Creation: Day One

[Neole]

Alright folks, it's time - bring on the plot and puzzle suggestions for creation game day 1!

To fill you all in - there's Mr. Herschel God,



who has been asked to resign for his sloppy work, but given a last chance to prove his worth to the Imperial Association of Immortals (or watsis called) by creating a universe with one world in running condition in 7 days (as an overconfident remark he tells them he'll finish it in 6 and have a day to spare).



God has with him his two trusty cherubs - an angel and a little devil,



who do little to help but do popup evey now and then to pass their juicy comments. But if they can be incorporated into puzzles - even better.


There's also Lucifer "Lucy" Satan we have to bring into the picture who wants to hinder God's progress (perhaps to get God's present job/post?). I'll sketch Lucy soon.

[Neole]

Introducing, Lucifer "Lucy" Satan -




One of the Immortals, assistant junior sub vise president of the Imperial Association of Immortals -



Herschel God's (il)legal advisor?



An overhelpful heavenly chappie -



A tiny background -



Incorporate these into the plot/puzzles, or come up with new characters/locations - but better make them good, people!

[Timosity]

Isn't Gluttony a sin??

[Barcik]

* Barcik opens up Genesis chapter 1.

In the begging there was chaos. And the spirit of god was floating above the water.
On the first day god created light and darkness.
So, obiously Day 1's goal is to creat light and darkness, from errr.... nothing. The problems here are -
1) Hot to illustrate this nothing.
2) How to make light out of, err, nothing.

I'll be thinking about it and posting my ideas later. But I do have one thing to say now: I suggest God to be able to play in two dimensions - one of the raw Universe and the second of these high divine spirits, where all these characters are. Anyway, I'll be back with more ideas.

[Neole]

"I suggest God to be able to play in two dimensions - one of the raw Universe and the second of these high divine spirits"

Yeah, that would be great! The divine universe can remain fairly constant with maybe a couple of backgrounds added every chapter. The lower one can expand more into different locations.


"Isn't Gluttony a sin?? "

Only in the universe Mr God created. These Immortals employ God and are not bound by his rather illegibly written words.


1) Hot to illustrate this nothing.
2) How to make light out of, err, nothing.

Am clueless. 'Nothing' could be a dark blank screen with no cursor or God visible. Jesus suggested god trying to find a lightbulb for light. Anyway, God has an entire divine universe to search for things to make the lower universe.. or shold they be separate?

[Ali]

The bible tells us that God made light and then he saw that it was good, but it doesn't tell us about the early monday morning prototypes.

First he made bikes (but he saw them to be without application).

Then he made trikes (and saw them also to be without application).

Then he made unicycles (and decided to get out of this whole damn bicycle vein and make something good for a change).

Then he made light (And saw that it was good, and he had a whle universe full of trikes and bikes an one-wheelers lying all over the place).

The only reason he made humans in the first place was to help tidy up, but did we? Did we Free Will.

Well those are my beliefs. I'm not entirely sure how relevant they are. I'm sorry if I've wasted time and space.

[Neole]

Heheh this could be funny! God experiments with various stuff and gets it wrong many times till he gets it right. Good idea Ali! Maybe mix 7 colors to get white light but before that get a lot of red and violet tinted screens.

[Barcik]

Am clueless. 'Nothing' could be a dark blank screen with no cursor or God visible. Jesus suggested god trying to find a lightbulb for light. Anyway, God has an entire divine universe to search for things to make the lower universe.. or shold they be separate?

That gives me an idea. How about we use one of these silly lightbulb jokes?

[Neole]

Yeah, how many 'Lucy's does it take to screw in a lightbulb. and how many Slobbering immortals does it take.. - the little devil asks the little angel.

[bspeers]

God needs a lightbulb.
God needs to make the light the right colour--there are strict rules about these things! Once a god made a disco universe, and that was a complete failure.  So only black darkness and white light.
God needs proper darkness, not this crappy "psudo" darkness that the last God put in.  Real pitch blackness.

At the end, the "light" should be the sun, and the darkness space.

Start off with a blue-screen, much like old dos or other os's.  Blue is neither white nor black.   There is a light-socket dangling from the ceiling.

