New: The 999 Worlds of Ummm (commercial, open-ended, email, human, fantasy) From: lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 01:13:08 +0000 Name: The 999 Worlds of Ummm Costs: 50 GB pence per turn URL: http://www.bobbyk.demon.co.uk/ummm.html Frequency: one per week Email: bobbyk@bobbyk.demon.co.uk Type: open ended fantasy world exploration game Last-Update: 2001Nov19 Keywords: commercial, open-ended, email, human, fantasy Description: Ummm was not a very good God. That's not to say he was an Evil God, just that if you checked his Certificate of Godliness (required by anyone wanting to practise in Godly arts) you'd notice three suspicious spelling mistakes, and some pretty poor grammar. At school he'd never really seen the point of studying the thousands of Gods and the myriad of wondrous worlds they'd created. To him it was obvious, cough up a star, chuck some planets round it, and instead of waiting those millions of dull years for life to evolve and worship you, simply pop to a nearby neighbour and steal some worshippers from there. Of course although this worked well for Ummm it was a bit tough on his poor worshippers. Pop out for a pint and a loaf of bread before Thursday afternoon worship at the local Golden Pimple, and suddenly find a Godly hand decending on you from above (often to the theme tune from Monty Python). Then there was the matter of actually running a world. Most truly religious people believe that their God (or Gods) are omnipotent and all the bad things that happen to their followers have to be either deliberates tests of faith, or due to the failings of the worshippers, certainly never any fault of the God(s). Sadly the reality is far less inspiring, with every earthquake, flood, famine, and meteor indicating another God falling behind in the day to day maintenance of a world. To be fair, we've all done it - got caught up at work writing a particularly sharp and witty e-mail only to check our "to do" list the next morning and realise we were meant to be deflecting several million tons of meteor the previous afternoon. Now Ummm definitely wasn't into regular checks of the plumbing, heating, and alignment of his worlds. Far easier was to grant his newly stolen and bemused worshippers all numbers of great powers so they could look after themselves. But so traumatic was the translocation of Ummm's stolen worshippers that most completely failed to grasp the subtleties of their new surroundings, cross wired their new superpowers, and vanished. So what could Ummm do. His followers needed superpowers to survive when he was watching the Witch Troll destroy her latest group of contestents on the Weakest Link, but they had developed an unerring ability to melt themselves the first time they picked their nose with the wrong finger. Like all really tricky problems, the solution came to Ummm on the toilet (contrary to popular belief, the toilets of the Gods do not all empty into Stoke - it just smells that way). What Ummm needed to do was weed out the stupid, the unlucky, and the particularly addicted to multi-finger nose picking; leaving him with only those worshippers capable of handling such powers as he might bestow. And for once Ummm had a good idea. If he created not 1 but a series of worlds, each increasing in size, powers, complexity, and danger - he could leave natural selection to do the rest. Those worshippers clever and lucky enough to locate and learn how to use their powers would progress through the worlds with eventually, the one strongest becoming powerful enough to deputise completely for Ummm when he wanted to play Quake. And that's all the guide book said. Ten minutes you'd said you'd be when you left for some white wine and Sugar from the local store. And that Godly hand had not even been washed recently, the nails were filthy. Now you stand facing an attractive red totum pole with the helpful message "Er, behind you" inscribed across it. Still clutching your guide book, a bottle of white wine, and a now split bag of sugar you turn slowly round to prove to Ummm you are worthy of his trust and power, and that you can be his right hand god. And when you have all that power - well then you'll teach him to ask before he picks you up in the High Street ! ***** Ummm is an open ended play by e-mail game in which players explore a series of ever larger and more dangerous worlds, picking up new skills, and improving existing skills along the way. Co-operation with other players may well appeal to some, whereas annihilation of anything that moves will definitely appeal to others (Phil for example). The 999 Worlds of Ummm are traversed via a series of portals. Every world has an arrival portal at which all players start in safety and secrecy, and a departure portal from which they will be transported to the arrival portal in the next world. There is no way in Ummm to travel back to an earlier world - this means that new players can join any time without being instantly destroyed by older, more powerful players. Players may have as many characters in the game as they wish, but only one in each world (to avoid a single player forming an army and taking over too easily). Thus a player with characters in worlds 3, 4, and 5 must move the character in world 5 on to world 6 before they can move the character in world 4 on to world 5, and finally the character in world 3 on to world 4. Each world in Ummm has its own terrain ranging from easily traversed grasslands to tiring mountains. All characters start on the same square as the arrival portal and whilst on this square they are hidden from all players and safe from attack. They can also return to this square to rest and recover at any time during the game, assuming of course they can make it back. Hidden elsewhere in the world is the exit portal which takes players to the next world, and 1 or more ability monoliths. By moving onto an ability monolith a player gains a new ability. However it is by using abilities that players get more proficient at them. Some players may look to become novices in every ability, other players may just pick a couple of abilities and look to become masters in those. The 1st world of Ummm has only 1 ability monolith in it, the 2nd world has 2, the 3rd world has 3, ..... and the 999th world is a very crowded place indeed :-) Turn around time in Ummm is approximately weekly. From the day that the game update is e-mailed to all players, you will have a full 7 days to send your moves back in. Moves for all players are then processed at the same time, and the next game update then sent out. Although this means that updates will not always be sent out on the same day, it does mean you could always process your moves on the day of the week if you wish. Unlike Genetess, The 999 Worlds of Ummm will not be completely free. Each character will cost 50 pence per week to play. But to allow players to try the game out I will not suspend a character unless the account for that character drops below 10 pounds in debt. So effectively you could play for 20 weeks before deciding you don't think the game is worth 50 pence per week. You could even play for 20 weeks with one character then abandon that one, and start another character up for a free 20 weeks, but I hope everyone doesn't try to do this :-) Characters will also only be charged for if they make a move - a character just sitting around doing nothing will not be charged for. Why am I charging for this game ? Well eventually I hope to reitre to the hills and do nothing but run games and watch Ipswich on Sky Sports. And according to my calculations, The 999 Worlds of Ummm will allow me to do this when I am only 755 years old. [ This is a new entry for the PBM List. You can find the list itself, and instructions for adding games or comments, at http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/ -- greg ] Up