CHANGES: -- Dropping the concept of the "exit line" and "words line" and implementing highlighted keywords. dc/dr, dk, and dt. Mechanism for differentiating between the four types of highlighted words (parser, objects, directions, topics). -- Description of mountaintop (pyramid) -- New intro scene: Progue conversation on the beach. After this, title screen, then we flash back to bedroom with Rume. LACUNA DESIGN DOCUMENT. 0. Philosophy A. Rich, detailed world. Room descriptions are constantly varied based on time of day, weather, and past experience. A rich array of scenery objects, with multiple interactions, and random events furthers the experience. Allow the player to do non-important actions like swim, pick things up, etc. Exploring Lacuna should be as fun as exploring a Myst game. B. A story about people. Like any good novel, Lacuna is ultimately a story about characters, in this case two Wayfarers: the protagonist and Progue. The player may reach multiple "plot endings" based on their actions in the environment, but more significantly are the multiple "character endings" they can reach, which determine what the story is ultimately about and what it means to the player. C. Revolutionary conversation. The interface to conversations combined with a dearth of focus on character has led IF to be have extremely limited and undynamic characters. Lacuna conflates the interface for dealing with characters to the interface for dealing with the environment, and allows the player to make significant, lasting choices in both realms. Progue remembers past actions, changes states, and ultimately moves towards a player-selected conclusion in much the same way a complex dungeon might. At the same time Lacuna differs from a game like Galatea because the character interaction is integrated within a rich environment and a complex story world. D. Wayfaring Lacuna is part of a larger universe where one in a million million people have the ability to Wayfare, brilliant artists whose work and psyche meld together to create a one-way journey into another reality. Wayfarers travel alone; they can bring with them only what they themselves created, and can never return to the place they came from. But despite this lonely life some strange, meta-cosmic force binds them together; when a Wayfarer is in need another will hear the Call, an urge to create that will draw them into their fellow Wayfarer's world if they answer it. The mechanics of this backstory are sketched briefly but firmly in the game's prologue sequence, but do not directly enter into play, other than providing motivation and backstory for the PC and central character. E. User Friendliness Some traditional IF tropes do not encourage people outside the clique to play. More effort will be made by Lacuna to understand player input. Library messages will be rewritten to shift blame for misunderstandings to the parser, not the player. Useful help text and a prologue with active suggestions for new players will be implemented. Compass directions by default are replaced with landmark-based navigation. Highlighted keywords focus the player's attention. "You can't see any such thing" will not be printed for objects merely out of scope. F. Professional Polish Lacuna will be a salable game. A boxed version with a printed manual, silk-screened CD, and feelies will be sold, completely professional. The game itself shall be well polished and beta tested. The default installation will be a custom, beautifully designed front end that requires no additional downloading of components, with high quality text and deluxe features such as an animated opening menu. G. Giving Back to the IF Community The pro version of Lacuna will be for sale, but a basic z-code version will be downloadable for free. In addition, if any profits are made from the game, a portion of them will be donated to the IF community. H. Themes Lacuna will mean different things to different people, and the author is more interested in letting people draw their own conclusions than inflicting the story with one overriding moral. But here are some ideas that the story should hopefully bring up: -- To make art, is it necessary to turn away from life? -- Are financial/emotional security and following your dreams mutually exclusive? -- Is suffering necessary to give context to happiness? -- Are "good" and "evil" meaningful distinctions? I. Features A. New Kinds All objects that represent physical entities in the game world will be part of one of the following classes (or an existing class such as person, animal, thing, etc.) 1. Views. A view is a kind of backdrop, used to represent all types of distant scenery and particularly useful for easily adding geographic details to room descriptions. An actual backdrop or setpiece should be used for objects meant to be in the same room as the player. There are four relations that can be applied between rooms and views: verynear, near, far, and veryfar. A view with any of these relations is in scope from a relevant room. A view must thereby explicitly define all the rooms it is visible from, and how far away it is. The description of a view will vary based on the distance (and potentially other factors such as time of day.) The phrase "[distance of macguffin]" can be invoked to generate a descriptive phrase explaining how far away from the location the view is, in a form that makes sense preceeded by a comma. Views can provide two optional ways of description: a) A sentence about: provides a randomized and/or customized by time of day message, a complete sentence, though it ends with no period. b) A phrase about: provides a similar, though shorter description, customized so it would make sense as an addendum to the first sentence. So the following combinations should produce a correct sentence, no matter the contents: "[A sentence about the macguffin]." "[A sentence about the macguffin], [a phrase about the dongle]." "The ground here is soft and wet, [a phrase about the macguffin]." 