Ryan North's To Be or Not To Be: The Adventures of Porkchop Weebottoms

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Ryan North's To Be or Not To Be: The Adventures of Porkchop Weebottoms

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Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

ultrafilter posted:

Per Wikipedia, Mother's Day 2015 is May 3rd in Hungary, Lithuania, Mozambique, Portugal and Spain.

Yeah let's just pretend it's one of those and pretend I'm not a loving idiot when it comes to checking calendars, just as Porkchop Weebottoms is going to pretend he was just joking around about the Ghost King's wife entering into a marriage with his brother.

quote:

"Oh phew," says your Dad. That's good. If that had been the case, then I would've demanded that you murder Claudius at once. That way he could be a ghost too, and I could sit down with him and ask him why he thought what he did was appropriate, and after hearing his reasons hopefully we could come to some understanding."

He sighs, wistfully. "It would be nice to be able to do that now, rather than having to wait until decades from now when he dies of natural causes."

Porkchop Weebottoms immediately backslides and fesses up to his dumbassery, just as I'm going to. Yep, I got the date wrong. :suicide:

quote:

"Didn't he ever read the Table of Kindred and Affinity, Wherein Whosoever Are Related Are Forbidden in Scripture and Our Laws to Marry Together??" asks your dad.

"Ah," you say, "you refer to the document Queen Elizabeth ordered produced, which says a marriage such as this one we're discussing is not just squicky but a real-life hard-core sin against God, a book which later made its way into the Book of Common Prayer, itself so influential that we take many phrases such as 'Till death do us part' and 'Peace in our time' from it?"

"The very same," nods your father. "Although I can imagine that in the future, sentiments might change as to whether or not such a marriage between genetically unrelated, loving, and consenting adults is among THE VERY WORST THINGS IT IS POSSIBLE FOR A HUMAN BEING TO DO that's not necessary for us to discuss right now."

You agree.

Porkchop Weebottoms is immediately convinced. All that's left is for him to decide how to word his statement of intent to end a human life.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jun 5, 2015

# ? May 5, 2015 14:17

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# ? May 9, 2024 11:29

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Can't see any real reason not to be classy.

# ? May 5, 2015 14:21

Rhiodise: Feb 22, 2013

I figure we'll get more :smuggo:

"Shakespeare was dumb" either way but probably less so if we just say it without being classy

# ? May 5, 2015 17:09

Chewbot: Dec 2, 2005; My Revenge Meat!

I would like to point out that I am one of the circlejerk artists that contributed to this book (but I haven't done a webcomic). I just contacted Ryan North and asked if I could do a picture and he said yes.

Chewbot fucked around with this message at 19:45 on May 5, 2015

# ? May 5, 2015 19:41

Keeshhound: Jan 14, 2010; Mad Duck Swagger

Rhiodise posted:

I figure we'll get more "Shakespeare was dumb" either way but probably less so if we just say it without being classy

I give even odds that it gives us a dead end, or just routes us back to the option where we get more soapboxing. School in the summertime

# ? May 5, 2015 20:21

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Chewbot posted:

I would like to point out that I am one of the circlejerk artists that contributed to this book (but I haven't done a webcomic). I just contacted Ryan North and asked if I could do a picture and he said yes.

I doubt anyone thinks less of the people who only did pictures, no need to fear. Let us know when it's your work though cause I'm not the only one probably who hasn't seen your art or recognizes your real name.

# ? May 6, 2015 08:11

Cowboy Otis: Feb 23, 2015

Let us speak plainly, and without class. I'm a sucker for fully exploring dialogue trees.

# ? May 6, 2015 15:00

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Ignatius M. Meen posted:

I doubt anyone thinks less of the people who only did pictures, no need to fear. Let us know when it's your work though cause I'm not the only one probably who hasn't seen your art or recognizes your real name.

Agreed on all of this. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you contributed; we've all been really enjoying the illustrations so far.

The thread is now deciding whether or not we'll risk running into another of said ending illustrations. We need a tiebreaker vote; is Porkchop Weebottoms going to play it safe and classy, or try to just get his murder promises over with?

# ? May 7, 2015 00:04

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

We ain't got no class

# ? May 7, 2015 00:06

Kinu Nishimura: Apr 24, 2008; SICK LOOT!

This is the douchiest book I've ever seen.

# ? May 7, 2015 00:10

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

alcharagia posted:

This is the douchiest book I've ever seen.

