| ___. .___ _ ___. | |
| / _| | \ / \ / ._| | |
| \ \ | o_/ | | | |_. | |
| .\ \ | | | o | | | | | |
| The |___/ociety for the |_|romotion of |_|_|dventure \___|ames. | |
| ISSUE # 23 -- 2000 IF Competition Special | |
| Edited by Paul O'Brian (obrian SP@G colorado.edu) | |
| December 29, 2000 | |
| SPAG Website: http://www.sparkynet.com/spag | |
| SPAG #23 is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul O'Brian. | |
| Authors of reviews and articles retain the rights to their contributions. | |
| All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine | |
| with the traditional 'at' sign. | |
| REVIEWS IN THIS ISSUE ----------------------------------------------------- | |
| Ad Verbum | |
| And The Waves Choke The Wind | |
| At Wit's End | |
| Being Andrew Plotkin | |
| The Big Mama | |
| Desert Heat | |
| Dinner With Andre | |
| The Djinni Chronicles | |
| The End Means Escape | |
| Guess The Verb! | |
| Kaged | |
| Masquerade | |
| Metamorphoses | |
| My Angel | |
| Nevermore | |
| 1-2-3 | |
| Planet Of The Infinite Minds | |
| Prodly The Puffin | |
| Rameses | |
| Shade | |
| Transfer | |
| YAGWAD | |
| SPECIFICS | |
| ========= | |
| Shade | |
| EDITORIAL------------------------------------------------------------------ | |
| I've been spending a little more time on ifMUD lately, and recently one | |
| of the denizens there asked me a question: "Why does SPAG have an annual | |
| competition issue?" I'm still turning this question over in my mind. Of | |
| course, there's an obvious, easy answer: tradition. SPAG had extremely | |
| close ties to the comp in its first few years, because the founder and | |
| then-editor of SPAG, Kevin "Whizzard" Wilson, was also the guy who *ran* | |
| the competition. It was only natural that the zine celebrate the comp | |
| with reviews, author interviews, in-depth analyses (precursor to the | |
| modern SPAG Specifics) and such. Since then, SPAG has chronicled the | |
| comp each year as a matter of standard practice. | |
| Still, tradition alone isn't a satisfactory answer to the question. | |
| After all, the zine and the comp are run by different people now. Too, | |
| competition reviews are hardly in short supply. In fact, reviewing comp | |
| games has become so de rigeur that by the time the comp issue of SPAG | |
| comes out, the community has already been treated to opinions from | |
| dozens of different comp reviewers, myself included. This is, of course, | |
| a great thing (as it would be if non-comp games got the same treatment), | |
| but it does tend to call into question the usefulness of an annual SPAG | |
| full of comp reviews. | |
| However, after giving it some thought, I believe there are several | |
| points in favor of an annual comp issue. One, SPAG solicits reviews that | |
| go into greater depth than the majority of the treatments that appear on | |
| rec.games.int-fiction. Looking through the reviews collected on Stephen | |
| Granade's site at http://interactfiction.about.com reveals that many | |
| consist of just a few sentences, transcribed notes, fragmentary | |
| thoughts, or offhand reactions; many also include spoilers, which make | |
| them unfriendly to people who haven't yet played the game. As the number | |
| of comp games increases, so too does this tendency toward brevity and | |
| skimming. SPAG reviews, on the other hand, try for a bit more cohesion, | |
| a bit more depth, and work hard to avoid spoilers. Even the comp reviews | |
| reprinted from rgif are selected with these qualities in mind. Including | |
| these reprints allows SPAG to feature a selection from some of the best | |
| reviews to appear on the newsgroups in the post-comp review glut. | |
| Reviews are chosen for their insight into particular points, their | |
| humor, or sometimes their sheer enthusiasm for a game that may have been | |
| overlooked by the majority of other respondents. | |
| It's important to me, though, that the comp issue not be dominated by | |
| these reprints -- I've always tried to keep the ratio of new reviews to | |
| reprints at least one to one, if not greater. In fact, I believe that | |
| original content is another good reason for a SPAG comp issue. The | |
| majority of comp reviews come in a massive deluge the day after the comp | |
| ends, and I think there's a value to comp reviews that are written after | |
| that initial flood, and that perhaps even respond to the points raised | |
| by some of those early assessments. Of course, this idea is predicated | |
| on people actually *writing* these reviews, and though fewer people seem | |
| to be drawn to this type of assignment, the output of those few can be | |
| quite valuable. This issue's original reviews were provided by Mark | |
| Musante, Duncan Stevens, and Tina Sikorski. Tina's reviews in particular | |
| are in a format which differs a bit from the traditional SPAG review -- | |
| she assigns and explains letter grades for Writing, Puzzles, Plot, NPCs, | |
| Technical skill, and a final factor called "Tilt", which functions | |
| similar to the wildcard points in regular SPAG scores. In addition, she | |
| provides an overall grade and the score she submitted for the game. | |
| Though these reviews aren't SPAG's usual style, I found their | |
| postdiluvian perspective intriguing, and have included a healthy sample. | |
| One last justification: the SPAG comp issue has always contained more | |
| than just reviews. As in previous years, we've interviewed the authors | |
| of particularly successful comp games -- this time around we've got | |
| interviews with Ian Finley, Emily Short, and J. Robinson Wheeler, | |
| authors of the first, second, and third place comp games, respectively. | |
| All three of these authors took the time to give long and thoughtful | |
| answers to SPAG's questions, and their thoughts are likely to be | |
| interesting even to those who are a bit weary of comp game reviews. | |
| In the end, I've decided that the annual comp issue of SPAG is a | |
| worthwhile endeavour after all, but there are ways to make it even | |
| better. For next year's comp issue, I'll be soliciting creative ideas | |
| for comp-oriented material to stand alongside the reviews. This could be | |
| anything from authors' notes to humor pieces to essays looking at the | |
| patterns created by the comp games as a whole. The future of the comp | |
| issue, and the future of SPAG in general, is in the hands of its | |
| contributors as much as mine. I'm optimistic that the energy and | |
| creativity of the IF community will keep that future a bright one. | |
| NEWS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| COMPETITION RESULTS | |
| There's been a general consensus that the 2000 IF competition was one of | |
| the best ever -- not only were a record number of games entered, but an | |
| impressive number of those were significant achievements. As usual, we | |
| all owe a debt of gratitude to organizer Stephen Granade and vote- | |
| counter Mark Musante. This issue is full of reviews that examine the | |
| comp games in depth, but for posterity's sake, here are the final | |
| results: | |
| 1 Kaged Ian Finley | |
| 2 Metamorphoses Emily Short | |
| 3 Being Andrew Plotkin J. Robinson Wheeler | |
| 4 Ad Verbum Nick Montfort | |
| 5 Transfer Tod Levi | |
| 6 My Angel Jon Ingold | |
| 7 Nevermore Nate Cull | |
| 8 Masquerade Kathleen M. Fischer | |
| 9 YAGWAD John Kean aka Digby McWiggle | |
| 10 Shade Andrew Plotkin | |
| 11 Guess the Verb! Leonard Richardson | |
| 12 Letters from Home Roger Firth | |
| 13 Rameses Stephen Bond | |
| 14 The Djinni Chronicles J. D. Berry | |
| 15 The Best Man Rob Menke | |
| 16 And the Waves Choke the Wind Gunther Schmidl | |
| 17 At Wit's End Mike J. Sousa | |
| 18 Dinner with Andre Liza Daly | |
| 19 Planet of the Infinite Minds Alfredo Garcia | |
| 20 The Big Mama Brendan Barnwell | |
| 21 The End Means Escape Stephen Kodat | |
| 22 Punk Points Jim Munroe | |
| 23 A Crimson Spring Robb Sherwin | |
| Enlisted G. F. Berry | |
| 25 Futz Mutz Tim Simmons | |
| 26 Return to Zork: Another Story Stefano Canali | |
| 27 Unnkulia X Valentine Kopteltsev | |
| 28 Desert Heat Papillon | |
| 29 Got ID? Marc Valhara | |
| 30 Castle Amnos John Evans | |
| 31 The Masque of the Last Faeries Ian R Ball | |
| 32 The Pickpocket Alex Weldon | |
| 33 The Trip Cameron Wilkin | |
| 34 Happy Ever After Robert M. Camisa | |
| 35 Prodly the Puffin Craig Timpany & Jim Crawford | |
| 36 Withdrawal Symptoms Niclas Carlsson | |
| 37 Aftermath Graham Somerville | |
| 38 The Clock Cleopatra Kozlowski | |
| 39 Wrecked Campbell Wild | |
| 40 Threading the Labyrinth Kevin F. Doughty | |
| 41 VOID: CORPORATION Jonathan Lim | |
| 42 1-2-3... Chris Mudd | |
| 43 Escape from Crulistan Alan Smithee | |
| 44 Stupid Kittens Pollyanna Huffington | |
| 45 Marooned Bruce Davis | |
| 46 On the Other Side Antonio M�rquez Mar�n | |
| 47 Jarod's Journey Tim Emmerich | |
| 48 Infil-traitor Chris Charla | |
| 49 Comp00ter Game Brendan Barnwell | |
| 50 Little Billy Okey Ikeako | |
| 51 Asendent Sourdoh Farenheit & Kelvin Flatbred | |
| 52 What-IF? David Ledgard | |
| 53 Breaking the Code Gunther Schmidl | |
| NEW GAMES | |
| Even though the competition is over, the flow of new games has not | |
| stopped! Among the new arrivals are another fiendish Andy Phillips | |
| puzzler, an innovative storytelling experiment from the 6th place author | |
| in this year's comp, and the first game (to my knowledge) using the SUDS | |
| development environment. | |
| * The MONDAY Adventure by Mikel Rice | |
| (http://www.geocities.com/mondayadv/mdayndex.html) | |
| * Heroine's Mantle by Andy Phillips | |
| * Hortulus by Florian Edelbauer (a game in German, available at | |
| http://www.textadventures.de/hortulus/hortulus.html) | |
| * FailSafe by Jon Ingold | |
| * Snow Night by Chuck Smith | |
| (http://www.ksu.edu/wwparent/story/nature/) | |
| SO FIND | |
| A new website by the name of ifFINDER has recently appeared at | |
