|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- GET ALL OBLIVIANA--ISSUE 002--PART 1 --------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Get All Obliviana  ||  Issue 002  ||  -------> (Cup OWga002a, Created v3 (10/3/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = GET ALL OBLIVIANA ISSUE TWO Sun 4/18/99 * 2:11 PM Hey. Today I'm translating OsoaWeek into Aerie format. I'm up to issue 53 so far. Also, I took a lot of digital photos of my messy "office" here, since I'm gonna be cleaning it up soon. Reading snippets from the first year of OsoaWeek has put things in a new perspective, especially considering where I am now. One big thing is that I'm still very much in the same state of mind as I was back then--always trying to make Obliviana better, always trying to get to the mythical "launch" which would result in success--and financial success among other kinds of success. Aerie Obliviana does mark a shift in my Obliviana strategy. I have always wanted Obliviana to be one thing, and now it is--it's a book, a book that's meant to be read and enjoyed. This is its nature at the first level. Of course, the content of the book describes all sorts of other things, such as Stormjaunting, games, philosophies, etc. But on the surface, it's just a book, a thing written, and the only expectation from the audience is to read and enjoy it. Previously, I wanted Obliviana to be one thing, but one thing which brought all the elements together under some other kind of logic. I always had this conflict in trying to bring the entertainment content together with the supernatural, Stormjaunting-typ content. And in all of my previous systems, I think that I was asking too much of my audience. I was certainly asking too much given the fact that I have had virtually no money with which to promote Obliviana. So people have just been generally confused with Obliviana--which is understandable, because it has always been confusing. With Aerie, Obliviana becomes understandable, because it's "just" a book. I have to question, however, if I am making Obliviana into something that it shouldn't be. I feel totally confident in Aerie, but I do want my ideas to go beyond things to briefly amuse people--I still want my ideas to be implemented. I still want people to get into Stormjaunting. Heck, I need to get more into Stormjaunting myself! What I'm writing now will be in Aerie. All of my ideas will eventually be in Aerie. Looking at all of my writing, I think there's is far too much stuff to try and neatly fit into some unified system. But as a book, as something whose primary goal is to entertain, I have unified all of Obliviana. My expectation is that if Aerie can get a growing audience, that the secondary purpose of Aerie will start to come into effect--to make aspects of Obliviana into a reality. My boardgame, whose name has been in question, but which I now am calling "Vulpine Gathering", is one such thing. It is a phenomenal game, and I want to produce it and get people into playing it. As far as Fonostas and the whole formalized Stormjaunting thing, I definitely want to do something with it. An online community, such as I began in earnest last Summer, is something that may yet be a reality. But in the context of the Aerie-centric Obliviana, such a system would not have the pressure of being the focus of the whole thing. But as it stands right now, I am very much commited to spend most of my time and effort working on Aerie. Aerie Version 1 will be released in nine days, with the Revolvers OsoaWeek and Superior. In the month or two following that, I intend to release Version 2, which will contain Severe Repair and Zope. I put an ad in Wired Magazine, a two-line classified ad, which should appear in the July issue, to be released around mid-June, about two months from now. It reads: AERIE OBLIVIANA, singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora, www.obliviana.com. 11010001 ks? The phrase "singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora" is on the top of every single Cup of Aerie Obliviana, and it does pretty much define what Aerie is. 2:33 PM This feature, "Get All Obliviana", is in the Revolver OsoaWeek. OsoaWeek will continue, with the purpose of providing news about Aerie Obliviana and the rest of Obliviana. Get All Obliviana will continue in the spirit of the OsoaWeek feature "Lord of Obliviana". I do plan on having other things on the Obliviana website besides Aerie and OsoaWeek. I took a look at "Obliviana School" from last Summer, and it is definitely very cool and well worth putting back online, even though with Aerie I have de-emphasized LWOR as an organizational system. Last Saturday I was driving down to a video game collector's meeting in Howell, and early on Route 9 my odometer read 44444, and the trip odometer read 209. 4+4+4+4+4 = 20, and Aerie is being released at the start of Book 20! So I took that as a good sign. In perusing the old OsoaWeeks, I saw that I made a mention of my odometer reading 22222. Interesting. Now, as far as the release schedule of Get All Obliviana, it just occurred to me that each issue should be released when a new version of Aerie is released. So this issue, issue 2, will be released with Version 2 of Aerie. I had intended that a new version of Aerie would come out at the start of each new book--every 13 weeks. But I decided that that was too restrictive, and new versions will come out when they are ready--but I would like to have a new release at least every 13 weeks. The Wander system is the part of Aerie that I still need to do a lot of developmental work on. Hopefully, I'll complete the Translation of all the OsoaWeeks today, so then I can start to focus on Wander. Well, I guess I'll go into the living room and continue my work on OsoaWeek! Thu 4/22/99 * 10:32 PM I sent out OsoaWeek 247 last night, and I also finished converting every issue of OsoaWeek into Aerie. Just now, I added Get All