|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 162--9/1/97 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 13  ||  -------> (Cup OWis162, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = OsoaWeek Book Thirteen 6 "OsoaWeek162" by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana, Tarb 6793 (9/1/97), copyright 1997 OBLIVIANA REGISTRY NEW REVOLVERS None NEW CUPLINES None NEW CUPS OsoaWeek main file updated *OW* LORD OF OBLIVIANA zà1(»1zh9 * 9:20 PM (mysterious garbled date) I have this thing about designs, but I thought, what about popcorn? Each one is unique, but you'd go crazy trying to record it all. And you could never really even go through it all. If a band released 100 songs at once, it would be very tough to get a grasp on. Northlandz, the gigantic model train in Flemington, NJ, could easily have been half the size and it would have been better. I have all these Pelters and Yargo Trees and Superiors and everything. Maybe I have too many. Or to clarify--too many to present all at once. It's too much for a person to digest. And when you're overwhelmed, you shut off. There is certainly nothing wrong with HAVING a lot of content. But it must be presented in "bite-size chunks". This idea has to be part of the new version of Obliviana I'm brewing. Obliviana has been around for severeal years now, and it has not reached many people. I have always been focusing on making Obliviana better, not on promoting an underdeveloped work. But this process has to break at some point. Last night I finally came up with the "set of eight" I have been striving after for so long. As I mentioned last issue, I had a "set of eight" ("octet"?) way back in 1990, that was very similar in many of its structural aspects to what I have now. But in terms of content, what I have now is vastly superior. I have set Summer 1999 as the goal for Obliviana to start making enough money, in a sustainable fashion, for me to work on Obliviana full time. Two years. If I had set such a two-year "wait" in the past, I would have balked. But I've been at this so long, two years doesn't seem so bad. In my mind, 1998 is going to be a tough year. It's the whole 666 x 3 = 1998 thing. I don't see 1998 as being a good year to start something, but rather, a good year to develop something. My first step is, of course, to present Obliviana in a coherent fashion. At the Video Game Connections meeting, someone asked me what my website was about, and I totally floudered. I failed to describe it. I said something like "It's this science thing, a sci-fi novel online." The guy shook his head; he didn't get it. Well, Obliviana is NOT just a sci-fi novel. Severe Repair is a big part of Obliviana, but by no means the sole focus. Once I present Obliviana on the World Wide Web, I have to start getting people into it. Twenty or thirty semi-dedicated fans would be lightyears beyond where I'm at now. And I'm still a ways from there. I do not have a big budget to get Obliviana to profitability. I have virtually no budget. I can afford to have a website, but I can't do much advertising or anything that costs a lot of money. I can see, however, a pathway which will lead to profitability without having to invest a lot of money. The first step is to get fans. And getting fans depends on how good my site is, and deeper than that, how good Obliviana is. Obliviana is a game, to some extent. Little World of Racetracks is a "virtual world". But I need to build this Little World without any advanced technology. This is not the kind of world you're gonna log into and interact with people in real time. LWOR is not, however, the focus of Obliviana. Stormjaunting is. I can provide all the information someone would need to start Stormjaunting. As far as equipment goes, I do envision an Obliviana Startup Kit, in which you would get sheets of Stormjaunt Scrolls, specific instructions on how to make a Jukewand, and also a Fonosta. The issue of Fonosta is at the heart of this whole question of implementing the online world. Fonostas contain DATA. People have computers, and they have the ability to handle their own data. But as a service, Obliviana could also handle data. This is a major question then--where does the Fonosta data reside? Who maintains it? Eventually, there's going to have to be a database program that is specifically designed to maintain Fonosta data. And it would be nice to have the option of mirroring your data to an Obliviana server, for peace of mind and all that. A virtual online world is, at its heart, a database. Doing stuff in the world is the input and output of data. Now, in Obliviana, your basic database is your Stormjaunt Scroll Box, full of scrolls. The data is not in a manipulatable form, but it is there. So I can leave it up to individuals to manage their own data, or provide some sort of data-management service. But in the short run, I will not at all be able to offer such