Z-Machine Matter

I've finally got some time to devote to my game The Z-Machine Matter. But rather than dive immediately back into programming, I have been working on tightening up the story.  It's a murder mystery, so the most important thing is to make sure that the suspects, motivations, clues and red herrings all fit together in a cohesive fashion.  No point programming up a bunch of interesting objects if the underlying story doesn't make sense.  

I've also been working on the underlying themes. One area that I've lifted from is the works of HP Lovecraft.  The story is more murder mystery than horror and is set in cold-war era 1950s.  However, it does tie into some interesting themes of Cosmicism as explored in many of Lovecraft's works and makes reference to the fictional town of Arkham Masschussetts and Miskatonic University.

For those seeking a more complete Lovecraft interactive fiction game, there are a good many to choose from including Infocom's The Lurking Horror, Michael Gentry's award-winning Anchorhead, Jimmy Maher's The King of Shreds and Patches, and a recent trilogy of shorter works by Marshal Tenner Winter: The Surprising Case of Brian Timmons, Ill Wind, and Castronegro Blues.

The fine folks over at Despair Inc, purveyors of those famouse "demotivator" posters, have put together a fascinating looking book called "Who Killed John F. Kennedy?" as the first of their "Lose your own adventure" series.  It's a pastiche of the traditional choose your own adventure books with all of the cynicism and satire that you would expect from Despair.  It appears to be loaded up with conspiracy theories, complicated subplots and retro artwork.  

I hope the Kindle version is interactive!

• Despair: Who Killed John F. Kennedy?
• Amazon: Who Killed John F. Kennedy?