The man-eating, halitosic gorilla of Brazil

Before the main attraction, at long last another hyperfiction conversion (the last one was, well, a tough act to follow, instantly this blog's most popular post by a factor of 2 and rising), first a couple of CYO-related links. Select an Adventure appears to provide a framework for user-created, web-shared choose-your-own-adventure storygames. The logo is excellent and the included stories are much as one might expect. Also, I found an interesting biographical Twine piece by David Gallant I found inspirational, exploring his creative rebirth from being a frustrated gamer to a creative game-maker. Since both of these already play fine in your web browser without much additional technology, I haven't pulled them in for "conversion" here, but there is another piece presented below.

A curious storygame indeed presented for your approval today. Despite goofy in-game messages to the contrary, I have it on good authority that this is the work of one Marius Müller, aka "Taleslinger", whose approval for this venture I have sought and received. It's a work that was produced in early April 2011, after this blog itself here was well underway, under constraints. As best as I can glean, the rules of the Speed-IF Jacket 4 contest this was part of dictated that participants would start with silly book-jacket style blurbs provided by other IF authors, and would have to quickly (within a week) create a game matching their ridiculous praise. As you will see... mission accomplished! The game's original format was an Inform data-file (using an extension allowing it to be used like Jon Ingold's Adventure Book -- with its conspicuous, Chekhovian inventory item support) intended to be played in an interpreter program, hence (SPOILER ALERT) its bizarre (but intentional) conclusion imitating a computer glitch. With a build-up such as this game had, really anything beyond that point would have just been disappointing. I put in some extra work here implementing the Adventure Book extension's inventory support (used minimally here) and trying to revise the original work so as to remove most instances where readers return to the same juncture and are offered a choice already picked. The result, the gilded lily you see below!

. . .

The man-eating, halitosic gorilla of Brazil
An interactive fiction by Leaner Gilts, "Strangle" Lei, Gain Tellers and Slat Leering
Release 1 / Serial number 110416 / Inform 7 build 6G60 (I6/v6.32 lib 6/12N)
-- Created using Adventure Book for Inform 7 by Edward Griffiths
Based on Adventure Book by Jon Ingold

Start

There is darkness, and pain at the back of your head. Basic urges flow through your lizard brain, air, food, rest, smoochies, video games. After who knows how long you open your eyes. You're in some kind of interrogation room, small, cramped. The stone carvings on the moss-covered walls make this look like a lazily designed secret room from a videogame. With you in the room is a gorilla in a suit, who looks a bit like Ron Perlman. Only this gorilla has rocket launchers for arms. You close your eyes. "Oh no," you think to yourself, "not again."

And then you remember. The secret mission, from the new boss, who does look something like Michael Gambon: "Somewhere in the Brazilian jungle, there is a new mastermind at work. We know very little, only that he killed our best agent, Bonathan Jlask. And that he's hidden in some secret temple. Well, we've heard you know how to find such places. And how to get into them." You told him you're retired. "No," he said, firmly. "People like you never are." You were about to respond, but his secretary, the spitting image of Kirsten Dunst, already handed you the tickets.

Flash forward. The gorilla is looking at you. "What were you doing here?"

• "What do you mean? I am a botanist. I was looking for a special plant."
• "I am a secret agent for the world government!"
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

The gorilla sighs. "So, that's it? I don't even need to torture you! Well, goodbye." He aims one of his rocket launchers at you. For a second you ponder ducking.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

Blurbs used:
"Dude, even if you somehow get a movie deal out of this, it's rude to be picking out the actors already."

-- Sam Kabo Ashwell

"Unreliable narrator. Unreliable parser. For the love of little green eyeballs, why isn't anything in this game reliable?!?"

-- Carolyn VanEseltine

"The game's eponymous animal proved to be NONE of the adjectives the title proclaimed him to be, thank goodness.

-- Colin Sandel

"Smells like team spirit."

--Tanga

"The spiritual successor to Galatea, if Galatea had been about a gorilla with rocket launchers for arms."

-- C.E.J. Pacian

"Seemingly engineered to punch you right in the green slimy guts of your lizard brain."

--Sarah Morayati

"The minutely detailed simulation of the plant life was remarkable, if somewhat overwhelming."

