My only problem with the Everybody IF! thing is that it’s a pretty big community effort to produce one game - like the Chinese Whispers games (which I really enjoy, BTW). Whereas I was hoping for a model where a small effort from lots of people would produce lots of games.
But, maybe I’m clinging too hard to the RON model. 
Best to let it go and play to the strengths of this community, rather than look to impose the strengths of a different community upon it, eh?
Yeah, well, I just meant that we could use your ideas as a seed for a new Everybody IF! game, and use that to start building the shared world. So it would just be one way to get into it. Anybody else could and can still use that setting to write their own games.
It’s absolutely fine by me, accourse.
Something that has to be thought about, of course, is - pirate mutants, yay/nay? Bg has stated that he she likes the whole idea but not the theme. Now, ideally, I’d really like for the theme not to be prohibitive (which is a danger of having too specific a theme. And we have to admit, Pirate Mutants is pretty damn specific).
Thing is, there haven’t been many alternatives thrown forward. Bg, what if you were to consider it a bit of a challenge and you could find a way to fit something more to your liking to this Pirate Mutants world - without having to sacrifice anything of your own? What if you used only the barest of links - and right now, nothing’s built so everything is up for grabs - to connect to the Pirate Mutants theme (and thus provide a secondary theme for anyone who’s as unseduced by the mutant Long John Silvers as you are)? Would that work for you, in that it would encourage you to make the game you want to make, to be part of this larger setting, without feeling encumbered by an overall theme you don’t much care for? Since you won’t have to follow it too strictly?
(this is the meat and bones right here, this is what attracted me to the concept in the first place - a world big enough to fit everyone’s game and genre)
Don’t put too much weight on my preferences…I’m not really invested in this as a long-term project and don’t have specific ideas in mind. I just thought an “Everybody IF” thread might be entertaining, regardless of whether a complete game gets made out of it. And sure, if things don’t have to be tied too closely to the theme, that makes things easier. Also, for future reference, I’m a she.
Future reference noted. Apologies!
No problem.
I think what made RoN accessible for new game makers (until its world and history got too big for anyone new to get a handle on) is that it’s setting is just a town. A town can be the springboard for any number of stories.
Andromeda has worked well as a shared setting due to the large amount of narrative questions left unanswered by the initial scenario.
The mutant powers conceit is appealing because it’s consistent (not as genre agnostic as RoN) and it suggests lots of different kinds of stories.
The pirate idea is fun but might be offputting for many as to write authentically would require plenty of research and without that it risks turning into a Pirates of the Caribbean/Treasure Island trope checklist.
One of the things that was appealing about the idea is that of quarantine. The quarantined town, walled off from the world, creates a managable, bounded space for exploration and simplifies world building (you only have to worry about the town).
Care to make a sample game to kick things off?
I do like the quarantine (and you can still have a pirate character in there, if you like, and if you REALLY like you can make games outside of the quarantine zone, but the quarantine area becomes a hub, a focal point). It may be the missing parrot in our parrot sketch.
I think maybe I will! I’ve got some ideas already about how I’d go about it…
Hope it’s going along nicely, Joey. 
The reason for the bump is that I just stumbled onto… well, see for yourself! It’s the first screen of the Twine game “Hellsider Round-Up”.
Look familiar?
I checked out Floraverse, and it doesn’t seem to be something we can really use, it’s much more about comics and music. Interesting similarities, though!
Oh wow, that’s a weird coincidence.
BTW, that game I just mentioned? Hellsider Round-Up? Two thumbs up. Recommended.
I mean, I don’t even like most Twine games. This one I replayed through to get a perfect score.
This is why I’m so obsessive about IF. For all the games I don’t much care about, there’s a significant percentage of games that surprise me. Maybe I just kinda like them; maybe I find them brilliant; maybe they were just amusing or thought-provoking enough that I was glad to have experienced them. They fall through the cracks, and I’m thrilled to discover them.
Would you be able to give me a hint for the game?
I’ve got the plague cure and the puppet and I have to convince Nido and the scared demon (fear pheromones) to leave.
Heh, that’s a pickle of a situation. I take it you’ve already dealt with three other hellsiders? What have you got in your inventory?
If you think you’ve done everything else that you could, then you can’t win with 100 points anymore. You can sic the puppet on one of them, and I think you’ll have to leave the other behind.
I can’t see how the cure will help Nido. I don’t think the game allows you to give it to him for him to try and remember that there’s a plague on - I’m sure you’ve tried it. And I remember that I once tried to get to the scared demon by injecting myself with the dart, and the PC just didn’t think it was a good idea. I agree, really. You can the puppet on one of them, but the other one gets left behind.
There is a very basic strategy, which you probably won’t realise until you’ve played through the game once and saw it all. But once you have it’s pretty obvious. I’m going to put it in spoiler tags anyway.
You have five hellsiders, and five items for your inventory. The thing is, an inventory item may serve for more than one hellsider, though only one item is actually the best solution for each puzzle. The resulting text will make it clear whether you make the optimal or not-so-greatimal choice.