I had written a handful of Speed-IFs during the first half of the 00s, and eventually I decided that the time was right to enter the yearly IF Comp. I was never very comfortable with Inform 6, and my early efforts were pretty clumsy. It also didn't help that I never planned anything in advance and designed as I went along.
I made a few efforts in 2004 and 2005, before giving up Inform entirely and concentrating on writing and publishing fiction instead. A few things happened while I was away: Inform 7 was released, a vastly easier language for me to wrap my head around, and I got better (through practice) at writing, so that when I came back to IF in 2013 I felt ready for it and confident in a way I hadn't before.
Though I wasn't able to finish them, I never forgot my abandoned games. I'm a shameless recycler of old material, and for years later I would steal their scenes, characters and titles, so that there's no point any more in reworking Blood Loop or Root Rot. (Yes, I wrote a story called "Root Rot" based on the game. And no, I did not ever succeed in getting it published. Blood Loop had more successful children, some of which I'm still planning and writing now.) One game, though, titled "( C A U L S )", I didn't pillage in the same way. It was my first attempt at a unified puzzle mechanic. Playing through it again, and even realizing it's missing a lot, I don't find it entirely terrible. If I were writing it now, I would drop the amnesia aspect of the story, but unfortunately, and probably fittingly, I can't remember anything about my plans for the backstory. I would definitely give it a different title. The file is called occult.z5, so maybe it should be "Occult". But on the 128 megabyte jumpdrive where I found occult.z5 and its many tiny source files, I also found a cover I made for a different game, which was to be called "Occulted", and I like that better, so that what I'm calling this twine.
One of the things the game is missing is a hook: there's really nothing to make anyone want to explore it thoroughly and see all of the (sometimes mildly) interesting content. So, I decided to make a guided tour, part commentary and part walkthrough. Just so you're not surprised, ( C A U L S ) has no ending.
[[Onward with the game!|Hospital Room]]
[[I want to read the ending essay first.|final]]
First area: Hospital Room.
The opening text is nice and short. But I think it would have been better to divulge at least some of the backstory right away: that the PC is the victim of a magical attack that has left him paralyzed.
I'll stand back for a few turns here, because I sort of like this next part...
[[Okay, I figured out how to get of here.|Occult Sanctum]]
[[Just tell me how to get out of here.|Introverting]]
If I had somehow succeeded with the amnesia opening, here's the point where I //really// should have started putting in some character detail. Where you are now is a magical memory palace-type thing created by the PC as both a safehouse and a place to do his magical researches. I would be less vague, but either I didn't develop this any further, or I've completely forgotten. Probably both.
Things to do here:
>ABOUT
Apologies for this super-pompous "about" text. I mention it here for one reason: this game was to have been released under a pseudonym, Guy Minor, and in this text I imply that this is Guy Minor's second game, though he has written other things under a pseudonym. This is somewhat true. The "pseudonym" was Caleb Wilson (ha ha), because I had released that handful of Speed-IFs and short games, and Guy Minor's first game is actually something I've never revealed before (though don't get too excited): I used that name to take part in the Mystery House: Taken Over project, with a game called "Mystery House: Occluded Vengeance". Fair warning, I tried to play it recently and couldn't figure it out.
>EXAMINE SKULL
Nothing but a description. But I still like the description.
>GO NORTH from the Occult Sanctum to get to the Projection Shelf. This room is connected to the major puzzle mechanic, so if you want to figure things out on your own, that's where to start. Or, I could just whisper the secrets directly to you.
[[Yes, whisper secrets.|secrets]]
>GO EAST from the Occult Sanctum to get to the Safe Room. There is nothing to do here but sit on the throne. Sorry. I vaguely remember that the end game was going to take place here.
>GO WEST from the Occult Sanctum to get to the [[Tunnel]].
>GO SOUTH from the Occult Sanctum to get to the [[Upper Landing]].