-- David Fletcher

"The chariot race was one of the most thrilling, timed puzzles that I've ever enjoyed."

-- Royce Odle

Restart the game.

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

"I left the next biggest town a few days ago. My only companion was my guide, who did look a bit like Alfred Molina. Anyhoo, soon we arrived here and after some searching we found the plant. But then my guide fell into a hole. Some guide, I told myself as I attached my rope to a nearby statue. Only the statue had to be weighed down with sand from the nearby beach first, which I put in the linen bags which carried the clothes. Then I climbed down the hole. Down there, I felt like being eaten by a grue so I switched on my lamp. Only it didn't have any batteries. And my box full of batteries was guarded by a snake. I found a toy mouse to distract it, so I got my batteries. They were the wrong size. But with them, I could switch on the ventilator for Professor Bunglay, who in turn gave me his electric shaver, which did hold the right batteries. So I went back down there again, but when I finally could see, I didn't see my guide, I saw a sleeping tiger!"

• "I then decided to sneak up to it."
• "I then decided to wait a bit."
• "I probably should tell you about the plant!"
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

Coca (Erythroxylum coca) is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae,native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in traditional Andean culture. Coca is best known throughout the world because of its alkaloids, which include cocaine, a powerful stimulant.

The plant resembles a blackthorn bush, and grows to a height of 2-3 m (7-10 ft). The branches are straight, and the leaves, which have a green tint, are thin, opaque, oval, and taper at the extremities. A marked characteristic of the leaf is an areolated portion bounded by two longitudinal curved lines, one line on each side of the midrib, and more conspicuous on the under face of the leaf.

The flowers are small, and disposed in little clusters on short stalks; the corolla is composed of five yellowish-white petals, the anthers are heart-shaped, and the pistil consists of three carpels united to form a three-chambered ovary. The flowers mature into red berries.

The leaves are sometimes eaten by the larvae of the moth Eloria noyesi.

Species and classification

There are twelve main species and varieties. Two subspecies, Erythroxylum coca var. coca and Erythroxylum coca var. ipadu, are almost indistinguishable phenotypically; a related high cocaine-bearing species has two subspecies, Erythroxylum novogranatense var. novogranatense and Erythroxylum novogranatense var. truxillense that are phenotypically similar, but morphologically distinguishable. Under the older Cronquist system of classifying flowering plants, this was placed in an order Linales; more modern systems place it in the order Malpighiales.

Cultivation

Coca is traditionally cultivated in the lower altitudes of the eastern slopes of the Andes (the Yungas), or the highlands depending on the species grown. Since ancient times, its leaves have been an important trade commodity between the lowlands where it is grown and the higher altitudes where it is widely consumed by the Andean peoples of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia and northwestern Argentina.

• Go on.
• Continue telling the story.

. . .

Some papers you picked up three adventures ago. They are held together by a paperclip. Some intendations in your pack reflect where you very briefly counted among your possessions a brass lantern, an elven sword and a platinum bar, but alas, they are yours no longer.

• Return to the game.

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

With a back-to-basics roar the gorilla storms up to you. He growls, inches from your face. Finally he then hits you on the nose with a rocket launcher. Which is far less funny than it sounds. "STOP STALLING, HUMAN!"

• "I then decided to sneak nearer to it."

. . .

Fresh samples of the dried leaves are uncurled, are of a deep green on the upper, and a grey-green on the lower surface, and have a strong tea-like odor. When chewed, they produce a pleasurable numbness in the mouth, and have a pleasant, pungent taste. They are traditionally chewed with lime to increase the release of the active ingredients from the leaf. Older species have a camphoraceous smell and a brownish color, and lack the pungent taste.

The seeds are sown from December to January in small plots (almacigas) sheltered from the sun, and the young plants when at 40-60 cm in height are placed in final planting holes (aspi), or if the ground is level, in furrows (uachos) in carefully weeded soil. The plants thrive best in hot, damp and humid locations, such as the clearings of forests; but the leaves most preferred are obtained in drier areas, on the hillsides. The leaves are gathered from plants varying in age from one and a half to upwards of forty years, but only the new fresh growth is harvested. They are considered ready for plucking when they break on being bent. The first and most abundant harvest is in March after the rainy season, the second is at the end of June, and the third in October or November. The green leaves (matu) are spread in thin layers on coarse woollen cloths and dried in the sun; they are then packed in sacks, which must be kept dry in order to preserve the quality of the leaves.