I'm kinda getting pissed with the useless choices when it's just railroading us along the actual story.

# ? May 7, 2015 00:19

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

alcharagia posted:

This is the douchiest book I've ever seen.

I might just request a thread title change for that.

Added Space has the tiebreaker, and so Porkchop Weebottoms is going to be the simple little man that he is.

quote:

"I promise I'ma kill him," you say. Your dad seems satisfied.

You have begun quest Kill Claudius! It's worth 3500 experience points! That's pretty good!

And so we head back to Horatio, same as what we saw last time:

quote:

"Listen, Horatio, never speak of this whole 'we totally saw a ghost' thing, okay? We've got to keep it a secret."

"That's cool," says Horatio.

"No, I'm serious, man!" you say, grabbing his shoulders. "Some REALLY SERIOUS STUFF is going to go down, and I need you to keep this a secret. Swear that you'll never talk about this."

"I swear," says Horatio.

"SWEAR IT," booms your dad's voice out of nowhere.

"He already did!" you shout. Horatio looks at you, questioning. "Hamlet. Bro. What's this all about?" he says.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio--" you begin.

"--than are dreamt of in my philosophy," Horatio finishes, annoyed. "Fine. Right. Whatever."

Okay! Horatio will keep your secret, and you've got a quest from a ghost to fulfill! And at the end, he'll probably give you some cool loot for completing it! Maybe? I mean, it's possible.

Anyway, it's past midnight, and Claudius is probably falling-down drunk.

Murdering Claudius here gives us the same result as before; specifically, he performs 30 actions one after another in the span of one decision and the book ends. This time we're going with the Yorick option.

quote:

Then the next morning after that the ground is all muddy, and you think maybe you'd leave footsteps that could be traced back to you and anyway long story short several days go by and you haven't done a thing.

And here we reach a meaningful decision! Yes, the first option just repeats this page ad infinitum.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Aug 22, 2015

# ? May 7, 2015 00:43

Rhiodise: Feb 22, 2013

I'm almost certain the second option is just going to give the exact same ending as ever so gently caress it Ophelia it is.

# ? May 7, 2015 00:50

Kangra: May 7, 2012

The first option there I actually found funny. (If you ignore that the book has been beating the "Hamlet - man of inaction" bit to death, it's an amusing thing to throw in a CYOA).

Let's go see Ophelia.

# ? May 7, 2015 01:23

Keeshhound: Jan 14, 2010; Mad Duck Swagger

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

I'm kinda getting pissed with the useless choices when it's just railroading us along the actual story.

Based on what we've seen of Ophelia apparently getting a "murder everyone" route, and North's rants on sexism that may or may not actually be in the play, I wonder if all the real CYOA stuff is for her in order to "fix" Shakespeare's mistake of not having a badass female protagonist who don't need no man.

So sure, let's go see Ophelia.

# ? May 7, 2015 01:53

dreezy: Mar 4, 2015; yeah, rip.

Let's see Ryan North's brand of feminism where the women must be strictly better and more competent than the men and talk to our GF.

# ? May 7, 2015 06:42

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

Why does the first thing have a skull too if it's just a repeat?

Ophelia I guess.

# ? May 7, 2015 07:00

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Opheila

# ? May 7, 2015 08:57

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

dreezy posted:

Let's see Ryan North's brand of feminism where the women must be strictly better and more competent than the men and talk to our GF.

In time, we'll find out whether Ryan North can write a believable female character or if Ophelia will wind up being some kind of renaissance superhero.

quote:

"It's me, sweetie," you say, opening the door and stepping into her room. You haven't seen each other for a while; it's so great to see her! You run up and throw your arms around her and you kiss. It's just like old times.

You hold her at arm's-length and look into her eyes.

Yorick's not fond of that last option at all, but it's still a Yorick option. Are we going to keep following behind him to the bitter end, or try and get out of here as fast as we can?

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jun 5, 2015

# ? May 7, 2015 13:24

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

We need help.

# ? May 7, 2015 13:46

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Porkchop Weebottoms must clearly foul his stockings. Weebottoms by name, Weebottoms by nature.

# ? May 7, 2015 13:47

Cowboy Otis: Feb 23, 2015

I gotta say, I did laugh at: "Listen," you say and then you go murder Claudius.

But I have a funny feeling that it will just go to something we've seen before. Let's get her help, since Weebottoms prolly can't do it on his own.

