When I found out that Neverwinter Nights comes with a built in "large hole" placeable object, I knew how I had to do this task. NWN is a role playing computer game that comes with a great scenario editing toolset and an okay scripting language so you can pretty much make anything you can think of. Conveniently, if your character is wearing custom clothing and you enter a standard scenario, your entire torso becomes transparent. This kind of allows you to enter a large hole with mostly just your head.

I added a distorted voice-over in the universe providing semi-mystical commentary as various objects appear and disappear randomly. You could interpret these messages as a sort of fortune telling device. The objects and messages are as follows. A campfire: "The campfire warms but also consumes." A burning figure: "What have you set afire?" A fountain: "The waters of life are never still." A rune circle: "What is inside the circle, and what lies beyond?" A dolphin: "A playful spirit is strengthened." A wagon wheel: "The wheel is for movement." A pile of timbers: "A ruined raft becomes material for construction." A statue of a dragon: "The dragon is turned to stone." A large cage: "Now you can see the cage." An artist's easel: "Both time and space are your canvas."

So I can pop into this universe whenever I feel like hearing a quick semi-mystical fortune. Last time I entered, the first object I got was the dragon statue. My interpretation is that some worry or danger has been rendered harmless.

I already described the minimal story of this universe in the first part of the my macrofiction task documentation, but include here some additional screenshots and a video. (Sorry the video is so short. I only have the demo version of the screen capture software.) The NWN module file itself is posted on Neverwinter Vault, so I guess that website is really my universe delivery system, but you will only be able to enter this universe if you have a copy of the game. The download is here. Let me know if any of you are NWN fans and actually try this out.

On a totally unrelated sidenote, this task involved way too much yak-shaving. Trying to get screen capture software to record audio and then converting to some common format without an obscure codec was driving me nuts. So if folks have suggestions for how to do this kind of thing more easily, I'd be happy to hear about it.