Mark Bell (A work in progress)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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This game, and title, are still in progress. I currently only have the prologue finished, but I plan to keep releasing new scenes as they’re made.

This is the first choice script game I’ve made, barring a few practice scenes I made in an unreleased project.

If you have time, you’d be doing me an enormous favor by trying this story out by following the link below:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/132442611/dfabulich-choicescript-677b975/dfabulich-choicescript-677b975/web/FG/index.html

Admittedly its not quite ready for prime time. I’ve worked out the bugs and typos (hopefully), but it’s not quite as edited as I’d want it to be. I’m afraid I’m still a bit too close to the prologue’s writing. After finishing a few scenes I’ll go back and start improving the opening passage.

If you have any feedback please leave either a comment, or send me a message here: odic_hastings@yahoo.com

Any suggestions you have would help me greatly, and I’d be very grateful for them. Thank you for taking the time to read this thread, and have a wonderful day.

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This looks interesting, so id guess that the MC will have to like live among these aliens? perhaps the white militia is conducting some sort of arrangement with these aliens?

Seems to have hinted of there being no powers in this game, but i suppose it still is interesting!

The timely stop of the entire demo—most painful xD i wanted to know more!

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It’s actually kinda funny, I wasn’t planning to put the WIP up this soon. I didn’t really feel like I had given enough details to make it remotely satisfying to play, but then I reached the end of that prologue, looked at that final line, and thought…

Yes. This is where I’ll end the prologue. Now is the time to post this thing.

There was a weird giddiness in stopping it on that point. Basically just me going “Hee-hee, they’re gonna hate this!”

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OMG YOU TOTALLY PLANNED THIS!

– I suppose youre right about me hating it, damn! If only i knew more about these hairy fuzzy aliens :0

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So, humanity is fighting against wookies, basically. But more claws and sharp teeth. At least that’s what they want the public to believe.

Ah well, we’ll see how this turns out. I actually like the fact that you are Mark Bell and can’t choose. I hope you take the opportunity to let us shape the personality of Mark with choices to come, since all He is now is a bunch of resolve who’s got to do something about the alien furbies.

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This is quite interesting. I’ll like to see how this wip turns out. A few mistakes I encountered while playing

1.) “during the last minutes of the final class of the day, the teacher’s phone rang.”
I believe this was in the second page after choosing whether the monster cartoon was appropriate or not. “during” should be “During” since it is the first word in the sentence.

2.) "To Mark’s surprise

no other members of Humanity’s militia were present."

I think after the word “surprise”, there should be a comma to indicate a break.

That’s all for now.

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Looks good so for also like that the mc seems to be very perceive of his surroundings and can be blunt in some of his responses (that picture is fake).
Very tired of the timid or overly trusting MCs

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It’s kind of funny! Not so favored.

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“We’ve already cleared it with your parents, so your covered.”
“your” should be “you’re”

the premise of this game is interesting. I look forward to future updates.

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Thanks for the corrections Darkner, and AdamGoodtime. I’ve made the corrections on the local copy, but I haven’t pushed them to the dropbox yet. I’ll probably just do that as one huge thing with the release of the next scene.

@Xhandas_Antonidas
“If only I knew more about these hairy fuzzy aliens :0”

…yeah, total honesty here? I don’t even know anything about them. I find I do my best writing when its by the seat of my pants so… yeah. I literally have no clue what they are. I don’t even have a name for them, which is becoming problematic in chapter 1. Its getting a little awkward calling them ‘creatures’ or ‘monsters’ repeatedly. I don’t even know if they’re aliens, and probably won’t find out until we reach the part of the story where they appear for the first time and I’m forced to answer questions like that.

Lets hope they turn out good, huh?

@Chaana
I actually don’t like second person narrations too much. I noticed a lot of interactive fiction uses it, and just gambled on nobody minding. As for shaping his personality, there’s actually some variables set up for it. Most of the choices made during the prologue influence them, but there isn’t much dialogue that’s effected by it.

Truthfully, it’ll probably end up being fairly simple, this being my first choice script game and all.

@Darkner

Thanks for keeping an eye out. It really helps me put this thing together.

@Alwayswandering

Thanks! I’m not too familiar with what’s cliche when it comes to these games. I’ve only played a few so far. So, any originality with the protagonist is just pure luck.

@ErinShan

Thanks, man. “Not so favored”? If I had to take a shot in the dark… autocorrect?

@AdamGoodtime

Thanks for the correction, and compliment. I’ll be sure to keep putting out updates.

