[Divunal-author] Strange Aeons

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

----Security_Multipart(Wed_Jun_19_04:37:34_2002_451)--
Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


This is the last message to the old "Divunal" and "Inheritance" lists as they
stand today, so please apologize the intrusion if you don't want this mail.  I
am going to be purging the subscriber lists of most people who are still
subscribed, on the grounds that so much has changed since these projects were
last touched that I will assume most people have lost interest or had email
address changes or whatever.  Those who I know are still interested I will not
remove -- please _reply to me directly_, and not the lists, (
glyph@twistedmatrix.com )if you want to be left on one or all of these lists,
or resubscribed under a different address.

As you probably haven't noticed, since there's been nothing much to see there
for years, http://www.divunal.com/ has subtly shifted its message recently.
This reflects a bizarre rebirth of the Divunal project.  It has transformed
significantly.  I invite you to keep peeking at the page every so often.  What
you see there may eventually surprise you.

The new Divunal draws on my two years of experience working on the game
industry as well as some significant evolutions of my capabilities as a
programmer.  It incorporates feedback and design ideas from game designers
whose opinions I have been evaluating over in these intervening years, from
Brian Urbanek to David Sturgis to the cast of the infamous "Mud-Dev" list.  It
will rely upon the Beyond game design framework by Jason Asbahr.

As a result, it is radically different.  It has exactly zero of the same plot
elements that the original game called "Divunal" had.  It doesn't take place in
the same environment, or even have the same guarantees about the medium (yes,
the new Divunal will probably have some graphics in it, eventually!).  It
doesn't have the same purpose; I am not working towards building a commercial
game immediately, but to build a shared space from where commercial games can
branch off.  I want a community-driven thematic game that is radically
different than anything that's been done before.  Expansions to it will
probably be commercial, but the game's core will be a common area that is
freely accessible.  I plan for it to be "playable" in some sense as soon as
possible, although it will not be open to the general public for some time.

Divunal is no longer a game about dreams.  It is a game that is *like* a dream.
More like a poem of text-based online games than the typical prose.  It is
experimental.  It will probably require some technical knowledge to get
immersed in immediately, and there will be fewer apologetics about this,
although we will strive to document it.

It is intended to serve as a "place with a memory" for the development team
working on Twisted Reality, as well as an interesting place to play.  It will
be a virtual world, an information processing tool, and a focus for
collaboration.  The game will incorporate wiki functionality as well as
interesting mechanics.

If you are intrigued after reading this, I'd like to hear from you.
Participation is open to anyone who was once an author or developer.
Otherwise, thanks for playing last time, and I hope this finds you in good
health :-).


-- 
 |    <`'>    |  Glyph Lefkowitz: Traveling Sorcerer   |
 |   < _/ >   |  Lead Developer,  the Twisted project  |
 |  < ___/ >  |      http://www.twistedmatrix.com      |

----Security_Multipart(Wed_Jun_19_04:37:34_2002_451)--
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQA9EFDgvVGR4uSOE2wRAhjIAJ0YY3+ka4aL0xRCGx9M7gH0ZS9I0ACfcksa
awkwHoBd6QgaKzvqdKXdESc=
=Z1hb
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

----Security_Multipart(Wed_Jun_19_04:37:34_2002_451)----