| http://www.corknut.org/ifFinder/. This site catalogs a collection of IF- | |
| related pages, sorting them by category and offering a search engine for | |
| those more specific requests. There are currently 109 pages indexed | |
| there, and the site offers a submission form if you know of a site that | |
| should be on there but isn't. | |
| INFOCOM POSTMORTEM | |
| It's been 11 years since the last Infocom text adventure, and in that | |
| time there has been no definitive resource chronicling the rise and fall | |
| of the most important company in Interactive Fiction history -- until | |
| now. A group of students from MIT, the same university that spawned the | |
| original group of Imps, has released a paper entitled "Down From the Top | |
| of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc." Their conclusion: "Infocom did | |
| not fail simply because it decided to shift its focus to business | |
| software... Behind the scenes, the transition created a litany of | |
| problems that hurt both the games and the business divisions of the | |
| company. Combined with some bad luck, these problems -- not simply the | |
| development of Cornerstone -- ultimately led to Infocom�s downfall." The | |
| paper is available at http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/infocom/ | |
| UPTHUMB AND I | |
| Have you ever wanted to endorse a game personally, but not felt up to | |
| writing a review? Brendan Barnwell has the solution for you. It's called | |
| Upthumb, a web site at http://members.aol.com/brenbarn/upthumb.html. | |
| This site allows visitors to register their appreciation for IF games | |
| and be added to a list of that game's endorsers. | |
| REVIEWERS? ANYONE? ANYONE? BUELLER? | |
| SPAG lives or dies by the contributions you provide to it. If you want | |
| to review a game, but aren't sure which one to pick, consider choosing a | |
| candidate from the following list of my deep desires: | |
| SPAG 10 MOST WANTED LIST | |
| ======================== | |
| 1. The Best Man | |
| 2. Dangerous Curves | |
| 3. FailSafe | |
| 4. Gateway 2: Homeworld | |
| 5. Heroine's Mantle | |
| 6. Letters From Home | |
| 7. The MONDAY Adventure | |
| 8. The Mulldoon Legacy | |
| 9. Snow Night | |
| 10. T-Zero | |
| INTERVIEWS----------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| In addition to the innumerable hours they poured into their comp | |
| entries, the top three authors in this year's IF competition were kind | |
| enough to spend some time answering SPAG's questions about their lives, | |
| their work, and their opinions. J. Robinson Wheeler even took those | |
| questions and changed the whole thing from an interview to... something | |
| slightly different. You'll see when we get there. SPAG is proud to | |
| present the following interviews with Ian Finley, Emily Short, and J. | |
| Robinson Wheeler. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Ian Finley, author of "Kaged"-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| SPAG: When SPAG last spoke with you, you were a 17-year-old high school | |
| student living in Bountiful, Utah. Aside from being three years older, | |
| what else has changed in your life between now and then? | |
| IF: Certainly not my maturity level ;) I'm currently studying acting at | |
| the University of Utah with vague hopes of going on to study directing | |
| at Columbia or NYU, and have graduated from a Byronic gay teen to full | |
| fledged glamour boy and queer activist. My focus lately has been on | |
| performance, including a series of original performance art pieces done | |
| as benefit for the Utah Gay and Lesbian Community Center, as well as | |
| playing the Logician in a production of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" that's | |
| going to tour California in February. Unfortunately neither acting nor | |
| IF quite pays the rent (let alone the tuition) so I've also been | |
| teaching at the university's Theatre Conservatory during the summers for | |
| the past couple of years, which has been incredibly rewarding. | |
| SPAG: Do you do any other kinds of writing besides IF? | |
| IF: Most of my writing lately has been for the stage (unsurprising, | |
| given the focus of my current studies). In the past three years I've | |
| written several plays and other theatrical pieces that have been | |
| performed around Salt Lake in different venues as I've slowly crept up | |
| the ladder towards competent writing. | |
| SPAG: What's your assessment of the current shape of IF? | |
| IF: Multifaceted. It's rare to find a "niche market" that has something | |
| for everyone. More than ever before, I think IF has broadened its scope | |
| and appeal; producing works ranging from comedy to tragedy, puzzle-based | |
| to puzzle-less, massive to miniature. Authors are beginning to see just | |
| how much this medium can accomplish (and becoming more aware of its | |
| weaknesses) and pushing the boundaries of that. This is an exciting time | |
| to be involved with the IF community. | |
| SPAG: You've been a perennial entrant to the IF competition. Now that | |
| you've won, what's next? Do you plan to write any more IF, and if so, do | |
| you think you'll submit it to the comp? | |
| IF: Good question. The reason I enter games in the competition is for | |
| the promise of response: I'm an actor, I need direct response to my | |
| craft to really feel it's working. On stage that's easy, (are they | |
| laughing? are they crying? are they cringing?) but with IF you have to | |
| hope and pray that if someone responds they'll be gracious enough to | |
| tell you. The competition greatly increases that chance. At the same | |
| time, part of the purpose of the comp is to encourage new authors, not | |
| glorify old ones, so I am wary of entering again. | |
| SPAG: Last year, you chose to enter anonymously (in fact, to enter twice | |
| under two different pseudonyms!) This year, you entered under your own | |
| name. What was your rationale for that decision? | |
| IF: Last year I didn't want people to see the name Ian Finley and think | |
| "Oh, this will be like Babel" and be utterly disappointed or confused by | |
| Exhibition. I also wanted Exhibition to stand or fall on its own merit, | |
| as opposed to people thinking they SHOULD like it because they enjoyed | |
| Babel. On the other hand, I entered Beal St. anonymously for very | |
| different reasons: I wasn't at all sure I wanted my name associated with | |
| it at all! If Adam Cadre and several others on the MUD hadn't figured me | |
| out that game might very well have gone unclaimed by any author to this | |
| day! | |
| Why then did I enter Kaged under my own name? Because I wanted it to get | |
| noticed. ;) People have certain natural feelings going into a work by an | |
| author they know: I sit down to open a volume of Camus in a totally | |
| different mindset than when I settle in to read Oscar Wilde or Jane | |
| Austen. This is neither good nor bad, just different. Repeatedly, I'd | |
| seen with "Hunter, In Darkness" in '99 the remark that if players had | |
| known it was Zarf they would have rated it higher, not just *because* it | |
| was Zarf but because they would then trust the author enough to take | |
| certain risks with him. Instead of "I'm in a maze, I'll quit playing | |
| now," players said they'd be more inclined to think, "This author | |
| wouldn't put this maze here without a reason, I'll keep playing." So, I | |
| figured this time around, since part of my overall concept was to appeal | |
| to as broad a base of players as possible, I'd submit under my own name. | |
| I can promise though that any games I do enter in the future will be | |
| under various cryptic pseudonyms. | |
| SPAG: What gave you the idea for Kaged? | |
| IF: As always happens with me, several different images came together in | |
| a sort of stew. The original idea came from reading some very clever, | |
| very short horror stories, all with one neat little twist and wondering | |
| how many times I could twist a plot, lie to the PC in some way, and | |
| still get away with it. Then I saw an amazing production of Kafka's | |
| "Metamorphosis" at the Lab Theatre here in Salt Lake. That same week I | |
| started studying the German expressionist silent films, most notably the | |
| classic "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." I began wondering how an | |
| expressionistic world-view wedded with Kafka's dark, to the point, | |
| bureaucratic style might work for IF. The visual style of "Cabinet," | |
| filled with monstrously skewed perspectives and slanting, terribly acute | |
| angles, was one of its most memorable devices, so I began wondering how | |
| I could adapt that to non-visual IF. As a result, the descriptions of | |
| almost all the rooms in Kaged mention their odd angles, acute corners, | |
| and lack of perpendicular stability. After brewing for a bit, these | |
| random images crystallized into the backbone of Kaged. Interestingly | |
| enough, though many reviewers have likened the game world to 1984 or | |
| Brave New World, I have never actually read anything by Orwell or Huxley | |
| (I'm behind, I know, I know) and indeed if I had I may well have been | |
| too daunted or swayed by their worlds to attempt to create my own | |
| dystopia! | |
| SPAG: Some people have noted that Kaged is a more traditional IF game, | |
| and wondered if that's why it placed ahead of more experimental works | |
| like Rameses and My Angel. Did you set out to give Kaged a broad appeal, | |
| or was its form dictated by its content? | |
| IF: There's some truth behind both statements, but my return to a more | |
| traditional form was largely an intentional move to appeal to a broad | |
| audience. After Exhibition, which I felt accomplished the goals I had | |
| set out for it, I felt slightly guilty that I had somehow let the IF | |
| world down, after the popular success of Babel. Moreover, both | |
| download.com and AOL, which have distributed tens of thousands of copies | |