Obviously the light bulb is in the basement of the celestial plane.  Light bulbs always are.
The lighting controls would logically be in some central control room.
The darkness could be a very large plastic sheet, or a roll of some sort of fabric.  Remember, God needs many of the powers of an interior decorator.  But he's clearly not good at organization.  Look at mountains!  They're not symetrical or straight at all!

So, the question then is, how does one get into the basement, how does one get into the control room, and where does one procure proper darkness.

If I were Lucy, I would sell some inferior darkness, but it could be a red herring.  Real darkness perhaps comes from "Fabric of the Universe" a fabric warehouse in the village of the Gods.  But of course, you need measurements, and some credit from the high-God.
Logically, the contol room would not be open to just "any" god.  You'd need permission, likely some forms filled out in triplicate.
Cerebus (to mix myths) could be chained in the basement by all the supplies.

What if there were something small left behind in the blue-screen from the previous universe.  Like some minor protozoic matter.  A fragment of stardust or some such.
What if Lucy's faux darkness was useful later in the game, just not now?

There'd be a lot of paperwork in this first quest, but it would also establish some of the conflicts between God and Lucy, between God and the other characters.

So what you need:

1. Something to placate cerebus.
2. Some credit for darkness.
3. The measurements of the Universe.
4. Authority to get into the central control room.

For these you would need: A measuring device (measuring tape, rope, or techno-gadget)
                                          Something like a bone or a traquilizer, or music.
                                          To speak to the high god and fill out the proper forms (or get someone else to do that for you)
                                          Some credit either from the high God, or from thin air (matter from the last universe involved somehow?)

The final puzzle would be getting the light colour right, which could simply consist of hitting all the buttons at once, or of turning on machines in the right order to get the right mix.

Does that help?

[Barcik]

A little pool of info: http://www.all-creatures.org/book-creation.html
I'll try and post a suggestion tomorrow.

[Raggit]

With all due respect, I find this offensive.

I mean, you're mocking religion. I fully believe in God and what the Bible teaches, and making a game of this type is rather disrespectful. It isn't my place to tell you what to do, but the way you're depicting God is very disrespectful and kind of sick.

God didn't need any tools or assitance in creating the universe. It was spoke into existance. There is only one God. There always has and always will be one God.

I know, it is just a game, but that doesn't make it okay to make fun of God.

I don't want to start a hugh debate, make people mad or insult your ideas Neole, I'm simply stating my views on this project. I am not your consence. You do whatever you think is okay.

Sorry if it seems like I'm trying to get people mad at me, I'm not.

--Raggit

[bspeers500]

Raggit, appreciate that I'm not making this game, nor do I disrespect your position.  Sure, making a game about God can be a bit disrespectful.

But I would argue this is actually not a sacreligious game.  Go back to Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.  Now there's a film that makes God seem silly.  Is it sacreligious?  I would say not.

Now, I'm no expert, but in my understanding, the bible does not describe God's personality.  It does not describe *how* God created the Earth, merely that he created it in seven days from nothing.  Obviously this game is not going to be a word for word copy of the original bible story, but not all God creation myths have to be.  In fact, evangelical types often make silly stories to illustrate creation myths and biblical values.  Take the "Veggie Tales" for example, Christian stories told with silly vegetables.

Now this god is silly, but is not obviously being mocked.  It's not as if he's being made out to be some idiotic bumbler who screwed up creation.  It's a light jibe at the orthodox version of creation, still maintaining the basic structure set out in the BIble--not the only book of creation, by the way (imagine how you would feel if you were say, Cree, and all the creation stories you saw implicitly mocked your world view).

There are many creation myth stories that include God that are probably more sacreligious.  Discworld is, in some of the books (particularly Small Gods, if you interpret it).  George Carlin makes his comedy career mocking orthodoxy.  Yes, he can be offensive, but even his barbs are enjoyed by many Christians.  Since this game obviously isn't meant to be a verbatim account from the bible, but a wry look at creation, it shouldn't be taken too seriously.  I mean, if George Burns can star in "Oh God, You Devil" in the height of cold war hysteria, certainly Neole can be forgiven for taking a slightly goofy tone on creation that theoretically fits right inside the Bible story's chronology.

Basically, if you take every word of the Bible as truth, then there is nothing in this game to contradict this view.

Lastly, I would look at Satan Quest.  There you got to play Satan as a main character, doing many things Satan would not do.  In my mind that's more sacreligous than this game, but it doens't bother me as I'm a non-Christian.

