[00:00.000 --> 00:13.500]  This talk is Digital, A Love Story, and I'm going to describe what caused this talk to come about, give a quick introduction to myself, and then we'll move Christine in, and I'm going to mostly talk with Christine about this project.
[00:14.580 --> 00:19.140]  So, I run a site called textfiles.com, which some of you may be aware of.
[00:19.240 --> 00:31.520]  It is a collection of computer bulletin board ephemera that I collected through my childhood, and then in my late 20s, I decided to put all online because I thought there weren't really enough sites about bulletin board systems.
[00:32.060 --> 00:33.680]  So, here it is.
[00:33.780 --> 00:35.200]  I just celebrated my 10th year.
[00:35.640 --> 00:44.160]  I am well up into a crazy amount of time where people come to me and say things like, yeah, I started reading you when I started on the Internet.
[00:45.180 --> 00:51.100]  And so, now I'm in college, and I'm in computer programming, because textfiles.com encouraged me to go into computer programming.
[00:51.320 --> 00:52.640]  So, I'm like, shut up.
[00:54.540 --> 00:55.760]  So, yeah.
[00:56.060 --> 00:59.360]  So, over time, it's kind of expanded its mission.
[00:59.740 --> 01:01.920]  I've kind of moved into doing documentaries.
[01:02.400 --> 01:12.540]  I've collected graphics and podcasts, and then, just recently, this whole deal with Archive Team, where I and a team of people backed up GeoCities last year.
[01:13.720 --> 01:15.740]  So, if you lost anything, let us know.
[01:15.800 --> 01:16.880]  We'll try to get it back for you.
[01:19.420 --> 01:22.980]  So, like I said, my relationship to textfiles.com has been one now.
[01:23.160 --> 01:29.380]  I've been running it for 25% of my life, and it is, you know, it's going along pretty well, I thought.
[01:29.940 --> 01:35.980]  And I was actually down at South by Southwest when word, when mail started to hit me.
[01:36.040 --> 01:48.920]  Now, when something old or oldish happens, something like, I don't know, the creator of ASCII died a few years ago, or some new company makes an ad that looks like it's done on Apple II.
[01:49.220 --> 01:54.080]  People write to me, and they kind of pepper them, and people are like, I don't know if you saw this, and they Twitter me.
[01:54.460 --> 02:00.300]  And one by one, people started to Twitter me going, do you know about this digital love story thing?
[02:00.740 --> 02:02.040]  And I was busy.
[02:02.940 --> 02:08.060]  You know, I was traveling and doing stuff, but it was like, do you know about the digital love story?
[02:08.140 --> 02:10.180]  And I clicked over, I looked at it quickly, and I was like, eh, okay, fine.
[02:10.880 --> 02:22.680]  And this went on for a while, and then finally, I had the opportunity, I ended up taking a train from Cleveland to New York, which I don't recommend.
[02:23.180 --> 02:33.000]  And in this cylindrical tube of pain and misery, I was lucky enough to have a plug, so I could plug in my laptop.
[02:33.560 --> 02:36.700]  And I finally said, okay, fine, I probably should check this thing out.
[02:36.780 --> 02:37.880]  And I was just blown away.
[02:38.240 --> 03:03.780]  What this is, is this is a point-and-click adventure based around calling computer bulletin board systems that builds itself up into a love story, a story of tragedy, of hope, makes you play several roles, and by roles, I mean, you know, subsets of being a person who uses bulletin boards to achieve what comes to it as a goal.
[03:03.780 --> 03:08.800]  And it's got a music soundtrack to it, which BBSs didn't have, which makes it even better.
[03:09.760 --> 03:11.560]  And it was beautiful.
[03:11.660 --> 03:20.400]  And it came out, and at the end, she thanks, the author, who was Christine Love, thanks textfiles.com for historical research.
[03:20.900 --> 03:23.540]  And this is a background for a story.
[03:23.940 --> 03:34.620]  And her research had come primarily by reading things that I had copied off of bulletin board systems as a teenager.
[03:35.420 --> 03:37.840]  So, I thought, I gotta meet this person.
[03:38.060 --> 03:44.540]  So, this is the first time, you know, we just met yesterday in person, and I wanted her to come down.
[03:44.740 --> 03:46.100]  So, that's the story.
[03:46.860 --> 03:54.420]  Um, so, I guess, if you want to introduce yourself as you prefer to tell people.
[03:54.920 --> 03:59.720]  Um, well, uh, no, I'm not terribly good at introductions.
[03:59.900 --> 04:01.320]  I'm a student of English literature.
[04:01.600 --> 04:02.780]  Um, I minor in history.
[04:03.020 --> 04:13.360]  So, obviously, I'm writing about the, uh, fat, far back history past of 1988 is, uh, obviously of, uh, special interest to me.
[04:13.760 --> 04:17.700]  Um, this was just, um, another project I picked up.
[04:17.840 --> 04:20.420]  I, I thought that this would appeal to absolutely nobody but me.
[04:20.940 --> 04:25.340]  Um, the next thing I know, people, um, are telling me that it's all over Boing Boing.
[04:25.460 --> 04:27.720]  So, it caught me off guard.
[04:28.420 --> 04:29.980]  Oh, it's definitely Boing Boing juice.
[04:30.680 --> 04:35.040]  You could've wrapped it saying, here, Corey, and put a little steampunk card on it, and he would've been like, ah!
[04:36.700 --> 04:51.200]  And that's, you know, um, so, I mean, obviously, I mean, you could do a cyber love story, a story in which, you know, relationships online are, are the theme.
[04:51.340 --> 04:52.980]  What made you choose bulletin boards?
[04:54.500 --> 05:01.780]  Um, it's, the fact is, it's, it's, it's, as an error, it fascinates me.
[05:01.920 --> 05:09.380]  This is, um, oh, yeah, sorry, I, I'm wonderful at public speaking.
[05:09.520 --> 05:11.480]  This is, um, I'm certainly not at all nervous.
[05:11.880 --> 05:15.080]  Uh, well, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but, you know...
[05:15.080 --> 05:15.840]  I think you kind of do.
[05:16.000 --> 05:31.000]  Why bulletin board systems versus, say, just pure Internet, or maybe doing one on Twitter, or, I mean, what about, I mean, you know, why, why choose bulletin boards versus, you know, one of these other social media, as they call it now, events?
[05:31.420 --> 05:34.220]  Well, it's, it's not just a love story, it's also a mystery story.
[05:34.360 --> 05:41.920]  And I think that's the real important thing, is that, is that for this mystery, I wanted to make it so that, um, I wanted to put in a more mysterious age, I guess.
[05:42.100 --> 05:52.240]  And that's a, it, it seems like a weird thing to say, but, uh, in the 80s, on these bulletin board systems, everything seems so much more, um, seems so much more isolated.
[05:52.560 --> 05:56.600]  And I think that is definitely conducive to him telling him a love story.
[05:56.600 --> 06:03.940]  It's, uh, making a connection on, um, when everyone's on the Internet is, uh, a little less, uh, interesting.
[06:04.160 --> 06:11.840]  Whereas if you play up the isolation, and this, this is very much a story about him adolescently, um, uh, searching for some sort of connection.
[06:12.060 --> 06:18.040]  And I think, uh, putting in the 80s, putting it in, um, on bulletin board systems, uh, really helps that.
[06:19.160 --> 06:27.580]  I do know, I mean, I, you know, it makes me think of the fact that I knew that my father tender tended to wake up between 5:25 and 5:45 in the morning.
[06:27.880 --> 06:38.440]  So I knew that I could work until about 4:45 and get to bed before he would scream at me because he'd realize I had not gone to bed.
[06:39.920 --> 06:49.380]  And, uh, one of the ways that we kind of tried to fight that was having in-person meetings and having phone conferences, you know.
[06:49.460 --> 06:53.120]  And unfortunately, phone conferences are kind of the real lost ephemera of this.
[06:53.120 --> 06:57.400]  Because when you look at the bones of the bulletin board system, it does seem very isolated.
[06:57.620 --> 07:02.280]  And people would endeavor to meet each other as soon as possible to get rid of that feeling.
[07:02.920 --> 07:12.080]  But if you called into a bulletin board system that was far away and didn't have a local aspect, then you really felt like you were distanced and observing.
[07:12.360 --> 07:14.180]  I mean, you know, some people will say, no, I felt really close.
[07:14.180 --> 07:18.240]  But there was a bulletin board system I would call in Minneapolis.
