Re: Gareth's competition comments


12 Oct 1995 13:58:50 GMT

In article <GDR11.95Oct11201918@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>,
Gareth Rees <gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>UNCLE ZEBULON'S WILL by Magnus Olsson
>
>This game seemed very reminiscent of "Hollywood Hijinx": a mysterious
>will, a hunt through a deserted house and descriptions enlivened by
>references to my childhood memories of the place.

Believe it or not, I've actually never played "Hollywood Hijinx". But
the theme is pretty common, of course.

>I almost expected to
>find Uncle Zebulon still alive at the end, menaced by my evil cousin
>Hector...

The idea did occur to me. Now, if I ever get around to writing that
sequel... :-).

>Perhaps "Cyr-Dhool" is some kind of reference to Liz
>Cyr-Jones, co-author of "Hollywood Hijinx".

No, not a conscious one at least. Honestly, I have no idea where that name
came from.

>The magic/technology-switched background was a good idea (have you read
>"The Iron Dragon's Daughter" by Michael Swanwick?), though I think it
>could have been extended a bit more (and what are "train strikes" doing
>in this world? -- perhaps "magic carpet strikes" instead?).

Would you believe me if I said that I did toy with the idea of magic carpet
strikes?

However, I found it a bit difficult to construct a world with a total
magic-technology reversal; possible, of course, but difficult, and too
ambitious for such a small game. Instead, I chose a world with some
mixture of the two; say, late-19th century technology combined with
*some* magic (but magic is esoteric and incompletely developed - like
computers in the real 1960's). The train strikes were meant as some
sort of pointer in that direction (there is *some* technology like in
our world), but perhaps it's too obscure, and it fills no real
function but making the introduction even more long-winded.

Magnus