Dear Mum & Dad,

I know you haven't heard from me in ages. I heard about the storm. Never expected that much flooding in Ontario again. They were saying we're through the worst of the climate crisis, but maybe that's just talk to calm what's left of the markets. Sorry you lost the house. Lots of great memories there. How are you getting on? Whose floor are you camping out on now?

I just finished basic training. Yes, I got an A-grade, and got a job right away on a station orbiting Altair-III (a.k.a. Tourmaline, an uninhabited planet). Out on the wild frontier! They seem pretty eager to have me. It's only a few weeks' travel from Marsport by the regular supply flight, so I might even be able to see you next Christmas. The idea of actually travelling 16 light-years so quickly still hasn't sunk in. But people do it all the time now. I'll probably get bored on the flight out.

From what I can tell, Tourmaline High Station is a tight-knit community of scientists, engineers and explorers. They apparently carry out plenty of missions through the Altair system, so I hope I'll get plenty of S&R experience. Is that callous of me? Not sure if I'll be starting as a pilot - probably they'll get me polishing brass or washing up their coffee mugs to start with :)

With love - Me.

This is a science fiction action story, based around a simple 2-D orbital simulator, so a section of the story involves flying a spacecraft in orbit around a planet and docking with another craft. No previous knowledge of spaceflight is needed, since there should be enough background and instructions. Please read the notes below first:

FLIGHT MANUAL & AUTOPILOT: Space is huge! Like, REALLY huge! It's hard enough to learn how to light the rocket and accelerate, but how exactly do you rendezvous with another spacecraft, get close enough to match velocity, and dock with it? At times this will seem impossible. And there are so many controls to learn! But fear not - help is available! Firstly, there's a manual which you can read while piloting, in case you can't remember everything you learned in pilot training school. There's also an autopilot, which allows you to get closer to where you need to go. In fact... if you don't mind a low-scoring game, you can probably avoid all that troublesome piloting completely!

TIME:  Because in real life a flight like this could take many hours - even days - there is a button to 'speed up time'. Be careful to use it wisely - if you're running at 1000-second intervals, you may overshoot. Take special care when you're firing the main thruster: I advise that you do your 'burns' at the 1 or 10 second setting. But the game will often return you to 1-second steps when you make certain actions, to help you avoid this scenario.
Your first full playthrough might take as long as 30 or 60 minutes of real-life time. It mostly depends on your piloting!

SAVES: This game uses Javascript. If you save your game while flying the orbital simulator, there's no guarantee that the game will remember where you are, since the extra data for spaceflight has to be saved separately from the CYS variables. [Coders: FYI it uses localStorage.] I've tried a few saves, and it actually remembered where I was in orbit around the planet. But I don't know how long the javascript data will remain on your computer. So it's best to save your game while you're not on the 'Flight Seat' page (or on the Sagan), and if you save while you're in flight, don't expect perfection.

SCREEN SIZE: This was developed on a full-sized laptop screen. It's not intended for phones, but you can try!

BUGS: I wouldn't be surprised if someone finds a bug I haven't seen yet - whether in the code or in the logic of the story. Leave a comment and I'll take a look.
Known issues: 
- sometimes when clicking 'continue' on the flight seat page, the browser hangs for a while. A little patience goes a long way - usually it will resolve.
- if you try to accelerate away from the planet, eventually something will go wrong!
- The radar screen often blinks and forgets its graphic overlay temporarily
- Occasionally the story might forget where some of the characters are meant to be. Just pretend we're talking on our suit radios!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I could not have written the code for the simulator without the help of BradinDvorak .  Thank you! I could write a long article for CYS from all the things you showed me.
Many thanks too are due to Mizal and Ogre11 for replying to posts & questions along the way.

(note: there's now a flythrough to read if a) you have about an hour and b) if you've tried and failed to fly the ship and are tearing out your hair. Go and look in the 'parlour' forum. hush! don't tell anyone. It's a secret.)

I may be an orphan who lives on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, but I have my eyes on the stars. After all, it's 2101 and people are up there exploring other planets! Why should I be left behind?
Oh, you think I don't stand a chance, do you? Cos I'm poor. And black. And you think I'm ignorant, maybe. A fourteen-year old like me is destined to live a hard life of survival on these mean streets, right?
Wrong.
It's my dream, and I hold onto it through all the hard stuff that comes my way. But then one day the worst happens: my only real friend gets snatched by some thugs. I have to get him back!

