Turn To Page 4: Baud Dudes CYOA

Here you go, folks, first post of the year! -- a new hyperfiction conversion for your playing-through convenience, hot off the presses... it appeared in yesterday's Blocktronics artpack, a coterie of technological throwbacks who extol the virtues of ANSI art (circa MS-DOS BBSes) and demonstrate their virtuosity with this long-dead medium. Some of its members more than others conflate the context with the text, and use their works to nostalgically celebrate the nerd culture of the late '80s-early '90s, none more so than Reset Survivor, an artist with a burgeoning side practice largely unrelated to textmode artwork. In a deft piece of wordplay, the artpack is subtitled "BAUD DUDES", and included therein r5 penned a peculiar work of what amounts to hyperfiction fanfic of Data East's 1988 arcade game Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja. (Surreal Data East mascot fire-breathing Russian strongman Karnov, first boss of Bad Dudes, is still here, but refigured in reverse as VONRAK, the champion of the SPACE NINJAZ. Six of one, half dozen of the other...)

If I had more time on my hands I would have transcribed it in its entirety (by saving the ANSI to ASCII, most of that work will be already done for me), but that will have to wait for the future benefit of hypothetical visually impaired readers. (You're not exactly missing Shakespeare here.) In a curious nod to the '80s milieu, the hypertext references are phrased a la BASIC instructions, enjoying GOTO statements akin to the ones we last saw back in 2010's posting of the 1982 program You Are A Detective.

Admittedly it has been a while -- my most recent hyperfiction conversion here was in October of 2013, some 2.5 years ago. What can I say, I've been busy with other projects. (Did I mention that I have two small children now? Someday they will enjoy their father's CYOA collection.) In short, all of the low-hanging fruit had been already picked by me. The Active Fiction Project remains a going concern -- indeed, they are seeking submissions again from (local) hyperfiction authors -- but in deference to their requests I have refrained from publicly recapitulating their complete narratives. I am backed up on reviewing two or three of them, but since you won't have a chance to try them for yourselves, they've been low priority.

This one, on the other hand, you do have a chance to try for yourself... so here goes!

Are you a BAUD enough DUDE to rescue DONNIE?

If you are, GOTO AA
If you are not, GOTO AB
WTF4? GOTO AC

Looking around your enclosure, you notice something you might want to bring with you.

If you choose to bring your zippo lighter, GOTO BC
If you choose to bring a ham sandwich, GOTO BD

* * *

Do you decide to help your country, and DONNIE?

If you do, GOTO BA
If you do not, GOTO BB

A slow rumble starts to build beneath your feet. A set of two glowing circles appear before you. One white and one red. You remember that you're supposed to stand on one of them but .. man, it's been so long that you've forgotten which one is for the radiation blow back. Hmmmm ...