| of Babel, both refused to distribute Exhibition, apparently having no | |
| category it fit into. Add to that a seeming trend towards more | |
| completely puzzle-based games that's started to mirror the recent growth | |
| in puzzle-less games and which seems popular among many people on the | |
| newsgroup. For all these reasons, I made a little deal with myself, | |
| saying: "I'll alternate. For each experimental game I write I'll write a | |
| more traditional game with a broader appeal." I figured in this way I | |
| could reach audiences at both ends of the spectrum at one point or | |
| another, produce "games" which wider distribution mechanisms like | |
| download.com might be interested in (thus bringing more people into the | |
| IF community), and still have an opportunity to write experimental, | |
| story-oriented works, which are my biggest interest in the area of IF | |
| today. Sure, it could be said why don't I try to integrate both elements | |
| into one game, and I'm working on that (and I hope Kaged has at least a | |
| few unique, somewhat experimental elements to it) but I've not quite | |
| reached that level of proficiency yet. However, now that I have written | |
| a game that seems to have won the popular vote, I do intend on focusing | |
| my energies more towards experimental forms, like Exhibition and like | |
| this year's very unique and laudable experimental entries like Rameses | |
| and My Angel. | |
| SPAG: Of all the conversation systems on display in the comp, the one in | |
| Kaged was arguably the least interactive: the player simply types "TALK | |
| TO <npc>" and the game dictates the dialogue from there on. What were | |
| the advantages and disadvantages of using this method? | |
| IF: This is owed entirely to The Last Express, the finest piece of | |
| interactive storytelling I've ever seen. NPC interaction has always | |
| baffled me, and one of my primary efforts in writing IF has been finding | |
| ways to sidestep the issue. Babel was written to have no NPCs at all the | |
| character could interact with; Exhibition was written about themes | |
| isolation and the impossibility of communication at least in part to | |
| justify the inability to talk with the NPCs in the gallery. Oh, I'd | |
| tried other ways. The first season of Vivaldi, a massive IF epic that I | |
| started right after Babel and has gone down unforeseen and interesting | |
| paths since then, involved a NPC that responded with the usual ask/tell | |
| system. After coding responses on some seventy-five topics that varied | |
| with the given situation, I realized that writing NPCs in this way | |
| wasn't going to work (the fact that Emily Short somehow made it work is | |
| why I consider Galatea to be one of the true landmark games of modern | |
| IF). So, after tearing my hair out and attempting to program menu-based | |
| conversations for Kaged, I played The Last Express and hit upon the most | |
| elegant solution. If the PC is a well defined character, as I was hoping | |
| Aackmann would be, then in any given situation the plot will dictate | |
| what he is going to say if he chooses to talk. Of course, this required | |
| some puppeteering from behind the scenes and led to some slightly | |
| artificial almost-cut-scenes at some major plot points, but I felt that | |
| on the whole it allowed me to keep things under control without | |
| overloading my programming skills or utterly breaking mimesis. It was a | |
| good compromise for this game and may be something I return to, | |
| depending on its suitability, for other works in the future. | |
| SPAG: Speaking more generally, what are some of your thoughts on | |
| balancing the need for interactivity with the need for telling a story? | |
| IF: It's damn hard. ;) As a storyteller, I feel that I have to remain in | |
| control a great deal for the story to come through and I think that the | |
| best "story" games from this years comp (BAP, Rameses, etc.) were all | |
| fairly tightly controlled. Possibly the greatest "story" game of all | |
| time, Photopia, was a very controlled game, but I think there are ways | |
| of offering interactivity in other ways that don't necessarily | |
| relinquish that control. Level of detail is one of these for me. | |
| Essentially every object in Kaged is described, including the walls, | |
| floor and ceiling of every room, and down to the moss of the tiles in | |
| the showers in the bathroom. Several objects, and every single actor, | |
| has several different descriptions, based on when you look at them. Of | |
| course, there's always room for more detail, but the more you can add, | |
| the more time you're willing to put into that step the richer the world | |
| becomes and the more apparently interactive. There are scenes in Kaged | |
| where you're forced to stand about for several turns, but I felt if I | |
| could at least offer lots of different things to look at and poke at the | |
| more engaged the player would be. I don't think however there's any | |
| "right" balance of interactivity to story, there are just ratios that | |
| are more suitable and less suitable for what you're trying to convey and | |
| the audience you're trying to convey it to. | |
| SPAG: What did you think about this year's competition? Any favorite | |
| games? | |
| IF: SPLENDID competition. It was terrifying to see so many wonderful | |
| games. Shade, Rameses, Ad Verbum, My Angel, Masquerade; these were all | |
| fine and memorable games that have definitely earned a place on my hard | |
| drive. Above all though, I must say that Being Andrew Plotkin (which I | |
| waited for with great excitement since first seeing the title in an | |
| e-mail sent to all the authors) and Metamorphoses (which I waited for | |
| with even greater excitement since Emily first declined to test Kaged | |
| because she was putting together something of her own for the comp) | |
| especially charmed me and I'm honored to share the top rankings with | |
| them. | |
| SPAG: Any advice you'd care to offer for prospective competition | |
| entrants? | |
| IF: Beta-test! I know this sounds like old hat to everyone by now, but | |
| testing really is what makes a game successful. And I'm not just talking | |
| about cleaning up bugs here, but also cleaning up text and design | |
| errors. Hoooo boy, you should have seen Kaged (or any of my games) on | |
| their first drafts. Doubt you'd even recognize them. Get testers. Get | |
| LOTS of them (I think I sent inquiries off to about twenty people | |
| initially this year). Spend time with them, a period of time at least | |
| half as long as the time it took you to write the game, if not an equal | |
| period. Kaged took two months of steady work to program and another two | |
| months of steady work to test. | |
| And be gracious. These people are doing a tremendous job for you, | |
| absolutely for free, while trying to juggle lives of their own. These | |
| are the people who can really "make" your game and they deserve respect | |
| and gratuitous thanks. ;) | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-Emily Short, author of "Metamorphoses"-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| SPAG: For starters, could you tell us a little about yourself? Who are | |
| you, what do you do for a living, and so forth? | |
| ES: I'm a PhD student in Classics, which means that I have a teaching | |
| assistantship and go to classes. Whether or not this counts as doing | |
| something for a living is open to question. | |
| I also travel as much as I can, write fiction and nonfiction, teach a | |
| course in writing for home-schooled high school students, collect | |
| Requiem masses on CD, read the occasional romance, cook the occasional | |
| elaborate dinner. I frequently develop passionate fascinations with | |
| topics that have nothing to do with Greek, much to the frustration of my | |
| advisors: being an undergraduate was more fun. The world is an intensely | |
| interesting place and I would like to see as much of it as possible from | |
| as many angles as possible. | |
| SPAG: How did you first become introduced to IF? | |
| ES: My mother has held various computing jobs since the early 80s, and I | |
| have dim childhood recollections of watching her play Adventure and | |
| Zork, and then a bit later of trying my own hand at Infocom games. I was | |
| really fascinated by Deadline despite the fact that I had no idea what | |
| was going on or what I was supposed to be doing. Enchanter was another | |
| favorite of mine. I don't think I completely solved one on my own until | |
| Plundered Hearts, though. I even started (in BASIC, heaven help us, with | |
| the most primitive conception of a parser imaginable) a game called | |
| 'RingQuest,' about which the less said, the better. I was twelve, so | |
| there may be some excuse. | |
| Then Infocom went under and I kind of figured that was that. I didn't | |
| hear about Inform or the new community or r*if until 1996 or 97, when a | |
| college friend of mine who knew about my old fondness for Infocom games | |
| introduced me to Curses. At which point it became clear that I had to | |
| learn the language and do one of these things myself. | |
| SPAG: So far, you've created a game with a very deeply implemented | |
| character (Galatea) and a game with very deeply implemented objects | |
| (Metamorphoses.) What is it about this kind of depth that interests you? | |
| ES: I'm not very interested in the kind of game that consists chiefly of | |
| a series of puzzles with single solutions. (Especially if the puzzles | |
| are hard. At Wit's End is a perfect example: it's probably quite well | |
| done and very appealing to certain people, but it turned me off | |
| completely as soon as I realized how it worked. I play IF more for | |
| atmosphere and story than for the sake of enjoying the frustration | |
| factor.) | |
| Better, in my opinion, to set up a system with a set of rules that the | |
