As excuses go, this one actually flies, folks. I've been incapacitated and in and out of hospital. I am also lazy, it has to be said, but still here anyway.

Either that or I'd been abducted by aliens.

And a FF VII fan I notice.

Still here. Got a few questions to ask in a bit actually. To help, yanno.

I tried to use IRC once and was utterly baffled by the instructions for use before I got even halfway through them. I don't even understand what it is or how it works, other than that it seems primitive compared to simple log in a use mmessenger services.

I say "seems" because I have no clue if it actually IS primitive in comparison. I am a complete and utter technophobe, so I wouldn't know. Anyone share a few tips?

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

Two months, nearly three since I posted this. I thought I had had no replies because I had received no notifications of them. kicks computer If I'd known I'd had two replies in as many days...

Well many thanks to Alan Boyd for emailing me and letting me know what was going on. Without him showing said initiative I wouldn't have ever known. I guess that's why he got on Knightmare and I didn't. Doh! > >

Yep, I'm still here and still interested in runnning such a game. Glad to hear you guys are too. I shall bookmark this page so I can check it daily from now on.

Welcome watchers of anticipation, to the castle of constipation. Phase across time with us once more, for this is the age of not being able to tell left from right, potion from poison, shovel from spade, Lord Fear's Helmet from something made out of an eggbox on Blue Peter and a wall-monster from a pair of old underpants dyed grey and soaked in Vim.

Allow me to introduce myself as this is my first post since registering this evening. I'm Jim, a thirty one year old Knightmare fan who loved nothing better when I was a kid than the keck-wetting scares our old favourite TV show used to give us. And that was just watching!

When I was thirteen or fourteen (around 1991 or 1992 – I forget when exactly) I decided I wanted to go in for the show and assembled a crew of three hopefuls at school who also fancied the idea and sent off my letter to Anglia TV for application forms. The four of us had our Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame at school as a result. We were “the kids going in for Knightmare”.

Six months later they sent them, telling me I needed to get four sets of parental permissions and four sets of completed forms and passport photos sent off to them by the deadline... which was about ten days later.

Needless to say we failed miserably.

Baffling Cedric the rude monk? Psshaw! Dancing rings round Mogdred or Lord Fear? Easy-peasy! Mincing in underneath Malice's nose to nick the cup of cide... err, the cup that heals? No problemo! Get four teens organised enough to do the paperwork and collect photos from the nearest town with a photo booth? No chance! Anglia TV and Tm Childs may you rot forever in hell for being so damned unreasonable!

Oh well, we'd probably have failed in level one with me being shrunk to six inches tall by an evil wizard and ended up being sold on Sylvester Hands's trinket stall at the local market.

However, I grew up to be someone who enjoys writing a lot for pleasure and hopes one day to make a living at it.

Well a couple or three weeks ago I was watching a few clips on Youtube and reading an interview with Tim Childs about how he wrote and operated the game and I thought, “I could do that!”

So here I am now, with a large pile of ideas and semi-written scripts that requires polishing and finalising that stand in three piles for level one, level two and level three.

Here's how it works...

If someone is interested in playing they and I set it up through a messenger like Yahoo or MSN/Windows. I copy and paste the script for their game into the chat window, including character dialogue, room descriptions and so on and then they tell me what they would do next. Anything that needs to be said by me that isn't directly from the script I ad lib depending on the circumstances and what the Dungeoneer is doing.

Unlike the old gamebooks from Corgi that used to give you direct choices like “If you want to go right turn to 24, if you want to turn left go to 80, if you want to jam the bar of gold up Motley's left nostril, go to Boradmoor” it plays far more like a classical game of Dungeon's and Dragons, where literally any choice is possible and the Dungeoneer can do anything and have virtually anything done to them in consequence. There are no limitations.

I would like to post the transcripts of these conversations in a thread related to the game, in whatever board of the forum is considered appropriate, so other people can see how they've gotten on, or at least post my own short reviews of it, done in Treguard like rhyming tones.

So entered Bill to the Dungeon deep,

Intent on a triumphant flight,

But caverns dark awaited his cheek,

And he had his head eaten by a mangy cavernwight.

Okay, that was awful, but I thought it up in twenty seconds, so it was supposed to be.

So here's the million squid question: Would YOU accept the challenge? Is there enough enthusiasm from the fans of our beloved old Knightmare to make this worth doing?

Let me know your thoughts and I'll carry on polishing in anticipation of a favourable response.