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This is for those proud owners of one of the best early music CD ROMs, Xplora 1. Sure it looks like a glorified catalogue compared to Eve (relax...The Eve Underground is our next big project) but it's a damn *fun* glorified catalogue. It's got warmth, it's got personality, and it has enough material to base a frivilous web page on, like this one!

Been playing around with Xplora 1 for months and still can't find all of the stuff to go in your little suitcase? Totally stumped? If it's hints you want, you can always write and ask.

If you go clicking-crazy with Xplora 1, then you're missing out on a lot. If you wait long enough on many screens, either a gateway to a different section of Xplora appears, or better still, Peter pops up and gives advice, gives guidance, and occasionally gives you a hard time! As with many a wise spokesman, translation is needed for PG's words, and here's the handy guide.

What Is Said	What Is Meant
"There are many weird and wonderful instruments from around the world"	...and I'm not even going to try pronouncing their names...
"Click me"	Go to the main menu
"Aw, just click me"	[see above]
"Cliiiiick me!"	[ditto]
"Your supreme intellegence, charm, and stunning good looks, has earned you this fine reward."	That's an easy thing to say. All my fans have supreme intellegence, charm, and stunning good looks.
"Aw....you're just a beginner."	Go ahead and ram your fist into the computer monitor, it won't hurt me none.
"Follow that dinosaur!"	It does absolutely nothing!
"No pass, no entry."	I don't care how much you paid for Xplora! No pass, no entry!
"Get a move on! We haven't got all day!"	Yes, it's your fault I haven't recorded a new album in five years.
"Perhaps you'd like to take a look at my other projects."	Even *I'm* getting bored playing naughts and crosses...

Little Known Characters On Xplora 1



Not to question his professionalism as a therapist, but wouldn't you be a little bit disturbed if you were seeing a psychologist, bought Xplora 1, and saw your therapist babbling about trains and looking like this?

This guy. What is with this guy? You're walking around the studios, you think you're actually going somewhere, when this guy runs out and says that the CD ROM team is trying to sleep, and you can't go there. No matter what you do, you can't go there. The CD ROM team is always asleep. Well, :-P to him!

How much to you want to bet that this zoologist has his house wall papered with Far Side cartoons.



No comment.

Posessed Furniture

One of the things multimedia dude Mike Large said comparing Xplora 1 to Eve was, "You could recreate Xplora on your living room table." Now, for one thing, it's not fair to dis' Xplora 1. Second, *our* living room table doesn't play Quicktime movies with full audio and has Peter Gabriel popping up in the left hand corner. Kinda makes you wonder what kinda furniture they got over there at Real World Studios.

Myst-y Eyed Xplorers...

We would have made more changes to this page sooner except for the fact that a Hill Committee member received a copy of the popular CD ROM Myst for Christmas, and decided to share it with the rest of us. So, for about a week, we had become coffee-guzzling, drooling, obsessive Myst junkies. If you haven't heard of Myst, the graphics are stunning, the storyline is fasinating, the puzzles challenging and the whole concept intriguing.

So we thought of another CD ROM we like, Xplora 1, and we thought, "Wouldn't it be great to combine the two?" We can see it now...

You have to find out which of two session musicians stole the master tapes of the newest Real World album. First you have to go to the Genesis Age to get clues, but to get there, you have to figure out how to play the first five notes to "In Your Eyes" on a kalimba. Then you get transported to an eerie, abandoned Lovetown via Mercy Street, where you find a tunnel that takes you to the Land of Confusion. There, Gabriel shows up in the upper left hand corner to give you clues to find the book pages to put in your suitcase that will allow you to solve the mystery. And there, nestled deep within a secret passageway you can find...gasp! A backstage pass!

How To Lovebomb A Co-Worker's Desktop

If you've gotten most of the suitcase items in Xplora 1, you know what a lovebomb is. If not, then we're not going to tell you.

Anyway, here's where you can can have some extra fun with the lovebomb. Here's what you need:

A computer

A co-worker with a computer. Much preferably, a *prudish* co-worker.

A copy of Xplora 1.

A graphics program and/or a screen capture program

A floppy.

Here's the general idea: Either by rooting through the media files on the CD ROM directly, or just by activating the lovebomb on Xplora 1, get a picture of it. Once you have a lovely picture of the lovebomb in graphic form, copy it to a floppy. Then you pop it into your prudish victim's computer when he/she isn't around.

The next step is then to make the picture the desktop background picture. On both PCs and Macs there are shareware programs that turn any picture into a full-screen desktop picture. Once you set the picture to be the desktop pattern, for full surprise effect, activate the screen saver.

Then all you have to is wait for the prude to move the mouse and listen to carefully to his or her reaction.

 

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