11.9.07

Poizoned Mind: Release-a-Go-Go

In short: Poizoned Mind is a sort-of text adventure that's a bit silly and a bit philosophical. It was created for the TIGSource B-Game competition. Read all my blog posts on it by clicking here. Download link below.

Ladies and gentlemen. Prepare yourselves for the one game to dare to simulate the futility and meaninglessness of life. Prepare yourselves to discover that you have a...

Poizoned Mind
A B-Game by Pacian

Version 1.02 - Windows - 2.4Mb
Download here!


Be the first to play the game the critics are already calling 'That's fucking awesome.' and 'I can't wait to play this already!'

Features include:

● 8 unlockable Non-Player Characters or 'NPCs' – discover the world as it's seen by a transsexual beauty, an angry punk, a drugged-up biochemist, an Elvis impersonator, a cat, and even Death himself.
● 32 unlockable conversation options.
● A grand total of 8x32=256 dialogue events - some as long as 291 characters in length!
● 17 unique actions to perform – many of which result in random death!
● 5 different items to examine and give away.
● Original score* by Ludwig van Beethoven.
● Small file size (~2.5Mb zipped) ensures sufficient space remains on your hard drive for family photos and love letters.
● A few options to make completely exploring the game a little more forgiving for the WIMPS among you.
● Interact with the environment using the 'z' key, just like a Japanese shoot-em-up.
● Unparalleled lyneWrap™ technology allows text to span several lines.
● Unprecedented player choice, none of which affects the outcome of the game.
● 1 easily accessible ending.

Can you answer the greatest questions facing humanity?

The answer is: no.

*Score not actually original.

NB. Please comment and let me know if you experience any problems.

Update: Poizoned Mind was developed/tested under Windows XP and has so far also successfully been run on Windows 98 and Wine.

Update x2: Version 1.01: Very minor change: thought to include items in the score output.

Update x3: Version 1.02: Now runs under Windows Vista without Aero switching off.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will get back to this. :-).

Anonymous said...

Being barely computer literate, I'm both completely impressed by your accomplishment, and a little nervous about downloading it onto Windows Vista - it won't do anything strange to my computer will it?

At any rate, congratulations, Pacian!

Anonymous said...

OK - I took a deep breath, and downloaded it. Then I received the message that files might need to be extracted, so I clicked ok. When that was dones, I tried to open the Poizoned Mind file, but I received a message that it had stopped working. However, that could just be Vista (or me! operator error seems to happen an inordinate amount of time around here) - but it wouldn't be the first time that this Vista couldn't operate a file that I ran perfectly fine on any other Windows version. Stupid vista...grumble...mumble...shambling away...

Udge said...

heheheh. Sounds like a great game. Congratulations on making it to 1.0

Pacian said...

@Diddums: I will save you a place at the front.

@Udge: Thank you. I am sure that it is a great game. Somehow.

@Tinker: Oh, I was just about to comment saying that it's okay if you don't want to be a guinea pig. Never would have had you pegged to enter the (faux-)amateurish indie retro games scene!

You do need to make sure that all the files are extracted. You may have to right click on the folder and select something like 'Extract All...' or 'Extract to...' So the folder you're running the game in should be a normal Windows folder, and not a zipped one (which should have a different icon).

But if you've done all that, well, I'll have to do some research on Vista and see what the deal is.

Geosomin said...

I just checked it out a bit after loading it at lunch and it worked for me (so far)...I managed to die a few dozen ways before lunch was over. I'll settle in with a beer tonight and let you know how it goes...

I feel like a kid when my brother used to write text games on our old TRS80 coco1 and I'd play them for him to check them out...this is fun ^_^

Pacian said...

Cool. When you do, make sure to tell me what OS you ran it under.

Udge said...

BTW for Tinker: there are several programs that crash the Windows Explorer in Vista -- among them my own database :-(

One culprit that has been identified is Data Vault, for which there is an update online (sorry, no link. Go to Microsoft bug page and search for it.)

Vista seems to be, shall we say, unripe.

Unknown said...

Yo I love this game! I've unlocked all items and I got all the conversation options and I'm just curious how many locations in total are there? I get the feeling that there might be another location after Chromacorp... I MUST FIND EVERYTHING!!!!!!!

Pacian said...

Glad you like it!

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If you turn on the scoring system in the options menu, when you die you'll see that there are 8 locations in total. I tried to set up the game so that you can't get to Chromocorp without first unlocking every other location.

So you probably have seen everything the game has to offer. Especially if you've asked Death about cats.

Unknown said...

"Interact with the environment using the 'z' key, just like a Japanese shoot-em-up." Aaahh I laughed my ass off.

Unknown said...

This game looks like something that will transcend all gaming genres... anyways it wont load. :(

I keep getting an error saying error initialising soundsysytem DIGMID patch not found.

ive tried redownloading several times but alas to no avail.

this does work on xp right? lol i hope.

Pacian said...

This game looks like something that will transcend all gaming genres...Heh, I'm not so sure about that.

I keep getting an error saying error initialising soundsysytem DIGMID patch not found.It's not the download, which works fine for me, and I wrote the game on an XP system.

Googling the error message, the problem seems to be that the game can't find your MIDI drivers, which is a sound card issue of some sort - either a problem with your drivers or a deeper incompatibility.

As MIDI music becomes more uncommon (not really a bad thing, I don't think) I guess this might happen more often. It might be worth me just compiling a music free version for download... Hmm...

Unknown said...

Oh.. I know what the problem is now then.

My sound card "died" a while back and thats the problem. I just had no idea what the error message ment.

I've really enjoyed your other games and if you could possibly upload a non-sound version of this that would be awesome.

Also since you got me hooked on IF games are there any ones you would recommend? I just started one called Make It Good which is a detective noir IF.

Pacian said...

I guess if I had to recommend 5 IF games, they'd be:

-Galatea
-Downtown Tokyo, Present Day
-Interstate Zero
-Vespers
-Nightfall

All quite approachable, I think, but mileage may vary.

Unknown said...

I actually started Galatea and Nightfall. I'll have to try those others though.

Thanks for the recommendation. Another one I started which is wickedly hard is hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. it's hilarious but aggravating.

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