(no subject)

[cleolinda]

Ahhh, the Halloween candy has been set out. I grabbed a handful and just now ate a mini Crunch bar (yum) and picked up the second one and was like, "Wait, why is this one divided into two big chun--AHHH CARAMEL WTF." It's not bad; it just seems like gilding the lily a bit.

While the Dionaea house is not the trailhead for an online game, following a few links reminded me how much I love that stuff. I didn't even know it's a whole subgenre called "alternate reality gaming" now, but it seems to have started with that game the Cloudmakers were playing that went with the A.I. movie. I loved that game. I was in the Yahoo group, but I can't claim to have really played with them; once you get into web-techno stuff like viewing HTML sources and coding, you've lost me. I did better with the viral marketing sites Dreamworks put up for The Ring--it didn't form a game per se, but it was a lot of fun tracking new stuff down.

So... I guess what I'm saying is that I'm sort of a passive "player" when it comes to this sort of thing. I love following the stories, though, which is why I liked Dionaea House so much. There are certain kinds of puzzles I can solve (word puzzles, literary references, etc.), but the kind that most web games seem to use... well, once the Enigma code turned up in the original A.I. game, I knew I was in over my head. You know that Graeme Base children's book The Eleventh Hour? I couldn't even solve that--I cracked and read the solution at the back, because I suck. (Also, I was, like, eleven. Shut up.)

Anyway. I think what I love so much about a lot of the games or mysteries you can find online is that they frequently have sort of a psychological horror edge to them. I love Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft and all that kind of stuff. (By the way, shoiryu recommends The House of Leaves if you'd like to see this kind of thing done in book form. I read a few reviews of it, and it bears some really, really striking resemblances to the Dionaea site. Like, "I wonder if that site was inspired by the book" striking.) redscorner left a link in the comments on the last entry to an ARG forum, where I noticed an interesting comment--a lot of people are trying to mount their own ARGs, apparently, and they're looking for writers to help. Man. I'm crap with the technological elements, which is why I wouldn't be able to start my own, but writing one would be so much fun.


Also: quizzicalsphinx and elynrae managed to dig up a similar story from a few years ago about spelunkers getting trapped in a cave. The URL: http://www.holyshiite.com/caver/index.html. Heh. The first few pages are a little slow going, as the author seems to be an actual spelunker who talks A LOT about caving itself. It starts to pick up when the cavers bring their dog.



ETA: "I CANNOT believe that we were so willing to get right back into the cave after [plot point deleted]. We were just too eager to discover virgin cave passages. I now think it can be summed up with one word: testosterone!"

Uh... yeah. Remember what I said about Jack and his Freudian cave fixation on Lost the other night? Same goes here.

Comments

[jazzchang.livejournal.com]

This is so much more interesting than actually doing my homework.

Were you able to get to the 11th page on the Cave thing? It wouldn't load for me. Think it's intentional?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I'm starting to think that it is.

[anna-sinistra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me three.

But am still officially freaked out. Doesn't help that I was reading it whilst my roommate was sleeping and thus had all the lights out.

*shivers*

[jazzchang.livejournal.com]

Would totally make sense. Especially since I think it's fiction...he keeps writing in past tense, even when he should be saying some stuff in the present.

[anna-sinistra.livejournal.com]

Yup, I noticed that too.

[anna-sinistra.livejournal.com]

Oh, and icon love.

[jazzchang.livejournal.com]

All credit to marrinwood. She(He?)'s the one who made it.

I just use it.

[lacrimaeveneris.livejournal.com]

it's annoying and freaky! make it woooooork!

[edda.livejournal.com]

I think it is but at the same time I'm massively freaked and want to know what was down there.

Given the dates, I'm guessing Osama Bin Laden./bad taste but still better than Teh Nameless Eval

[edda.livejournal.com]

I think it is fiction, I meant to type.

*confused*

[iczer6.livejournal.com]

So 'Dionaea house' is a game of some kind?

Sorry to sound like a rube but I'm no good with scary shit, I clicked the link when it was mentioned in the QOW LJ but I wasn't sure what it was.

Horror story, true account, someone having watched House on Haunted Hill too many times.