This story starts on these mean streets, but if I make the right choices and don't give up, I may just reach my dreams after all!

----------------------------------------------------

This is an adventure-puzzle-story, with plenty of story at certain points along the way. It can be quite long, since it has quite a number of locations to visit. If you like to take your time and dive right into a tale, if you're willing to feel what someone else feels, then this could be for you. If all you want is some quick clicks, or meaningless violence, or lots of gold and jewels, you might try somewhere else.

Note: there's a small degree of randomness and some variables-moving-behind-the-scenes, so I hope that no two attempts to play the game will turn out exactly the same. Also... I've tested it to the point where I can't find anything more to fix, but you may find the odd glitch. Please let me know and I'll take a look!

It's listed as Sci-Fi, but this story mainly takes place on Earth, with not much Sci but plenty of Fi. 

EDIT: fixed all the path errors I could find, & play-tested some more. Should be good to play!

I don't know - I haven't tried AI-generated fiction before, that I remember. No, it may be nothing very new.

I gave it a go. I was a journalist arriving on a Mars colony to report on the growing independence movement. It generates fairly convincing narration with some flavour. It's like reading a novel-length work. The choices you get move the story onwards a little at a time. But after a while I got the sense that there was no living author keeping track of some of the details of the plot. There was a meeting I was supposed to have, for example, which never happened. There was a street protest which took over the plot. No explanation of what happened to the meeting. Other details linked together OK.

After a while I came up to the pay wall and stopped. I don't know if the story would have eventually reached a satisfying conclusion, but there was a sense that my choices were affecting the story events.

Is this available on Windows, or just as a phone app?

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts...

William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Hey, all you theatrical people out there! And you others, who love the sound of your own voice! ;)

I've been creating an animated video story in a series of episodes, with voice-overs, and I find myself in need of a few more voice actors as the story expands a little and new characters take the stage in Episode 5.

Intrigued? Read on!

Bored? Click 'Exit and leave comments'.

The story is (predictably, knowing me) science fiction, and I use a popular game called Space Engineers to generate the video. You may have seen a few examples of this in the Altair Search 'n' Rescue story. I build what's essentially a stage set within the game, and find ways to move the people around so that the story flows. It's a lot of fun to make, going from ideas and plot and script to eventually a mini-movie.

Here's a link to the latest (not including the short Christmas Special) episode, but of course, starting from the beginning will give you the whole story. There's a link to the whole playlist in the description.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeG0mNwP_Pc

Right now I'm looking for 2 voices - an aristocratic naval commander and a lowly janitor on the aristocrat's flagship. So far, they're planned as males, but I could change them to female if need be. Other 'walk-on' roles turn up from time to time for people who can't commit to so much.

If you'd like to know more - about voice acting  - or whatever - please do comment here & we can talk.

Merrick Tor attempts to escape his captors

Thanks! I'll look that up.

KSR also wrote some other novels pitched in a similar way. In fact he's a definitely 'prolific' author. Many of his stories appear to be set on near-future earth, but I haven't read 'em....not enough spaceships & planets on the covers for me!

Aurora was another favourite of mine, a generational starship where one of the villains was the constantly evolving smear of bacteria and mold growing in all the crevices and on door knobs, threatening to wipe out the inhabitants. Such a real-world issue.

But the person to person interactions were the centre of the story. Same goes for '2312', like the Mars trilogy somewhat but set all across the solar system. I admire his creativity and ability to keep writing more.

Useful! Keep them droids in their place! We support human artists!

Haha, I was just about to post:

"Excuse my ignorance, but what's MLP?"

I had to go away and look it up. Obviously I've had too much of a shelteted upbringing. I feared it was something like a weird role-playing game called  Mythic Lycanthropy Paranoia.

Epic edition, brave & insightful cutting-edge journalism, not chock full of old-timer in-jokes that would be lost on the relatively noob like me.

Largely fuelled by alcohol & pills, according to media.

Me? I'm both! I got my Canadian citizenship a few years ago, so they couldn't chuck me out so easily.