Behind the Scenes: Prospero

2015-09-17 · by Bruno Dias

Tutorials

“Prospero”, which sub-Q published earlier this week, was written using a relatively new tool called Raconteur. Raconteur is a library of tools that wraps and extends Undum, an engine for writing choice-based and cybertext interactive fiction using plain JavaScript. Raconteur supplies a toolchain and CoffeeScript-targeted API for Undum, which is meant to hugely accelerate the process of writing Undum stories.

For a while now, Raconteur has lacked a full code example. “Prospero” is just about the right length for it, and sub-Q has graciously agreed to publish the full source code. The story file for “Prospero” is about 871 lines long and contains all of the unique story text and logic.

You can find out more about Raconteur, including documentation and tutorials to help you start writing with it, on the Raconteur website.

<br />
# ” There comes Poe, with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge,<br />
#   Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge. ”<br />
#<br />
#   — James Russel Lowe, A Fable for Critics<br />
#<br />
# The story source code for Prospero begins here. (C) Bruno Dias 2015.<br />
# Originally published by Sub-Q magazine (http://sub-q.com/)<br />
#<br />
# This source code is distributed as a code example for educational purposes.<br />
# No permission is granted to redistribute or rebuild the story from this<br />
# source code.</p>
<p># —————————————————————————-<br />
# 0 — Front Matter</p>
<p># Require the libraries we rely on.</p>
<p>situation = require(‘raconteur’)<br />
undum = require(‘undum-commonjs’)<br />
oneOf = require(‘raconteur/lib/oneOf.js’)<br />
elements = require(‘raconteur/lib/elements.js’)<br />
qualities = require(‘raconteur/lib/qualities.js’)</p>
<p>a = elements.a<br />
span = elements.span<br />
img = elements.img</p>
<p># IFID and game version — Required by Undum</p>
<p>undum.game.id = “0a7f01b6-b435-483c-8874-bdbee2683255” # UUID<br />
undum.game.version = “source-distribution”</p>
<p># —————————————————————————-<br />
# 1 — Preamble</p>
<p># Helper functions</p>
<p># Cycles through an array’s contents<br />
Array.prototype.cycle = () -><br />
  return this[1..].concat(this[0])</p>
<p># Checks if a situation has been visited by the player<br />
seen = (situation) -> Boolean undum.game.situations[situation].visited</p>
<p># Typographical shorthand</p>
<p># An alias for setting up an “aside” link<br />
# (that creates a parenthetical when clicked, usually)<br />
aside = (word) -><br />
  ref = “#{word}-aside”<br />
  inner = a(word).once().inserter(ref).toString()<br />
  span(inner).id(ref)</p>
<p># An alias for setting up a link to another situation, with the correct<br />
# element class.<br />
segue = (content, ref) -> a(content).class(‘segue’).ref(ref)</p>
<p># An object to hold reusable templates.<br />
type =<br />
  ending: ‘</p>
<h2 class="ending">an ending</h2>
<p>‘</p>
<p># —————————————————————————-<br />
# 2 — Game content</p>
<p># 2.0 — Prologue</p>
<p>situation ‘start’,<br />
  content: () -><br />
    prospero =<br />
      span(a(‘Prospero’).inserter(‘prospero’).once().toString()).id(‘prospero’)<br />
    “””<br />
    The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever<br />
    been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the<br />
    redness and horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness,<br />
    and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet<br />
    stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the<br />
    pest-ban which shut them out from the aid and from the sympathy of their<br />
    neighbors. The whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease,<br />
    were the incidents of half an hour.</p>
<p>    When Prince #{prospero} found his dominions half depopulated, he summoned<br />
    to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the<br />
    people of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one<br />
    of his summer #{segue(‘retreats’, ‘retreats’)}.</p>
<p>    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    prospero: ” (happy and dauntless and sagacious)”</p>
<p>situation ‘retreats’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    # Prospero</p>
<p>    ## Adapted by Bruno Dias from the short story by Edgar Allan Poe<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘cars’]</p>
<p>situation ‘cars’,<br />
  optionText: ‘Continue’<br />
  content: “””<br />
    It was an extensive and magnificent structure, a modernist design not<br />
    unlike the carved *béton brut* that had sprouted all over Europe. An<br />
    angular steel fence surrounded it. Courtiers had abandoned their cars all<br />
    along the gravel paths of the courtyard, gleaming silver and black<br />
    machines defying the rust each misty Savoyard morning. Their keys had been<br />
    collected and buried behind the enormous house, leaving no means of egress<br />
    to the sudden impulses of despair or frenzy from within. Its exterior had<br />
    #{a(‘suffered’).once().writer(‘suffered’)} the passage of time.</p>
<p>    Of all the #{aside(‘cars’)}, one #{segue(‘stood out’, ‘red-car’)}.<br />
    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    ‘cars-aside’: ” (stately Hässels from Prussia, sinuous Verbeeks from New<br />
      Amsterdam, sharklike Bulettes from Brittany)”<br />
    ‘suffered’: “””<br />
      In months of grinding, desperate seclusion, no servant had stepped outside<br />
      the house. The panes of safety glass — surrounding the house like scales<br />
      — had accrued a layer of dark grime from the wind and rain. The garden<br />
      was an overgrown, matted ruin. Native weeds thrived among the corpses of<br />
      neglected foreign flowers. And not far from the door was a pile of ashes<br />
      — remains of clothes and surgical masks suspected of carrying disease.<br />
      “””</p>
<p>situation ‘red-car’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    It was a ruddy, beautiful *coupé* — a Carrièr Matador, from Toulouse.<br />
    Painted a color too dark to be cherry red.<br />
    Fresh gouges in the gravel behind it, mud<br />
    on its rims.</p>
<p>    She stepped out of the car, not bothering to lock it. She made her way,<br />
    through undisturbed gravel, to the #{segue ‘trunk’, ‘open-trunk’}.<br />
    “”” </p>
<p>situation ‘open-trunk’,<br />
  # Note how we can attach arbitrary properties to situation objects<br />
  books: [‘Relics’, ‘Mementos’, ‘Evidence’]<br />
  content: () -><br />
    mask = a(‘masque’).once().writer(‘mask’)<br />
    novels = a(‘novels’).once().writer(‘novels’)<br />
    “””<br />
    Inside the trunk were a stack of paperback #{novels} and a curiously made<br />
    #{mask}.<br />
    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    novels: () -><br />
      finger = a(‘finger’).once().replacer(‘finger-inserter’)<br />
      here = span(‘.’).id(‘finger-inserter’)<br />
      relics =<br />
        span(<br />
          a(this.books[0])<br />
          .replacer(‘relic-book’)<br />
          .toString())<br />
        .id(‘relic-book’)</p>
<p>      “””<br />
      They had been with her as she drove through the back country of Savoy,<br />
      taken from abandoned bookstores and gas stations. #{relics} of the desert<br />
      she left behind her. She ran one #{finger} through the the pile, reading<br />
      the titles#{here}<br />
      “””<br />
    ‘finger-inserter’: ” — Short stories collected from pulp authors;<br />
    Chamber’s The King in Yellow; a clandestine copy of the banned,<br />
    pseudonymous Return of the Worm; louche Italian romances for all<br />
    kinds of underserved audiences…”<br />
    mask: “””<br />
      The masque was red, to match her outfit, and cleverly constructed for<br />
      effect. The top resembled those delicate porcelain features, the shaded<br />
      eyes, of a Venetian *columbina*. But this one had a mouth covering in the<br />
      form of a silken, draping scarf, meant to be pulled down to reveal the<br />
      full #{segue(‘visage’, ‘visage’)} of the masque.<br />
      “””<br />
    ‘relic-book’: () -><br />
      this.books = this.books.cycle() # `this` is the situation object itself<br />
      span(<br />
        a(this.books[0]).replacer(‘relic-book’).toString()<br />
        ).id(‘relic-book’).toString()</p>
<p>situation ‘visage’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
      She tentatively slid a finger behind the masque’s silk covering, as though<br />
      to check that what had always been underneath it remained. In this, she<br />
      was interrupted by the #{segue(‘chiming’, ‘chiming’)} of the great clock<br />