[07:19.760 --> 07:23.880]  And I didn't meet those guys until 2003.
[07:24.320 --> 07:27.900]  And I had been on their bulletin board system in 1983.
[07:27.900 --> 07:29.720]  So 20 years later, I met them.
[07:29.920 --> 07:30.940]  They're fatter now.
[07:33.060 --> 07:34.540]  Brilliant, but fat.
[07:35.940 --> 07:37.840]  And so I would...
[07:38.820 --> 07:41.660]  I'd agree with you from a kid's perspective.
[07:42.320 --> 07:44.940]  But on the other hand, there is that part that where...
[07:44.940 --> 07:51.980]  Which comes across, I think, in the way you put it together, where you might feel a little cut off.
[07:52.120 --> 07:52.820]  Well, okay.
[07:53.040 --> 07:59.720]  First of all, in the beginning, you have a shop owner give you a bulletin board system number.
[08:00.300 --> 08:02.300]  Because they say, oh, you know, thanks for...
[08:02.300 --> 08:03.700]  You know, just, here you go.
[08:03.860 --> 08:04.660]  Here's a number.
[08:05.520 --> 08:06.540]  Why don't you call it?
[08:06.680 --> 08:06.900]  Right?
[08:07.280 --> 08:09.740]  And that is exactly how it worked.
[08:10.580 --> 08:11.480]  Exactly how it works.
[08:11.640 --> 08:14.620]  Somebody would give you a phone number and say, try this with your modem.
[08:15.920 --> 08:17.720]  And that was the next eight years.
[08:20.520 --> 08:23.200]  So that's what, you know, that piece of it...
[08:23.200 --> 08:25.120]  You know, this is what fascinates me.
[08:25.180 --> 08:26.380]  Because you didn't live through it, so you're...
[08:26.380 --> 08:29.560]  You're actually, you know, there's a part where you're trying to get phone codes.
[08:29.560 --> 08:31.200]  And it's pitch perfect.
[08:31.500 --> 08:34.560]  It is pitch perfect because a phone code might stop working.
[08:35.080 --> 08:37.460]  And suddenly, you are a junkie.
[08:38.180 --> 08:39.540]  You are in the street.
[08:39.540 --> 08:40.600]  You're doing this.
[08:40.800 --> 08:43.680]  And you're like, oh, someone's gonna have codes.
[08:43.860 --> 08:45.180]  Someone's gonna have codes.
[08:45.380 --> 08:45.780]  And...
[08:45.780 --> 08:47.920]  I got a lot of complaints about that aspect.
[08:48.300 --> 08:51.340]  Presumably from people who are more my age.
[08:51.460 --> 08:54.200]  Or weren't familiar with searching for phone codes.
[08:54.200 --> 08:54.700]  Because it...
[08:54.700 --> 08:59.960]  And I got people saying that, oh, I constantly have to keep going to check for more codes.
[09:00.040 --> 09:01.540]  I'm like, yeah, that's the feeling.
[09:02.440 --> 09:07.420]  So they're complaining about a basic game mechanic inherent in the game.
[09:08.420 --> 09:09.840]  It's not so much missing the point.
[09:09.940 --> 09:12.120]  It's not quite understanding the point, which...
[09:12.120 --> 09:14.200]  But I think it's...
[09:15.820 --> 09:17.240]  So you've gotten feedback.
[09:17.240 --> 09:19.560]  I loved your feedback from two days ago, by the way.
[09:19.840 --> 09:21.820]  My first piece of him, hate mail.
[09:22.000 --> 09:22.220]  Hate mail.
[09:22.240 --> 09:23.960]  I'm so excited about this.
[09:24.200 --> 09:24.560]  Finally.
[09:26.100 --> 09:26.580]  I'm...
[09:27.180 --> 09:28.120]  People hate me.
[09:28.560 --> 09:31.100]  As someone who has received thousands of hate mails.
[09:31.320 --> 09:32.360]  Oh, I'm envious.
[09:32.740 --> 09:34.240]  Of beautiful, beautiful hate mails.
[09:35.660 --> 09:38.160]  Including descriptions of what my...
[09:38.160 --> 09:40.920]  Descriptions of what the outside of my house looked like, level.
[09:43.480 --> 09:44.420]  What next, B?
[09:44.420 --> 09:46.360]  Anyway, so, I...
[09:47.220 --> 09:49.860]  I can say that, you know, the best ones.
[09:50.020 --> 09:50.660]  The ones...
[09:51.180 --> 09:54.200]  The ones when people don't make an effort to hate you.
[09:54.400 --> 09:55.460]  They're just hating you.
[09:55.820 --> 09:56.640]  You know, where you're like...
[09:56.640 --> 09:58.660]  You pass a store and you're like, oh, that store is ugly.
[09:58.880 --> 10:00.260]  Like, that's not really working out.
[10:00.820 --> 10:03.460]  When they go into blistering detail.
[10:03.800 --> 10:05.020]  That's what I liked about that letter.
[10:05.380 --> 10:05.660]  How...
[10:05.660 --> 10:08.000]  The phrase that I really liked was...
[10:09.180 --> 10:09.660]  Wow.
[10:10.100 --> 10:13.620]  Asking why you chose to go down this retarded road.
[10:14.720 --> 10:16.740]  Just that level of like, you...
[10:16.740 --> 10:17.220]  And it was...
[10:17.220 --> 10:18.920]  It was like, you started out really strong.
[10:19.220 --> 10:20.800]  But then it was awful.
[10:21.060 --> 10:22.540]  And I'm angry.
[10:23.220 --> 10:24.540]  Because it's awful.
[10:24.800 --> 10:26.360]  But you started out great.
[10:26.640 --> 10:28.300]  And now I hate you.
[10:30.120 --> 10:31.260]  Those are my favorites.
[10:32.880 --> 10:33.400]  Um...
[10:33.400 --> 10:34.500]  You know, you probably...
[10:34.500 --> 10:35.160]  Yeah, you...
[10:35.160 --> 10:36.140]  As somebody...
[10:36.140 --> 10:38.920]  I mean, yeah, you got your really good blistering hate mail.
[10:38.920 --> 10:39.300]  But you...
[10:39.300 --> 10:40.220]  You've gotten feedback.
[10:40.220 --> 10:42.100]  I would think from...
[10:42.100 --> 10:43.340]  This is just me guessing.
[10:43.500 --> 10:44.740]  You can tell me where I'm wrong.
[10:44.940 --> 10:46.380]  People who...
[10:46.920 --> 10:47.580]  Used them.
[10:47.840 --> 10:51.780]  For whom it was a nostalgic trip through their childhood.
[10:52.140 --> 10:56.000]  And people for whom it might as well have been, uh...
[10:56.640 --> 10:57.940]  You know, uh...
[10:58.840 --> 11:01.860]  Takes place in space on a satellite for all that it matters for them.
[11:03.180 --> 11:03.660]  Uh...
[11:03.660 --> 11:06.100]  Does it swing one way or another that you've gotten from that?
[11:06.280 --> 11:06.640]  Uh...
[11:06.640 --> 11:07.700]  I've gotten a lot from both.
[11:07.900 --> 11:08.260]  Um...
[11:08.260 --> 11:08.780]  Most...
[11:08.780 --> 11:12.500]  Most of the comments I've gotten don't seem to really talk about it as, um...
[11:12.500 --> 11:13.260]  As being nostalgic.
[11:13.460 --> 11:14.500]  So I assume it must be new.
[11:15.220 --> 11:15.580]  So...
[11:15.580 --> 11:16.700]  But, um...
[11:16.700 --> 11:17.320]  I...
[11:17.320 --> 11:19.340]  I think fundamentally, it's...
[11:19.340 --> 11:22.580]  Just as a setting, rather than as a historical area.
[11:22.780 --> 11:25.260]  Just as a setting, it's still very compelling.
[11:26.120 --> 11:26.600]  So...
[11:26.600 --> 11:27.320]  You...
[11:27.320 --> 11:30.540]  You get drawn into this world by the, um...
[11:30.540 --> 11:31.520]  Friendly store owner.
[11:32.200 --> 11:32.600]  And...
[11:32.600 --> 11:34.940]  You get drawn in just as you would have been, um...
[11:34.940 --> 11:35.980]  As actually in the 88.
[11:36.160 --> 11:37.880]  Regardless of whether or not you have nostalgia for it.
[11:39.140 --> 11:39.540]  Uh...
[11:39.540 --> 11:40.580]  At this point, um...
[11:41.080 --> 11:41.420]  I...
