Frequently Asked Questions to DavidM, the maker of this thing!
How did you get the idea for this?
I was playing thisisnotporn.com, which is a little similar, but still a lot
different. From my point of view those levels there are pretty unfair and rather
boring.
Well, I did something like that with my own game philosophy (based on fun &
fairness rather than on mystery), and it became kinda cool with those unlimited
ways of using useless computer knowledge to beat those levels. More and more
ideas grew out of this, so it has not much to do with my original inspiration
and it's something totally unique on the whole internet (except for all the
notpron clones that keep popping up now).
How do I save my level progress?
3 words: add to favourites.
Just bookmark all levels, and whenever you enter a password check the "save
login data" box.
It's also recommended to have a txt file and write down all URL's and keywords
What does "notpron" mean?
Sigh...it loses the fun when I explain it, but here we go. It's "not pron".
Pr0n being internet slang for "porn". Like we enjoy to fuck up words
online all the time. For example "broken" becomes "b0rked".
Or the word "own"* turned into "pwn". And even "pwned"
became "pwnt". Language raping, but it's fun. *("Owning someone"
as in "ruling someone" or "being a lot better". "Something
owns" means that it's really really great...)
When did this first start?
I started out with it in late July 2004.
Can I submit my riddle idea?
Not any more.But many people did submit ideas. About 5% of them are used in the riddle.
How long did it take you to do this?
All together it was from late July 2004 until July 2005. It was finished on
it's first birthday.
The actual work on this ain't taking long. The "hard" part about this
is getting ideas, but from my experience you can't really work on those.
They keep coming, or they don't. Usually you get these ideas in absolutely strange
moments where you've not even been trying to make up a riddle. But Christine
made up some riddles which actually took a lot of work to make. Only a hand
full though. And for sure a lot of people submitted their ideas to me. Some
where used, as you can see in the Credits.
Will there be a sequel to this?
I guess not. Notpron is done.
When did you start/release the game?
How long did it take you to get to the first "finish"?
On the first day we released it, and 5 was the end...then we added a few every
day until 17 was the first real end.....then I felt like going on.
23 was the end then, and in 22 you needed to find a cell phone number, send
an sms with your email in it and I would reply with "the answer is unexpected"....you
can see how it is now.
The cell phone thing got a bit annoying, and pretty much only Germans seemed
to get through. On 23 you can still see the old greetings.
That end stayed for 2 months I believe, then we kept adding new things, with
new temporary end pages all the time, but they max stayed for a week or so.
81 was the final end....for 1-2 months. Then I kept adding new levels until
today, going from 0 downwards (on the mainpage (www.notpron.com) you can always
see the currently last level).
Is there supposed to be a story that
links the levels together? Or is it fairly free-form all the way through?
Well there is a rough story, but I'm not giving it away, that would make it
boring. It keeps the mystery up a bit ;)
But to be honest, it got lost at around level 13 or something, slowly fading
out into nothing.
Will there ever be better visuals and
a better design?
I wouldn't want that. That would be against the philosophy of the riddle. I
want nothing to distract the player, and it would get large for no reason.
Imagine all the shit in the source code, would get too much.
The riddle has to be simple (and hard), that makes it IMO.
How do you pron-ounce pron?
Nevermind, this question is just for fun :P
Are you together with this
Christine?
No, she's just an internet friend.
I found pron (pornography) in Notpron...wtf???
No, you didn't.
Porn requires sexual practices, which are not in Notpron.
Any more questions? Mail
me. I'll add all good and frequently asked ones here (no solution or hint requests
please!).