      within the #{segue(‘mansion’, ‘mansion’)}. She had arrived just in time.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘chiming’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    Somewhere deep inside the Prince’s apartments was an enormous, grotesque<br />
    clock. Made of ebony and sharp angles — a modernist retelling of<br />
    a Gothic original the Prince’s ancestors had neglected in a castle<br />
    elsewhere.</p>
<p>    The Prince had it attached to the metal<br />
    bones of the mansion. On the hour, the whole building would reverberate<br />
    along with its chiming, phasing the guests, halting the music, shaking<br />
    the floor.</p>
<p>    Its tolling, just now, signaled the start of the #{segue ‘ball’, ‘ball’}.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘mansion’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    The mansion had been erected out of glass, steel, tropical woods from the<br />
    domains of distant cousins; unlike the ostentatious glass houses of his<br />
    peers, the retreat had been built wholly out of sheer, broken angles; so<br />
    that the glass could not provide a clear sight-line through the house at all<br />
    — instead of an airy rectangle, it was a steel snake hiding in its own<br />
    coils.</p>
<p>    It was a small palace and a world unto itself; and presently, it all shook<br />
    to the ringing of the clock, signaling the start of the<br />
    #{segue ‘ball’, ‘ball’}.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘ball’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    Within the mansion, the Prince had gathered perhaps two hundred guests and<br />
    nearly as many servants. The summer home, a small palace, was amply<br />
    provisioned. A remote stand of cypress surrounded it. The world outside<br />
    could care for itself, and in the meantime, it was folly to grieve — or to<br />
    think. To that end, the Prince had supplied all appliances of pleasure:<br />
    There were dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.<br />
    As all signals traveling through the Prince’s *aether* ceased to carry any<br />
    joy for him, the servants had hidden away all the radios and television<br />
    sets, cutting cords to #{segue ‘silence’, ‘ball-continue’} them completely;<br />
    so that the guests, finally, were left to the labors of pleasure and life in<br />
    seclusion.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘ball-continue’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    When the Prince’s collection of #{aside ‘films’} ran out, the lights were<br />
    turned on and the servants were made to play in blackbox comedies, their<br />
    scripts supplied by dilettante guests.</p>
<p>    When even that entertainment ran thin, the Prince announced a night of<br />
    extreme revel, a masquerade ball, where the guests and servants would<br />
    mingle, shed their identities, forget. Wine, and song, and whatever earthly<br />
    pleasures remained, would flow freely.</p>
<p>    She #{segue ‘donned her masque’, ‘put-on-mask’},<br />
    having arrived just in time.<br />
    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    ‘films-aside’: ” (from bolshevik *kinopoesiya* to staid<br />
      adaptations of the *commedia dell’arte*)”</p>
<p>situation ‘put-on-mask’,<br />
  optionText: “She put on her masque, and made her way to the ball.”<br />
  content: “””<br />
    The ball had been arranged within a sequence of seven apartments joined<br />
    together — a grand suite. In other mansions and palaces, those suites open<br />
    widely, so that one can see clearly through all of their spaces, their<br />
    sliding doors receding almost entirely into the walls.</p>
<p>    However, this suite was crooked, each chamber at a sharp angle from the<br />
    next, so that the guests could see only one room at a time. Outside, through<br />
    the great panes of safety glass, was darkness.</p>
<p>    The seven apartments were each one decorated in a particular color and<br />
    style, a neon mirage of a different place and time. The first one was blue,<br />
    and everything in it had some tint of blue, matched by the bright blue<br />
    lights overhead. The second chamber was purple, from the carpet to the<br />
    ceiling. The third chamber was green throughout; the fourth, orange; the<br />
    fifth, white; the sixth, violet. And at the edge of the great house was the<br />
    last apartment, itself decorated wholly in #{segue ‘black’, ‘black’}.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘black’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    The black chamber was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung<br />
    all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a<br />
    carpet of the same material and hue. BUt in this chamber only, the color of<br />
    the neon lights failed to correspond to the decorations. The tubes here were<br />
    scarlet — a deep blood color.</p>
<p>    In the black chamber, the effect of the neon light that dappled across the<br />
    dark hangings was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon<br />
    the countenances of those who entered, that there were few guests bold<br />
    enough to set foot within the chamber at all. No dancing happened within —<br />
    only furtive whispers, and abortive trysts cut short by the eeriness of the<br />
    chambers.</p>
<p>    She #{segue ‘followed the procession of revelers’, ‘ball-begin’}.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘ball-begin’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    Her costume was a draping, heavy robe, covering her form in red. Topped<br />
    with the strange masque, she was an imposing figure, wearing a color that<br />
    horror had forbidden, shocking those few guests who bothered to notice<br />
    her presence at all.</p>
<p>    She had walked slowly through the revelers, noting how they clung to<br />
    the western end of the grand suite, how they avoided the other end with<br />
    its black velvet room. She moved between them, unnoticed.<br />
    And as the ninth hour approached, she stopped at the halfway point,<br />
    the orange chamber, where the warm neon overhead suggested some<br />
    distant tropical sunset.<br />
    “””<br />
  classes: [‘orange’]<br />
  choices: [‘ninth-third’, ‘ninth-fifth’]</p>
<p># 2.1 — The Ball</p>
<p>###<br />
From here on out, situation ids take the form “bell-room”, eg “ninth-fifth”<br />
means the fifth (white) room, at the tolling of the ninth bell.<br />
###</p>
<p># 2.1.0 — Ninth bell</p>
<p># The descriptions for these chambers shows up the first time they’re visited,<br />
# which can happen in different situations. So we set up an adhoc object to<br />
# hold them, as well as the connecting paragraph about the bell tolling.</p>
<p>chambers =<br />
  green: “””<br />
  She stepped into the green chamber, and found it covered in leafy arabesques<br />
  that recalled the cypress stand outside. Glistening vinyl ferns sprouted from<br />
  the walls, their artificiality only heightened by the color of the lights.<br />
  “””<br />
  white: “””<br />
  She took stock of the white chamber: Lit with a staid white light, this room<br />
  was made to resemble a sarcastic mockery of a church undercroft, complete<br />
  with arched niches in the walls holding sconces with flickering candles.<br />
  The plastic skulls that would have completed the effect, however, had<br />
  been taken away by the servants — the Prince wanted no *memento mori*.<br />
  “””<br />
  toll: “””<br />
  At the far end of the suite, in the black chamber, was the clock. Its<br />
  tolling reverberated violently through the entire house, with a sound so<br />
  strange and musical it compelled the musicians to stop and harken to its<br />
  sound; and here the dancers, too, would cease their revolutions around one<br />
  another, listening to the brazen vibrations of the hour.</p>
<p>  But just as it had come, it would fade away, the shaking of the walls the<br />
  sound of mere moments, soon replaced by the revived noises of revelry and<br />
  joy.</p>
<p>  The striking of the tenth hour approached.<br />
  “””</p>
<p>situation ‘ninth-third’,<br />
  crowdReactions: [<br />
    “She noted sadly the interrupted futures of the young ones in the crowd.”<br />
    “She cataloged their lives with ennui, seeing the common arc of their<br />
    fates.”<br />
    “In them, she saw only a mass of indistinct humanity.”<br />
  ] # Once again we attach a list of possible phrases to the situation object<br />
  content: () -><br />
    crowd = a(‘crowd’).once().writer(‘crowd’)<br />
    “””<br />
    #{chambers.green}</p>
<p>    A woman stood uncomfortably #{segue ‘distant’, ‘save-woman’} from the<br />