>EXTROVERT from anywhere in the sanctum to go [[back to the Hospital Room]].
[[How can I tell if I've seen everything?]]
This character is paralyzed and cannot move. But, if you check your INVENTORY, you will see that you have, besides a hospital gown, a "red string (tied around finger; imaginary)". EXAMINE the string to prompt a thought, which will tell you the verb you need to get to the next area. The verb is INTROVERT. No, there's no way to guess this without looking at the string. Throughout the game, looking at the string will tell you what magic, unguessable verbs are available right then.
[[Okay, I INTROVERTed.|Occult Sanctum]]
So, here's the deal with the shelf and the Parapet to the north, which houses the green glass projection spine. The spine projects spells (which take the form of weird, unguessable verbs) into the real world. You can collect various green glass objects in the sanctum, then put them on the shelf, EXTROVERT, and then cast them in the hospital room.
[[Tell me more!|more secrets]]
The entire game, as it exists now, consists of searching for these green glass objects, putting them on the shelf, and unlocking new spells.
In the game you can find:
The green glass doorknob.
The green glass paintbrush.
The green glass doll.
Once they're on the glass shelf, EXTROVERT [[back to the Hospital Room]] and I'll explain a little more what each of them does.
>EXAMINE ISIDOR. A large puzzle in the game is opening this door that is wedged shut by Isidor's body. It's totally underclued. I had to read the source to figure out how to solve it myself, which is never a good sign.
[[I can't believe I figured out how to revive Isidor! Let's go west.|The Library]]
[[Tell me.|reviving isidor]]
Once he is revived, >ASK ISIDOR about something. I had planned to have a bunch of responses here. But there are none. Sorry.
Things to do here:
>GO DOWN to the [[Middle Landing]].
Yup, that's it.
This area is large and underimplemented. From here you're going to want to GO SOUTHEAST and then GO SOUTHWEST to get to the [[Curio Room]].
(You could also GO SOUTHWEST and then GO SOUTHEAST instead. There is no difference. Maybe there would have been? I probably was going to try to implement a bunch of mystical texts to look at.)
Okay, so to solve this puzzle, you have to get the secret tonic and pour it in Isidor's ear. What tonic? That's a good question. The tonic is in your magical vault, which...
[[Just tell me.|tonic]]
I'm sorry about this. You can access the tonic by finding the glass doorknob, putting it on the green glass shelf, and typing LOOT. Not the best puzzle design, I'll admit, since it guarantees that the only way to proceed is by searching for glass items and putting them on the shelf to see what they do, until you happen to find the knob and figure out how it works. This wouldn't have been too hard to fix though: the existence of the tonic and vault could easily have been shared in Isidor's description, turning the puzzle into "find a way into the vault" instead of "finding a way to get all the random glass things and experiment until you see what they do."
[[Sigh. Where's this glass doorknob?|where is knob]]
It's in the Arboretum and getting it is a puzzle of its own. I'll spell it out a little later.
Things to do here:
>GO WEST to [[Statue Seated]].
>GO EAST to [[Arboretum]].
>GO DOWN to [[Lower Landing]], though you will need a light source to see anything.
A strange little sort-of puzzle. As a piece of scenery it's kind of neat. It is not implemented extremely well. There's a chance you'll see some annoying disambiguation errors (that would be very easily eliminated with Inform 7's "does the player mean" rules!)
[[Okay, I figured it out. Huh.]]
[[Tell me.]]
I like the imagery here.
Things to do:
>GET THE GLASS DOORKNOB. But it's out of reach. The glass doorknob bobbling on the plume is a puzzle, though, again, not a particularly fair one. You can't solve it from here: you have to find the source of the plume.
[[Give me a small hint.]]
[[Tell me everything.]]
>GO EAST to the Garden, GO NORTH to the Vineyard, GO DOWN to the Fungarium.
