Creating Interactive Text Adventures

Create, play and share text adventure games
textadventures.co.uk is a community of interactive fiction game makers and players.
http://textadventures.co.uk/

inklewriter - Write your very own interactive stories.
inklewriter will be shutting down in August 2018.
https://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter/

RUIN [Short Film]

I found this short film and found it rather inspirational for what the ruins of a city in ATB could be like.
[http://www.conceptruin.com/]

Post Apocalyptic Survival Video

Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse from Nathaniel Lindsay on Vimeo.

Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse is an instructional public information film designed to assist the general population with surviving life in Australia after a nuclear war. Produced by the Australian Board of Civil Defence during the early 1980s, this previously unseen, dusty print was uncovered deep within a university film archive.

Broken into four chapters, the film guides wary survivors through the trials that will await them in the post apocalypse. From post-apocalyptic fashion and unique uses for surplus human skulls, to becoming a local warlord and avoiding radioactive mutants, there is something for all dwellers of the wastelands. With its dry methodical narration, brooding synthesizer, minimalist animation and erroneous guidance, Ducked and Covered is a dark humored parody/loving homage to the late cold war era, early 1980’s public information films, as well as a reminder… OF WHAT STILL COULD BE.


WINNER - Audience Award - Best Animated Film - MAELSTROM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Seattle, WA, USA 2010.

OFFICIAL SELECTION

CINEQUEST 20 FILM FESTIVAL, San Jose, California, USA 2010.

THE WILLIAMSBURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Brooklyn, NY, USA 2010.

MAELSTROM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Seattle, WA, USA 2010.

DOOMSDAY FILM FESTIVAL & SYMPOSIUM, Brooklyn, NY, USA 2010.

NEWFILMMAKERS NY, FALL SERIES, New York City, NY, USA 2010.

STATE OF DESIGN FESTIVAL, Melbourne, Australia 2009.

PRESS
http://www.macguffinpodcast.com/macguffin-content/m-i-f-f-f-2010-animation-shorts-review/3/
http://www.thesanjoseblog.com/2010/03/cinequest-comedy-short-films.html
http://www.fanboyplanet.com/movies/cg-cinequest2010.php

Mutated Animal Found In Ditch

Okay, it's actually a video short by Neil (District 9) Blomkamp. IO9 tracked down some information on the AGM Heartland logo on the side of the creature and found this info:

Entertainment services by way of an online website with video, audio and textual content and images featuring characters and storylines about a fictional genetic engineering company that produces genetically engineered and altered organisms.

Building The Babies Of Tomorrow

Lorigen Engineering from JimTheFilm on Vimeo.

[Lorigen Engineering]

Apocalypse Meow, The Animated Series

Apocalypse Meow, known as Cat Sh*t One in Japan, is being made into an animated series. The trailer looks awesome, and I hope it get's released over here. I'd imagine that they will probably rename it if it does...

If you've never heard of Apocalypse Meow, is was a three volume manga series set in an anthropomorphic animal version of the Vietnam War. The series appears to change the setting to the Middle East. I never bought the mangas - something I chastise myself over each time I think of it - so I can't go into any details. One of these days I'll have to track down a copy of these books.

The animated series is due for release early 2010, so it probably won't hit the states until 2012.

Run Rabbit Run

Been trying to come up with another story, so when I saw this picture today I decided to write the first thing that came to mind. It's probably crap, but it's practice...

** ** **

It was a wet and miserable Jersey night as I sat on an old crate waiting for my contact to arrive in the alley behind the Run Rabbit Run. My only companions a pair of wild rats diving for scraps in the kitchen dumpster. I don't know how the wild ones can stand the damp, but the cold drizzle seemed to find it's way through my coat and soak my fur underneath. My grandfather used to tell me that from what he remembered from his 'wild' years, before he was 'lifted' by the humans, it was instinctual; that he would just ignore the cold and the damp. Personally, I think he was full of it. He was an old fart and a little soft in the head, but my father believed him and would always listen to his stories over and over again. My father told me that most of the lifted couldn't remember the time before, while they were still wild, or at least they won't talk about it. Makes me glad I'm a third generation 'fur'.

Most of the 'furs' of my generation don't think about it because we're to busy trying to rebuild the ruined remnants of the old human world into a new world of our own design. One where we don't have to live in burrows and nests and kennels like out wild cousins. Those crazy inbred human holdouts up north and their subservient New Kennel lap dogs aren't making our lives any easier though. Most of the humans around here have resigned themselves to the fact that animals have started to take over and that the 'Age of Man' has reached its final chapter, but the Empire of Humanity acts like this planet is their birthright and no stinking 'mutant' animals--lifted or otherwise--are going to take if from them.