    party, leaning furtively against the wall, her lithe body vanishing into<br />
    the gaudy plastic bush. She did not seem to fit the #{crowd} of courtly<br />
    hangers-on around her.<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘tenth-second’, ‘tenth-fourth’]<br />
  optionText: ‘She retreated to the green chamber.’<br />
  classes: [‘green’]<br />
  writers:<br />
    crowd: () -><br />
      “””<br />
      The green room seemed the most agreeable to the guests. A circle of<br />
      courtiers orbited around some of the Prince’s favored friends: Masked<br />
      actors, musicians, and a brooding novelist or two. They were stared at<br />
      by industry barons and literal barons, investment bankers, lesser<br />
      sons of princely families. From the middle of the crowd, camera flashes<br />
      would sometimes emerge, casting their masks in stark light for a moment.<br />
      #{this.writers[‘crowd-react’].call(this)}<br />
      “””<br />
    ‘crowd-react’: () -><br />
      this.crowdReactions = this.crowdReactions.cycle()<br />
      span(<br />
        a(this.crowdReactions[0]).replacer(‘crowd-react’).toString()<br />
        ).id(‘crowd-react’).toString()</p>
<p>situation ‘save-woman’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    She saw a small woman, raven-haired and short, wearing a golden tragedy<br />
    masque and a black cocktail dress that fit her poorly.  The stranger in<br />
    red approached her, noting that the woman was neither servant nor<br />
    courtier. In her borrowed dress, she tried to mingle, but too awkwardly,<br />
    clutching an untouched glass of wine. A party crasher, perhaps? Or a<br />
    survivor from a nearby village, taken in by the Prince?</p>
<p>    The stranger did not need to know.<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘give-woman-key’, ‘tenth-second’, ‘tenth-fourth’]<br />
  extendSection: true</p>
<p>situation ‘give-woman-key’,<br />
  optionText: “She gave her the keys.”<br />
  content: “””<br />
    From the folds of her robe she produced her keys, which she pressed into<br />
    the hand of the young woman. “Leave.” There was no argument. Behind her<br />
    tragedy masque, she recognized who spoke to her.<br />
    “””<br />
  after: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys = false<br />
  choices: [‘tenth-second’, ‘tenth-fourth’]<br />
  extendSection: true</p>
<p>situation ‘ninth-fifth’,<br />
  adverbs: [‘soberly’, ‘longingly’, ‘distractedly’, ‘curiously’]<br />
  # Situations can also encapsulate arbitrary functions. This one wraps an<br />
  # adverb from the list in the right tags to generate a link; it’s used<br />
  # both in the main content and by the related writer.<br />
  adverbise: () -><br />
    this.adverbs = this.adverbs.cycle()<br />
    span(<br />
      a(this.adverbs[0]).replacer(‘wine-adverb’).toString()<br />
      ).id(‘wine-adverb’)<br />
  content: () -> </p>
<p>    “””<br />
    #{chambers.white}</p>
<p>    Wine flowed from the white chamber, a play on communion. She glanced<br />
    #{this.adverbise()} at a glass of dark red liquid left abandoned on an<br />
    arched sill.</p>
<p>    #{chambers.toll}<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘tenth-fourth’, ‘tenth-sixth’]<br />
  optionText: ‘She advanced to the white chamber.’<br />
  classes: [‘white’]<br />
  writers:<br />
    ‘wine-adverb’: () -> this.adverbise().toString()</p>
<p># Tenth bell</p>
<p>bells =<br />
  eleventh: “The striking of the eleventh hour approached.”<br />
  musicians: “””<br />
    When the hourly shaking of the house ceased, and the great clock had rung<br />
    ten times, she could hear a distant song: Musicians in another room,<br />
     picking up on the very<br />
    note where they stopped, their song interrupted by the clock.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘tenth-second’,<br />
  musicReactions: [<br />
    ‘swayed along to the rhythm’<br />
    ‘listened with distant interest’<br />
    ‘did not harken to the sound’<br />
  ]<br />
  musicReact: () -><br />
    this.musicReactions = this.musicReactions.cycle()<br />
    span(<br />
      a(this.musicReactions[0]).replacer(‘music-react’).toString()<br />
      ).id(‘music-react’)<br />
  content: () -><br />
    acted = this.musicReact()<br />
    musicians = a(‘musicians’).once().writer(‘musicians’)</p>
<p>    “””<br />
    The purple room felt hazy, unreal. The walls and floor had been covered in<br />
    a single, abstract mural, which dancers would unsteadily wobble over in<br />
    their convolutions. It was hard to discern where the floor ended and the<br />
    walls began.</p>
<p>    Here stood the #{musicians}, playing through an interminable<br />
    medley, the bassist’s arm drooping slightly under the weight of the<br />
    instrument. As the sound of the bells faded, they would pick up on the<br />
    very note where they had stopped. As she moved unseen through the crowd,<br />
    she #{acted}.<br />
    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    musicians: “””<br />
      They worked their way laboriously through a half-improvised swing, six<br />
      minutes into a minor key jazz that is only three minutes long. It was<br />
      wearily joyful, the sound of a band that played nothing but final<br />
      numbers.</p>
<p>      #{bells.eleventh}<br />
      “””<br />
    ‘music-react’: () -> this.musicReact().toString()<br />
  choices: [‘eleventh-first’, ‘eleventh-third’]<br />
  optionText: ‘She moved to the purple chamber’<br />
  classes: [‘purple’]</p>
<p># Since we know the player has already seen the orange chamber<br />
# (it’s a bottleneck), we don’t have to print its description.<br />
situation ‘tenth-fourth’,<br />
  content: () -><br />
    youth = a(‘youth’).once().writer(‘youth’)<br />
    “””<br />
    At the tolling of the tenth bell, she walked again around the tight scrum<br />
    of dancers that spun through the center of the orange room, most too<br />
    unsteady from wine and #{youth} to fall properly on their steps.</p>
<p>    #{bells.musicians}<br />
    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    youth: “””<br />
      Here was a clique of idle young scions from mercantile houses and their<br />
      hangers-on, interrupted in their holiday through the Savoyard countryside<br />
      by the plague that forced them to seek shelter in the house of the Prince,<br />
      showing up at his doorstep in their fast cars, with their cheap wine and<br />
      dilettante typewriters. One of them caught her masked<br />
      #{segue ‘eye’, ‘save-dilettante’}.<br />
      “””<br />
  choices: [‘eleventh-third’, ‘eleventh-fifth’]<br />
  optionText: ‘She returned to the orange chamber.’</p>
<p>situation ‘save-dilettante’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    He had known grief beyond his years, which he hid with sarcasm and a little<br />
    too much wine. He and his two friends fancied themselves writers. But their<br />
    typewriters had been silent for a while.<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘give-dilettante-key’, ‘eleventh-third’, ‘eleventh-fifth’]<br />
  extendSection: true</p>
<p># Normally, the output of each situation is put into its own section, allowing<br />
# it to be styled accordingly (in Prospero, by giving it the proper colour<br />
# background). But here we set the `extendSection` property to `true`, so that<br />
# it will instead write into the existing section, so that the background will<br />
# extend over the new text.</p>
<p>situation ‘give-dilettante-key’,<br />
  optionText: ‘She gave him her keys.’<br />
  canChoose: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys<br />
  content: “””<br />
    She startled him, drawing nervous laughter from the youth. She pressed a car<br />
    key into the shaking palm of his hand. “Leave.” She knew he would gather<br />
    his friends. That he would know which one of the cars parked outside to<br />
    take.</p>
<p>    Three souls made it out alive that evening.<br />
    “””<br />
  after: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys = false<br />
  choices: [‘eleventh-third’, ‘eleventh-fifth’]<br />
  extendSection: true;</p>
<p>situation ‘tenth-sixth’,<br />
  content: () -><br />
    secrets = segue ‘secrets’, ‘chamber-secrets’<br />
    lies = segue ‘lies’, ‘chamber-lies’<br />
    “””<br />
    The violet apartment was a prelude for the black chamber. It was filled<br />
    with mock horror that prefigured what was beyond the black<br />
    door. The decor, deliberately disturbed like a crime scene,<br />
    resembled a horror film, or perhaps a<br />
    sanitized *giallo*. The walls were covered in foreboding Gothic stonework,<br />
