Welcome to Virtual Bay City, an amalgamation of parallel Worlds. In VBC, you never know whom you might encounter. The dead walk, and all times are one. Into this strange new world you step. The land of the beautiful people will never be the same again.
There are three ways to explore VBC: The Virtual Tour, The Sightseeing Tour, and The Case of the Stolen Swan.
The Sightseeing Tour
There are several places in town which feature one brief look at that location.
Some of these are buildings, and others are marked with a red dot. You will need
to use the "Back" button to return to the Bay City map.
The Case of the Stolen Swan
This is an interactive mystery story that is only about 40% complete. At present, I have
no plans to continue it. Below are the instructions for the complete game. Since there is
no complete game, there is no point in following them. CSS locations are accessed through the
Bay City map, except for two hidden locations, accessed through playing the game.
"It is early morning in Bay City, Illinois. The Red Swan, recently stolen by person or persons unknown, occupies your thoughts. Find it and the Cory's have promised you your heart's desire..."
Methodology: You travel around town by linking on places, and talk to characters by clicking on their names, then on dialogue/action options.
Objectives: (1) Find out where the Red Swan has been hidden. (2) Find out who stole the Red Swan. (3) Find proof against the guilty party or parties. (4) Find the secret codes to access the Cory mansion. (5) Have FUN.
Passcodes: You will not be able to talk to some characters unless you know the secret word to get their attention. This word will be given to you by another character in another location in the game. It will be written in bold. Be sure to scribble it down somewhere, as you will probably forget it when you finally meet up with the person it pertains to.
The Cory Codes: The Cory mansion holds important secrets within its walls. But to access it, you need to know the "Cory Code." This is an eight-digit word that you will have to track down.
Code Usage: This game is unable to use forms of any type, so the following manner is used for
inputting codes. Using the URL line above,
"http://www.geocities.com/Television/City/1078/hbook.html," you are to replace the last section
with the code.
Say, for example, the code you have been given is webguy, to access the (non-existent) character
of Eddie. You would then substitute it for hbook. The new URL would be,
"http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/1078/webguy.html." You should then press "Enter" to
access this new location.
Safeguards: While you may be given a passcode to access a certain character, you may not
necessarily be given that person's location. The game prevents you from using the passcode to
jump to that character and that location. The passcodes you are given will not be the actual ones used.
Using the example above, when you finally encounter Eddie, you will be instructed to replace
certain digits of your passcode (webguy) with others. For example, you might be told to replace
the last three digits with "man." The new and actual passcode would then be webman, and the
actual URL to access the character will be, "http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/1078/webman.html."
There are no safeguards for new locations revealed during a conversation. You may link directly
there. You will be given the end URL to link there at a later time in case you prefer to finish the
current conversation and/or location.
Player Integrity: Decide for yourself how you want to "play": whether you want to be faithful to what you do and not try to redo stuff, or simply see what everyone has to say.
Credit: VBC was written and designed entirely by Eddie Drueding. The original six locations were written in the summer of 1994. I picked it up again in late 1996 and decided against completing it due to lack of interest.