Even if this does offend you, remember, you don't have to play it.  I'm offended by games other people have made, and would probably be offended by an evangelical game, but unless a game actively promotes hate or conservative status quo ideas, I'm not likely to raise my hackles too much.  Just relax.  At least the game's not actively *attacking* religion.

Still, you're entitled to your feelings, so I'm not going more into it than that.  You might argue it's up to God to judge, not us.

Hope this helps,

[Snake]

Heh, I'm the complete opposite of you, Raggit. But I hope that doesn't make us less of on-line friends/acquaintances.


--Snake

[Raggit]

I respect you guy's opinions and I thank you for being kind to me.

I'm not condeming Neole for his idea and project. Like you said, I don't have to play it.

I'm not trying to judge anybody. As it is not my place to tell Neole what to do, it is not my place to judge humanity.

You have some interesting points.

Snake: You're intitled to your own opinion, and I still like you! So everything is still cool between us!

[Trapezoid]

Cool then. Keep in mind that there much more disrepectful things said about religion all over the internet. This game seems pretty non-hostile in comparison. In fact, it sort of reminds me of Veggietales sort of kiddifying of a Bible story, only instead of kiddified it's being... juvenile-adults-who-never-grew-up-ified.  

[Raggit]

Hey, I just learned a new word!!!

Never-grew-up-ified!

[Snake]

juvenile-adults-who-never-grew-up-ified.

New intriguing AGS-learned word. Must put in my vovabulary next to "Poobungies" and "Blargh"...

Raggit: Coolio-ho


--Snake

[Barcik]

Snake: You're intitled to your own opinion, and I still like you! So everything is still cool between us!

WHAT?! No bloodshed? No violence? You pussies!  

[Snake]

Oh, there will be bloodhsed and violence, you'll just have to wait until Evil Night is released.


--Snake

[Eggie]

Well, after creating a simple planet (this could be already done or a simple starting puzzle.) I'd say the first step is to create some sort of life.

The angel could advise you to make a woman and the devil advises you to make a man.

Anyway if you put slugs, snails and puppy dogs tails in the life-making(tm) cauldron then you'll create a man and if you put sugar, spice and everything nice in the cauldron you'll make a woman.

The way the player could work out how to do this to have the overly heavenly chap recite poetry.

Now, about getting the items. I suppose the two obvious ways to get these items would be to:
A) Get them from your angel/devil.
B)Go on a quest for them.

Anyway that's my idea.

When you've got your man/woman on the planet (It would be cool if you could choose his/her name) then you'll need someone of the opposite sex.

Your lifemaker(tm) cauldron has lost it's power...and only one person you know has another one.

So, phone up "Lucy".
"Hello, Saturn?"
"SATAN, idiot!"

Anyway after a bit of dialog Satan will invite you into his home.

After getting to his front door somehow your minions could pop up and say "I have a bad feeling about this." or somthing that effect.

there should be a trap or somthing inside.

After you've defeated it (maybe with a little help from your friends) lucy will appear and agree to let you have a man/woman so long as he can have a bit of space to plant his apple tree on your planet.

On returning to your own place you'll find the apple tree and man/woman their.

After growing some plants, animals food then you can leave Your two humans to get on with it.

By day two they could have children.


But anyway, that's all of my ideas for day one.

Phew, I've has that on a .txt fil;e since yesterday.

[Neole]

Raggit: I'm sure if God finds this annoying He will strike us down with a bolt of lightning or format our harddisks and that will be that. Personally I think He would be flattered by all this attention. It's just harmless fun after all. And many other religions have multiple Gods (Greeks, Hindus, Chinese), so we wouldnt want to displease them by having only one - you only have to see how well Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules worked! The game is not just my idea and project, I only suggested a game with 7 days of creation, the ideas are being contributed by a lot of other people as you can see.

bspeers: crafty ideas! Except.. are you sure God created darkness? I thought he only created the light. If he did create darkness, the fabric/village idea is great, along with measurements. The disco universe comment would be extremely funny so we must remember to use that! Cerebus maybe we could use later, as we do not want to exhaust all our surprises on the first day!

Eggie: Whoa! We're still on the day one here, men and women will be created on day 6 I think..

