The High-Powered World Of Life On The Conveyor Belt
(…introduction…)
A klaxon sounds over the factory floor, sending shivers of dread into the hearts of the workers mulling aimlessly about like extras in a zombie movie remake. The klaxon can mean one of three things: World War 3 has broken out; aliens have landed and are beginning to systematically wipe out the population of the Earth; or the factory supervisor has decided to pay a surprise visit.
Bad luck.
It’s the third of these.
”Yea, though we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” says Frobisher, the factory foreman, who used to be the Pope but gave it up for the high powered world of factory maintenance instead, “we will endeavour to get our jobs done for fearsome is the wrath of The One Who Shall Not Be Named-“
”Is that Stenson?” a voice calls out.
The foreman, used to such interruptions, doesn’t even pause: “-and verily shall His wrath strike down the evil-doers who have not done His will.” He mutters a short prayer (something along the lines of ‘oh God, why did I get out of bed this morning?’) and regards his ‘congregation’ with disappointment evident in his eyes. “He Who Shall Not Be Named is indeed paying a visit to our pari- er, our factory later today. He has promised floggings [does that say floggings? Ah, sackings] for any who fail to live up to the ideals He has set. We must stand together, my brethren, or we will surely fail. Any questions?”
Twenty two hands shoot up. As there are only six of you here, there is definitely something fishy about all this.
”No questions? Excellent.” Frobisher crosses himself. “To your stations, my faithful comrades. In our hour of darkness, we shall stand fast and we shall triumph.” He points to each of you in turn: “Hogbert: you shall manage the pumps; Alicia: the press; Oswald van Blunderbilde IV: the computers; Tarquin: the sharpening of the pencils; Morgrim: get sweeping. Go forth, my comrades, and vanquish the-“
”Er, what about me?” you ask hesitantly.
Frobisher peers at you. “You?” He frowns. “Do I know-“
”It’s Bob,” you say.
He frowns some more.
I sigh. ”Your son.”
He brightens. ”Ah, dear boy! Yes, indeed! Go and do your… your… your job. Yes, do that. You work on the…”
”The conveyor belt, dad.”
”Indeed. Indeed. Go to it, my boy. You shall make us all proud.”
Sighing deeply, you head over to the conveyor belt as your fellow workmates move to their respective stations.
Whatever happens, it’s going to be one hell of a day.
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This was a game I had high hopes for at one time. It was going to be similar in style to an earlier one room game I wrote called Paint!!! but far larger in scope. Paint!!! had a number of random elements scattered through it, but it was essentially the same game each time. After you'd been through it once, you could see what you'd done wrong and, when playing again, fix your mistakes to move you closer and closer to the best score and best ending.
Conveyor Belt would be different. It was intended as a game that would be as random as it was possible to be. NPCs – of which there were six in total – would have different moods from game to game; items would be in different locations; events would happen in some games and not in others; the player would have random abilities that in one game might allow him to open the locked safe but in another would mean he needed help in getting it open… and so on. It seemed like a wonderful idea for a game when I started it, but somewhere between dreaming up the idea and actually beginning to write it, it just lost a lot of its appeal for me.
Part of the problem was that it was going to be a decidedly complex game, certainly the most complex game I had ever written. Now Paint!!! – which I was quite pleased with – was a pain to write. Events firing off all over the place and randomness meant testing it was a nightmare. Even when I thought I’d tested it to death and all the bugs were firmly squashed, I find out, much to my dismay, that a good number of them had got past me (in the original version, the maximum score couldn’t be attained because of something I’d changed during testing and neglected to change back afterwards). So if Paint!!! was a nightmare, what would Conveyor Belt – at roughly four or five times the size – be like?
One day I’d like to go back to it and get it finished because I think there's a decent game lurking here somewhere, but when – or if – that happens to be, I don’t know.