2. Props. Props are items which could concievably be taken. 3. Setpiece. Setpieces are items which are touchable, but not conceivably takeable. (a boulder, a wave) 4. Set Dressing Set dressing is a special kind of prop which vanishes from play when the player leaves the room. Used for providing a temporary object useful for responses to ambient messages. B. The Parser. Lacuna explicitly seperates the role of the Narrator, explaining what is happening in the game world, and the Parser, who reports problems and deals with meta-ness like undo and saving games. Introductory text at the start of the game introduces the Parser and tries to establish a unique display style for his text. All relevant game text is printed in this style. The Parser also offers help for new players. Some of the library error messages are rewritten to be more friendly, and place less blame on the player for misunderstood input. C. Amient Messages Handling. Regions and rooms can have a table associated with them called the ambiance table, which sets up a) an event, b) a probability it will occur, c) valid times at which this event can occur, and d) either a string of text to be printed, another Table to pull a random message from, or an object that will be moved the location (the latter can be used to trigger scenes, for example.) Despite multiple messages potentially being queued up, only one is actually printed each turn. The rest are discarded. D. Acknowledging Out-Of-Scope Objects If a thing that has been seen is mentioned, the game will acknowledge that it knows what the player is talking about, even if it's not currently visible. If a word is used that is not understood, the game will suggest several visible items as an alternative. E. Hypertext Interface While Lacuna can be played exactly like standard IF, it also has a method of interaction closer to hypertext, as follows: 1) Objects, directions, and conversation topics are each highlighted (using different colors). The player may type that word alone to examine, go, or speak about that word. 1a) Typing the same object repeatedly will try to touch the object (on the second attempt) and use the object (on the third attempt). 2) The player may turn the highlighting off, but still continue to use these keywords. 3) The player is also free to type regular IF commands such as EXAMINE and GO. Conversation must always use the keywords system. F. Navigation The player may type the name of an adjacent area to travel there. The player may type the name of any visited game region to travel one room towards it. After the player finds the compass, they may open or close it to toggle navigation via traditional compass directions. G. New Verbs 1. Exits Command Typing "exits" or "go" will produce a string of prose describing the exits from the locaiton, or, failing that, a procedurally generated list of exits. 2. Use Command "Use" is set up to deal with a wide variety of relevant input. 3. Going Back "Go back" returns the player to the previous room. Gc. Preparsing of Player's Input - Remove punctuation - Remove words not in the dictionary - Various other tricks - Number disambiguation questions (Did you mean 1) the blue belt or 2) the blue wall?) - Check for references to body parts or clothing and mention these. H. Compass Directions and the Status Line By default, compass directions are not used in room descriptions, instead relying on adjacent room names and synonyms for navigation. These are only in scope for neighboring rooms so as to avoid disambiguation. After finding the compass in Progue's shack, however, the player may use it to toggle traditional compass-based exits. The status line always shows the current world, location, time of day, and weather. I. Time and Tides A full day/night cycle exists, with states dawn, sunrise, morning, midmorning, midday, afternoon, evening, sunset, twilight, and night. In addition, a moon has a day and night cycle (moonrise, moonup, moonset, moondown) which is offset from the day cycle, and locked into visible tides (high tide, falling uptide, falling downtide, low tide, rising downtide, and rising uptide.) The moon goes through phases based on how close it is to the sun. J. Weather Each afternoon there is a chance that it will rain. This consists of three segments: gathering clouds, raining, and dispersing clouds. This produces two new possible states: raining and rained. K. Sleep and Dreams The player has a sleep debt which accrues as long as he is awake. As it gets larger, he will get messages explaining he is tired. The player may sleep to reduce his sleep debt. Usually when asleep, the player will dream. If the player is working on a puzzle, the dreams will illuminate various aspects of the problem (under the auspices that the Trees are trying to help the player achive his goals). If not, they incorporate elements that the player has recently interacted with. Additionally, in his dreams, the player is introduced to two competing forces, (represented by colors?) which both seem to be trying to help him but to be at odds with each other. One force seems dominant and slow, the other weak and fast. Other dreams suggest the concept of great unfinished business, and a man destined to complete it who has retreated to a fringe, unreachable. The different puzzle dreams are: 1) The Colors. This helps the player find the shack, gives him hints as to what the colors represent, and also hints for each individual color. 