Updates
Wednesday 15th December
Okay, forget everything I said last week...
Chapter 29 of Space Pirates is now up.
Friday 10th December
More Space Pirates news:
Chapter 28 has just been uploaded. This might be the last update
for a while (I know, what a spot to leave it!), because now that I've
got my degree, my Internet access will be a little uncertain over the
next few months. Then again, I might be updating throughout the break.
We shall see...
Monday 6th December
Don't say you're not spoiled... Chapter 27
of Space Pirates is now up.
Thursday 2nd December
It's the last month of the millennium, so what better time than to
upload Chapter 26 of
Space Pirates? The answer: none.
Friday 26th November
Happy Happy Joy Joy...
I've just found out my exam results, and guess what? I'm now the proud holder of a Bachelor of Science(Mathematics/Statistics)! Oh, good news indeed... which makes today's announcement of Chapter 25 of Space Pirates seem a little bit anticlimactic... oh well :)
Tuesday 23rd November
Another short one... Chapter 24 of
Space Pirates is up. The tension is slowly
building...
Friday 19th November
Just a short one this time... Chapter 23 of
Space Pirates has been uploaded.
Monday 15th November
We're baaackk... I've got a lot to get through in this update, so let's
get straight into it...
Monday 18th October
Okay, so I said I wouldn't be updating for a while - I just had to
share this. The CMI novelisation over at The
Definitive Monkey Island website is finished! That's right, finished! And not
only that, the webmaster has taken an off-the-cuff remark in MI2
about dollhouses and spun it into a MI4 novel featuring Guybrush's
sister! The first few chapters of The Mask of Medusa are
now up and readable.
Finally got in touch with Mike of Monkey Fiction. He's still planning to resurrect the site, but he doesn't know when. So, uh, stay tuned.
Monday 11th October - on holiday
I'm taking a short break, so there won't be any updating here for
a bit (what? you already thought I was on vacation?) Look for some
more stuff here in mid-November, but till then, it's strictly business
as usual...
Friday 1st October
Sad news... it seems Monkey Fiction is in limbo. Webmaster
Mr. ThreadBare has said
that he may no longer be maintaining the site. If you think you'd like
to take over, mail him. I may
volunteer to do this myself, but I'm not sure about my schedule over the
coming year...
Thursday 23rd September
Good news... A Quest
for Fanfic is back! And the webmistress hasn't been slacking off
either, with a new look, new sections, new reviews, and new stuff
to come. So what are you doing here, go over there and
have a look.
Monkey Fiction has been down the last few days, and the problem seems to be with the megamonkey.com server. If you're desperate to read some LucasArts fanfic, try this link. It connects to Mr. ThreadBare's old site, back when it was still called Lucas Fiction.
Friday 17th September
More news from people with a stronger work ethic than me... over at
The Definitive CMI Website, chapter 4 of their CMI novelisation
is now up. And it's good! So go read it.
Monday 13th September
It's been a while, but Chapter 14 of Space
Pirates has finally hit the streets. Many thanks go to Doug Dalquist, who not only
suggested a name for the red rock but also a whole scientific explanation of their strange,
supernatural qualities. Fodder for future chapters perhaps. I changed his suggestion slightly,
but the original may yet make it in.
Hopefully, this signals a return to the 'one chapter a week' policy I was following a few months ago. We shall see.
Wednesday 8th September
You might be wondering what that new link on the index page is for. Basically,
I just got fed up with all the requests for pirated LucasArts games. Maybe now
people will get the message.
Friday 3rd September
Now I know I haven't been updating Space Pirates recently.
But there are two reasons. One, at the moment my home
computer is missing a monitor. This makes it hard to type. Two,
and this problem is a bit more serious, very soon I'm going to
have to reveal the name of this strange reddish rock substance that
Guybrush and Elaine and Upchuck and Marko and just about everybody
is after. But I haven't got a clue what to call the darn stuff.
So mail in your suggestions,
and the best one makes it into the serial!
