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Steam Highwayman – A Responsive Map

Try exploring this story: steamhighwayman0-3

I’ve now completed a demo map to explore on your velosteam: 14 passages or ‘rooms’ that respond to the order and time in which you visit them, generating unique text and interactive traffic events. I haven’t got any graphic interface for this yet – it exists purely as the relationship between passages. But I have sketched it here to help you locate yourself:

One of the underlying ‘vanilla’ engines of this story was always to be your ability to rob any passers-by, either creating story-lines as you become despised or hated by particular groups or simply making easy money. This means that in true open-world fashion, you will need to be able to interact with all the traffic that comes your way.

At the moment these interactions are very rough, but essentially different sorts of road (main road, road or lane) and different times of day (day/night) will be more or less likely to generate different classes of traffic (pedestrians/farm vehicles/goods vehicles/guild vehicles/locobuses/private steam carriages etc). You may be able to hail them and get rumours or rob them – reminiscent perhaps, and purposefully, of the sail ahoy mechanic in Sid Meier’s Pirates Gold.

I intend to keep working on this demo map until all the major modules are working. So far we have:

A weather generator
A clock
An inventory
Health and wound counters
A rudimentary fight system (not yet plugged into the encounters with traffic
A fence where you can sell items (with still some bugs)
A pub where you can rent a room
Locals who will give you a rumour to investigate (and the space for many more)
Characters who will remember you
A wreck engine that will leave destroyed traffic at the side of the road
New today – the ability to wait somewhere until nightfall or morning

I mean to finish writing Squire Lynch’s quest, finish the interactions with the guild engines and create a quest at a nearby steam fairground. Still haven’t done anything about my pistol engine…

Also I’ve got some lineation and matching issues with the generated text in my passages. I’m slowly building more reliable templates so that in a completed version, everything should look seamless. Other bugs include:

Unresolved fights
Unwritten encounters with private steam carriages and quest vehicles
Some difficulties with { and [ trailers

October 5

Steam Highwayman – Status coding

This morning I’ve been working on those priority checks – the variables that will test whether you’ve visited a location before, what factors will influence the generated text there and the counters that generate time, the phase of the moon and the weather. I’m going to head out to do some of the creative part soon, thinking about the way I want these passages to sound and look.

I had a long chat with my brother Jack about this and we agree that there’s no point having long passages of description clogging up a reader’s enjoyment of what is essentially a story. In the Fabled Lands series, passages are typically around 60 words, and that suits a smartphone fine, so I’m hoping to extrude the all the vital information in a few pithy sentences.

October 4

Steam Highwayman – In progress

It’s been a good morning. I’ve been teaching the locals at the Sign of the Spyglass to gossip – as well as to keep track of your visits there. Should they tell you of the wicked Squire Lynch, you should find a new quest opening up, in which you dole out some justice to an overbearing landlord.

Most of my recent writing has been coding systems that keep track of various story variables, so it’s nice to be starting on writing a mini-story within the tale. However, though I’m sketching dialogue and event options there are a few things I need to complete before you’re able to to stop Squire Lynch’s speedy chariaeoli, defeat him in a duel, humiliate and rob him.

The high-level code that decides, when you visit a location, what variable-generated information to give you. These are pieces like descriptions of the weather and scenery, designed to be wrapped into the particular writing of any specific passage. I want every visit to every major to be unique, tailored to the time of day, state of the sky, and the various random chances of other traffic on the road.
I need to complete my engine allowing you to fire a gun.
I need to complete my guilt engine – the tracker that will remember every sin and misdeed committed in the name of your own wealth or even for the good of the poor… It will all be significant later.

These are what I’ll be working on for the next week or two. Using variable text to create interesting and significant passages is really my aim. Many interactive fictions dispense with description because a reader skips them naturally, hurrying to the action. I’m trying to embed important information and other options within text. If it rains, that will effect your ability to chase a high-speed steam wagon. If you’re in a wood, you may have simple sub-quest options related to objects you carry – such as cutting wood or finding a particular mushroom. I hope to give the reader the ability to complete actions in any reasonable place, rather than at a specific quest location.

October 3October 3

Steam Highwayman – Intro Narration

I was just mucking around with sound editing software and an intro for Steam Highwayman that came out of my head. So here’s a little taster I made last week.

That’s Brahms’ 3rd Symphony in the background – a very quick choice – inspired by the old Ladybird story cassettes we had with classical soundtracks to excellent stories like Around the World in Eighty Days and Tom Sawyer.

