(This file last updated 2025-08-05.) TL;DR ----- This is a free and open-source project, released under the Gnu General Public License. Please the the accompanying LICENSE.TXT file for more information. If you are just here to play the game, click TMMR-.html to play the game online, or TMMR-.zip to download and play locally. If you wish to modify and redistribute the game, you may do so, but you must release all of your source code as well. Introduction ------------ This is a decompilation and port of "The Masculine Mystique", by Barabbas, to Tweego and Sugarcube 2. This is being done in hopes that someone will be able to pick it up and finish it someday. Barabbas no longer works on this game (but he has given permission [1] for the community to decompile and continue it). If you are interested in this port, and helping out or adding to it, please visit the Echo Hollow Discord Server [2] or find me on the TFGamesSite Fora [3]. As of this writing, a stable release of the game can be found at https://www.echohollow.net/games/TMMR/current-stable/ . You may play the game directly from this directory by selecting the *.html file, or download the *.zip file to play it locally. The current stable version of the source code is available above as well. The bleeding-edge up-to-the-minute development source code is contained in a subversion repository at http://svn.echohollow.net/tmmr/unstable/ . Branches of previous stable relases can be found in the same repository at http://svn.echohollow.net/tmmr/ . The original sugarcube 1 version of the game, a decompiled version, and some tools can be found alongside the source code in the original-sugarcube1/ directory. [1] https://tfgames.site/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=578281#p578281 [2] https://discord.gg/H4MskX9 [3] https://tfgames.site/phpbb3/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=120676 Compiling the Code Yourself --------------------------- The build scripts currently only run on a Unix-ish operating system with Bash installed (Linux, maybe Mac but I don't have a modern Mac so I don't know). You'll need to have Tweego in your path, with Sugarcube 2 installed in a way that Tweego can find it. As of this writing, the game uses version 2.37.3 of Sugarcube 2. From this directory, run "./Build.sh" from the command prompt. If all is well, the game should build, using the build/ directory as scratch space. A build log will be left behind in this directory. The compiled game and media files will be placed in the dist/ directory. The game may be played directly from this directory by opening the HTML file in your browser. Contributing to the Game ------------------------ First, please join the Echo Hollow Discord server [2 above] so that we can coordinate our efforts effectively. Any documentation relating to the game implementation can be found in the doc/ directory. Finalized media files that should be copied into the output directory during compilation should be placed in the media/ directory. The source files for that media (ie, your Gimp or Photoshop files) should be placed in the src-media/ directory. Please try to arrange your directory structure in a sensible way that minimizes the chance of interfering with other peoples' contributions. The Twee and JavaScript source code of the game-proper should be placed in the src/ directory. These sources should be arranged in a sensible way in subdirectories beneath src/, dividing the game up into days and scenes for now, although we may move to an event-loop structure later on. The "Build.sh" script builds the game (see above). If you pass the "-w" option, it will watch file timestamps and build in a loop, such that the game is auto- built whenever you save a source file. For this to work, you must have the 'entr' utility installed. PLEASE NOTE that the game in its current form is not structured in a way that allows it to be easily worked on by multiple people. Please see "Future Plans" below. Future Plans: ------------- I have been unable to get in contact with Barabbas (the original author) to get his explicit blessing as far as re-licensing the game under the GPL and all that. However, I believe that he implicitly released his work into the public domain by the statements made in the forum thread linked above. I believe that this gives us, the TMMR community, the standing to relicense the original code under a more protective Free Software license, such as the GPL. I believe that this decision respects his wishes and his vision for the future of the game. Please join the Discord server if you'd like to discuss future development of the game. This is what I have been thinking as far as moving the development forward: 0. The game should always remain 100% free, without any pay-wall or delayed-release content, and the source code should always be available. I would like to see all of the sources placed under some sort of open-source license to ensure this. (Done) 1. Clean up the source code. What's here is a direct port, with only minimal changes to allow it to compile with Sugarcube 2. To help prevent passage name conflicts among multiple authors, I would like to adopt a passage naming scheme that effectively puts passages into their own "namespace" by "scene". I also want to split up some of the larger scenes, especially the ones with wildly divergent sub-scenes, into sub-files so that the scene structures are easier to intuit and understand. (In Progress) 2. Rework the game into an event-loop structure, with event-paths defined for the various characters such that the relationships with those characters can be explored more organically during play. The current code is very much a traditional branching narrative, and even though only three days are implemented, the spaghetti that can result from trying to implement a dynamic narrative with such a structure has already cropped up in there. 3. Once (2) is complete, it should be far easier to implement "content packs" within the game. Different authors could contribute different content packs, which the player could turn on and off depending on their taste. This would allow for different narrative paths for the same character, written by different people, In this way, nobody that wants to contribute gets left out, and everyone can contribute what they want, even if someone else was already working on something that would otherwise conflict. 4. The game is desperately in need of some illustrations and some of the walls of text desperately need to be split up into more digestible chunks. I think this would be another area that could be well-served by community contributions. 5. Once community members are contributing to the game, the question of whether or not they ought to be able to accept donations to help fund their ongoing work comes up. I think this would be great and would do a lot to help motivate community contributions, so long as (0) above isn't violated (ie, you could accept donations for your ongoing work, but the content produced would have to be made freely available including source code). I want to respect Barabbas and his work regardless, so he he should return to the community and express any opinion about or disagreement with the above, I think we should do our best to respect his wishes.