I guess that's why I decided to join the Cardanian Intelligence Agency as a field agent. A few years ago, the Empire started sending in covert espionage agents to hamper our progress. Assassinations, sabotage, poisoning water and food supplies, even trying mutagens to reduce the lifted animals back to wild beasts. Their campaign of terror went unchallenged for most of a decade until President Foxline approved the creation of the CIA to combat the phantom threat from the north. A threat the militia families couldn't answer.

So now I sit here in dark alleys in the Contested Lands waiting to receive information from our spies and then deliver it to my superiors for review. It's not a glamorous job, and certainly not a safe one--I have the scars to prove that--but I'm told that we've been able to stop a dozen or so attacks this past year, so I am proud of what I do even if I have to catch pneumonia once in a while.

As I sit in the dark and the wet I keep an eye on the street at the far end of the alley, I chose this location because it's a dead end--only one entrance to the street and one into the kitchen. If there's gonna be any trouble, it'll come from one of those two directions, and then, most likely from the street. The humans and dogs they send after us are usually not very creative and almost always go for the frontal assault. Once they sent a sniper, but dogs don't tend to know what the meaning of the word, 'stealth'. He made such a racket accessing the roof across the street from the meeting spot that night that my contact was able to sneak up behind him and take him out before he had his rifle fully assembled. I still have that gun back at my apartment as a memento.

Finally, at half past midnight the light thud of cat paws landing on the corrugated steel awning over the taverns rear entrance announced the arrival of my contact. Steve was one of the few who didn't shed their wild forms when they were lifted. This was a huge asset to the agency, since most Humans won't give an animal a second glance, unless it's doing something obviously uncharacteristic for a wild one. Steven was a pro though. Even when we meet up in a safe spot like this one, he won't drop the pretense of being a wild feline until he's absolutely sure the area is clear. On more than a couple occasions he's even fooled me.

Finally sure that we are not being observed, Steve hops onto the crate next to me and shakes the damp from his fur. I half-seriously ask if he was followed, and receive a cold feline stare in reply. Sometimes I think Steve is going to forget that he's more than a wild cat. After the exchange of code phrases I slipped the collar from around his neck and removed the microfilm tucked inside. I placed my prize in the concealed compartment in the butt of my knife and tossed a small plastic wrapped gift onto the crate at his paws, which he snatched up in his mouth before leaping down to the alley floor and skittering out into the night.

With my package retrieved I shook the wet from my coat and left the alley to enter the tavern through the front door. I had a few hours before my ride back to Cardania would arrive and the Bunnies at the Run Rabbit Run were a nice way to pass the time.

Bart's Demise

I have decided to try, once again, writing some AtB based flash fiction. I'd really like to try and work my way up to an actual short story, but as they say... 'You must crawl before you walk, walk before you run...'

- - - - - - -

Bart had waited for hours in the snow covered branches of the pine; waiting for a courier to pass by on the road below. The mutant squirrel had been given the unenviable task of making sure that documents bound for the Empires capitol did not reach their destination. He died quickly from a snipers bullet.

There She Is (Video)

Ahh, the things you can find while surfing the WWW. I came across this little anthro love story from Korea. It chronicles the budding romance of a boy cat (Nabi) and girl rabbit (Doki) in a society that frowns upon interspecies relationships.

Interspecies tensions would make for an interesting background story for any AtB game. If you're up for a challenge, give it some thought.

[source]
http://www.sambakza.net/

Story Idea: Proteus

This is just an idea I had for an AtB story or game that I wrote down on a napkin two or three years ago while I was at a local pizza joint (behold the power of napkins!). Let me know if you think this is an idea worth expanding upon.

Proteus [Pro·te·us]

• (noun) Classical Mythology. a sea god, son of Oceanus and Tethys, noted for his ability to assume different forms and to prophesy.
• (adj.) a person or thing that readily changes appearance, character, principles, etc.

PRELUDE (208x - Pre-Crash)

- A female scientist and her assistant (a mutant chimpanzee) are hard at work trying to find a way to stop the mystery plague that is killing off the human race. The scientist's child, a young boy or girl dieing of the mystery plague, is placed in cryogenic pod until she can find the cure.

CURRENT DAY (After the Bomb)

- A battle between a group of mutant animals and a detachment of Human Empire soldiers rages outside the ruins of an Pre-Death building.

- After the human soldiers retreat, the mutant animals move into the building. It turns out to be a cryogenic hospice, a place where human from before the Crash would inter the terminally ill.

- Amazingly enough, power is still being supplied to a few of the cryogenic pods. The mutant animals find all but one of the occupants are dead - the victims of rotted seals. The remaining pod is that of the child from the prelude. However, the child is now a teenager, it's aging only slowed while in the cryogenic pod.

- The pod, the human child still inside, is delivered to a Cardanian medical facility in Cambridge where they attempt to reawaken the human inside.

