CYOA NOTES
I thought it might be fun to point out some of the different references that went into this game, specifically in the different names and in other miscellaneous parts.
First, the poem in round 13 is
The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron mashed up with Ezekiel 25:17 as it appears in Pulp Fiction- all adapted to spider warfare, of course. Rank and File also makes mention of
The Charge of the Light Brigade, which is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Rank and File is well-read!
The house itself was based on a combo of the Boddy Manor from Clue, stuff from the game Betrayal at the House on the Hill, the
Winchester House, and exaggerated features and rooms from my own home and my grandparents' home. The Doll Room and Palm Court in particular are based on two rooms from my grandparents' house. The Palm Court was based on something we called The Jungle Room- it was where my grandma kept her houseplants and eventually a large iguana who was left with them when my cousins had to relocate to Washington State. The Doll Room was based on my grandma's terrifying collection of porcelain dolls as well as a room I stayed in once while visiting Washington, DC for a friend's wedding- it had multiple pictures of the Pope in it in various poses. A lot of the Winchester House elements were toned down- originally there were three staircases and two of them led to nowhere!
Now for the names!
• Rank and File: A reference to Rocky Horror here. Rank and File is a synonym for riffraff, but also when you abbreviate his name it's RaF. Also a bit of a reference to the Royal Air Force, I suppose. Originally I had him in cahoots with Pennybags and Fuchsia, but ended up dropping that because "the butler did it!" is
just too tropey. Or not at this point, since everybody expects it. Hmm...
• Fuchsia Fussbudget: A double reference here, Fuchsia references Mrs. White from Clue (a color-named maid) and Magenta from Rocky Horror.
• Wine About It: You know those
kitschy signs suburban moms like to hang above the wine rack? Yeah, so did Wine About It's parents.
• Chop Chop: Chop Chop doesn't just refer to her chopping up meat or veggies, it also means "hurry it up!" A good name for a busy cook.
• Habeus Corpses:
I like legal puns.
• Lucky Clover: A background pony from Friendship is Magic, but I thought this was a good name for the child of a casino owner. All of her siblings are also named after Lucky Charms marshmallows.
• Bitter Pill: Named from the phrase "a bitter pill to swallow." Since she's a doctor, I wanted something medical in there. I imagine her cutie mark is either a generic pill tablet on a coffee cup or something akin to a
Mr. Yuk face.
• Satin: Named after the jazz song,
Satin Doll. Not much to say there, other than I really love this song. It's one of my favorite performance pieces. Fun to play, fun to sing.
• Penny Earned: while Pennybags got the -bags suffix, both of the kids got Penny in their names because I thought that'd be cute. Also, Penny Earned has a bit of a savior complex- Penny saved, Penny earned.
• Pennybags: In MLP there's sort of... family names. A good example is the Apple family, which has Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, Applejack, and Applebloom- who might be distantly related to the Pie family through a relative named Apple Pie. I wanted to create some obvious family lineages, so we had the -Bags family (the grandmother in all the paintings was originally named Luxury Handbags but even
I thought that was too silly), the Penny naming scheme, and then the Oranges. So Pennybags got the -bags.
• Clementine: This one might be my favorite. So Clementine is an orange, as is Cutie Honey (Cuties are a brand name of Clementines in the states and I wanted to get across that Clem sees Cutie as an extension of herself)- BUT the reason I went with Clementine, who was named first, was because she married Pennybags for his money. Now, in the song "Clementine," Clementine is the daughter of a "miner forty-niner." A miner forty-niner is somebody who went out to California for the 1849 gold rush... so in other words, she's a gold digger.
• Moneypenny: A combination of Moneybags and Pennybags. No relation to the James Bond character- that's a different CYOA entirely.
• Cutie Honey: Cuties are a type of clementine and I wanted a really saccharine, obnoxious name. Not a reference to the magical girl who takes her clothes off! Definitely a reference to Shirley Temple, and even more of a reference to
Darla Dimple.
• Saddlebags: Definitely a cousin on Moneybags' side- even though he's a bit of a bumpkin, he's still a -Bags (which also kinda plays on the relationships in The Hobbit).
• Book Smart: This is our Professor Plum expy, as well as just a reference to, well, being book smart but not street smart.
• Cloak and Dagger: Refers to, y'know, spy novels and such. Also a Miss Scarlet reference. I've seen her characterized as a femme fatale but also as sweet and innocent, so there's two Miss Scarlets in this game- which is also a reference to how
everybody wants to be Miss Scarlet when playing Clue.
• Diamante: A reference to Mrs. Peacock! It's French for "adorned with diamonds."
• Quarter Mane: A reference to Allan Quartermain, the main character from the novel King Solomon's Mines, who was later resurrected for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore. Interestingly enough, playing Quartermain in the, ahem, LXG movie is actually what ended Sean Connery's film career. (Don't watch the LXG movie.)
• Steelyard Rumble: This is actually a Gaia item. I liked the sound of it, though- it made them sound tough and scrappy and out of place among high society.
• Colonel Whizbang: Whizbangs are a small-caliber, high velocity shell known for
not working in WWI novels. Colonel Whizbang also references Colonel Mustard.
• Honey Belle: Honeybells are another type of orange, so I wanted to maybe play at a relation there- but mostly this character exists to reference Miss Scarlet.
• Judge Fudge: I LIKE RHYMES and I like fudge.
• Bright Blessings: I wanted to have a reverend of some kind in here to reference Mr. Green, who's Reverend Green in later editions of Clue. But I didn't want to use a real religion, so he's a snake oil salesman.
• Checked Cheque: I LOVE homophones. Also, in case you didn't get it, Checked Cheque was from Prague, which is in the Czech Republic, so Chequed Cheque is Czech.
• Objection!: This is referencing
exactly what you think it is (Phoenix Wright).
• See You Later, Delegator: A play on the goodbye phrase that ends with "In A While, Crocodile." I don't think this would fly as an actual phony name.
• Don Calimari: I thought it was a cute name.
• Gunky Gumshoe: This comes from Where In The World Carmen Sandiego- ok, it comes from other places as well, but that was the first place I heard it.
• Sticky Fingers: I just thought this was funny.
• Torts Illustrated: I like legal puns, ok? A tort is "a wrongful act or an infringement of a right (other than under contract) leading to civil legal liability," and Sports Illustrated is a magazine.
• Brass Tacks and Edelweiss: Another Rocky Horror reference. Edelweiss brings to mind Janet Weiss, and what's another name for a tack? A brad!
• Printing Press: I briefly thought about naming the reporter "Extra Extra" but then remembered there already
was a phony named Extra Extra. So Press got to be named after the thing that makes newspapers possible.
• Sea Major: Sea Major's name was originally Be Sharp, but when a merphony rolled her, I changed her name to an aquatic pun.
• Horsefeathers: Horsefeathers is a colloquial expression that basically means something's impossible- it's kind of a toned-down "bullshit!" which I thought was pretty good for a con artist.
• Vigorish: This term originates from the Russian word "vyigrysh," or "winnings." It refers to the cut a bookie takes.
