barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) (06/19/91)
Various people have written me e-mail about BLAZEMONGER. So far, the comments look like this: PERCENT COMMENT 54.5% "Don't you have anything BETTER to do at 4:00 am?" 28.0% "Stop wasting bandwidth!" 16.8% "Where can I obtain, er, uh, BUY a copy?" 2.7% "Is your last name REALLY 'Barrett'?" 1.4% "Can't you add to 100% correctly?!?" 0.0003% "Could you tell us the history of BLAZEMONGER?" Well, due to overwhelming popular demand, here it is... the REAL, TRUE, FACTUAL, MAGNIFICENT HISTORY OF BLAZEMONGER. But first, some legalities: ** This REAL TRUE FACTUAL MAGNIFICENT HISTORY is ** ** CopyWright 1991 by Daniel J. BLAZEMONGER. ** ** All rites reserved. Void where permitted. ** Now before reading, please sign the following non-disclosure agreement. "I, __type__your__name__here__, agree that I will not disclose any information about the REAL TRUE FACTUAL MAGNIFICENT HISTORY of BLAZEMONGER unless I really want to." _________________ (fill in .sig) Now that THAT is all out of the way... time for the R.T.F.M. History!! Part I: BEFORE BLAZEMONGER Once, there was a TERRIBLE time in Amiga history. The games sucked. They were SLOW, STUPID, BORING, USELESS, and NOT AT ALL FUN. Totally WIMPY games like "Shadow of the Cheese" dominated the market. These games were written by INEPT PROGRAMMERS who didn't know the difference between a HARDWARE REGISTER and an EXPONENTIAL ALGORITHM. They couldn't tell an OUTPUT from a SHOT PUT. The most COMMON PROGRAM these people ran was a GURU MEDITATION. Believe me, it was PATHETIC. Well, about this time, a group of three Florida doctors had a spare $7 million to invest, so they decided to build the ultimate game computer. They... uh... wait a minute. Wrong history. So, about THIS time, a group of ULTIMATE PROGRAMMERS decided that ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. It was time to write the GAME TO END ALL GAMES. (Literally! In fact, the original plans called for the game to seek out and DESTROY any WIMPY games owned by the user! But for better or worse, this was dropped from the specification when we realized that, to have the best game, you also have to have other games around that are WORSE.) And so, our BRILLIANT PLANNERS and AMAZING CODERS started work on the program. It was a well-kept SECRET. NOBODY was allowed to refer to it by its actual name, so they used CODE NAMES. These names were SO SECRET and SO WELL ENCRYPTED that nobody, not even the people involved, could crack them. So they just tossed out the code names and used the real one. But what was the real name? What should the ULTIMATE GAME be called? Well, the original name chosen was, believe it or not, "Wonk", which is the sound of the user "wonking" a monster on the head. But this name was soon scrapped because it sounded too similar to "Turrican", a VERY WIMPY game. Next, the designers tried the name "Kill Kill Kill" which pleased most everyone, but it STILL sounded too much like "Turrican". But this name was one step closer to a good one, because it had almost enough VIOLENCE in it. Finally, in a sudden BURST OF BRILLIANCE, ALL of the people involved SUDDENLY thought of the SAME NAME SIMULTANEOUSLY! It was a MAGICAL experience! Everybody was STUNNED! Yes!! The game was going to be called... called... "Little Princess Petunia and her Cute, Fluffy Doggie"!! How they CHEERED the decision!! Everybody felt GREAT. Then somebody noticed that the building's air vents were all shut, and truck exhaust fumes had been filtering into the building for the past 2 hours. So everybody went outside, took a few deep breaths, and decided on "BLAZEMONGER." BLAZEMONGER: a name that would strike TERROR into the hearts and text editors of those INCOMPETENT WANNA-BE BASIC PROGRAMMERS at Psychosis, Innerprune, Bitmap Buffoons, Electronic Artichokes, Seagate, and other TOY MANUFACTURERS. Yes, BLAZEMONGER: who could change the course of mighty GAME SALES... bend