• -continue to tell the story-

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

The gorilla tries to wave his rocket launchers dismissively. He fails. He then says, "Who are you trying to fool? You wouldn't approach a dangerous animal if you were, indeed, a renowned botanist. You know what I think you are? You are AFGNCAAP, the famous IF agent. I have a hard time making out anything specific about you, and that's just odd for a fictional world that has something as weird as a me, a gorilla with rocket launchers for hands! So tell me, am I right?"

• "Yes, I am a secret agent. My mission is to kill you."
• "No. See, this is CYOA. It doesn't even have a parser or an inventory!"
• "Yeah, a gorilla with rocket launcher hands. That *is* odd. Please tell me your story."
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated. "Then what? Did you lie around all day? What happened? Nothing? Are you still there?"

• "I then decided to wait some more."
• "I then decided to sneak up to it."

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

The gorilla, moving his rocket launcher not unlike someone handling chopsticks for the first time, puts three items down before you. A brass lantern, an elven sword and a platinum bar. Sweat breaks out on your brow. Oh no. He's on to you. "Now tell me, Mr. or Mrs. AFGNCAAP... what would be your first action if I do this...?"

And, pressing a button on his one launcher with his other launcher, your cuffs click open. Free. But it's no use.

• >GET ALL
• >GET ALL
• >GET ALL
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

Some papers you picked up three adventures ago. They are held together by a paperclip. You think that if you shift your load carefully, you can find room for a brass lantern, an elven sword and a platinum bar.

• Return to the game.

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated. "Then what? Did you lie around all day? What happened? What? Eh? Speak up!"

• "I then decided to wait some more."
• "I then decided to sneak up to it."

. . .

Quicker than you can say cutscene, you're tied up again. The gorilla looks at you. "You know, I always envied you. Getting all the treasures, defending all those thieves. Solving all those fiendish puzzles. But now look. What has the world come to? All these angsty protagonists with their guilt-ridden backstories, all these branching narratives. You live in a world that no longer needs you. The puzzle is dead. But don't worry, soon you will be as well!"

With that, he lifts his rocket launcher!

• Try to get back to that one childhood memory you always shut out, and mentally reconcile with your mother.
• Choose any incidental memory that just happens to pop up.
• "Please, we can talk about this!"
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated. "Then what? Did you lie around all day? What happened? What? Eh?"

• "I then decided to sneak up to it."
• "I then decided to wait some more."

. . .

"Oh yeah, I bet you'd like a dialogue tree now? Lots of options to choose from? Maybe suggested topics? A long and involved talk, with me switching moods? Well, lemme tell you. Right now I am in a KILLING MOOD!"

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

Quicker than you can say cutscene, you're tied up again. The gorilla looks at you. "You know, I always envied you. Getting all the treasures, defending all those thieves. Solving all those fiendish puzzles. But now look. What has the world come to? All these angsty protagonists with their guilt-ridden backstories, all these branching narratives. You live in a world that no longer needs you. The puzzle is dead. But don't worry, soon you will be as well!"

With that, he lifts his rocket launcher!

• Try to get back to that one childhood memory you always shut out, and mentally reconcile with your mother.
• Choose any incidental memory that just happens to pop up.
• "Please, we can talk about this!"
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

Some papers you picked up three adventures ago. They are held together by a paperclip.

• Return to the game.

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated. "Then what? Did you lie around all day? What happened?"

• "I then decided to wait some more."
• "I then decided to sneak up to it."

. . .

Okay, you finally reconcile with all she has said and done. After all those items in her old house triggered those memories, you feel like you finally understood her. You have grown yourself, in the intervening years. You now longer wear the innocent face of a child or the self-righteous, stern look of a teenager. You're grown. Maybe you have grown to forgive. Who kno... Sorry to interrupt, but you're being blown apart by a rocket launcher.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated. "Then what? Did you lie around all day?"

• "I then decided to wait some more."
• "I then decided to sneak up to it."

. . .

Hey, you found a schematic for a rocket launcher in that one game on that space station with the pirates. It said if someone said "Niereleelrieleilieleelieleilieleiii", the rocket launcher would deactivate.

