<audio src="<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/285636197%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-PNXTF&amp;auto_play=true&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true"></iframe>" autoplay> You are inside my mind. [[What is the mind?|mind]] This is a game that will teach you how to think like me, Nathaniel Brown, or just really confuse you. Congratulations! This is going to be fun (for me). This story/game is going to have four death endings and four success endings (Yes... That is because I am required to include at least four endings in the game I make for this assignment in this interactive fiction class I'm taking. Wait... I guess I was having so much fun I included four extra endings!). Hint: One of the DEATH endings is really hard to find unless you try to keep reading where there are no words. The only characters in this story are 1) me (the narrator/supreme master of Interactive Fiction) and 2) you (the reader/not the supreme master of Interactive Fiction... unless you <i>are</i> the supreme master of interactive fiction... in which case, I am very sorry for insulting you). I guess you could call yourself the protagonist and me the antagonist if you want to. Should I tell you more about my [[mind|my story]]? Or should I get right into the [[story|my story]]? CLICK [[HERE|death by scrolling]]. Trick question! My mind and this story are, for all practical purposes, the same thing. This story is about my mind, and I am thinking about this story. Again, this should be fun! What was my [[first|smarthouse]] story idea? What was my [[second|afterlife]] story idea? What was my [[third|zombie]] story idea? What was my [[fourth|choices]] story idea? What was my [[fifth|this game]] story idea? I'm glad you asked! (Yes, I know I use exclamation points too much.) Anyway, I just lost my train of thought because I was distracted by my own exclamation point. Oh, yeah, there it is (my train of thought). I literally just forgot what I was going to say again as I was typing about how I forgot and then remembered it. Isn't this fun? Anyway, yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! I remember! Zombies! Wait... No! That's my third story idea! This is my first and it's about supercomputers, real estate, family decisions, creepy basements, creepy neighbors, and creepiness in general. It would have been an awesome story. Do you want to play it? "[[Yes!|play smarthouse]]" "[[No!|my story]] I want to go back to learning about how you decided not to make the full version of the supercomputer story." I'm glad you asked! This next game idea that I had is about the afterlife (yes, as in ghosts, heaven, hell, God, the Bible, etc., etc.). I was raised in a VERY Christian family. Like, my dad is a die-hard God-should-mean-EVERYTHING-to-you preacher. So, I pretty much think about God and eternity in some form or fashion, no matter what I'm doing. For instance, when I was trying to decide what to write this game about, at first, as you learned if you clicked to learn about my first story idea, I wanted to write it about a supercomputer that is basically in control of all the technology in every house of this gated community called... I never actually decided what it would be called... At any rate, the story is largely... Oh, by the way, this game (that you're playing right now) has to have at least four endings for me to follow the directions of the assignment I'm writing it for. So... I figured we could both benefit from a little intermission here. If you want to stop reading this rambling (as in you would rather DIE of boredom than continue), CLICK [[HERE|death by boredom]]. If you want to continue reading this, just continue reading it. ...about... Do you like how I just started a sentence, interrupted it, continued with one word of the original sentence, and now I'm interupting it again? Me too. ...your relationship with this AI (artificially intelligent) computer. If you play long enough and make the right choices, you ultimately get to discover, with the computer's help, why people in the neighborhood are disappearing, sleep-walking, and turning up dead. Wait! Wait! Wait! I'm supposed to be telling you about my afterlife game idea, not my supercomputer game idea! CLICK [[HERE|more afterlife]] to actually learn more about my afterlife game idea. CLICK [[THERE|just kidding]] to return to my list of game ideas. I'm glad you asked. My third idea is about the birth of zombies. I'm not going to tell you exactly how they are born in the story, because that's literally another story for another time. I will tell you though that you should be careful when deciding to sleep on the couch in the basement of your cousin's computer programming brother (yes, I know your cousin's brother would just be your cousin... Stop correcting my language). Click [[HeRe|not a death ending]] to find a death ending. The fourth idea I had for what to make this game about is