Obliviana 1, in 8 parts (it is over 400K). I still have a lot of work to do on Aerie Version 1. The big thing I have left to do is the Wander system. I thought of several alternate names for Wander, like "Analog Overland" and "Overland Afternoon". But I decided to keep it simple and just call it "Wander", with the code WR. The main reason I wanted a different name was because of "Forge of Wander", which is the established name for the 11x19 grid. But I decided that "Forge of Wander" and "Wander" can co-exist--especially because it's so important to use the name "Wander", because of its vital role in Aerie. Wander is the Revolver that is the counterbalance to the hierarchical system of Aerie. In Wander, there is no hierarchy--each Cup exists by itself, with no branching from or to. This is a very important core philosophy for Wander. The format of Wander Cups will follow the same exact format as every other Cup. I thought of putting "fake" names in the heritage (branch from) links, but I think I might just keep that line "blank"--the same at Cup AO, with the "-------- || --------". This would make more sense. And also, there will not the the "branch to" links right under the 31 equal signs. There would just be links in the content area. 10:57 PM Just wrote a few Parkings. Wander. Wander Cups are all "even", though there could be sequences. I am thinking of Wander as an exploration of places, but I don't want to bog Wander down with unnecessary conceits. Wander has a utilitarian purpose--to allow for serendipity, and to "lubricate" the reading experience by bringing reader to new places in Aerie and making them desire to read new parts. The basic concept here is the idea of talking about a section of Aerie writing, hyping it, and giving a link to it. Now, as far as the place basis, as it relates to the old Afternoon idea and to LWOR... Afternoon is the hypertext wandering game, with things to write down and record, or not... LWOR could be implemented in hypertext, but really LWOR is the online world of Obliviana, when I get to that stage. I've decided that Wander will definitely not be based in LWOR. But, will there be a separate Revolver for Afternoon-type stuff, and if there will be, would it conflict with Wander? I don't think it would necessarily conflict. Another idea I had for Wander was for it to be a "radio" show hosted by Zope. Then, in the context of being place-based, I thought about hering such a show in different places. Okay. I think that being place-based is a good idea. But I don't want to the placeness to overwhelm the central purpose of Wander. So, how exactly would the place system work? Firstly, I want to keep the place-system whimsical. Think "The Manhole", in terms of whimsical places and travel. But I do want places to span multiple Cups. That is, each Cup is not just a totally different place, but rather, some links will take you to another Cup in the vicinity of the from-Cup. For example, if you are in a forest, there could be a number of forest Cups linked together. Now, in Wander, there are clearly two major kinds of links--links that take you to another Wander Cup, and links that exit Wander, and bring you to an Aerie Cup outside of Wander. These should be differentiated. I could have an "EXITS" thing at the end of each page, with the Wander links, and then the Aerie links in the descriptive text. I am using the term Aerie here to denote leaving Wander, but Wander is indeed a part of Aerie. 11:28 PM So, Wander is not like "in a theme park" or "in" any kind of place--it is very free-form. You hit a "Wander" link, and there you are, somewhere. The world of Wander is a world that is very much concerned with Aerie. Ads, promotions, hype, discussions, and analysis of Aerie about. So, in a very whimsical way, Wander is a little world that exists inside the book. Now, should there be other aspects here, such as gamelike aspects? Well, there could be clues in the details--clues to various mysteries--but I'd have to get specific with mysteries and stuff, as in what exactly they are all about. Placeness gives in-Wander links context. You are somewhere, and then you move somewhere else. You're in a basement, and then you go upstairs. You're on top of a mountain, and you climb a rope ladder that drops out of the clouds. Stuff like that. What about the various media, as in "you are in a suburban kitchen, and there's a radio show playing..." I am a little uneasy with this level of conceit. Is this maybe making Wander a little too under control? Sun 4/25/99 * 2:09 PM (alright!) Checked out Declaration of Oblivianas I and II before, while wandertainig myself with Aerie. This was is OsoaWeek027. After the Decs, I at that time wrote about the issue of the word "Dashic", and what a hard time I had deciding to use it. But, I did eventually drop the word again. "Stormjaunting" is the current word. Also, I wrote about the term "Obliviana Primal" as the name for the online world of Obliviana. I wrote how I had the name, then I dropped it, and then I started using it again. Well, the name was dropped again, in favor of Little World of Racetracks, which is still the name I use. I read the "Dashic" features in the issues following 27, and I made it clear that "Dashic" refers specifically to trying to find alternate worlds that coexist with this world. In this context, Dashic is very much different from Stormjaunting. Or perhaps, it's more of a matter of extent. Stormjaunting's goal is basically entertainment and adding a little depth to your life. Dashic is about breaking through into another world. My problem with the word "Dashic" is that I get a very weird/bad feeling whenever I write it or read it or say it or hear it (though I don't think I've ever heard anyone else utter the word besides myself). So, in this new context of Dashic as an extreme form of Stormjaunting, it makes more sense for the word to hold such power. To me, in the context of