[11:41.420 --> 11:44.260]  Some of you, I would assume, would like the URL to this game.
[11:44.640 --> 11:45.040]  Perhaps.
[11:45.360 --> 11:47.260]  Or unless you've already played it or tried it.
[11:47.500 --> 11:49.260]  How many people here have played this game?
[11:49.460 --> 11:49.860]  Actually.
[11:50.380 --> 11:51.080]  Oh, nice.
[11:51.160 --> 11:51.680]  Nice job.
[11:51.880 --> 11:52.160]  Okay.
[11:53.060 --> 11:53.460]  Um...
[11:53.460 --> 11:53.900]  It's...
[11:53.900 --> 11:54.480]  It's, uh...
[11:54.480 --> 11:56.080]  I believe it's scoutshonour.com slash digital.
[11:56.200 --> 11:56.620]  Is that right?
[11:56.900 --> 11:58.160]  So it's...
[11:58.160 --> 12:00.340]  H-O-N-O-U-R.
[12:00.540 --> 12:05.500]  Scoutshonour.com slash digital.
[12:05.660 --> 12:06.060]  That's right.
[12:06.640 --> 12:07.180]  So...
[12:07.180 --> 12:08.240]  You can download it.
[12:08.580 --> 12:09.200]  It...
[12:09.200 --> 12:10.840]  It's cross-platform.
[12:11.120 --> 12:11.880]  It's out...
[12:11.880 --> 12:12.980]  It's a Linux game.
[12:12.980 --> 12:14.140]  It's a Windows game.
[12:14.280 --> 12:14.920]  It's a Mac game.
[12:15.340 --> 12:15.420]  It's a Mac game.
[12:15.540 --> 12:16.100]  She...
[12:16.100 --> 12:16.860]  This is...
[12:16.860 --> 12:17.360]  See this...
[12:17.360 --> 12:20.740]  And I wanted to move on to this because this fascinates me as well.
[12:20.920 --> 12:22.220]  It's a computer desktop.
[12:22.520 --> 12:24.240]  It's actually very much like an Amiga.
[12:25.180 --> 12:26.700]  And you click on it.
[12:26.780 --> 12:27.880]  And you interface with it.
[12:27.960 --> 12:28.840]  And it'll play music.
[12:29.060 --> 12:31.460]  And it came out cross-platform the first day.
[12:31.840 --> 12:33.220]  And it works the same.
[12:33.700 --> 12:35.320]  And you used a variety of tools.
[12:35.440 --> 12:36.520]  So this isn't just...
[12:36.520 --> 12:39.940]  This is something like little fan fiction that someone worked on really hard.
[12:39.940 --> 12:44.060]  I mean, this was a full application that worked solid.
[12:44.560 --> 12:45.060]  You know?
[12:45.260 --> 12:45.620]  That's...
[12:45.620 --> 12:47.400]  That's the way these things need to be.
[12:47.600 --> 12:48.280]  And so, yeah.
[12:48.320 --> 12:50.860]  If you got your Linux thing and you were like, you know, I'm never going to play this thing.
[12:50.920 --> 12:51.260]  You can.
[12:51.420 --> 12:53.100]  You can play it right there.
[12:53.460 --> 12:55.520]  So, I remember you mentioned which tools you used.
[12:55.560 --> 12:56.880]  Which tools did you use to put it together?
[12:57.100 --> 13:02.620]  It's built in a visual novel engine done from Japanese-style visual novels called Renpi.
[13:02.840 --> 13:05.520]  And this is done just because I'm very familiar with it.
[13:05.640 --> 13:08.360]  But it's so extensively modified.
[13:08.360 --> 13:11.140]  About halfway through, I realized that this was a terrible, terrible idea.
[13:11.320 --> 13:12.400]  And of course, kept going through it.
[13:12.520 --> 13:14.400]  Because at that point, it was far too late to change.
[13:14.860 --> 13:18.300]  So, you get a lot of sort of odd interface quirks.
[13:18.420 --> 13:20.680]  Like the windows, you can't drag them.
[13:21.340 --> 13:23.060]  And it's nothing big.
[13:24.120 --> 13:24.520]  But...
[13:25.280 --> 13:28.720]  So, it's an engine that's not quite meant for what it's doing.
[13:29.160 --> 13:30.180]  But as a result...
[13:30.180 --> 13:30.700]  It is now.
[13:33.500 --> 13:35.400]  I mean, the...
[13:37.000 --> 13:39.320]  Like I said, the interface is extremely...
[13:39.320 --> 13:41.140]  I mean, yeah, you can't drag windows.
[13:41.340 --> 13:43.280]  And you forget that about two seconds in, honestly.
[13:43.640 --> 13:49.540]  But, you know, the fact that there's applications, you're installing applications to make things work.
[13:49.920 --> 13:51.100]  You know, just...
[13:51.100 --> 13:54.180]  And so, I think it was like...
[13:54.780 --> 13:56.320]  There's not really a question here, I'm just saying.
[13:56.400 --> 13:57.100]  I thought that your...
[13:57.100 --> 13:59.140]  The completeness of your package was...
[13:59.140 --> 14:00.960]  That's part of what makes it good.
[14:01.100 --> 14:03.580]  Because, I mean, you could have done just a fan fiction.
[14:03.580 --> 14:14.840]  I've got some fan fiction written by some guys in the early 1990s, reimagining the era of the Legion of Doom from the 80s.
[14:15.180 --> 14:16.460]  But they're just writing stories.
[14:16.460 --> 14:20.360]  They're not creating a narrative, a mystery, and so on.
[14:20.360 --> 14:23.340]  Well, I think the immersion is just that much more interesting.
[14:23.500 --> 14:24.480]  Because otherwise, I mean...
[14:25.320 --> 14:26.440]  A mystery game.
[14:27.320 --> 14:28.860]  You can just have...
[14:28.860 --> 14:30.480]  Watch someone solve a mystery.
[14:30.680 --> 14:34.120]  But that's not nearly as fun as feeling like you're solving yourself.
[14:34.780 --> 14:35.900]  And to get...
[14:35.900 --> 14:41.000]  To read about this world is one thing, but to actually be thrown into it, that's actually evocative.
[14:41.580 --> 14:45.680]  That gets you into it, I think, much more than any pros could.
[14:46.240 --> 14:53.620]  So were there any particular text files in your research that really stood out to you as inspirations?
[14:54.720 --> 14:57.160]  I can't say any one in particular...
[14:57.610 --> 15:01.760]  Well, probably any one in particular, but I can't think of titles now.
[15:02.240 --> 15:02.940]  I mean...
[15:02.940 --> 15:03.820]  I went through...
[15:03.820 --> 15:07.080]  You have a section that's just a lot of people recounting their entire histories.
[15:07.080 --> 15:08.400]  And I thought that was...
[15:09.120 --> 15:15.000]  That was good just to get a feel of what sort of hacking mechanics would be a bit over the top.
[15:15.100 --> 15:16.900]  And what would feel right.
[15:17.280 --> 15:17.500]  Mm-hmm.
[15:17.600 --> 15:21.860]  And then I just read a lot of absolute junk posts.
[15:22.200 --> 15:23.500]  Just like...
[15:23.500 --> 15:24.480]  The messages section.
[15:24.800 --> 15:25.600]  Oh, yes.
[15:25.760 --> 15:26.000]  Yeah.
[15:26.540 --> 15:30.120]  There's a section on textfiles.com which is just messages.
[15:30.340 --> 15:32.080]  Just masses of messages.
[15:32.080 --> 15:35.840]  And I have used that to settle more arguments over the years.
[15:35.980 --> 15:36.900]  I mean, it's crap, right?
[15:36.960 --> 15:41.440]  I mean, I'm literally just scanning old printouts and getting printouts from other people.
[15:42.360 --> 15:48.100]  I have printouts from the first BBS printed out a month after it started.
[15:48.460 --> 15:49.780]  And people...
[15:49.780 --> 15:54.300]  One guy is chatting with somebody and says K00L to him.
[15:54.400 --> 15:55.500]  And that's 1978.
[15:55.580 --> 15:58.660]  So, f*ck you, historians who tell me it was 1995.
[15:59.840 --> 16:02.740]  There's a guy, and I'm sorry I'm forgetting his name right now.
[16:02.860 --> 16:03.880]  He's a grammarian.
[16:04.160 --> 16:08.860]  And people keep pointing me to him because he will occasionally...
[16:08.860 --> 16:10.200]  I think his name is Grant something.
