
README for THE PORTRAIT: A taste of ISEKAI

Welcome to my little excerpt of Isekai, named "The Portrait" !

This excerpt contains the first four room (of 103, as of April, 2024) from
the very beginning of Isekai, and features the titular portrait, whose has
more than two scores of separate details to be looked, the initial puzzle,
and the first steps of the voyage of discovery of the PC.

I don't hide that I'm heavily influenced by Marnie "FemaleDeer" Parker's
concept of "IF art" and the shift from puzzle-centered IF to
narrative-centered IF during the turn of the millenium, and I have put in
the /extras directory three .txt files, containing a definition of IF art
and the rules (more guideline than rules, in fact) of the first two
now-forgotten IF Art contexts, which I think that can illustrate well
enough this concept.

Is obvious that the titular portrait is in the "still life" category of IF,
but is less obvious that the entire Isekai map is a large "landscape", and
that Isekai's two major NPC, whose happens to be portraited in the
painting, will be in the "portrait" category of IF Art (I don't hide that I
hope that these two NPC will at least comparable with Galatea... but I'm
digressing on matters more than two years ahead in future...)

Back to the titular portrait... has 46 details, and the full scoring duly
keep track of how many details are discovered, but I evaluate that is
really hard getting all 46 details, so I have set up that after a
reasonable number of painting's details discovered, will be offered an
option to ending the story. (I think that how the offering is delivered
will draw a smile to the players...)

A sad note is that, contrary to even my mindset, I haven't added the source,
because the sanitising work (that is, removing not only spoilerish comment
on Isekai, but also the not few notreached, and spoilerish, code related to
Isekai) was too much to be done in the short time allowed for the Spring
Thing and its Backgarden, so the source will be released together the
inevitable post-backgarden release :(

So, I hope that the lingering isekai code, albeit theorically not reachable
during the excerpt don't raise its ugly head, can cause inconsistencies
(one inconsistency was noted during the ßtest, but I haven't fixed well in
time, I fear...)

Back to nicer things... Half of the 4-room map can seems unneeded, but I
kept these because, well, they contribuite to the "Taste of Isekai"
subtitle, so please feel free to comment on the setting. I think that the
world of Railei can be an interesting one.

On the license, well, is nominally open-source, nominally because of the
reasons explained above, but for now consider is as a standard public
domain binary until the release of the despoilered sources alongside the
post-comp (post-backgarden ? Post-thing ??) release.

The most interesting licensing thing is that I not only full allow, but also
encourage non-profit derivative work in form of "fan fiction/art" in the
spirit of Japanese dojinshi, only requirement, a complimentary copy of the
derivative work; but I warmly recommend waiting for the release of Isekai,
If not for avoiding incongruences, albeit as a Trekkie, I don't care much
about incongruences...

On fan art, I'm very curious if the titular portrait will ignite the
creativity of the visual artist in our little community...

waste of (virtual, at least, but still a waste...) paper for the two final
lines... oh, well:

Last but not least thing, this is an anticipation of Isekai, whose release
is planned, or to be honest, hoped, sometime in late 2026, so I really like
a constructive feedback, whose IS one of the objectives of this excerpt.

Happy Adventuring from your Imp,

                                                     Piergiorgio d' Errico