September 28

Steam Highwayman – Wounds Process

I’m spending a lot of my writing time working on an interactive fiction project, Steam Highwayman, written using Harlowe 1.2.2 on Twine 2.

This morning I has mostly been building a process by which the protagonist can suffer, bandage and heal wounds. This should slot into my story so that the reactive text remembers if and where you were wounded, editing your options in seamless prose.

And a scar on the eye may unlock the option of an eyepatch. Oooh, Intimidation+1, eyepatch,

September 13

Josh Davidson 4.2

Part II

They were building a new shopping centre in Chesterfield and one morning Josh came past the site. He paused for a while, watching. He was watching two contractors – brothers – on the scaffolding. They were brickies, men his age, paid well for working fast and straight. He knew them from work they’d done previously, but this morning he wasn’t interested in what they were building.”Simon!” he shouted. “Andy!”

The two men looked up – gave him a bit of a wave – and paused.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Cladding this wall,” shouted Simon back. “What’s it look like?”

Continue reading “Josh Davidson 4.2”

September 12September 12

Josh Davidson 4

Part I

Now, Joshua didn’t stay there long. He followed the voice that told him to go out into the hills and woods of the country, and underwent a test of his own self. A time of self-seeking, some might call it, although this Joshua already knew who he was and what he was called to do. But every accusation that could come at him, as he walked and thought and prayed, attacked him with the voice of the devil. Because he wasn’t eating or drinking, the whole time, longer than a month, and if you’ve never been without food that long then you can’t say you know what hunger was. But he knew what hunger was – past the pangs of longing, into the feeling of bodily need, when your own body feels light because you have metabolised every scrap of fat between your sinews and under your skin. When the cushions of cartilage and fluid are empty and your nerves run directly over your bones.

“Hungry?” asked the Devil scornfully. “But you don’t even need to be hungry! You’re just indulging your need for drama – and needlessly. You’re going to survive – so why invite all this pain and starvation? Only a sadist does that. And are you a sadist?

“And anyway, didn’t we all hear it? If you are God’s son, you can turn any of these stones from the path into something good to eat – you can call a tree to fruit right in front of you. And I thought you liked that whole blossoming, fruiting, growing thing anyway? There’s no need for this stupid fast.”

But he knew why he was there. The hunger was the unavoidable companion of the degree of discipline and sacrifice he had chosen. The Devil was just trying to distract him from the real reason for his fast. “I know what it says,” replied Joshua to that needling voice. “Food doesn’t keep you going and breath doesn’t keep you breathing – it’s God’s promises that keep us alive.” He remembered the way his dad Joseph had said that – sometimes when he had been hungry and sometimes right before a feast. His dad had stuck to what he knew to be true.

But then it was as though Josh’s wanderings had brought him, suddenly, around a dry-stone wall and beneath overhanging trees to the pinnacle of the tallest tower in London, the city spread our below him, the trains rushing into and out of London Bridge station, vans delivering, riverboats accelerating away, and no-one looking up. And the Devil challenged him again.

“I don’t even know why you’re being careful with yourself. If you fall, you’re not going to die! If you were God’s son he’d send an angel to catch you, wouldn’t he? Like it says in that book you love – ‘His angels have orders to protect you, so they’ll carry you and you won’t even stub your toe.’ It’s a written promise, isn’t it? So just jump and leave all this stubborn walking.”

Joshua shook his head. “And it says ‘Don’t joke about with God’s promise.”

But then it was like Joshua had climbed even higher, so that in one view he could see all the countries of the worlds, their rulers and parliaments, all the wonderful diverse and developed kingdoms of men. And he heard the Devil say. “And where is God, anyway? Have you heard him, after all this time not eating or drinking? But you can hear me. Do what I say and you’ll have this – you know you will. You’re powerful enough to take it, if you let me direct you. If you choose me instead…”

“Don’t you dare,” said Joshua. “Don’t you dare even suggest it, you liar! I know what it says: ‘You belong to God – so don’t let anyone else take charge.’ I know what will happen if I choose you, you liar! Go away.”

And that was the last he heard of that needling voice. But I tell you what, he didn’t stub his toe on any stone as he came off the hills and back towards home. And whichever way he looked he saw figures guarding and guiding. And they even fed him with a food that he couldn’t quite recognise. And by the time he was back from his walk, he looked better and fitter than ever.