    rendered in papier-mâché.</p>
<p>    #{bells.musicians}</p>
<p>    She stopped for a moment to listen to the whispering of the gossips who<br />
    retreated from the main body of the fête to find themselves here. Under<br />
    the glow of the violet light, their whispers carried #{secrets} and #{lies}<br />
    to one another, more out of habit than necessity.<br />
    “””<br />
  optionText: ‘She walked into the violet chamber’<br />
  classes: [‘violet’]</p>
<p>situation ‘chamber-secrets’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    The Prince’s tastes for the curious and the bizarre had always manifested,<br />
    in his courtiers, in the form of a secretive and peculiar fear. They still<br />
    passed on stories of the man’s nocturnal activities, of what went on in<br />
    the black chamber at the edge of the suite. And as she approached them,<br />
    they dispersed, turning away masked faces.</p>
<p>    #{bells.eleventh}<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘eleventh-fifth’, ‘eleventh-seventh’]<br />
  extendSection: true</p>
<p>situation ‘chamber-lies’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    Even amidst death, the business of the court went on. The lies they told<br />
    one another were becoming extravagant in desperation, shifting from hour<br />
    to hour as furtive news of the calamity outside starkly changed the value<br />
    of lands and titles.</p>
<p>    They still discussed the news and events of the day, even though no news had<br />
    reached the mansion in weeks. There was much talk of an antipope that had<br />
    already been deposed, of an oil industry merger that had already happened,<br />
    of war with Lombardy that was pre-empted by the plague. The world outside<br />
    had moved on in their absence, as it would continue to do.</p>
<p>    #{bells.eleventh}<br />
  “””<br />
  choices: [‘eleventh-fifth’, ‘eleventh-seventh’]<br />
  extendSection: true</p>
<p># Eleventh bell</p>
<p>situation ‘eleventh-first’,<br />
  content: () -><br />
    prospero = segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’<br />
    “””<br />
    Starkly ultramarine, the blue chamber greeted the Prince’s guests to his<br />
    chromatic fantasy.</p>
<p>    Here huddled the offended ones, the fearful, the religious. Those guests<br />
    who did not care for the revelry or its accoutrements, who thought the<br />
    whole affair a small blasphemy. They clung to the exit, caught between<br />
    politeness and piety.</p>
<p>    And there, stuck trying to placate them with his silent presence,<br />
    was #{prospero}.<br />
    “””<br />
  optionText: ‘She moved into the blue chamber’<br />
  # We always find Prospero in the last chamber we visit; this variable tracks<br />
  # where, exactly.<br />
  after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 1<br />
  classes: [‘blue’]</p>
<p># Check if those rooms have been seen before.</p>
<p>situation ‘eleventh-third’,<br />
  content: () -><br />
    guard = a(‘guard’).once().writer(‘green-chamber-guard’)<br />
    “””<br />
    #{if not seen(‘ninth-third’) then chambers.green else ”}</p>
<p>    The green chamber held the food, the night’s banquet, carefully measured out<br />
    from the mansion’s provisions. Weary servants had laid it out in faux-<br />
    pastoral splendor. At each edge of the table, a reminder of the creeping<br />
    scarcity, stood a #{guard}.</p>
<p>    And at the edge of his own party, staring at his dwindling food,<br />
    stood #{segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’}.<br />
    “””<br />
  optionText: ‘She moved to the green chamber.’<br />
  writers:<br />
    ‘green-chamber-guard’: () -><br />
      crest = aside ‘crest’<br />
      weapons = aside ‘weapons’<br />
      “””<br />
      Liveried in dark turtlenecks and berets bearing Prospero’s family<br />
      #{crest}, the guards were ever-presence and furtive, gaunt, faces hardened<br />
      from watching the despair of the poor and the lost caught outside the<br />
      manor’s walls. Tonight, they watched the guests, clutched their<br />
      #{weapons}, and didn’t touch the food.<br />
      “””<br />
    “crest-aside”: ” (gold emblazoned with a sable sun)”<br />
    “weapons-aside”: ” (something compact and full-auto from Lombardy)”<br />
  after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 3<br />
  classes: [‘green’]</p>
<p>situation ‘eleventh-fifth’,<br />
  content: () -><br />
    # Note how if-then-else statements are expressions, so we can embed them<br />
    # right into the output text; we need the else clause so it won’t just<br />
    # output `undefined` if the value is false.</p>
<p>    # Note, too, how this `content` property has to be a function, so that<br />
    # the `seen` expression will be checked at runtime when the situation<br />
    # is reached, and not when the situations are being generated.<br />
    “””<br />
    #{if not seen(‘ninth-fifth’) then chambers.white else ”}</p>
<p>    She had seen the path that wine took on its way around the chambers, from<br />
    the great casket in the white apartment. Guests would timidly sip it or<br />
    hurriedly down it; servants would disappear with glasses and flasks of it.<br />
    There was so much of it to go through.</p>
<p>    And there, all but laying his head beneath the tap, was Prince<br />
    #{segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’} himself.<br />
    “””<br />
  optionText: ‘She moved to the white chamber.’<br />
  after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 5<br />
  classes: [‘white’]</p>
<p>situation ‘eleventh-seventh’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    Few dared step into the last, velvet-draped chamber. The effect of the<br />
    crimson neon distorted<br />
    the visages of those within into a masque of horror. Those who came —<br />
    dared by others, drunkenly stumbling through the curtain — did not stay<br />
    long. When she happened upon it, the black chamber was nearly empty.</p>
<p>    There was only Prince #{segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’} himself, seated on<br />
    a black velvet and ebony ottoman, caught up in his own<br />
    dark fantasy.<br />
  “””<br />
  optionText: ‘She entered the black chamber.’<br />
  after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 7<br />
  classes: [‘black’]</p>
<p>situation ‘prospero’,<br />
  content: (character, system, from) -><br />
    # `switch` statements in CoffeeScript are expressions, too<br />
    # so we can assign their return value to a variable. Here, we<br />
    # have a different reaction for Prospero depending on where he<br />
    # was found, without having four different situations.<br />
    prosperoGraph = switch from<br />
      when ‘eleventh-first’<br />
        “””<br />
        But his staid, pious exterior melted into rage when she saw her,<br />
        dressed head to toe in crimson.<br />
        “””<br />
      when ‘eleventh-third’<br />
        “””<br />
        But his hungry smile faded away when he saw her, covered head to<br />
        toe in scarlet.<br />
        “””<br />
      when ‘eleventh-fifth’<br />
        “””<br />
        But he snapped out of his stupor when he saw her, covered head to<br />
        toe in vermilion.<br />
        “””<br />
      else<br />
        “””<br />
        But his melancholy turned to anger when he saw her, covered head to<br />
        toe in red.<br />
        “””<br />
    “””<br />
    Prince Prospero was hale, and strong. He stood too tall for his guests in<br />
    samite finery, the spitting image of some forgotten Gothic ancestor. He<br />
    had, for too long, led his guests in their revels.</p>
<p>    #{prosperoGraph}<br />
    “””<br />
  choices: [‘prospero-unmask’, ‘prospero-leave’]<br />
  extendSection: true;</p>
<p>situation ‘prospero-unmask’,<br />
  optionText: ‘She took off the veil.’<br />
  content: (character) -><br />
    ###<br />
    The final sequence is a run through the chambers of the suite. The more<br />
    chambers there are to run through, the longer it is; so we splice into<br />
    a point determined by where we start.<br />
    ###<br />
    chamber = switch character.sandbox.prosperoAt<br />
      when 1<br />
        segue ‘purple’, ‘death-finale-2’<br />
      when 3<br />
        segue ‘orange’, ‘death-finale-4’<br />
      when 5<br />
        segue ‘violet’, ‘death-finale-6’<br />
      when 7<br />
        segue ‘black’, ‘death-finale-7’<br />
    chamberGraph = if character.sandbox.prosperoAt < 7
      "But the masked figure already retreated into the #{chamber} chamber."
    else
      "The masked figure stood in the middle of the #{chamber} chamber."