Thursday 2nd September
One whole month since the last update... well, no new stuff for you
(yet) but I have found out about another Curse of Monkey Island
novel. Not another CMI novelization! I hear you groan. Well, this
one's a bit different. One, it's very well written. Two, the webmaster
clearly means business - the prologue and first chapter went up
a couple of weeks ago, and now chapters 2 and 3 are up with them.
So head on over to the
Definitive CMI Website and have a read.
Monday 2nd August
Got snared by the writing bug yesterday, and churned out some more
of everybody's favourite intergalactic epic, Space Pirates. Yeah, I
know I'm supposed to do weekly updates, but one week = one month in
Internet lingo anyway. Well, to make up for the delay, there are
four new chapters: Chapters 10,
11, 12, and
13. It's all getting very intriguing,
even if I do say so myself. Plus, since it's getting a bit
unwieldy to click through to the new stuff, I've added a
Contents Page, which shows all the chapters
at a glance.
Friday 9th June
And it's...celebration day! Yes, LucasArts Fiction has finally had its
five thousandth visitor! Actually, it had its five thousandth visitor about a week ago
now, but I've been on holiday, so there's my excuse. I'd love to be able to offer some
kind of prize (maybe on ten thousand) but it isn't really practical. What I can offer is...
chapters 8 and 9 of Space
Pirates. Yes, two weeks late (at least), but they're full sized chapters, with
lots of interesting character development 'n stuff. Well, that's it for now. See you
next week.
Tuesday 22nd June
A day late again... Chapter 7 of Space Pirates has now been
uploaded. And, well, that's it. Sorry about the bite sized updates, I should have
meatier stuff coming up.
Tuesday 15th June
This should have gone up yesterday, but anyway... Chapter 6
of Space Pirates is now up and readable. Also, there's
been a lot of activity over at Monkey Fiction.
Plenty of downloads, and a new
Contest Page. So go check it out.
Monday 7th June
Another Monday, another chapter in the Space Pirates saga.
Chapter 5 has just been uploaded, and in it Guybrush and
Wally find themselves in a rather large hole. How do they escape? You'll have
to wait for next week to find out.
Monday 31st May
Mr. ThreadBare has gone and redesigned his fanfiction site once again.
The site that was Lucas Fiction has now
been reborn as Monkey Fiction, with
a renewed emphasis on Monkey Island fanfiction, seeing as how there's hardly
any fanfiction for other LucasArts games. Take a visit, as it's still as
comprehensive as ever.
Later that day...
Uploaded the fourth chapter of Space
Pirates. I hope to add a new chapter every week, turn it into a serial sort
of thing. Mail me abuse if I fall behind.
Monday 24th May
You may have noticed there haven't been many updates lately. Well, I had a few odds
and ends lying around, so here's an interim filler update. There are three new
additions to the Other LucasArts stuff section, which
are as follows:
Tuesday 4th May
Apologies to everybody who tried to get through to LucasArts Fiction yesterday.
Fortunecity was down (that's right, the entire server) and none of the
member pages were available. But it all seems to be working at the moment.
Cleaned up some of the links in the Links section. Monkey Island Fan Fiction closed down last week, so the link has been removed. And a new link has been added - The World of Monkey Island. Came across this site after some discussions on the Scumm Bar Posting Board (the only place to go for LucasArts discussion), and it's got an interesting MI2 novelisation. Short, considering the size of the game, but stick with it because there's a completely different ending, with some intriguing ideas.
Wednesday 28th April
What do you think?
A few weeks ago I got mail from Mr.Threadbare (maintainer of Lucas Fiction, etc etc), who said LucasArts Fiction desperately needed a logo. And since I didn't look like pulling my finger out and jumping to the task, he very kindly sent one along.
I think it looks rather good. The only problem is that he didn't define a transparent background for the logo, instead using the background I currently use. So if I ever change the background on the index page, that logo will look slightly sick. Even now you can see faint alignment problems, if you look closely. But that's quibbling. The logo has now gone up on the index page, and it looks pretty good.