• "Niereleelreileilieleeleileilieleiii"
• "Niereleelrieleliieleelieleilieleiii"
• "Niereleelreileilieleelieleilieleiii"
• "Niereleelrieleilieleelieleilieleiii"
• "Niereleelreileilleleeleileilieleiii"
• "Niereleelrieleliieleelieleilieleiii"

. . .

Quicker than you can say cutscene, you're tied up again. The gorilla looks at you. "You know, I always envied you. Getting all the treasures, defending all those thieves. Solving all those fiendish puzzles. But now look. What has the world come to? All these angsty protagonists with their guilt-ridden backstories, all these branching narratives. You live in a world that no longer needs you. The puzzle is dead. But don't worry, soon you will be as well!"

With that, he lifts his rocket launcher!

• Try to get back to that one childhood memory you always shut out, and mentally reconcile with your mother.
• Choose any incidental memory that just happens to pop up.
• "Please, we can talk about this!"
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

Some papers you picked up three adventures ago. They are held together by a paperclip.

• Return to the game.

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated. "Then what?"

• "I then decided to wait some more."
• "I then decided to sneak up to it."

. . .

"Many a year ago, I was a happy AI in a rocket launcher, the newest and deadliest in weapons technology. Straight on our way to SkyNet, we were. But then some crazy scientist attached a gorilla to me. And now see how I look. Completely stupid! That's why I want to take over the world. Anyway, let me reiterate my question."

The gorilla tries to wave his rocket launchers dismissively. He fails. He then says, "Who are you trying to fool? You wouldn't approach a dangerous animal if you were, indeed, a renowned botanist. You know what I think you are? You are AFGNCAAP, the famous IF agent. I have a hard time making out anything specific about you, and that's just odd for a fictional world that has something as weird as a me, a gorilla with rocket launchers for hands! So tell me, am I right?"

• "Yes, I am a secret agent. My mission is to kill you."
• "No. See, this is CYOA. It doesn't even have a parser or a working inventory!"

. . .

"So?" says the Gorilla, irritated.

• "I then decided to wait some more."
• "I then decided to sneak nearer up on it."

. . .

Like a stubborn idea hammered into a pupil's head by a determined teacher, the rocket launcher clicks. "Uh?" says the gorilla. "Must reactivate it.

Sorry for the hassle. This'll just take a second."

• Do nothing, as it looks like you can do nothing. Just wait for death. Nothing to do. No, no. Just see another death message.
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

While the gorilla is distracted, you bend the paperclip into a lockpick and you are free. As he sees this, the brute follows cliche instead of logic and runs away! You are right behind him , through endless, winding catacombs, always nearly but never quite losing him, as he rounds a corner or climbs some vines. Finally, there is blinding daylight! You blink into it, as you see your enemy jump into one of two waiting, ostrich-pulled chariots. You jump into the second one and whip the ostriches into moving! (Probably breaking some Protection of Animals Act.) Speaking of harmed animals, there is a ridiculously cute baby sloth in the middle of the road!

• You drive over it, gaining more speed.
• You swerve around.
• Consult your inventory.

. . .

Some papers you picked up three adventures ago. They are held together by a paperclip.

• Return to the game.

. . .

Squish! This will have no gameplay consequences whatsoever. I am making an important point about morality in games here!

The exciting chase (music not included) leads you up a stony mountain path. It grows smaller and smaller, but you gain on the gorilla. He sees you behind him and pulls his reins to the right, to crash, er, right into you! You have to make a quick decision!1! No time to lose !11!1

• You decide to slow your ostriches a bit.
• You decide to whip your ostriches into full speed.
• You decide to swerve into him yourself!

. . .

Woosh! The baby sloth looks at you with big, thankful eyes. This will have no gameplay consequences whatsoever. I am making an important point about morality in games here!

The exciting chase (music not included) leads you up a stony mountain path. It grows smaller and smaller, but you gain on the gorilla. He sees you behind him and pulls his reins to the right, to crash, er, right into you! You have to make a quick decision!1! No time to lose !11!1

• You decide to slow your ostriches a bit.
• You decide to whip your ostriches into full speed.
• You decide to swerve into him yourself!

. . .

