hey MS, sorry for the slow response. I've been crawling through a somewhat scrambled backup of mnet, saved right before the big crash! Remember that? The new 'nets are so much better.. nad yeah so, I'm hoping to preserve as much of the platform as possible. people sure liked to talk a lot on it! can you imagine if I just let this stuff rot, like the mnet founders did? anyways, I came across the title of a game for the MunsterBox I don't think you've ever featured on your site! I figured you'd be interested, so I retrieved everything I could that mentions it, which unfortunately amount to just three posts. and some of the data is corrupted, blah, of course. btut I'll let you know if anything more happens to turn up! xuder out ------

GHOST MUMPS: EPISODE 2 Retrospective/h3> by TimTedH, posted to mnet/leisure/digital/role-playing/reviews
"A stunning and surprising role-playing adventure for your electronics system." Author: Luxumware Retail Price: 2.7% income value Accessories required: Microphone (included) Availability: for bargin bin hunters Exclusivity Alert! Only playable on version 3.5 or older MunsterBoxs GHOST MUMPS: EPISODE 2 (shortened to GME2) drops us into its world cold, and soaking. The story begins in the unnamed protagonists' bathtub (it is the protagonist who is unnamed, not the bathtub, which is simply called "bathtub"). We are treated to a lengthy monologue as we hear their thoughts, as if they are taking the moment of calm to ruminate on the choices they've made in their life. It feels very natural and helps us get into their mind, an necssary beginning step for any role-playing experience- awhich is why, of course, they have no name or pronouns assigned, letting the player insert themselves into their place. I don't know why I am explaining this because any reader will know this already. Im summary, the important points are that Your Name has worked as a thief for years, becoming quite reknowned for your skills. Your speciality is grave robbing, which is why you are taking a bath in the first place. Filthy work... But in addition to getting your hands dirty, your consciense is too. You were going to quit the job today and become a grocer instead, but you got a strange phone call... Before you recall the call itself, we are flashed back to a few hours prior, and direct control begins. Now, part of what makes GME2 so "stunning", as claimed by the marketing tagline, is the not just inclusion of but requirement to use your own voice to tell the program what you intend to do. You can answer the ringing phone by saying "Command Lift Object Phone", although it will likely take you a few attempts to figure out the exact words and articulation required by the software! Interestingly, It is completely text based, as any other role-playing system, and by freeing your hands it allows you to eat some pizza and burritios while you play. Gone are the days of hurriedly typing into a keyword parser, and now to partake in new role-playing experiences we will be emboldened by fumbling over syllables with our own throats. No longer do we need a response to typing `> help`, or really, any instruction at all! Obviously, we want to immerse ourselves into the world all the more, and so we shall treat the player as the a tool in the chain, enabling them to think aloud as we do in our day to day lives, because everybody thinks "Command Speak Phrase Hello Friend" when we greet somebody... Or, so would Luxumware hope for. In truth, as you might have been able to tell by my hints of sarcasm in the paragraph prior, the dreadful functionality of navigating GME2s obtuse syntaxical labyrinths seems to have stopped short almost everybody's attempts at simply entering this role-playing scenario. It's a bit of a shame, as the prose gets quite engaging throughout, although the complexity of the verbal puzzles presented t oyou also increase in difficulty, not necessarily by design, but simply from how dreadful the microphone is at registering your speech correctly. !!!Spoiler alert!!! Unfortunately, even trying to enjoy the writing is difficult, as the ability to keep track of the story's moving parts is easily lost in the mass of banal moments the "adventure" tests your patience with, such as manually walking every single step to wherever you need to go. and at the end, what do we get for our efforts? a tangled web of nonsense that few will care to appreciate, and a damn cliffhanger ending! that's right, GME2 doesn't have the courage to be a complete role-playing scenario. What should we do, narrate our ideal conclusion to the microphone, as if the software cares? blast it all, no, what we do is write a scathing review of this miserable experience! !!!Spoiler arelt over!!! Well, this review might seem pointless, as everybody who could care to know about this role-playing program is well aware that Luxumware has gone bankrupt already, duie to the huge return rate of this software. However, for the sake of preservation, I will be writing a companion piece to this article detailing a brief guide with some plot analysis, as nobody else except I seems to have ever completed GME2!. Rating: 0.27/12 TimTedPoints I absolutely do not recommend. unless you are a serious collector for the MunsterBox, like you know who... ------