the current sociopolitical trends in this country, it would be fantastic to be able to discover new worlds, to escape from this world if it goes down a seriously wrong pathway. But of course, this assumes that the powers that be will NOT have access. Wow. Now THIS idea could be the basis of a killer sci-fi story. And I'm talking about it in terms of it possibly being a reality! Anyway, whether I decide to revive the word "Dashic" or not, I am focused on developing the milder supernatural practice of Stormjaunting--because it is, of course, easier, and not as potentially dangerous and disastrous. So now, back to Aerie. I have just about all of OsoaWeek and Superior done, at least in terms of what I'm going to have in Version One. I do plan on adding support material in the future, however. What I still have to do is some introductory stuff, but this should be pretty straightforward. The big thing I have to face is the Aerie Obliviana Revolver stuff--such as introductions to Aerie, guides to Aerie, etc. Also, I have decided that Wander will either not be in Version One, or will be extremely limited. Revolver AO--Aerie Obliviana--I have to figure out what its contents are going to be. First of all, Cup AO--the "homepage" of Aerie--is at the root level of Aerie--and everything else is in Revolver subdirectories--including the rest of the AO Revolver. AO should contain an introduction, to be revised with each Version. As well, I want to do a "Guide to Enjoying Aerie" kind of thing, which will talk to reader from the perspective of being entertained (wandertained?) by Aerie. Also, I am struggling as to whether or not to have WR (Wander) in Version One. One thing is that the current content, in terms of quantity, is almost all in OsoaWeek, and just linking to an issue will get you to the top of the page. I don't want to do those "#" anchor links--in fact, such links are forbidden inside Aerie. So, in terms of Wandering, I may have to give a link, and then say "search for string X". Or, I could just have a page with links to every page, randomized. 2:36 PM Version One of Aerie (or "Aerie v1") is just the beginning. Aerie v2, which I plan on releasing in early June (before the Wried Magazine ad comes out) is going to be the version that will have to kep people's attention. So, I think I will leave out Revolver Wander for Aerie v1--but it will definitely be in Aerie v2. I do, however, have to do some AO stuff. Now, I want to determine the Tarb for 2 AM, April 27, 1999. I'll first do it by hand, and then try and use my "Tarb Calculator" spreadsheet. Okay. Tarb 1 is 2 AM, July 28, 1994. 7/28/94 to 7/28/98 is four years. 365*4=1460. There was one leap day in there, 2/29/96, so that makes the total 1461. 39 weeks from 7/28/98 to 4/27/99. 39*7=273. 1461+273=1734. 1734*6=10404. This number FINISHED that time period, so I add one Tarb to get to 2 AM, 4/27/99, and arrive at... 10405. Wow. Tarb 10000 came and went, and I didn't even know it! The Tarb Calculator says 10411, so it's gotta be one of these two values. 3:04 PM Okay. I've determined that the Tarb Calculator is off by one day, I think. The Calc is saying that by April 27, 117 days have passed, whereas by the time April 27 starts, only 116 days have passed, and April 27 is day 117. 2 PM, Thursday, February 18, 1999 was Tarb 10000, by the way. Here is my writing from around that time, from GOA001: ------------------- Tue 2/16/99 * 12:29 AM So, what I would like to do is focus on the Fonosta Device, and start it off simply, adding potential Glyphs to it each Trick Sojourn. Or, indeed, every week. I need to create a foundational structure for Fonosta Device, upon which I can buil Obliviana. So, the nature of Glyphs is a very big deal here. Goodnight. Mon 2/22/99 * 9:46 PM I have a lot of work to do getting Obliviana ready for Y2K. Specifically, I need to get all the Obliviana materials organized. The materials are here in the apartment and in the storage in Iselin. I want to get both a definitive computer backup, as well as a set of must-have boxes in the event of a really bad Y2K scenario. ----------- Yeah... I do have to get those boxes out of storage, with my early writing in them. I have a lot of writing in notebooks, and I want to check it out and add some of it to Aerie, and use some of it as a basis for new stuff. I went bowling last night, by the way. They had a Pac-Man Plus arcade machine there. Pretty cool. Anyway, back to Aerie! So, in Revolver Aerie Obliviana, I will have Introductions and Guides. Or, should I give it a different Revolver name? AG=Aerie Obliviana Guide? This may be better. Cup AO is the home cup, and Aerie Obliviana "contains" all of Obliviana. So really, ALL of Aerie, every Revolver, is a part of AO. Revolver AG, Aerie Obliviana Guide. Kind of like "TV Guide", eh? Also, "Ag" is the symbol for the element silver! I could use the "multiple voices" idea in AG, with different characters giving their perspectives on different aspects of AO. Maybe Zope could have a "show" which goes over stupid and embarrassing stuff. This, then, puts Wander in a new perspective. First of all, I want to deal with the "place wandering" system that I was thinking of, which is akin to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. For a long time, I have wanted to create a game system, Code Named "Afternoon", which I may indeed call "Overland Afternoon" or "Analog Overland Afternoon". Or maybe "Halzapular Fuzz", and pattern it after a videogame system. My idea is for a static system--where descriptions don't change, as they would in a game like Zork, with inventories and changing environment, as well as choosing from a set of "exits" as opposed to a command parser. But added to the static system would be the potential for "offline" recordkeeping, either on paper or in a word processor. I was going to implement a kind of freeform variation of this idea for Wander (Revolver WR), but now I don't know. I could