It occurs to me that my thoughts in that post about “The Van der Nagel Papyrus” derive not only from that essay I wrote about puzzles and gymnastics but from something else I wrote in 2023—a postmortem for The Little Match Girl 4: Crown of Pearls. If you haven’t played that game, HOO BOY, YOU ARE IN FOR A TREAT. Go play it. Don’t worry about this post.
Continue readingCategory Archives: video game
The Van der Nagel Papyrus
I recently participated in a one-on-one interactive fiction competition in which I served as Iron Chef Inform 7. The prompt was “a scroll that alters the world around it,” and I wrote a game called “The Van der Nagel Papyrus” which, if you haven’t played it, you will find much more interesting than this dumb post.
You should definitely play the game before reading this, and you should probably also read this post about puzzles and this post about Metroid beforehand for the sake of rhetorical cohesion.
“rhetorical cohesion,” gimme a breakOn Puzzles in Interactive Fiction
I recently participated in a one-on-one interactive fiction competition in which I served as Iron Chef Inform 7. I wrote a game called “The Van der Nagel Papyrus” which, if you haven’t played it, you will find much more interesting than this dumb post.
I wrote something to wrap up my thoughts on “The Van der Nagel Papyrus,” and I was about to post it here, but it occurred to me that some of those thoughts proceeded from something else I wrote about five years ago. So, let us turn back the clock…
to 20212024 Year in Review
Good grief I did so much stuff this year.
Continue reading2021 Year in Review
I love making things. I feel I am my best self when I am creating something. Do you feel the same way? How interesting.
But if you used this blog to keep up with all the things I make, you would get the impression that I never make anything (and may in fact be dead). Let’s correct that. Let us, in the middle of 2024, do my 2021 Year in Review.
My 2020 Year in Review is here.
And my 2021 Year in Review is HERE.Development Diary: “The Little Match Girl”
It looks like I was writing this for an audience, so I’ll let it introduce itself.
HEY: Don’t read this if you haven’t played the game yet. Come on.
yeah, come onSome Etymologies in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
A sentence on Zelda Wiki posits that “Sahasrahla may be named after the seventh chakra of Hinduism, Sahasrara.” Sahasrahla, it goes without saying, is the wise old man who guides your quest in the early sections of A Link to the Past. His name, it goes without saying, is weird.
When we see sentences like these, it is wise to be skeptical. There’s no obvious reason for Sahasrahla to be named after a chakra, and the author of the sentence offers no support for the supposition. But it is not wise to conclude on this basis that the theory is incorrect. It is not wise to dismiss an idea out of hand just because at face value it seems goofy. Wise people are aware that the objective world, the world of facts, is extremely goofy.
Continue reading2020 Year In Review
When people look back on the year 2020, their first collective thought will undoubtedly be “Wow, Ryan sure got a lot done that year.” To facilitate this sort of reminiscence, I here present my YEAR IN REVIEW.
read on, why don’t youUncovered! CROCODRACULA: THE BEGINNING
You can play this game right now! But you should probably find out where it came from first:
A few months ago, I came into the possession of a copy of a very old, very rare text adventure game. I happened to be poking around in—Well, maybe I should start from further back.
THE STORY SO FAR
A few years ago, I came into the possession of a copy of a very old, very rare text adventure game titled Crocodracula: What Happened to Calvin. Feeling an obligation toward the preservation of an oft-overlooked art form, I—
—Actually, I should go back even further.
Continue readingThe Imitable Process of Ryan Veeder: Additional Autosaving Techniques for Inform 7
There are a few more things I should say about implementing autosaving in Inform 7. In the previous posts I neglected to address how these techniques interact with the default verbs UNDO, SAVE, and RESTORE, which was a bit of an oversight. I’ll get around to that now, and then I’ll show you a couple of other neat things you can do with autosaving.
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