Got about 100 lines of Chapter 1 knocked out before I came to reply to all this. Hopeful I’ll get another 100 before going to bed.

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I’ve noticed some people creating a completely new link when they update their games, with the old link no longer working. It doesn’t seem to be necessary, if I only overwrite the text files (I think.)

So I’m doing a test push here to see if the old link still works. As a consequence of this, Chapter one has an early release, though it’s not finished. Nor is it even slightly edited. I only worked out the bugs. Beware, if you choose to read ahead, terribly unpolished writing awaits!

As always, thanks for taking a look at this project.

And just in case the old link really doesn’t work:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/132442611/dfabulich-choicescript-677b975/dfabulich-choicescript-677b975/web/FG/index.html

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And so Chapter One is complete. Not quite as edited as I’d like, but like before, I’m still just a little to close to my own writing. I’ll give it a proper editing after I get a few chapters ahead of it.

Reading is introduced as a mechanic this chapter, though too far into it to demonstrate how it really works. But, basically you just set books to be passively read. As the game progresses the protagonist will steadily make progress through them, boosting some variables.

Still no clue what to call the critters he’ll eventually be meeting. I’ve got time though, it’ll probably be another chapter before his first meeting with them.

Since there’s a link right above me, I won’t bother posting one this time. Old ones should still work.

As always, thanks for reading!

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Okay, maybe it’s just me, but the humanity people seem painted a bit heavy handed with the implication that the are the spiritual inheritors of the KKK and the militia men who are just waiting for the UN to conquer the US.

Now maybe your intention was to make them seem like a joke and then have it reveal that they are in fact 100% right, but if the intention is for the PC to find out that in fact the monsters are just people who might howl at the moon, drink blood, or have tentacles I’d tone down the dogmatic rhetoric and let us discover the truth for ourselves when we actually have firsthand experience, because no matter how silly the dogma when people are taught what to think instead of how to think they won’t be able to tell its silly.

The PC should probably be worrying about getting eaten, but as I’m reading the game I’m thinking “Oh yah I get to escape the loony camp before they go all Jonestown and expect me to drink the flavor aid.”

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OK where do you see the whole kkk and militia worrying about UK invading thing at? And for that matter what’s up with that comparison? I’m probably stepping out of line with this especially since this isn’t even my thread and i apologize but that comparison bugs me.

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@stsword
Hmm, I suppose I can see your point. When I was writing Edward and Mark’s little exchange I was worried it was going a little over the top. In truth, there were more than a few things I wasn’t happy about Chapter ‘won’ in retrospect. In fact, I already rewrote and extended the tail end of it. Mostly just bringing the parent back into the picture. (The more I thought about that bit, the more I disliked it.)

I’ll sit on it for now, and see if that part can’t be rewritten into something a little better after I get some distance from that scene. Thanks for the honest criticism; it’s always appreciated.

@Alwayswandering
I guess he meant it in the more general sense of ‘people living on the outskirts of society being paranoid about being invaded for their race’ type deal. Admittedly, these people keeping themselves isolated(-ish) from society and disliking an entire species is bound to bring up some comparisons with unsavory groups.

Trying to play this slightly differently would probably be wise on my part.

We’ll see how it all falls in line further on I guess.

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Well just in case the author’s comment didn’t answer your question, Always, it’s because they are acting exactly like those groups.

There were Christians who accused Jews of being vampires because killing them and forcing them to live in ghettos apparently wasn’t enough for them back in medieval times.

Turn on Fox News, and those refugee children caught at the US Mexico border are an invading army of ebola carrying rapists.

My step-grandfather, who I swear is a nice guy, literally sent me an email about how all Muslims the world over are just waiting for a signal from their magic decoder rings and then they'll blow us all up.

Nazis accused Jews of trying to take over the world.   

Projection and demonizing the "other" have been used as excuses for shitty behavior for a long long time.

So when a group that obviously would commit genocide upon sapient beings portrays themselves as the persecuted white hats I know better than to take their word for it, because the KKK, the crusaders who slaughtered half of the middle east, the nazis, the radical muslim terrorist, they would all use the exact same argument that they are the persecuted good guy and that their enemies aren't worthy of being considered human.

That being said, I would not complain at all if in fact the monsters are evil evil baby eaters that must be destroyed for the good of the human race, the author has the absolute right to decide how things are in the world they create, after all.