a service. The kind of service I CAN provide will be receiving and storing E-mail messages. But I won't be PROCESSING them. The idea is that by Obliviana storing E-mail text, no one will be able to retroactively make a decision in LWOR that they didn't actually do. How tough will it be to store this E-mail? Will I have to charge for this service? Well, such a service can be fully automated with CGI scripts, and I may be able to do that. In the short run I can just save E-mail messages to my hard drive from AOL. As far as charging for it, no way. That is, if all I'm doing is storing text for people, it's not the kind of thing I would charge for. It would have to be part of a more involved service. For example, getting an Obliviana Startup Kit might involve a year's worth of such E-mail storage. But I have to look at the economics of it all... The hard reality is that money has to be coming in. 10:43 PM Let me step and and look at what I'm doing here. I am proposing that I will present Obliviana to people, with the suggestion that they get involved in either Stormjaunting or the entertainment Revolvers. And the idea is that if the presentation is good enough, people will get involved. And if the experience these people have is good, they'll come back for more. And in this process, they will either pay money, or advertisers will pay to reach these people. This is a very basic model. But I do have to be able to see Obliviana in the context of the rest of the world. The focal point of Obliviana is Little World of Racetracks. LWOR contains everything in Obliviana. It's a Little World you can get to over the Internet. At first, it will be implemented as a series of HTML pages, but eventually it will have a more advanced interface. 11:12 PM I can envision people being into Obliviana. So I do I make this vision real? I think that the main obstacle for me is that people are very resistant to do something totally new. So, I have to come up with some kind of conceptual "ramp" to lead up to Obliviana, and especially Stormjaunting, using familiar concepts. What conventional things are similar to Stormjaunting? [1] Scavenger Hunt. This is a fairly well-known and understood activity, which involves getting a list of stuff, and then going out into the world to find it. But this is, itself, the sort of thing that people would have some resistance to! [2] Wandering. Going out and travelling without a set destination. Again, this is the srt of thing that people are bound to resist a little. [3] Going to a park. You go to a park to enjoy the surroundings. Most people accept this idea. But still, a lot of people need a REASON to go to the park, ie, something to do. [4] Going to the mall. THIS is a very universal thing, and it does have some thing sin collon with Stormjaunting. It involves wandering, taking in the atmosphere, seeing what happens, browsing and letting things happen somewhat randomly, ie, all this stuff catching your eye. "I don't want to be weird." That's certainly a conscious or subconscious factor here. I think that this is where LWOR is so important. Though the real focus in Obliviana is on Stormjaunting, a superficial focus on LWOR will provide the REASON to go out and Stormjaunt. This then puts more pressure on the LWOR game. In fact, from this perspecive, the LWOR game is what will indeed be the focal point of Obliviana. Hence: Q: "What is Obliviana?" A: "It's this Little World of Racetrakcs where you have a little guy and you can do all this cool stuff and get all this cool stuff." Tue 8/26/97 * 12:06 AM And the days just keep on passing by... Anyway, I think I should describe Obliviana as an "Online Game and Entertainment System", as I have described it before. This is very simple, and easy to understand. So, someone hears about this "Online Game and Entertainment System", and they want to check it out. They go to www.obliviana.com, and what do they see? "Welcome to Obliviana. The Little World of Racetracks has eight racetracks full of fun and games, and each one is different! For an overall perspective of Obliviana, check out the Obliviana Central Racetrack. And the two other Racetracks... the Mystery Racetracks... well... let's just say that you can't get there from here..." Below this will be a color LWOR map, and alongside it, buttons depicting each Racetrack and color scheme, which are linked to each of the Racetracks Homepages. Maybe the two Mystery Racetracks will have links, but their homepages will be, well, mysterious. At a Racetrack Homepage, you'll see statistics of the track, such as length, number of Fonostas, etc. And you'll get a pitch as to why that Racetrack is the best, and why you should make your Fonosta's home there. You'll also see all the Objects and Features of the Racetrack, as well as the Objects that are currently available. "Like what you see? There's an unlimited supply--but for a limited time. Interested? Well