2) Find the Bees. This helps the player find the compass, hints that he needs to use it in conjunction with the bees, hints that you need to follow them, and reveals that there is something hidden in the forest that only the bees can find. 3) Get to the observatory. This hints that there is excess power in the system that a landslide could unlock, or that the boiler's ___ pipe leads to the chairlift (some hint to make power work if that's the problem.) 4) Open the door. This ties the clockwork head in with the phoneme cave and the observatory door, and hints at the word "Lacuna." 5) Find the last tree. Hints at tides, cave, etc. II. Conversation All the standard conversation verbs (ASK, TELL, ANSWER, and ordering) are replaced with a keyword system, where the player is instructed to type a single word in response to conversation. This keyword may be a highlighted word in the NPC's recent text or a topic the player wants to bring to the NPCs attention. Various interaction verbs (HELLO/GOODBYE, HUG, ATTACK, SORRY etc.) are another mechanism the player may interact with characters. A third is less explicit actions like refusing to respond, movement, failing to meet a character at a designated time, and so on. Conversation is made up of individual beats, a unit of text (possibly with variations to account for game states) that cover usually a single paragraph of text spoken by the NPC. This text will almost always contain one or more highlighted keywords which suggest further beats the player may wish to explore. Beats may suggest other beats, which the NPC will proceed to if he is not interrupted. Beats may also replace beats, to prevent the same text from being seen twice. Whenever a beat is voiced (using the internal "to discuss" verb), a series of keywords are temporarily made available to the player with a variable time-till-expiration. This allows certain topics to be activaitable for the duration of a conversation, while throw-away, one-off responses expire rather quickly. This prevents the problem of having to disambiguate between hundreds of potential beats, as only a few will be relevant at any given time. Beats are organized into "conversations" (represented as an insivible transparent container carried by the NPC). A conversation is a thread of discussion with one beginning and one or more possible conclusions. Beats within a conversation are connected together via the available keywords and the "suggests" and "replaces" verbs. An NPC can be either idle or attentive; a conversation ends or begins when this state is changed. Conversations have certain preconditions that must be met before they can activate. We will use the I7 Scenes mechanism to track these. There are essentially two types of conversations: player-initiated and NPC-initiated. If the player approaches the NPC and initiated the conversation, it begins typically with the player asking the NPC a question and responses going from there. Conversely, the NPC may seek out the PC and initiate a conversation, which typically tends to be dominated by him. Either type plays out the same in terms of conversation mechanics; and indeed one type may switch to another mid-conversation. III. Relationships The conversation system handles the moment to moment mechanics of conversation. Arching over individual conversations is a series of systems that handle the evolving relationship between the PC and the featured NPC (in this game, Progue) from the perspective of the NPC. The player is free to view the NPC however he or she wants; hopefully, he will react accordingly and the NPC will adjust himself to act according to the player's expectations. Viewed from this higher level, each "conversation" and all its complexity is reduced to a series of games, where the player and NPC are competing together to score points. The scores for these games represent the NPCs evolving attitude towards the PC, and certain scores may be required as preconditions for conversations, scripted scenes, or end states. The player receives subtle indicaters about the current score from Progue's ambient messages, activity, and interjections. The new to say clause [Progue says] allows us to insert dynamic messages like "Progue says, eyeing you suspiciously." As the game nears the third act, scores in the various games are used to determine which NPC archetype Progue falls into: friend, lover, patient, father, or rival. These will be discussed further in the next section. A. The Physicality Game Physical proximity, touch, and position help determine the level of friendship and romantic interest between the two characters. To play: The actor proposes a closer physical proximity: the reactor accepts this proposal to score a point, rejects it to lose a point, or ignores it to leave the score the same. The player may initiate this game by issuing a command such