# ? May 7, 2015 14:48

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Get Ophilia in on this, maybe we'll actually get a branching path.

# ? May 7, 2015 15:09

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Get her help

# ? May 7, 2015 15:54

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Hamlet is going to try just talking to her about what's up, rather than whatever the hell that other option is.

quote:

Ophelia looks at you for a long moment, and then she takes your hand. "Sweetie," she says, "I can tell that you think you saw those things, and for now, I'm going to believe you. But we need to gather evidence of this ghost and find out if he's credible. Even if he is a ghost, are we CERTAIN he's the ghost of your dad? What if he's a ghost of someone else who's trying to mess with you? I think you should have some confirmation before you go around murdering people."

What she says makes sense. She says the two of you can try to see the ghost again tonight, and if he does show up, you can figure out if he's really your dad or not. It sounds really nice. It sounds... sane. You agree to go with her.

"In the meantime," she says, "check out what I've been working on for you. It's alcohol in a glass flute!"

She looks at you for your reaction, and you're not sure what you're looking at. "It measures temperature!" she says. "With this, you won't have to be too cold or too warm in different castle rooms, because we'll be able to see which ones are uncomfortable before we go in them!"

She's been working on this all by herself over the past several weeks, while you've been sitting alone in your room, moping. She's so awesome. You love her more than ever.

As before with Horatio, we don't have a choice. We're heading up to look for this ghost, in accordance with Ophelia's suggestion.

quote:

To pass the time, Ophelia suggests you play a storytelling game, where she says one word of a story and you say the next word, and neither of you knows where the story will go.

"Once," she begins.

"Upon," you say.

"A," she says.

"Time," you say.

"There," she says.

"Was," you say.

"A," she says.

"Beautiful," you say, looking at her. She smiles.

"Prince," she replies, and you smile back.

"Who," you say.

"Wanted," she says.

"To," you say.

"Kiss," she says.

"His girlfriend," you say.

"That's cheating," she says, but you're already smooching. You begin to really get into making out!

Porkchop Weebottoms just can't control himself.

quote:

...you've totally made out as much as it's possible to totally make out -- NICE -- and you fall asleep in each other's arms. If ghosts exist, and if one really did show up, he certainly had the good grace to leave you alone for your makeouts. Also, he was probably embarrassed: you were both way naked!

The two of you return [sic] the same spot the next evening, and the evenings after that, but it becomes more and more a date night and less and less a "a spectre from beyond the grave wants to get some murders done" thing.

King Claudius and Polonius are not exactly thrilled with the two of you being together, but on the flip side, any urges to commit regicide that were floating around have begun to fade too. Though you talk about it often, the whole encounter with the ghost, if it really did happen, takes on the quality of a dream.

Rather than do the long-distance thing again, you decide to move in together and get your own place here in Denmark. Together, the two of you work on finalizing the invention of the alcohol thermometer (it works!) and even figure out the other half of it: a way to move heated air throughout a building. Congratulations, you invented central heating! It's an invention that all of Denmark wants, and most are willing to pay for. While it's not the largest, you do live in the most comfortable estate in the entire country -- thanks to the heating money.

One bright summer day, as the two of you walk through the castle garden, you get down on one knee and say, "Sweetie, you're the most important person in my life and I can't imagine ever living without you. I want to make you as happy as you make me every single day. Let's get married." You mean every word.

It's not the most traditional proposal in the world, nor is it the most traditional wedding, but it's wonderful and beautiful and perfect. You're very happy. You don't invite Claudius to the wedding.

A few years later, Claudius falls ill with some sort of lung disease, and his doctors are unable to treat it effectively. He passes away only a few months later, having never produced an heir. Shortly after, the two of you become the new king and queen of all of Denmark. Your first child, Alex, is born five months later, and you all live very happily ever after.

THE END

Your stats this adventure:

Naps Napped: 1

Poisons Misused: 1

Choices Made: 19

Times You Were: 1

Times You Were Not: 0

Rosencrantzes: 1

Guildensterns: 1

GAME OVER

I've started adding the little statlists that appear at the end of each playthrough. "Choices Made," "Times You Were," and "Times You Were Not" always appear, some stats are triggered to appear by various events, and some appear and disappear at random. I find the word "choices" to be rather broadly defined here, however.

Speaking of which, Porkchop Weebottoms has done it again. We got railroaded right into marrying Ophelia, inventing the alcohol thermometer fifty hears early, becoming king, and living happily ever after. We also ran out of 1-Ups, so it's time to spend some time with ol' Yorick!

