Zork

I watched the documentary "GET LAMP" last night and it made me want to play a new Interactive Fiction game. I've played a good deal of Adventure, but never really got into Zork. Today that changes.

I already have two pages of maps and the world is starting to come together. The entire game will be streaming on twitch, so check it out. 

http://www.twitch.tv/robot2600

Right now I've managed to get into this little murder shack in the woods and now I'm stealing stuff and hopefully getting into more trouble.

Again, I'm mapping it by hand so this is not a quick and easy endeavor.

 A staircase descends into the darkness. Time to go.

Atari Space Invaders

Just got back from a week at the beach. I brought my Flashback 2 with me, and played some Pitfall and Missile Command while recovering from sun, mini-golf, and Gulf Coast fishing. However, the one game I really wanted to play the entire time was Atari Space Invaders. 

I packed my laptop. I packed 3 Atari controllers. I packed the USB-to-Atari dongle. Certainly Stella was already loaded on this computer. It wasn't. Surely the cabin wifi would work. It didn't (and, also, it didn't matter).

Now I'm back and I've already raided Ice Crown Citadel (see: Warld of Worcorft) and I'm going to binge on a few hours of Space Invaders. Check it out on Twitch.tv if you're awake.

Unbanned from Twitch

No email or explanation, but at least I have my account back.

The entire episode remains unsettling.

Robot Banned from Twitch.tv

I tried to log into Twitch this morning and found out I was banned! They wouldn't tell me why, however, nor was any email sent to me explaining the reason.

A quick search online sees tons of other users getting banned for apparently no reason (likely an automated system is to blame).

I suspect that the cause is that I had been streaming "Big Easy Sleazy" (my game, see post below) and they flagged it as either copyright infringement (because it's footage of a non-finished game) or as non-gaming material (because they don't know what it is).

I've appealed their decision, but I felt like I had to make a post here because I've said a lot of good things about twitch recently, and also streamed some stuff like Crawl, ToME, Dwarf Fortress, GTA3, GTA4, and Need for Speed World. I can't really support Twitch anymore, and I strongly suspect that I'm never going to be unbanned and that I'll never hear back from them. Most others online report that this is almost always the case.

As someone who put a lot of time into developing a small subscriber base (55+ users and over 5k views in a month, thanks!) this is a drag. My time could have been better spent elsewhere. I've read several cases where people subscribed to twitch for the added features, then found their accounts banned with no explanation, no feedback, and no customer support.

This isn't exactly "breaking news" but I'll be fair to twitch. If they send me some response, I'll post it here. If they don't respond in about two weeks, I'll post a follow up. In the meantime: be skeptical of all things twitch.tv.

Big Easy Sleazy Preview

This game is called "Big Easy Sleazy" and it's a console-style RPG+Roguelike hybrid. It is set in a fake 1985 New Orleans. An angelic Power has brought you back to life because the city it watches over has become infested with street crime. You gotta grab your baseball bat, chains, broken bottles and crack some teeth.

This post might be haphazard, but what the hell, the game is good. Inspired by Nethack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, River City Ransom, Shenmue, and Persona 4.

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You pick a character/profession combo (currently there are 9 characters and 10 starting professions, with plans for even more.)

Character classes are not always your typical fantasy fair...

'80s Guy - Uses guns and sleaze to fight his way through the city. 

Mantis - Giant praying mantis that can not equip most of the awesome gear in the game, but gains insect powers like Acid Spit and Summon Swarm.

Zard 3 - A Pro Wrestler who deals tremendous damage. Suplex and Backbreak your enemies.

Warlock - Wield unholy demon magic.

Doctor - Use nanomachines and drugs to heal your team. Clone dead teammates and bring them back to life.

Necromancer - An undead skeleton who can, in turn, summon even more skeletons to fight his battles.

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Items

Currently there are almost 200 unique items in the game, and they can be found in briefcases around the town.

Most briefcases have a 50/50 chance of spawning in any given game -- requires risk vs reward calculations and preventing "perfect" runs.

Collect Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures from Gachopons (capsule machines) in the style of Shenmue!

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Roguelike Elements

-Permadeath if your party is wiped out
-Randomized dungeons. But not totally random. You will face similar versions of maps, somewhat similar to Diablo 2. Some maps may only have a few versions, others have over 1024 possible configurations.
-Huge city with at least 100 buildings you can actually enter.
-BRIEFCASES are the Treasure Chests of Big Easy Sleazy, they can all drop any item in the game, with an equal chance of a dropping a lowly soda or the coveted Plate Armor.

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Computers and Chemistry

Chemistry sets can be used to perform advance transmutations (i.e. turn a tooth into a skeleton or an eye into a swarm of frogs that will fight by your side). But you have to know chemistry first...

Terminals can be used by a knowledgable hacker to do everything from ordering pizza to downloading disks with permanent stat boosts which can be applied to your team.

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Professions

Executive - Start with all the cold, hard cash you need. But nothing else.

Psycho - Start with a huge random selection of gear for a unique game.

Chemist - Start with knowledge of advanced transmutations and a chemistry set in your apartment.

Chef - Start with the Couteau and Apron, solid items that almost anyone can equip. Also begin with more food than you can eat and your very own soda machine.

Entomologist - Begin the game with some Mantis and Ant eggs, which you can grow into deadly soldiers.

Also play as a Knight, King, Hacker, Gangster...and more!

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7 days to live

You only have 7 days to live in the "Big Easy." If you sleep in a bed to revive a character, you will lose a day. If all days are gone, you lose. If you clean up the city before then, you win.

Some Chemistry transmutations may require an entire day.

If you spend too much time on a computer you might waste a day playing an addicting video game!

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You can collect as many heros as you can, but only 4 can fight at once. If your battle party dies, it's game over.

I can't wait to show off more, I'll try to get a video of the current build up sometime soon.

What could this be?

It's a teaser screenshot.

Need 4 Speed World

Need for Speed World Online is a racing MMORPG. Sounds crazy, I know. It's also a Freemium (pay 2 win) game so it has to suck, right? Well I've played a few races and it seems pretty fucking fun to me. Don't worry about the pay 2 win stuff, I'm going into this game with the intention of never ever spending a cent. However, if it's fun I'll look more closely at the Need for Speed games in the future.

I'm gonna stream it for a while on Twitch if you want to check it out, hey maybe you'll even download it.

If this falls through, I'm going to go back to GTA4 tonight; I only have like 4 missions left in the main storyline.

www.twitch.tv/Robot2600