Thursday 22nd April
Some of you might have noticed Fortunecity being a bit flaky recently, with slow
downloads and connection times. This has been a recurring problem, so I decided
to back up all my files, in case anything worse happened. This meant looking at
every single file and saving it through Netscape, so some pretty glaring errors
from Fate of Atlantis: Fist and Wits paths and Secret of Monkey Island have been
taken care of. There's still some more to do, but hey, I don't have all the time
in the world.
Another bit of news, which has nothing to with LucasArts Fiction but I'd like to post it anyway, is that I've been mentioned on a reasonably high-circulation gaming site! (not by name, but we can't have everything) Head to April 20th's news, and scroll down till you see mention of a "keyboarder". That's me.
Monday 19th April
He's back... No new material (yet). However the Wolfenstein
Travelogue has changed: I've taken out the SOLE SINGLE swear word in it. Not
because of any complaints, but because I've since read the Fortunecity
Page Content
Guidelines (take a read if you feel like a laugh). Among the things you can't
include on your page are:
That's just a selection, though. The whole document is funny. Have a read.
Yeah, I'm in a sarcastic mood tonight...
Thursday 1st April
No April Fools gags here. LucasArts Fiction will be taking a two week break while
I go on holiday. To tide you over, I've uploaded a fairly long piece of work
called A Wolfenstein Travelogue. It's a novelisation,
historical account, walkthrough, strategy guide, game review and trivia warehouse,
all rolled into one. I didn't have a clue where to put it, so it goes here.
Plus... the plaster came off today! Imagine someone celebrating a lot, and you're getting the idea...
Friday 26th March
Wow. What a change. I've only had my new URL two days and already I'm getting twice the hits.
Most of these are direct requests, so there's definitely been a difference.
I can think of two reasons: One, the new URL is easier to remember. Two, it only
references the index page, where the counter is stored. People who normally went
straight to Sam and Max Part 1
now have to go through the index page first, and I can record their hits :)
Got rid of the "An Apology" line from the index page. It was starting to bug me.
Lucas Fiction has been busily updating, as usual, this time coming across a neat little swag of Indiana Jones fanfic. Plus Mr.Threadbare is making dark hints of a fan game to come...
Wednesday 24th March
One thing about being signed up to a web counter service like
TheCounter.com is that you find out how people
are getting to your site. Apparently, a few of you are coming here by direct request:
that is, by actually typing http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/neches/158/
into the location field of your browser. Now that's a lot of characters. So,
LucasArts Fiction has signed itself up to a free redirection service,
Technosite Exchange. The new, much easier to
remember URL is:
Monday 22nd March
It's another routine maintenance day here at LucasArts Fiction. First off, you may
have noticed that the Updates section has been getting a bit large and unwieldy.
Well, now it's been split into two sections, with all the stuff from 1998 put in a
separate file. So, if you want to revisit the heady
days of the first Annual LucasArts Fiction Demographic Survey, or read email from
Michael Alahouzos, head down to the bottom of the Updates page and click through.
Secondly, there's been more action over at Lucas Fiction (personally speaking, I think the name LucasArts Fanfic would be much more appropriate). The first chapter of a CMI novelisation has been put up by Mr.Threadbare. So, if you want to read a CMI novelisation (and you won't read one here) then head over pronto to Lucas Fiction
Tuesday 16th March
Lucas Fiction has gone through something
of a renaissance lately. Not only have they passed forty stories in the Monkey Island
section, but the first part of Mr.ThreadBare's Loom novel is up. It's a pretty
impressive work, with screenshots inserted liberally into the text, so that the
final result is more like a graphic novel. Take a look. Also at Lucas Fiction,
you'll find a collection of LucasArts demos. I had a look at these recently, and
the Monkey Island 1 demo is really intriguing.
The township of Melee is yours to explore. And there are a lot of differences between this township and the one that made it into the final game. For example:
Lastly, LucasArts Fiction has added a new section - Text Dumps. I might lapse into FAQ style to explain this new addition.
What's a text dump?
A text dump is a file containing every single line of text from a LucasArts game.
What are they doing here?