Last time in Poor Yorick, our hero stubbornly refused to die when he was fated to, causing the world to be devoured by a tear in reality some years later. Poor Yorick has 11 more endings that we haven't yet seen, but instead of holding a vote on options this time, we're going to do something different!

There's a little secret to how Poor Yorick is structured, and it's your job to find out what that secret is. Once you think you have it, post your guess in the thread, along with which choice (of ALL choices we've seen in Poor Yorick) you want to make. The first person to guess correctly has their choice taken right away!

To help you all out, I've gone and set up hyperlinks in all of the previous Poor Yorick posts. Click here to go to page 1, and follow the hyperlinks to see every decision we've made so far!

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jun 5, 2015

# ? May 8, 2015 02:10

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

I'm not even going to try and guess it but seriously more railroading? That's kind of boring.

# ? May 8, 2015 03:01

Teledahn: May 14, 2009; What is that bear doing there?

Well I guess that's an okay ending. Sorta.

This book is not really all that keen or good at Shakespeare jokes.
This book is not really ~~all that keen or~~ good ~~at Shakespeare jokes.~~

# ? May 8, 2015 06:40

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

I actually think this was the best ending we've gotten so far. It would have been a fine CYOA ending for Hamlet - it's just way too abrupt in its delivery.

Make a pass at the queen, I guess. Is the secret of Poor Yorick's formatting that it's completely terrible? :v:

# ? May 8, 2015 06:59

dreezy: Mar 4, 2015; yeah, rip.

I thought the ending was a hot sack of dog poo poo.

# ? May 8, 2015 07:03

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Poor Yorick is the only CYOA where you always die?

Let the fool go before you

# ? May 8, 2015 07:41

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

It's designed around one main path and loads of single choice dead ends just like Hamlet and Hamlet Sr.'s stories?

Don't get out of bed.

# ? May 8, 2015 08:17

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Ignatius M. Meen posted:

It's designed around one main path and loads of single choice dead ends just like Hamlet and Hamlet Sr.'s stories?

Don't get out of bed.

That's exactly right! I mentioned there are 11 remaining endings, and it so happens that there are 11 remaining choices total that we have yet to uncover!

Every scene in Poor Yorick has 2 or 3 options, and only one of those leads to another option. The rest are instant game overs. Anything that Yorick could have done differently from the path that led him to the ending we previously saw -- be it begging the king not to be left alone with Kid Hamlet, recounting a charming jape instead of making fart sounds, or pushing a different jester forward instead when he's called into the throne room -- is a death sentence for Yorick. The book has no branching paths; it's a straight line where every deviation from the true path sends Yorick straight off a cliff.

Armed with this knowledge, Yorick's not even going to bother getting out of bed in the morning.

quote:

_>>Restart<<
Hah hah, weren�t you listening to yourself earlier? You�re starving and you need to get a job. But I guess you figured that�s a problem for Future Yorick to deal with, because Present Yorick has decided to stay in bed. While in bed you, Present Yorick:

sigh and stare at the ceiling

grab your sketchbook and draw what you and your friends would look like if you were all cats

listen to birds and imagine what it would be like ifyou could talk to birds

die

Oh well, Yorick! Your body is buried in a shallow grave and lies undisturbed for 25 years, at which point it�s dug up by this guy, Hamlet, who holds up your skull and says:

�Alas, poor dead guy! I did not know him, Horatio; but judging by the shape of his skull and other phrenological features he was a fellow of infinite willfulness, furthermore the parts of the skull associated with secretiveness and philoprogenitiveness are pronounced, which to me suggests he was likely a member of the criminal class, perhaps a Kingpin or other Crime Admiral.�

What the � that doesn�t describe you at all! You are about to protest this until you remember you�re dead and your flesh already got gobbled by worms! Circle of life, Yorick, the end!

THE END

See, Yorick knows the drill. Every single option you had to choose from was an instant game over. Let's get back to the adventures of Porkchop Weebottoms.

Last time, our hero brought Ophelia up with to look for ghosts, and they ended up making out and building fabulous inventions and living happily ever after in an ending that managed to be a lot more boring than the immediately-murdering-Claudius one. This time, we're going to try and steer clear of that. Hamlet has two 1-ups!