I like the room descriptions in the garden area. The ersatz sun is a nice touch, and the description when you EXAMINE GRAPES in the Vineyard. Nothing much else is implemented, though.
[[Okay, I got the doorknob. What do I do with it?]]
So, you want to get to the room that is directly beneath the plume. It's called "Dreaming Statue".
[[Tell me everything.]]
Okay, so from the Arboretum, GO EAST, then GO NORTH, then GO DOWN, then GO SOUTHWEST. You should be in the room called Dreaming Statue, which is directly beneath the plume. Notice the "vial of tears" in a bracket on the side of the statue's head? As you might or might not be able to read my mind to figure out what's going on here, the statue dreams of whatever is in the vial in the bracket. And whatever it is dreaming of shoots up through the hole in the roof to form the plume. An obvious first try to solving this puzzle is taking the vial, leaving the bracket empty. But if there's nothing in the bracket, the statue becomes restive, and blocks you when you try to leave the room.
[[Go on.]]
>TAKE VIAL.
>EMPTY VIAL.
>PUT EMPTY VIAL IN BRACKET.
This part of the puzzle is pretty neat, I think.
(As a short cut, you can GO UP from the Statue Dreaming when it's dreaming of nothing.)
[[Pointless Overimplementation Alert]]
You can put a number of different vials and vial-shaped objects in the bracket, and the liquid that makes up the plume changes. You'll get different responses if you try to DRINK, SWIM, or just hang around the plume.
They are:
The blood vial
The secret tonic
The sleeping draught
This has no effect on the rest of the game. I guess I just thought it was cool.
The doorknob is made of green glass, which is meant to suggest that you should take it and put it on the green glass shelf in the Projection Shelf. I'm not sure how obvious this really is.
[[Tell me more secrets.|more secrets]]
Depending what you put in statue's hand, you might need to put something else in later to get it out again. Annoying? Perhaps. Sorry.
You can PUT SOMETHING (anything) IN THE statue's open HAND, and it will clap that hand to its forehead, dropping the other hand, which will now contain whatever was in the statue's hollow head before. It's kind of a like a magic trick, I guess.
[[What does this glass glove do?]]
The glove is made of green glass, which is meant to suggest that you should take it and put it on the green glass shelf in the Projection Shelf. I'm not sure how obvious this really is.
[[Tell me more secrets.|more secrets]]
>EXAMINE WHALE
Another puzzly statue. I like this one too. There are a few different ways to get what's inside it.
[[Okay, I'll figure it out.]]
[[Please tell me.]]
Now what?
If you OPEN THE JAR the candle ignites and becomes a light source. Now you can GO DOWN from the Middle Landing into the [[dark area|Lower Landing]].
>ENTER MOUTH
>TAKE JAR
>TAKE DOLL
>OUT
Nope.
>EXAMINE MOUTH
>EXAMINE JAW
>EXAMINE WHALE
So probably any of those things should have revealed the thing you need to do.
>PRESS BUTTON
Another, kind of pointless, thing the whale can do: if you put something on its jaw, the whale automatically swallows it and then you have to go inside to get it back. So you might not want to do that.
[[What does the doll do?]]
It's dark here.
[[Okay, I found the candle.]]
[[What's this about a candle? I haven't seen any candle.|what candle]]
The doll is made of green glass, which is meant to suggest that you should take it and put it on the green glass shelf in the Projection Shelf. I'm not sure how obvious this really is.
[[Tell me more secrets.|more secrets]]
>GO NORTH to the [[Crypt]].
>GO SOUTH to the [[Grotto]].
Things to do:
>EXAMINE COFFIN. Unimplemented. But I'll bet it was going to be important.
>EXAMINE MIRROR
>EXAMINE SOCKET
[[Tell me what to do with the mirror.]]
