(no subject)

[telophase]

This story begins as someone who appreciates life's small things investigates a mystery about a clockwork prosthetic limb. Clues include a freeze ray and trying too hard to look cool. The villain is revealed to be a criminal mastermind.

Well, yeah, I'd say if you're using a freeze ray to look cool then you're definitely trying too hard.

ETA: OK, this new team sentence structure is totally cool. XD

A team of explorers consisting of a misunderstood loner, an avenger, a recovering junkie, a roughneck, and someone playing matchmaker discover an artifact from the Congo. Complications ensue, including poetry, crickets chirping at night, and a personality clash.

Comments

using a freeze ray to look cool

[mustangsally78.livejournal.com]

Dr. Horrible much?

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

The "not steampunk enough" problem might be solvable if you can assign elements "weighting"?

I am amazed at how *good* most of the results are---good meaning, that they seem entirely plausible. In fact most are more plausible than the "I read this book and can't remember the title" kinds of plot summaries on the various blogs, lists, and newsgroups dedicated to that.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Assigning weighting would mean recoding the basic engine, and as I'm using it pretty much unchanged from dragonscholar's free generator script, I'd rather not do that. :D (Because of the work involved, not because I'm opposed to changing it.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

And to reply to the second part of your comment - when I was doing the original Cool Bits generator, once I figured out that the secret is in the grammar and structure of the sentences plugged in it, and you just have to categorize the elements correctly, it fell together.

If you're interested in looking at the code behind it, I just zipped together the two files as they stand. steampunk-2008-07-27-4PM.zip (http://www.magatsu.net/steampunk/steampunk-2008-07-27-4PM.zip). The index.php file contains the script doing the actual work and the HTML for the page, while filedat.dat contains the sentences and the elements.

[omnivorously.livejournal.com]

Btw, I love these. And I do wonder who the matchmaker is trying to match. The loner and the junkie? The avenger and the roughneck? Or perhaps the matchmaker has polyamorous sentiments! ohmy

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You know, come to think of it, I've never read a story about a matchmaker for polyamoury. XD