The End of He-Man!
for Interpreter (TADS)

Mr Creosote:
Company: Mr Creosote
Year: 2002
Genre: Adventure
Theme: Apocalypse / Based on Other Media / Sword & Sorcery / Text-based
Language: English
Licence: Freeware
Views: 27105
Review by Mr Creosote (2002-02-26)
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The Good Old Days' second birthday special - an Adventure walking along the fine line of cheesiness and geeky fan-ideas.

The main technical difference to all my other games is that I didn't use a full-blown sophisticated language anymore. Much too much fuss. Instead, I relied on TADS (Text Adventure Developement System), a free C++ like language specialized on IF. The main reason I chose TADS and not Inform or any of the other competitors is that TADS is very easy to learn. It's purely event-based. That means to program a game, all I had to do is define the objects, locations and persons and set routines how they interact with each other. The TADS engine connects it all then with the already great parser which comes with it. Of course I also added to and customized that one. But a big chunk of the work of a real game engine (which none of the older games have) didn't have to be made - I could concentrate on the contents of the game! The source code writte by me is over 2000 lines long. Then add even more for the engine and you get the picture how much work has been put into this.

I had 'rediscovered' the Masters of the Universe a few years ago - like so many of my age. For the first time I really understood how the series had developed over the years. From a barbarian, Conan-style adventure to a kids series. From action figures to a cartoon (not meaning there weren't action figures in the end of course, but that they got less important than another part of the overall marketing - namely the cartoon).
As much as I loved (and still love) the series, I was very sad about the many missed opportunities. Sure, the 'naive innocence' of the cartoon is also nice in its own way. But if you've read some of the earlier comics, you'll know what potential was wasted in fact by flattening the series down to a pure childrens' audience!
Many 'fan-fiction' authors have already tried writing more 'mature' stories set in the MOTU universe (better keep the abbreviation here - sounds silly otherwise ;). The vast part is written by pure fans who don't necessarily have great writing skills of course. And so don't I. Mine are most likely even a lot inferior to the fan-fic authors! Second point was that I don't like pure passive reading that much. Classic games are my main addiction. So the thought to cover up my lack of good writing by calling it a 'game' came in handy.

The story goes one (or even more) steps further than most amateur authors' works. That is why it could be that some fans will feel strongly repulsed by this strange plot and the way the characters act not like they're used to. That is ok of course. But keep in mind that this is my interpretation, my view on how the Masters should and could have been! I didn't write this game for children, but for an adult audience. Before you get the wrong idea: no, 'adult' not in the meaning of 'porn' of course, you horny pervert :P
The main source have been the comics made by DC, i.e. the first two series' of minicomics and the five regular format ones. Fans will know what that means: Expect some violence! But violence is not my point really. The main idea behind the story was to set the ideal role-model He-Man with his overly good attitude and his oh-so-high morals into a world which isn't like him (i.e. easily fractionized in 'good' and 'bad'), but which is more like reality. Of course it's still a fantasy world and the problems are of extreme nature. But everything's not as simple as it seems at first. But that's up to you to discover....

There isn't a version for Microsoft Windows anymore, due to lack of a readily available system to create it on. The offered version can be played on any system for there is a TADS2 interpreter. These include Linux, Amiga, MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Unix, Atari ST/Falcon, Acorn, MacOS, PocketPC, BeOS, Psion, FreeBSD, SunOS and OS/2. Check here and here for interpreters.

If you find bugs or just want to comment on the game, feel free to contact me.

Disclaimer: This is not a review, because I made this game myself and therefore can't be objective about it. Hence the rating.

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