create a form of this as part of Revolver AG (Aerie Obliviana Guide). The basic idea here that the content that is focused on the content of Aerie Obliviana as a whole will be in Revolver AG. "Halzapular Fuzz" (HF?) would be a set of little adventures, but structured and hyped as "cartirdges". Could be interesting. Well, the bottom line here is that Revolver WR (Wander) may be history! Since I have to release Aerie v1 tomorrow night, I think I'll implement Revolver AG in a very basic way. Maybe I should set the release date for Tarb 10651--June 7, 1999--the 13th anniversary of Halfevil Graphics. And hey, 1+0+6+5+1=13! It's also the third anniversary of the day when I met my wife! 5:32 PM Wow! My office floor is vacuumed! And my office is much neater than it's been in a heck of a long time, maybe ever (thanks to my wife, Denice). I did an extensive photo-essay on the messy office last week, so as to preserve a record of the environment in which I've done my work on Obliviana in the past year-and-a-half. Okay. So I have the idea for Revolver AG (Aerie Obliviana Guide). That is the last major element I need to develop. Also, I do want to make the book graphic for the obliviana.com homepage, as well as designing the non-Aerie-yet OsoaWeek issues. 4/26/99 * 9:02 PM I just wrote the release notes for Aerie v1. Last night, I wrote the Introduction. Also, last night I developed the format for the current issues of OsoaWeek. And I created the Book graphic for the main index page of the website. So, I am now all ready to go ahead and finish things up for Version One of Aerie Obliviana! Should I perhaps do an "About the Author"? Why not! Tue 4/27/99 * 11:09 PM Well, I finished Aerie v1 at about 2 AM this morning. This evening, I created a new LinkExchange banner, and I just wrote a little note to send to my mailing list, as well as a previous mailing list I complied of people I know or knew. Here it is: ------------------- Subject: Aerie Obliviana is here! -- from Frank Edward Nora Hey there, it's me, Frank Edward Nora! I just wanted to let you know that Obliviana is back! Wow, how many times have I had to say that? Obliviana just keeps on coming and going... but now I think I've created a foundation for Obliviana that's pretty solid--Aerie Obliviana. So what is this Aerie Obliviana all about? I call it the "singular work of text wandertainment", and it's a work that will eventually contain all of my Obliviana writing. For now, it has an archive of every issue of OsoaWeek--247 in all. This is thousands of pages worth of cool stuff for ya! Also, I have a complete archive of Superiors, those neato little semi-poems of mine. On June 7, 1999, I'll be releasing Version 2 of Aerie Obliviana, which will add Severe Repair, Zope, and other great features. So check it out, at www.obliviana.com. Okay! 11010001ly, Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana ----------- Now, I have to get moving on Aerie v2, which is the Version that will be out when the ad in Wired Magazine is released. The big thing in Aerie v2 is gonna be Severe Repair--I plan on converting ALL of the completed material that I have, which is gonna be a very big project. As well, I'm gonna create a Zope Archive. I should be cool! Goodnight! Tue 5/4/99 * 10/4/99 I've been thinking a lot about a new idea called "Halzapular Fuzz", which would be a variation on the Afternoon idea--related to the genre known as "static interactive fiction" or "choose-your-own-adventure" or, as I have called it, "permufiction". I have wanted to creat works in this genre for a long time--well over ten years. But thus far, I haven't really done any "permufiction". Severe Repair uses hypertext, but there are no choices--it's just a way of organizing the work without a strict sequence. Permufiction implies branching with choices. Aerie Obliviana, being hypertext already, is an ideal place for me to create works of Permufiction. But the question is--is it a genre worth exploring. In other words, can I produce works of value in this genre? I have sought out, and found, numerous example of the permufiction genre on the World Wide Web. And pretty much without exception, I didn't find any works that were good or interesting. Is this inherent to the genre? The "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" books were cool--the idea was cool--but they were inexpensive little books, and maybe the idea was cooler than the actual content. With computers and games like "Zork", interactive fiction rose to a new level. Not "static", but changing--locations can change, you can carry things around and do things with them. This went far beyond simple branching. I'm sure there were a lot of works of computer-based static permufiction before the WWW--I even programmed a simple work of permufiction, based on the movie "The Dark Crystal", on my TI-99/4A home computer. But games like Zork were much, much more popular. With the advent of HTML, creating simple permufiction works becomes very simple--no programming required. I have seen numerous variation on the idea--including one, called "Addventure", where readers can add their own branching to the work. But like most of what I've encountered in this genre, the idea is cooler than the execution. So does this genre just plain suck? I don't think so. But I have to figure out a way to make this genre work. Here are, from memory, my major idea in this genre: [1] Shady Afternoon--This was an early idea, circa 1987-1988. It would have been photocopied minicomic-format books of permufiction, each one short and based on a theme, such as war, supermarket, pirates, etc. [2] "Big Book"--I forget the working name of this idea--but I conceived of it as a massive work, with thousands or tens of thousands of entries, with no enpoints, but rather, endless wandering and meandering. This is also an older idea. [3] From OsoaWeek018, 11/24/94: ------------------- ***AFTERNOON*** Are you ready for a cool