Articles
 by Jeff Strand December 6, 2002 |
The “Passing by Jeff Strand |
Frequent readers of this
column have probably thought, at one time or another, “Y’know,
a monkey could write that thing.” Rest assured that this statement
is incorrect. A couple of weeks ago I purchased not just any monkey,
but a genetically enhanced monkey, and set it in front of
my computer. The monkey’s entire column looked like this:
jkj
And then it befouled my
keyboard. That’s because, though it may look easy, coming up with
ideas for this column is harder than Al Lowe at a mudwrestling match.
Now, if I were a lesser columnist, I’d resort to that tired technique
of writing an entire column about the fact that I can’t think of anything
to write about. But I’m not a lesser columnist, I’m a bottom-of-the-barrel
columnist, and this week I figured, why write a column myself when
I can get other people to do it for me?
So I went to the Gameboomers
bulletin board and asked people to write mini-columns for me to string
together into one full-length column, thus fulfilling my word count
requirements without having to write any words, except for an introduction
where I talk about genetically enhanced monkeys. And as I returned
to the site, ready to see what delightful material I’d be able to
put into my Very Special column, here was the first response:
Syd: “Deadline?
We have a stinking deadline???? Sheeeeezzzz.”
Yes, that’s right. Honorary
columnists for three seconds and they’ve already learned the official
Seriously Whacked technique of griping about deadlines. For most columnists,
that takes weeks of practice!
My call for contributions
mentioned that rants were acceptable, and thus the second contribution
was:
MaG: “If
this game crashes one more time, I’ll… I’ll.. I’ll blame it on Jeff
Strand! It’s his xxxx fault!”
I’m not sure what the “xxxx”
stands for. I guess it could be “damn,” which wouldn’t really
require the letters to be replaced with x’s, at least not in this
column, but other four-letter expletives don’t seem to work, unless
each x stands for multiple letters, in which case I take serious offense.
Somebody code-named “Lasanidine”
wanted to know where the contributions were supposed to be posted
and thus obviously didn’t read the instructions, which clearly said
“here.”
The next message was from
Yvonne, whose handle is “Ladyyve.” Yvonne decided to spit
in the face of Seriously Whacked policy and actually try to bring
up an interesting issue for discussion:
“I have a
question for you, Jeff… why aren’t ‘Adventure’ games given any space
in gaming magazines? By that, I’m referring to the ‘printed’ ones,
of course.
Are the reviewers
too young to appreciate them? They seem to favor ‘Action’ games.
Is it a question
of advertising budgets?
If I want to find
out anything about an adventure game, I can only find information
on it online. Thank heaven for Just Adventure!”
The answer, of course,
is “probably, but nobody tells me anything.”
“Mugsy” posted
something with an animated smiley face that sticks it tongue out at
you. I stuck my tongue back out at it, but then the monkey grabbed
my tongue and dug in its claws and the rest of my evening became a
blur.
The next post was from
Nancy Griffin, who calls herself “Burpee.” I like Nancy,
because she frequently starts topics about my latest column, and because
she calls herself “Burpee.” She said:
Adventure gaming
goes way BEYOND TIME. It’s a form of story telling, a pastime as old
as the SKYE or the DUNEs, as magical as the stories of ATLANTIS and
EL DORADO. A trip into the realm of a game can be an ODYSSEY that
is NIGHTLONG. It gives me SHIVERS to think that my obsession with
games could lead to a JEKYLL AND HYDE effect and I could end up in
a SANITARIUM or worse, EXILEd. Oh, on I will go because after all
is said and done, I’m a SURVIVOR. Do you want to be a SURVIVOR 2?
Wow. How the ZORK did she
think that up?
The ambitious “mszv”
posted a rant about people who bash popular adventure games just because
they figure if something’s popular, it can’t be any good, followed
by “PS – Jeff, don’t include this next part. Apologies
to Gameboomers, everywhere, no one on this site is like that!”
Then she posted about people who refuse to admit that they’re playing
adventure games just to look at pretty pictures, followed by “Don’t
include this next part. Sorry it’s too long Jeff. Also Gameboomers,
of course, none of this applies to anyone here!”
Then “mszv” talked
about a recent car accident, and the reaction: “If this was a
game, I could go back to the last save!” I’m sure everybody reading
this has had thoughts like that. That’s why we stay indoors glued
to our computers rather than outdoors where we might accidentally
socialize with innocent people.
“Horsedancer”
went and got all serious on us, talking about kids being influenced
by violent behavior they see in games. I know that I, personally,
grew up on Pac-Man and I’d frequently walk down the hall at school
going “wacka wacka wacka” and biting people. I’d also shout
out point values when I ate fruit at lunch. It was pretty sad. I was
such a nerd.
Burpee posted a couple
more times, hoping I’d mention her again in this column, but I don’t
fall for such obvious attention-hogging tactics.
Then we heard from “Acornia,”
who presented the following theory: “A good adventure
game is one that completely stumps at least once during the game but
no more than three times.”
If I wanted to be argumentative,
which I do, I’d say that a game that only completely stumps you three
times is for SISSIES!!!! In my day, we’d get stuck on the friggin’
INSTALLATION procedure, except we didn’t get to install games, we
just played them off the DISKETTES, and if we wanted to save our game
we had to put in a DIFFERENT diskette, and if we were the kind of
SISSIES that saved our game every couple of moves we’d be swapping
diskettes HUNDREDS of times in any one gaming session and we LIKED
doing it!
(Discussion Question: How
many times is too many to be completely stuck in an adventure game?
Send your answer to [email protected]
so I can weasel another free column out of it.)
At this point the first
page of Gameboomers responses came to an end, and, coincidentally,
so does this column. But tune in two weeks from now for another Very
Special column as I continue to make shameless use out of the hard
work of others. See you then!
Jeff Strand is the author of several novels that were written
by stealing bits and pieces from fashion magazines over the years.
You can visit his Seriously Whacked website at http://www.jeffstrand.com.