No, and that's definitely a problem with the puzzle flow in this game. The candle is in the Curio Room, and to get into the there you need to first revive Isidor. To revive Isidor you need to first find the secret tonic. To find the tonic you need to first find the glass doorknob, then put it on the projection shelf and type LOOT, back in the hospital room. I certainly couldn't figure it all out without reading the source code. And I'm afraid the reward for solving this long string of puzzles isn't that great: the dark area (past the Lower Landing) is mostly unimplemented. I can't even remember what was going to happen down there, past the first (and only) puzzle.
>EXAMINE EIDOLON
I like the description. And now that I think about it, I stole this concept of a monster as well for a later story.
[[I can't believe it, but I figured out how to get past the eidolon. I'm going SOUTH|past eidolon]].
[[Just tell me already]].
You can PUT THE CANDLE IN THE SOCKET.
(I'll write a little more about this elsewhere.)
The Feverarium.
"Fevers stored here..."
Rats, it's a dead end. And I never even wrote a proper room description. Presumably there was going to be something cool here as a reward for getting the past the eidolon. Maybe some of the missing glass objects I coded but didn't place anywhere on the map...
[[How can I tell if I've seen everything?]]
So this puzzle I purloined whole from an older game. It's not super complex: you PUT THE CANDLE IN THE SOCKET of the mirror back in the Crypt, which turns the mirror into a magic portal. (You can then enter the mirror, arriving at a pointless place called Charnel Cyst, which, hey, is another thing I stole from this game for use elsewhere. It was in one of my earliest published stories, My Phrasebook is Useless.)
Anyway, once the candle is in the socket, you can PUSH THE MIRROR SOUTH twice to get to the Grotto, and then the eidolon will go into the mirror portal, at which point you can TAKE THE CANDLE, leaving the eidolon trapped. I noticed some buggy behavior when replaying this, by the way: everything basically worked, but some incorrect messages popped up about what the eidolon was doing. Whoops.
Now you can [[GO SOUTH|past eidolon]] from the Grotto.
Revisiting the hospital.
There are a bunch of spells you can try here, and most of them will have absolutely no effect. I'll list all the glass items here so you can read about what each one lets you do.
(Oh, and here's a secret that might make this less annoying. I included a debugging verb with this game, SHELVE. It puts all the green glass items onto the shelf, wherever they are, essentially bypassing all the puzzles in the game. You can also PURLOIN items if you want.)
[[The glass doorknob]].
[[The glass glove]].
[[The glass doll]].
[[The glass paintbrush]].
[[The glass syringe]].
[[The glass conch]].
[[The glass loupe]].
[[How can I tell if I've seen everything?]]
The doorknob lets you LOOT. You can also STASH something.
LOOT moves whatever is in the vault to the player's inventory. STASH works on single items, putting them into the vault (though there's no reason to do this in the game as it is. Maybe I had something in mind. Can't remember.)
The glove lets you PALPATE things.
Basically this lets you poke things. I don't think "palpate" is great name for this verb. Anyway, you can PALPATE THE BUTTON to summon the nurse. You can also PALPATE THE TELEVISION to turn it on.
The doll lets you HAUNT.
This lets you project from PC's paralyzed body and travel a short distance. There's no real utility to it, that I can find. But if you want you can visit the Bathroom (GO EAST) or the Waiting Room (GO NORTH) where the nurse, er, sits and waits for you to PALPATE THE BUTTON. (Had I never been in a hospital?)
If you GO NORTH from the Waiting Room, you'll automatically flow back into your paralyzed body; otherwise, you'll have to INTROVERT.
The paintbrush lets you SUBSUME something.
This one is pointless, as far as I can tell (maybe I had a plan for it later), but kind of neat. When you SUBSUME something, it moves an imaginary, magical copy to the PC's inventory. And then, when you INTROVERT, that thing is still there, though no longer imaginary. You can subsume all the small, portable things in the hospital room, and get custom error messages for most of the rest.
(The sleeping draught you get from subsuming the pills is one of the things you can put in the sleeping statue's dream bracket.)