| player can learn and then manipulate in various ways to achieve various | |
| goals. In Galatea, there's not even a set problem -- you decide what you | |
| want to try to do. Metamorphoses is a lot closer to being a puzzle game, | |
| but the simulationist element means (I hope) that the player will feel | |
| as though the solutions are a seamless expression of the possibilities | |
| inherent in the world. | |
| I think this issue first came into my consciousness when I played Spider | |
| and Web. There's a two-stage process: figure out how the stuff you have | |
| works, and then come up with ways to use that knowledge. The experience, | |
| it seemed to me, was a lot more satisfying than your average get-thing, | |
| use-thing puzzle, no matter how trickily disguised. | |
| Ultimately I'd like my work to be effective as toy (richly implemented | |
| and fun to play with), as game (actions lead to progress towards a | |
| goal), and as story (actions fit naturally into the scheme of a plot). | |
| SPAG: You've become known as someone whose games are liable to feature a | |
| large number of endings. Tell us a bit about why you employ this | |
| strategy. | |
| ES: I'm not committed to writing only games where there are multiple | |
| endings; it just happens that both of the games I've released so far | |
| have seemed to demand it. In the case of Galatea, I wanted to keep the | |
| player a little off-balance all the time; I wanted to make a character | |
| who seemed a bit unpredictable. I particularly did *not* want there to | |
| be one "answer" or "explanation" that could be spoiled for people in | |
| advance. And I also wanted the process of discovery to be guided by what | |
| the player was interested in. It's a game designed to be as responsive | |
| as possible to the player's personal approach. | |
| With Metamorphoses I had a plot reason rather than a mechanical reason. | |
| The development of the PC is from slavery to freedom, from restriction | |
| to choice. So I wanted the freedom she gains to be reflected in the | |
| game-play. There's been some discussion, but I think this is the right | |
| choice: different players have liked different endings for the story. | |
| SPAG: What was your process for writing Metamorphoses? I'm wondering | |
| things like how long it took, what inspired it, how you went about | |
| coding it, and the like. | |
| ES: I talk about this a little bit more on my web page | |
| (emshort.home.mindspring.com/games.htm), but the basic gist is that I | |
| began it as a coding exercise for a materials-simulation library I was | |
| writing, and then it developed a life of its own. | |
| How long did it take? I spent a lot of time during the summer of 1999 | |
| writing stuff that eventually found its way into the game -- room | |
| descriptions, objects, most of the puzzles -- as part of a much larger | |
| and more ambitious game under the working title "Practical Alchemy." The | |
| thematic material was broader -- Hermeticism, Kabbalism, Della Porta's | |
| natural magic, some strands of Chinese elemental theory -- a wide range | |
| of the stuff that fed into the alchemical tradition, rather than the | |
| simplified Neoplatonism of the game as it now stands. It was also going | |
| to have an extremely complicated Inquisitor NPC; a demon-possessed cat; | |
| divisible liquids and measurement puzzles; a 'copy' machine that would | |
| let you replicate any of your inventory... it was a mess. There were | |
| some bits for which the coding was cool: I had a mystical book coded up | |
| to produce randomized Latin gibberish that would still consistently scan | |
| as dactylic hexameter, for instance -- but WHO WAS GOING TO NOTICE? So I | |
| threw it out. And I did have the object-copying machine worked out, with | |
| a cute little copy room for it to go in. Along with the parse_name code | |
| that distinguished formerly identical objects one of which had been | |
| modified in size or material. | |
| So all that was there, sitting around, as of last November or so, and I | |
| shelved it to work on other projects. | |
| When it came time for comp registration I signed up without being | |
| certain which of several things-in-progress I'd wind up entering. Around | |
| the beginning of September, I came to the conclusion that none of my | |
| other projects was worthy of notice yet, that I liked the setting for | |
| this game better than anything else I had going on, and that I could | |
| make something workable out of it if I stripped the design down to | |
| basics. From there in it was a month of focused work. I cut extensively, | |
| designed the last couple of puzzles, reshaped the plot, and, as They | |
| say, raced like the wind to finish on time. | |
| The coding is not exotic. Everything difficult -- timed burn routines, | |
| divisible liquids, copied objects, breakables that leave behind shards | |
| sharp enough to be used to cut other objects -- all that got edited out | |
| of this game. I have a class of Changeable objects that have properties | |
| representing their materials and shapes and sizes. Verbs are reworked to | |
| behave appropriately, so that for instance hitting a glass object with a | |
| hard object breaks the glass -- there are some minor complexities | |
| involving containers, but mostly this was all just handled with a lot of | |
| switch statements. And then the puzzles check for the presence of the | |
| right physical characteristics. So instead of coding up a condition as | |
| if (noun == persian_rug) { blah blah blah; } | |
| I have | |
| if (noun.size > 2 && noun.shape == PLANAR && noun.mater == CLOTH) | |
| { blah blah blah; } | |
| Then I did a lot of tinkering around -- and had my beta testers do a lot | |
| of tinkering around -- trying to come up with interactions I hadn't | |
| thought of yet. It didn't occur to me that someone might try to hang | |
| cloth objects on the hook, obvious though that is, until it showed up in | |
| my sister's transcript. | |
| This pretty much describes how I seem to write IF in general. First I | |
| get some hair-brained idea for a system (conversation, material | |
| interactions); in the process of coding it up, an appropriate story and | |
| setting suggest themselves; then I play with the game a lot, and have | |
| other people play with it, in order to find the places where the | |
| implementation needs to be deepened. Of the changes I made between | |
| versions of Galatea, a couple stemmed from extra ideas I'd had in the | |
| meantime, but the majority came from looking at people's transcripts and | |
| listening to their complaints about what they wanted to be able to do. | |
| SPAG: Can you talk a bit about the relationship between the PC and her | |
| Master in Metamorphoses? | |
| ES: It's not quite as monolithically dark as some people seem to | |
| believe: he's somewhere between adoptive father, teacher, and | |
| slave-driver. He doesn't hate her; he just considers his ultimate goal | |
| more important than her comfort or his own, which means that he has to | |
| push her harder than is humane. And so far she hasn't done a very good | |
| job of standing up for herself -- *and* she's rather intrigued by this | |
| strange stuff she's involved in, isolating and difficult and painful | |
| though it sometimes is. | |
| SPAG: Do you plan to write more IF in the future? | |
| ES: I am writing more IF currently. | |
| SPAG: What did you think about this year's competition? Any favorite | |
| games? | |
| ES: Kaged, Shade, Being Andrew Plotkin, and Masquerade. BAP and Shade | |
| both earned points for producing a strong personal response: BAP was the | |
| funniest game I've played in a long time, and Shade the scariest. And | |
| Kaged and Masquerade were both engrossing, Masquerade because I wanted | |
| to find out what happened in the plot and Kaged because the atmosphere | |
| was so effective. | |
| I share the general opinion that the competition was a strong one this | |
| year, though there were also some things that I think should've been | |
| left in the oven a little longer. That's always the case, though. | |
| SPAG: Any advice you'd care to offer for prospective competition | |
| entrants? | |
| ES: Don't submit a game that's not ready. If you can't tell whether it's | |
| half-baked or not, get beta-testers with some experience with IF. | |
| (Showing it to three of your closest friends doesn't help if they don't | |
| know what the state of the art looks like.) This is obvious advice, but | |
| I think it's important. | |
| SPAG: Finally, you have a reputation as a passionate advocate of cheese. | |
| Is there anything you'd like to tell us about what drives this passion | |
| of yours? Are you planning to write the definitive cheese game? | |
| ES: Cheese is a glorious thing. All dairy products partake partially of | |
| this glory, but cheese stands at the apex. For those who are interested, | |
| I have a cheese-centric ratings/review page at | |
| emshort.home.mindspring.com/cheese.htm. | |
| If you look at that page, though, you'll note that there's a sad dearth | |
| of games that explore the pleasure and wonder of cheese in all its | |
| varieties. I'd like to write such a game, but I alone cannot be a | |
| sufficient advocate. Which is why we need a CheeseComp in the very near | |
| future. | |
| -=-=-=J. Robinson Wheeler, author of "Being Andrew Plotkin"-=-=-= | |
| We sent our SPAG correspondent-at-large, Snappy Von Beakerhead, to meet | |
| up with IF Competition winner Celie Paradis -- or rather, J. Robinson | |
| Wheeler. His previous IF release was the comedy 1998 Competition entry | |
| "Four in One," a game about the Marx Brothers set in the glory days of | |
| the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. His entry this year, "Being Andrew | |
| Plotkin," another movie-related comedy, placed third and garnered | |
| positive reviews, including a few raves. | |
| Von Beakerhead writes: "I met up with J. Robinson Wheeler, or Rob as he | |