Option 1: Porkchop Weebottoms fouls his stockings instead of asking Ophelia for help.
Option 2: Porkchop Weebottoms takes his last chance to run away screaming from the Ghost King.
Option 3: We try being Ophelia for a bit instead of playing Solitaire all day while waiting to look for ghosts.
Option 4: Porkchop Weebottoms tries being passive-aggressive at King Claudius instead of throwing a shitfit.
Option 5: We start all over and play as Ophelia.

Our map has been updated! Watch out, because once again it's absolutely huge.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 14:14 on May 8, 2015

# ? May 8, 2015 14:04

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Let's try being somebody who gets real choices for a change. Be Ophelia from the top.

# ? May 8, 2015 14:37

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

holy poo poo is literally half of that map made of Ophelia choices? Jesus christ

# ? May 8, 2015 21:03

Cowboy Otis: Feb 23, 2015

I think this time we should wee our bottoms.

# ? May 8, 2015 21:17

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Whatever option leads to the quickest game over

# ? May 8, 2015 21:49

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Stallion Cabana posted:

holy poo poo is literally half of that map made of Ophelia choices? Jesus christ

About a third of it. Ophelia is a busy lady. Another half of the map is Hamlet, and the rest is Ghost Dad and various weird stuff we haven't yet seen.

The map also has an infocard in the iOS app release's art gallery:

We haven't seen the aforementioned mistake crop up yet.

# ? May 9, 2015 00:42

Keeshhound: Jan 14, 2010; Mad Duck Swagger

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

Whatever option leads to the quickest game over

I'm pretty sure we already did that with Ghost Dad.

Lets go with Ophelia, and follow the base story to the letter.

# ? May 9, 2015 01:17

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

STRETCH GOAL SPOTLIGHT

The To Be or Not To Be Kickstarter project raised $580,000 on a base goal of $20,000, and had stretch goals all the way up to the $525,000 mark. The stretch goals included additional illustrators and illustrations for both books, the Poor Yorick side story, and the To Be or Not To Be audiobook release narrated by Matt Yantha. Other stretch goals were for various goodies to accompany the book when it was shipped to various backers: a four-tined skull bookmark, the flowchart poster, various stickers, and an 11" plush Yorick skull. Additionally, some of the stretch goals were to print additional copies of To Be or Not To Be and ship them to various schools, universities, and libraries.

And then, there was one particular stretch goal that read as follows:

quote:

$200,000 = UNLOCKED: a stage performance where the entire internet votes on what happens next!

To accomplish this, Ryan North engaged the Busan English Theatre Association in Busan, South Korea to put on a live performance of To Be or Not To Be. The performance was directed by webcomic artist Ryan Estrada and streamed live over the internet via Google Hangouts, with thousands of viewers watching and voting on what would happen next. The performance took place on March 23, 2013 and lasted 163 minutes. Afterwards, it was saved on Ryan Estrada's Youtube channel, where it remains viewable.

There are numerous and sound arguments as to why this kind of performance is a terrible idea. As far as I am concerned, this performance might actually be well-directed and well-performed, but there is also an extremely high likelihood that the entire thing is going to be an unmitigated disaster. That is why I am about to watch the entire video in one sitting, and report to this thread whether the performance is worth watching, not worth watching, or a genuine crime against the humanities.

I will keep a log, with minute references, as to what is taking place and my thoughts on the performance, and at the end of the log I will link the video. I will try my best to be open-minded and optimistic, but I have no idea what I am about to experience. Wish me luck.

quote:

00:00:00: A number of white men are milling around inside what appears to be an apartment living room, trying on various suits of modern-day clothing. A cardboard sign dominates the front of the screen, and reads: "THE PLAY WILL COMMENCE ON THE HOUR." A Youtube annotation indicates that the play will start at the 31-minute mark. There is no sound.

00:02:00: They are doing stretching exercises and talking, still with no sound. One of them is wearing a crown, and is possibly Claudius. There is one woman.

00:04:00: Sound suddenly cuts in. Someone tells them to turn the sound back off, and they do.

00:06:00: Someone writes "(Sound will start then)" on the sign.

00:09:00: A caption bar appears at the bottom of the screen that reads "PRACTICE TIME" and requests that someone tweet the hashtag [sic]#tobeornotobe. I hope they are not trying to use a computer to automatically search twitter for these hashtags.

00:11:00: A man in dark blue slacks, a green button-up, a red tie, a black sportcoat, and a black beret is holding up cardboard signs that are not readable given the current video quality. I will not adjust my connection, as I want to simulate the authentic experience of watching this as a live stream.

