
$400 provides all backers with desktop wallpapers, and bookmarks to those getting signed paperbacks

This only leaves one stretch goal remaining. If we reach $600, I’ll be able to fund the next book’s cover, too, Steam and Soma. And everyone donating at least $5 gets an ebook copy.

We have about a day left. Can we make it? I think so. Donate now… it’s your last chance!

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Amazon Author Profile Follow Buttons

A while ago Amazon rolled out “Follow” buttons on author pages. They’re located right under the author’s profile picture.

 

Supposedly, Amazon will send you a heads-up when I release something new, but I’ve heard mixed reviews about how well it works. Still, if you’re not signed up to my mailing list, or if you don’t open the emails for whatever reason, it’s another way to keep updated.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Patreon Progress

Just a quick note.

I’m thrilled with how well the Patreon has been doing. We’re almost halfway to our first milestone, the $50 mark, where I will be able to afford to start saving up for new equipment that I desperately need.

More importantly, though, it’s validation that my fans are willing to support my side-projects, and that means a lot to me. It gives me the freedom to write more short stories, audio plays, interactive fiction, and other weird projects. It gives me the ability to experiment and try new things.

It gives me breathing room.

So, to my patrons: Thank you very much.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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New Release: Simple Harmonic Motion

Captain Margaret Kincaid is set to cross the Perot line and officially travel further from Earth than any human being in history. Little does she know that she’s going to go even farther. Much farther.

Simple Harmonic Motion

Simple Harmonic Motion is a science-fiction psychological horror story set in the near future. It’s a story of exploration, love, discovery, and an end to the human era of space exploration. It’s available in two different formats:

Short Story available exclusively through Amazon. 99 cents, free if you’re enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program.
24-minute audio drama mp3, performed by actors Kat O’Connor, Song Marshall, and Ruth Kaufman, produced by Burning Brigid Media. Free if you sign up for Burning Brigid Media’s mailing list.

The audio drama isn’t just actors reading the story aloud, it was initially written as an audio script and adapted into a short story later. I’m happy with the results either way.

Give it a read, give it a listen, and if you like it, let me know what you think. Reviews are always welcome!

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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