| is familiarly known, in the upstairs section of a coffee house in | |
| Austin, Texas. He arrived about fifteen minutes late, wearing blue | |
| jeans, a blue button-collar shirt covered by a worn flannel overshirt | |
| (in a third shade of blue), and a blue fedora. He made polite apologies | |
| about traffic, and as we chatted he sipped alternately on a pint glass | |
| of coffee with milk and sugar and a pint glass of ice water. | |
| "When we started, he seemed moody, as if the world were weighing down on | |
| him, and he rarely made eye contact. As we talked, he seemed to | |
| brighten. When I asked about his upcoming TADS game, he lit up. I talked | |
| with him about 'Being Andrew Plotkin,' about this upcoming full-scale | |
| text adventure, and about what he sees for IF's future." | |
| SPAG: For starters, could you tell us a little about yourself? Who are | |
| you, what do you do for a living, and so forth? | |
| Rob: (laughs) These are actually the kinds of questions I have the most | |
| trouble with. The normal ones -- "So, what do you do?" "How are you | |
| today?" | |
| SPAG: Why is it a problem for you? | |
| Rob: I think it's that I have to gauge who I'm talking to because | |
| there's a number of ways I could answer, from superficially to very | |
| personally. | |
| SPAG: Well, feel free to answer however you like. | |
| Rob: I grew up in Austin, got a bachelor's degree from Stanford, pursued | |
| and then dropped out of graduate film studies at USC, where I also | |
| studied music. I was a cartoonist for a while, and a screenwriter, then | |
| I worked as a sound mixer for independent films, and as a freelance Web | |
| designer. I'm currently unemployed. My main activities this year have | |
| been directing and editing a movie and writing IF. How's that? | |
| SPAG: Fine. How did you first become introduced to IF? | |
| Rob: When I was in fifth grade, which was 1980-81, I had a friend named | |
| Mike Benedict. One day, Mike started raving to me about this "adventure | |
| game" called Zork. Our fathers were both professors in the astronomy | |
| department at UT-Austin, and so we'd walk over there after school, log | |
| into the VAX computer, and go to the games section. Later they took the | |
| games off the university computers because people were abusing the | |
| system resources. But before that, they had "Advent" and "Zork," as well | |
| as ones that are now lost to the mists of time -- one called "Haunt," | |
| another one called "Aardvark." | |
| SPAG: I think "Aardvark" is on the gmd archive. | |
| Rob: Yeah, I downloaded it recently and sent it to my brother, who was | |
| obsessed with that game for a while. So anyway, after that I discovered | |
| there was a BBS [bulletin board service] in Austin called the Black Box, | |
| and they had Infocom games on-line. You could dial up and play. I | |
| remember playing "Starcross" on that, until we abused it so much they | |
| took the games off. (laughs) Then we used to get Infocom games for | |
| Christmas and birthdays and stuff. And from those earliest times, I | |
| tried writing my own text adventures using BASIC. | |
| SPAG: Did you finish any of them? | |
| Rob: Only one, and it was an end-of-year project for a Latin I class in | |
| 7th grade. You wandered around ancient Pompeii and typed Latin | |
| vocabulary as commands. The teacher was impressed, since she'd never | |
| seen anything like it before. | |
| SPAG: So let's cut to the present. You just placed third in the 2000 | |
| Comp with "Being Andrew Plotkin." How does that make you feel? | |
| Rob: Terrific. | |
| SPAG: So you're content, or would you rather have placed even higher | |
| than that? | |
| Rob: I'm content. Third place actually feels pretty good. "Kaged" and | |
| "Metamorphoses" were great entries. I still get to be interviewed by | |
| SPAG, so it's all good. | |
| SPAG: You've mentioned that you used some specific techniques to | |
| simulate the Zarfian mode, and also that you employed a different | |
| writing style for each viewpoint character. Can you go into a bit more | |
| detail about how you achieved these effects? | |
| Rob: I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "the Zarfian mode." | |
| SPAG: What I mean is, a Zarfian atmosphere to the game. | |
| Rob: Well, that effect was mostly achieved by cribbing bits of Zarf's | |
| actual writing and sticking it into the game at selected points. The | |
| game starts out in kind of style-neutral mode, with nothing particularly | |
| Zarfian going on. The first hint of it is when you start to move the | |
| file cabinet, and you get a little wisp of cool air -- an effect | |
| borrowed from the beginning of "So Far." I wanted people to think, hmm, | |
| obviously we're about to enter a Zarfian world, the same way you are led | |
| into the strange other worlds of "So Far" from a fairly mundane starting | |
| location. The next thing was to write a very detailed description of the | |
| weird tunnel that you enter. I was trying to describe the tunnel that | |
| was used in the "Being John Malkovich" movie, but with Zarf's diligence | |
| to detail. Evocative adjectives, active verbs. I spent a while writing | |
| that one description. I like the reference to sharkskin that it uses -- | |
| it's slick and smooth in one direction and resists any movement against | |
| the grain. I think that it's a metaphor for the way that the game | |
| railroads the player along and doesn't give any rewards for straying off | |
| the track. The game doesn't go anywhere but forward. | |
| SPAG: Did you really mean it that way when you wrote the tunnel room | |
| description, or are you making that up in hindsight? | |
| Rob: I think I meant it but I didn't know it until later. I often find | |
| that there's a part of my brain that's smarter about making connections | |
| than my conscious mind is. | |
| SPAG: About the different viewpoint characters -- | |
| Rob: Oh right. Well, it's not true that I used a completely different | |
| writing style for each character viewpoint. The writing style was | |
| basically the same for the Valerie and Peter characters, but being | |
| different people, they would see things differently. | |
| SPAG: For example? | |
| Rob: Oh, for example -- the window in the file room. Peter sees it as a | |
| "measly window letting in one tiny square of sunlight," as if it's this | |
| pathetic thing that aggravates him. It does so little to help brighten | |
| the confines of the room, that it might as well not be there. Valerie | |
| thinks the window gives the room -- which she sees in a positive way, | |
| because it's so tidy -- a sense of openness. She thinks it's a bonus. | |
| SPAG: Okay, but when the player character is Zarf -- | |
| Rob: When the player character is Zarf, I decided to have some fun. How | |
| would Zarf see the world? And when I say Zarf, I kind of mean the | |
| mythological Zarf. | |
| SPAG: (interrupting) Who is the mythological Zarf? | |
| Rob: Well, I think it mostly comes from "So Far," which was such a | |
| surreal journey. You get the idea of a Zarfian landscape from there. And | |
| when Zarf writes this game, which is so provocative, and then refuses to | |
| explain what it means at all, that enigmatic silence seems Zarfian. So | |
| the mythological Zarf stems first from this notion of "Zarfian-ness." We | |
| collectively created the mythological Zarf as an attempt to fill in the | |
| blanks. I guess. By his silence he leaves it up to our imaginations, and | |
| we're an imaginative group. | |
| SPAG: The IF community is. | |
| Rob: Yeah. So I thought the mythos was a fun idea. How would this | |
| mythical Zarf see the world? What would be inside his head? The building | |
| blocks that created the real Zarf's creative output. As if to say, he's | |
| written this stuff because it's inside his head. And he puts a lot of | |
| detailed descriptions into his writing because that's how he sees the | |
| world. So that's what my fictional Zarf does. If I hadn't done that, | |
| people might have said, "Aw, I was hoping to see what the world looks | |
| like through Zarf's eyes." A lot of people noted that the | |
| world-through-Zarf's eyes was one of the things that made them laugh out | |
| loud in the game. It played directly to the Zarf mythos that we're all | |
| carrying around despite ourselves -- those of us who have played his | |
| games or have interacted with him on ifMUD, anyway -- and kind of nailed | |
| it. It wasn't even exactly in Zarf's style, but the excessive attention | |
| to detail and use of adjectives was enough of a nod for people to get | |
| the joke immediately. I think it's cool that we have a guy like Zarf in | |
| the community, a guy who has this funny reputation, a sort of public | |
| image that's a shared, tongue-in-cheek joke. Zarf plays along with it; | |
| we all do. | |
| SPAG: BAP is full of allusions and tiny homages. Can you mention a few | |
| that some players might have missed? | |
| Rob: Whew. Let's see. The first ones that come to mind are ones that | |
| people probably did catch. The dinner that Zarf is cooking in his | |
| kitchen is from his 1998 Xyzzy Awards acceptance speech. He had nothing | |
| to say, so he gave a recipe, and at the end he said we'd "better | |
| remember all that, because it's the solution to the endgame puzzle in | |
| next year's game." I couldn't work it into the endgame of BAP because of | |
| the plot structure, but it would have been a double or maybe triple joke | |
| if I had. | |
| SPAG: I think people probably caught that one. | |
| Rob: Well, let me try to get more obscure, then. In the game's opening | |
| text, there's a reference to a "bizarre interview with Human Resources" | |
| -- which was an allusion to "Human Resource Stories," the infamous game | |
| from Comp98, as if you got this file room job by having *that* be your | |
| interview. It mentions that the character Peter entered a previous comp | |