00:14:00: They are holding up various props and toys directly in front of the camera. I am trying to identify which actors are representing which characters.

00:15:00: The man with the beret also has a red beard and is possibly a director.

00:21:00: All and all, they look and act like an enthusiastic college-age amateur theatre group. Though this is a production being put on in South Korea, everyone here is white, except for one Asian woman appearing and disappearing. She does not appear to be involved in the production.

00:24:00: People are starting to appear in costume. There have been a lot of faces coming and going. It appears that Claudius was the first one to show up in his stage attire, which includes a long black jacket, a scarf, and a cane as well as his gold-colored crown.

00:28:00: The actor for probably Ophelia, judging by the flowers in her hair, keeps texting on her phone. There is a large white cardboard knife held to the back of her costume by a cord. So far, the whole thing has not been outright painful, though granted, there is not yet any audio.

00:30:00: An older man with graying facial hair and a silver crown might be our old friend the Ghostly Hamlet Dad.

00:30:00: Everyone has left the stage area. They take away the sign.

00:31:00: A single man wearing a suit with bowler-hat and bowtie comes in with the cardboard title cards seen earlier, announcing this to be To Be or Not To Be by Ryan North, presented by the Busan Theatre Association. A list of credits follows. He is saying something, but there is no sound. He crabwalks in and out.

00:32:00: Director guy reappears. I realize that my soundbar went into sleepmode during the extended period of silence and rewind. The title card man is making little "bum ba bum bum" sounds with a deadpan look on his face this time. There is applause when he leaves. Director guy is reading out the first page of the book, saying that Shakespeare plagiarized To Be or Not To Be. He says that it will be a "tragical tale of inaction, revenge, and party boats." He says he's the narrator. He addresses the live studio audience, and gives a guide on how to vote.

00:34:00: He's tripping over words every now and then, talking about how this will be about making living people do awkward things for our entertainment. He's reading out the character select screen. Flower girl runs in and is Ophelia, and is doing various poses.

00:34:00: Hamlet is wearing what's barely a costume at all, and generally looks slovenly and unkempt. Hamlet Sr. is wearing a formal suit and a silver-colored crown.

00:36:00: The vote screen comes up, and they spelled the hashtag right. Ophelia is chosen. She introduces herself. She's reading out Ophelia's intro verbatim except in the first person. She forgets a word and narrator has to help her.

00:38:00: The writing does not take itself well to being narrated in first person with stage-style emoting. They vote on whether Ophelia lets Laertes, a clean-shaven man wearing a white shirt and gray vest, into her room. The vote comes in, that Ophelia says she's busy.

00:41:00: Polonius is a man in his thirties or forties wearing a brown suit. Ophelia is way too excited, and her voice is consistently grating when she delivers her lines. Hamlet's shirt is not tucked in, and his hairline is receding. The narrator is talking more than everybody else combined.

00:44:00: Ophelia forgets her lines again.

00:46:00: Hamlet and Ophelia make out a whole lot. They vote to make out for awhile, the last ending we saw in the LP. Narrator reads out the entire thing while Hamlet and Ophelia lay on the floor, until narrator tells they're not supposed to and that they're going to find their own place and invent the alcohol thermometer. The entire audience shows up for the railroad ending. Studio audience applauds. Narrator lets people vote on whether to pick a new character or do something different.

00:51:00: Narrator is way too excited. Audience chooses to play as King Hamlet, who reads out his own story. The silver-colored crown does a good job of hiding his balding head.

00:53:00: Hamlet Sr. is wearing an Elvis necktie. People come in to depict Norwegian speakers whom Hamlet Sr. doesn't understand. Narrator continues to read out the book verbatim, while the actors mostly ape the scenes being narrated.

00:56:00: Narrator has to run in and correct the actors when they get ahead of what's going on in the story or just flat-out get it wrong.

00:59:00: Hamlet Sr. does a trying-and-failing-to-be-funny impression of swimming motions. He runs into the sunken pirate ship, a cardboard prop emblazoned the VESSELMANIA IV. He explores it, with a couple of actors representing dead sailors. They don't hold the vote that led to the Marine Biologist ending in the Let's Play; he just goes back to Denmark and the narrator acts like that option never existed.