friend, the currency here is not 'game dollars" or 'cyber coins' or anything like that! Oh no--you gotta go out into the real world and do interesting and amazing things! Once you do enough cool stuff out there in reality, you'll be able to buy some of this cool stuff for your Fonosta!" Wed 8/27/97 * 12:44 AM What are the Racetracks gonna be named? This is a major question. The names of the Racetracks have to be like "brand" names--very effective, very evocative, etc. I have the basic themes for each Racetrack, and the names should reflect those themes. When I first came up with the LWOR idea, I named all the Racetracks with words starting with the letter "A". So the thought just struck me that maybe I could start all the Racetracks with the letter "O", for "Obliviana"? Or, I could take another direction, and start each Racetrack with the letter "H", the eigth letter of the alphabet. Let me read a little dictionary... Hmm... 80 pages of "H" in the American Heritage Third Edition. Well, may as well go through it, and put down words that interest me... Thu 8/28/97 * 12:23 AM I'm not gonna present the list of over 100 "H" words here. Anyway, I have a problem. I have too much stuff! I was just going through some boxes of crap that I haven't even looked at for several years, and for just about everything, I found some cockeyed reason not to throw it away. I can't take it! I'm in the middle of a sea of junk, most of which I'll never pay any attention to for the rest of my life! So I have to get comfortable with the idea of throwing things away. In fact, let me go and throw some stuff away that I would normally keep. Well, I did it. I threw away stuff that I would normally keep. Junk. It felt good to do it. I have to work on being able to let go of stuff. I'm getting married and everything, and I have to stop being so fucking insane about keeping every little scrap of paper that I ever had. Okay. Anyway, I've been working on the "H" words, but I decided to use made-up "H" words, although with real words as the basis. Now let me talk about this haircut thing. I've had long hair for a long time now. I think the last time my hair was really, really short was in 1990. And maybe in 1993, maybe then I got it cut short. At least somewhat short. I can't take it any more, this goddamn long hair. It's a total pain in the ass. It's no fun anymore. I don't care about it. That's it. I'm gonna get it all cut off. I'm gonna have short hair. Fuck it. Early on in my long-hair days, I was dead-set against pony tails. But for the past few years, I've HAD to wear pony tails because if I didn't, my hair would go all in my face and everything. There is a parallel between throwing stuff away and getting my hair cut. It's like, stuff that I've accumulated in my long, dark journey of the past decade. I wanna get rid of the excess; I don't want to be held down by the junk anymore. Getting my hair cut will be tough. First of all, I have to figure out exactly how I want my hair when it's short. Then, I have to put up with looking very different, and having people see me in a totally new light. Well, I'm gonna hafta do it. I mean, there's no reason left to keep my hair long. I mean, it's just so torturously mundane to me now. Short hair will be a real breath of fresh air. And no more FUCKING GODDAMN PONY TAILS! Okay. Okay. I'm getting a little excited. You know, it seems like as soon as I finally nailed down the nature of Obliviana in the past few weeks, and especially in the past few days, I've started to open my eyes. Anything But Monday Magazine ended around November 1989. Now it's almost exactly eight years later. In fact, I'll turn thrity in October, and then I'm getting married in November. Eight years. Man, I've come a long way. And eight is such an important number to me. AHHH! This junk is driving me crazy! Gotta throw some more out! Wow. Pretty big challenge there. An autograph of Morry Taylor, a Republican who ran for president back in 1992. I threw the fucker out. It'll never be worth anything (unless he eventually does become president), and even so, WHO THE FUCK CARES? Threw out more stuff. Feels good to be able to do it. And I AM gonna get my hair cut. This weekend. The thought of it fills me with some level of fear and dread, but I WILL do it. Gone. So much shit is gonna be gone... If indeed my arrival at the right plan for Obliviana is at the heart of these changes for me, I have to keep up the momentum in that regard, and really work on developing the Eight Racetracks of Obliviana. Good night. Thu 8/28/97 * 10:19 PM Been throwing some more stuff out. But I'm still keeping stuff. What can I say, I gottalotta cool stuff! I kind of flipped out on my boss, but the other boss defended me, and it was just a fucked-up thing. And this other company like temporarily moved into our room. Weird stuff. This haircut thing is on my mind. Not an easy thing to do... but a