    """
    As the house shook with the striking of midnight, she disposed of the veil
    that had concealed her masque.

    And beneath the veil, her masque was made to so closely resemble the visage
    of a stiffened corpse, daubed and sprinkled delicately with blood, that one
    could scarcely see anything but mockery of the tragedy that had befallen
    the Prince's domain.

    Prospero's face convulsed with disgust, then reddened with anger: "Who
    dares?"

    #{chamberGraph}
    """

situation 'death-finale-2',
  content: """
    Stunned by his momentary hesitation, the Prince
    #{segue 'chased', 'death-finale-4'} her through the apartments.
    """

situation 'death-finale-4',
  content: """
    As she moved through them, the assembled crowd parted in mute horror,
    stepping out of the way of the stalking spectre and the
    #{segue 'prince', 'death-finale-6'} who stalked her.
    """

situation 'death-finale-6',
  content: """
    He might have screamed for his guards to seize her, or simply silently
    cursed at the affront to his #{segue 'authority', 'death-finale-7'}.
    """

situation 'death-finale-7',
  before: () -><br />
    # If we haven’t seen the black background effect yet, then we see it here.<br />
    if not seen ‘eleventh-seventh’ then this.classes = [‘black’]<br />
  content: () -><br />
    “””<br />
    #{if seen ‘eleventh-seventh’ then ” else “She stood in the middle of the<br />
    black chamber, defying him.”}</p>
<p>    He bore aloft a drawn pistol, and approached her impetuously, to within<br />
    two or three feet of the spectral figure, when she turned sharply and<br />
    confronted the Prince. There was a sharp cry — and the pistol dropped<br />
    inert upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterward, fell<br />
    prostrate in death the Prince Prospero.</p>
<p>    And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. She had come as an<br />
    uninvited guest. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-flecked<br />
    halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of their fall.<br />
    And the life of the ebony clock went out with the of the last of the joyful.<br />
    And the colorful neon lights flickered and expired. And Darkness and Decay<br />
    and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.</p>
<p>    #{type.ending}<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘prospero-leave’,<br />
  optionText: ‘She turned to leave.’<br />
  canChoose: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys<br />
  before: (character) -><br />
    character.sandbox.leaveMotivation =<br />
      [‘sadness’, ‘mercy’, ‘ennui’, ‘weariness’, ‘apathy’, ‘kindness’,<br />
      ‘forgiveness’]<br />
  content: (character) -><br />
    “””<br />
    But to his anger, she could respond only with a sudden<br />
    #{this.writers.selectmotivation(character)}. Five months hidden<br />
    in his manse had made of the Prince a ragged man, slightly too thin<br />
    for his sequined party garb, eyeglasses slightly askew on a wrinkled<br />
    nose. It had taken her so long to arrive at this man’s party that<br />
    she was no longer sure these were the people she had come to<br />
    #{segue ‘collect’, ‘leave-collect’}.<br />
    “””<br />
  writers:<br />
    selectmotivation: (character) -><br />
      character.sandbox.leaveMotivation =<br />
        character.sandbox.leaveMotivation.cycle()<br />
      inner =<br />
        a(character.sandbox.leaveMotivation[0])<br />
        .replacer(‘selectmotivation’)<br />
        .toString()<br />
      span(inner).id(‘selectmotivation’).toString()</p>
<p>situation ‘leave-collect’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    She walked through a parting way in the middle of the throng of distraught<br />
    guests, out of the richly decorated apartments of the Prince who could<br />
    scarcely muster the strength to #{segue ‘follow’, ‘leave-follow’}.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘leave-follow’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    Her footfalls made no sound as she strode onto the gravel path, tailed by<br />
    a baffled Prince. He stood, paralyzed, watching as his iron gate was<br />
    thrown open by crimson-gloved #{segue ‘hands’, ‘leave-hands’}.<br />
    “””</p>
<p>situation ‘leave-hands’,<br />
  content: “””<br />
    From one of his guards, the Prince had at some point reached for a drawn<br />
    pistol. But he could not lift it against her. The open gates were a sign of<br />
    black fear to him, a sign of the outside world creeping in on the sanctuary<br />
    he had built, a sign of death. The ebony clock struck twelve, unheeded by<br />
    the two figures standing before the great house. Darkness and Decay had<br />
    arrived ahead of her.</p>
<p>    And so the Red Death got in her car and drove away.</p>
<p>    #{type.ending}<br />
    “””</p>
<p>#—————————————————————————–<br />
# 3 — Initialisation Code</p>
<p>undum.game.init = (character, system) -><br />
  character.sandbox.hasKeys = true<br />
  # Undum’s sandbox can hold arbitrary values inside the `character` object<br />
  # passed to situation methods. Here, we use it to track whether the player<br />
  # character has given away her car keys.</p>
<p># When the DOM is ready, get Undum running.<br />
window.onload = undum.begin

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# ” There comes Poe, with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge,

# Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge. “

# — James Russel Lowe, A Fable for Critics

# The story source code for Prospero begins here. (C) Bruno Dias 2015.

# Originally published by Sub-Q magazine (http://sub-q.com/)

# This source code is distributed as a code example for educational purposes.

# No permission is granted to redistribute or rebuild the story from this

# source code.

# —————————————————————————-

# 0 — Front Matter

# Require the libraries we rely on.

situation = require(‘raconteur’)

undum = require(‘undum-commonjs’)

oneOf = require(‘raconteur/lib/oneOf.js’)

elements = require(‘raconteur/lib/elements.js’)

qualities = require(‘raconteur/lib/qualities.js’)

a = elements.a

span = elements.span

img = elements.img

# IFID and game version — Required by Undum

undum.game.id = “0a7f01b6-b435-483c-8874-bdbee2683255” # UUID

undum.game.version = “source-distribution”

# —————————————————————————-

# 1 — Preamble

# Helper functions

# Cycles through an array’s contents

Array.prototype.cycle = () ->

return this[1..].concat(this[0])

# Checks if a situation has been visited by the player

seen = (situation) -> Boolean undum.game.situations[situation].visited

# Typographical shorthand

# An alias for setting up an “aside” link

# (that creates a parenthetical when clicked, usually)

aside = (word) ->

ref = “#{word}-aside”

inner = a(word).once().inserter(ref).toString()

span(inner).id(ref)

# An alias for setting up a link to another situation, with the correct

# element class.

segue = (content, ref) -> a(content).class(‘segue’).ref(ref)

# An object to hold reusable templates.

type =

ending: ‘

an ending

‘

# —————————————————————————-

# 2 — Game content

# 2.0 — Prologue

situation ‘start’,

content: () ->

prospero =

span(a(‘Prospero’).inserter(‘prospero’).once().toString()).id(‘prospero’)

“”“

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever

been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the

redness and horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness,

and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet

stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the

pest-ban which shut them out from the aid and from the sympathy of their

neighbors. The whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease,

were the incidents of half an hour.

When Prince #{prospero} found his dominions half depopulated, he summoned

to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the

people of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one

of his summer #{segue(‘retreats’, ‘retreats’)}.

““”

writers:

prospero: ” (happy and dauntless and sagacious)”

situation ‘retreats’,

content: “”“

# Prospero

## Adapted by Bruno Dias from the short story by Edgar Allan Poe

““”

choices: [‘cars’]

situation ‘cars’,

optionText: ‘Continue’

content: “”“

It was an extensive and magnificent structure, a modernist design not

unlike the carved *béton brut* that had sprouted all over Europe. An

angular steel fence surrounded it. Courtiers had abandoned their cars all

along the gravel paths of the courtyard, gleaming silver and black

machines defying the rust each misty Savoyard morning. Their keys had been

collected and buried behind the enormous house, leaving no means of egress

to the sudden impulses of despair or frenzy from within. Its exterior had

#{a(‘suffered’).once().writer(‘suffered’)} the passage of time.

Of all the #{aside(‘cars’)}, one #{segue(‘stood out’, ‘red-car’)}.

““”

writers:

‘cars-aside’: ” (stately Hässels from Prussia, sinuous Verbeeks from New

Amsterdam, sharklike Bulettes from Brittany)”

‘suffered’: “”“

In months of grinding, desperate seclusion, no servant had stepped outside

the house. The panes of safety glass — surrounding the house like scales

— had accrued a layer of dark grime from the wind and rain. The garden

was an overgrown, matted ruin. Native weeds thrived among the corpses of

neglected foreign flowers. And not far from the door was a pile of ashes

— remains of clothes and surgical masks suspected of carrying disease.

““”

situation ‘red-car’,

content: “”“

It was a ruddy, beautiful *coupé* — a Carrièr Matador, from Toulouse.

Painted a color too dark to be cherry red.

Fresh gouges in the gravel behind it, mud

on its rims.

She stepped out of the car, not bothering to lock it. She made her way,

through undisturbed gravel, to the #{segue ‘trunk’, ‘open-trunk’}.

““”

situation ‘open-trunk’,

# Note how we can attach arbitrary properties to situation objects

books: [‘Relics’, ‘Mementos’, ‘Evidence’]

content: () ->

mask = a(‘masque’).once().writer(‘mask’)

novels = a(‘novels’).once().writer(‘novels’)

“”“

Inside the trunk were a stack of paperback #{novels} and a curiously made

#{mask}.