similar to the second (in that it concerns eternal salvation), but it is more like playing through an allegory of what it takes to receive eternal life. You have to find a specific road that leads to a specific door in order to live in the end, and there are a lot of paths and doors that lead to death. Click [[THIS|my story]] if you realize that this passage does not contain any way to get directly to a success or death ending. Click HERE if you still have hope that this passage will lead you directly to a success or death ending. (Nope. Sorry.) Yay! You died of boredom. DEATH ENDING Seriously though, you haven't even been playing for ten minutes (unless you read as slowly as me)... So do you want to [[go back to the beginning|my mind]], go back to the [[first obvious choice|my story]] you had, [[stay here|death by boredom]], skip to [[one of the success endings|sorry no]], or go back to [[where you were before you decided to die of boredom|afterlife]]. Professor (yes, I am specifically addressing the professor of the interactive fiction class that I am writing this game for...), does this passage technically still count as an ENDING even though it has links that take you BACK into the game? Congratulations. You just died by scrolling so far down the page that you saw "CLICK HERE" and clicking the "HERE." DEATH ENDING Sorry... No. I'm not going to make it quite that easy for you to get to a success ending. [[Go back|death by boredom]] to the page you were just at. Or scroll to the bottom of this page to find a success ending. Yes, I literally just wanted to make you scroll down this far to find a [[success ending|success happy birthday]]. Congratulations (unless you don't like birthdays). It's my birthday soon. If you want, you can find me and wish me, "Happy Birthday!" Sorry, but I'm not going to just include my phone number in this passage. You physically have to get out of your chair and search the world for Nathaniel Brown in order to personally wish him a happy birthday. SUCCESS ENDING (depending on your definition of success) I SERIOUSLY thought about writing a short summarized (but still playable) version of my supercomputer game idea and embedding it inside this game you're playing now, but I (quite frankly) ran out of (didn't leave myself enough) time. Sorry. I feel bad about it too. I actually was really looking forward to playing that supercomputer story. Maybe I'll actually write it someday. Maybe I'll post it on this website... Maybe I'll have an even cooler website to post it on then! Anyway, congratulations on accepting that sometimes you just don't have enough time to do EVERYTHING you want to do. Congrats on accepting that sometimes you are asked to prioritize your time. CLICK [[HERE|success apology]]. (Nope. I'm not going to tell you what will happen if you click "HERE.") Or, you CAN at least [[LEARN|more smarthouse]] a little bit more about what I wanted to do with my supercomputer game idea. Yay! You found the second success ending! (No! I'm not going to tell you where the first one was! Stop asking me to make this easier for you! This game isn't even that hard to play! You're basically just reading and experiencing the lack of focus that exists in my mind.) Even though you did not get to play a super cool, creepy, and mind-bending sci-fi action-thriller (like my supercomputer game was going to be), I hope you had fun taking this journey through my mind. SUCCESS ENDING So, my supercomputer game was going to be about what follows: Your family (you, your dad, your mom, your younger sister, and your younger brother) is trying to decide where to move. Your basement flooded (AGAIN) three weeks ago, and your parents are DONE replacing rugs and cleaning mold off of filing cabinets. (By the way, in this story you are a twenty-year-old college student still living with your parents.) One of the main choices you have to make in this story is whether you try to convince your parents to buy this "smart-house" (like the house version of a smartphone) or try to convince them to move somewhere else. If you move into the "smart-house"; complete with automated kitchen appliances (fridge, toaster, microwave, etc.), a holographic computer monitor in every room (even the bathroom), and a highly advanced computerized security system (so, yeah, basically the ideal future house); you get to discover first-hand (if you don't get killed first) why all of your neighbers in your gated community of "smart-houses" never come out during the day (or EVER for that matter), why you find yourself increasingly tired even when you haven't done anything, and why you keep having strange dreams and MAJOR deja vu. Oh, and the reason why I keep referring to this game as the "supercomputer game" is because all of the "smart-houses" in your neighborhood (if you move into one of them) are basically managed by one charismatic artificially intelligent supercomputer named... Well... I haven't actually decided what I