| and came in 16th -- which is an oblique "Four in One" reference. | |
| Melvin's last name, Prufrock, comes from the name of the detective in | |
| the first Choose Your Own Adventure book that I read, "Who Killed | |
| Harlowe Thrombey?" I think it was the ninth one in the series, and you | |
| were Inspector Prufrock. I might be wrong about that, but I think that's | |
| the memory I summoned when I was trying to think of a funny name. | |
| SPAG: Okay, that is definitely obscure. But it's distantly related to | |
| IF, so it counts. | |
| Rob: People might not know about the Zarf Classified/Declassified jokes. | |
| One is that the word "zarf" means a type of cup holder, which is what's | |
| in the Classified folder. The other is that there was this government | |
| document about something called "Zarf" which was stamped "Declassified" | |
| -- meaning only that the existence of some secret government project | |
| code-named "Zarf" was allowed to be known about, not the actual project | |
| itself. So, the code word "Zarf" was moved to "declassified" status. | |
| Zarf had a scan of this on his web page, but lost it in a disk crash, | |
| and unfortunately no one had a backup. I always thought that was sad, so | |
| I resuscitated it for the game. I could go on, if you want more | |
| references. | |
| SPAG: Maybe just a couple more. | |
| Rob: There are others that don't relate to IF at all. If you try to | |
| taste the secret door, it tastes like snozzberries. Which is a "Willy | |
| Wonka" reference. Peter's middle name, "Danielson," is the name of the | |
| female lead in the movie I'm making. For the name "Zefferelli" I was | |
| thinking of the film director who did "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet." | |
| In the endgame, Melvin brandishes these razor claws, which is obviously | |
| a reference to the superhero Wolverine -- but I was also thinking about | |
| Freddy Kreuger from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, who had razor | |
| blade fingers and would always end the movie by chasing the heroes | |
| through a twisty dream landscape. | |
| SPAG: Hard on the heels of the competition ending, you announced that | |
| you're in the testing phase of a massive TADS game called "First Things | |
| First." Tell us a little about this game. | |
| Rob: Aha. Well, this is actually the first real IF project I started | |
| writing when I discovered TADS and the IF newsgroups in 1996. All those | |
| years, following that Latin Adventure game, I'd had an itch to write IF. | |
| I don't know why it was there, because it was a strange impulse. Just | |
| this itch I couldn't scratch. "I want to write a text adventure game." | |
| Always kind of there, especially if I had an empty Saturday afternoon or | |
| something. Not to play IF, but to write one. Then my brother bought TADS | |
| -- it was shareware then -- and when I looked at it, I could instantly | |
| understand the language. Suddenly, I was free to unlock my imagination, | |
| because TADS just made perfect sense to me, unlike the other adventure | |
| game languages I'd looked at in those long intervening years. My brother | |
| and I both sat down to test out TADS. He wrote a one-room, one-puzzle | |
| game in about two days. I wrote a few rooms, then some more rooms, then | |
| some more rooms, and then found myself coming up with plot and puzzles. | |
| A few weeks later, he wondered when I'd be done. I told him just another | |
| week or so, but the thing kept growing. Now, four years later, it's | |
| finally almost done. | |
| SPAG: Okay, that's good, but what I really meant was: what is the story? | |
| What's the game about? | |
| Rob: Oops. It's a time travel story. The game is set in basically one | |
| location, outside the PC's house. The PC is a time travel buff who's | |
| always going to the library to read about it, about time travel. When | |
| the story starts, you're coming home one night and discover you've | |
| forgotten your keys and are locked out of your own house. How will you | |
| get in? In the course of wandering around trying to solve this most | |
| basic of IF puzzles, the locked door, the entire plot unfolds, taking | |
| you to the same physical location in five different eras -- twenty years | |
| ago, ten years ago, the present, ten years ahead, and twenty years | |
| ahead. And the future doesn't look as rosy as you might have hoped. | |
| Maybe there's something you can do about it. Or maybe not. Am I spoiling | |
| it? | |
| SPAG: If you stop there, probably not. | |
| Rob: Okay, good. Anyway, the people that are testing it seem to be | |
| enjoying it for the right reasons. I think it'll justify the work went | |
| into it, and I'm really looking forward to having it off my plate. | |
| Finally! Done! I'll do a little dance when I finally release it, | |
| sometime early in 2001 I guess. | |
| SPAG: Are you planning a post-comp update to BAP, and if so, do you | |
| foresee any significant changes to the game beyond bugfixes? | |
| Rob: Actually, I'm not planning a post-comp update to BAP. It was sort | |
| of part of the game that I would take a month to write it, and then I | |
| would be done with it. The bugs that are in it, I knew about them before | |
| I submitted it to the Comp, but they didn't seem essential to fix. The | |
| game kind of works anyway. BAP was never intended to be note-perfect. I | |
| think I just want to let the Comp version stand as the one and only | |
| official release. | |
| SPAG: Each of your newsgroup posts ends with a web address for something | |
| called "The Krone Experiment." What is this? | |
| Rob: This is the digital video movie I'm producing and directing, one | |
| with an interesting pedigree. It's an adaptation of a science thriller | |
| novel that my Dad, J. Craig Wheeler, wrote. It came out in 1986 and then | |
| in paperback in 1988, and sold fairly well both here and in the UK and | |
| Japan. Since my Dad's an astrophysicist, he paid careful attention to | |
| the science of the science fiction. We collaborated on the screenplay a | |
| few years ago, just after I left the graduate film program at USC. We | |
| sold it to a producer, then the rights reverted back to us. I decided | |
| that I wanted to make the movie myself rather than keep trying to get it | |
| produced by Hollywood. It's coming together well, and everyone involved | |
| is kind of excited, kind of confident that we might have a hit | |
| independent movie on our hands. We'll see. I don't want to get my hopes | |
| up falsely, but there is kind of a vibe. | |
| SPAG: Do you plan to write more IF in the future? | |
| Rob: Definitely. I kind of have to wait for the good ideas to hit me. | |
| There is another work in progress, a collaboration, but it's been top | |
| secret. I just learned that another IF author is working on a similar | |
| game, which is a bummer -- I had always intended to resume work on it | |
| after FTF was released. But there's also a new piece I just started | |
| cooking up a week ago. Maybe it'll end up being my Comp entry next year, | |
| because I can already tell it's going to be slow to develop. | |
| SPAG: Are you going to stick to comedy, or are you planning more serious | |
| works? | |
| Rob: Well, FTF isn't exactly a comedy. It starts out in a lighthearted | |
| mood, that sort of general Infocom style, and then gets darker as the | |
| story progresses. I think it might get too dark, though. I guess I'm | |
| going to keep searching for just the right balance, because that's the | |
| most satisfying for both the author and the player. | |
| SPAG: What did you think about this year's competition? Any favorite | |
| games? | |
| Rob: My three favorites, the ones I voted for Miss Congeniality, were | |
| "Dinner With Andre," "Shade," and "Rameses." After I read all the | |
| reviews, I played a few more games, and I was definitely impressed with | |
| "My Angel." I think it was a great step forward in storytelling IF as | |
| opposed to puzzle IF. I liked "Kaged," too, which I hadn't played before | |
| the judging was over. It gives me a good idea of what I might have to | |
| come up with if I want to place higher than 3rd next time. | |
| SPAG: Is that your goal? | |
| Rob: I would like to place first in the Comp someday, yes. Not just to | |
| have done that, but for the satisfaction of having written an excellent | |
| IF game. | |
| SPAG: What do you see as the future of the IF medium, and what's your | |
| place in it going to be? | |
| Rob: I'm intrigued that there's now the ability to integrate multimedia | |
| into IF with the standard languages and tools, but that not very much | |
| experimenting has been done yet. There were also these teasing | |
| developments this year, what with the notion that there might be a | |
| market for text games on mobile phones and such. I actually had a dream | |
| one night, last year I think, where I foresaw a commercial future for | |
| IF. I flipped open a Wired magazine in the dream, and saw this elegant | |
| advertisement for an IF company. They were marketing IF the way | |
| champagne is marketed, or any luxury item, as this high quality product | |
| for discerning tastes. Not as a broad appeal, but as a niche market, one | |
| with snob appeal. I think that might be one strategy to use if one were | |
| going to try to sell IF on a regular basis. Then again, it was just a | |
| dream. Maybe I ate some cold pizza before going to sleep, and that's all | |
| it was. But if it did go that way, I would love to work for that | |
| company. I'd love for there to be a business model that would work, | |
| where IF authors could at least make some good money on the side even if | |
| it can't ever be their sole income. I don't think it would work if it | |
| were a real company with a corporate headquarters, renting office space, | |
| with all of that overhead. I think it should be a virtual company, an | |
| organized version of the creative anarchy that we've already got in the | |
