The Grand Damned Blog

The seasonal mania of Halloween takes over the northeast as it does every year with hay rides, corn mazes and spooky, "haunted" attractions drawing in young and old alike to some chilling fun.

An ancient, long-closed military installation along the New Jersey shoreline is woken up from its deep slumber to host a Halloween attraction appealing to fans of horror and fright.

But what has awoken in that dark place is more than anyone counted on and it won't be any fun. At all.

As I was finishing up a few loose ends and getting ready to send Grand Damned into Alpha Testing I made a startling discovery...

For newcomers -- any interactive fiction title is known as the book you play or the game you read. That's why I use the terms "interactive fiction books" and "text adventure games" interchangeably.

And Grand Damned is a text adventure game that will not have a score. Reviewing all of the source code revealed a single opportunity to score 50 points. And that was only at endgame itself when you, the reader cum main character, actually finish the story. Reading the last page as it were.

This wasn't an oversight. It was a natural occurrence. Ordinarily I'll implement a scoring system with a maximum score that the reader can earn as they make their way through any of my interactive fiction books. Grand Damned, for example, started with an arbitrary maximum score of 500. That number was a WAG (wild-assed guess). An arbitrary number picked out from the air as the number to fill the blank in. I do this all the time. It's one of the first things I do, actually. Sometimes I have a rough idea of a title weighing in with a high score (750 or even 1000 points) a middle score of 500 or so or a low score of 200-300. Along the way points are earned for making important discoveries, moving the plot along in a profound way, or solving a difficult puzzle that makes it possible to achieve some larger, greater goal that takes you to endgame.

As I implemented Grand Damned with all of its characters, caverns and killings and all of the different ways you, as the main character, can take an active role in all of this nothing led me to to add points for solving riddle X or deduct points for ruining scenario Y.

I felt the need to award 50 points there at the very end because the metaphorical key to unlock the hidden secret that rolls out the red carpet to the end of the story was a damned hard puzzle.

Looking at the game from 30,000 feet I just didn't see any other avenue or opportunity to award points along the way. I smiled at this realization.

Starting out on Grand Damned I set out to make this interactive horror novel much more story based than the previous dozen text adventure games I've written.

My subconscious mind steered me in this direction, I made no conscious effort to veer away from a scoring system. It just... happened.

The only other interactive fiction title I wrote that had no numerical scoring system was Greystone. And that was only a technicality since there was a score - of sorts - at the very end of the murder mystery. It wasn't numerical (e.g. you scored 350 out of a possible 500 points in 2000 moves) but your performance as a homicide detective solving a murder mystery was graded in terms of pure performance.

Not this time. Grand Damned is the first interactive fiction book that comes to my mind -- written by me or not -- that reads much like a conventional fiction book with the added dimension of full interaction with the world created.

I'm wrapping up a very minor character who delivers major comedy relief adding just the right amount of black humor to my latest foray in horror fiction.

So with Blabbermouth written into the story what's left on the checklist? The beginning is bold, the middle moves and endgame has been achieved.

During August I'll be polishing and finishing `and entering Alpha Test. Then Grand Damned enters beta test on September 1 giving Malinche's quality control teams a solid month to work with me on banging out the bugs. Giving us four weeks to bring Grand Damned to market on October 1 - right on time for the lucrative Halloween market.

Well July 4th came and went and Grand Damned didn't launch. It's not even in Alpha Test yet.

Newcomers, don't be alarmed. When I miss a deadline you can be sure that everything is absolutely normal.

For the past two years or so I've been a morning writer. Unless I'm on vacation I have to implement Interactive Fiction in the morning. Time and time again as I've experimented with my schedule I'm brought back to morning writing as the only possible way. I have to make morning writing work or I might as well retire from writing fiction books.

Here's the rub - I need to workout in the morning too. Once 9AM hits my day goes in to full-tilt-boogie mode and clearing my head to write and finding a clear hour to exercise is nearly impossible. Add to that my huge responsibility as a husband and a father and you quickly and easily see my dilemma.