[Neole]

About light, I would like to have a mixture of seven colors to get light. So maybe we could get a blue ink bottle, a green glass pane from a window, a yellow sun etc to make the seven colors that form white (VIBGYOR). We might need to focus them on a reverse prism somewhere to get light in the new universe. How's this idea?


Also, as soon as we have some scenes decided for sure I can draw out those backgrounds - I cant do this till we have the puzzles finalised. I would also be needing a good colorist for backgrounds.

[Ali]

Hi, I thought Herschel might need transportation to get him across the big spaces of nothing, so I designed a GodHopper. I don't know how to make it appear on the page (Flippy_D usually does that sort of thing - I don't know how - perhaps he has some magic shoes or something).

Here's the link. It might need to be dragged or something. I just don't understand:

http://www.geocities.com/harlequin_jake/godhopper.gif

If that doesn't come up right the url is :

http://www.geocities.com/harlequin_jake/godhopper.gif

The shading on the metal is very rough, but I did it quickly. You can see a sketch of where the robed guy himself would stand while cruising the void.

Feel free to ignore this, Neole and everyone else, I just felt like drawing it.

Also about offending people's values: I think there are too many religions and belief systems to avoid offending everyone. (I'm anti-capitalist, so I'm immediately offended every time an ad-break comes on TV).

All we can do is follow our beliefs, tolerate what others think and maybe (eventually) come to an agreement. Neole deserves the right to make a game which may be offensive to Christians, provided he's not denying them the right to be Christians.

Well ... that's what I think anyway.

[bspeers4004]

I lost my post where I expanded on ideas, but to put it succinctly, God created light, and then separated it from darkness, both of which did not exist.  So in a sense he created both, suggesting that yes, it would be accurate for him to create day AND night.  See the quote below:

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

4. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

5. and God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

This does make the first day a bit fudgy.  After all, day and night didn't exist before he created them, so was the creation of light and dark during or *prior* to the creation of night and day?  If prior, God didn't do anything actually *on* the first day. (heh, pointless semantic religous argument).

Either way, it's arguable that God created dark as much as he created light.

But these are just ideas I'm tossing about.  Like I said in that other post, I have very little stake in them.  Do what you will.

All I think is that he's going to need to lodge quite a lot of fossils in the soil on that 5th or 6th day so they can be dug up 6000 years later.

Hmmm.... laudromat thoughts...

[Matt Brown]

and it was good.

[Eggie]

He needs:

WALKERS CRISPS LITE!  8)

Or maybe he could buy some fire of Lucifer (who he sacked years ago for being too evil) to be the sun.

But the "sun" sets the world on fire so God created oceans.

How about mixing Morning, Day, Evening and Night up in a sort of slide show to try and get it right. Then you could do a little effect with SetBackgroundFrameThingie() to see your results.

[Barcik]

Sorry, I couldn't think of any good possibilities. I'll just vote when the time comes.

[Neole]

Ali: That looks so good that we would HAVE to fit it in even if we had no use for it!

bspeers: Ok, we'll have darkness! The fabric from the village idea is good! Now we need some final puzzles!! Like what we combine with which and click on what and talk to whom to solve the puzzle - so I can get to drawing the backgrounds and characters.

Eggie: I'm not sure the sun and the oceans came on the first day - experts on the subject please clarify this. Whats 'WALKERS CRISP LITE'?

Is my light idea for the white light ok? Get seven objects that would radiate the respective colors of the rainbow to make white light? If yes, then could we have suggestions on the seven objects for the seven colors, and the puzzles involving how god would get each of them ( like blue ink bottle, a green glass pane etc).

[Barcik]

Neole, I'm for.

And starts and oceans came on day 2.

[Neole]

Barcik, there's not going to be any voting unless there's conflict of opinions and there's none right now. Right now we have the basic plot for first day, now we need to make puzzles and stuff out of them. Here's the basic plot -

________________________________________________________

God needs to make darkness and light.

(Darkness plot as suggested by bspeers)
For darkness he has to get that fabric from the fabric warehouse at the village of the gods, which require him to get the measurements of the universe (using some measuring tape, or a better puzzle anyone?) and some sort of authorization/credit from a higher god maybe (I want to leave Cerebus for later chapters bspeers!)