necessary thing... Wedding this weekend. That other boss I was talking about, Carmine. On a different subject, just a little supernatural note, that earlier this week I like jettisoned a package of waste. If I was evil in past lives, I got rid of some (or most or all) of that evil. Please ignore this paragraph. Anyway, I gotta focus on Obliviana now for a little while. Obliviana is an idea. It's something that I think about every day, but it's a swirling, everchenging thing, but with an identity. That is, it's always the same thing, but never the same. But I have gotten to a good level of definition. Dreams from years ago flashing though my mind... Store in a basement type area--daisy something in the store... outside, kind of like a playground or public area, and I'm one of The Beatles, but I realize I don't know how to play music, and I don't know the lyrics all that well... Could this be symbolic of me not being ready to be Lord of Obliviana? Maybe. But I AM ready, though maybe reluctant to take on the role. As I am a little reluctant to face this whole haircut thing. Obliviana is hard to nail down. The term "Online Game and Entertainment System" is a general, vague description. For one thing, it is not EXCLUSIVELY online, and for another, it has aspects that go beyong games and entertainment. But I have to distill the definition of Obliviana into something understandable. "Super Occult Amusement" has always been a good description, although it may imply too much of a supernatural bent; Obliviana has a very much "conventional" side. Thinking of The Wiz at Menlo Park Mall. It used to be next to Arcadian Gardens, the last remnant of the old Menlo Park Mall. But Arcadian Gardens is now a Zany Brainy. I've jested for a long time that if I ever get time travel powers, my first destination will be the old Menlo Park Mall. I think I hav to conceive of how people are going to "do" Obliviana in order to really define it. I do envision people "getting into" Obliviana. And I see LWOR as being at the center of everything. This Little World, containing all of Obliviana. Now, what is the distinction between "Obliviana" and "Little World of Racetracks"? Well, LWOR is the world that contains Obliviana. But then, couldn't LWOR be called "Obliviana"? Or maybe... maybe it could be called "The Obliviana Little World of Racetracks". Or, "Obliviana: The Little World of Racetracks". LWOR is the container of Obliviana. Like a big Cup. I think a big question here is what is at the "heart" of Obliviana. That is, Nike makes sneakers, McDonald's serves fast food, L. L. Bean has a catalog of yuppie nature-oriented stuff, etc. So what does Obliviana "do"? Ah... It may be that Obliviana's "heart" is something very simple... Yoru Fonosta, in LWOR... it... it... races. Fri 8/29/97 * 12:10 AM Online Racing Game. Hmm... This is an aspect that I haven't focused on very much, but it makes sense that on a Little World of Racetracks you would expect to race. This, then, could very well be the focal point. Get your Fonosta. Race your Fonosta. And all the other stuff is focused on the act of racing. Here are some thoughts on racing in LWOR: Races will be planned in advance, some of them being regular events, and in order to race, you have to enter the race. At some point before the race, you'll have to decide what to "put into" the race. Since the race will not be happening in real time, the outcome of the race will depend on what you put into it. By "putting" in, I mean to say that you will commit a set of objects too the race. For example, if weather is in question, and you think it's gonna rain, you would go for racing gear that works better int he rain. Perhaps there could be a few deadlines, each getting closer to the event, which would allow you to refine what you're already decided on. In this system, it would be good to have "expendables", which would be units that are used up during the race, win or lose. I'll call these units "racing power" for now. Racing power would make racing in LWOR something like an auction. You don't know how much power other folks are putting in, so you have to guess. Put in a whole lot, and you might guarantee a win, but then you might be in bad shape for the next race. If all the aspects of your Fonosta come from your real-world Stormjaunting achievements, then by putting the focus on racing, there is more incentive to "phim", or lie about Stormjaunts. But like... at some point, it's like... "so okay--you DIDN'T go out and have this cool adventure--but you won a race in a make-believe world. Cool, man." That's the idea--that phimming will throw into harsh focus a much larger issue--that people are losing touch with the real world via electronic media. What about alternate "power sources"? Should you be able to gain stuff for your Fonosta without Stormjaunting? Will, for example, winning a race get your Fonosta utile objects? By "utile", I mean