{"id":237,"date":"2007-10-26T21:15:29","date_gmt":"2007-10-27T02:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/237"},"modified":"2016-07-12T18:40:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T01:40:28","slug":"ifcomp-2007-varkana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/237","title":{"rendered":"IFComp 2007: Varkana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Next up is an illustrated story set in a different world.  Spoilers follow the break.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>Varkana<\/em> is the kind of science-fantasy that&#8217;s based heavily on world-building.  The author has worked out the fictional city of Arg Varkana&#8217;s geography <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">mountainous and isolated<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>, customs <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_2');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_2');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_2\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">2<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_2\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Names with lots of  a&#8217;s (sometimes double a&#8217;s), origami, apprenticeships, community swimming pools.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>, technology <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_3');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_3');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_3\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">3<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_3\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Mainly pre-industrial, but with flying machines and glow-orbs.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>, myths <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_4');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_4');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_4\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">4<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_4\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">The life-goddess Amortaad has a companion called Senmervae, a lion with wings and horns.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>, diplomatic relations <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_5');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_5');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_5\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">5<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_5\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">There are ambassadors from a more powerful nation visiting, and everyone is trying to curry favor with them.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>, chief exports <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_6');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_6');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_6\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">6<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_6\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Wine and pistachios.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_6').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_6', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>, and so forth, and slips bits of this background in at every opportunity.  If you&#8217;re into that sort of thing, great; if not, this alone might turn you off, although it&#8217;s executed reasonably well.  The only large infodump I saw was at the very end, when the truth about everything was revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The gameplay is really heavily reliant on conversation with an ask\/tell interface.  I&#8217;d estimate that at least half of the things you have to do to make the plot advance are asking the right character about the right conversation subject.  Sometimes the game guides you gently towards the right choices, other times I felt like I was just guessing.  In one case, and only one case as far as I could tell, you&#8217;re required to ask one character about the same thing multiple times.<\/p>\n<p>The story starts with the arrival of ambassadors from the expanding nation of Ashtarta.  One immediately suspects a power play, with the rulers of Ashtarta as the bad guys.  So when I found out a little about Ashtarta&#8217;s recent history, I became a little uneasy about the author&#8217;s sympathies.  Arg Varkana, which basically seems like the author&#8217;s &#8220;I want to live there&#8221; fantasy, is ruled by an &#8220;Argbaan&#8221;, an aristocrat with the title &#8220;Lady&#8221;.  Ashtarta is a democracy.  But it was a monarchy not long ago, and there&#8217;s a prince who&#8217;s still alive.  Did this make the democracy evil?  Was I expected to help the rightful heir back on the throne or something?  I haven&#8217;t said a lot about my political convictions on this blog, but if there&#8217;s one stance I&#8217;m willing to take, it&#8217;s against the rule of kings.  <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_7');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_237_1('footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_7');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_7\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">7<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_7\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">I don&#8217;t know how much monarchist sympathy there is here in the United States, but I bet that a poll would find it depressingly prevalent.  It&#8217;s a very <em>romantic<\/em> notion, after all, and organizations as powerful as the Disney corporation tell us that crowning the right head makes problems disappear by magic, or at least provides a happy ending.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_7').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_237_1_7', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script>  It&#8217;s one thing when you&#8217;re trying to support a &#8220;rightful&#8221; king against a usurper &#8212; in such situations, even if you&#8217;re installing a monarch, you&#8217;re also getting rid of one.  But I&#8217;m not about to overthrow a council elected by popular vote in preference to a dictator with pretensions of divine favor.  Or, well, actually I will if it&#8217;s necessary to keep the story going, but I won&#8217;t feel entirely comfortable about it.<\/p>\n<p>But in fact the plot doesn&#8217;t go in that direction.  Mainly it concerns an interloper in ambassador&#8217;s garb, who&#8217;s trying to steal a book that you&#8217;ve been assigned to repair.  He&#8217;s got creepy mind-control powers, but, oddly enough, turns out to not really be a bad guy in the end, even though he does a lot of bad-guy things.  There comes a point where he actually assumes control of the player character, and player control shifts to the player character&#8217;s best friend.  It&#8217;s really hard to forgive such an affront.  He immediately starts coercing the new PC into helping him, and all throughout that section, I was plotting how I&#8217;d cold-cock him the moment I had a chance.  Only in the epilogue does he explain what drove him to such measures, and only then if you cooperate with him enough to get the right ending.  I think I&#8217;d still regard him as a villain if the other endings hadn&#8217;t been so unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n<p>I should mention the illustrations.  I saw four, and there may have been others I didn&#8217;t see.  They look painted.  They&#8217;re decent, and wouldn&#8217;t look out of place on the cover of a paperback edition of <em>The Varkana Chronicles<\/em> or whatever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rating: 6<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_237_1();\">&#x202F;<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_237_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_237_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_237_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">mountainous and isolated<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_2');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_2\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>2<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Names with lots of  a&#8217;s (sometimes double a&#8217;s), origami, apprenticeships, community swimming pools.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_3');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_3\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>3<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Mainly pre-industrial, but with flying machines and glow-orbs.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_4');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_4\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>4<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">The life-goddess Amortaad has a companion called Senmervae, a lion with wings and horns.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_5');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_5\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>5<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">There are ambassadors from a more powerful nation visiting, and everyone is trying to curry favor with them.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_6');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_6\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>6<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Wine and pistachios.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_237_1_7');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_237_1_7\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>7<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">I don&#8217;t know how much monarchist sympathy there is here in the United States, but I bet that a poll would find it depressingly prevalent.  It&#8217;s a very <em>romantic<\/em> notion, after all, and organizations as powerful as the Disney corporation tell us that crowning the right head makes problems disappear by magic, or at least provides a happy ending.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_237_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_237_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_237_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_237_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_237_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_237_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_237_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_237_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_237_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_237_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_237_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_237_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_237_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_237_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Next up is an illustrated story set in a different world. Spoilers follow the break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[84,53,182,187],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-if","tag-if","tag-ifcomp","tag-ifcomp-2007","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3651,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/3651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}