As it stands now I get up at about 6 AM. To get it all done I need to get up 5 AM.

The things is - I tried getting up at 5 AM to accommodate my morning drill and my body refused to cooperate - every time I tried.

I see no other option. I must either hire a drill sergeant or BE my own drill sergeant to get me up at 5AM and get it all done. I'm going to go back to the "Perfecting Sleep" section of Tim Ferriss' groundbreaking book The 4-Hour Body. Tim Ferriss tells us that flaxseed oil, almond butter and a 20 minute nap will do the trick. I'll also recruit a US Marine Corps drill sergeant to get my ass out of bed with my feet hitting the deck at 0500 every day.

On that note I'm pushing back Grand Damned to a Halloween launch. Probably October 1.

Why? Because progress has been steady -- but slow. And I also want to capitalize on a Halloween launch for my latest work of horror fiction because horror stories gain so much more traction on Halloween as so many more people are in the mood to spend money to be scared senseless.

See? Artist and entrepreneur in perfect harmony. Now if only my body will get on board.

As I boarded the plane to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic about a week ago I had the intention of finalizing grand Damned and send it to the quality control testers for proofreading and final trials.

The seats on the plane are too small to comfortably type on a laptop and my six year old daughter was too excited to sleep late in our hotel suite to let daddy do some early morning writing to put the finishing touches on Grand Damned for the six days we were in Punta Cana.

And when daddy got back to the United States, the demands of his two businesses stepped into punish him for even daring the attempt to take a vacation by delivering a punishing double load of work and commitments

Still and all I have no regrets for going on vacation. All the proof you need is right here.

Grand Damned is on track to be finalized next with a (probably and hopeful) July 4th launch date.

Over this past weekend I conducted two different expeditions to Fort Hancock; one under the shining sun and the other under the dim moonlight.

The light and the dark figured prominently during my excursions as I gained exclusive behind-the-scenes access that most of the public never gets to see. My creative juices were lit on fire like a flame thrower to an oil well.

The light of a compass by a radar station..... ....and the dark of an abandoned mortar tunnel circa World War II

Apart from the 400+ pictures I took during the blur of a 24 hour period, I came away with a treasure trove of notes, insights and ideas stemming from the history of Fort Hancock (and greater Sandy Hook) spanning some 400 years from the 1600s on forward to present day.

Am I dabbling in historical fiction? Maybe I am. So what? Grand Damned is firmly rooted in the dark realms of horror fiction but that doesn't mean thrill seekers and horror story fans won't be dazzled by some very intense historical fiction that some people might be surprised was written by me.

House #2 - As a Matter of Historical Fact, All Hell Broke Loose Inside. Literally.

The point of all these pictures is not to put together a coffee table book . It's clear I'm not a photographer in any sense of the word. But I am an Implementor of interactive fiction. And when I implement a real location there's no better way to give myself actual factual fuel for my creative fire than to stand on the ground I'm writing about. A decade of experience has taught me that firsthand experience is the key to working my magic as an Implementor in transforming a very real place into an interactive fiction destination. I always strive to extend your sense of self, as the reader, to personally involve you in my interactive fiction books with an added dimension of realism.

Today I started placing the chess pieces where they belong on the board at one of the more dramatic endings of Grand Damned. While there's still a lot of "middle" to fill in, we all know how important is it to know where you want to be so you can establish the best route to get there.

Old-timers already know by now that one of the signatures of my writing is to implement intricate mid-story actions ending in a crescendo (and sometimes a cacophony) of interactive fiction action to what I call "endgame". In this case, I'm giving readers many more possibilities in putting an end to this horror story early enough to stop "endgame" from ever happening.

Does that mean you, as the main character, will miss out on the grand ending I've been spending weeks cooking up? Not at all. That's the beautiful part. You can enjoy Grand Damned over and over again and be surprised in entirely new ways by taking different actions during the course of the novel that can lead to entirely different, probably unexpected, endings.

