The Voyage of the 'Resplendent'

November 26, 2014 10:27 AM

For golden centuries, the clone empresses of the Second Zenith Empire have ruled the galaxy. The source and expression of their power is the Zenith Fleet: a hundred ancient starships, the only vessels in existence capable of exceeding light speed. One of them has somehow disappeared—and you, Astronaut-Superintendent Waechter, must assemble a crew and find it.
posted by Iridic (17 comments total)

Will white text on black ever go away? Ever? Clearly I'm in some minority, but I just cant read it.
posted by humboldt32 at 11:00 AM on November 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

I just keep getting error messages, no matter what browser I use. Something about a widget, and a passage that doesn't exist.
posted by postel's law at 11:07 AM on November 26, 2014

Apologies! A technical problem has occurred. You may be able to continue, but some parts may not work properly.
Error [Engineer Widget]: <>>: passage "Malene Lines" does not exist.

Fun!
posted by Thorzdad at 11:28 AM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yikes. It works for me I just hope there's pictures as you go on. SRSLY
posted by Mister_A at 11:38 AM on November 26, 2014

I got laid.
posted by Kabanos at 11:44 AM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

It appears to be made with something called Twine. I can't tell what OS/browser specs are required, if any.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:49 AM on November 26, 2014

Twine games are just web pages and should run in any browser. Sounds like some bugs in the code.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:09 PM on November 26, 2014

It worked fine for me (except one path didn't have a link out so I had to back out manually.)

The story was fine but I get the feeling my choices didn't really matter in the end.

Fast forward: I played through again making completely different choices (didn't get laid this time!) and I still won. I guess it's the journey that matters?

Unfamiliar with Twine before this -- might be something worth looking into.
posted by bfootdav at 12:42 PM on November 26, 2014

Twine stuff previously on MeFi.
posted by Kabanos at 1:43 PM on November 26, 2014

Well, after reloading the page about eight times, it finally actually worked for me.
It was fun for what it was. Interesting that it seemed to be set in a largely matriarchal society.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:55 PM on November 26, 2014

I'm just getting "Apologies! A technical problem has occurred."
posted by doctornemo at 2:31 PM on November 26, 2014

"You let out a breath. You survived."

Thanks, Iridic, that was more fun than I've had all day so off to do it again, differently.
posted by anadem at 9:36 PM on November 26, 2014

Here's what I got from Colin Marc (the author) when I messaged him:


http://philome.la/FreakyDug/the-voyage-of-the-resplendent-11/play
Inbox
x
P J Moy 8:48 PM (7 hours ago)
got the following error msg.: Apologies! A technical problem has occurred. Yo...
P J Moy 8:50 PM (7 hours ago)
then: Error: this passage does not exist: Start

Colin Marc

3:29 AM (21 minutes ago)

to pjmoy
Hm, I think that's a bug in your twine code, not in Philome.la. You can try opening the html file locally, and see if you see the same thing.


As soon as I figure out how to run the html locally (and it's not just a save from your browser), I'll let everyone know if this works any better.
posted by pjmoy at 3:59 AM on November 27, 2014

Worked fine for me? Maybe it's fixed?
posted by Richard Daly at 9:47 AM on November 27, 2014

Nice. Haven't played out all the various permutations, but played once-through and enjoyed it.

Any other recommendations of Twine (or other IF engine) games, if you enjoyed this one?
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:41 AM on November 27, 2014

Cool! I've been a fan of interactive fiction for a long time, and it's interesting seeing Twine and the community it's spawning. I think Twine is like the cheap photocopied zine equivalent of the Zork-like games, a relatively cheap and easy thing that one person can put together.

Twine came from TiddlyWiki, a single-page app that lived in your browser. It was modified into Twine, which mostly is used for simple Choose Your Own Adventure-style games, but with some extensible ability built-in, using JavaScript and CSS. This game also uses Sugarcube, which expands Twine, with savegames and such. It's going to be interesting, watching variant engines evolve.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:31 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Nice. Haven't played out all the various permutations, but played once-through and enjoyed it.

Any other recommendations of Twine (or other IF engine) games, if you enjoyed this one?

This post, a profile of the IF writer Porpentine in the New York Times, has a lot of recommendations.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:13 AM on December 12, 2014