I want to proliferate relics of the former Cat's Paw publishing/rubber band/glue* empire that dominated the gentlemen's magazine trade before the Apocalypse. Yet my usual wittiness and eloquence in such matters seems absconded for the moment, so I thought perhaps we could make this a group project. Since apart from cleverness only minimal technical modding skills are required to get the results in the game, everyone should feel free to join in the fun and in this way the results will be recorded here for all to use as they see fit.
My only stipulation for this discussion is: no crude language allowed. Innuendo and wry humor should be our pre-occupation in these matters. Any philistine can slap together a sentence or two of vulgar smut-- but while those are the juvenile responses I'd expect if I posted this topic elsewhere, I'm certain we here at NMA can do much better. Beyond all that, this is of course a family forum and we shouldn't like to warp the minds of kids who may be reading (as they're already in enough trouble given the sad state of the modern society they'll soon inherit). Though very obviously at least several hundred quips could be devised around the word "pussy" as a synonym of "cat," unless you're very clever and very skilled at double-entendre I think we should stay away from using such cheap tactics.
I think the best ideas will also play heavily on the Fallout mystique. My starting point has been to ponder "PipBoy drooling over a pin-up of barely-clad Jane Russell," but anyone who has better ideas shouldn't feel limited by my conception of the matter.
I played around with the Cat's Paw graphic quite a bit (I recommend starting with a bigger image), trying various colors for the magazine with a view to making several different "issues." For those who may want to make a few frms for themselves (using Frame Animator), I found the following colors work very well and look good in the game as the "background" color replacing orange in the Cat's Paw graphic:
--Azure (medium light blue)
--Blue (like a vault suit)
--Avocado (pale green, just like the vegetable)
--Green (like emeralds)
--Mauve (when wives want pink home decor, they call it "mauve" to sell the idea to their husbands)
--Amethyst (a lighter shade of purple favored as I recall by Scooby-Do and Shaggy)
I feel most of the other colors I tried either don't sufficiently contrast the pale yellow lettering of "Cat's Paw" at the small resolutions required by the game or aren't sufficiently distinguishable from the colors already listed-- but we can discuss that as well if anyone likes. To make tiny images suitable for frms, I found the best practice is to reduce the image to 256 colors before resizing to 45x50 pixels; in this way one avoids blurred edges between the item itself and the background color, resulting in a crisp image that looks very nice in the game.
So far, all I've come up with are the following titles:
--"Cat's Paw: Purr-fect 10s"
--"Cat's Paw: Pet My Kitty?"
Those are admittedly rather lame; as I said, I'm having writer's block on this issue.
I also revised the standard Cat's Paw description (in pro_item.msg); I think one is better for Fallout while the other is better for Fallout 2:
I'm posting this topic to gather the best ideas rather than simply my own best ideas, so anyone who has better material should feel free to ignore these examples. Keep in mind, though, that Cat's Paw descriptions should kept concise since (as with all item descriptions) the in-game inventory window doesn't offer much room for flowery language.
I also came up with one idea for an issue a female Vault Dweller/Chosen One might enjoy:
Though I'm not sure I'd go to such trouble myself, those who are so dedicated to playing Fallout/2 that they can't look away from the games long enough to surf the internet for their fix of naughty pictures should note that genuine (simulated) "magazines" with several or more "pages" of images featuring favorite pin-ups or other artwork can be fairly easily made by assigning a script and either a talking head or a background image (or both of the latter) to a Cat's Paw magazine. For an example of how to do this, anyone interested should take a look at the example of "Letter to Monica" in Lich's Black Steel FO2 mod (aitem5.int and aitem5.msg).
So, @NMA: what are your ideas?
Endocore
* As most here likely know, the origins of the "Cat's Paw" phenomenon are enigmatic. The game image was boldly ripped-off in its entirety from a box of rubber bands called "Cat's Paw" brand-- whose manufacturer also sold other industrial and chemical products called "Cat's Paw" this or that in packages featuring a mischievous feline mascot. Yet since these wrist-snappin' rubber bands were made by weird Canadians who apparently call the marvelous contraptions "heels," the text overlaid across the kitty (unintelligible in the game) actually says "rubber heels." I believe this may have been the original source of dev confusion-- in America, utterly stupid-looking semi-translucent rubber/plastic high-heeled shoes are often worn by porn stars and other tawdry women; thus someone must have thought the graphic represented a sleazy magazine with pictures of bimbos wearing "rubber heels."