as TOUCH or HUG PROGUE, adopting a similar posture to Progue (sitting or lying). Commands to reject proposals by Progue will be obvious or worked into highlighted keywords. Progue may initiate this game by inviting the player to adopt his posture, resting a hand on the player's shoulder, moving closer to the PC. Progue will initiate this gesture randomly if the score is not already negative and enough points have been scored in the affinity and trust games, and will accept it in a likewise fashion. Practical results: After the physicality score reaches a certain threshhold, a scripted love scene is triggered, which alters the nature of the PC's relationship to Progue. B. The Affinity Game Friendship and mutual admiration is contingent to a certain degree on shared ideologies and commonalities in past experiences. To play: The actor proposes an ideology or past experience: the reactor agrees with or affirms the experience to score a point, rejects it to lose a point, or replies neutrally to leave the score the same. To play: The actor engages in an activity; if the reactor follows suit, a point is scored. The player may initiate this game only indirectly by prompting Progue for dialogue which is likely to contain relevant questions, particularly about his past or about certain philosophical subjects. Accepting or rejecting will be through simple binary choices (yes/no or keywords). Progue initiates this proposal typically in a pre-scripted fashion during various conversations. C. The Obedience Game A willingness or lack thereof to obey instructions defines how we structure our relationships with other people. To play: The actor proposes that the reactor should take some action, and the reactor either takes the action (scoring a point) or does not (losing a point). This game is defined only in the context of the player's obedience to Progue; for simplicity's sake, Progue becomes obedient to the player if the player repeatedly refuses to obey Progue's commands. Ergo the player cannot directly initiate this game. Progue initiates this game during several pre-scripted scenes early on. Once a certain score threshhold has been reached, he stops doing so. D. The Trust Game Over time, we must build up a level of trust with people based on consistency of actions, reliability, and comfort, before we can relate to them on more than superficial levels. To play: The actor demonstrates a weakness, and the reactor can either offer comfort (scoring a point), take no notice, or offer derision (losing a point). Alternatively, the actor requests information, and the reactor can either tell the truth or lie; if revealed to be telling the truth a point is scored, and a point is lost for revealed lies. The player initiates this game when an opportunity arises to lie or tell the truth, or when Progue demonstrates a weakness. Progue initiates this game as part of a number of pre-scripted scenarios, some of which involve him asking the player about what he's done and checking up on the results. He stops this game after Trust or Physicality reach a certain threshhold. EQUAL TIME FOR GAMES It is important that the player be presented an equal number of chances to play each of the four games, so that our computation values are accurate. Therefore we will track how many times each game has been played, upping the ante in underrepresented games as needed. SCRIPTED EVENTS At certain points in the story, the player has an opportunity to play various games outside the context of a conversation, perhaps even scoring (or losing) more than one point at a time. THE ARCHETYPES In most conversations, the score will change. No archetype is assigned until a certain game juncture, at which point we are almost certain to have arrived at one of the below archetypes (if not, a special conversation is initiated to resolve the matter). The archetype may change after this based on further actions. RIVAL: Trust and Affinity both negative. LOVER: Physicality > 4; trust and Affinity are both >= 0. FRIEND: Highest scores are Trust and Affinity. FATHER: Highest scores are Trust and Obedience. PATIENT: Highest score is Trust; Obedience < 0. POSTURE The postures are lying down, sitting, standing, and pacing. Postures give us a chance to a) provide dynamism and activity during conversations, b) play the physicality game, and c) provide windows into a character's emotional state. IV. Environments and Puzzles A. Home Play begins during an interactive love scene, where the player must immediately make a choice to pursue love or art. After this, an introductory sequence establishes the player's nature (a Wayfarer who can create other worlds to travel to) and the specifics (the player has been called to create a painting, which will lead him to a new world where a fellow Wayfarer needs help.) The player has a conversation with the lover, Rume, before departing. While Rume is a sympathetic character, s/he represents the seductiveness of domestic life, a theme later brought to fruition with the human symbionts on the Treeworld. Rume brings home a point the player may not have realized yet, and the character has not yet accepted: completing the painting will mean leaving this world and Rume forever, unless Rumes chooses to go with. The player may try to make this argument or not; in any event, Rume refuses to go; cannot accept abandoning the homeworld. Rume may break down and beg the player to stay. Or it could