““”

writers:

novels: () ->

finger = a(‘finger’).once().replacer(‘finger-inserter’)

here = span(‘.’).id(‘finger-inserter’)

relics =

span(

a(this.books[0])

.replacer(‘relic-book’)

.toString())

.id(‘relic-book’)

“”“

They had been with her as she drove through the back country of Savoy,

taken from abandoned bookstores and gas stations. #{relics} of the desert

she left behind her. She ran one #{finger} through the the pile, reading

the titles#{here}

““”

‘finger-inserter’: ” — Short stories collected from pulp authors;

Chamber’s The King in Yellow; a clandestine copy of the banned,

pseudonymous Return of the Worm; louche Italian romances for all

kinds of underserved audiences…”

mask: “”“

The masque was red, to match her outfit, and cleverly constructed for

effect. The top resembled those delicate porcelain features, the shaded

eyes, of a Venetian *columbina*. But this one had a mouth covering in the

form of a silken, draping scarf, meant to be pulled down to reveal the

full #{segue(‘visage’, ‘visage’)} of the masque.

““”

‘relic-book’: () ->

this.books = this.books.cycle() # `this` is the situation object itself

span(

a(this.books[0]).replacer(‘relic-book’).toString()

).id(‘relic-book’).toString()

situation ‘visage’,

content: “”“

She tentatively slid a finger behind the masque’s silk covering, as though

to check that what had always been underneath it remained. In this, she

was interrupted by the #{segue(‘chiming’, ‘chiming’)} of the great clock

within the #{segue(‘mansion’, ‘mansion’)}. She had arrived just in time.

““”

situation ‘chiming’,

content: “”“

Somewhere deep inside the Prince’s apartments was an enormous, grotesque

clock. Made of ebony and sharp angles — a modernist retelling of

a Gothic original the Prince’s ancestors had neglected in a castle

elsewhere.

The Prince had it attached to the metal

bones of the mansion. On the hour, the whole building would reverberate

along with its chiming, phasing the guests, halting the music, shaking

the floor.

Its tolling, just now, signaled the start of the #{segue ‘ball’, ‘ball’}.

““”

situation ‘mansion’,

content: “”“

The mansion had been erected out of glass, steel, tropical woods from the

domains of distant cousins; unlike the ostentatious glass houses of his

peers, the retreat had been built wholly out of sheer, broken angles; so

that the glass could not provide a clear sight-line through the house at all

— instead of an airy rectangle, it was a steel snake hiding in its own

coils.

It was a small palace and a world unto itself; and presently, it all shook

to the ringing of the clock, signaling the start of the

#{segue ‘ball’, ‘ball’}.

““”

situation ‘ball’,

content: “”“

Within the mansion, the Prince had gathered perhaps two hundred guests and

nearly as many servants. The summer home, a small palace, was amply

provisioned. A remote stand of cypress surrounded it. The world outside

could care for itself, and in the meantime, it was folly to grieve — or to

think. To that end, the Prince had supplied all appliances of pleasure:

There were dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.

As all signals traveling through the Prince’s *aether* ceased to carry any

joy for him, the servants had hidden away all the radios and television

sets, cutting cords to #{segue ‘silence’, ‘ball-continue’} them completely;

so that the guests, finally, were left to the labors of pleasure and life in

seclusion.

““”

situation ‘ball-continue’,

content: “”“

When the Prince’s collection of #{aside ‘films’} ran out, the lights were

turned on and the servants were made to play in blackbox comedies, their

scripts supplied by dilettante guests.

When even that entertainment ran thin, the Prince announced a night of

extreme revel, a masquerade ball, where the guests and servants would

mingle, shed their identities, forget. Wine, and song, and whatever earthly

pleasures remained, would flow freely.

She #{segue ‘donned her masque’, ‘put-on-mask’},

having arrived just in time.

““”

writers:

‘films-aside’: ” (from bolshevik *kinopoesiya* to staid

adaptations of the *commedia dell’arte*)”

situation ‘put-on-mask’,

optionText: “She put on her masque, and made her way to the ball.”

content: “”“

The ball had been arranged within a sequence of seven apartments joined

together — a grand suite. In other mansions and palaces, those suites open

widely, so that one can see clearly through all of their spaces, their

sliding doors receding almost entirely into the walls.

However, this suite was crooked, each chamber at a sharp angle from the

next, so that the guests could see only one room at a time. Outside, through

the great panes of safety glass, was darkness.

The seven apartments were each one decorated in a particular color and

style, a neon mirage of a different place and time. The first one was blue,

and everything in it had some tint of blue, matched by the bright blue

lights overhead. The second chamber was purple, from the carpet to the

ceiling. The third chamber was green throughout; the fourth, orange; the

fifth, white; the sixth, violet. And at the edge of the great house was the

last apartment, itself decorated wholly in #{segue ‘black’, ‘black’}.

““”

situation ‘black’,

content: “”“

The black chamber was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung

all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a

carpet of the same material and hue. BUt in this chamber only, the color of

the neon lights failed to correspond to the decorations. The tubes here were

scarlet — a deep blood color.

In the black chamber, the effect of the neon light that dappled across the

dark hangings was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon

the countenances of those who entered, that there were few guests bold

enough to set foot within the chamber at all. No dancing happened within —

only furtive whispers, and abortive trysts cut short by the eeriness of the

chambers.

She #{segue ‘followed the procession of revelers’, ‘ball-begin’}.

““”

situation ‘ball-begin’,

content: “”“

Her costume was a draping, heavy robe, covering her form in red. Topped

with the strange masque, she was an imposing figure, wearing a color that

horror had forbidden, shocking those few guests who bothered to notice

her presence at all.

She had walked slowly through the revelers, noting how they clung to

the western end of the grand suite, how they avoided the other end with

its black velvet room. She moved between them, unnoticed.

And as the ninth hour approached, she stopped at the halfway point,

the orange chamber, where the warm neon overhead suggested some

distant tropical sunset.

““”

classes: [‘orange’]

choices: [‘ninth-third’, ‘ninth-fifth’]

# 2.1 — The Ball

###

From here on out, situation ids take the form “bell-room”, eg “ninth-fifth”

means the fifth (white) room, at the tolling of the ninth bell.

###

# 2.1.0 — Ninth bell

# The descriptions for these chambers shows up the first time they’re visited,

# which can happen in different situations. So we set up an adhoc object to

# hold them, as well as the connecting paragraph about the bell tolling.

chambers =

green: “”“

She stepped into the green chamber, and found it covered in leafy arabesques

that recalled the cypress stand outside. Glistening vinyl ferns sprouted from

the walls, their artificiality only heightened by the color of the lights.

““”

white: “”“

She took stock of the white chamber: Lit with a staid white light, this room

was made to resemble a sarcastic mockery of a church undercroft, complete

with arched niches in the walls holding sconces with flickering candles.

The plastic skulls that would have completed the effect, however, had

been taken away by the servants — the Prince wanted no *memento mori*.

““”

toll: “”“

At the far end of the suite, in the black chamber, was the clock. Its

tolling reverberated violently through the entire house, with a sound so

strange and musical it compelled the musicians to stop and harken to its

sound; and here the dancers, too, would cease their revolutions around one

another, listening to the brazen vibrations of the hour.

But just as it had come, it would fade away, the shaking of the walls the

sound of mere moments, soon replaced by the revived noises of revelry and

joy.

The striking of the tenth hour approached.

““”

situation ‘ninth-third’,

crowdReactions: [

“She noted sadly the interrupted futures of the young ones in the crowd.”

“She cataloged their lives with ennui, seeing the common arc of their

fates.”

“In them, she saw only a mass of indistinct humanity.”

] # Once again we attach a list of possible phrases to the situation object

content: () ->

crowd = a(‘crowd’).once().writer(‘crowd’)

“”“

#{chambers.green}

A woman stood uncomfortably #{segue ‘distant’, ‘save-woman’} from the

party, leaning furtively against the wall, her lithe body vanishing into

the gaudy plastic bush. She did not seem to fit the #{crowd} of courtly

hangers-on around her.

““”

choices: [‘tenth-second’, ‘tenth-fourth’]

optionText: ‘She retreated to the green chamber.’

classes: [‘green’]

writers:

crowd: () ->

“”“

The green room seemed the most agreeable to the guests. A circle of

courtiers orbited around some of the Prince’s favored friends: Masked

actors, musicians, and a brooding novelist or two. They were stared at

by industry barons and literal barons, investment bankers, lesser

sons of princely families. From the middle of the crowd, camera flashes

would sometimes emerge, casting their masks in stark light for a moment.