The syringe lets you POSSESS someone.
Another one that's not implemented beyond "Hey Jingo!" -- but I assume that the puzzle would have involved summoning the nurse by palpating the button, and then possessing her. To what end, I'm not sure.
The conch lets you AUSCULTATE.
Really? Auscultate? Huh, I didn't actually implement this one beyond making it print the phrase "Hey Jingo!"
Also, SHELVE doesn't work on the conch, and it's not in any rooms of the map, though you can PURLOIN it when you're in the sanctum and put it on the shelf that way.
The loupe lets you SCRUTINIZE.
Presumably this would have let the player get extra information about items. I never implemented it, though, beyond printing "Hey Jingo!"
Also, SHELVE doesn't work on the loupe, and it's not in any rooms of the map, though you can PURLOIN it when you're in the sanctum and put it on the shelf that way.
Have you:
Reached the Feverarium?
Summoned the nurse to the hospital bed?
[[Yes.]]
So yeah, that's about it then. I can't really tell how much longer I wanted this game to be. Isidor the Lion is unimplemented (beyond randomly moving every so often) but I intended the player to be able to ASK him about stuff. I suppose at some point the PC was going to discover who had paralyzed him, fight this enemy, and then figure out how to get unparalyzed? Apparently I did not plan any of this of advance. With that in mind, I'm a little impressed I got as far as I did before giving up.
[[What went wrong?|final]]
[[Occulted|Starting]]
by Caleb Wilson.
A guided tour of "( C A U L S )" by Guy Minor.
Why exhibit this game in Bring Out Your Dead?
I think it's a pretty good example out how to almost succeed in making a good game. I think that the life of an artist involves three stages (oversimplifying here): making terrible art, almost making good art, and making good art, and the step that's most interesting to look for learning purposes is the second. So I'm showing CAULS in Bring Out Your Dead mostly because someone might learn something from the ways it failed, but also a little bit because there are glimmers of good work in there which might also be encouraging under the right circumstances.
What went wrong? Why did you never finish this game?
I think I could see at the time that it really wasn't coming together, and back then I had no idea how to fix it. The core mechanic, of finding objects in your memory palace to unlock "spells" in the real world, and the imaginary red string that reminds you of your capabilities at any point, is pretty solid. A good story could be based on these mechanics. But I never sat down and tried to figure out what that story was. I never tried to pin anything down like character motivation, or backstory. This meant that the goals are too vague: the player has no choice but to solve puzzles because they are there. I can see how to fix a lot of these problems now: "memories" like the ones in my more recent games are an obvious solution. (Interestingly, the imaginary red string came close to the memory idea on its own). It would have been cool if things around the sanctum prompted memories, of the past, of the nemesis who (presumably) you would fight at the end, of the various magics that were hidden in the rooms. ("You could have sworn you left a candle around here somewhere. Was it in the curio room?") I also don't think figuring out the central mechanic of the glass items and glass shelf should have been a puzzle: it probably would have been better to explain how this mechanic worked up front.
Because I didn't make any notes, I can't tell how much longer the game was intended to go on, but unless it was going to be a lot longer, the balance between the memory palace and the real world is all wrong: there's not nearly enough to do in the real world hospital setting. A bunch of the magic spells are pointless as well. If I were going to redesign this from the top, I'd make the memory palace much smaller (and much stranger), the hospital larger, and the spells fewer and more interesting.
Um, how is this encouraging?
I started writing seriously the year after I abandoned CAULS. Even now, more than ten years later, I feel like I'm just barely getting a writing career started. (That's not the encouraging part.) The thing is, all I've had to do to get from where I was then to where I am now, is keep writing. I wanted to get better, I kept trying, and eventually I got better. If I keep writing, I think I will keep getting better. And I think that's pretty encouraging. So I'm exhibiting CAULS here as a monument to not giving up, and as an example of the almost-good which indicates the good might be just around the corner.