end angrily. It's essentially a breakup conversation, even though neither party really wants to break up: Rume may pressure the player to imagine the life they might have together. It is even possible to choose Rume over the game, reinforcing the fact that the player chose to go to Lacuna, not just the character. B. Lacuna - The West Island This entire area is available for exploration to the player once he arrives. During this segment of the game, the player will meet Progue and get a sense of his future goals (getting to the observatory, finding out what he is needed here for, finding the discovery on the east island.) From early conversations with Progue, we learn a) That he and the girls came here after the mother died, but Progue had trouble leaving. ... The player can see distant islands, including an active volcano, on the horizon. Progue has never explored them. This is perhaps symbolic. 1. Environment a) The Beach A sweeping crescent of beautiful white sand. In the center is Progue's simple home. Alive with creatures and the surf. In the shack is Progue's sketchbook. From this the player learns a) that the door was built to keep the girls out of danger, b) that Progue was a very intelligent and observant scientist, c) That the girls grew up, became painters, and left. d) That he became obsessed with building the observatory. e) That bees led him to a great discovery on the east island. A compass is also in Progue's shack, which allows the player to turn on compass directions. b) The Chairlift The charlift is a long, rectancular coffin-shaped bucket with a cross-brace for sitting. There is only one car; it takes four rounds one-way to travel. 2. Puzzles a) Getting Into the Fissure In the Bedroom is a heavy door which blocks access to the fissure. Painted on the door is six stripes of color (red, yellow, black, white, blue, green), and inlaid into it is a row of twelve plants or animal buttons. (whale, manta, windsigh, turtle, bamboo, crystal, berry bush, seagull, bee, spider, clam, snail). What the player must do is press animals from which the six colors are produced--- but from right to left, like Progue's written notes in the journal. Right to left hint: Progue draws writing on the sand during a conversation, right to left. By observing the animals around the west island, talking to Progue, reading the sketchbook etc. the correct animal to color matching can be determined. For some animals there may be more than one way to determine the color. Red: berries. Yellow: leaves of Windsigh Black: ink of mantas White: Snails Blue: Mussels Green: crystals This device was built to prevent the girls from getting into the dangerous fissure and east Island. Clues to this can be got from Progue and found in his sketchbook. b) Getting the Power Working Once the player gains access to the fissure, he finds a primitive steam boiler harnessing the volcanic energy, with pipes running to the chasm ladder, the observatory, and the chairlift. The player must learn how this equipment works in order to provide power where he needs it. A large steam vent within the volcano is covered by a pipe and a power generator. A valve at the top releases unused steam power. The generator has a gague showing 1 through 30, representing how much power is unused. (24 units in the system at game start.) Three color-coded pipes leave the generator--red to the stairs, blue to the chairlift, and yellow to the observatory. Each of these systems requires a certain amount of power to operate. 1 for the stairs, 6 for the chairlift*, and 22 for the observatory. Power distribution is controlled by three wheels corresponding to the three pipes. The valves may be opened and closed by certain amounts. *(The chairlift originally required 4, but due to the leak now requires 6.) Opening a valve beyond the amount of power that component can take produces a message that the dial stops rising beyond that point. Opening a valve beyond the amount of total system power produces a similar message noting that the gague is at 0. A valve can't be closed more than 0. If there is any power going through a pipe it will be hot. As more power is used, the amount of vented steam is reduced, and the gague drops closer to 0. Each device also has a readout gague showing the amount of power at that system. (One at the bottom of the stairs, one at the chairlift control room, and one inside the observatory.) On each of these gagues, the power necessary is shown in bold. At the start of the game, the red wheel is at 0, the chairlift is at 0, and the observatory is at 22. C. Lacuna - The Observatory ) Follow the Bees The player learns from Progue and the Trees that something very important is hidden in the rain forest on the east island, and that Progue found it by following the bees. At the edge of the forest is a beehive with large red non-aggressive bees. The player can observe them do a strange dance before all departing to collect honey. By observing the dance and where the bees go, and using the compass from Progue's shack, he can decypher the bee dance. Wings: held up indicates northiness, held down indicates southiness. Straight down/up, angled down/up, just a little down/up. A clockwise circle indicates westiness; a counterclockwise circle indicates eastiness. One of the bee dances uses the "just a little" notifier: players should be able to deduce that this means a direction. We've previously hinted that these