would name it yet, but I'm thinking probably "Nathaniel." (Yes, that is because my name is Nathaniel. You are very observant...) [[Learn|even more supercomputer]] why I chose to write the game you're playing now instead of the supercomputer game I just described. [[Go back|my story]], and learn about my other game ideas. To be honest, the more I think about my supercomputer game idea and write about it in this game, the more I feel like actually writing that game. Oh well... It is what it is. Don't get me wrong either. I am actually really enjoying explaining to you the mental process I went through to arrive at the game I actually am writing now. (Yes, I also know I use the word actually too much... What was I saying? Oh yeah, "actually." I realize I use the word actually too much. Or is it too much? I don't really know. I just really actually like the word. See what I did there?) The reason... actually (haha) the two reasons I chose not to go with my supercomputer game idea are these: 1) I could not think of a meaning... a reason... a purpose for the game other than pure entertainment. I tried. I got nothing. 2) Secondly, to make that game as complex and COOL as I wanted to would have probably taken much more time than I had to spend on it. So, I wrote this game instead... Lucky you! In reality, I have lost focus a lot more often than the times I have described to you in this game, but if I told you everything I am thinking, you would be as bored as I am right now... So, do you want to [[go back|my story]] and learn about the other ideas I scrapped (or just saved for later use?)? Or do you want to... Help me out here. There HAS to be a second choice on this page...(click-append: "second choice on this page...")[ You know what? I think I'm done with this passage. If you want another choice here, choose to stop playing this game or something...(click-append: "something...")[ Wow... It appears that even while I was telling you I might not give you a second choice, I used an expression ("or something") that could be interpreted as a second choice! Darn English language! Fine! Here you go. Click "[[WOW|bleu cheese]]" to not go back and learn about my other ideas (yet...).]] So... Where were we? [[I like donuts|donuts]]. The afterlife game idea that I had was this: You are walking down the street and someone hands you a book. You can choose to either read it or not read it. If you read it, you can choose to either do what it says or ignore it. Then the story continues in a totally DIFFERENT direction, any direction really (especially since this is Interactive Fiction!). You might end up making friends with a supercomputer (where have I heard of that before?), trying to survive a zombie apocalypse (where have I heard of that before?), or becoming a botanist and discovering plants that can talk (actually, this is the ONLY place I've mentioned that one in this game). It doesn't really matter what you choose to do because, in the end, you die (maybe by the deformed hand of a zombie or of old age), and you have to decide if you go to eternal life or eternal death. This game doesn't tell you WHAT happens to you. It simply gives you the option to live forever or suffer forever, and asks you to decide what you think you chose. The purpose of the game is to get people to think about the question, "Is there more to life than meets the eye?" I'm thinking about donuts again. CLICK [[HERE|my story]] to go back to my list of game ideas. CLICK [[HERE|something about me]] to learn something cool about me. JUST KIDDING! Click [[HERE|my story]], not [[THERE|just kidding]]! I like donuts. My favorites are Boston cream and jelly-filled, but I also like the chocolate glazed ones that come in a paper box from the grocery store. [[Find|more afterlife]] my train of thought (AGAIN). What is the mind? Like, is it all inside your brain? Or does it exist separate from your body? Seriously, what is it? HELP ME [[REGAIN|my mind]] my train of thought. I like donuts. Nothing else comes to mind... I also like frosting... not by itself though. CLICK [[HERE|death by mental block-advice]] if you are as tired of this game as I am. CLICK [[THERE|there works]] if you want to go back to my list of game ideas. CLICK [[THIS|more afterlife]] if you want to go back to the page you were just at. When someone in my family is complaining about something they don't want to do, my grandpa often says, "Sometimes as one goes through life, he has to do what he doesn't want to." I really don't know where to go from here. You got some good advice there, but I've lost my train of thought again, so this is going to have to be a death ending. Sorry. Nothing personal. It's just interactive fiction. You just died of Nathaniel's mental block. DEATH ENDING CLICK [[THIS|my mind]] to return to the beginning of the game (if you can call this a game). CLICK THAT if you want nothing to happen at all. (Seriously, stop clicking "THAT." It's not a link.) CLICK [[OPEN SESAME|you say open sesame]] to say, "Open sesame." CLICK [[THIS|my story]] if you want to go back to the page that lists my different game ideas. Yay! [[THERE|my story]] worked this time! You say, "Open sesame," and I say, "this is interactive fiction. Remember? It's like a book that you're a character in. I'm the narrator, so I get to tell you what you say, and I am telling you that you say, 'Open sesame,' again." If you hate me, CLICK [[HERE|standing in a forest]]. If you don't hate me, CLICK [[THIS|purple flower]] to learn about a purple flower thingy. If you LOVE me (and want to return to the list I keep talking about), CLICK [[THIS|my story]]. (By the way, clicking to say that you love me is not weird because I have no way of knowing that you clicked it, just so you know.) Why do you hate me? Narrators can do really cool things too, like having you stand in a beautiful forest and having loads of one hundred dollar bills fall out of the sky and land gently all around you. See? You are standing in a beautiful forest, while loads of one hundred dollar bills fall out of the sky and land gently all around you. We can also do strange things, like having a man with a long brown beard ride past you on a red bicycle. See? A man will a long brown beard rides past you on a blue bike. Narrators, such as myself, can also do something different than what they just told you they could do in the preceding paragraph, like having the man ride a blue bike instead of a red one (and like saying "bike" instead of "bicycle"). IF you HATE ME even more now, CLICK [[HERE|again standing in the forest]]. IF you no longer hate me, and you like chocolate (or you just want to click "THIS" because this is interactive fiction, and you know I don't really have a way to test whether or not you like chocolate), CLICK [[THIS|success you don't hate me]]. If you no longer hate me, and you don't like chocolate (or you would really just like to get back to the second page of the game), click [[RIGHT HERE|my story]]. I have nothing new to say to you. I tried, but my brain just feels too exhausted to come up with anything really original to say here. So, I am just repeating what I just said. I suggest skipping to the bottom and NOT clicking the "HERE" that signifies that you hate me. That's just my suggestion though. You are welcome to read this passage over and over as long as you like. Why do you hate me? Narrators can do really cool things too, like having you stand in a beautiful forest and having loads of one hundred dollar bills fall out of the sky and land gently all around you. See? You are standing in a beautiful forest, while loads of one hundred dollar bills fall out of the sky and land gently all around you. We can also do strange things, like having a man with a long brown beard ride past you on a red bicycle. See? A man will a long brown beard rides past you on a blue bike. Narrators, such as myself, can also do something different than what they just told you they could do in the preceding paragraph, like having the man ride a blue bike instead of a red one (and like saying "bike" instead of "bicycle"). IF you HATE ME even more now, CLICK [[HERE|again standing in the forest]]. IF you want a SUCCESS ENDING (and you don't hate me anymore), click [[this|success you don't hate me]]. (Whoa! I just gave you a link that wasn't in ALL CAPS! I haven't done that since like the first passage in this game! Just thought I'd point that out. No real reason that I can think of.) If you really just want to keep playing this game, CLICK [[THIS|my story]]. NOT HATING ME is a success in my book. SUCCESS ENDING My screen saver is some kind of purple flower? I cant tell if it's a flower or some kind of microscopic particle magnified like fifty thousand times... I don't know. Are you tired of these distractions? I've kind of learned to enjoy them. Do you say, "[[What in the world are you talking about?!|my story]]" (This will take you back to my list of game ideas (yes, that is where most of these passages lead back to). "[[I've learned to enjoy getting distracted too|you say open sesame]]" (to get back to saying, "Open sesame"). If you want to find a death ending, go play more of this game. [[Go|my story]] play more of this game. [[Don't go|illusion of choice]] play more of this game. In order to increase the agency of my game, I just gave you the option to choose to wait about eight seconds longer to [[go|my story]] play more of this game. Yes, that "go" link will take you back to the list of my game ideas. My fifth and final idea for what to make this game about is the one I am writing it about right now. (Take a moment to appreciate the fact that you are reading about what you are reading.) If you want to do something fun, click [[THis|fight a zombie]]. If you want to do something I find rather boring that might turn out to be fun if you do it long enough, click [[thIS|my story]]. You run across a zombie walking down