| community. With elegant advertising in Wired. How we'd pay for the ads, | |
| I have no idea. | |
| SPAG: Any advice you'd care to offer for prospective competition | |
| entrants? | |
| Rob: Let me see if I can think of something non-generic to say. Like, | |
| besides "Test, test, test your games, give yourselves enough time to | |
| finish," blah blah blah. Here's what I did. I wrote a Comp game, | |
| submitted it, and saw how it did, which was middling. I determined to do | |
| better the next time, so I listened to the reviews my game got. I also | |
| listened to the reviews the top games got. I played the top games. I | |
| then sat out for a year, and just watched the Comp play out from the | |
| sidelines. I read all of the discussions, again looked at how things | |
| did, the way that judges approach games, the way they're often | |
| short-tempered but will walk a mile with you if you give them what | |
| they're hungry for. There's no formula, but you can kind of suss out the | |
| rules of the game. This is assuming you're playing to win, but it's not | |
| crass to do that. It means you're endeavoring to write something good. | |
| By that I mean, there's no way to cheat. You either write something | |
| people like or you don't. And I don't think it's pandering to the lowest | |
| common denominator to please a large number of the judges with your | |
| work, because most of the judges are smart, creative people with good | |
| taste. That's what's been attractive to me about the IF community. So | |
| anyway, I guess my advice is, play to win. Enter the best you've got in | |
| you to enter. Swing for the fences. Oh, and be original. | |
| SPAG: Or be Zarf. | |
| Rob: Right, if you can't be original, be someone else. It worked for me. | |
| KEY TO SCORES AND REVIEWS-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Consider the following review header: | |
| NAME: Cutthroats | |
| AUTHOR: Infocom | |
| EMAIL: ??? | |
| DATE: September 1984 | |
| PARSER: Infocom Standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2 | |
| URL: Not available. | |
| When submitting reviews: Try to fill in as much of this info as you can. | |
| If you choose, you may also provide scores for the games you review, as | |
| explained in the SPAG FAQ. The scores will be used in the ratings | |
| section. Authors may not rate or review their own games. | |
| More elaborate descriptions of the rating and scoring systems may be found | |
| in the FAQ and in issue #9 of SPAG, which should be available at: | |
| ftp://ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive/magazines/SPAG/ | |
| and at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag | |
| REVIEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| From: Mark J Musante <olorin SP@G world.std.com> | |
| NAME: Ad Verbum | |
| AUTHOR: Nick Montfort | |
| EMAIL: nickm SP@G nickm.com | |
| DATE: October 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-Machine interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: GMD | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/adverbum.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 / Serial number 000925 | |
| One line summary: Nord and Bert with attitude. | |
| This isn't Nick's second game, but it is the second game of his that is | |
| fairly widely known. The first one was "Winchester's Nightmare" which | |
| took an interesting tack in trying to get the player to be really part | |
| of the story. Instead of the usual ">" prompt, the player is presented | |
| with "Sarah decides to", and you get to fill in what you would like her | |
| to decide to do. | |
| This really made you feel part of the action, but it had the drawback of | |
| eliminating the standard commands we came to know and love over the past | |
| 20+ years of IF. Notably, 'i' for inventory, 'n' for north, and so on. | |
| "Sarah decides to sw" doesn't make much sense as a sentence. | |
| "Ad Verbum" takes this into account in a thoroughly amusing and clever | |
| way. If you use commands like 'up' and 'north', the room descriptions | |
| will also use them. If you instead use 'u' and 'n', so do the room | |
| descriptions. Some people might find this off-putting. I found it | |
| grin-worthy. | |
| But enough of that. The game itself presents the player with a seemingly | |
| simple stint: acquire all objects from a house and dump them in the | |
| Dumpster. The catch is that the house once belonged to the "cantankerous | |
| Wizard of Wordplay", so it's not as simple as going through each room | |
| and picking up the objects. You have to obey the rules. | |
| For example, in one room, you can only use words that begin with the | |
| letter 's', however the only way to leave it is to the north, which is a | |
| word you can't use. You also have to be able to pick up objects in those | |
| rooms, again only using 's'-words. | |
| Naturally, when you're in an 'n'-, 'e'- or 'w'-only room, it's hard to | |
| save the game, so Nick has you read a warning message before entering | |
| those rooms explaining the situation. It's a bit on the defensive side | |
| and it definitely breaks the flow of the game, but I'm sure that | |
| beginning players would find it useful. I, on the other hand, would have | |
| preferred to see that as a puzzle one discovered during the course of | |
| play. | |
| After all, the game is short enough. Too short, really, because these | |
| are the kinds of puzzles I love to see. Reading the text, thinking up | |
| possible solutions, a bright flash of discovery, the eagerness to see | |
| what's next... that's what IF is all about. | |
| The only downside to the game is that it didn't recognize quite as many | |
| words as I thought it ought to. It's frustrating to think of a perfectly | |
| good word ('scarper' to leave the 's' room, for instance) and then have | |
| it not work. I'm sure Nick will be getting plenty of suggestions from | |
| others, if he hasn't already. | |
| That being said, this was the game that made the whole competition for | |
| me. I enjoyed it from intro to quit. Nick, if you're reading this, keep | |
| writing more! I'd love to play a full-size game with this sort of wacky | |
| wordplay and perplexing puzzles. | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| Infocom, in its heyday, produced some games the likes of which has never | |
| been seen since, either because there's no perceived interest in such | |
| games (the mysteries in particular) or because amateur IF writers don't | |
| have access to the proper technology (the more graphical games). Neither | |
| of those objections necessarily applies to Nord and Bert Couldn't Make | |
| Head or Tail of it, a wordplay game, but Nick Montfort's Ad Verbum is | |
| arguably the first free- or shareware IF game to follow in Nord and | |
| Bert's footsteps. (Dennis Cunningham's T-Zero had some points in common, | |
| but there was more going on than wordplay--pop culture references and | |
| such.) Ad Verbum is a worthy successor: like Nord and Bert, not all of | |
| it is particularly inspired, but the moments that work really, really | |
| work. | |
| The plot, again like Nord and Bert, is simply an excuse for wordplay | |
| puzzles--you're looking through the Wizard of Wordplay's mansion and | |
| moving through various rooms that are devoted to specific types of | |
| wordplay, thereby to collect objects. Many of the puzzles are a bit | |
| obscure, and some are only tangentially related to wordplay--or, rather, | |
| involve forms of wordplay that aren't necessarily familiar to anyone but | |
| the most hardened of GAMES magazine addicts. (One puzzle that involves | |
| moving a sofa down a flight of stairs is particularly baffling to those | |
| not on the author's wavelength.) Another, involving a little boy who's a | |
| dinosaur fan, I found simply misleading--at least, the solution | |
| suggested in the hints was something of a surprise to me. | |
| The heart of the game, however, lies on the "initial" floor of the | |
| house: there are passages lying to the north, east, west, and south, and | |
| going north yields this: | |
| "LISTEN WELL!" a sonorous voice booms out, in attempted hollowness. | |
| "Know ye that passage back through here is difficult for some, | |
| impossible for others! Should you wish to transport yourself - | |
| without your cherished possessions - out of these constrained | |
| confines, utter the magic command: NEW!" | |
| Neat Nursery | |
| Nice, nondescript nursery, noticeably neat. Normally, nurslings | |
| nestle noisily. Now, none. No needful, naive newborns. | |
| Nearby: ... nifty nappy. | |
| The parser, as you might have guessed, has been rewritten to require | |
| that every word of every command begin with N. Violating the rules | |
| elicits "No! No! Negative, novice. Nasty notation." or "No! No! | |
| Nefarious nomenclature. Narrate nicely, now." The NEW command mentioned | |
| above is your only way of getting out of the room: RESTORE, QUIT and | |
| everything else has been disabled. Needless to say, in the rooms to the | |
| east, west and south, the parser has been similarly reworked for the | |
| appropriate letter. You have a goal for each room--extracting some | |
| objects and getting out of the room, using only the appropriate | |
| letters--but even after the goal is accomplished, it's worth hanging | |
| around to experiment with the alliterative parser. The results are more | |
| often than not hilarious, as with the following: | |
| >nip nappy | |
| Naughty, naughty! Nibbling nappies not normal. | |
| Or: | |
| >examine effigy | |
| Enemy effigy. Extreme enormity evident. Execrable evildoer! | |
| There's plenty more amusing stuff in each room: the parser-rewriting was | |
| done with plenty of intelligence and wit. (WAIL in the appropriate room | |
| elicits "Waaaah!", which amuses me no end for some reason.) In short: | |
| nicely notated, Nick! Erudite, esoteric effusions entertain endlessly. | |