- Soon after he/she is awakened, the child is frightened by mutant animal doctors and runs away.

- The human child hides in the old city ruins on the outskirts of Cambridge for a couple days until being attacked by a pack of street urchins (a mix mutant animals). The child is saved when another human (actually a pleasure bunny) comes to the rescue.

- The bunny takes the child to her home, an old but luxurious cabin hidden in the nearby woods. There she tells the child what has happened to change the world and admits that she is in fact also a mutant animal. After a while, she convinces the child to return with her to the medical facility.

- Back at the medical facility, the doctors run tests on the child and discover that the child does not carry the strain of the disease that killed humans, but a variation of the disease called Proteus - the strain that gave birth to the anthropomorphic animals. However, this variation would not affect animals, instead this strain would cause a "Proteus Transformation" in humans.

- Fearful of what he/she may turn into, how the transformation may affect him/her, and whether or not he/she will survive the transformation, the child accepts his/her fate. Monitored by the medical staff during the transformation, and watched over by the bunny, the child slowly begins his/her transformation into a .

- When the child is revived, he/she discovers that the transformation has also awoken new psionic powers, including the ability to telepathically listen to other peoples thoughts.

- Soon after, the child telepathically overhears a doctor plotting to use the new Proteus strain on other surviving humans and tells the bunny. The doctor discovers that the two know about the plot and the two must escape before they are captured by security.

- Back at the cabin the two start packing to escape Cambridge, but a group of canine mercenaries hired by the doctor tracks down the two at the cabin before they can leave and a battle ensues. The two escape down a bolt hole just as the cabin is destroyed in a fiery explosion.

- Content that nothing could have survived such a blast and musing that the only cure of the Protean strain would have been contained in the child's DNA (a fact that is overheard by the bunny), the doctor returns to the medical facility to work on his scheme.

- Safely outside Cambridge, the bunny reveals that she was once a member of a group of adventurers and suggests that they might go to them for some help.

SIDE NOTES

- As the story would have progressed, it would have been found that the child's mutation was unstable and would revert (like a lycanthrope) between mutant animal and human form. He/she would also discover new psionic abilities as well, including precognition.

- The mutant doctor's ultimate goal would be to use the Protean virus against the Empire of Humanity, rationalizing that once they had all been mutated into animals they would stop warring with the rest of the animal nations.

- At some point it would be revealed that the mutant chimpanzee that assisted the child's mother is still alive and possibly a member of the bunnies adventuring group. The chimpanzee would then reveal that the child's mother had almost finished the cure when she was taken away by soldiers to work at some survivors colony. The chimp was not allowed to accompany her and never heard of her again, assuming that she died along with the rest.

- Who else may be involved in the plot to infect the humans with the Proteus virus? What will the Empire do if/when they find out about the Proteus? Could the child's mother have survived? Could she have created the cure? What did she do with the cure?

Fifty Word Flash Fiction

While checking out some of my favorite sites, I read an article by Barry Smith (inktank.com) about this "Fifty Word Flash Fiction" thread he was participating in at Forumopolis.

I like the idea and think that it might help with some of the creative problems I've been facing lately. So I think I'll turn this into a regular practice in this blog. Read my first attempt below:

- - - - - - - - - -

Technicians stood in stunned silence and fear as alien creatures started emerging from the gateway.

The surface of the domed energy field that connected to this world with another glowed and rippled as creature after strange creature passed through the transdimensional breech.

"What fools we've been," thought the chief scientist.

A "Mutants in Orbit" Moment

Space sucks!

I don't care who you are, as long as you're in space you're always gonna be trapped in an over sized tin can, suckin stale recyc' air, and always lookin down on momma Earth.

I was born here on King Angel, and I was content with life here. The wing kept me busy while growing up, working in the assembly plant or in the docks. I always had food and a place to lay my head, and the occasional relationship. Things seemed good or at least palatable

But then reality sinks in. Around the time I turned 14 I started paying attention to the news and listening past the propaganda and fluff. I started realizing that life in this tin can wasn't as great as I was deluded to believe.

The average life expectancy for a fur who lives on King Angel is 21. That never really meant anything to me before, but then I learned why.

Most fur call it the squeeze. Though nobody really wants to talk about it, I've learned that it's caused because most people's brains can't take living in this tin can for too long. The fortunate ones are able to get work on a freebooter, or buy their own ship and get out. The not-so-fortunate take the "other" ways out--pills, alcohol, or suicide.

I don't know if it's like this on Outcast or Freedom stations, or if it's any better on the Moon, but I just know that before I turn 21, I've gotta get myself outta this place before I become just another statistic.

- Ian Denmark IV (19)

NOTES:
- "Mutants in Orbit™" is a sourcebook for both After the Bomb (first edition) and Rifts
- King Angel is Yuro Station