The guy’s still making ‘em. Both updates of Avernum and other games. Somehow he’s made it a full time job for 30 years.
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Complaining the whole time about how hard it is, and telling anyone who’ll listen that he’s older than dirt, and refusing to learn the most basic things about art, too. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs What a funny cranky coot. I feel a little sorry for him making it unnecessarily hard on himself being so stubbornly inefficient with the art stuff, but it seems like he’s doing what he wants to do.
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1.) so far it’s been Porpentine’s Vesp!
2.) .flow! a yume nikki fangame, I love yume nikki as well 
3.) Ooohhh jeez, this is gonna be hard, climbing the rainbow was like…really formative for me? but what else…man I wish I remembered the stuff I read! I only remember Rick riodan’s works because I was a neurodivergent child who read super quickly so I like consumed all of his stuff haha, percy jackson was a highlight in my pre-teen years
4.) Currently? Whole Saw Franchise and Malignant
5.) Siobahn makes some REALLY fun surreal sounding stuff!!!
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At first I thought you meant Jenseits von Gut und Böse by Friedrich Nietzsche, which would be a great pick for best book. (Stylish writing, thought-provoking philosophical insights,…)
Then I saw what category it’s in. Apparently it’s a game series too. Oops.
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I believe a dice was involved.
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Ah so that is what the zarfian dice are for…
> examine zarfian die
[Merciful mode active]
> roll zarfian die
[Beyond Hell mode enabled]
> open door
You are sucked into a black hole. You die when crossing the event horizon.
> undo
Nothing can escape a black hole.
> restart
I repeat, nothing can escape a black hole.
> quit
There is no escape.
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Whenever I’m asked what my favorite X is, my brain immediately goes “X? Never heard of it! I’ve never touched an X in my life!” So I’ll give this a shot, but I can’t promise to not edit it a million times…
1.) IF game: Birdland
2.) Non-IF game: Monster Hunter World
3.) Book: Fiction, aaaah I don’t even know where to start. Looking at my Goodreads reviews I think I can narrow it down to a top 3:
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
- The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Nonfiction is Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Eric Larson.
4.) Movie: I don’t watch that many movies these days, but I love Portrait of a Lady on Fire deeply and unabashedly. Everything Everywhere All At Once will probably land here once I get to watch it in full (it should be illegal to land an airplane when I’m not done with the in-flight entertainment 
)
5.) Band (and/or composer): I like a lot of music but it’s not something I’m like, into into so I don’t have strong feelings about this category? (Heretical, I know.) Current artist-on-loop is Rina Sawayama.
EDIT: I forgot about musical theater aaugh! The Fun Home and Come From Away cast recordings would also land here.
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Can you remap these commands in Inform? It has never occurred to me to try.
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I’ve never done it myself, so I can’t say how it works, but it’s definitely possible—And Then You Come to a House had “quit” and “restart” apply to the game-within-a-game, with alternate commands to restart or quit the actual game.
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Bugtesting that would be really sketchy. If that’s not airtight, then you’ve really borked the interpreter.
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Yep. I did it in my 2022 IFComp game.
Check quitting the game when SOME CONDITION:
DO SOMETHING instead;
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You can modify them in TADS, fwiw…
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The first time I saw MOST of Rear Window was on an airplane. Nothing like starting a 112 minute mystery with 100 minutes left in a flight.
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Apparently this game is not listed on IFDB at the moment. It is a game commisioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. I found it on their website: MCA - Porpentine Charity Heartscape The Shape You Make When You Want Your Bones To Be Closest to the Surface (mcachicago.org).
Maybe the game is on IFDB under a different title? Or it’s exclusive for MCA-Chicago?
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blackhole is a direction. The opposite of blackhole is event horizon.
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indeed the documentation show how to do these player-abusing modifies, but also put clear that is something NOT to do 
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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I think this is probably the case - I’d be surprised if Porpentine cared much whether it was on IFDB.
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IF
classic: AMFV
modern: Skybreak!
Non-IF Game
PC: Caves of Qud
Analog: Scattergories.
Console: Easy… Knack 2, baby!
Book
Fantasy: Swords Against Death
Sci-fi: Slaughterhouse Five
Horror: The Shadow at the Bottom of the World
Non-Fiction: Guns, Germs, and Steel
Movie
The Big Lebowski
Band/Composer
Radiohead/Berry Lipman.
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1.) This is hard–it changes frequently. Right now, it’s Violet.
2.) Inscryption
3.) This is also tough. For fiction, I’m tempted to say The Inheritence Trilogy omnibus by N.K. Jemisin, because I experienced it as one long book, but I think that might be cheating so I’ll just say the first book in the series: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Non-fiction, I liked Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. I haven’t read much poetry recently, but I enjoyed Please Come Off-Book by Kevin Kantor.
4.) Midsommar, and more recently, The Menu. (I suspect as of Thursday it will be M3gan, but I’m waiting to watch it with a friend.)
5.) Composer is Steve Reich. Band is probably The 1975, but artist overall atm would be Ethel Cain.
Edit: Sorry, didn’t mean to reply, just wanted to copy the Amanda quote without scrolling all the way back up.
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