Well, they're useful tools if you 're writing a novelisation. Plus, there's all sorts
of hidden info in there (a la Scummrev). For example, did you know it's possible
(or was possible) to score eight hundred points in Monkey Island II? Bet you didn't
even know Monkey Island II had points.
How'd you get them?
To cut a (very) long story short, running the game under Windows, swapping the game
memory to the Windows swap file, running a program to scan the Windows swap file and
farm out all the lines of text (they're in there uncompressed, and for the CD games
at least, are all proceeded by exactly the same codec) Then doing it again, for a
different room. And so on. Up until a week ago, I didn't even know
Scummrev even existed.
But they don't make any sense.
LucasArts games order their dialogue trees in a certain way. So when you come to look
at the dialogue, often the question and its reply are separated from each other by five,
ten, twenty, even thirty other lines. If you haven't played these games before,
you'll probably get confused.
Well, that's my brief text dump faq. As of now, I've got text dumps up for Monkey Island, Monkey Island II, Fate of Atlantis, and Day of the Tentacle. You may see one for Sam and Max in the following weeks. Anyhow, take a look.
Thursday 11th March
I've been thinking about webrings. The LucasArts webring on my index page still isn't
working, so I've decided to pull it off for the time being. What I was thinking,
though, is that computer-game-based fanfic needs its own webring. We've got hundreds of
fanfic webrings, from the general to the specific, ie Xena, Star Trek and co.
But as far as webrings go, computer game fanfic is entirely unrepresented.
When I looked at my referer log recently, however, I came across a rather strange link. A site called Bomis.com hosts what it calls webrings for all manner of topics. You can search the webring tree, read the hilariously unfunny Bomis iFAQ or start up your own webring. The webring I found my site on is the Computer Platforms/Window/Fan Fiction ring. Rather gratifyingly, LucasArts Fiction occupies the number one spot and is described as a 'great site'.
But of course these aren't real webrings. They're just Yahoo-esque search categories, maintained by vigilant volunteers and navigable in frames-assisted fashion. The sites on the 'webring' don't have to include any code on their page. Most probably don't even know they're being indexed. So, I've gotten back to my earlier topic. Computer game fanfic needs a real webring. Where it's going to get one from, however, remains a mystery...
Friday 5th March
It's good news, ladies and gents: the plaster on my right arm came off today.
The one on the left has to stay for another month, so I'll still be under speed for
a bit, but it's better than nothing.
Fixed the TMs in Day of the Tentacle, and spent some time fixing up the links. Amazing what changes over a few months (well not really). The biggest change is of course at Monkey Fiction, where they have changed their name to Lucas Fiction and opened up the site to all sorts of offsite links - including stories and novels hosted here. All of which makes me glad I got the name LucasArts Fiction while it was still available. An d in the saddest news of the day, I removed the link to the now defunct Maniac Mansion Database. Once it was the best Maniac Mansion site on the net, with comprehensive information on both the game and the TV show, as well as an impressive, imaginative MM novelisation. I was hoping it might come back, but it was not to be. Let's hope Mr.ThreadBare can get in contact with the webmaster.
Tuesday 2nd March 1999
Yes! After four months of inaction, LucasArts Fiction is back! And just in time to
celebrate Two Thousand Visitors! Woohoo!
But that's not all there is to celebrate. The Day Of The Tentacle novelisation is finished! I was going to delay the upload a few days while I sorted out a quirk with the TMs, but having just read the LucasArts Fiction bio on A Quest For Fanfic, I decided to get it up here now. It's split up into ten chapters, with a prologue and epilogue, and is as faithful to the game as possible (okay, some puzzles were simplified). Hope you enjoy it.
Now what's left for LucasArts Fiction? Well, there's some more stuff coming in the next few days, which I'll keep a secret fo the moment, and later on I might be writing a LOOM novelisation. Maybe even some Sierra novelisations :) At the moment, progress is a bit hampered by the fact that I've probably BROKEN BOTH MY F___ING ARMS, but the plaster comes off Friday. Maybe. Rest assured, though, LucasArts Fiction is very much alive.