Blue Lacuna — 187 of 467

Section - Endgame Storm

[To preserve forward momentum in the last few chapters of the story, we create a night time storm that descends on the island during the player's visit to the first of the two endgame worlds. The storm prevents leaving the mountaintop until both worlds are visited.]

endgame-dispersing clouds is a backdrop with printed name "dispersing clouds". Understand "cloud" or "clouds" or "patches" as endgame-dispersing clouds.

To set up the endgame storm:

say "[line break]The weather has changed in your absence. [unless night]Night has fallen, and b[else]B[end if]lack storm clouds race across the darkened sky, bruised by dull flashes of lightning. Wind whips over the exposed mountain peak, swirling dust and grit into eddies that disappear over the cliff edge into darkness.";

change the time of day to 10:30 PM;

now the time factor is 1;

move storm clouds to Outdoors.

To set up the endgame afterstorm:

begin chapter 10;

change the time of day to 10:30 PM;

now the time factor is 1;

move endgame-dispersing clouds to Outdoors;

remove storm clouds from play;

say "The storm seems to be moving by; ever-widening patches of stars shine down from above, and the wind now feels warmer and calmer.".

Some storm clouds are a backdrop. The description is "The black clouds swallow up the sky; flashes of lightning dart constantly between them.". Understand "stormclouds" as storm clouds.

Every turn when storm clouds are on-stage and location is regionally in Lacuna:

add potential messages from the Table of Endgame Stormage, only one;

increase estormctr by 1;

[Sometimes testers would get stuck after the first world because they couldn't remember the password they'd set for the second, and the storm prevented them reaching any trees to dream and remember. The line below was added to prompt players who get stuck here.]

if estormctr is 10 or ( estormctr > 10 and a random chance of 1 in 6 succeeds ) , say "The two [o]passwords[x] float through your racing mind.".

estormctr is a number that varies. Understand the command "passwords" as "inventory".

Table of Endgame Stormage

Going down is stormy behavior. Pushing the bucket is stormy behavior. Entering the bucket is stormy behavior. Before stormy behavior when location is regionally in Lacuna and storm clouds are on-stage: say "Until this storm dies down, until the danger of winds and lightning have passed, you're probably safer staying put." instead. Before stormy behavior when location is Lawn and endgame-dispersing clouds are on-stage and sb-warning-flag is false: now sb-warning-flag is true; say "You pause for a moment before you go, getting a strange feeling that you may never return to this spot. If you want to make any changes, now is the time." instead. sb-warning-flag is a truth state that varies.