objects which have some bearing on racing, as opposed to objects which are not useful for racing, such as graphical elements for your Device, etc. One thing is sure--I want to encourage a rivalry between the Racetracks--and there will certainly be something like a major race where the champions from each of the Racetracks meet for one Super Race. Maybe this "Super Race" will occur at the end of each Trick Sojourn (ie, every 13 weeks, four times a year). Between races, you will, of course, be prepraring for the next race. And there could very well be Fonostas who do not race at all, but focus on other things. But racing will be the main focus. It makes total sense. "Obliviana: Wonderful Online Racing Game" Sat 8/30/97 * 4:25 PM I got my hair cut. Short. It's done. I was in a daze today. And me and Denice got an aprtment in Nutley, pending approval of our application. And I have a new idea for Obliviana, a minor refinement perhaps, but I believe that it is very important. The idea is that there will be a number of characters in LWOR, and you "become" one of these characters via your Fonosta. To display the differences betweenthis idea dn my previous idea, let's take the video game "Street Fighter II". In the original version of this game, you could choose to "be" one of eight characters (Ken, Ryu, Chun Li, Blanka, E.Honda, Guile, Zangief, or Dhalsim). Now, just imagine if there was a way to make your own street fighter, combining aspects of these characters. That is, instead of there being eight clearly-defined characters, there would be thousands of potential combinations of aspects. Well, this idea might appeal to some, but I believe that the very structured, very inflexible character system of SFII was part of what made it so popular. The next version of SFII (SFII Turbo) allowed you to play as one four boss characters (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison), as well as allowing both players to select the same fighter. The latter aspects brought different color schemes to the characters, so, for example, there was the original green-skinned Blanka, and an alternate blue-skinned Blanka, so you could tell them apart while they were fighting. These minor upgrades to the game were unbelievably cool to me and millions of others. If the game had originally been released with these features they wouldn't have been nearly as cool as they were IN COMPARISON to the original. Several versions later (Super SFII) four new characters were added (Cammy, Fei Long, T. Hawk, and Dee Jay), as well as eight different color schemes for each character. I was totally engrossed by these features--moving from two to eight colors per character was a really cool thing. So anyway, I want to establish character in LWOR, who you can "be" for extended periods of time. Perhaps each character will have a name, then follow by your Fonosta name. Sun 8/31/97 * 1:02 PM I want to get specificwith this new character-based system in LWOR. Your Fonosta is yours, totally. Incarnation is one aspect of Fonosta. LWOR is inspired by the spirit of classic video games. In video games and in LWOR there are "guys", the little characters you control. So, these characters, I'll call them "Xappens" for now, exist in LWOR, and you control one at a time, just like in a real arcade you go from mahcine to machine and control different little characters. Mon 9/1/97 * 2:26 AM Xappens are going to be character that you "control" for much longer periods of time than you would characters in video games in an arcade. The idea is that you'll probably keep a Xappen for at least weeks, probably months, and maybe even years. One big question is how much of your Fonosta will "go into" the overall character of the Xappen you control. 4:43 AM Another question is how specific the Xappens will be. That is, will they have fully developed names and personalities and situations, or will they be less specific? And how many will there be? Enough to accomodate everyone playing? If so, will I be created characters to meet the demand? And if this number grows into the thousands, how will I be able to make each character unique? Say there's one group, "Construction Raccoons", which are raccoon with a construction theme. Identifying specific members of this group would involve name, personality, status, etc. So, at one end, Xappens are fully-formed characters, but at the other end, they are just "templates". For example, there could be a number of Construction Raccoon" templates, and then a set number of individual Xappens. In this case, there could be carpenters, steelworkers, masons, etc. So, I could have this structure for the Xappens without making up specific characters. Or, I could be very specific. Another question is about what happens when a Fonosta moves on to another Xappen. Would the Xappen be left behind, or would it simply transform? I think I like this transformation idea. You HAVE a