Long time fans know what this mean; when I unveil the cover art you can be sure the release date is not too far behind.

Still busier than ever and rebalancing my daily schedule to get some interactive fiction writing in has been a frustrating, sometimes even maddening, daily struggle. Trying every possible combination of schedule management, I'm back to my original plan of writing in the morning with a couple of tweaks.

It's worked very well! I'm back to writing steadily every day -- after nearly a month writing drought. I tweeted about this a few weeks back; my inability to write was not for lack of ideas, or any sort of writer's block. As the old saying goes --there just weren't enough hours in the day.

Just yesterday I wrote the first of the many possible endings of Grand Damned and it felt great!

My original intention of a spring release probably isn't going to happen. But if I miss my original mark it won't be by much.

As I blogged just previously, I'm done with hard-and-fast deadlines. Sure I need a rough idea of a target otherwise this book might never get written. Late spring is entirely possible. Early summer? Could be.

It won't be too much longer before I release my next work of interactive horror fiction but it definitely won't be a rushed effort.

First let me eliminate any suspense; Grand Damned is not launching in ten days. That's right friends and neighbors! I blew yet another deadline. I think I've toppled the late great science fiction author Douglas Adams and rightfully assume the throne as the king of blown deadlines.

Clear out of the blue sky my Online Tech Support activities have exploded and I'm booking record revenue. I'm also clocking an insane amount of hours managing the sudden surge in client volume. The explosion of IT consulting volume got to the point where I was forced to make the command decision to spin off our web development division to stem off additional surges in client volume nobody could handle. In Star Trek lingo I avoided a warp core breach allowing the engines to cool down a bit so my ship could keep on moving -- at full speed thanks to a lighter load.

Just to put this into perspective and not to brag; I'm making more money than I've ever made in my entire life as I put in a grueling six day workweek. This sudden, new reality forced me to reconsider my place in the world and count every single one of my blessings. In this harsh, unforgiving economy all I can do is thank G-d for my fortunes that my hard work can be so handsomely rewarded.

If that weren't enough to throw me off my game, a developer has approached me to write a series of Facebook games. Yes, I mean write. I'm not making the games; the propeller heads in the development department will do that. I'll be writing the stories behind the games. That means I get roughly 10-12 lengthy emails per day and I'm on one or two conference calls per week. Since it seems I'm the star of this show insofar that my stories drive everything else, every single aspect of development of the entire Facebook game platform is run past me for my approval.

Right! But here's the thing -- when was I supposed to get any actual writing done?

Well this week after a near meltdown forced my hand, I recomputed my daily schedule and took it out on a test drive.

The new routine is working beautifully. The key is in the balance of what I do with my life on any given day. In all things extremes must be avoided. I should spray-paint that fact on the wall of my studio so I never forget that crucial fact of life.

I'm happy to say that I got some writing in every single day while successfully juggling every other ball in the air. At full speed. And I didn't drop a single one.

My wife and I even managed to have marital relations and my daughter is starting to remember my name again.

That's all well and good but I cracked the code to my new beautiful life just two weeks out from the scheduled launch date for Grand Damned - my second foray in horror fiction.

But fear not brave reader! Grand Damned is 75% complete at this point as I take a decidedly sharp turn in the direction of storytelling and a bit of a swerve away from a pure text adventure game.

Don't fret. Grand Damned will stand as much as a text adventure game as it will as a work of interactive fiction.

My new life is working so well I managed an afternoon field trip to Fort Hancock this week and loved every minute of it. Here's some of what I saw this week and wrote about the past few days...

The Lighthouse at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook is the oldest operating lighthouse in America. You'll get the grand tour.

My signature as an Implementor of interactive fiction is to capture every detail. I already signed Grand Damned.

And just one way to win. I implemented the ending of Grand Damned today and along with it, something of a shock to established Malinche interactive fiction fans; there's just one ending to Grand Damned.

I've become somewhat famous (notorious, as my volunteer force of quality testers would put it) for implementing multiple successful endings in almost all of my previous interactive fiction books. But not this time. There's just one way to finish Grand Damned.

