Game File: 

appraiser.html

YOU BECAME AN ART APPRAISER OVERNIGHT? JUST WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? ENTER SAFETY NETS, ACCORDION ASTROLOGY, DISASTROUS ETYMOLOGY.

Game File: 

IWTBTM.zip

I made a masocore game, with me as the protagonist!

FUN TIMES AHEAD, TOOT TOOT

press keys to move

This code is largely based on some original macros posted to the Google Group by, er, somebody. These take a YouTube video ID and plays the audio of that video invisibly in the background of your Twine game. The player will require Flash installed, of course.

http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/files/TwineMacros-YouTubeAudio-2.1.0.txt (Last updated 16/3/14)

What I've done is upgrade it in the following ways:
* The volume slider is removed, on the basis that most authors will probably not have much call for it. Also, it required jQuery and jQuery UI, which not only inflated the footprint of the script, but may have interfered with other jQuery-using Twine scripts.
* It supports multiple sound tracks per story, and lets you play them simultaneous with each other if you so wish.
* The script will attempt to preload all of the videos, ensuring that they play as soon as their macros are called. (Note: currently it only preloads the tracks from the start, so this performance gain may not be seen when starting playback from the middle of the track.)
* A few more macros are provided, roughly in line with my HTML5 audio macros: <<unloopbgm>> and <<pausebgm>>.
* The code has less implicit globals. (This is a meaningless distinction.)
* There should be more informative error messages for specific error codes.

The macro names themselves are similar, but I made the following changes: <<playbgm>> now plays the audio once, and <<loopbgm>> causes it to constantly loop. Otherwise, they function identically.

Note: For browser security reasons, local HTML files are prohibited from accessing network files through a Flash embed. So, you have to test these macros by running the game from a web server.

Usage examples
*<<playbgm iHBWZn9re0U 32>> plays the YouTube video starting from 32 seconds in.
*<<playbgm iHBWZn9re0U>> plays the YouTube video from the beginning, or resumes it if it was paused.
*<<stopbgm iHBWZn9re0U>> stops the sound track.
*<<loopbgm iHBWZn9re0U>> makes the sound track constantly loop (although it may not quite be seamless).
*<<unloopbgm iHBWZn9re0U>> stops it from looping.
*<<pausebgm iHBWZn9re0U>> pauses the sound track.
*<<stopbgm iHBWZn9re0U>> stops playback and resets its position to the start.

_{Feel free to report any bugs to @webbedspace.}

Game File: 

spacepatrol.zip

Video game. Make for jam! Stop things from reach side other.

So I've never really brought this up because I don't want to gripe about something that I'm not actively offering to help change, but maybe if I put this on the table we can talk about it and go from there. I have issues with the way Glorious Trainwrecks is laid out; my two major problems -- though they're not mutually exclusive -- are with the hierarchization and accessibility of information, and the visibility of new or dynamic content.

Visitors to the front page don't see a whole lot of activity going on -- they're presented with a big ol' jpeg of a trainwreck that was pulled from wikipedia and an (awesome) mission statement/call-to-arms, neither of which have basically changed since the site's creation. They're also shown a mess of links along the sidebar by which they can access the bulk of the site. (Some of these links are mostly rendundant: "Forums" shows -- and it's the only place that shows -- the one- or two-line descriptions of each of the four forums, but they're each directly accessible in the sidebar; "Wiki" also provides short descriptions of its sidebar sub-links, though the page has a link missing from the sidebar and the sidebar has a link missing from the page; etc.) Finally, tucked in the lower-left corner, they see the only variable content: a table of upcoming events (there's generally just one, of course) and a list of users currently online.

I wouldn't exactly say that it's uninviting. But it doesn't do visitors (and especially returning visitors) any favours in terms of letting them get at games we've made or presenting them with interesting recent happenings on the site. I think it might be more interesting and engaging to devote frontpage space to new developments, and perhaps a rotating or randomized spotlight on less-recent games that we think are still worthy of attention. Breathtaking Triumphs has already been established for essentially the same purpose -- except that, by virtue of being just another link in the sidebar, it hasn't given these games much greater visibility. The frontpage manifesto is important, since it conveys where we're coming from and what we're about. I'm just not sure it needs to be the first thing people see, especially now that we're established and have been around for a little while. Maybe there could be a prominent, attention-getting "HEY YOU! MAKE GAMES!" button that leads to a page containing it, plus ways to get involved with the site.

Let's go back to the sidebar for a second. There's a lot of stuff there, even for users who aren't logged in. It's not atrociously confusing or unintuitive, but I think it makes the site a bit more difficult to navigate and explore than it needs to be. It might sound a bit trifling, but it is the primary way to get at the meat of the site. It's less of an issue for regulars who mainly use the RSS feed or Recent changes page. Again, though, it's not doing visitors any favours. Aside from the little redundant bits I mentioned, there's also a few items that don't need to be there at all ("Search," for example, when there's a search bar right below it. Provides access to an advanced search, yes, but that should just be accessible under the search bar itself.) and the remaining items could be grouped and arranged a little better to emphasize frequently-used functions.

There are a few other things I could go on about, but I'll stop there. I'm not even sure how easy Drupal layouts are to tweak, and I don't want to sound like an absolute wankhat bitching about difficult-to-change peculiarities of the system or something. (Too late?) In any event, I just think that we have excellent things going on here, and I don't want them to be harder to get at than they need to be thanks to difficult site design.

Game File: 

MyPetThing.zip

A virtual pet who you can take care of (feed), decorate its habitat (the poster!), and dress it up (click the toy box!). As requested by some beautiful contributor. Thanks contributor!

As complex as a flickgame gets. Confusing. Ambiguous.

Trainwrecks are art (at least mine are, but I'm pretty sure all other trainwrecks are art too, including even those that are definitely not, and excluding a professional-looking game of some dude who is more popular than me in some other circles that got no comments at all, hahaha serves him right for being successful), so provide some artistic analysis!

Check it out, or at least read the tags.

Also there's a cheat option implemented so don't use it.

Game File: 

protecte.zip

Protect your stupid yellow city with your stupid yellow hair. Rockets don't hurt you.

Arrow Keys to move, Z to shoot.

Survive.

use mouse

In this game you play the part of a disillusioned worker at a very well run power plant. One day the power plant goes wrong! But due to planning and good management everything turns out fine. Then another day it goes wrong again! This time it is up to you to fix it. Keep the reactor stable for as long as you can!