01:03:00: King Hamlet listens in on Claudius, who's not doing the worst job of acting. He's actually sort of enjoyable. Hamlet Sr. really isn't. The audience votes for King Hamlet to get his son to do the murder, and the narrator starts pressuring them to reconsider because having King Hamlet kill Claudius will be the most beautiful thing ever to happen on stage or something. The audience reconsiders.

01:05:00: The exploding-Claudius scene is playing out. Hamlet Sr. is somewhat overweight and laying on top of Claudius. And pressing into him really hard. This is getting painful. A joke about gay sex is made.

01:07:00: Red streamers are thrown onto the stage to represent King Claudius exploding everywhere. Gertrude screams incredibly loudly. Claudius pokes at the narrator from offstage with his cane. The end. Another vote is held while someone cleans the streamers off the stage. Polonius helps, waving to the camera as he does and saying "Hello, internet."

01:10:00: The audience votes for Hamlet. The camera starts to sway and tip over. It remains tilted to the right. Hamlet has some sort of accent.

01:13:00: A vote is held on whether Hamlet is passive-aggressive or throws a shitfit. The narrator urges them to be passive-aggressive. They don't. Horatio is played by a woman.

01:15:00: Onomatopoeia is used to represent trumpet sounds. The narrator still narrates all the emotes that the actors do, and often cues them for when they're supposed to talk. The performance on a whole is less painfully awkward than expected; instead it's just extremely boring.

01:18:00: Hamlet is voted to stare intently at the Ghost King and passes out. King Hamlet sighs and shakes his head as he looks at Hamlet sprawled out on the floor underneath the screen. Someone offscreen says that the internet wants the Ghost King to explode Hamlet but they're not allowed to do that. I wonder to myself whether on-stage improvisation ever occurred to these people, particularly the narrator.

01:21:00: The ending comes with Horatio agreeing to commit revenge, and the story ends. The narrator then makes the executive decision that they're not going to stare at the ghost too intently and instead see what he wants. Horatio is actually pretty entertaining.

01:24:00: Hamlet Sr. talks to Hamlet. The narrator announces the emotes that Hamlet makes as they're written in the book, and Hamlet makes them.

01:25:00: "INTERNET, STOP TELLING US TO EXPLODE HAMLET." The red streamers were incredibly underwhelming, I found.

01:28:00: A vote is held as to whether Hamlet acts sexist. Narrator reads out everything that happens after that. I was hoping that Ophelia would hop in for the science corner bit. She didn't.

01:29:00: Narrator has to remind the Ghost King to yell "SWEAR IT" from offstage. Horatio is still one of the better actors. The audience votes for Hamlet to go home for nappy times. Claudius slips and drops his cane; it can be seen in the corner.

01:32:00: The audience votes for Hamlet to foul his stockings and the other stuff. Hamlet asks the narrator what his garters are; the narrator doesn't know.

01:36:00: Hamlet does a decent job at doing a comedic impersonation of a crazy person. Narrator still can't shut up. His voice is starting to grate on me. So is everything else about him.

01:38:00: They're acting through a segment of the book where Ryan North takes over for a bit and tells you exactly what you're going to do. It's on the Yorick path and is annoying and unfunny. The narrator has been walking around and keeping a hand on Hamlet's shoulder for this segment, which has finally ended.

01:40:00: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up. Rosencrantz is wearing slacks and an orange shirt with a huge blue Radio Shack logo or something taped to it. Guildenstern is a woman wearing blue jeans and a striped button-up with sunglasses hanging off the neck.

01:42:00: Hamlet has a decent voice and okay acting skills, but is horrible to look at. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren't bad either, especially compared to Ophelia and Hamlet Sr., who both totally sucked.

01:44:00: A person who appears in the Yorick path but not in the original script of Hamlet shows up and talks to Hamlet and is way too excited. Her voice becomes unbearable within a minute.

01:48:00: The camera is still at a tilt. By now, I'm glancing at the time less for the log and more because I'm waiting for the book to finally finish. The narrator has to remind Claudius that it's time for his line, which I can forgive him for, because the narrator never, ever stops talking.

01:51:00: They get to a scene where Hamlet goes to murder Claudius at 2 AM. It's the same one we've seen; they just reached it via a different path. Red streamers are thrown onto the stage from the side to represent blood shooting from Claudius's throat. Hamlet thrusts his hips while asleep to represent dreaming about weird sex stuff and the narrator tells him to stop. Someone bumps the camera and it tilts further to one side and turns to the right a bit.