[16:10.340 --> 16:10.820]  And he's a columnist.
[16:11.380 --> 16:13.000]  And he used to be on bulletin board systems.
[16:13.180 --> 16:13.920]  And he will occasionally...
[16:13.920 --> 16:14.280]  Woot!
[16:14.500 --> 16:15.420]  That was what got it.
[16:15.580 --> 16:19.600]  There was a huge argument over where did the word woot come together.
[16:22.680 --> 16:30.500]  And somebody wanted me to come along and just nutsack him with like a 1982 reference and be like, it's way before you even understand it.
[16:30.740 --> 16:34.820]  But it turned out that it really does look like it's from...
[16:34.820 --> 16:35.660]  Whoop!
[16:35.660 --> 16:36.460]  There it is.
[16:37.400 --> 16:39.520]  Like if you trace it back, I'm sorry to say.
[16:39.800 --> 16:39.960]  Yup.
[16:40.760 --> 16:41.240]  Whoop!
[16:41.320 --> 16:42.120]  There it is.
[16:43.440 --> 16:45.280]  This was the town that invented whirlpooling.
[16:45.400 --> 16:45.900]  Let's not go there.
[16:48.300 --> 16:48.780]  Um...
[16:48.780 --> 16:57.760]  So, um, you know, there's always this kind of, uh, like, little buried gems in these messages that I...
[16:57.760 --> 16:58.900]  I mean, I...
[16:58.900 --> 17:01.780]  You know, um, for instance, using messages...
[17:01.780 --> 17:03.120]  There's a case I always give.
[17:03.200 --> 17:04.680]  There's one that's a politics board.
[17:05.980 --> 17:12.440]  And somebody says, let's discuss politics, which now would be like strapping, you know, explosives to yourself.
[17:13.460 --> 17:13.980]  Uh...
[17:13.980 --> 17:17.000]  You know, if you just set up, let's talk about politics.
[17:17.520 --> 17:18.060]  Oh, man.
[17:18.360 --> 17:20.260]  Fourteen minutes later, you are like...
[17:20.260 --> 17:20.280]  Ugh.
[17:20.640 --> 17:22.060]  So there, someone does it.
[17:22.160 --> 17:24.220]  And people engage in a conversation about politics.
[17:24.220 --> 17:27.320]  It's stunted and childish and stupid.
[17:27.640 --> 17:29.400]  You know, Mondale sucks and so on.
[17:29.400 --> 17:30.440]  Um...
[17:30.440 --> 17:33.900]  But it's 64 messages and it took two and a half months.
[17:35.840 --> 17:42.060]  So, you realize that people are responding to each other four days after the previous guy.
[17:42.360 --> 17:45.760]  And it's so glacial and slow.
[17:46.520 --> 17:51.800]  And yet now, you can't have those kind of conversations if you post something on Fark.
[17:52.040 --> 17:58.020]  In fact, on Fark, you don't even need to have the subject be about what you're talking about, do you?
[17:59.120 --> 17:59.780]  You know?
[18:00.320 --> 18:00.760]  Uh...
[18:00.760 --> 18:03.940]  Metafilter is suffering through this right now, trying to produce...
[18:03.940 --> 18:05.820]  They've produced a whole set of terms.
[18:06.120 --> 18:06.260]  Uh...
[18:06.260 --> 18:08.160]  You know, there's thread-jacking, thread-shitting.
[18:09.040 --> 18:09.480]  Um...
[18:09.480 --> 18:12.120]  Where they're just saying, like, here is behavior that we now know.
[18:12.340 --> 18:12.920]  It's not...
[18:13.400 --> 18:14.880]  It's not good for you.
[18:15.020 --> 18:20.120]  We're talking about cars and one of the guys has a political sticker, so let's suddenly start talking about his political sticker.
[18:20.340 --> 18:21.700]  You're ruining the conversation.
[18:22.080 --> 18:23.180]  It's not precious.
[18:23.520 --> 18:24.340]  It doesn't help.
[18:25.660 --> 18:26.100]  Um...
[18:26.100 --> 18:30.260]  The Bolton Board System printouts are...
[18:30.260 --> 18:35.480]  The ones I really like, I don't know, I'm sure you found these, were the trades discussions.
[18:35.840 --> 18:37.020]  The where's trading.
[18:37.280 --> 18:37.500]  Oh.
[18:37.900 --> 18:38.300]  Yeah.
[18:38.720 --> 18:41.020]  Where the guy shows up and says, I've got...
[18:41.500 --> 18:43.000]  I've got SARGON 3.
[18:45.200 --> 18:46.060]  And so on.
[18:46.060 --> 18:48.320]  And there's a bit of that...
[18:48.320 --> 18:49.060]  Um...
[18:49.060 --> 18:52.700]  You wrote some very nice introductions to different kinds of...
[18:52.700 --> 18:55.020]  You know, you give the audience some...
[18:55.020 --> 18:55.340]  Yes.
[18:55.340 --> 18:57.800]  The player some Nintendo-like instruction.
[18:58.460 --> 18:59.840]  So that you cannot...
[18:59.840 --> 19:01.260]  You know, and you don't feel embarrassed about it.
[19:01.300 --> 19:05.660]  Just someone posted a message and it just happens to tell you everything you need that you'd be afraid to ask.
[19:05.660 --> 19:07.520]  Was that for...
[19:07.520 --> 19:12.000]  Was that specifically because you were worried your audience was gonna have no idea where they were?
[19:12.640 --> 19:13.440]  Uh... part of it.
[19:13.560 --> 19:14.780]  But part of it is, uh...
[19:14.780 --> 19:15.640]  I think, uh, the...
[19:15.640 --> 19:17.760]  The player as a character in this, um...
[19:18.280 --> 19:21.940]  Being flung into this mysterious world is, um...
[19:21.940 --> 19:23.080]  Need some instruction.
[19:23.560 --> 19:24.640]  So, and...
[19:25.360 --> 19:25.820]  The...
[19:25.820 --> 19:28.960]  The best way to introduce some gameplay mechanics is to explain them seamlessly.
[19:29.380 --> 19:29.760]  It's...
[19:29.760 --> 19:31.600]  The best way is to just, uh...
[19:31.600 --> 19:32.820]  Have someone...
[19:32.820 --> 19:33.700]  In...
[19:33.700 --> 19:36.220]  In the story tell you how to do something.
[19:36.440 --> 19:39.000]  And you feel like you've learned something rather than you're saying to a tutorial.
[19:39.840 --> 19:40.060]  Hmm.
[19:41.540 --> 19:42.000]  Um...
[19:42.940 --> 19:45.340]  Were there any, uh...
[19:45.340 --> 19:48.440]  Ideas you would consider that you ended up not going with?
[19:48.800 --> 19:49.260]  Like...
[19:49.260 --> 19:52.700]  Either because they were too big or it turned out they didn't fit?
[19:53.880 --> 19:54.280]  Um...
[19:54.280 --> 19:55.500]  The whole story was, uh...
[19:55.500 --> 19:57.100]  We went through a number of revisions.
[19:57.360 --> 19:57.760]  But...
[19:57.760 --> 19:58.540]  The...
[19:58.540 --> 19:59.920]  The most notable, um...
[19:59.920 --> 20:00.840]  Absence was, uh...
[20:00.840 --> 20:01.120]  There...
[20:01.120 --> 20:04.380]  There were a lot of gameplay mechanics that were taken from, uh...
[20:04.380 --> 20:05.180]  Uh...
[20:05.180 --> 20:05.680]  Uh...
[20:05.680 --> 20:07.280]  A 90s game called Uplink.
[20:07.360 --> 20:07.880]  Which is, uh...
[20:07.880 --> 20:08.880]  Very fun.
[20:09.840 --> 20:10.240]  Um...
[20:10.240 --> 20:10.820]  Yeah.
[20:11.420 --> 20:13.400]  We have some Uplink fans in the audience.
[20:13.660 --> 20:13.980]  I...
[20:13.980 --> 20:14.460]  I'd hope so.
[20:14.520 --> 20:15.340]  I love Uplink.
[20:15.460 --> 20:17.180]  But in some...
[20:17.180 --> 20:18.420]  Oh, can we get...
[20:18.420 --> 20:20.180]  Can we get a call out for Activision's hacker?
[20:20.360 --> 20:21.140]  Come on, come on.
[20:21.140 --> 20:22.480]  Ha, ha, ha, ha.
[20:22.920 --> 20:23.300]  Jesus.