the street (where buildings on both sides of the street look old and long-abandoned... it's like a typical post-apocalyptic-zombie-overrun-world setting... I'm not saying that description was necessary; but, if I didn't keep interrupting the story to tell you why I'm typing what I'm typing, I think that description would have added to the mood I'm going for in this scene/passage/whatever-you-want-to-call-it... admittedly, I'm not sure what mood I'm going for here anymore...). ANYWAY, you see a zombie in the middle of the street... You notice he's missing an eye, his left arm is twisted backwards, and his face is covered with dried blood. His clothes are also torn (like <i>[a lot]<click|</i>). (click: ?click)[By the time you've noticed this much about him, the zombie slowly turns his crooked head and looks right at you with his single eye (that seems to always be twitching slightly)... He stands there for a moment, staring at you... Then he slowly starts to walk (more like hobble) toward you... You wait for a moment, realizing he's only moving at a very slow pace--Then all at once he sprints toward you! You've almost no time to react before he's on top of you! What do you do? [[Run!!!|death by zombie]] -or- Pull out your machete and [[fight him|success fight]]!] When I try to think of foods I <i>don't</i> like, very few come to mind. I used to not like oatmeal... but now I do. I especially like it with brown sugar and cinnamon and butter... Don't you just love it when the oatmeal is warm and you stick a cube of butter in there and it melts and mixes with the brown sugar and the cinnamon--Wow! I'm not even hungry, and I'm hungry! I distinctly remember eating a huge lunch... Anyway, there! You wanted a passage--Well, I guess I don't know what you personally want (unless you're one of the other people in the class I wrote this game for, and you're helping me edit it, and you chose to tell me whether or not you wanted this passage to exist...?), but I am the narrator, so I can tell you what your CHARACTER (like the character, in this story, that is called "you") DOES (I wanted to capitalize "character" but not "does," but I accidentally left the caps lock on, and then I deleted "DOES," but then I decided that this would be another great opportunity to <i>show</i> you what I'm thinking by leaving it the way I accidentally typed it.)... <i>And</i>... I forgot what I was originally talking about (AGAIN!)... So... the ultimate goal of this passage was to give you an option different from the option to [[go back|my story]] and learn about the other ideas I scrapped (or just saved for later use). By the way, one of the few foods I think of when I'm trying to think of foods I don't like is bleu cheese... I still eat it, but sometimes it makes me gag... Anyway... Uumm... Yeah... So... Right! The purpose of this passage was to give you an option in addition to the option to [[go back|my story]] and learn about the other ideas I scrapped (or just--yeah, you probably got that saved for later use thing by now). By the way, all four of the "[[go back|my story]]" links on this page will take you to the same place (unless I made a coding error... which is possible... I try not to think about that possibility when I'm writing this story though, because thinking about it can distract me from actually writing the story... like that). Yes, I made the third "[[go back|my story]]" link while I was telling you about the four that exist on this page, AND I made the fourth one in this sentence... Don't judge me. If you were waiting for me to make this clear for you, yes, the only clickable link option on this page is to [[return|my story]] to the passage about the other ideas I haven't made into stories. (I used "return" there instead of "go back." Did you notice? Still only four "go back" links on this page... That's right. I pay attention to what I type...) He overtakes you, and you die a very gruesome and painful death as he grabs you, digs his nails into your arms, and begins to eat you! DEATH ENDING [[Go back|my mind]] to the beginning of this game. In one smooth motion, you quickly pull your machete out of its sheath strapped to your back and cleanly slice off his head! His body slowly falls over onto a nearby totalled car, and his head cracks open on the deteriorating asphalt. You've won! Congratulations! Now you can go play more of my game... (live: 6s)[Alright...] (live: 8s)[Fine.] (live: 11s)[I think you've earned a...] (live: 15s)[SUCCESS ENDING] (live: 19s)[Go back and see what would have happened if you had [[death by zombie]] away from the zombie?] (live: 23s)[[[Return|my mind]] to the beginning of this game?] 0<h4>WARNING: This game contains gruesome material. Much of what I say in this game is a joke, but this warning is not. If you are bothered by death, blood, or zombies, please play this game at your own risk! Thank you.</h4> If you would like to continue playing, click [[here|my mind]], please.