On the journey back he heard that John Waters had been arrested and was being held pending charges. He returned to his mum’s place and picked up a few things. And then he went down to Chesterfield, because it had always been said that when God would choose to change things, he’d start there. Perhaps because if God could change Chesterfield, he could change anywhere. So that was when Joshua Davidson started to tell people. “Change your life,” he’d say. Whether it was someone on the bus next to him or when he got on local radio or a visit to a school. “Change your life, because God’s reign is coming.”

August 15

First forgive anyone

Mark 11:25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your father in heaven will forgive you your sins too.

This is Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ desire to work miracles. It is straightforward for him – grudges and dissatisfaction are obstacles to the expression of God’s power. However deeply buried, unforgiveness will always work out in lack of faith, because unforgiveness is rooted in a selfish world-view. Releasing others and ourselves from grudges is absolutely necessary for a continuing Christian walk, as well as the only way to see God’s power work through our lives.

In fact, it is so much the prioriry that Jesus has changed the conversation here from one about miracles in the world to being about the greatest miracle we can experience: forgiveness of our own sins and justification with God. It’s not in keeping with Jesus’ lessons of a good father or the Hebrew scriptures to launch from this verse into a validation theology – that our salvation is dependent upon our forgiveness of others – but it is fairly observable that unforgiveness presents an experiential obstacle to appreciating our salvation!

Taking Jesus at his simplest here and in the previous verses, all I can see is that he links our ability -or desire – to really believe in God with the degree of intimacy we have with him, and unforgiveness and grudges, regrets and other unhealthy emotions obstruct that intimacy, not because He is unable to surpass them but because we become preoccupied with them! How wonderful that one promised day, we will no longer have to fight to keep our attention on God – and that every believer is in the process of being changed into this place by God’s sanctifying Spirit.

It is our job while here on earth, through God’s Holy Spirit, to present ourselves as living sacrifices, blameless and acceptable – to work out our salvation by engaging with the process by which the Spirit of God changes us to resemble Jesus. So be free of anger and hold no grudges and see God’s power work through you.

April 26August 1

You are Beautiful Beyond Description (I Stand in Awe of You)

Sof 621 Mark Altrogge 1987

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvellous for words
Too wonderful for comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom
Who can fathom the depth of Your love
You are beautiful beyond description
Majesty enthroned above

And I stand I stand in awe of You
I stand I stand in awe of You
Holy God to whom all praise is due
I stand in awe of You

This is a song of awe and admiration. Singing it personally is a chance to meditate on God’s beauty and unsearchability, his power, his wonder as well as to confess that you find yourself ‘over-awed’ by God. And singing it collectively is similar, but when we sing it in congregation we have to be more vulnerable to one another – expressing that we find God beautiful, in whatever way we choose to understand that. You may be admiring God for his beautiful love in sending his Son, and your pewmate may be in love with the God who makes all things new.

Singing of the beauty of God can feel strange, even after years of adoring him for his ‘majesty’ and his ‘faithfulness’. I suppose the inhibition we can feel stems from our inability to see him with our earthly eyes as well as a hesitation to use ‘romantic’ language to praise God. But this isn’t a modern blending of romantic songs with sacred music – what too many people dismiss as ‘boyfriend songs’ (as in ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’). People have sung of God’s beauty for centuries. I particularly enjoy ‘Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness’, Monsell’s high victorian hymn that starts with words found in Chronicles 16 and Psalm 96. If you can sing of the ‘beauty of God’s holiness’ in those terms, then you can be reassured that we’re singing of the same thing in Altrogge’s verse.

The music of the song puts it pretty squarely in the ‘less-is-more, speak-the-simple-truth’ camp, not quite at the sparse power of a chorus like ‘I am the God that Healeth thee’, but still within the sing-it-first-timeable. But it’s a song built essentially to contain that cry of the chorus – ‘I stand, I stand, in awe of you’. This song is all about prompting the worshipper to consider their position before God. Worshipping him demands our awareness of his greatness, our littleness, his goodness. Why do we worship him? Because he is the ‘Holy God, to whom all praise is due’.

That chord change beneath the penultimate line throws the emphasis on God in ‘Holy God, to who all praise is due’ and it feels like a surprise to be talking to God himself, strangely supernatural. I love the finishing phrase of the melody as well: the leap to the high note of ‘in’ during the final ‘I stand in awe of you’. Listening to the congregation, this jump often leaves them breathless… which is the perfect time to sing about awe.

