
Sleep is Death : a storytelling game by Jason Rohrer - djnym
http://sleepisdeath.net/
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psawaya
Preview at Boing boing: <http://boingboing.net/features/rohrer.html>

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petercooper
Just want to second this, for anyone without the patience or time to go
through a 100+ set of slides on the official site (seriously) :-)

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tome
Although I'd say the slides are definitely worth it!

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_delirium
Interesting. I haven't played yet, but I saw a video of a talk where he was
talking about how this is his response to interactive drama. Essentially,
instead of aiming at deep, believable AI characters with coherent yet non-
linear plotlines, he just has one of the players be that "deep AI", sort of
like D&D on a computer.

(He doesn't like the D&D comparison, though.)

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GFischer
I comented about it here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250519> , that
they "rediscovered" the role of the Dungeon Master from paper RPGs (and I
think Neverwinter Nights and other computer RPGs might have something similar,
though I don't know if it does).

Why doesn't he like the comparison? It's perfectly appropriate here.

Edit: I found this article [http://www.destructoid.com/preview-sleep-is-death-
player-mod...](http://www.destructoid.com/preview-sleep-is-death-player-mode--
169272.phtml) where he highlights the differences: "The first and most obvious
difference, the time constraint, essentially turns Sleep is Death into
performance art. ". Ok, that's a point in its favor.

The second point is not valid "The computer screens that separated us gave the
experience both a sense of tangible believability" as there are computer RPGs,
though this might be a better / more freeform implementation (and that might
be a killer feature)

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DannoHung
> "The first and most obvious difference, the time constraint, essentially
> turns Sleep is Death into performance art. ". Ok, that's a point in its
> favor.

No it isn't. Players aren't going to sit around waiting more than a few
seconds for a DM to react to what they do.

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irondavycole
I've been playing SID for the past few days. The interface is fairly confusing
but the 'gameplay' is absolutely fantastic. Highly recommended.

At first the 30 second limit seemed outrageous, but once you find the rhythm
it makes for a really engaging experience. You start becoming less ambitious
and the scenes tend to become more driven by dialogue and character. A great
decision on Rohrer's part.

When you buy the game, you get two licenses so you can send a copy to a friend
and start playing immediately. There are also player matching sites springing
up like sidtube.

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RevRal
Going to <http://sidtube.com> is the only time I have ever smiled about my
cursor changing on a website.

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romland
_gasp_ Gimme my Amiga pointer!

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niels
Jason Rohrer has done some interesting things. He is the author of MUTE. A p2p
network with a high level of anonymity. Also he lives a very spartan life,
entirely off donations from the users of his software (at least he used to).

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RevRal
If anyone here is interested in playing when it comes out tomorrow, let me
know. My email is in my profile.

I don't know how this works with playing with multiple other persons. I hope I
don't have to buy more than one copy.

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kiba
It is only two players as far as I know.

However, since the source code is public domain and come with the game, you
probably can hack it to support multiple players and controllers as well.

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kiba
Rohrer is looking for up to 5 of the best stories in a contest:
<http://sleepisdeath.net/amazingStories.php>

200 bucks via paypal for anyone who managed to get selected.

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barryfandango
I thought sleep was the cousin of death.

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gojomo
Do you think Zynga is working on a clone that works inside Facebook, yet?