exist via the markings on the compass, and understanding any forms of these directions tried. d) Entering the Observatory The observatory is a wooden pyramid with a symbol inside a shape on each side, along with one to three dots. In order, they are: kokonak fruit in a square, windsigh tree in a circle, capalla galaxy in a pentagon. There is no obvious way to open the pyramid, though it seems hollow if the player investigates. First the player must get power to it in step B. Then he must have found the Phoneme Cave after step C. The Phoneme Cave has been sculpted by Progue to produce very precise echoes. Shapes are spread across the floor: in addition to the three above, there is triangle, hexagon, and rectangle. Standing at these points and saying Progue's names for the pictures on the pyramid return echoes that sound like words (kokonak --> knock, windsigh --> thrice, capalla --> clap). If the player does this (KNOCK THRICE or KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. then CLAP) outside the pyramid, it slides open. Explanation: After realizing what it was for, Progue wanted to protect the mind link from casual usage, except by people who knew him well enough to know his names for various things around the island. d2) Deciphering Progue's journals Deciphering Progue's language is not strictly necessary to solve the game, but for interested players it reveals more of the backstory. In the treehouse is an exquisitely carved wooden clockwork head. The left ear can be set to various consonants; the right ear can be set to vowels. At the start of the game, the left ear is missing. When it is wound up, the mouth moves and it speaks a sound that is the combination of the consonant and vowel it is set to. The vowels are:Eh (set), 2: Ih (sit), 3: Oh (note), 4: Uh (sun), 5: Ay (wave), 6: Ee (see), 7: I (nice), 8: Oo (goose), 9: Ah (top). The consonants are: After the hurricane, the left ear washes up on the beach, allowing the player to fully decipher the language and read the scribblings in Progue's sketchbook, the girl's cave, and the workbench at Egg. The way this works is that, once both ears are in place and the player sets the head to three unique combinations of symbols, they receive a message saying that they play with it for some time and learn all the symbols. Afterwards, they can see what the head is set to without turning the crank, and read the writing elsewhere. The head also functions as another clue that Progue's language is meant to be read from right to left, as the consonant is in the head's left eye-- so if you were looking at the head, the sound reads from right to left. Explanation: Progue built the head to teach the girls writing. e) Powering the Observatory. There is not enough power in the system to power both the chairlift and the observatory. Solution 1 is to increase the power in the system. A series of steam vents are directly underneath the high volcano overhang. The player can cause a landslide to cover the vents and increase the available system power to 30, during a rainstorm or after it's rained, by pushing Progue's sculpture off the edge. Solution 2 is to allow the player to climb the mountain. A spring up top trickles down the crack which is the only likely climbing route up. Once the player reaches the observatory lawn, they can divert the stream to open up the route. f) Chair tests A mechanism in the observatory calibrates the player's brain to more accurately hear the trees. Storywise, we use this as a mechanism to review the themes, metaphors, and characters we've been building up. The player must go through three calibration tests, represented as transparent floating icons that become solid once they are completed: - Emotional: The player is shown eight colors (red, green, blue, orange, yellow, purple, white, black), and must assign them to four emotional states (danger, safety, anxiety, pride?). - Physical: The player is given a physical stimulus and must respond to it (laugh, yell, yawn, blink...) - Logic: ??? (how do we not make this annoying.) - Conceptual. Matching key image to locked door, etc... - What means questioning, uncertainty? hoping the player types a question mark. This is then used to represent that forest nodes don't understand the encryption. g) Tune the Harmonic Machine When the player sits in the chair after calibration they see a VR overlay with seven tree icons (lit or unlit based on how many trees the player has slept under), an encryption setting, and a large stylized globe icon. The encryption is represented by a mini-map of the Great Forest: thousands of tiny green dots, all connected to an outline of a human head that initially is empty. If the player touches the head and then thinks of a passphrase, the head is filled with that phrase. If any of the Forest Nodes match that phrase, they stay green; the others all fade to grey. If none match, they all go grey. When the player first sits down, an unfamiliar password they cannot understand (since it is unique to Progue's brain) is loaded in the machine; a single dot is green. h) Find all the Trees Before the player can visit the Treeword or Rebel World, they must have "activated" each of the seven trees on the island by sleeping under it, or, if they have finished every other step, merely touching it. As the player sleeps under each tree, they dream of an interactive tableau that provides a hint to the puzzle the player is currently