new game you play on your word processor? Yeah! Well then get ready for "Afternoon", coming soon to the pages of OsoaWeek. It's a game you navigate through using the find function that most all word processors have. So this is a game which will work on any kind of computer system which has a text-search feature. Cool, eh? It may even incorporate that great "quick brown fox" alternative--"Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs!" ----------- This idea also incorporated the idea of recordkeeping on paper, keeping track of different commodoties--"liquor jugs" of different sorts, for example. I remember writing some BASIC programs to generate random code letters for the text file... but I never really got going on the idea... [4] Surface O--short for "Surface Obliviana", this idea is from a year or two ago, and it was a hypetext version of Little World of Racetracks, I believe. I'm sure I have extensive notes on this idea in OsoaWeek. Okay. So now I am at this new idea, "Halzapular Fuzz". Some history (comments in triple parentheses are my current comments)L ------------------- From OsoaWeek012 (10/13/94): ***HAVE TINA*** "Have Tina" is the tentative title for a cool video game currently under development here at Osoa, which includes elements of trading cards, bowling, and religion. Look for it in the Ibof Collection! (((This really stupid name came from a kind of thing I said when I was like climbing up a hill or something, like a martial arts "hai!" or something like that. "Ibof" was the "Indefinite Battery of Obliviana Artifacts", which didn't last too long, but there is Codingseed logo for it.))) ----- From OsoaWeek013 (10/20/94): ***BLAMEDAY SUNGLASSES*** You may remember, from last week's Nihilistica, a video game called "Have Tina". Well, it's still the same game (bowling, trading cards, and religion), but I've changed the name to "Blameday Sunglasses." Look for it in the future! (((Much better name. I liked the idea, also, of drawing cool little sunglasses in like Illustrator for the game.))) ***HALZAPULAR FUZZ*** Here's a top-secret video game project. It's so secret, I don't even know what it's about. Great name, though. (((At this point, I just had the name--but it was such a cool name, I definitely wanted to do something with it.))) ----- From OsoaWeek048 (6/22/95): ***HALZAPULAR FUZZ*** Very briefly referred to in OsoaWeek013 (05013NH), Halzapular Fuzz is an awesome interactive CD-ROM game currently in development here at Obliviana (given a relatively loose interpretation of the word "development"). (((Funny, eh?))) Here's the lowdown... Many of us GenXites remember with great fondness the dawn of the Atari 2600. How I pined after the system, and once my brother got it, how I lusted after the latest cartridges. It was a truly magical time. Videogame technology has come a long way since then, but have videogames? The intellectual debate over why those early games were so damn good still rages on. But I think I can solve at least part of the riddle for you. There's a great book called "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud. In it, and I'm paraphrasing, he posits that the popularity of simple cartoon characters stems from the fact that readers "project" themselves into the characters, ie, imagine BEING the characters. The simpler the character, the more people it might be able to represent, and the easier it is to "fit" into. I think the same dynamic occurs in videogames. The simpler characters of yesteryear are far easier to "inhabit". And in a broader sense, with a simple, blocky graphics, a player need to use his imagination to form a full mental picture of what's going on. As well, the simple graphics render images which are more SYMBOLS than representational images. And symbols have a powerful effect on the mind. All this, plus a lack of preconceptions on the part of the developers, is part of what made the Atari 2600 and its ilk so magical. Most participants in the classic game debate focus on game play mechanics as the core value, but I disagree. I think the primitive graphics are as much responsible for the magic of these games as the strong game play. The idea for Halzapular Fuzz started out as "The 2600 Experience". Imagine... a CD-ROM containing EVERY game ever released for the 2600, along with all instruction books, boxes, and cartridge graphics. (((This is something that could easily be done today. There are a plethora of 2600 emulators, and every ROM ever is pretty much freely (if not entirely legally) available online. As well, there are lots of folks who have sites devoted to scans of printed 2600 stuff.))) But beyond this, I envisioned a simulator in which you start out as a kid on the day the 2600 is released. You explore your 3-D neighborhood, make friends, do odd jobs, and above all, try to get the latest cartridges! You'd read magazines and get a first look at the new cartridges coming soon. You'd make friends with the kids who had more games than you. In short, it would BE the 2600 experience! (((As far as I know, no one has created a game along these directions. It's a pretty cool idea, though.))) Unfortunately, this idea has a few flaws. Chief among them is the massive tasks of creating a universal 2600 emulator, locating all the games and getting the rights to use them, and stuff like that. In short, totally unrealistic for a company like Obliviana--a company that in reality, is barely a company at all right now. (((None of this stuff is a problem now, except for the rights to use the games legally, that is.))) Enter "Halzapular Fuzz"--a fictional classic videogame system! Halzapular is the company, and the "Fuzz" is the name of their premier videogame system! HF, in its core concept, will be similar to my "2600 Experience" idea, but with a few differences. One big advantage is that you won't have foreknowledge of the games that'll be coming out. Now, while HF is certainly INSPIRED by