In this recording posted by melissaxxdv, and sung by Beth Croft, you can hear the song sung both to express her own worship and to exhort a congregation to admire and express their admiration for an awesome God. The simple piano intro rises and falls like the breath, a little touch of slide guitar pulls our ears into key, and when the vocalist asks ‘Who can grasp your infinite wisdom?’ we should shake our heads and admit that we cannot grasp the wisdom of a God whose ways are so good and so high. The rise at the chorus is a natural encouragement for the raising of hands. That’s not manipulation – it’s invitation by good musicianship. Don’t dismiss the feeling with the thought ‘the music made me do that’. That’s more than a feeling – that’s the reaction of the Holy Spirit within you to the praise of God.

When we really appreciate who God is and what he does, we should really have fewer worries about how we sing and how we live. This is a ‘Turn your upon Jesus’ fact, and singing the simple truth that God is awesome – both good and mysterious – recalibrates, reassures and rests us.

April 24July 30

You’re Worthy of my Praise / I will Worship with all of My Heart

SoF 859 David Ruis 1991

This song has a thousand different aspects on account of its simplicity. It’s a declaration song – and that gives it a power when we sing it in the face of trial or suffering. Those first words, echoed in affirmation, have a simple melody, only intensifying the sense that we choose to sing this song. It begins with ‘I’, takes the starting point of the individual’s decision, their ‘will’ to worship. Worship is always a decision – it cannot simply be an action.
How shall I worship? ‘With all of my heart.’ Having first declared that at the time we’re singing and in the future I individually choose to honour God with adoration and praise and service, I then state aloud for my family to hear that I will do it whole-heartedly. We’re choosing Jesus’ way: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ [Matthew 22:37, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5].
The repeating melody creates a parallel between the first line, ‘I will worship’ and the fifth, ‘I will seek you’, implying an equality between them. To worship God is to seek God – to seek first the Kingdom of God is to give him his rightful place as Lord of all, to seek his face is an act of love and adoration. And the promise to do this ‘All of my days’ echoes God’s promises to act in our lifetime, but also serves to remind us that our promise binds us to a daily life of small actions of worship – that today is as vital as the first or last in this life-marathon of worship.
I like the part ‘I will follow all of your ways’. For me I hear, ‘I will walk and travel to the places that you go’ as well as ‘I will seek to understand how you do things’ and ‘I will try to learn to copy your manner of going about life’.
The song is very clearly voiced in the first person, but it doesn’t have to be an isolating declaration. No, rather when we sing it together we become aware of the great purpose we share with people around us, different to us, and all of creation. Each person and each thing can sing, in their own voice, ‘I will worship’.
When you want to emphasise the corporate side of this, simply switch pronouns! ‘We will worship with all of our hearts… We will praise you with all of our strength.’ No problem with rhythm or rhyme.
You can’t argue with this song. It isn’t sung to people and it can’t be sung to anything less than an awesome, all-powerful God, someone whom we will ‘give everything’, ‘serve’, ‘hail’ and ‘trust’. When in the chorus we declare again why we live and what we’re doing – ‘I wil give You all my worship, I will give you all my praise’ we have to admit that this is what we long to do and what we live to do. I believe that all people and all created things deeply desire to worship God in an unashamed, honest, free relationship of love, gratitude and adoration. As we grow in Christian faith, that desire and longing seeps out from the the core our being where it may have lain dormant for a long, long time. But out it comes and we find that singing, dancing, and acting in ways that glorify our Father in heaven become more and more delightful, more and more purposeful. We should grow in it all our lives.
And the truth is that we can still sing this song in Heaven. We can still sing that ‘You alone are worthy of my praise.’

Practically, in congregation, this song is a great starter, but the family have to be ready to sing it. It’s very difficult to mean it if you’ve only just woken up, and it’s a hard song to sing well softly. It can be done – particularly the chorus, sung on a loop, with just voices or a minimal instrumentation. It can be an excellent expression of our desire to honour God as we leave the gathered church, or a quiet way to prepare to leave in silence after a late-night offering of praise. It does do very well as an acappella piece because of it’s simplicity, as well as the call-and-response structure. This is about the heart of worship, not the instruments or the expression, but about the will, the decision, the voice and the desire for God. Whether that desire roars like a furnace or glimmers clearly like a candle flame, we can sing this song and mean every word.