»Strange business, ours -- success and failure share the same rituals. Relevant parties stashed somewhere nice and chilled, records obliterated, impossible to say for certain what is or was.«

The prospect of adding a new entry to my website-as-storage-unit is not why I have been happily anticipating writing about »Zero Parades: For Dead Spies«, that joy is found further down the chain of causes and effects, before anything is published and where thoughts are analyzed and feelings understood. It is the great force of inspiration, of motivation, to read it and write about it, that has forced the object in question to be stashed into the soft space between the lines as the text descends and becomes subtext. I feel like a piece of camera film hung to dry on a thin rope of translucent material, something being developed on me, something that requires a mirror and spotlight to appraise. The workers at ZA/UM have been busy developing a game just for me. It is not a game that has been torn from its virtual shelves nor received much attention in general. The game has not gotten perfect, great, good review scores from players - most people seem to rate it as a »pretty good« narrative game - but for some reason it has managed to hit every spot just right for me.

You might begin to wonder if my rambling has a point, but do not worry, if you let anyone ramble long enough they might just run into one.

The World and Hershel

Outline for writing:

• Intro
• World and Hershel
• Gameplay, art, the soft stuff around the core.
• Conclusion?

Citater

Is my real face in there?
You're not sure. Hard to tell... you can't really remember what it looks like.

»What you know as the 'Operant Bureau' is nothing but a metaphysical conceit. Know this: if there is an 'Opera' there is also an inner Opera.«
»And what's within this 'inner Opera'?«.
The negative image of its outer intention -- silver salts burned by light then stained with dark. Fog and dream.

»Strange business, ours -- success and failure share the same rituals. Relevant parties stashed somewhere nice and chilled, records obliterated, impossible to say for certain what is or was.«

Like you, the eternal stranger. All safehouses, no home.

Fuck it, I'm going out to Music for Trams Volume 7.

»Hold on, before I lose you -- is all forgiven?«

Unfortunately, in the midst of all his rambling, he has discovered a point.

»So nothing. So everything. A tapeworm cannot appreciate the full terror of the human construction.«

Images

Terms

A list of terms I discovered due to the game either by direct reference or from tumbling down the rabbit hole. I only started tracking these late into the game.