Icz

Re: *confused*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I don't want to say this too loudly, as it were, so as not to spoil people's fun, but someone gave me a link to a forum where the author tells people what's really going on. (The people on the forum were confused and thought it might be the beginning of an online game, so he decided to set them straight before they got too frustrated. I think the outside link to a LJ as part of the story gave the impression that it might be an online mystery-game.) It's not. It's fiction, and it'll be finished soon. :)

Re: *confused*

[iczer6.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I do feel better knowing that there's no evil house that will end up eating me that I didn't manage to screw up a game of some kind.


Icz

Re: *confused*

[kittygopounce.livejournal.com]

That was really interest/enjoyable. Really blurring of the lines between being real and not, which kinda made me go "eek", so I'm glad you posted this comment, lol. Care to link any of us to the forum as well? (If you don't feel like posting in a comment ... redyu-at-livejournal-dot-com)

Re: *confused*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

It's actually in one of the earlier comments to the entry, if you scroll up and look for it. The guy doesn't say much more than what I mentioned, but given that tomorrow is Halloween, I have hopes that he'll update by then. :)

[dreagonfli.livejournal.com]

That Dionaea House thing is messing with my head. So cool. I hope they continue to update it.

I just went and bought House of Leaves on shiroyu's recommendation. I'm so excited to read it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of Sean Stewart's novels? He's a favorite author of mine, and he wrote about ninety percent of the AI game. I think you'd really like his latest novel, Perfect Circle:

"My name is Will Kennedy. I'm smart, but not as smart as my cousin Andy, who took up computers in Boy Scouts and now works in Austin's Silicon Gulch. I've been in trouble with the law, but not like my uncle Jerome, who is currently in jail for assault after catching his wife in bed with his parole officer. I'm considered a bit peculiar in the family, but not as peculiar as my Aunt Dot, who -- though still a Baptist -- believes that in a past life she was the queen of the planet Saturn. (Aunt Dot got into past-life regressions as a weight-loss therapy, and since discovering that she died of famine in eighth-century Ethiopia, she's lost 48 pounds. And kept it off.)"

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rachelmanija/35264.html

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee! I remember seeing his name a couple of hours ago when I was at Cloudmakers again--I'll have to check some of his stuff out. :)

[elbales]

I second the recommendation for Sean Stewart's books. Nobody's Son was so poignant it practically made me cry. Cloud's End had an ending I enjoyed for its... hrm. That would probably be a spoiler. :) I've read most of them and dug them all.

[mochajoy13.livejournal.com]

Of the two stories, I'd have to say I like Dionaea House better (and am extremely glad that it'll be finished soon, having done some googling myself for extra research). The spelunking one is just too dull. Too many details about the actual exploration of the cave; not enough actual creepy shit going on. At the end it really started to pick up, and I got more creeped out, but it still didn't thrill me as much as Dionaea.

...that said, I'm really mad that the last page is missing. As "Ted" said: Closure, dammit! I want closure!

[theendofallthat.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of impressed by the gall of whoever wrote Dionaea House, since it's such a rip off of House of Leaves...but it is creepy and I dig a mystery, so.

Definitely read House of Leaves. The author is the singer Poe's brother, and her album "Haunted" is like a companion piece to it. If you dig freaky books and freaky albums, they're excellent.

[lumaria.livejournal.com]

I love the whole Dionaea House thing. I love it like I loved the caver thing, and like I loved Blair Witch and the 7th Guest computer game. It essentially makes a person feel like they're involved.

The DH wasn't scary to me (not that the text that said "THE DOOR IS OPEN" wasn't a teensy bit creepy), but a great read. :)

[elbales]

i just had to come back to this damn entry. and click on that damn ring link. damn you. now i'm tired and creeped out.

[cakeinoz.livejournal.com]

Crunch bars with caramel? feh.

Reminds me of when I first saw Froot Loops with marshmallows. Hey, I like me some Froot, and I do like Lucky Charms, so the marshmallow must be a good thing, too, right?

yeah, not so much. But god, I do remember being a kid and wishing someone would come up with a cereal with like 100% vitamin-enriched marshmallows. Maybe chocolate-covered, while they were at it.

/stream of consciousness.

[opts.livejournal.com]

I've got House of Leaves. If you're into that style of writing, it's well worth your time. It's not an easy read though. Have you read the latter parts of Samuel Delany's Dhalgren? With all the sections-inside-sections, scribblings in the margins, weird formatting, etc?

if you like figuring things out...

[saidthekat.livejournal.com]

www.meettheluckyones.com