#{this.writers[‘crowd-react’].call(this)}

““”

‘crowd-react’: () ->

this.crowdReactions = this.crowdReactions.cycle()

span(

a(this.crowdReactions[0]).replacer(‘crowd-react’).toString()

).id(‘crowd-react’).toString()

situation ‘save-woman’,

content: “”“

She saw a small woman, raven-haired and short, wearing a golden tragedy

masque and a black cocktail dress that fit her poorly. The stranger in

red approached her, noting that the woman was neither servant nor

courtier. In her borrowed dress, she tried to mingle, but too awkwardly,

clutching an untouched glass of wine. A party crasher, perhaps? Or a

survivor from a nearby village, taken in by the Prince?

The stranger did not need to know.

““”

choices: [‘give-woman-key’, ‘tenth-second’, ‘tenth-fourth’]

extendSection: true

situation ‘give-woman-key’,

optionText: “She gave her the keys.”

content: “”“

From the folds of her robe she produced her keys, which she pressed into

the hand of the young woman. “Leave.” There was no argument. Behind her

tragedy masque, she recognized who spoke to her.

““”

after: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys = false

choices: [‘tenth-second’, ‘tenth-fourth’]

extendSection: true

situation ‘ninth-fifth’,

adverbs: [‘soberly’, ‘longingly’, ‘distractedly’, ‘curiously’]

# Situations can also encapsulate arbitrary functions. This one wraps an

# adverb from the list in the right tags to generate a link; it’s used

# both in the main content and by the related writer.

adverbise: () ->

this.adverbs = this.adverbs.cycle()

span(

a(this.adverbs[0]).replacer(‘wine-adverb’).toString()

).id(‘wine-adverb’)

content: () ->

“”“

#{chambers.white}

Wine flowed from the white chamber, a play on communion. She glanced

#{this.adverbise()} at a glass of dark red liquid left abandoned on an

arched sill.

#{chambers.toll}

““”

choices: [‘tenth-fourth’, ‘tenth-sixth’]

optionText: ‘She advanced to the white chamber.’

classes: [‘white’]

writers:

‘wine-adverb’: () -> this.adverbise().toString()

# Tenth bell

bells =

eleventh: “The striking of the eleventh hour approached.”

musicians: “”“

When the hourly shaking of the house ceased, and the great clock had rung

ten times, she could hear a distant song: Musicians in another room,

picking up on the very

note where they stopped, their song interrupted by the clock.

““”

situation ‘tenth-second’,

musicReactions: [

‘swayed along to the rhythm’

‘listened with distant interest’

‘did not harken to the sound’

]

musicReact: () ->

this.musicReactions = this.musicReactions.cycle()

span(

a(this.musicReactions[0]).replacer(‘music-react’).toString()

).id(‘music-react’)

content: () ->

acted = this.musicReact()

musicians = a(‘musicians’).once().writer(‘musicians’)

“”“

The purple room felt hazy, unreal. The walls and floor had been covered in

a single, abstract mural, which dancers would unsteadily wobble over in

their convolutions. It was hard to discern where the floor ended and the

walls began.

Here stood the #{musicians}, playing through an interminable

medley, the bassist’s arm drooping slightly under the weight of the

instrument. As the sound of the bells faded, they would pick up on the

very note where they had stopped. As she moved unseen through the crowd,

she #{acted}.

““”

writers:

musicians: “”“

They worked their way laboriously through a half-improvised swing, six

minutes into a minor key jazz that is only three minutes long. It was

wearily joyful, the sound of a band that played nothing but final

numbers.

#{bells.eleventh}

““”

‘music-react’: () -> this.musicReact().toString()

choices: [‘eleventh-first’, ‘eleventh-third’]

optionText: ‘She moved to the purple chamber’

classes: [‘purple’]

# Since we know the player has already seen the orange chamber

# (it’s a bottleneck), we don’t have to print its description.

situation ‘tenth-fourth’,

content: () ->

youth = a(‘youth’).once().writer(‘youth’)

“”“

At the tolling of the tenth bell, she walked again around the tight scrum

of dancers that spun through the center of the orange room, most too

unsteady from wine and #{youth} to fall properly on their steps.

#{bells.musicians}

““”

writers:

youth: “”“

Here was a clique of idle young scions from mercantile houses and their

hangers-on, interrupted in their holiday through the Savoyard countryside

by the plague that forced them to seek shelter in the house of the Prince,

showing up at his doorstep in their fast cars, with their cheap wine and

dilettante typewriters. One of them caught her masked

#{segue ‘eye’, ‘save-dilettante’}.

““”

choices: [‘eleventh-third’, ‘eleventh-fifth’]

optionText: ‘She returned to the orange chamber.’

situation ‘save-dilettante’,

content: “”“

He had known grief beyond his years, which he hid with sarcasm and a little

too much wine. He and his two friends fancied themselves writers. But their

typewriters had been silent for a while.

““”

choices: [‘give-dilettante-key’, ‘eleventh-third’, ‘eleventh-fifth’]

extendSection: true

# Normally, the output of each situation is put into its own section, allowing

# it to be styled accordingly (in Prospero, by giving it the proper colour

# background). But here we set the `extendSection` property to `true`, so that

# it will instead write into the existing section, so that the background will

# extend over the new text.

situation ‘give-dilettante-key’,

optionText: ‘She gave him her keys.’

canChoose: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys

content: “”“

She startled him, drawing nervous laughter from the youth. She pressed a car

key into the shaking palm of his hand. “Leave.” She knew he would gather

his friends. That he would know which one of the cars parked outside to

take.

Three souls made it out alive that evening.

““”

after: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys = false

choices: [‘eleventh-third’, ‘eleventh-fifth’]

extendSection: true;

situation ‘tenth-sixth’,

content: () ->

secrets = segue ‘secrets’, ‘chamber-secrets’

lies = segue ‘lies’, ‘chamber-lies’

“”“

The violet apartment was a prelude for the black chamber. It was filled

with mock horror that prefigured what was beyond the black

door. The decor, deliberately disturbed like a crime scene,

resembled a horror film, or perhaps a

sanitized *giallo*. The walls were covered in foreboding Gothic stonework,

rendered in papier-mâché.

#{bells.musicians}

She stopped for a moment to listen to the whispering of the gossips who

retreated from the main body of the fête to find themselves here. Under

the glow of the violet light, their whispers carried #{secrets} and #{lies}

to one another, more out of habit than necessity.

““”

optionText: ‘She walked into the violet chamber’

classes: [‘violet’]

situation ‘chamber-secrets’,

content: “”“

The Prince’s tastes for the curious and the bizarre had always manifested,

in his courtiers, in the form of a secretive and peculiar fear. They still

passed on stories of the man’s nocturnal activities, of what went on in

the black chamber at the edge of the suite. And as she approached them,

they dispersed, turning away masked faces.

#{bells.eleventh}

““”

choices: [‘eleventh-fifth’, ‘eleventh-seventh’]

extendSection: true

situation ‘chamber-lies’,

content: “”“

Even amidst death, the business of the court went on. The lies they told

one another were becoming extravagant in desperation, shifting from hour

to hour as furtive news of the calamity outside starkly changed the value

of lands and titles.

They still discussed the news and events of the day, even though no news had

reached the mansion in weeks. There was much talk of an antipope that had

already been deposed, of an oil industry merger that had already happened,

of war with Lombardy that was pre-empted by the plague. The world outside

had moved on in their absence, as it would continue to do.

#{bells.eleventh}

““”

choices: [‘eleventh-fifth’, ‘eleventh-seventh’]

extendSection: true

# Eleventh bell

situation ‘eleventh-first’,

content: () ->

prospero = segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’

“”“

Starkly ultramarine, the blue chamber greeted the Prince’s guests to his

chromatic fantasy.

Here huddled the offended ones, the fearful, the religious. Those guests

who did not care for the revelry or its accoutrements, who thought the

whole affair a small blasphemy. They clung to the exit, caught between

politeness and piety.

And there, stuck trying to placate them with his silent presence,

was #{prospero}.

““”

optionText: ‘She moved into the blue chamber’

# We always find Prospero in the last chamber we visit; this variable tracks

# where, exactly.

after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 1

classes: [‘blue’]

# Check if those rooms have been seen before.

situation ‘eleventh-third’,

content: () ->

guard = a(‘guard’).once().writer(‘green-chamber-guard’)

“”“

#{if not seen(‘ninth-third’) then chambers.green else ”}

The green chamber held the food, the night’s banquet, carefully measured out

from the mansion’s provisions. Weary servants had laid it out in faux-

pastoral splendor. At each edge of the table, a reminder of the creeping

scarcity, stood a #{guard}.