Xappen, and then you move INTO a "Xappenset", or group of Xappens. On each Racetracks, there could be several Xappensets. This would make Xappen creation a lot easier. First, choose your Racetrack. Then, choose your Xappenset. And then, within the Xappenset, choose your particular Xappen. Mon 9/1/97 * 2:51 PM Woke up less than an hour ago. Lotsa weird dreams. So, I really have to get a grasp on all this. On Obliviana. Online Racing Game. The structure. A Little World of Racetracks, you create your Fonosta, and through your Fonosta, you become a little character, who races. Man, I'm a little out of touch with all this. What is it that I am doing? What is at the core? Game. Game for people to play. Play and at some point pay me. Getting a vision... watching Mr Kite sequence of Bee-Gee movie Sgt. Pepper... George Burns singing... my vision of that class trip... to Fernwood?... night... toga party thing... sitting there watching... What does it mean? There are more places than where I'm at now. Obliviana is my own thing. I want to share it with people. But what about the online game aspect? I mean, people coming to the Obliviana server, interacting... Little World of Racetracks... very much the basis of it all... Basically, LWOR is a little world, with a number of little characters living on it. YOU become one of these characters. And you have a number of options of what you can do. Your Fonosta is your identity in Obliviana. Your Xappen is your current "incarnation" in LWOR. There are a number of different types of objects you can have, including Vehicles, Houses, Buddies, and Tools. The novel aspect of this game system is that your Fonosta inside LWOR is "powered" by Stormjaunting, which is an thing that YOU do in the REAL WORLD. 6:34 PM I went to Garden State Plaza before, and I'm still Stormjaunting. I had a vision of some type of Obliviana item, which could have unlimited variation, that you could sell at a mall cart or something. I got the vision at a soap cart, a new kind of soap with solid blocks like scultures, aromatherapy or something. And this got me to thinking about how important the eight different Racetracks are. And I was also thinking about the fonts that would represent the Racetracks. I want to use historical fonts. Goudy Thirty and Cassandre are definites. Super Objects come to mind as the items I could sell in the real world. But I was kind of thinking in broader terms. Things you could buy, and then check the Obliviana website periodically to see how your item is "doing". The idea here is that LWOR will be very much delineated on the Web, and updated frequently. The term "Digital Superworld Youth" came to me. It's a phrase I've had for several years. I have all the ingredients for Obliviana. Now I just have to start putting it together. But I should have a little better idea of what I'm doing before I get started in earnest. I had the idea of a text-based game, part of Primitive, which you use the FIND function of browsers or word processors to play. I've had this idea for a long time, but I've never gotten very far with it. Another idea stems from my observation that the Disney theme parks have a paucity of licensed products. For examp,e you can't go into the Disney Store and get an EPCOT T-shirt. I guess you have to go to the parks to get that stuff. And I looked for theme park related Disneyana online, but came up empty-browsered. One type of item I always though would be awesome is little models of the various building and structures in Walt Disney World. They could even be solid-colored plastic models. Just imagine Horizons, Journey Into Imagination, Living Seas, Mexico, Tower of Terror, Thunder Mountain, Contemporary Hotel, etc. Do I had the idea that Obliviana could be like that, be like a virtual theme park which WOULD have such memoribilia. I guess the main objection to this scheme would be that LWOR is not a real place that you can go to. But it can be a detailed virtual world. And it could have "rides" and "attractions". These would be in the Obliviana non-3-D, Yargo, non-video format, of course. I was thinking that Obliviana should eb aplace you can go to on the Web and immediately do fun stuff. This idea of Obliviana as theme park makes sense. See, I have the whole scheme of LWOR, and Xappens, and Fonostas, and racing and Stormjaunting and all that. This theme park angle could be overlayed ON TOP of all that. So, the big qustion with the theme park angle would be the implmentation of "rides". First of all, I do want these "rides" to be based on the spirit of WDW rides. Or at least, the spirit of the classic WDW rides. See, WDW used to be about cool, atmospheric, non-thrill rides. So the first objection one might have to virtual rides is that you can't FEEL it. Well, the kid of rides I'm going for are not thrill rides, but ATMOSPHERE rides. This is good, because it is easier to create an atmoshere with a computer than