the likes of the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, Magnavox Odyssey, Colecovision, and the like, it's my intention to create a set of unique, original games. Sure, there'll be some of the familiar classic game mechanics--dot pick-up, alien shooting, wall breaking, stuff like that. But I want to RENAISSANCE the art of the classic videogame, not rehash it. The first stage of Halzapular Fuzz will be the design phase, where you'll get to see all sorts of cool stuff, like the HF logo, packaging art from the systems and first games, screenshots, and the like. Actual playable games will take a little longer to develop, however. Stay tuned! (((Now THIS is a very awesome idea. The idea of experiencing the dawn of a "first" cartridge-based videogame system, which the whole thing being "fictional". The games themselves, in this idea, would have been real. In order to do this, an simple game engine would have to be programmed, in which the games themselves would run. I do, right now, like this idea, but as far as all the programming and stuff--I can't get into that right now.))) ----- From OsoaWeek071 (12/1/95): So, I've reworked the Revolvers and will present them below. * Obliviana * Severe Repair * Zope * Superior * 209 * Halzapular Fuzz (video assets, LFN, TC&B) * Forge of Wander (Antebellum/New Jersey) * Balbitype (fonts, clip textures, etc.) * Anything But Monday* * Classictronica* (((Here, I guess I gave up on the videogame idea and was gonna use "Halzapular Fuzz" as the name for the Revolver which is currently called "Welcome to the Weasel Village Mall". The use of this name in this context did not last long.))) ----------- 11:32 PM Okay. So there's a little history of "Halzapular Fuzz". And now, I want to use this name for a permufiction work. Last week or so, I had the idea of permufiction "episodes" being identified as "cartridges", with the idea of hype, previews, reviews, etc. creating interest in the titles. Then, there would be a game "system" in which you could "play" the games. This idea adds a lot more "idea" stuff to the permufiction. That is, it's not just permufiction by itself, but rather, a permufiction system ABOUT a permufiction system. To clarify, I see the system as being at the first level ABOUT the HZ "games", and then at the next level, the "games" themselves. Of my other permufiction ideas, I do like the idea of just continual wandering--but this idea has some problems. I have wanted to do, and I still may do a permufiction-based LWOR. As well, I don't want a permufiction work to "conflict" with Severe Repair, in terms of fictional content, since SR contain all of my sci-fi prose stuff. Another idea I had in the past few days is the idea of a place--like a college campus, with the idea being the exploration of a place. To deepen this experience, I would add time to the mix, so that you can explore in different "atmospheres"--like day, night, snow, rain--as well as with time passing and things changing. This idea has a very different focus--being in a PLACE. This is not a bad idea. It also addresses a flaw I have found in many workd of permufiction online, where there is too much dreamlike/teleportation stuff going on (I got enough of that in SR!) And yet another idea I had in the past few days is to implement Antebellum in permufiction, with "offline" recordkeeping". This could be interesting. And, of course, a few weeks ago, I wanted to implemented a "Wander" system in Aerie, which would have been a place you wandered around, with lots of ads and promotions and radio shows and TV shows ABOUT Aerie. I still might consider something like this. I DO need the Wander system in Aerie, however I implement it--a wild system that counterbalances the strict hierarchy of the standard portion of Aerie. OK. Lots of idea. How about Halzapular Fuzz which has as its focus the game system, but also incorporates Wandering around places, and also has the Aerie promo stuff... Kind of combining all the permufiction ideas into one big interconnected thing... I could even have the flowing, dreamlike portion in a form of actual dreaming in the game world... So lt me develop this idea... Halzapular Fuzz is a hypertext game system, where the player is a person in a place, a place which is based on "reality", and can be explored. My initial idea is for it to be a college campus, with the player as a student who lives in a dorm room. The videogame system "Halzapular Fuzz" will be a focus of the system. Exploring the campus will be another aspect. Time and weather and day and night--and time passing, with things changing, new games becoming available, etc. Reading videogame magazines... previews of HZ games... posters on your walls... other fictional media... movies... books... music... Okay, I don't want this idea to get out of control. The old me would have, in that last paragraph, immediately made the jump to having this system be the organizational system for Obliviana, with the fictional works of media real works in Obliviana. But this is the current me, and I have grown up enough to see that idea such as this have to be kept under control. Som I see HZ as being "stylized" to some degree. Examples: Halazapular Fuzz games will be referred to as game cartridges, but will play like little permufiction adventures (or something like that). Also, the promo stuff for Aerie. Both these things don't make "sense" in the context of a true simulation of reality, but of course, HZ is no such thing. I do want the HZ game "world" to be realistic in that there are no sci-fi/fantasy elements in the world itself--no elves, dimensional doorways, spaceships, etc. Nothing like: "You enter the student center basement. There is a spaceship here. Get in the spaceship. Take off. You are in space. Land on planet. You are on another planet." Nothing like that. Not in the "top level" of HZ. I want to keep developing this idea, but it will have to be scheduled for