Re: Bad Machine

["Avrom Faderman" <Avrom_Faderman@email.msn.com>]

Andrew Clover wrote in message <77vijn$gvk$1@holly.csv.warwick.ac.uk>...
>Lelah Conrad (lac@nu-world.com) wrote:
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>> [possible spoilers...]
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>> I hope to play more of it in the future. We weren't clear what our
>> objective was, except probably to "fix" ourselves?
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> I don't think so - that seems to be what happens when you 'lose' by being
>discovered and taken to a Fixer.
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> I like to think of being 'BAD MACHINE' as a metaphor for consciousness, or
>at least for the mechanism that allows the player to control Mover005 in
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>first place.
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> I don't know how long the game is, but if it's a fair bit bigger than I
>have currently encountered, I would expect at the end to have to bring down
>the Warehouse or Queen in some way. Then again, that would be a very
>conventional story structure, which perhaps I shouldn't expect from such a
>game.
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>> It also appeared to us that we might be manufacturing something in that
>> place?
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> Product is product. Not one of the more helpful index entries. Maybe later
>in the game it might be revealed what product is.
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> I dunno. Anyway, I'm currently in Area 31 playing with a broken Lifter and
>stuff. I seem to be encountering a few bugs (real ones as far as I can
tell,
>rather than just odd game text), which may be preventing me from getting
any
>further.
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> Anyone got any further? What's the deal with 'TRANSFER'?


I've finished the game.  It *is* a *fairly* conventional story structure
(though neither of the things you suggested), but still a remarkable game,
and one of the best ending texts I've seen in a long time (not because the
content is surprising, but the effect of the form is really quite
remarkable).

Yeah, I think there are a few bugs, but I'm not quite sure...is the phrase
"[bug]" part of the game, or a debugging tool--?  it seems to come up a fair
bit

Constructor does something wacky [bug]
Expected platform to be accessible from Area 31 [bug]

I could try to compile a list to send to Dan Shiovitz, but it's a little
difficult since it's not always easy to tell bugs from legitimate features
of the game.

You sound like you're near the end of the game--I don't remember any fatal
bugs with the lifter, so all should be well.

Best,
Avrom