on. The player can interact with this more and more extensively if they want deeper and deeper hints. These tableaus are interspersed with stuff the player has interacted with since they last slept, and metaphorical symbols related to the relationship with Progue. In the meantime, one of seven ordered scenes takes place, a dialogue between two disembodied voices, representing the Treeworld conciousness and a lone Rebel scientist. The player can interact with these voices as well. The trees are not given dialog, but suggestions and scenes, while the scientist communicates with his own low-fidelity, staticy voice. The seven scenes are as follows: 1) There are many minds on the island. They want to help. The dream is a hint presented by them. You need to find each of them. 2) These minds can communicate with each other across vast reaches of space instantaneously, and also with certain other beings whose minds are intelligent enough. "We are learning more about you." The spark first appears. 3) The minds have no physical bodies. That's why they need people to help them. And the people need them. But the minds here were cut off from their people in a terrible accident (left vague). Rebel (in sound for first time): I represent opposition. the same thing happened to us, but we survived, broke free. 4) When Progue and the two others came they were overjoyed. Tried to reach them. The girls they could only communicate impressions to, they were too young. But Progue's sharp mind was an easy match. They tried to make contact, but he was so sure he was alone. Rebel: We also tried to reach Progue but our technology was not this advanced yet and we only succeeded at the last minute. 5) Finally they got through to Progue and through him built the "observatory." This allowed them to connect back into the galactic hive mind. Rebel: See how they used him? But it serves our purposes too. 6) There was one final task they wanted Progue to perform, but he did not do it, and moved to the other side of the island where they couldn't talk to him. They don't know why. Rebel: Oh, we do. But now he can't help us either. 7) The Trees invite the player to visit their homeworld to see it firsthand. Rebel: Ours too. If a player sleeps not under a tree, they get random dreams, also with stuff they've recently seen. If a player sleeps under the same tree twice, they get a tableau for the puzzle they're on but no dialogue. Finally, a player cannot escape one of the seven tree dreams by waking up early; they must continue until the dream reaches a conclusion point. B. Lacuna - The East Island c) Finding the East Island Discovery A hive of giant bees on the east island is the key to rediscovering the secret that Progue found in the forest. By observing the dance of the bees, the player can learn to predict their movements, and thus find a secret valley in the forest with the Egg. There are flowers in multiple locations nearby. Players inside the hive will witness a "bee dance" every so often, according to the following schedule: 1-4 turns Bee dances 1 turn Bees fly to location 20 turns Bees harvest flowers at location 1 turn Bees return to hive The bee dance conveys the following information: - Clockwise circle: north - Straight line down then up: east - Counterclockwise circle: south - Straight line up then down: west - Wings held up: rotate 45 degrees clockwise - Each turn represents one screen. The player will need to use the compass from Progue's shack to solve this puzzle. In one of the dances, the bee holds its wings at a "slight" angle down. The player needs to make the leap that this indicates south-southeast. The player can observe the bee dance and then see where the bees end up. There are enough preprogammed locations to learn the bee language. One of the places where the bees randomly go is within the thick forest on the east. This forest is something of a maze, with confusing directions, but exits are clearly labelled. One of the bee dances, however, directs players to go in an unlabelled direction from a certain screen. Doing this will reveal the Spaceship Crater. h) Climbing the Biggest Tree At the game end, the player must climb the island's largest tree and look at the stars. To get to the tree, the player must enter it from below, through the cave at the top of the ravine (only enterable at low tide). Once we've been here, we can lower a vine that allows this tree to be accessed from North Beach. If the player hasn't climbed this tree on their own by the endgame, the vine was blown down by the storm. D. Treeworld The Treeworld is a mid-sized, puzzle-light area that the player can explore to learn more about the culture of the Trees. Various representative areas are present: -- A mural which depicts the history of the civilization, revealing that the Trees and Humans are symbiotic, but that the Trees are the masters. -- An observatory that shows that the Tree's empire has expanded over the whole galaxy, but that certain ships were lost, including the one that went to Lacuna, and that the Trees do not know which planet Lacuna is. -- A temple, where it is revealed that the humans serve the trees voluntarily, and there is no war or disease here, but that they have given up their own ambitions and dreams to do so. -- A group of huts that show that the day to day life of the humans is boring, but trouble free. When the player is ready, he visits the Great Phliosopher, a very