Quick notes from a brief night stroll

Went in last night and nobody was around. Still noce to have a brief wander nonetheless.

Wandered into the old tree to find deer asleep in there. I sometimes make up mnemonic names for deer I don't know well yet or haven't met enough to put a proper name to, by looking at the shape of their picto. Here we have Left Mouse Click, Space Invader and Cotton Candy.

(I hope this doesn't offend anyone).



It is not often that I meet anyone with horns curlier than mine. These are quite impressive.



Then I came across something I didn't think possible, deer retaining their magical forms inside the zone of the fountain. Can you still cast magic in there, thereby re-transforming base deer within the zone? I must admit I haven't tried that (I don't tend to cast magic much anyway simply because I don't want to annoy deer who are already in their preferred form).

Or is it a glitch that users have learned to exploit? One of the things I find interesting about the game is the way users have discovered various exploits and glitches which allow them to add expressiveness to interactions without actually breaking the game.

I know there was an attempted upgrade to unreal that was never completed, but I have never tried it. To anyone who has tried it, how did it feel compared to the older version? Were any of the exploitable glitches that are routinely used replicated or simulated?

(apologies if I seem nerdy asking this stuff, I love the subjective experience of the game but I am also fascinated by its longevity and its design).



And I am always impressed that even for an ancient game it can still be quite beautiful at times.



After that I went back to the little hill and went to sleep, as everyone else was asleep too. Some nights are quiet and that's fine, it's always relaxing just to have a little stroll even if nobody else is around.

ahahahaah i love these

ahahahaah i love these screenshots so much Yak, it's nice you got a chance to stroll through the forest without the distractions of other deer lol. the first 3 deer are Barkley, played by Janet on the forums, Fjara, played by Klownda on the forums, and Culver, who's forum name is EvergreenGlade. they are all extremely wonderful people. <3

the newer version doesn't have quite a few features of the old game, unfortunately it doesn't even have emotion blending. but there are other tricks that people use in the remake! I haven't played it much, but it's quite different movement-wise than the original. i'm sure others can explain this better than i can.

also, i have no idea how that deer has their set in the Drinkplaats! there are so many crazy and fun things about this game that i still haven't fully discovered, even though i've been playing it off-and-on the past 12 years lol.

i hope that next time, i'll have one of my deer active in the forest, so they can play real soon <3

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p's picture

I just love reading about

I just love reading about your deer's adventures in the forest and all the screen shots make it even better.

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Ah yes I've bumpeed into

Ah yes I've bumpeed into Fjara before, just not enough to have their real name internalised yet. Takes a while but I'll get there. And everyone I've met here since I've come back has been absolutely lovely (and how many online communities can you say that about? Not many, in my experience, and it's one of the many things I find so interesting about this place).

I figured it'd be hard for an updated version to feel like "home" for people who have spent so long here, exactly because users have discovered so many ways to squeeze the maximum of expression out of quirks in the implementation, and have been here so long that it's become second nature.

I'd *love* to see an implementation on a modern engine, because I am sure it could be breathtakingly beautiful, but it'd need to be done in such a way as to not break the feeling of the existing environment, where some of the charm has arisen out of the very limitations of its implementation.

I only wish i could help in some way, but I don't know anything at all about unreal, the stuff I do is on a quirky hand-rolled engine geared towards geometric abstracts and fractal graphical synthesis and entirely unsuited to rendering deer in a forest. And of course it's all entirely non-commercially-viable, it'd just be for the likes of us.

Which is part of what makes it so lovely in the first place.

Perhaps it's best not to fret about updates and just be thankful for what already exists Smiling
I am just an ox.
Yak
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thank you, I am glad you

thank you, I am glad you enjoy my little diaries, I love to make them.

Hope to see you in there soon!

(and in fact I need to get back to more being a deer and less talking about sheep). Laughing out loud
I am just an ox.
Yak
Signature by Saater

"I sometimes make up mnemonic

"I sometimes make up mnemonic names for deer I don't know well yet or haven't met enough to put a proper name to, by looking at the shape of their picto. Here we have Left Mouse Click, Space Invader and Cotton Candy."

Haha I think that's great. I used to make up names for deer as a kid when I had no idea who they were, too.

I really like these entries. They feel like the way TEF is meant to be played. <3