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Would anyone like to see this? ...


Torque

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I'm planning on creating a little program called "Destiny Determinator" which simply determines what kind of travel package you would qualify for (in the fictional Grim Fandango afterlife that is) if you were to die tomorrow (if you would qualify for a travel package that is). I'm not too good with images or sounds, but I can script stuff and that's the most important part of such a program.

 

The program will be completely independent of the game itself, and fully created from scratch. No copyrights will be violated in any way.

 

Q: How should it work?

A: Well, first all, this program asks for you name and age. A name so it knows what to call you and an age, because it plays an important role in determining your destiny. Very young people (i.e. pre-teens) are forgiven for all sins and automatically get a ticket on the Number Nine. Teens get also get a much easier treatment than adults and usually won't get anything lower than a luxury ocean cruise unless they were really bad.

 

You will never be asked for other details such as race or gender as all souls deserve equal treatment regardless of these aspects.

 

Next you will be asked questions about your life. Any sins commited below teen-age years are forgiven. Intentions, whether or not you made amends before death, whether or not you repented or instead tried to avoid responsibility etc. will also be taken into account. You will be asked stuff like, if you killed people, stole, swindled, exploited people, lied, cheated on your taxes or partners, respected your family and friends etc.

 

There are many things you could qualify for, depending on your life: a double-N ticket, a cruise on the Sea of Lament (plus safe, company transport on land included), a car (with the option of having your own demon driver), buses, demon bodyguards, being packaged in a coffin and shipped in a company truck, a lame Excelsior Line walking stick or simply nothing.

 

[There is of course that possibility that you don't deserve anything and must work some time at the DoD to earn the right to leave.]

 

Suggestions welcome. I'm all ears... :ears1:

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Will it also assign what kind of community service we have to do?

 

Man you have got to include a graphical interface, like the one Manny had on his computer, simple green and black but with boats and buses and all, as well as some other funny stuff thrown in there. Are you scripting or are you actually going to write the program, but don't know how to do all the fancy graphic generation? I hope someone could help you with that.

 

But we definitily could all help in thinking about questions and scaling the community service or time in the land of the dead appropriatly. Probably the hardest one will be what you had to do to become a grim reaper, which will involve what we thought Manny did in life, then again maybe the community service is optional, but the LENGTH in that service will differ. You think you'll judge on both time to be spent in the land of the dead AND type of work?

 

Maybe the community service should depend on what the person did as work in their life, or maybe you can make it Danteish and make the community service suit their sins (like maybe Manny was a used car sales man who sold a couple a bad car that got them in an accident, so he's forced to make sales to people, or something.

 

This should be a lot of fun!

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Well, I could do a beta when I get enough free time, it shouldn't take too long. Then you can tell me what you think, how it can be improved, that sort of thing. I'm just not very sure how to add images, even if I had them, but I'll look into it.

 

Oh, and images should be completely new and not look far too similar the originals.

 

The way I was thinking, you start off with 100 points and you'd need somewhere between 95-100 to qualify for a double-N ticket. Every sin, depending on consequences and circumstances, reduces points, while good deeds may add points, though if you did something really bad, you blow any chance of ever getting a double-N ticket. 0 to 10 points mean you only get a walking stuff or just something no very good. -1 to -9 means you don't get anything and have to walk. Lower than -10 means you get community service and yes it should depend on what jobs or skills you had in real life.

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Good question.

 

There will be much more questions than the ones Manny asks, but I want this program to be neutral to religious beliefs and practices (or lack of) and only judge a person's worth based on their deeds, their contribution to society, not their religion. So choosing the "wrong religion", working on Sabbath, eating cow meat, premarital sex (itself), being atheist or agnostic etc. are not viewed as sins, but things that are widely accepted in modern society as being harmful/immoral are. These include murder, theft, fraud or tax evasion, exploitation of people, lying, adultery, not caring about the environment, acts that are generally viewed as sexual deviance (excluding homosexuality), selfishness, cruelty (including against animals) and much, much more...

 

So, while there are higher powers in Grim Fandango, the evaluation is from a secular/consequentialist point of view. (In short, if it harms society/people/living things, it's probably bad.)

 

 

By the way, what type of community service should corrupt politicians get? :D I say scrubing toilets at the DoD, but that's just me though...

 

 

PS: I may not be too good with images, but I think I could easily manage a black screen + green text + animation. You know, like in Celso's file where that line drops below a point and all the good stuff gets crossed out. LOL ;)

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