[20:23.860 --> 20:24.400]  All right.
[20:24.880 --> 20:25.780]  All right, fine.
[20:26.000 --> 20:26.700]  F*ck you guys.
[20:26.840 --> 20:27.400]  I made a...
[20:27.400 --> 20:29.440]  There was a game called Activision...
[20:29.440 --> 20:30.640]  Hacker by Activision.
[20:30.760 --> 20:31.340]  It's awful.
[20:32.340 --> 20:32.780]  Um...
[20:32.780 --> 20:34.460]  But what I liked about it was...
[20:34.460 --> 20:35.160]  And you could tell.
[20:35.340 --> 20:36.240]  This is the thinking, right?
[20:36.620 --> 20:38.000]  When it starts out, it...
[20:38.000 --> 20:39.140]  It's supposed to have...
[20:42.100 --> 20:42.540]  Um...
[20:42.540 --> 20:42.920]  I'm...
[20:42.920 --> 20:43.940]  I'm thinking of, uh...
[20:43.940 --> 20:46.540]  Mirror's Edge where I played pre-demos of it.
[20:46.540 --> 20:50.960]  And I was like, I hope they stick you in the middle of f*cking nowhere with nothing.
[20:51.780 --> 20:53.720]  And you gotta figure your shit out.
[20:54.040 --> 20:57.340]  Now, there are only a certain subset of gamers who like that.
[20:57.680 --> 20:57.940]  Okay?
[20:58.560 --> 20:59.160]  Yeah, there we go.
[20:59.240 --> 20:59.400]  Yeah.
[20:59.620 --> 21:00.080]  Exactly.
[21:01.240 --> 21:03.360]  The opening of...
[21:03.360 --> 21:05.360]  One of Enchanter, I believe it is.
[21:05.440 --> 21:06.660]  Which is...
[21:06.660 --> 21:07.300]  It is dark.
[21:07.520 --> 21:09.960]  Your fraught spell must have worn off in the evening.
[21:14.190 --> 21:15.370]  Get on it, motherf*cker.
[21:16.950 --> 21:19.550]  Well, hacker opened with a prompt.
[21:19.550 --> 21:21.990]  The idea being you had to hack in.
[21:22.170 --> 21:24.490]  You had to figure out what the password was to get through.
[21:25.410 --> 21:30.110]  Except that if you got the password wrong like four times, it would go, are you sure it isn't this password?
[21:30.670 --> 21:31.970]  And it had a bunch of that.
[21:32.070 --> 21:33.550]  That never happened to me in the old days.
[21:33.790 --> 21:36.030]  Although guest guest did work an awful lot.
[21:37.910 --> 21:38.350]  Um...
[21:38.350 --> 21:39.410]  But anyway, so...
[21:39.410 --> 21:39.710]  So, okay.
[21:39.990 --> 21:40.650]  Activision's hacker.
[21:40.650 --> 21:41.750]  If you want to go...
[21:41.750 --> 21:42.810]  Feel free to pirate it.
[21:42.910 --> 21:43.850]  Because, you know...
[21:43.850 --> 21:45.310]  I fully endorse it.
[21:45.430 --> 21:45.690]  Thank you.
[21:47.050 --> 21:47.450]  Um...
[21:47.450 --> 21:48.930]  But anyway, so...
[21:49.390 --> 21:49.790]  Just...
[21:49.790 --> 21:50.410]  So wait.
[21:50.510 --> 21:51.130]  If you played...
[21:51.570 --> 21:54.210]  So you played Uplink as a pre-team.
[21:54.310 --> 21:55.730]  You bumped into this game.
[21:56.470 --> 21:56.870]  Uh...
[21:56.870 --> 21:57.210]  Yeah.
[21:57.570 --> 21:57.950]  Well...
[21:57.950 --> 21:58.870]  Not a pre-team.
[21:58.930 --> 21:59.710]  A couple years ago.
[21:59.870 --> 22:00.210]  But...
[22:00.210 --> 22:00.570]  Okay.
[22:00.730 --> 22:01.130]  Just...
[22:01.130 --> 22:01.350]  Okay.
[22:01.450 --> 22:02.950]  I thought you meant you played it in the 90s.
[22:03.310 --> 22:06.970]  Oh, you're just actually literally like going back and going like, what about this game?
[22:06.990 --> 22:07.650]  What about this game?
[22:08.330 --> 22:08.730]  Uh...
[22:08.730 --> 22:11.490]  Well, I played it a few years ago and I was inspired by it.
[22:11.610 --> 22:14.330]  And finally I got around to making something inspired by it.
[22:14.630 --> 22:17.830]  But no, there are a lot of mechanics that were initially from it.
[22:17.890 --> 22:19.450]  There's still one that remains in there.
[22:19.790 --> 22:22.910]  Which is a sort of goofy dictionary hacker tool.
[22:22.910 --> 22:24.970]  But the rest of them, um...
[22:24.970 --> 22:25.390]  I...
[22:25.390 --> 22:25.590]  I...
[22:26.410 --> 22:26.930]  I...
[22:26.930 --> 22:27.030]  I...
[22:27.610 --> 22:28.130]  I...
[22:28.130 --> 22:30.690]  And as a result, it becomes a lot simpler.
[22:31.030 --> 22:31.390]  Um...
[22:31.390 --> 22:34.030]  Even though the hacking mechanics are obviously ridiculous.
[22:34.410 --> 22:34.610]  They're...
[22:34.610 --> 22:35.250]  They're not...
[22:35.250 --> 22:37.470]  They don't correspond to anything you would really do.
[22:37.850 --> 22:40.790]  Or rather, they correspond but they don't represent it.
[22:41.350 --> 22:41.870]  So...
[22:41.870 --> 22:43.770]  But as a result, you...
[22:43.770 --> 22:45.870]  Instead you spend most of the time talking to people.
[22:46.210 --> 22:48.130]  Most of the time reading messages.
[22:48.130 --> 22:49.450]  And I think...
[22:49.450 --> 22:52.390]  And I think it shifts the focus of the game much for the better.
[22:52.750 --> 22:56.130]  So instead of it being a hacking game about hacking, it's a hacking game about, uh...
[22:56.670 --> 22:57.450]  Talking to people.
[22:58.530 --> 22:58.990]  Investigating.
[22:59.810 --> 23:01.130]  Solving puzzles in a...
[23:03.090 --> 23:04.070]  Fairly simple way.
[23:05.590 --> 23:06.210]  I agree.
[23:06.710 --> 23:06.890]  I...
[23:06.890 --> 23:07.550]  You know, the...
[23:07.550 --> 23:08.430]  The thing that I...
[23:08.430 --> 23:10.070]  As a person, for me, the most...
[23:10.950 --> 23:11.350]  Uh...
[23:11.350 --> 23:11.430]  Uh...
[23:11.430 --> 23:14.330]  The reason I did documentaries was because I said that...
[23:14.330 --> 23:16.190]  That the text files are the bones.
[23:16.930 --> 23:17.390]  You know?
[23:17.550 --> 23:20.370]  And you can go through the bones, but you're never gonna find out how...
[23:20.370 --> 23:22.590]  What a great time it was hanging out with that person.
[23:23.210 --> 23:24.670]  You're just gonna know that...
[23:24.670 --> 23:26.290]  They were probably six foot two.
[23:27.510 --> 23:29.910]  And you'll know how many times a person posted.
[23:30.070 --> 23:31.870]  And you'll know what they tended to post about.
[23:31.870 --> 23:35.070]  But you won't find out, like, what they were feeling when they were going through it.
[23:35.450 --> 23:36.610]  So that's why I did...
[23:36.610 --> 23:39.510]  A documentary was to talk to people about an organic thing.
[23:39.710 --> 23:40.870]  And in your...
[23:42.630 --> 23:43.430]  In your...
[23:43.430 --> 23:43.930]  Story.
[23:44.150 --> 23:47.030]  I mean, I'm working very hard here not to give spoilers, because I don't think that's fair.
[23:47.190 --> 23:48.090]  I think you should try it.
[23:48.210 --> 23:49.150]  Definitely try it out.
[23:49.470 --> 23:52.770]  But, you know, it's a case of you come to learn about people.
[23:52.990 --> 23:57.310]  You interact with relationships and talk to people along with...
[23:57.310 --> 23:58.010]  And I like this.
[23:58.110 --> 24:02.170]  There's a lot of red herring initially, because you're just kind of reading a lot of messages.
[24:02.410 --> 24:04.770]  And people are just like, I'm an idiot.