And at the edge of his own party, staring at his dwindling food,

stood #{segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’}.

““”

optionText: ‘She moved to the green chamber.’

writers:

‘green-chamber-guard’: () ->

crest = aside ‘crest’

weapons = aside ‘weapons’

“”“

Liveried in dark turtlenecks and berets bearing Prospero’s family

#{crest}, the guards were ever-presence and furtive, gaunt, faces hardened

from watching the despair of the poor and the lost caught outside the

manor’s walls. Tonight, they watched the guests, clutched their

#{weapons}, and didn’t touch the food.

““”

“crest-aside”: ” (gold emblazoned with a sable sun)”

“weapons-aside”: ” (something compact and full-auto from Lombardy)”

after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 3

classes: [‘green’]

situation ‘eleventh-fifth’,

content: () ->

# Note how if-then-else statements are expressions, so we can embed them

# right into the output text; we need the else clause so it won’t just

# output `undefined` if the value is false.

# Note, too, how this `content` property has to be a function, so that

# the `seen` expression will be checked at runtime when the situation

# is reached, and not when the situations are being generated.

“”“

#{if not seen(‘ninth-fifth’) then chambers.white else ”}

She had seen the path that wine took on its way around the chambers, from

the great casket in the white apartment. Guests would timidly sip it or

hurriedly down it; servants would disappear with glasses and flasks of it.

There was so much of it to go through.

And there, all but laying his head beneath the tap, was Prince

#{segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’} himself.

““”

optionText: ‘She moved to the white chamber.’

after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 5

classes: [‘white’]

situation ‘eleventh-seventh’,

content: “”“

Few dared step into the last, velvet-draped chamber. The effect of the

crimson neon distorted

the visages of those within into a masque of horror. Those who came —

dared by others, drunkenly stumbling through the curtain — did not stay

long. When she happened upon it, the black chamber was nearly empty.

There was only Prince #{segue ‘Prospero’, ‘prospero’} himself, seated on

a black velvet and ebony ottoman, caught up in his own

dark fantasy.

““”

optionText: ‘She entered the black chamber.’

after: (character) -> character.sandbox.prosperoAt = 7

classes: [‘black’]

situation ‘prospero’,

content: (character, system, from) ->

# `switch` statements in CoffeeScript are expressions, too

# so we can assign their return value to a variable. Here, we

# have a different reaction for Prospero depending on where he

# was found, without having four different situations.

prosperoGraph = switch from

when ‘eleventh-first’

“”“

But his staid, pious exterior melted into rage when she saw her,

dressed head to toe in crimson.

““”

when ‘eleventh-third’

“”“

But his hungry smile faded away when he saw her, covered head to

toe in scarlet.

““”

when ‘eleventh-fifth’

“”“

But he snapped out of his stupor when he saw her, covered head to

toe in vermilion.

““”

else

“”“

But his melancholy turned to anger when he saw her, covered head to

toe in red.

““”

“”“

Prince Prospero was hale, and strong. He stood too tall for his guests in

samite finery, the spitting image of some forgotten Gothic ancestor. He

had, for too long, led his guests in their revels.

#{prosperoGraph}

““”

choices: [‘prospero-unmask’, ‘prospero-leave’]

extendSection: true;

situation ‘prospero-unmask’,

optionText: ‘She took off the veil.’

content: (character) ->

###

The final sequence is a run through the chambers of the suite. The more

chambers there are to run through, the longer it is; so we splice into

a point determined by where we start.

###

chamber = switch character.sandbox.prosperoAt

when 1

segue ‘purple’, ‘death-finale-2’

when 3

segue ‘orange’, ‘death-finale-4’

when 5

segue ‘violet’, ‘death-finale-6’

when 7

segue ‘black’, ‘death-finale-7’

chamberGraph = if character.sandbox.prosperoAt < 7

“But the masked figure already retreated into the #{chamber} chamber.”

else

“The masked figure stood in the middle of the #{chamber} chamber.”

“”“

As the house shook with the striking of midnight, she disposed of the veil

that had concealed her masque.

And beneath the veil, her masque was made to so closely resemble the visage

of a stiffened corpse, daubed and sprinkled delicately with blood, that one

could scarcely see anything but mockery of the tragedy that had befallen

the Prince’s domain.

Prospero’s face convulsed with disgust, then reddened with anger: “Who

dares?“

#{chamberGraph}

““”

situation ‘death-finale-2’,

content: “”“

Stunned by his momentary hesitation, the Prince

#{segue ‘chased’, ‘death-finale-4’} her through the apartments.

““”

situation ‘death-finale-4’,

content: “”“

As she moved through them, the assembled crowd parted in mute horror,

stepping out of the way of the stalking spectre and the

#{segue ‘prince’, ‘death-finale-6’} who stalked her.

““”

situation ‘death-finale-6’,

content: “”“

He might have screamed for his guards to seize her, or simply silently

cursed at the affront to his #{segue ‘authority’, ‘death-finale-7’}.

““”

situation ‘death-finale-7’,

before: () ->

# If we haven’t seen the black background effect yet, then we see it here.

if not seen ‘eleventh-seventh’ then this.classes = [‘black’]

content: () ->

“”“

#{if seen ‘eleventh-seventh’ then ” else “She stood in the middle of the

black chamber, defying him.“}

He bore aloft a drawn pistol, and approached her impetuously, to within

two or three feet of the spectral figure, when she turned sharply and

confronted the Prince. There was a sharp cry — and the pistol dropped

inert upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterward, fell

prostrate in death the Prince Prospero.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. She had come as an

uninvited guest. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-flecked

halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of their fall.

And the life of the ebony clock went out with the of the last of the joyful.

And the colorful neon lights flickered and expired. And Darkness and Decay

and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

#{type.ending}

““”

situation ‘prospero-leave’,

optionText: ‘She turned to leave.’

canChoose: (character) -> character.sandbox.hasKeys

before: (character) ->

character.sandbox.leaveMotivation =

[‘sadness’, ‘mercy’, ‘ennui’, ‘weariness’, ‘apathy’, ‘kindness’,

‘forgiveness’]

content: (character) ->

“”“

But to his anger, she could respond only with a sudden

#{this.writers.selectmotivation(character)}. Five months hidden

in his manse had made of the Prince a ragged man, slightly too thin

for his sequined party garb, eyeglasses slightly askew on a wrinkled

nose. It had taken her so long to arrive at this man’s party that

she was no longer sure these were the people she had come to

#{segue ‘collect’, ‘leave-collect’}.

““”

writers:

selectmotivation: (character) ->

character.sandbox.leaveMotivation =

character.sandbox.leaveMotivation.cycle()

inner =

a(character.sandbox.leaveMotivation[0])

.replacer(‘selectmotivation’)

.toString()

span(inner).id(‘selectmotivation’).toString()

situation ‘leave-collect’,

content: “”“

She walked through a parting way in the middle of the throng of distraught

guests, out of the richly decorated apartments of the Prince who could

scarcely muster the strength to #{segue ‘follow’, ‘leave-follow’}.

““”

situation ‘leave-follow’,

content: “”“

Her footfalls made no sound as she strode onto the gravel path, tailed by

a baffled Prince. He stood, paralyzed, watching as his iron gate was

thrown open by crimson-gloved #{segue ‘hands’, ‘leave-hands’}.

““”

situation ‘leave-hands’,

content: “”“

From one of his guards, the Prince had at some point reached for a drawn

pistol. But he could not lift it against her. The open gates were a sign of

black fear to him, a sign of the outside world creeping in on the sanctuary

he had built, a sign of death. The ebony clock struck twelve, unheeded by

the two figures standing before the great house. Darkness and Decay had

arrived ahead of her.

And so the Red Death got in her car and drove away.

#{type.ending}

““”

#—————————————————————————–

# 3 — Initialisation Code

undum.game.init = (character, system) ->

character.sandbox.hasKeys = true

# Undum’s sandbox can hold arbitrary values inside the `character` object

# passed to situation methods. Here, we use it to track whether the player

# character has given away her car keys.

# When the DOM is ready, get Undum running.

window.onload = undum.begin

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Behind the Scenes: Prospero