How do you know you're on the right track with any given endeavor? When a good friend and trusted advisor echoes your own thoughts without you saying a word.

Pushing interactive fiction forward with different venues and dimensions, I'm taking a much more story-based approach to Grand Damned relying less on mindbending puzzles and complex mysteries and more on the story itself; the plot, the setting and the characters.

That's not to say that Grand Dammed will be any less an interactive horror novel; it most certainly will! You, as the main character, will do much more than just read screen after screen. You'll be exploring the vast expanse of historic Fort Hancock, at one point a centerpiece of the defense of the United States for more than a century only to be gracefully transformed into a state park all can enjoy. There are people you'll encounter (both dead and alive), intriguing situations and mysterous locations.

As I'm fond of saying; horror fiction is, in one sense, a mystery novel wrapped around an outer layer of pure, soul-gripping fear.

In more mundane news; I took a shot at the first compile and resolved some 70 bugs. I'm within 22 of a good compile.

That usually means I'm done. But I'm approaching Grand Damned differently. I'm compiling as I go and ending up with a more-and-more complete work of interactive horror fiction every time. But I'm not nearly done yet.

Clearly I'm on a New Jersey kick. My last novel Four Badges, released just about a month ago, is a murder mystery set in rural Northwestern New Jersey. I'm at it it again with Grand Damned, my next work of horror fiction set on historic Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

Where'd I get the inspiration? A trip to the beach, of course! The Sherman family has frequented Sandy Hook for some years yet we remained blissfully unaware of the historic piece of real estate just down the street from the beach known as Fort Hancock. We stumbled on the place quite by accident while attending a community theater performance.

"Community theater by the beach? How's that possible?" I thought to myself. After a sumptuous meal at Bahr's Landing a couple of minutes away, we made our way to the theater. We drove right through the Sandy Hook toll plaza and kept on going. Past all the beaches. Past the ludicrously expensive restaurant (I'll explain later) and then we kept on driving. It was quite an experience. It's pitch black. We past the only areas of Sandy Hook we ever knew and we kept on going. Then suddenly two enormous missiles jumped in front of the headlights.

Missiles?

Yes missiles. You know the things. They're large, they rocket up high into the sky and a very short time later they blow something up.

That's when I knew I was on to something.

We drove the past Ajax missile and the Hercules missile (a part of the NIKE defense system the United States deployed during most of the cold war) and stumbled upon something that I found nearly as exciting as sex....

... a full blown (and fully defunct) US Army base.

That's when I knew I'd set my next novel there.

Checking my watch led me to curse. No time to explore. The show was starting in just about fifteen minutes. It was Agatha Christie's The Unexpected Guest. The performance was spot on. The costumes were authentic. The actors gifted.

Fine fine fine let's move on to the important stuff.

After the show I did my best to contain my boyish enthusiasm. I pulled out of our parking spot, slightly damaging the front
underbelly of my car in my haste. Fine fine fine. Nothing a mechanic and a checkbook can't fix. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Driving around that old fort, crawling down each dark road and discovering relic after relic I had to stifle a giggle here and there.

I've already returned there once in broad daylight and, to my delight, armed with a proper camera. Ever try taking pictures with an iPhone in virtual darkness? Not fun. Not productive. Pointless, really. Still, I tried.

The picture above? At first I couldn't identify what purpose that massive concrete construction might have served. It was just today I discovered it was a gun battery. Which one? There were several. My preliminary educated guess is that the picture shown above may be of Battery Granger. It's closed today but with the magic of interactive fiction I'll be taking you inside.

Let me not be shy or humble here; y'all are in for a seriously scary treat with a twist nobody will see coming!

Will I make it by Halloween? Maybe not. But that's OK. I'm not rushing this baby. I'm going to savor every moment of it and deliver some top-notch horror fiction even it takes me until NEXT Halloween.

"Horror is beyond the reach of psychology." - Theodor Adorno

Grand Damned.

Interactive Horror Fiction