(Light plot as suggested by me, unless the light bulb idea is preferred)
For light he needs seven objects each giving one of the seven colors of the rainbow, which he'll put together to get white light. A blue ink bottle and a green window pane is what I've thought up till now. Most objects can be just picked up from various scenes, but maybe have puzzles for some.


______________________________________________


Now let's get these plots completed into exact puzzle modes!

[Barcik]

I'm for Neole's version.

[Neole]

We'll have both the light and dark of course, since God created both. Now who'll convert these into puzzles?

bspeers - you seem to be good with puzzles! If you can write the exact puzzles for these go ahead and we'll modify/help as needed. Of course anyone else can do it too, if they can come up with any puzzles with these plot elements. Like how to get credit/authorization, measuring tape, 7 colored objects.

[Barcik]

Darkness is lack of colour, and this is harder to implement. Just bringing it to your attention.  

[Neole]

We'll start with many rooms in the divine plane, and only one room in the lower plane. That lower plane room will be initially 'nothing' - maybe ziggyzaggy lines or just psychedelic gradient colors. Then God lays down the fabric of darkness on it - so all becomes perfectly black (with God visible on it of course). Then God gets the seven color objects and lays down light on the lower plane room so all becomes white. Then we move on to day two. So not that hard to implement graphically!

In the first day God wouldnt be able to walk around on the lower plane, maybe just float around. NOTE: Barcik the scripter! so different views for character God in the upper and lower plane till there is earth. When does he actually create earth etc. so we can start having different rooms in the lower plane?

[Barcik]

I don't understand what you're asking.

[Neole]

Just that when did God create earth? Before creating earth he wouldnt have any walk space, so he would sort of float around in the lower plane (i.e. the non divine plane of existence).

[Barcik]

Day II. Hey, these bible lessons did help! And people, I didn't just give you that link earlier for fun.

[SSH]

How to draw "nothingness"...

Nothingness looks like: A Ham Sandwich...

It's an old joke: "There's nothing, quite like a ham sandwich"

There's also great oppurtunity for understatement jokes:
BIG BUILD UP MUSIC...
(Charton Heston voice) And then... God made... The Earth...
(silly finger in mouth popping sound as the earth pops out of nothing)

[Neole]

Hehheh, maybe we can use that cheesy joke! The initial nothing room is a ham sandwich.. I dunno how many would get it though, even after explanation from God!

About Earth creation with a pop, that depends on the puzzles we have for making Earth, we havent reached the 2nd day yet!

Now if someone would get on writing the puzzles...

[Eggie]

USE SCISSERS ON BLACK VOID.

[SSH]

Actually, I now realise that it may be more kosher to make it beef... oh no, that's a sacred cow!

How about a chicken tikka masala sandwich? That might offend followers of the great Linda McCartney

Myself, I'd go for cheese and pickle... then the joke will be really cheesy.

As for explaining the joke, you could have a dialog between Lucy and God and Lucy leaves because the joke is so cr@p. Meanwhile, the screen pans over the sandwich...

[Vel]

How about a progress report or something?

[dunder_dacke]

1) What nothingness unless it's a sandwich? Of course it's a sandwich!

2) If you don't manage to pull this of I might have to eat you alive since this idea is so Godly Great! I've always been a big fan of things speculating in religion and/or mocking (moahaha) and if this thing ... works out ... it might even prove to be one of the greatest!

3) Please, no low resolution or low colour!! I really, really need to play this game so please do not, I repeat: DO NOT screw this up!

4) I love this!

5) I'll be back - when/if some ideas come flying..

6) I love this!

[Neole]

Hey guys! Sorry for no updates and stuff. Its all SSH and Bspeers fault.. (well if I gotta blame someone it wont be me). The Day 1 (and consecutively a lot of other days as well since many scenes remain the same) backgrounds have been finished beautifully by Ali. Dorcan has done a lot of crafty scripting as well, including some snifty dialogue thingie and the two player interface. The wacky puzzles and plot were finalised by Bspeers and SSH. When it came to the dialogs and hotspots, these last two guys have taken a long break (hey wakey wakey). Ginny disappeared as well after a bit of contribution. I of course, had to do the characters and objects, but you all can see clearly I cant do that without the dialogs and hotspot descriptions, so there.

So here's a call out to SSH and Bspeers to git working or else God will be real angry with them. I am a lil too busy these days, but I will get the characters and objects done.