And heck, maybe it's just me, but reading the game I thought that you could write out the game and use the find and replace feature to replace monster with Muslim, Jew, Catholic, Irish, gay, black, communist, or any other group that has been demonized today or in the past, which is pretty much been all of them, really.
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Hello I just played through the game again and still like how youre making it and I still have no idea how stsword got the kkk or militia again which ones a hate group who targets innocents based on both skin color and family descent unless hes talking about the beasts being the ones targeted and in the game weren’t humans at war with them and losing badly to the point where they can no longer attack out in the open? so I don’t see how that connects with a hate group like the kkk who targets people who have never done them harm past or present now maybe the IRA vs the British type thing. the other while there are groups that have messed up beliefs is for the most part groups of civilians who train in firearms and disaster scenarios for self defense or defense of their communities…OK I may see the militia aspect just not the UN part.sorry if it seems like I’m rambling just got done with a 13 hour work shift so bare with me.

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Wow, always, I'm shocked I have to freaking spell it out for you.   

Using exaggerated caricatures: nazis did that to the jews.

Using fearmongering instead of facts: fearmongering is the go to place when you want people to act like brainless sheep instead of thinking for themselves.   A position using fearmongering instead of facts and logic is pretty much a blatant admission that you're arguing for something stupid or ethically wrong, if not both.

“Monsters now living in cities pretending to be equals while actually oppressing them.” The nazis said the exact same thing about jews.

“Monsters control all the governments.” The exact same argument as those who claim that Pres Obama is a muslim actively trying to destroy America, the same argument racists made about “blacks having too much influence in politics” while they were woefully under represented. The same argument made in anti-communist hysteria by McCarthy.

Real schools are about education, not propaganda.  Propaganda, by  definition 'information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."  The game itself calls the film propaganda not a documentary.   

Propaganda is about indoctrination, cults do that, lying politicians do that, education involves facts.  Did you somehow miss that there wasn't single fact used when finding out the militia's view of the world?  My guess is because there is nothing actually factual about their point of view, but hey I might be surprised.

The PC says "They didn't even have to fight to take our cities, we just let them in,"  That means the militia is upset that the monsters are buying houses and sending their kids to school and getting jobs as if they were people.  How dare they!   If you need it spelled out to you how that's something racists have complained about since the dawn of time then you fail history forever.

“They’ll pretend to, but it’ll only be a ruse to try to conquer us,” some people said the exact thing about the Japanese after world war 2. I don’t know about where you are, but I don’t have a samurai master threatening to make me commit suicide if I don’t get to the slave camps fast enough.

“We cannot allow ourselves to tolerate their presence. Not even for peace. Because whatever peace we form, no matter how much we want it, would never last. They will never stop. They will keep fighting against us; either conquering us through violence, or stripping us of our rights through our own courts.” Do you really need it spelled out to you that the miltia member is proposing genocide, and that his logic is “If we don’t kill them all then they’ll kill us first.” That is pretty much the verbose version of “It’s us or them,” the standard for genocidal madmen everywhere.

And did you miss the fact that their position contradicts itself?  If the monsters control the governments, then they control the courts by definition, and if the monsters intend to wipe out humanity than humans don't actually have rights.  If they are paranoid racists, why then it makes sense, they're arguing "How dare you take away our right to ignore the rights of others?"  the rallying cry of those who think "I'm oppressed by someone elses mere existence" is actually solid thinking.

Genocidal monsters would make people vanish in the middle of the night, not take someone to court because “he won’t let me kill him” isn’t a valid legal complaint.

" You would never give them concessions of any kind, no matter the situation?" No concession, as in not letting their kids go to the schools of their choice, being allowed to practice their religion, not allowing them to keep their jobs, not allowing them to live where they want, not allowing them to get married, hell not even the right to live in peace without being murdered.

Did you not notice the implication of the militia having a legal division?   If the governments are really controlled by monsters, and humanity is really in a battle of survival to the very death with another race, what good would lawyers do?  Absolutely none.

