From: gordon@osiris (John Gordon)
Subject: Re: Alternate Reality vs EOBxx
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 21:29:10 GMT

bo511@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (James P. Norris) writes:

>One thing I miss in EOBxx that Alternate Reality the City had was
>the musical atmosphere. Walking down a street, entering a pub,
>or just nearing a smithy, the eeirie sounds would set the tone.
>Few games bother to put the sound into them that sets the mood and
>just focus on the graphics instead. I wonder what ever happened to 
>Philip Price, the programmer of The City?

	Here is the text of a message Philip wrote on GEnie a while back.
---------

Category 13,  Topic 7
Message 250   Tue Jan 02, 1990
PHILIP.PRICE  at 01:48 EST

 Okay since I am a notorious procastinator. I will give a brief outline of
what was the main parts of AR as originally conceived.

  The idea behind AR was a place to entertain but also to  enlighten/educate
oneself. I desired to have as realistic of a world possible, but still a world
that was filled with the unknown. I knew I couldn't do it in one product so I
plan to develope it through a series.

  City/Dungeon (Something originally planned as one)
   You are thrust into a new enviroment and have to first learn to survive.
You have to learn to discern to a certain degree. Free will is of course
permitted, monsters and people react to your moral decision. Traps are laid
both physical, mental and moral. Multiple ways to resolve problems are
avaiable. The first clues to why things are the way they are are given.
[Further details on the clues I will disclose further in this letter].

  Arena
   Originally game would be patched to add slaver bands. (you could be shang
hi 'ed into the arena amongst oither ways in).[Original game meaning
City/Dungeon]. The arena would permit combatting you characters against other
peoples characters or against computer run characters. The ultimate goal if
you had been abducted would be to regain your freedom, if you are free then it
would be to gain nobility and a title. A choice would be given if this wqas
accomplished that would retire that character to a life of luxury[and
boredom].

  Palace
   Palace intrigue and the ability to modify the city layout. You could climb
the ladder to greater power and responsibility, wielding it as you saw best or
worst. Again if you climbed to the pinnacle you had a option to retire the
character to a life of luxury,power and the thrill of trying to stay one step
ahead of future wouldbe kings.

[To become king you have to defeat the current king which at first is a
computer character, though once overthrown or disposed/killed/poisoned etc. it
would be someone else, possible a player character[retired].

  Wilderness The wilderness would be the start of a pilgrimage to find the
truth of AR. There would be traps,tricks to waylay the adventure and to turn
him from his or her's true quest.

 Revelation Hidden in the depths of a cave behind the immense waterfall that
can be seen even from the city is a metallic door requiring a pass card to
enter. Once open it reveals corridors gleaming with technology far beyond our
own. Further investigation reveals a room that has immense windows/portals and
a view, a view into space.

  Destiny Fighting with high tech equipment (from both revelation, destiny and
if  you run into the aliens that politically are friendly to you plight, the
weapons the riddler has from the dungeon). Searching further this immense ship
you discover a chamber filled with metal cocoons. Using wit and knowledge gain
through other locations you decipher the controls and the display. You learn
that these cocoons hold bodies, the bodies of all of those captured. The
machines keep the bodies physically alive and fit, but imprisoned. The minds
of those entrapped are tapped and fed with images. The ships computer can even
permit the images to interact with solid/material components of the ship. You
are an image. What is reality? You body lies in a cocoon. Your mind sees what
the image sees. What is a soul? What is experience? You experience, you feel
what this image you have been controlling since you kidnapping feels. Again
there are choices to make. In the end you are left with many choices, continue
to live in you image body, a nearly immortal life, but knowning that these
aliens have done this to you and can watch, feel, experience whatever you do
whenever they want. You are thier entertainment. They have become jadded by
luxury , power and knowledge and use lesser beings to regain some of the
passions of life. You can cut off this channel, though they may also destroy
the ship, or earth. You can escape in a smaller ship than the entertainment
world and go back to earth (hoping to evade the future capture ships these
beings send to gain more 'entertainment'. You could destroy the planet[and
hope that they are not a multiplanet race] You can take the entertainment
world(That was orbitting the aliens planet ) and bring it back to earth to let
the scientist learn from it[and hope the aliens don't trace it]. You could
blackmail the aliens. You could sell out humanity. You could try to bluff
them. There are many choices, life isn't easy and some of the most important
decision are the hardest to find a best answer in.

   There were other details I haven't gotten into here(Like a lot of the fun
things to do in each scenerio other than the main plots). And there were/are a
lot of little details to be left until the scenerio each were to be produced.
But from this you can see the main plot and the main suprises that were
originally planned.
               Take Care,
               Phil P.S.
  I think I have mentioned this before...FOr Atari 8 bit City owners if you
type fiat as you character name(while holding down the control key) you get
into another menu which allows some game changes. The only command I remeber
from it allows changing the speed of the numbers spinning by before you walk
through the portal. the command is cela saute aux yeux. I hope I spelled that
right.

Acrinimirils gate was a portal into a true parrallel universe. Acrinimiril
was/is a being from another universe, who had a habit of
adventuring/travelling into many dimensions and universes and getting himself
into heaps of trouble. He was a complete unknown to the aliens and caused them
all sorts of problems. For one since he wasn't run from the computer, he was
not traceable. Also he had a lot of experience in these situations.
Unfortunantly isn't wasn't always very bright about keeping a low enough
profile. And after killing an alien (and getting it's passcard) the aliens
were then able to trace him and finally entrap him for further study. Not all
aliens were for this 'entertainment', and there was planned to have ways to
resolve the ultimate questions through interaction with these aliens also. And
it was also was going to be allowed to go through acrinimirils gate into other
universes at destiny's end.
---------------

	Interesting, eh?  Too bad this fine game died in its childhood.  Sob.

---
John Gordon
gordon@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu       Be a *quality* slaveowner.  Buy American!
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