Aerie v3, since I have my hands full with SR and Zope for Aerie v2! Well, there it is. The genesis of a new idea, based on lots of old ideas. Pretty cool. Goodnight. Thu 5/6/99 * 11:29 PM Well, today was kind of a depressing day. Last night, I went to the website "Aint-It-Cool-News", and read a bunch of reviews of Phantom Menace. There was a preview showing of the movie for industry folks. The reviews were very disappointing. I've been looking very forward to Phantom Menace, and I'd even begun thinking about my strategy for seeing on opening day, or the few days following that. But now, I feel like the air has been let out of the balloon. I don't know if I want to fight to get tickets online, and then put up with the insanity of the crowds, if the film is indeed as disappointing as the reviews say. None of the reviews said that Phantom Menace was bad, but they pretty much all said that Stars Wars fans will not be thrilled. They said that Phantom Menace is on a Jedi level, with lots of stupid, slapstick shit. Ewok-level shit. Oh well. Return of the Jedi was an excellent film--perhaps on of the best movies ever made--but it pales in comparison to Star Wars and Empire. I was hoping that Phantom Menace would be more on an Empire level than a Jedi level. But now, my expectations are seriously trashed. In OsoaWeek051 (7/13/95) I presented a "Balbi's" file--which is the notes I make at the bottom of a file or in a separate file. This is a somewhat self-indulgent thing that I do, publishing my personal notes. But I think they are of some interest, and if I didn't publish them, they'd be hard for me to keep track of. Anyway, here is one entry: ------------------- "One of my goals in doing Severe Repair is to create something BETTER than Star Wars." ----------- This was just a random thought I had that I wrote down, not intending at the time to publish it. But recently, with Phantom Menace looming, and Severe Repair coming back in a big way, I thought of that statement. Now, with the disturbing news about Phantom Menace, I feel, in a somewhat irrational way, that I am closer to this goal. In fact, waiting on line at midnight the other night at Toys'R'Us to buy Phantom Menace toys, I told my wife and sister-in-law that someday people would be standing in line to buy Severe Repair action figures. I know this must seem pretty lame, but come on--I have to be furiously and pugnaciously behind my work if I ever want it to amount to anything. Severe Repair is awesome, dammit! 11:55 PM Okay. Let me get back to Halzapular Fuzz. I am still pretty hazy on this HZ issue. I definitely want to do something along the lines of HZ, but the design that I wrote about the other day doesn't sit right with me yet. One thing is, I have established in my writing that I am focused on creating single, massive works in a particualr genre. Severe Repair is my only prose sci-fi work--and I plan to kep on adding to it in the foreseeable future. So, if I am indeed going to tackle a "permufiction" work, it will be structured similarly--as a single, massive work. I think that my initial idea for a "Wild" section of Aerie, which would counterbalance the strict hierarchy of the rest of Aerie, is still a good idea. The gist here is that the "Wild" section must be one work, which I will continually expand on. And also, it has to be apart from my other works, SR in particular. I want to make this new feature of Aerie the major expansion for Aerie v3. It could be released on 7/28/99, Obliviana Day, or 10/3/99, my birthday. I think that for now, I will indeed refer to this new feature as Halzapular Fuzz (HZ). Sat 5/8/99 * 12:21 AM First of all, in thinking about the HZ idea today, I realized that it really should be Little World of Racetracks! I've been talking about travelling around to different places and stuff--and I already have an imaginary place very much developed! I was also thinking about getting people involved. Allegiance with a Racetrack. Writing E-mails as a means of "joining" and getting involved. That is, instead of any sort of official registration process, having E-mail and perhaps message boards or mailing lists, with what people are saying as being more important than just registering... But I'm dealing with an issue that will exist both inside and outside of Aerie. Things happening in the Racetracks--as hypertext in Aerie... or as an online world... There are two issues here--LWOR as the basis for Wild, and LWOR as the basis of people getting involved. I DO need an angle to get people into Aerie. Why would someone get into Aerie? Just it being "good" is not enough. There has to be some other motivation. And I do need people to get into Aerie. I need a fan base. But getting people involved--especially considering that Aerie is on the WWW, is going to be very difficult. The WWW is a very chaotic place, and people are very fickle there. I know, because there have been hundreds of websites that I have been "into" which I hardly ever visit, because there's always something newer and cooler, fleeting thrills of infostimulation... I thought about also expanding Ciffipur Pathways into a kind of self-help thing, with Pathways that meander instead of ending in an answer. It could appeal to a lot of people, but it would have to contain true Obliviana philosophy. But anyway, why would someone want to get into Obliviana? Not just visit the site, but get into it? Read parts of Aerie on a regular basis. Talk about Aerie with other people. Wear Obliviana T-shirts. All that. The idea of a "community" comes to mind, but I cringe at that word. I would prefer to focus on an individual personal relationship with Obliviana. I have spoken about the special relationship between a person and a single-player video game--almost akin to staring at a candle--meditative--spending time with yourself... Aerie as "Catcher in the Rye"? Aerie: Why is it cool? What do you get out of it? I have the idea of keeping a