If one is trying to disenfranchise an entire race and in no doing set back civil rights two hundred years, well then that legal division would be kept hopping.
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Well sword keep as you say freaking spelling it out for me because I still have no idea how you get kkk from the humanity group.unless it’s just because some of them wear white uniforms which just screams that they’re klan people.
Now if you haven’t figured it out yet sword it’s not how you viewed them it’s how you labeled them I have a issue with. personally I laughed at the scene where your Mc described how cheesy the video was and i thought of those old propaganda videos from the 50s and had a small grin when the mc was asked what he/she thought about the cartoon and could bluntly call it out as fake . hence perceive I love mc that actually look around and notice things.

in your comments you already labeled the humanity group as a hate group even though there hasn’t even been a scene with a actual monster to even get that kind of opinion like (monster a:hello human.what a nice day to day would you like a cookie?
Humanity member a:die you *******monster how dare you speak to me like we’re equals.)
all you’ve gotten was the fact that they made videos for younger humans pointing out the enemy

Yeah their having the school kids watching that kind of thing but even in real life do you ever see anyone showing young kids or teenagers real actually footage of things like car wrecks robberies fights drug use gang violence or the aftermath of a battlefield in a war without editing out things?no they make to where it’s just enough to get the point across and throw in some crappie catchphrase and hope that it was interesting enough to stick.

Now onto fear mongering…is it fear mongering if it’s fact? No its not it’s only fear mongering if it’s base on false information and or the threat of violence with the intention of manipulation.and let’s go into that a little more i personally would believe that fear mongering to be ineffective to keep as you say sheep as sheep.now incentive would keep sheep as brainless sheep happily doing whatever you want them to do for example (if you do this for me I’ll give you this little bit for free and the more you do for me the more you’ll get tho you might have take it from others but that’s OK you deserve it more right) whereas fear mongering (if you don’t do it they’re going to get it and use it to kill and inslave us now get out there and get it now) that’s when sheep become wolves and sheep no more.

Now let’s jump to your Monsters control all the governments part.have you never heard of puppet masters? Individuals who manipulate the masses from the shadows?OK how about spineless leaders? Still not clicking?perhaps you’ve never read a book or watched a movie where aliens quietly take over? Just off the top of my head how to serve mankind a old twilight zone episode, the pods. Or using a different name have you never watched a futuristic vampire movie? You know where they run the world as shadowy overlords and mankind is completely ignorant of it and in the vamps minds are just mindless cattle to eat and play with.

Now moving down a little more I’ll get to the rl stuff in abit why have a legal division? Why not? If the monsters have fully integrated into the human society and have sympathetic human support it would be in the in their best interests to stay within the law as to not hand them victory in the courts of law.wars ain’t just lost on the battlefield it can be lost in courts and in the hearts and minds of the people.and if the monsters have lawyers they could push for humans to lose certain rights like the right to own firearms like in your own words the nazis did to the ‘jews’ and for someone who likes to refinance nazis and ‘jews’ and talk like you have a major in history you seem to forget that the nazis party had all the hebrews rights revoked in the German courts of law before the ghettos you know the right to own firearms the right to own property the right to own a business the right to gather for worship the right to travel you know those little things.oh and by law had to wear those nifty little armbands with that cute little star on it.yeah why be worried about legal things right.

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Okay… let’s take a deep breath here.

If I can try to summarize this issue, this is my take on it.

I believe stsword’s claim is that he doesn’t really believe humanity’s militia when they say that the ‘monsters’ or aliens (I guess they’re aliens now. Checks in the mail Xhandas_Antonidas, I hadn’t even considered making them aliens until you mentioned it. The idea kinda grew on me*) Mark says that humanity is beaten back and basically defeated… but he also only lives in a small town. Not only that but humanity’s militia clearly has a large amount of influence there. thus, there’s not really any proof that anything seen up until now is actually true.

The racist comparison is coming from the sentiment that these people, the militia, despise an entire type of people and are referring to them as evil in total (Justified or not). They see themselves as being invaded despite there being no current war in progress. that said, they could still be in the right. But, there are still strong comparisons between how they think and various hate groups/cults.

Is it true? Are the aliens actually totally irredeemably evil? I have no idea. If that bit I mentioned about the aliens (Really need to get them a proper name!) wasn’t a dead giveaway… I, the author, have zero idea whether these things are some sort of oppressed group or actually evil. Probably not ‘oppressed’ exactly… they have their own planet or something. Then again, maybe its all relative to where you are.

Always’s take (taking the story as-is) is that they probably are evil, and the militia is good. stsword’s (trying to predict potential plot twists) is that they probably aren’t, and the militia is evil. Personally (Having no idea really), I’m guessing it’ll end up being a little of A, a little of B, since that’s the most interesting and slightly less obvious.

So lets not get too annoyed about an incomplete game featuring arbitrarily declared space aliens and just agree to let this one go, whether we really agree with each others take on the material’s applicability or not.

…

*Although them being aliens does throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the black-and-white videos. How did humanity beat a space-faring species back in 1940’s-I-guess-ish? Did they go all X-com on them, and steal their tech? I might have to change that black-and-white bit.