it is to create the actualy feeling of a thrill ride. Still, there has to be some unique angle to these "rides". I mean, right away, I can conceive of text and picture which describe the experience. But I don't know how "immersive" such could be. But in general, I am interested in stimulating the IMAGINATION. So, what sort of HTML-based experience would be evocative, atmospheric, and all that? I mean, the WDW rides that I love work because they SURROUND you with sights and sounds and smells, most of them real and three-dimensional. "Pirates of the Carribean" is a great example. You are THERE. It's all around you. Now, you might think that a true VR system would be good for this. I guess that such an angle would be valid, and such non-interactive VR software as a "ride" would certainly be better than the interactive stuff. But as you probably know, I am very much against the use of VR in Obliviana. One thing that I'm not against is SOUND. And even though it'd be a little hard to implement right now, I definitely think that sound would certainly go a long way toward creating evocative atmospheres. So, these "rides" could indeed be at the heart of the appeal of Obliviana. But such rides have to be truly enjoyable experiences which warrant repeated drinking. I remember back in 1990 telling Steve Messner, a guy I worked with, that I thought that theme park creation was a field that I'd like to work in in the future, specifically to CREATE theme parks. He commented that it was quite an ambitious aspiration, or something like that. So the question right now is, how do you make a ride on a computer? Or... does the "ride" depend to some extent on the physical items you buy at the Obliviana cart at the mall? Hmm... 9:59 PM The first two lines of this file have been garbled somehow--I'll leave 'em that way, I guess. So, I went out to play video games and stuff. Got the CD "The Moog Cookbook". Very good. So I want Obliviana as theme park to be a very simple thing on the surface. It should consist of LWOR and the various rides, all available to "go on". By "simple", I mean that someone can come in and explore the theme park without having to deal with all the other stuff. One aspect about the "rides" is the graphical aspect. That is, the JPEG images that will be shown as part of the ride. I thought about the possibility of animated GIFs, very simple, such as just two frames or something. The graphical style of these ride images should be uniform. That is, they should all have the same style. Perhaps I could do something like having layered "cels", which would then be compositied to make the final images. I could have an artist draw various things, and then use them over and over again. Perhaps each Racetrack could have its own graphical style. I think that I should use Yargo format for the rides. In fact, to do otherwise would kind of go against the Obliviana ideals. The lack of color may be an issue here. I can see cartoony, solid-areas-of-color graphical images working well in the ride context. Or, I could develop my own art style to fit the rides. The new TV cartoon "South Park" uses colored construction paper cutout images as the basis of its art. This is somewhat similar to my "cel" idea. The thing is, the images in the rides have to be compelling, and palatable to a wide audience. Well, at the very least, I can go ahead and create a ride using my own artwork, as a prototype. I think there are a lot of other issues about this "ride" idea that need to be addressed, besides the art, however. One thing that I would very much like to be involved is for the ride to "move" automatically, without having to click a "next scene" link. I know that this is possible, but I really don't know how to do it. It could be added at a later time, though. 10:24 PM Obliviana "rides" are "source content". That is, they are not referring to something else, they are IT. Let's say I do a ride called "Elf Town", which depicts the lifestyle and various challenges facing a town of elves (the fairy kind, not the D&D kind). First off, I see the ride progressing in a linear fashion, from beginning to end, just like a real ride. I think that ultimately there should be a soundtrack to each ride, including a voiceover, and each ride will advance automatically. To start with, I'll have to settle for text to augment the pictures. Now, the themes are extremely important here. "Elf Town" is the sort of innocent, unencumbered theme that I want to use for these rides. So, are these rides to be a series of Yargos, with accompanying text? I think there has to be something more. Like I mentioned earlier, using physical stuff that is sold to enhance the experience of the rides is a good idea. This could includes scents, objects, models, etc. Oh well. Gotta finish up now. I'll continue this discussion next issue. Get all Obliviana. *OW* -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----