RKM RULES in its BARE HANDS... and who, disguised as... uh... never mind. Part II: B.M. Hits The Beta-Testers After a careful selection process, 6 BRAVE beta-testers were chosen to try out the game. We watched carefully, from behind our concrete bunker, to see what would happen. Up to this point, nobody had actually tried to play the game. The first beta-tester picked up the BLAZEMONGER game disk and prepared to insert it into the computer. We were all VERY pleased when, as his hand was approaching the drive, the words "GAME OVER" began flashing on the monitor. It was a success!! BLAZEMONGER was the FASTEST GAME EVER WRITTEN. (We sent the rest of the beta-testers home. Dweebs.) Part III: Disaster In The Stores The first shipment of BLAZEMONGER packages was sent to the stores. It was shaped like a PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE wrapped around a LIT STICK of DYNAMITE. This naturally frightened some of the MEEK and WIMPY store owners. But we had expected that this might happen, so we did the appropriate thing: we sent a few of our "support people" to each store, and they beat the hell out of the store owners with blunt instruments. BLAZEMONGER sales improved rapidly. But it wasn't enough. Weedy little jerkoff kids started PIRATING the game. In our first release, you see, we had decided not to use any form of disk-based copy protection. This was not a problem, however, as one of our programmers had lovingly coated the original disks with BUBONIC PLAGUE VIRUS, which was passed on to the illegal copies. However, the original PACKAGING was coated with Bubonic Plague ANTIDOTE. You get the picture? Anyway, that took care of the piracy problem rather quickly. Finally, BLAZEMONGER sales were hurt by a nasty rumor that started floating around on BBS's and USENET. Somebody claimed that, after you turned off your computer, BLAZEMONGER would hide in the battery-backed RAM of the internal clock. This was a VICIOUS LIE!! BLAZEMONGER doesn't NEED any WIMPY batteries!!! If it wanted to, it could hide in your MOUSE!! Or even in the GRIMY DIRT on your RETURN KEY!!! God, don't you ever WASH that thing?!? Makes me sick. Part IV. BLAZEMONGER TRIUMPHANT Nowadays, absolutely EVERYBODY admits that BLAZEMONGER is the ULTIMATE GAME that plays FASTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE. Even though the original game had NO BUGS, we decided to add LOTS OF FEATURES (the feature not to blow up the monitor, the feature not to electrocute the user, etc.), resulting in BLAZEMONGER III, BLAZEMONGER IV, and so on. (There was no BLAZEMONGER II, as it was so BLINDINGLY FAST that it LEAPED out of the computer and up into the STRATOSPHERE before we could play it.) So there you have it: the REAL TRUE FACTUAL MAGNIFICENT HISTORY of BLAZEMONGER... straight from the SOURCE. If you have any questions, we can send some of our "support people" around to straighten you out.
navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) (06/21/91)
Dan, MAGNIFICIENT ORATOR of HISTORY (we call him moh), writes: >...we sent a few of our "support people" >to each store, and they beat the hell out of the store owners >with blunt instruments. Ya'know, that explains a lot. I do believe I've run into a few of the lucky victims, err recipients of favorable and liberal treatment (with a blunt instrument). David Navas navas@cory.berkeley.edu 2.0 :: "You can't have your cake and eat it too." Also try c186br@holden, c260-ay@ara and c184-ap@torus
lmbailey@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Laurana Bailey) (06/21/91)
Hilarious. Has anyone bothered to keep an on-going buffer capture of the BLAZEMONGER series of posts that they could mail to me? I have to have a copy for my collection. Laurana -- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ |Just another lemming... | Yet another Amiga maniac set loose | | | on the world...and you thought things| |lmbailey@vela.acs.oakland.edu | couldn't get any worse. |