[24:05.530 --> 24:07.050]  And you're like, why am I reading this?
[24:07.170 --> 24:09.610]  And then something will go by and you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[24:09.850 --> 24:10.710]  Oh yeah, that part.
[24:10.910 --> 24:13.010]  And that's, you know, sifting through clues.
[24:15.150 --> 24:17.890]  There's a very old set of books.
[24:17.890 --> 24:19.690]  They got reprinted four times.
[24:20.690 --> 24:22.750]  I think they got reprinted in the 90s.
[24:23.230 --> 24:26.730]  If you look for the title, Murder Off Miami.
[24:28.890 --> 24:32.810]  This is a set of books that were created in the mid-1930s by J.P.
[24:32.950 --> 24:33.170]  Links.
[24:33.630 --> 24:35.570]  And what they are is they're dossiers.
[24:36.130 --> 24:40.610]  And when you pick them up, it is literally a pile of police report.
[24:41.170 --> 24:42.050]  And pictures.
[24:43.490 --> 24:44.370]  And stories.
[24:45.090 --> 24:48.250]  And it's really, you know, it's got its own little feel to it.
[24:48.250 --> 24:51.310]  And then at the end of it, there's a sealed envelope.
[24:52.290 --> 25:00.730]  And the sealed envelope shows what the person, the investigator, ultimately did when faced with this dossier.
[25:01.210 --> 25:03.150]  So you are to open it up.
[25:03.310 --> 25:07.050]  And it's actually what inspired Infocom to include items into their boxes.
[25:07.050 --> 25:08.150]  It's this beautiful piece.
[25:08.270 --> 25:10.130]  And it's very similar to what you have here.
[25:10.250 --> 25:12.950]  This mechanic of, I'm going to live through here.
[25:13.230 --> 25:14.770]  Whoa, what's going on there?
[25:14.930 --> 25:15.870]  What's happening here?
[25:15.870 --> 25:17.250]  That, you know.
[25:17.670 --> 25:18.910]  So have you...
[25:19.410 --> 25:20.210]  I didn't...
[25:20.210 --> 25:21.090]  I mean, I saw you...
[25:21.090 --> 25:23.010]  This is obviously not your only project.
[25:23.310 --> 25:28.790]  You've done a bunch of writing and a bunch of other projects.
[25:29.870 --> 25:34.230]  Was there anything else that's kind of a pre-version of this?
[25:34.350 --> 25:35.090]  A dry run?
[25:35.330 --> 25:37.090]  A version where you're like, I could do this even better?
[25:37.210 --> 25:37.950]  And you ended up with this?
[25:38.010 --> 25:39.930]  Or is this your first foray into this?
[25:40.110 --> 25:42.230]  No, I think this really is my dry run here.
[25:42.370 --> 25:44.910]  Before, I've mostly done a lot of prose.
[25:44.910 --> 25:45.650]  A lot of...
[25:45.650 --> 25:48.130]  I did do one game that was...
[25:48.130 --> 25:51.410]  It's browser based and it's sort of about fighting games.
[25:51.890 --> 25:53.390]  All done in...
[25:53.930 --> 25:56.210]  Done up as a sort of turn based game.
[25:56.370 --> 25:57.790]  Which is...
[25:57.790 --> 25:59.470]  Obviously very...
[25:59.470 --> 26:01.490]  Seems very odd in concept.
[26:01.710 --> 26:03.670]  But it's the same sort of metafictional thing.
[26:03.990 --> 26:07.550]  But that's the closest thing I've ever done to anything other than just straight up prose.
[26:07.890 --> 26:09.470]  Are you inspired to do another one?
[26:09.890 --> 26:10.250]  Absolutely.
[26:10.810 --> 26:11.170]  That's...
[26:11.530 --> 26:15.530]  I've been trying and I'm not gonna rush it.
[26:15.630 --> 26:17.570]  I'm not gonna force it.
[26:17.770 --> 26:18.470]  That's sophomore.
[26:18.710 --> 26:19.770]  The second one that's a musical.
[26:21.170 --> 26:21.530]  That's...
[26:21.530 --> 26:22.970]  That's what traditionally you do.
[26:23.030 --> 26:23.890]  The second one's a musical.
[26:24.130 --> 26:24.650]  Laugh it up.
[26:24.750 --> 26:25.510]  That's what I'm gonna do now.
[26:26.110 --> 26:27.390]  Everyone, you heard it here first.
[26:27.630 --> 26:27.990]  Musical.
[26:28.950 --> 26:30.070]  Oh, get some...
[26:30.070 --> 26:31.090]  Hire some singers.
[26:31.270 --> 26:31.810]  Get some people.
[26:31.910 --> 26:32.570]  Get some people to...
[26:32.570 --> 26:33.350]  Oh man, that'd be great.
[26:33.350 --> 26:34.730]  Digital 2 on ice.
[26:37.130 --> 26:39.930]  I would totally go for a BBS musical.
[26:42.250 --> 26:45.070]  Waiting for the dial tone with the two piano pieces.
[26:45.330 --> 26:46.290]  Ding, ding.
[26:47.270 --> 26:48.450]  It's busy.
[26:48.830 --> 26:49.990]  It's busy.
[26:50.550 --> 26:51.550]  It's busy.
[26:51.550 --> 26:51.650]  It's busy.
[26:51.750 --> 26:52.750]  Why am I here?
[26:55.070 --> 26:55.930]  My record...
[26:55.930 --> 26:58.870]  There was a bulletin board system located about...
[26:58.870 --> 27:02.970]  I wanna say 50 miles north of here called Sherwood Forest 2.
[27:03.610 --> 27:05.350]  And it was something like...
[27:07.190 --> 27:13.210]  On average, it would take me between 30 and 40 hours of dialing to get into it.
[27:14.350 --> 27:20.730]  And so when I got on, I would just take massive amounts of copies of every single thing on the board.
[27:20.730 --> 27:23.510]  Because I wasn't gonna get on again for days.
[27:24.090 --> 27:27.230]  And so I have a lot of what they had, right?
[27:27.270 --> 27:28.470]  I just have it up as whatever.
[27:28.470 --> 27:30.890]  And just recently, actually, about a...
[27:30.890 --> 27:36.070]  Six or seven months ago, I was contacted by the cop that came along with the federal guys who busted it.
[27:37.170 --> 27:39.890]  So I've been trying to...
[27:41.250 --> 27:42.610]  No, no, Sherwood Forest 2.
[27:42.650 --> 27:43.230]  They knew each other.
[27:43.350 --> 27:44.090]  Those guys hung out.
[27:45.270 --> 27:46.310]  Yeah, there was Sherwood Forest 2.
[27:46.410 --> 27:47.430]  There was Sherwood Forest 3.
[27:47.710 --> 27:48.710]  Then there was Ocini.
[27:48.930 --> 27:50.710]  But Ocini was a separate thing.
[27:50.730 --> 27:51.990]  I've interviewed that sysop.
[27:52.310 --> 27:54.290]  He's out in California and does cool shit now.
[27:55.170 --> 27:56.930]  And his sysop name was sysop.
[27:57.550 --> 27:58.690]  That was his hacker name.
[27:59.830 --> 28:00.790]  Boy, that's hubris.
[28:02.490 --> 28:05.430]  And anyway, so there were, you know...
[28:07.130 --> 28:08.270]  Where was I going with that?
[28:09.930 --> 28:10.970]  Time was awesome.
[28:11.270 --> 28:12.550]  But anyway, so the cop...
[28:12.550 --> 28:20.370]  The whole point is that I'm trying to get like the other story from the other side of that particular event.
[28:20.370 --> 28:23.390]  Because, I mean, I do have the story from the guys who had it taken down.
[28:24.290 --> 28:25.930]  But I think it's worthwhile.
[28:26.430 --> 28:27.470]  There's a...
[28:27.470 --> 28:30.270]  Have you guys attended Phil Lapsley's talks before?
[28:31.610 --> 28:36.410]  Phil Lapsley was a guy who I bumped into who's been working on a book on the history of phone phreaking.
[28:38.150 --> 28:46.050]  And coming from me, the guy with the seven and a half hour documentary on bulletin board systems, he's doing it right.
[28:46.790 --> 28:47.230]  Right?
[28:47.530 --> 28:50.670]  He's filed hundreds and hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests.
[28:50.890 --> 28:52.290]  And he's giving a talk on how he did it.
[28:52.690 --> 28:54.390]  And he's been talking about history.
