nomeansnoquest/README.md
m3ultra 50817ced59 NOMEANSNO QUEST v1.0 — the first MRPCI game
Six rooms of band history: the 1979 basement (Portastudio, Mom, the Castle box), D.O.A. at UVic, the alley wall that named the band, Alternative Tentacles 1987 (Jello signs you), the Roskilde main stage 1994 (MODELBEAST flux matte painting quantized by the engine; ops paint only walkability + cycling footlights), and the Polish field 1997 (the $2,500 van ransom — with one fatal dialogue option to prove checkpoint mercy). 60 points, deterministic playthrough in tests/, zero engine forks: pure game data + rhai. Generated art via tools/gen_sprites.py + gen_rooms.py.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-26 20:49:05 +10:00

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# NOMEANSNO QUEST
*Two brothers. One basement. Sixty thousand lighters. $2,500 in kroner.*
The first game built on **[MRPCI](../mrpci)** (the SCI-generation Monster
Robot Party engine). You are Rob Wright, Victoria BC, 1979 — play through
the true(ish) history of NoMeansNo: the D.O.A. gig that lit the fuse, the
graffiti that named the band, the Portastudio demo, Jello Biafra's office,
the Roskilde main stage in '94, and a certain van in a certain Polish field
in '97. Six rooms, 60 points, one extremely fatal thing you can say to a
man in a tracksuit.
A fan tribute, played with love. Read *NoMeansNo: From Obscurity to
Oblivion* (PM Press) for the real thing.
## Play
```sh
./run.sh # needs ../mrpci checked out alongside
```
Right-click cycles verbs (walk/look/do/talk), or press Enter and just type
(`use blank tape on portastudio`). `I` inventory · F5/F7 save/restore ·
F8 is the room editor if you want to remodel the basement.
## Repo layout
Pure game data — no engine code lives here (engine changes go to mrpci):
```
game.json manifest: Rob as the ego, verbs, 60-point score
rooms/room0-5.json generated by tools/gen_rooms.py (edit that, not these)
scripts/*.rhai story logic: flags, the demo, the show, the ransom
sprites/*.png generated by tools/gen_sprites.py (pixel people + props)
pics/roskilde.png MODELBEAST flux_local matte painting (tools/mb_background.py)
tests/playthrough.jsonl canonical win path — replay with:
mrpci-headless --game . --script tests/playthrough.jsonl
```
The Roskilde room is the house art workflow demonstrated: an AI matte
painting supplies the look, the room's ops paint only walkability, depth
and the cycling footlights over it. The engine quantizes the painting to
the room palette at load.
## History points the game leans on
- 1979: the brothers, the basement, the 180 lb TEAC Portastudio, Mom's laundry
- 1980: D.O.A. at UVic; the anti-rape slogan on a wall becomes the name
- 1987: Jello Biafra licenses *Sex Mad* to Alternative Tentacles
- 1994: Roskilde main stage, after Peter Gabriel, when Sepultura's van died
- 1997: the gear van stolen in Poland, ransomed back for $2,500 in a field
- 2015/2016: Hall of Fame; retirement after 37 years, no hiatus, no drama