Les Masques du Carnaval [english]

Les Masques du Carnaval is a game I started as a teenager, at the age of 15 to be exact – I found this information in the program itself; comments in the code are always useful, sooner or later.

Strange as it is, I'd simply forgotten it existed, for years and years.

I think that even when I became interested in interactive fiction through Éric Forgeot (with whom I'd been making music for years) in 2007, the memory of this aborted game was still buried, unconscious. I had to go through my floppy disks after repairing my Amstrad a few years ago, and find the files, for it to come back to me.

The story, if you can call it that, can be summed up in one sentence: you wake up in a room, in an unfamiliar house containing several corpses and masks, and you have to figure out how to get out. The few events or game responses to the player's actions don't make much sense, I'm afraid, and the whole thing feels more like a nightmare than a "real story". Nevertheless, I discovered when I went back into the code that Les Masques du Carnaval is my only game so far to contain a puzzle!

I uploaded the game to my itch.io account:

https://stephanef.itch.io/les-masques-du-carnaval

... but the two main French sites dedicated to the Amstrad, CPC Rulez and CPC Power, did me the honor of hosting it there too:

https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/les_masques_du_carnaval.htm

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=16857

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I was also interviewed for the Amstrad.eu website:

https://amstrad.eu/stephane-les-masques-du-carnaval/ 

In case the site disappears one day, God forbid, I'm copying the contents of the article here:

Stéphane is passionate about adventure games such as La Secte Noire, Omeyad, SRAM 2 ...

In 1995, he produced "Les Masques du Carnaval", a text adventure game in Basic.

We took advantage of his visit to the forum to ask him a few questions. He's pleased to take part in this short interview for Amstrad.eu.

Hello Stéphane. Can you briefly introduce yourself? 

My name is Stéphane, I'm 39 and I live in Lorraine.

For the past ten years or so, I've been a frequent visitor to the http://www.fiction-interactive.fr site (and its http://ifiction.free.fr/taverne/ forum), which tries to promote what's known in France as "interactive fiction". A very broad term, but here it refers to video games that are partially or entirely text-based, as many of them were in the 80s on many microcomputers.

And of course on the CPC: everyone knows games like La Secte Noire, SRAM, Omeyad, L'Île and so on. It was through them that I discovered this universe and got a taste for it.

My first steps were taken on a CPC around 88-89, at the home of several friends who owned one. We played games like Kung-Fu Master and Gryzor. I thought they were beautiful, but it was clear to me from the start that I wasn't cut out for arcade games.

It was when I got mine that I discovered Lankhor games. Le Manoir de Mortevielle remains my first real video-game crush. SRAM 2, Omeyad and Le Maraudeur had beautiful graphics and a text-based interface. There were also 100% text-based games like The Hobbit, which I didn't really understand, but which attracted and intrigued me.

I remained faithful to the CPC throughout my adolescence (consoles never really attracted me) for playing or making music (at least integrating it with other instruments for electro compositions) until I switched to the PC in 1999, late in the day...

And then I immediately continued to play Amstrad games, this time on an emulator, discovering loads of games I hadn't had access to. My CPC still works, but for reasons of space, I no longer use it on a daily basis.

Did you have a CPC in 90/91, a CPC old or an Amstrad Plus?

It was a CPC 6128 with a color monitor. I don't know why, but when I first saw the Amstrad Plus, I didn't like the design at all, and the appeal of the cartridges completely escaped me.

Later, a friend lent me a 464 with an external floppy drive for a long time. I used it a lot, even though it wasn't any more interesting than my 6128. But just for the pleasure, even at the time (around 96-97 I'd say), of using hardware that was already a little old, a little outdated. I've always had a fondness for the old-fashioned, fragile side of old machines.

Do you remember its arrival in your family?

Yes, I went to buy it with my father in a Connexion store (quite an era!) where a whole range of microphones were on display. A little later, a colleague gave him a whole collection of floppy disks containing pirated games – dozens of them!

Of course, he couldn't have given them to me new, just like that. He had printed out a few pages of descriptions for each game. I think I still have those somewhere.

Had you ever owned a microcomputer?

No, but I'd already played quite a bit on my friends' CPCs, and I also went to a computer club with a neighbor, where we learned to program on a Thomson (TO7 or MO5, I don't remember). I have to say that I understood absolutely nothing about it. It's a taste that came to me later.

You programmed your game in 1995, so it was late in the day. Why did you create a game at that time?

To be honest, I don't remember. It was a friend of mine who provided me with the code template I used for Les Masques du Carnaval. We often exchanged game diskettes, to which we added files containing drawings we'd made on OCP, or insults in a Basic file, or anything and everything.

In this case, the simple fact that he provided me with the means to create my own game must have been enough to motivate me. I've always loved drawing, writing, role-playing, music and so on. So it was natural for me to try a new mode of expression.

That's my main hobby today, text games.

How did you come up with the idea for the script? Were you inspired by an existing film or book?

Talking about a scenario is very generous of you.

When I found the game's code a few months ago, I mainly asked myself:

"What the hell is this?".

Overall, the "scenario" can be summed up in one sentence. The game consists of 5 rooms and a few objects. In the initial program, you could go down to the cellar, but I removed this possibility because I hadn't planned any role for this room in the game at the time, and I didn't want to add any new ideas in 2019.

So it would be very presumptuous of me to claim that I'm following in the footsteps of a particular author or director...

Why does the game revolve around masks?

The presence of masks comes from the fact that I've always loved carnival or Commedia dell' arte atmospheres. The strange, festive yet slightly frightening aspect of the whole thing.

Let's just say that I was a Stephen King fan at the time, and the sordid, bloody side of the game probably comes partly from that. In fact, the clown in the alley at the end (I'm spoiling but never mind) probably comes from the cover of IT.

Now, I can't explain why you wake up in a house with masks, corpses and spectres disguised as clowns or acrobats. Maybe at the time I was aware that I was making a mess of things, but I was probably just trying to practice writing and coding, for a more serious project later on.

Are you the author of the introductory image? What does it represent? 

No, I didn't create the image. It was created recently by Astrofra, who worked with Éric Safar on Athanor 2. I spoke to him about this game, long before I'd finished correcting the code, as we both frequent the little milieu around the fiction-interactive site, and he suggested this image, which I accepted.

It represents... a mask, a priori!

Can you give us an introduction to the game, and tell us about the story and the goal?

You wake up in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar house, discover bloody scenes, and have to find a way to escape.

Did you also do an English version?

Yes, I did the translation in a few hours. Given the limited amount of text in the program, it wasn't worth doing without an English version, which would bring in a few extra players.

Have you distributed your game?

I've created a page for the game, on itch.io, where you can find my other text games made with Inform 7 and Texture, and I'm also working on Twine. CPC Rulez and CPC Power have also added it to their database, which is a great honor for me, as I've been visiting these sites as a player for years. 

You told me that the CPC was involved in your electro music creations?

My use of the CPC was very short and very limited, but fun. That was about twenty years ago too. I had to make do with a Basic program (found in the machine's user manual) to program noises and sound loops, modifying the parameters completely at random. I used it as a kind of minimalist drum machine for electronic tracks.

A recurring question here: do you have the last word for our friends at amstrad.eu?

Thank you and bravo to all those who are committed to keeping the Amstrad CPC heritage alive. I've been using the site for years to find the games I played as a child, and to make new discoveries.

I hope it lasts!