Why? Because I've finished my AGL project, and real Rinkies have unfinished projects. ;-)

I had to hold back a huge "SQUEE!" when I opened RinkWorks and saw COATI's--excuse me, Outlaws'--logo on the main page. (Isn't it awesome?) I'm pretty proud of COATI, and I hope everyone who plays it will enjoy it. Sam and gremlinn were awesome in helping me with what I didn't understand (they probably helped with everything at one point or another) and debugging. Guys, I owe you both a whole lot of chocolate. ;-)

Anyway, there are a few parts to COATI that it might be interesting to hear the story of, so here they are in no particular order. Don't read them until after you've solved it unless you want spoilers.

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* The cabbage and the pen full of goats: An obscure joke, inspired by my mother. No one but her would get it. When I was small, my whole family used to play computer games like Dr. Brain together in the evenings. One such game we had (and had a great time with) was called Pepper's Adventures in Time. One puzzle in the game required the player to feed cabbages to a couple of goats that roamed around, but a bug in the game made the cabbages inaccessable.

When I was writing COATI, I wouldn't tell Mom anything about it because I wanted it to be a surprise. I only explained that it was like Pepper's Adventures. So because she'd kid me, asking if I'd gotten to the part where you had to feed the cabbages to the goats, I had to put in a similar puzzle. But, of course, nothing happens when you feed the cabbages to the goats in COATI, just like nothing happened when you did it in Pepper's Adventures because you couldn't do it.

It made sense in my head, I swear.

* The organ grinder: I am amazed at the lengths I went to to make obscure jokes. The whole point of putting in the organ grinder location was to be able to make a reference to monkey bread. Because, you know, I'm retarded like that.

* The leather shop: In Fleisher's Leather Goods, you can lose the game by drinking the tanning acid. The lose text includes something about the tanner making leather out of your skin. I wrote that late one night, thinking it outlandish and funny, but I found it was less weird than I thought while researching California outlaws a little while later. Apparently, there was an outlaw in the 1800's who was a big guy, and when he was hanged, his body was given to the local doctor for study. The doctor had no use for him, but thought he was a fine big fellow and shouldn't go to waste, and so gave him to the local tanner, who TANNED HIS HIDE AND MADE LEATHER GOODS FROM IT. A pair of ladies' high button boots, gloves, and a purse, to be specific. They didn't sell, but were on display for quite a while until the San Francisco fire destroyed them.

At least, so the story goes. As they say, ain't no such thing as a new idea.

Also, all the tools in the description of the leather shop are tools found in one AGL game or another.

* The cow barn and binoculars: This one was inspired by Sam, who used the following example to explain global variables to me:

"...But if you want 'Look through the binoculars at the smoke on the horizon' to be available to you only if you previously blew up the cow barn way on the other side of the game, then you'll need a global variable, and the reason is that you'll need to set it at the cow barn location, and check it at the other one..."

And even though at that point he didn't know that COATI was set in the Old West, his example fit into the setting perfectly. So, of course, I had to put it in. And if you go back to the old lady in the saloon after you've blown up the cow barn, you can indeed choose the option to look through the binoculars at the smoke on the horizon.

* The villain: The villain, his plot, and even his motivations are totally a rip-off of the Doctor Loveless character from the Wild Wild West (the TV show, not the movie). In fact, the whole game's story is nothing more than a slightly twisted version of the WWW--the explosive given to you by the old man at the general store, for example.

* That weird lady in the Lynnville hat shop: If you're wondering where the heck that weird picture of the hat shop owner came from, I shall explain. That's Ferna Gardener, Herb Gardener's wife. Herb's the mascot for our herb nursery, and is on every catalog cover and our website. Ferna (named after my mom, Verna), hasn't ever really appeared anywhere, but the artist who draws Herb thought Herb needed a wife. She has such a great hat that I thought she'd be the perfect person to run a hat shop, in spite of her anachronistic sunglasses.

* Hannibal: Though the game says he's named after the Cartheginian general, he's really named after Hannibal Smith, George Peppard's character on the A-Team, because when I was trying to think of a name that implied courage and fortitude, Mr. T was the first that popped to mind and I couldn't use that. X-D

* Lynnville: Name inspired by Larry Linville, the guy who played Frank Burns on MASH. The moral: I need to watch less TV. :-P

* Lucky Strike: AKA Devil's Luck, AKA Lucky Break, AKA a couple of other things I don't remember. I found out about a third of the way through coding COATI that Lucky Strike was a brand of cigarettes. I tried feverishly to think of a different name, and Sam tossed some ideas out, too, but we couldn't find anything as good. So thus it remains.

* Delhi Shanks: I love this name. My mom (who almost more than anything wants to quit her job and write mystery novels) and I came up with it last year by using the road sign technique of creating character names: On the freeway, signs with multiple street names listed one above the other sometimes create some pretty neat names. This one came from a sign listing a Shanks Street in the town of Delhi. We thought Delhi Shanks was the neatest name, so I used it when I couldn't think of a name for this character. (My stellar naming abilities at work again. :-P)

* Zorro: The entire game is a huge reference to the Zorro legends, in case that wasn't glaringly apparent already. The original ending sort of poked fun at this:

"...The sheriff nods. 'What about the stranger? Did you catch his name? Where did he go?'
'He...uh...he took off into the hills as soon as we got out of the balloon. Said he didn't want anyone to know his real name, but said he would be known as...uh...chhhh--' you exhale forcefully between your teeth, trying to buy time to think of a believable name--'...uh...err...'
'Churro?' says Allister. 'Is that what you said?'
'Yes, that was it,' you say. 'We owe our lives to Churro.'
Sheriff Allister is silent a moment before he says, 'I guess our work has been done for us. Come on, boys, let's go home.'
You return home, glad to be finished with this sheriff business. You and Hannibal work cows together on your ranch until his death eight years later, coming to the conclusion that adventures aren't the fun they're cut out to be. You'd take a "boring" normal day over "adventure" every time, though you can't totally forget your escapades as Sheriff Allister tells the entire town about 'Churro.' He becomes a local legend..."

I decided that was way too hoaky and not at all in keeping with the tone of the rest of the game, so I wrote the ending that is currently in place. (A churro, for those who don't know, is a kind of sugary, crunchy, Mexican pastry.)

Oh, and all the photos are ones I took of my hometown. If you couldn't guess.

La"Yes, I'm longwinded. :-P"Zorra