01:54:00: The end has been reached, with Hamlet crowned king and everything being fine. The narrator then immediately railroads to a different option without giving anyone the option to vote.

01:56:00: The scene the narrator chose was the wrong scene; everyone had herded onto stage for that before the narrator remembered that it was the wrong spot and herded them off again.

01:57:00: Hamlet gets right up into the camera while the Internet votes: To be or not to be. Someone yells at the internet to stop asking them to explode Hamlet. The internet votes to be. Hamlet gives his speech right up in front of the camera. He needs to shave. Like, desperately.

02:00:00: Someone tells the internet to stop voting to explode the narrator.

02:02:00: Ophelia and Hamlet have good chemistry on stage. Actors might know each other pretty well. They retreat into a "privacy closet" for one scene, which is an apartment kitchen.

02:04:00: Everyone's back on stage again, including the title card guy, who sticks out like a sore thumb.

02:06:00: Someone off camera makes a joke which is unintelligible, and the whole cast laughs.

02:07:00: A man in leather pants and a see-through shirt with fake nipple piercings connected by a chain is on stage for reasons I will not spoil. He is out of shape, and trying to act tough and strong. When he tries to do a muscle pose, his man-boobs stick out.

02:10:00: The internet keeps asking for things to happen that aren't choices in the CYOA, and the narrator keeps telling the internet that they can't do that.

02:12:00: Claudius pulls a bunch of red streamers out of his shirt and throws them everywhere to represent blood spurting. Narrator then railroads people through two options in succession.

02:14:00: The actors on stage are freely discussing the different options while the internet votes on them. I keep looking at the time remaining. I want this to stop.

02:17:00: The internet votes on an option that the narrator doesn't want to do, and he pushes them to reconsider. There are also votes that Hamlet wear the see-through shirt. The narrator agrees, and everyone cheers as Hamlet takes off his shirt and puts on the see-through one, which has the fake nipple piercings and chain built in.

02:21:00: Ophelia plays with the fake nipple piercings on the shirt while talking to Hamlet.

02:23:00: I'm impressed with the actors' ability to mostly remember the lines and deliver them decently. Far as I can tell, they worked to memorize their lines as they appear in the book.

02:24:00: Someone tells the internet that they can't vote for a threesome between Hamlet, Horatio, and Ophelia. Horatio runs on stage anyway for a moment.

02:26:00: They go through a scene in the book where you keep switching between two different people and making decisions for them to force them into a particular story path. It sorta works in the book, and absolutely doesn't on stage.

02:27:00: The audio starts to mess up. Very long sequence of the narrator talking about what the actors are doing while the actors do their best to keep up.

02:29:00: The actors push two chairs to the edge of the screen and Claudius pulls them off the rest of the way with his cane. I think Claudius and Horatio are my favorites.

02:31:00: The narrator is interrupted when his head bumps a chandelier.

02:33:00: Hamlet kills Claudius again. Red streamers are thrown around again. A lot of other cardboard props are thrown around. They made a lot for this performance, and most weren't used.

02:34:00: It's over. Everyone comes onto stage and bows. The Vesselmania IV and another cardboard boat prop are carried past the camera. Various cardboard props are waved around. All the props are thrown all over the place, as well as a lot of red streamers. A little cardboard UFO is brought past the camera. Gertrude and someone else set to cleaning up the red streamers with a swiffer.

02:37:00: They remember that they need to explode Hamlet. Hamlet Sr. and Hamlet stand in front of each other. Hamlet Sr. looms over him, pushes him, red streamers are thrown everywhere, and Hamlet falls over. They clean up the red streamers again. The video ends.

VERDICT: The video is here. It's eminently unwatchable. Some of the Shakespeare in Busan actors were decently talented, but for the most part they were bland and mediocre, and couldn't keep up with the narrator. About that, the narrator read from a three-ring binder of the text of To Be or Not To Be and was absolutely hateful.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 00:11 on May 10, 2015

# ? May 9, 2015 23:37

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# ? May 9, 2024 11:29

ArchWizard: Mar 27, 2009; There's the Roy I know ~~and love~~.

Pittsburgh Lambic posted:

Additionally, some of the stretch goals were to print additional copies of To Be or Not To Be and ship them to various schools, universities, and libraries.

I realize now that my generation was insanely lucky to get Oregon Trail on our schools' Apple II computers.

# ? May 9, 2015 23:43

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Ryan North's To Be or Not To Be: The Adventures of Porkchop Weebottoms

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