Merry Christmas all once more! Once again, I've lumbered into the position where I can keep the game going for another year, so we may et get this story finished before we are all dead!
(Darth Scroogius insisted on that cheerful note being part of the Christmas message)
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Anyhow, today will be release day in the third part of my brother's interactive fiction prequel to the current Star Wars storyline, set in his own take on a KOTOR-style era (but entirely separate form that, time, us having many thousands of years to play with).
I can't actually put the game up until I get it hosted, which generally means waiting for Peach to get up, but I shall post it as soon as I can!
In the first episode, an unnamed Jedi found himself on the front line when the Sith invasion of Darth Malphas and his Jovano armies began. Although unable to prevent the Fall of Damaria, he was able to evacuate its ruling council and many of its people, and killed Malphas' agent Darth Trayas- the Sith in three bodies- before he was able to get his hands on a forbidden repository of ancient Sith secrets.
In the second episode, we switched perspective to an up and coming Dark Sider in Malphas' organisation who was taking part in the 'Island of Fire', Malphas' deadly competition to determine Trayas' successor. Malphas was looking for more than just strength and skill; he wanted something special that the trial would reveal. Despite the apparent superiority of many of his opponents, the Dark Sider was triumphant and was named as Darth Kazan.
Now we switch back to the perspective of the Jedi (who now receives a title he can be referred to as, just as the Dark Sider is Darth Kazan, so we don't have to call him 'that Jedi' all the time.) The war is not going well for the Republic. Malphas' fanatical Jovano forces- who view him as a living God- are winning battle under battle. Malphas' deputy, Darth Varas, has penetrated so far and so deeply into Republican territory that surrender has already been considered.
The Sith's advantage is unity under Malphas' leadership. The Republic's strength is unfocussed and their response poorly organised. The lack of any victories has destroyed morale at Coruscant and most planets are now just seeing to their own needs rather than acting as a co-ordinated whole.
Needing both a victory and a symbol, the Supreme Chancellor takes an unpopular risk- he is going to throw his authority behind the Jedi taking command of a Republican grand army. The Jedi he chooses is the one who killed Darth Trayas at Damaria- the one piece of good news in the war so far. If this Jedi can win a victory with a unified army, it will be the start of the fightback against Malphas.
However, it will not be easy. The forces the Chancellor can place at the Jedi's disposal will not be able to take on the coming Jovano invasion. Republican worlds with their own military forces must be convinced to lend their troops to the new army, and the Senate must be convinced that is is appropriate for a Jedi to have such control. Many are suspicious of the Jedi, or unwilling to lend their forces to another. Some are little better than the Sith themselves, but can the Republic afford to take a moral stand if it means a smaller army? Meanwhile, someone is doing everything they can to make sure the mission fails at every stage...
The Jedi must build his army and keep enough political support to be named its leader. Then he must throw back the Jovano invasion at the world of Gandilar. If he can do all this, then he is truly a General of the Republic.
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General of the Republic represents another shift in story structure. Fall of Damaria was linear, whilst Island of Fire presented an explorable area you could keep returning to parts of, which in the 'Choose your own Adventure' structure was a programming nightmare.
GOTR is modular. There is a short beginning and middle, and larger end as you fight the battle at Gandilar, but the main part of the story consists of four sections in-between as you attempt to recruit allies. There are eight allies to choose from, so the four you pick will determine what actually happens during your story.
GOTR also presents an achievement system, where you can achieve awards between playthroughs. Some bonuses are presented to those who unlock large amounts of these, so there is good reason to keep trying to find parts of the game even after victory!
As ever, the game will feature lots of callbacks (call forwards?) to the main RP game, so keep your eyes open.
I'll post it up ASAP!
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Dec 25th, 2011 at 12:33 PM
__________________ Yet the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.
"… his name is Melkor, Lord of All, Giver of Freedeom, and he shall make you stronger than they."
Sauron to Ar-Pharazôn
As ever, you need a z-code interpreter to run it. Although for many the default is still Windows Frontz 2002, there are all sorts of fancy decent ones around and I think WF2002 might not be able to cope with some of features included (though the game will still play). The one I use is called Filfre (named, like Frotz, named after a spels from the early 'Enchanter' series of text adventures, which I can recommend, btw) which works well for me, and there are some great ones for the Mac and I think it was working on the iphone when we released two years back as well (though irritatingly, development for Android has been slow). I've heard good things about one called Gargoyle as well.
You can find links to a bunch of interpreters for various platforms here:
You are all smart people, I am sure you can find something. But... if this seems a pain, this game SHOULD work through any internet browser (which is the direction text games are going now. Just double click on the 'index' file to get the intro page and then click on the "play in browser' link on the left. We're all fancy these days!
A testing note- although not quite as much of a nightmare to test as Island of Fire was- due to the amount of stuff that could interact when you went back on your self in IoF- there was still a number of issues testing this, including one bug that just spontaneously ended the game on you. That bug SHOULD now be fixed, but do let us know if the game ends unexpectedly as that is obviously a game breaker. I successfully got all achievements on the current build with no crashes.
However, I did not test it quite as much as I may have liked, so we did not have time for a proofreading build. There is a vast amount of writing in this one and typos are still there as is. There is also one minor bug where mutual annihilation of friendly and enemy forces in the same battle sector causes it to say you have won, drawn and lost the sector at the same time, but it is a trivial issue that won;t affect how you play. It should all function!
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"