GHOST MUMPS: EPISODE 2 GUIDE

by TimTedH, posted to mnet/leisure/digital/role-playing/misc
This post will focus on explaining key moments of GHOST MUMPS: EPISODE 2GME2), as well as relating and trying to make sense of the convoluted plot. If you wish to know more about the GME2 as a product, look for my other post on it in the /role-playing/article section, thanks. The heart of GME2 is foreshadowed, however obliquely, during the first "job" you are hired to do by an eccentric rich man you know nothing about, except for the sound of his voice over the phone, and the fact that half the payment, along with some supposedly special equipment you'll require, was found right here he said it would be. "A rich man may be honest to those he choses to employ, but that does not mean he is honest to himself." idk who said this but it sounds good. wAfter you dig a feet few feet into the requested grave for tonight's business, you are frustrated by the plot seeming to be completely empty. Have we dug in the wrong spot for the past 20 minutes, despite our excruitating trudge through GME2's faulty vocal command system? You may be tempted to try digging up other graves, but if you keep at it for too long, the gravekeepr will feel the disturbence by way of his seismic-detection contraption, and come rushing out of his office with a shovel, well prepared to put you back in a hole you dug. This is what they would call an undesired result in the average role-playing scenario, but this one is not average at all. whether or not you have alerted the violent graveyard employee, the correct path to proceed is to ensure you are wearing the gloves your employer sent you. Then, and only then, may you reach into the hole you have dug, and find something solid in your grip! yourgrip! grip! grip! grip! [ERROR: 10KB OF TEXTUAL DATA MISSING.] Having traced the Having traced the calls to their origin, you next must make your way to his mansion, where perhaps the mystery that has been built up over the past dozen "jobs" can finally be resolved... Unfortunately, it is a real headache getting there. For some reason, the developers wanted to maintain a "consistent reality" in this role-playing adventure, and so driving over to his house isn't a simple "COMMAND DRIVE DESTINATION MANSION", as you might hope. Rather, you have to pull up your map of the city - which does not get its own graphical window to display in a way useful to the reader - and navigate through every street and avenue until you get to the correct address. Attempting to enter the incorrect address results in the message "HM, I TOOK A WRONG TURN SOMEWHERE." Once at the mansion, The grounds are easy enough to tresspass on, as the owner of the place seems to rely on obscurity as a means of security. Such is the ignorance of the wealthy, to have access to any resources they wish, but to not dare spend a penny on them! Anyways, you can prowl around the breadth and width of the large home as you please, but there is nothing to find outside. Entry from the front doors is impossible, as far as I know, but you are able to peer through the oddly spaced windows at the ground level to get a good look inside. Each time you look into a window, you may or may not catch the mansion owner, who based on the way he whistles to himself is indeed the one who has been calling you. If you do not see the mansion owner in the current room, you will be told that it is bare of any furniture or decoration, nothing more. However, if you manager to catch the mansion owner wandering about, you will be treated to various (depending on the room) descriptions of him wandering about the room, seemingly sitting in mid-air to reading, pretending to pick things up and put them down elsewhere, and just generally behaving like a magician putting on a constant show of tricks for an unknown audience. After seeing him in a few different rooms, he will seemingly vanish entirely. However, if you resume wandering the grounds, you will soon run into him!! He must have spotted you and came out to find you. Unfortunately, at this point, GME2 will show only the text "SEE YOU IN PART 3", and responds to no further commands. The manufacturer of this program, Luxumware, as discussed in my review of GME2, is out of business, so we shall never get to see resolution to the threads of fate that have been picked up :( So, what to make of what we've seen? Well, one possibility is that he knows of a grave (ha ha) secret relating to something that can occur after death, perhaps passed down genetically, explaining how he knows exactly where you should dig for your "jobs". It seems that some people, instead of leaving acorpse behind, leave a piece of furniture behind- such as a chair, or table, or lamp, explaining his actions in the mansion. Very few must know about this, as the objects themselves are rendered invisible, as well as intangible- Unless they wear a special kind of gloves, like the ones you must wear to succeed in the grave robberies! he could just be an eccentric, wealthy mime. I dunno! By the way, if anybody knows where I can find "EPISODE 1" of the GHOST MUMPS supposed series, please let me know! Nobody seems to have heard of it, and it might help give backstory details that are missing here, but that we are presumed to know already. ------

GHOST MUmps EPISODE 2 SUCKS haha =UGH

by MunsterRipper44, posted to mnet/leisure/digital/role-playing/general
see title :) dont buy this crud. stop buying munsterbox stuff losers. mnet runs way better on other systems too lol!!