Part 1

Back in the Stone Age, aka 1987, I owned a Commodore 64. Some of you may remember my very first LP, which was of a game for the system. Well, I was reminded of this venerable machine by the recent LP thread about it, and I decided to revisit another game I played a fair amount back in the day: Accolade Comics.



Glory in the magnificent representation of a typical 80's bedroom! And at the Commodore 64's amazing 16-color graphics! (The exact limitations of which were somewhat arcane.)



Accolade Comics is, as you might guess, a choose-your-own-adventure in graphical form. It's laid out to resemble a comic book as much as possible, including turning-page animations and individual panels.




Because it was on a computer, however, it included two key features: panel animations (in the original game, only the most recent panel animated, but through the magic of modern technology, I can show you all of them animating at once) and interactivity. (And minigames, but more about them later.)



At some points, you'd move the joystick to one option or another in the panel, then press the fire button to make a decision...





...while in others, you'd select a dialogue option. Like this one!

Go left! Loot! Join the !

Whoa-ho-ho, Sparky, hold on there! Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but this LP is going to handle interactivity a little differently. You see, although there are a few legitimate branches, a lot of the choices are either meaningless or have a 'right' and 'wrong' answer. (A lot like some gamebooks, come to think of it.) So when I do an update, I'll go until a choice that matters, then, at the start of the next update, show the 'wrong' path, followed by the 'right' path.

That sucks. Why participate, then?

Simple: I'm keeping score. Any time a choice potentially leads to imminent, grisly death, you can shout out which answer you think is the right one. If you're right, you get a point! If you're wrong, you don't! Like I said, simple. It should also encourage participation.

So what do we win?

Weeeell, I'm not sure. Maybe a fancy Steve Keene avatar. Maybe nothing but the praise and admiration of your peers. We'll see.

So what are we waiting for?

As it turns out, your first actual choice in the game is a doozy, as the game includes two separate plots! We'll see both before the LP is done, but it's up to you to decide which one we do first.

Bandwagon bandwagon bandwagon bandwagon--

Well, okay. But just this once.