You decide to ram the gorilla! This works better than expected. Both chariots get wedged into each other, and soon you both swerve off the road and tumble down the mountain in a twisted mass of ostrich, chariot, gorilla and player character. You are swallowed by the green of the jungle. You are food for the insects, etc. This is not the optimal ending, in case you're wondering.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

Some papers from 3 adventures ago that you never dropped.

• Return to the game.

. . .

You slow down, and predictably, the gorilla swerves his chariot - right into thin air! Ostriches and chariot dance the same old, short and painful dance with gravity, but the gorilla clinges to the edge of the rock. He can't really get a grip with his rocket launcher, though, and he slides downwards ever so slowly. "LISTEN!" he screams, scrambling. "This is bigger than you and me. Bigger than everything! I can give you names, addresses, phone numbers, twitter names, flickr links."

"Who is it, primate? Who is behind this sketchily defined 'this'?"

"It's the Player-PC divsion, they're onto us, the implementors are on to us, but it's too late it's
***Source file ended in the middle of quoted text: main source text. This probably means that a quotation mark is missing somewhere. If you are using Inform with syntax colouring, look for where the quoted-text colour starts. (Sometimes this problem turns up because a piece of quoted text contains a text substitution in square brackets which in turn contains another piece of quoted text -- this is not allowed, and causes me to lose track.)***

You have won!

. . .

You try to pass the gorilla, but her accelerates his swerving maneuver and crashes into you. Your chariot looses ground, and you tumble down the mountain in a twisted mass of ostrich, chariot, and player character. You are swallowed by the green of the jungle. You are food for the insects, etc. This is not the optimal ending, in case you're wondering.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

. . .

Some papers you picked up three adventures ago. They are held together by a paperclip.

• Use the paperclip.
• Return to the game.

. . .

While the gorilla is distracted, you bend the paperclip into a lockpick and you are free. As he sees this, the brute follows cliche instead of logic and runs away! You are right behind him, through endless, winding catacombs, always nearly but never quite losing him, as he rounds a corner or climbs some vines. Finally, there is blinding daylight! You blink into it, as you see your enemy jump into one of two waiting, ostrich-pulled chariots. You jump into the second one and whip the ostriches into moving! (Probably breaking some Protection of Animals Act.) Speaking of harmed animals, there is a ridiculously cute baby sloth in the middle of the road!

• You drive over it, gaining more speed.
• You swerve around.

. . .

Start

There is darkness, and pain at the back of your head. Basic urges flow through your lizard brain, air, food, rest, smoochies, video games. After who knows how long you open your eyes. You're in some kind of interrogation room, small, cramped. The stone carvings on the moss-covered walls make this look like a lazily designed secret room from a videogame. With you in the room is a gorilla in a suit, who looks a bit like Ron Perlman. Only this gorilla has rocket launchers for arms. You close your eyes. "Oh no," you think to yourself, "not again."

And then you remember. The secret mission, from the new boss, who does look something like Michael Gambon: "Somewhere in the Brazilian jungle, there is a new mastermind at work. We know very little, only that he killed our best agent, Bonathan Jlask. And that he's hidden in some secret temple. Well, we've heard you know how to find such places. And how to get into them." You told him you're retired. "No," he said, firmly. "People like you never are." You were about to respond, but his secretary, the spitting image of Kirsten Dunst, already handed you the tickets.

Flash forward. The gorilla is looking at you. "What were you doing here?"

• "What do you mean? I am a botanist. I was looking for a special plant."
• "I am a secret agent for the world government!"

. . .

"I left the next biggest town a few days ago. My only companion was my guide, who did look a bit like Alfred Molina. Anyhoo, soon we arrived here and after some searching we found the plant. But then my guide fell into a hole. Some guide, I told myself as I attached my rope to a nearby statue. Only the statue had to be weighed down with sand from the nearby beach first, which I put in the linen bags which carried the clothes. Then I climbed down the hole. Down there, I felt like being eaten by a grue so I switched on my lamp. Only it didn't have any batteries. And my box full of batteries was guarded by a snake. I found a toy mouse to distract it, so I got my batteries. They were the wrong size. But with them, I could switch on the ventilator for Professor Bunglay, who in turn gave me his electric shaver, which did hold the right batteries. So I went back down there again, but when I finally could see, I didn't see my guide, I saw a sleeping tiger!"