personal record... game elements, like, "if it's your 80th day in Aerie, you can get this...". And objects and amounts and values... Just being entertained briefly is not a good goal for me as relates to my readers. There has to be more involvement. And it should involve ego and identity, as in Fonosta. But so many avatars and online identities that I have encountered are so lame... I don't want to be bothered with code names and passwords and everything else... Maybe choosing a set of things, and then writing an E-mail describing and justiifying the choices. All I can say is, I don't want Aerie to be ignored, while it's this totally awesome thing. I have to do things to get people to read it. And I have to keep them coming back. But it can't be anything too formal. And it absolutely has to reward people with stimulation. I go on emulation sites frequently, with the promise of the stimulation of playing new arcade videogame ROMS games on MAME. Another factor here is that each version of Aerie remains static for months at a time. So it won't be like, "log on every day to get the newest info". Like, you are doing something, and Aerie is your main tool to do it. Like, you like this concept car, and you check out magazines and websites with it in them... That's not a great analogy, but it does relate... And this writing, right here, will be part of Aerie. In fact, unless you're me from before 6/7/99, you're reading this in Aerie right now. So what am I saying? I see the solution as relating to Fonosta. People constructing Wanderings or something using Aerie as a tool. "An awesome book that can only be accessed through an advanced computer network.". Identity. Fonosta. This has to be a part of it. Maybe... Fonosta is developed over time, with a set timeline, like "in week 8 you do this..." and it's something you are constantly working on, even though Aerie is static, you are moving through it as time goes on... 1:53 AM Fleeting... websites are so fleeting... The central angle for Aerie has to be very simple. I got all this text, all this great stuff, all these great ideas... so what? What will it do for you? Severe Repair... the STAR WARS of the World Wide Web... Text Wandertainment... entertain thyself by wandering through readings of text, okay. Aerie Obliviana... Old Reliable... it'll always be here for ya... get into it man... Sun 5/9/99 * 2:25 AM Been doing a lot of work on Severe Repair. Finished "Comma's Coma" earlier, and put it into Cupline "A Road Map of Arctica". I did a lot of shuffling around and consolidating today, but I have more to do. Anyway, I've been checking out websites and stuff. Trying to see cool stuff that's out there. There is some okay stuff, but a lot of it is not good enough to make an effort to ever return to it. Myself, I need a connection to something to keep on going back. That, or the promise of stimulation. I can't believe I'm already tired of Phantom Menace. I mean, I haven't even seen the movie yet! It's coming out in ten days. But I am really tired of it. But over the past few months, wow, I was hungry for info on the movie, man. Like I checked out a few online comic strips. And they were okay, but I was like, what does this have to do with me? What am I gonna do, read a bunch more of these in an archive? And then check out new ones when they come out. No way. They're not that good. But then there's MAME. The arcade emulator. I never get tired of this. MAME holds my interest on many levels. First is the stimulation of getting to play all those games. Then, there's the promise of new games every few weeks. And there's the collector's angle, where you wanna get all the ROMs. And the ROMs are tough to get! And getting a perfect audit is very hard. Things that are desired but hard to get. The challenge of getting. I have tried to incorporate this idea into Obliviana, but I wasn't very happy with the results. The Obliviana Trading Cards, which I think I'm gonna put online soon, were one such thing. And the whole Xappenshard Craze thing. And the idea of OsoaWeek exclusives. These were all ideas based on the idea that things that are hard to get are more desirable. But I ultimately let these initiatives slip away. But the whole Fonosta/Stormjaunting/LWOR/Jukewand thing is very much about getting people involved. I have not, however, implemented these ideas properly, yet. I do believe, however, that I will be able to find a a way to make these ideas work. Wed 5/12/99 * 11:03 PM From the file "Balbi's #5", 12/19/90: ------------------- Nomadi - We're your little oasis in the exciting endless night of reality ----------- Interesting. Anyway, got Phantom Menace tickets for 12:01 AM, Tuesday night, the first showing! It's in a non-THX theater, but that's all they had, and I'm not complaining. I went to the box office after I got home from work. Moviefone.com and Moviephone on the phone were both totally inaccessible. Thu 5/13/99 * 11:57 PM Just checked out my "Bible II" stuff from the Halfevil days. These are the stories that came before Severe Repair, and I do want to transcribe them and include them in SR. One of them, Bible II #3 is already transcribed. Part of the problem is that the stories contradict one-another and also the rest of Severe Repair. But this reeally shouldn't be a big problem in the world of Severe Repair, should it? Well, I do want to "explain" the differences in terms of the story--I don't wanna just have all this conflicting stuff. But I think I'll find a way to incorporate it, either in v2 or v3. So I've been thinking more and more about this "Deepen You Presence" thing. I tried something on the bus. I set Storm 5 on my fingers, and set out to "deepen my presence". It was interesting. One of the ideas here is that "deepening your presence" is not an earth-shattering thing--it will not turn your life around or solve your problems. But it will add DEPTH. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----