important Tree, who explains that the Trees want him to return and look at the stars from the highest tree on the island. This is so they can identify which lost world is Lacuna, and send a new batch of humans to assist the Trees there. E. Rebel World The player appears here in a laboratory. A startled scientist describes that the rebels have managed to hack into the Treeworld hivemind. (He explains that it wasn't designed for security at all ;) ). After answering the player's questions, he says to explore. A leader will meet later. As the player walks down the street, exploring the area, there is an explosion. It seems a rival group is attacking the city. The player eventually flees and takes shelter in an art gallery, where the leader meets him and talks. The leader makes the same request as the Philosopher (though we might see this first). E2. Repeat Visits The player can return to either world at will, and ask occupants about each other. If they return to the Rebel World, they appear in the science lab, but can't leave due to "curfew." F. Endgame As the player gets closer to gaining access to the observatory, Progue's mental state wavers. He is anxious, though he still will not tell the player why, other than the basics (terrible decision, I didn't make it, etcetera.) When conditions are such that the player can open the observatory and has touched all the trees, a prefatory scene with Progue happens where he has a nervous breakdown and "feels a storm coming." He flees and cannot be found again until the endgame. The player can return to Lacuna at any time by closing their eyes (characters early on in each world explain this.) When they return, their avatar has moved to a central location. During conversations with the two kingpins, the game does not allow the player to leave. If the player returns to the Rebelworld after the conversation, they appear in a special room but can't leave due to the "curfew." Once the player has reached one world's ending, when he leaves the subworld he is in the middle of a raging storm. He remembers that he can also visit the other world. He can neither use the chairlift nor climb down the mountain. The only real option is to explore the other world. After the player has been in both worlds, the storm ends. The player can fundamentally do one of four things: A) Set the calibration machine for one side or the other (in which case it glows a certain color), B) Set the machine for no encryption (choosing both sides) or a completely different encryption (both sides, but harder), C) Leave the machine alone, or D) Destroy the machine. After the player has left the mountain, Progue meets him at the bottom and confronts the player about his choice. The way this scene plays out is dependent mostly on the archetype, not the choice. (What if the player deliberately does not choose in the hopes of forcing Progue to?) (That's okay. That becomes another type of ending.) The Rival will disagree with the player's choice out of spite and fight him, having finally gained the strength to make the decision. The player can knock him out and "win," or let him go make the change and come back-- leaving the player's original choice, but changed himself. (If option C it doesn't matter: Progue's decided NOW, even if it's too late.) Now that he has made the choice, he's proved himself an Artist and a Wayfarer, and can sculpt once more. If the player knocks him out, it's about not letting anything stand in your way. The Lover realizes the player's choice does not matter. Objective reality can't be controlled; what you can control is your own happiness, and now he is happy. His happiness is the key to wayfaring. The Friend (if the player chooses none or both) agrees, finally realizing that the correct choice was not to interfere and play god. "Choosing between good and evil creates the evil." If the player chose a side, the friend The Father disagrees with the player's choice and tries to talk him out of it. They fight but finally Progue realizes that you cannot control the decisions of your children; you must, ultimately, let them go. Now he can scult a new world, rather than follow his daughters-- what he has subconciously been always trying to do. The Patient confronts the player calmly, saying the player has helped him a lot and he is sure now of the right choice: the opposite of what the player has decided. The player can fight him, knock him out and "win," or let him make the change and come back, changed himself. [This is interesting because the player has decide between a good ending for himself or for Progue.] For consequences see The Rival. If the ending does not require the player to proceed to the tree, end the game here. Otherwise, the player goes on alone (using the vine shortcut) and the game ends as he stands atop the tree, staring into the stars. In the Epilogue, Progue (if alive) can sculpt again, and the player is preparing to leave. SCRIPTED EVENTS -- If the player does something stupid after being warned (climbing the slippery cliff, jumping over a chasm) they fall and black out. They wake up to a scene of Progue administering over them, during which we get a chance to play conversation games. The player acquires a limp, which affects further descriptions. -- Progue wakes the player in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower. Chance for games and segue into love scene. -- Progue kills a shark in the bay. --