• "I then decided to sneak up to it."
• "I then decided to wait a bit."
• "I probably should tell you about the plant!"

. . .

The gorilla tries to wave his rocket launchers dismissively. He fails. He then says, "Who are you trying to fool? You wouldn't approach a dangerous animal if you were, indeed, a renowned botanist. You know what I think you are? You are AFGNCAAP, the famous IF agent. I have a hard time making out anything specific about you, and that's just odd for a fictional world that has something as weird as a me, a gorilla with rocket launchers for hands! So tell me, am I right?"

• "Yes, I am a secret agent. My mission is to kill you."
• "No. See, this is CYOA. It doesn't even have a parser or an inventory!"
• "Yeah, a gorilla with rocket launcher hands. That *is* odd. Please tell me your story."

. . .

The gorilla, moving his rocket launcher not unlike someone handling chopsticks for the first time, puts three items down before you. A brass lantern, an elven sword and a platinum bar. Sweat breaks out on your brow. Oh no. He's on to you. "Now tell me, Mr. or Mrs. AFGNCAAP... what would be your first action if I do this...?"

And, pressing a button on his one launcher with his other launcher, your cuffs click open. Free. But it's no use.

• >GET ALL
• >GET ALL
• >GET ALL

. . .

Quicker than you can say cutscene, you're tied up again. The gorilla looks at you. "You know, I always envied you. Getting all the treasures, defending all those thieves. Solving all those fiendish puzzles. But now look. What has the world come to? All these angsty protagonists with their guilt-ridden backstories, all these branching narratives. You live in a world that no longer needs you. The puzzle is dead. But don't worry, soon you will be as well!"

With that, he lifts his rocket launcher!

• Try to get back to that one childhood memory you always shut out, and mentally reconcile with your mother.
• Choose any incidental memory that just happens to pop up.
• "Please, we can talk about this!"

. . .

A direct hit by the rocket launcher. Your last thoughts go out to the cleaning crew here. You feel sorry for them.

*** You have died ***

Would you like to Restart or Look at what others had to say about this?

Grab Bag redux

Though no one has gone so far as to actually comment on my recent RFC blog post, I have received some interesting suggestions on Google+ and Facebook for audience-led decision-making mechanisms in live musical performance. In addition to revisitations of the card and text-messaging systems, some of the new highlights include...

"Darts!" A wheel-of-fortune-esque random determinant, perhaps invoked by audience throwing ability. Also lends a degree of knife-thrower suspense, especially if the dart board is mounted on an instrument! But only with extraordinary throwing skill can the selection said to be "chosen" rather than "arrived at". If we just wanted random seeds, there are all sorts of ways we could generate them. (Chickenshit bingo!)

M Mike Dowler volunteered a cavalcade of different ideas, yielding a species of choose-your-own choose-your-own-adventure adventure:

Programmes are red on one side, green on the other. Audience holds them up to vote.
Giant blow up ball tossed into the audience. Whichever side of the room it's on at the given moment, dictates the choice.
A soloist stands up and solos as long as at least one member of the audience is standing as well.
Key members of the audience are given different coloured balloons with helium. When they are released to the ceiling, different events happen.
A dog is allowed to run freely around the room. It's actions affect the score.
Audience sings. Higher notes give one choice, Lower another. Volume and enthusiasm sway the vote.
Audience is encouraged to get up and move a prop on stage to affect the direction of the music. Ie. a rock in or out of a circle, a figurine in a diorama, an angel and a devil to indicate what the main character would do.
And if any of that fails, live tweeting via smart phones.

Matthew Schuler presented a brilliant scheme that not only involves the audience in the decision-making, but also in the performance itself:

"are you intending to present the choices in the chorus, then use that decision to select the text of the next verse? a call and response maybe, giving one choice one line to sing either against or after the other?"

These are all valuable food for thought, confronting me to question which elements of the performance and interactivity are most important to me. There will be further reports in the future, to be sure.