[28:55.990 --> 28:59.310]  But, it's not just a bunch of phone phreaks going, yeah, we're awesome.
[28:59.690 --> 29:03.070]  And it's not just a bunch of law enforcement guys going, f*ck those guys.
[29:03.210 --> 29:03.730]  They were awful.
[29:04.550 --> 29:05.430]  It's everybody.
[29:05.910 --> 29:07.210]  That's the only way you can get the story.
[29:07.390 --> 29:09.390]  You can't like everybody in the history.
[29:09.510 --> 29:11.630]  It can't be one piece or another.
[29:11.630 --> 29:14.230]  So, getting back to your work here.
[29:16.350 --> 29:17.730]  How long did you work on it?
[29:19.910 --> 29:22.450]  All told, actually, I'm making the game from start to finish.
[29:22.590 --> 29:23.370]  It took about a month.
[29:24.690 --> 29:26.150]  This was an intentional deadline.
[29:26.650 --> 29:27.790]  If I give myself...
[29:27.790 --> 29:32.330]  If I don't set one, I tend to work on something for two weeks and then forget about it forever.
[29:32.590 --> 29:34.630]  So, I set one month and...
[29:36.490 --> 29:37.170]  Hell to it.
[29:38.950 --> 29:43.070]  It plays like a game that was not created in a month.
[29:43.610 --> 29:44.590]  I can say that.
[29:44.810 --> 29:45.450]  It's very smooth.
[29:45.650 --> 29:46.950]  I mean, was that like every day?
[29:47.350 --> 29:48.490]  You know, every...
[29:48.490 --> 29:49.890]  Yes, yes, definitely.
[29:50.290 --> 29:50.510]  Okay.
[29:50.730 --> 29:52.470]  So, it's hours of work each day.
[29:52.890 --> 29:53.890]  Hours of programming.
[29:54.110 --> 29:57.410]  And during the first couple weeks, it was also hours of just reading through them.
[29:58.750 --> 29:59.170]  Archived...
[30:00.210 --> 30:01.630]  Reading through them files on your site.
[30:02.590 --> 30:02.990]  Just...
[30:02.990 --> 30:03.790]  Especially...
[30:03.790 --> 30:05.890]  And even during the end, when I was trying to nail...
[30:05.890 --> 30:08.270]  When I was writing messages and trying to nail people's voices.
[30:08.710 --> 30:09.410]  Just about...
[30:09.410 --> 30:13.550]  Just about every post on there is based on the writing style of a real person.
[30:13.650 --> 30:14.910]  I wanted to get...
[30:15.630 --> 30:17.170]  I did want to get that feel right, correct?
[30:18.730 --> 30:20.250]  I think you did a great job.
[30:20.350 --> 30:22.890]  So, I want to say again, it's a scout's honour.
[30:23.130 --> 30:25.750]  H-O-N-O-U-R dot com slash digital.
[30:25.750 --> 30:27.090]  It's a very small program.
[30:27.650 --> 30:31.850]  And it includes chiptune music as an optional background.
[30:32.370 --> 30:34.110]  Which adds a nice feel to it.
[30:34.230 --> 30:34.870]  But it's optional.
[30:34.870 --> 30:35.770]  You can turn it off.
[30:36.590 --> 30:37.070]  So...
[30:37.070 --> 30:39.110]  And some really good...
[30:39.110 --> 30:40.990]  Some really good music there from the demo...
[30:40.990 --> 30:41.910]  Thank you, Creative Commons.
[30:42.370 --> 30:42.610]  Yeah.
[30:42.870 --> 30:43.550]  Oh yeah, that's right.
[30:43.610 --> 30:44.810]  It's released Creative Commons, correct?
[30:44.810 --> 30:44.970]  Yeah.
[30:45.170 --> 30:45.270]  Yeah.
[30:47.410 --> 30:48.850]  So, the guy...
[30:48.850 --> 30:52.070]  Either he is offering my limo or we have ten minutes.
[30:52.070 --> 30:52.730]  So...
[30:54.370 --> 30:56.050]  If there's some questions from the audience.
[30:56.050 --> 30:57.110]  If you wanted to come up.
[30:57.290 --> 30:59.750]  And if there was anything you wanted to ask Christine or myself.
[31:00.430 --> 31:01.190]  About anything.
[31:01.830 --> 31:02.710]  Don't be afraid.
[31:03.010 --> 31:04.070]  They were there for a reason.
[31:05.010 --> 31:05.470]  But in...
[31:05.470 --> 31:06.670]  While people work up the...
[31:06.670 --> 31:08.170]  The gallbladder to do it.
[31:08.350 --> 31:08.890]  Oh, there we go.
[31:19.790 --> 31:20.190]  I...
[31:20.190 --> 31:22.810]  Ultimately decided that a lot of them...
[31:22.810 --> 31:25.610]  That that would be one of those things that wouldn't just get implemented.
[31:25.610 --> 31:31.690]  I figured that a player probably wouldn't be very interested in sitting through a busy signal.
[31:31.830 --> 31:34.850]  As much as that was obviously an important part of...
[31:35.570 --> 31:37.530]  Of actually calling BBSs.
[31:37.750 --> 31:39.930]  And similarly speeds again.
[31:40.190 --> 31:40.730]  It's...
[31:40.730 --> 31:41.470]  I don't...
[31:41.470 --> 31:43.270]  I couldn't think of any way to implement that.
[31:43.350 --> 31:44.790]  That wouldn't just be frustrating.
[31:45.290 --> 31:46.830]  Bulletin boards do go down.
[31:47.650 --> 31:51.610]  So you lose avenues of exploration.
[31:52.290 --> 31:52.870]  And I agree.
[31:52.870 --> 31:53.910]  The problem is...
[31:53.910 --> 31:54.590]  You know, how do you...
[31:54.590 --> 31:56.990]  How do you portray that the time is long and boring?
[31:57.210 --> 31:59.370]  You try not to do it by having the time be long and boring.
[31:59.990 --> 32:00.550]  You know?
[32:00.770 --> 32:01.910]  That's kind of a...
[32:01.910 --> 32:04.890]  You know, you have things kind of fade out and fade back.
[32:05.010 --> 32:07.150]  It's like, man, that was long and boring.
[32:08.010 --> 32:09.770]  And then move on to the next thing.
[32:10.690 --> 32:12.390]  Yeah, it doesn't work in movies either, does it?
[32:14.110 --> 32:14.510]  Um...
[32:14.510 --> 32:16.090]  Any other questions?
[32:16.390 --> 32:18.110]  Along with optional turned on microphone?
[32:20.430 --> 32:21.230]  Is that...
[32:21.230 --> 32:21.970]  Maybe?
[32:21.970 --> 32:23.010]  There we go.
[32:23.290 --> 32:23.430]  There we go.
[32:23.430 --> 32:24.510]  That sounds louder than my voice.
[32:24.690 --> 32:24.990]  Go ahead.
[32:25.130 --> 32:25.690]  We're probably on.
[32:26.550 --> 32:37.110]  So having played through it, and having a bunch of friends who've played through it, one comment that keeps coming up again and again, and I'm going to spoil a little bit of the device, not the plot.
[32:37.230 --> 32:37.410]  Okay.
[32:37.550 --> 32:38.130]  Step carefully.
[32:38.630 --> 32:40.150]  Is I...
[32:40.150 --> 32:45.270]  You get these messages, and then you hit reply, and then you get the responses back.
[32:45.270 --> 32:48.010]  But you never see what you wrote.
[32:48.610 --> 32:48.750]  Mm-hmm.
[32:49.110 --> 32:54.790]  And so it always feels like you have a monologue coming at you, but you can only ever see half of it.
[32:54.870 --> 32:56.950]  And I was wondering, I mean, was that intentional?
[32:56.950 --> 33:02.110]  Was that something that you chose very actively when you were designing the game?
[33:02.110 --> 33:02.930]  It is.
[33:03.030 --> 33:03.590]  This was...
[33:03.590 --> 33:05.890]  It was figuring out that the game...
[33:05.890 --> 33:11.370]  I wanted to do some sort of story for a while, but it took me a while to figure out what would make it work.
[33:11.710 --> 33:13.910]  And eventually I figured out, it was a silent protagonist.
[33:13.910 --> 33:24.630]  You don't see what you're writing, so it doesn't break the immersion as much as if you would say, see your response and say, wait, I wouldn't say something like that.
[33:24.630 --> 33:25.890]  That's not right at all.
[33:26.810 --> 33:28.830]  Instead, you have to fill it in.
