The Caves of Janxrathra

A Letter to Douglas Hofstadter

I wrote an email to Douglas Hofstadter (yes THE Douglas Hofstadter) explaining what I'd done in making The Caves. No one could have been more surprised than I was when he wrote back to me inside of 10 minutes. Do not misconstrue his response as an endorsement, as he made it clear that at 74, he just didn't have time to play or look into The Caves deeply. But he clearly understood what I was up to right away and gave me his best wishes for finding folks to share it with. Just hearing that from the man himself pretty much made this entire project worth it.

It is very hard to describe what The Caves is about for the intended intelligent target audience. The best description of what I've done in making The Caves was that email I sent to Hofstadter. You can find that email over at the XKCD forum here if you like:  http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=125693&sid=928038b3116d8eeef5349be79b844eb3   If you want the Coles Notes version, The Caves is a D&D type game straight out of 1985 with a very simple 3D engine but some fluid and engaging game-play. But that part is just the book-binding; the real story is inside in chapters hidden throughout the game that you are going to have to work very hard to find. I can't just publish the story on its own because part of the message comes from the medium itself. In other words, you have to play through the game to get the full meaning of the story.

I realize that this isn't the typical story you'd see published here.  But this seems like a good place to toss in my message in a bottle.  Just please heed Janxrathra's warning, "Be not deceived. While you may think you are playing just a game, you are in fact projecting your spirit into my realm. And the door that allows you to enter my realm, equally allows my realm to enter you."

Good luck.