In the meantime, between this scheming and the runaway success of my most recent CYO conversion here (well on track to be the blog's most popular post by a factor of two despite the long tail advantage the other posts cherish) this blog is overall well on the way to achieving its next thousand-views milestone, a kingly 3000 views. (I know, we're no Slashdot here, but considering that's roughly 2998 more views than I ever expected to garner, I think we're doing pretty well here.) At our last millennial milestone I turned over a leaf from my video game ad blog and posted an ad for a gamebook series. Well, while perusing a pile of '80s basement Dragon magazines for lack of comic books to cannibalize, I've since found a much better quality version of that ad -- oftentimes you'll find two versions of the same ad for printing on different grades of paper stock: good ad on the inside cover, crappy ad in the middle. This version is so swell it makes the earlier post look like a water-damaged cocktail napkin concept sketch!

They may have been waiting a while to come up with enough scratch to pay for the higher-quality version of the ad (did TSR really take money out of one pocket into another to advertise their own projects in their house organs? a zero-sum philosophy I often opine upon when observing Ripley's Believe It Or Not promoted on Pattison billboards -- ah, but I digress!), as this ad features later books in the series in the thumbnails at top centre.

These gamebooks weren't such valuable commodities however that we don't see them a few pages later being given away for free -- including the very volume featured in the rough-sketch's showcase spot, Rose Estes' Circus of Fear, a volume I credit with imparting into myself most of the (admittedly scant) carnie knowledge ("Hey, rube!") I relied on when writing a (abandoned) circus-themed comic book series a decade ago. But only one digression per post!

Systems for interactiv-izing (?) live music performance

This post isn't a new hyperfiction conversion for you fine folks, unfortunately, but rather some ground-floor scheming that will hopefully lead to a hyperfictive (ugh!) work for live performance (reproducible online, I suppose, like The Haircut or A Dark And Deadly Path.) In one of my alternate lives, I'm an accordion player. So much so that I actually founded and ran an accordion festival, which will in September of 2013 be celebrating its 6th year. But because I am the kind of accordion player whose brain remains filled with thoughts about choose-your-own narratives even when pressing buttons and squeezing bellows, I've chosen that august occasion as a self-imposed deadline for composing a work that has long been weighing on my mind: a musical choose-your-own-adventure suite, which runs according to input received from the audience.

This raises two immediate thorny issues: a) you're going to have to write a lot of songs most audiences will never hear! and b) how precisely do you intend to receive the input from the audience? The first issue has a potential solution in musical re-use -- maybe most choices in the third tier of songs will use the same melody and chords, and only have different lyrics, so only a dozen different songs need to be written -- but then customized three or nine or eighty-one times with little tweaks reflective of the previous choices (though I must confess, the musical recycling was one of the most disappointing aspects of The Haircut for me.) (And of course, Cave of Time sprawling disconnected growth doesn't have to continue indefinitely -- choices can be fans, but fan choices can still lead back into bottlenecks.)

The second issue is more complex. There are several approaches that immediately come to mind, all with their distinct advantages and disadvantages. We can look at precedents: Ayn Rand's 1934 interactive play The Night of January 16th is a courtroom drama that calls jurors from the audience up on stage, then sequesters them to deliberate between one of two verdicts (what interactivity!) while acting continues on-stage for the benefit of the rest of the audience. (Savvy show biz acumen - I figured it would happen during an intermission!) But it's inadequately democratic for my purposes, non-interactive for most, and even for those who get to influence its direction, a single choice isn't mind-blowing agency. May as well read them The Lady, or the Tiger?

Are there musical precedents? Scott Hazell's Aenigma seemed like it might point the way, but all we have to go on is a soundtrack to one initial choice, not getting us any further than Ayn Rand did. Maylee Todd's non-interactive album Choose Your Own Adventure was also unhelpful, muddying the waters. There are CDs and podcasts of musical and radio-play-style CYO adventures, but in their case the choice is always made by skipping to a different track number with your CD player, not a great option for live performance.