[33:29.030 --> 33:31.250]  And it's very...
[33:31.750 --> 33:37.730]  And most of the responses are ambiguous enough that it, hopefully, it fits in with whatever you actually were going to ask.
[33:38.210 --> 33:41.830]  So yes, it was a deliberate effort to not break the immersion there.
[33:42.550 --> 33:43.970]  There has been some debate on that.
[33:44.070 --> 33:46.430]  I think Emily Short wrote a bit on that.
[33:46.430 --> 33:46.710]  She did.
[33:46.930 --> 33:47.370]  She wrote them.
[33:47.670 --> 33:48.350]  Huge thing.
[33:48.510 --> 33:56.110]  Emily Short, who does a lot of reviews of interactive fiction and so on, reviewed digital love story and discussed that exact mechanic.
[33:56.350 --> 34:04.970]  Yeah, it blew me way more than anything, because she comments about how she normally doesn't like games with indistinct characters, but in this case, it actually works because of the extent it goes to.
[34:05.050 --> 34:07.830]  And I agree with her first point completely.
[34:07.830 --> 34:12.930]  Normally, I find the bland protagonist to be extremely, well, bland.
[34:13.570 --> 34:15.470]  But by actually putting you into...
[34:15.470 --> 34:20.570]  But I think it's less of an indistinct protagonist in this case, more of just a second person narrative, which...
[34:20.570 --> 34:21.910]  For me, it was a relief.
[34:22.110 --> 34:25.150]  I was like, oh God, I don't have to think about anything on that end.
[34:25.490 --> 34:28.150]  You know, I'm like, I wish I could do that in real life.
[34:28.330 --> 34:31.190]  This person mails me and I'm like, hit, okay.
[34:32.490 --> 34:36.530]  I'm sure I said something brilliant and the person writes back, God, you get me so well.
[34:36.730 --> 34:38.010]  And I'm like, awesome.
[34:38.630 --> 34:39.590]  Back to my game.
[34:41.050 --> 34:41.490]  Respond.
[34:42.270 --> 34:51.510]  Does anyone know about the chili, C-H-I-L-L-I feature in Eudora, which they created years and years ago?
[34:51.510 --> 34:52.290]  It was a plug-in.
[34:52.290 --> 34:58.630]  It would look at your language and it would respond and say, basically, you seem to be pretty angry.
[35:00.570 --> 35:06.150]  Hit this button and I will hold it for 30 minutes and bring it back to you.
[35:07.610 --> 35:11.990]  And by that point, your blood pressure goes down.
[35:12.570 --> 35:13.690]  It'll show it to you again.
[35:13.770 --> 35:15.410]  You go, did you really want to send that?
[35:16.470 --> 35:18.130]  And then you go, yeah, f*ck that guy.
[35:20.530 --> 35:22.210]  I could keep that going for hours.
[35:22.490 --> 35:24.250]  I could keep my hatred burning for years.
[35:24.470 --> 35:25.470]  I've had people call up to me.
[35:26.030 --> 35:27.250]  Dude, I hope you're still not angry at me.
[35:27.370 --> 35:28.190]  No, I'm really angry at you.
[35:30.270 --> 35:35.690]  But that was a case where they are, you know, trying to augment your brilliance with it.
[35:35.790 --> 35:49.790]  And for me, it was such a load off to not be thinking I'm going to have to play the guess the word problem, where a person says something and it's like, I have to write an email in which the word password is in it.
[35:50.390 --> 35:53.090]  Otherwise, I can't get past this part, you know.
[35:53.270 --> 35:54.630]  And it's still very meaty.
[35:54.770 --> 35:56.350]  I mean, there's still a lot to go through.
[35:58.930 --> 36:00.830]  So, any other questions, by the way?
[36:01.090 --> 36:01.630]  Oh, there we go.
[36:01.790 --> 36:02.090]  Right up.
[36:02.610 --> 36:02.970]  Go ahead.
[36:04.330 --> 36:05.230]  That one sucks.
[36:05.370 --> 36:06.290]  I don't know what's up with that one.
[36:06.630 --> 36:07.610]  We'll repeat your question.
[36:08.330 --> 36:09.110]  I was just curious...
[36:09.610 --> 36:10.030]  Oh, there we go.
[36:10.390 --> 36:21.270]  I was just curious as to why you chose to base the story around the Amiga OS as opposed to some of the other systems that were around at the time.
[36:22.970 --> 36:25.690]  What it came down to is it's just very distinctive.
[36:25.690 --> 36:27.530]  I mean, it's...
[36:27.530 --> 36:31.150]  The gouty blue of the original workbench is...
[36:32.130 --> 36:33.550]  It's very memorable.
[36:33.750 --> 36:36.650]  And also, it helps contribute to the mood a lot, I think.
[36:36.750 --> 36:41.570]  Just having this sort of dreary blue interface that you go through.
[36:42.070 --> 36:43.950]  It could have been based off something else.
[36:43.950 --> 36:46.870]  I considered making it a Commodore 64.
[36:47.350 --> 36:50.290]  It still has the original screen.
[36:50.590 --> 36:52.870]  Opening screen is based off of C64.
[36:53.110 --> 36:55.410]  But no, I thought it needed color.
[36:55.650 --> 36:57.370]  It needed to have that.
[36:58.090 --> 37:00.170]  So, the Amiga C natural.
[37:01.530 --> 37:03.370]  Yeah, no, it's a very beautiful work.
[37:03.530 --> 37:07.630]  So, let me think if there's any other last questions I want to ask.
[37:11.870 --> 37:15.630]  So, obviously, I mean, it's a softball question.
[37:15.770 --> 37:20.670]  But you appear to have been pretty happy at the outcome of this particular work, right?
[37:21.270 --> 37:22.910]  Yeah, I'd say so.
[37:23.110 --> 37:23.270]  Yeah.
[37:23.630 --> 37:31.690]  So, do you think of it as a side thing you do to other main work you do?
[37:31.730 --> 37:33.950]  Or do you see a possible future in that?
[37:33.950 --> 37:37.990]  In game writing and games and stories told that way?
[37:38.570 --> 37:40.210]  Well, there's clearly a very big audience for this.
[37:41.110 --> 37:42.970]  Which continues to surprise me.
[37:43.290 --> 37:43.810]  But...
[37:43.810 --> 37:44.610]  And I would...
[37:44.610 --> 37:47.310]  I'm definitely looking forward to making something...
[37:47.310 --> 37:49.450]  Again, maybe along those lines, maybe not.
[37:50.290 --> 37:52.070]  But doing something like that is...
[37:52.070 --> 37:53.130]  I think it's...
[37:53.130 --> 37:56.130]  Not to devalue the simple prose.
[37:56.410 --> 37:57.690]  I think there's...
[37:58.670 --> 38:01.410]  I certainly like writing novels still.
[38:01.410 --> 38:02.830]  But I think it's...
[38:03.310 --> 38:05.230]  Yeah, it's definitely fascinating.
[38:05.610 --> 38:09.510]  Just having a chance to play with different sorts of narratives.
[38:09.530 --> 38:12.250]  To immerse the player.
[38:12.410 --> 38:14.870]  Rather than simply telling a story.
[38:15.570 --> 38:17.370]  Well, I hope we get many more out of you.
[38:17.430 --> 38:18.070]  That's what I'm saying.
[38:18.470 --> 38:20.750]  So, thanks again for making such a great piece of work.
[38:21.490 --> 38:24.170]  And thanks everyone for coming to our little conversation.
[38:25.530 --> 38:25.970]  And...
[38:27.410 --> 38:28.990]  Be sure to check out this game.
[38:29.190 --> 38:30.790]  Like I said, doesn't take long to play.
[38:30.950 --> 38:32.310]  But it's really enjoyable.
[38:33.370 --> 38:36.250]  Scout's Honour, H-O-N-O-U-R.com slash digital.
[38:36.930 --> 38:40.710]  And for my own self, I'm showing a little film tonight at 11 p.m.
[38:40.870 --> 38:41.810]  over in the big room.
[38:42.010 --> 38:43.190]  About text adventures.
[38:43.930 --> 38:45.270]  And interactive fiction.
[38:45.570 --> 38:47.090]  And that whole world called Get Lamp.
[38:48.050 --> 38:49.650]  So, thanks again to everyone.
[38:49.790 --> 38:50.350]  Thanks for coming.
[38:58.340 --> 38:58.980]  That is.
[38:58.980 --> 38:59.940]  Thank you.