Twisty Little Passages

The title of my game is "Sensitive to Initial Conditions".  That's a reference to chaos theory; that the class of nonlinear equations that model conditions such as the weather or the stock market are unpredictable in the long term because even tiny variations in the initial variables begin to deviate more and more; the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in Asia 'causing' a hurricane in the Americas.

While the game starts in the traditional 'old school' setting - including not only the white house from Zork, but the wellhouse from the opening of Adventure - the idea is to (eventually) have the game deviate from the default of the 'treasure hunt' by the player's actions.  Some of the variations will be based on what the player chooses; there will be opportunities to go down other paths and eventually reach a bifurbication point where they will have to fully commit to one path over another.  I would like to also have changes based upon initial actions as well that will lead to radically different games, albeit in the same setting - depending on what the player does at the beginning will alter what story they will have.  Ultimately, there would be a horror-type adventure, a mystery adventure, a massive dragon attack (that will cause much of the map to be altered or inaccessible) or even one where the player is killed off at the start (but comes back as an undead).

I'm still working on a long-form essay on a new way to look at canon from a fan's perspective, looking back to the early days prior to the 'licensed' material today.

I've also tried to wrap up my read-through of Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (plus the three associated short stories); I've discovered that I was off by a year in my calculations (Count Zero should be only 7 years after Neuromancer, not 8), which happily narrows the setting date by a year. (2026-2052)

Finally, I've started watching Chuck for the first time after hearing about it for years, and realized that I really have been missing out; not only do I like the stories and the actors and the music, but the first episode featured Zork - not as a background detail, but an important part of the plot.    What better reason to watch?