But there is hope. The Cadenza Collective have an approach that works great within certain parameters. Features of their method include instant responsiveness and an aggressive market capitalization. But each variable is rigid, which makes for a broad but shallow set of choices, and you don't get to complete one selection before the next kicks in, like a magic remote control or Mr. Bean's group of Christmas carolers slavishly adhering to the movements of the conductor's baton. Queuing up the requests like a jukebox wouldn't make a lot of sense in the heat of the moment. Perhaps the system can be tweaked. (I gather that John Zorn's COBRA project involves the use of randomized cards which influence the direction the music goes, which is an interesting idea but probably somewhat beyond my scope -- it's an intriguing field but beyond the baby steps I'm taking here.) I had an idea of issuing audience members a token or pebble, to be placed into a set of scales front and centre on stage, each side keyed to one choice or another. Very theatrical, but then you get this crush at the end of a song where everyone has to weigh in, and the scales need to be wiped clear between songs, and the tokens perhaps redistributed (or we just deal with an enormous quantity of bread-tie style tokens.) (This idea has been reskinned a few ways, including throwing stuffed animals into bins representing choices. That gets the band pelted by teddy bears, always the crowd's favourite option.) Also, when working with weighted scales, it restricts you to binary choices.

Similarly restrictive would be the approach used by Best Before, an interactive projection work accepting audience input from joysticks installed in every seat, where members got to vote on laws of a new society. Players were actually represented on-screen by little blobs, and made their choice by hopping their avatars to one side or the other of the playfield, the floor tipping like scale platters. It was cumbersome, not just because of the tech infrastructure required (a problem weighing down similar options of clickers, texting in to an online vote-counter, or twinking laser pointers at targets), but just due to the tedious jostling needed to haul your sorry blob from one end of the screen to the other. The low-tech version might require the audience to actually rally to choice locations on-site, which could on some level result in fun tromping hither and yon, but it's inelegant to be sure especially on a tight schedule, and takes focus away from what's going on on-stage.

Similarly inelegant, presenting choices to the crowd and measuring their approval through the volume of applause. I hate the way this stuff bogs down poetry slams, though I understand that it's part of the hyping pageantry spectacle that contributes to the slam's success: if you're clapping for something at all times, at the end of three hours you will probably remember yourself as having enjoyed yourself. But it takes a lot of time -- including vote-tallying, well over half of the slam's running time. If I'm going to perform a 15 minute work, I don't want to spend 10 of those minutes trying to interpret audience volume. (And, horrifyingly, what happens if no one feels strongly enough for the options presented to clap for any of them?) Ideally one song will flow seamlessly into the next without interruption, after sizing up the crowd's intent instantly, at a glance. I know, I'm gradually throwing in enough criteria for my "ideal" technique that I may soon rule out everyone's best ideas.

Another idea cleaving closer to that ideal is the use of paper cards, coloured differently on each side (or with actual numbers written on their faces.) They can be flashed very quickly, though they do take a while to tally from the stage (and more than a while, depending on lighting.) They're handy for communicating landslide choices, but for situations of parity counting them up (and ensuring that they remain held up for the whole tabulation!) could easily get bogged down.

One suggestion was to solicit crowd input at the start of the night and use it to "generate" the set list, but ignoring the inconvenience of feeding punch cards into the ScanTron backstage, its interactivity is opaque -- you don't get the immediate kick of seeing a choice made, then being run with. Also, it's impossible to make informed choices without the context of how the story has unfolded thus far -- and if the audience does get fully up to speed beforehand with the libretto of choices, then the performance harbours few surprises with which to delight and challenge them!

Another option: just improvise everything based on crowd suggestions. I'll get back to you after I negotiate a good rate with Phish.

The current front-runner is an odd duck synthesizing a few of these techniques. A species of "talking stick" is released into the crowd at the start of the piece, perhaps bearing two faces like a protest sign -- a coloured card writ large -- and whoever is holding it when the choice comes up gets to make the decision before passing it along to someone else to make the next choice. Then "the crowd" isn't making any choices, but all choices come from representatives OF the crowd. No tabulation is required, and unpopular choices may still be supported by perverse representatives -- just like in the Senate! The biggest problem built into this method is figuring out what to do if someone takes the talking stick and runs out the front door with it.

That said, unless you can come up with a better approach for us to take, that probably is the angle we're going to run with. What are your thoughts? What have I missed? Here's out chance to get all meta: audience input on the subject of audience input.

... And as a reward for those who read all the way to the bottom -- something that's recently been tickling my friends in Portland, two CYO stories exploring how such texts might have looked had they been written under totalitarian socialist hegemony: Select A Decision, a conceit as authentically Soviet as the backwards R in Tetris.