| Winsome, witty wizardry will woo wordsmiths, who will whisper "Wow!" | |
| without wearying. Surely, such semantic skill should solicit | |
| stratospheric scores. | |
| There are some variants on the alliterative parser--another S room with | |
| another restriction, and a room with objects whose content suggests that | |
| the proper TAKE replacement for each object will involve | |
| letter-avoidance of one sort or another. (There was a nasty bug in the | |
| competition version of this room that has been squashed--naturally, the | |
| game in the updated version reports a literal squashed bug.) The parser | |
| is not, however, rewritten for each object, so most of the fun of the | |
| alliterative rooms is lost, and only the wordplay puzzle remains. It's a | |
| fine puzzle, of course, but it doesn't have the same effect. The other | |
| puzzles are likewise not nearly as inspired--there's a "twin bedroom" | |
| that requires that all commands be in the form >HAMMER HAMMER, but there | |
| isn't nearly as much room for experimenting there. | |
| To the extent that Ad Verbum works--and it depends mostly, I think, on | |
| the extent to which the player is amused by the alliterative rooms--it | |
| works for different reasons than Nord and Bert worked. The latter called | |
| for all sorts of cleverness from the player, and getting through it | |
| produced a real feeling of accomplishment; some of the puzzles were | |
| quite difficult. In particular, certain scenarios required that the | |
| player deploy various clich�s or idioms, often in amusingly twisted | |
| ways, to get through the scene--and not a small amount of creativity was | |
| required. Ad Verbum doesn't ask nearly as much of the player--the most | |
| difficult feat of wordplay is clearly coming up with the appropriate | |
| alliterative words, and in most rooms that's not especially difficult. | |
| (Getting out of the N room is a challenge--sufficiently obscure that if | |
| you go in there without first encountering the fellow who wanders around | |
| dropping hints, you're unlikely to get it--but the others are pretty | |
| straightforward.) But the author here has put his own skills on display, | |
| much more so than the Nord and Bert authors did, and the result is just | |
| as amusing. In other words, the fun is more passive here than it was in | |
| Nord and Bert--the interactivity isn't as important--but there's still | |
| fun to be had. | |
| Ad Verbum is not an unqualified success; without the alliterative | |
| parser, I don't think there'd be much interesting about it. But I got | |
| enough laughs out of those rooms that I can't give it anything less than | |
| a 9. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Alfredo Garcia <Five-0 SP@G oceanfree.net> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: And The Waves Choke The Wind | |
| AUTHOR: Gunther Schmidl | |
| E-MAIL: gschmidl SP@G gmx.at | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/atwctw/atwctw.z8 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| Here's a story that starts with the meat. It's a classic 'What the...?' | |
| moment for our PC, who awakens to find himself on a lifeboat, floating | |
| in an empty sea, bound and (it would seem, rather unnecessarily) gagged. | |
| The introductory puzzle is good, as it encourages us to examine the PC | |
| down to the smallest details, all of which are implemented well. Here's | |
| an ambiguity you don't have to clarify too often: | |
| >CUT HAIR USING THE KNIFE | |
| Which do you mean, your dreadlocks or your pubic hair? | |
| And if you think that's going a shade too far, you'll find that even | |
| your anus is implemented - a smuggling puzzle later on, perhaps? At | |
| first I thought this all a little excessive; in fact it was totally in | |
| keeping with the theme of (at least) this preview - self-scrutiny. The | |
| generic theme is more immediately obvious - Lovecraftian Horror. The | |
| author does well to create a sense of foreboding throughout the piece, | |
| and generally it succeeds in maintaining an atmosphere of dread. This | |
| was only occasionally deflated by a poorly chosen phrase ('butt naked' | |
| and a reference to 'the enemies you've wasted' seem anachronistic) or an | |
| unsuitable quotation (Lovecraft and the Necronomicron are fine -- but | |
| Nine Inch Nails?) | |
| As we progress, the PC is revealed to us through a series of flashbacks. | |
| It sounds like this shouldn't work, but it does. Too much pathos is | |
| injected, yet it's nice to feel something for your character by the end | |
| of the game, and I did. | |
| It's a shame the author didn't enter a more interactive section of his | |
| work. All there is to do here is explore. The descriptions are well | |
| handled, but I found very little for me to *act* on. I really didn't | |
| like the proliferation of talk menus towards the end - but then again, I | |
| really don't like talk menus generally. (More on this later) | |
| So then, as a game this seems a little uneven, but as a preview it | |
| really whets the appetite. | |
| Rating: 6 | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Sean T Barrett <buzzard SP@G world.std.com> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: At Wit's End | |
| AUTHOR: Mike J. Sousa | |
| E-MAIL: msousa SP@G efortress.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: TADS standard | |
| SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/awe/awe.gam | |
| VERSION: 1.00 | |
| TITLE: Dinner With Andre | |
| AUTHOR: Liza Daly | |
| E-MAIL: liza SP@G retina.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/dinner/dinner.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| >GET OUT OF THE FRYING PAN | |
| Take the PC and put him or her in a situation where everything has gone | |
| JUST RIGHT. The PC is on top of the world. | |
| And then something goes a little wrong. Just a little wrong, not | |
| ludicrous or unrealistic. But, hmm, a tad unfortunate. | |
| And then the player gets the PC out of the situation and things just go | |
| from bad to worse. | |
| AWE starts better: the PC is in a tough situation where things could go | |
| bad or things could go good. (Heck, it may actually be possible to fail | |
| the first puzzle, or it may not, I don't know.) Then by solving a really | |
| easy puzzle, *then* the PC is on top of the world. It's a really nice, | |
| cheesily happy moment--and then trouble starts. But the player got to | |
| participate in hitting that top of the world. You were pretty sure it | |
| was going to happen (although it was possible you'd fail and it would | |
| instead be a redemption story), but even so, it was a good moment. Oh, | |
| and then the accident. It doesn't rob the PC of being at the top of the | |
| world--the PC's achievement isn't called into question or offset in any | |
| way--the PC just starts having a (largely unrelated) misadventure. | |
| DwA does not start quite as strongly--your character is already (almost) | |
| at the top of the mountain, and you don't share in the experience of | |
| having gotten to the top. As well, DwA turns out to be a farce, but | |
| holds off on revealing this until things start going wrong--which makes | |
| it all the more crazy, but can get a player invested in the game the | |
| wrong way. Still, the waiter comes over, and if the player makes the | |
| obvious choice of answer, there's a nice moment of feeling "yes, | |
| everything is perfect" that is triggered by player action. Oh, but then | |
| things start going wrong. And where none of the problems of AWE relate | |
| to the achievement directly (the PC has already climbed back down the | |
| mountain he'd climbed), in DwA its the mountain itself being put at | |
| risk. A tremor, a threat of a landslide, and then wooosh... | |
| I think of these sorts of games as "out of the frying pan and into the | |
| fire" games because at every moment, once you resolve the situation, a | |
| new peril threatens. (The movie "After Hours" pops into mind as well.) | |
| The last half of Kaged was more explicit that way; in some ways it was | |
| more effective, since the peril threatened in Kaged was your life; the | |
| peril threatened in AWE is, well, your ability to return home; and the | |
| peril threatened in DwA is public humiliation. | |
| One of the reasons "out of the frying pan and into the fire games" | |
| tickle my fancy is because they make the character's motivation | |
| explicit. At any moment, I know what I'm supposedly to be accomplishing | |
| in the short term (crucial to being able to play the game) and I also | |
| know why that action fits in with my end goal (not getting humiliated, | |
| or returning home). Far too many games put you in a situation where all | |
| you can do is poke around at suspicious-seeming objects and solve the | |
| puzzles related to them. | |
| To me, this is what storytelling in IF should be about; giving the | |
| player a high-level goal (a story to achieve) and then giving the player | |
| enough information (e.g. a low-level goal) to be able to carry out tasks | |
| *for the purpose of achieving that goal*. Why is this storytelling? When | |
| the player of DwA confronts the challenge of the four waiters at once, I | |
| can imagine the zany British TV sitcom where this exact sequence of | |
| events plays out. Whereas many games, say, The Pickpocket or The Planet | |
| of the Infinite Minds or even Transfer, I can't imagine comprehending | |
| this go by on a screen; the motivations of the protagonist would be | |
| incomprehensible. Or maybe you could imagine it as a mystery where the | |
| audience is left in the dark; but when, in IF, the audience is | |
| controlling the protagonist, that way of looking at it makes little | |
| sense. | |
| "Out of the frying pan and into the fire" isn't the only way to achieve | |
| such "storytelling"; when I change the color of an object in Kaged it's | |
| for a pretty obvious reason, to achieve a pretty obvious goal that has | |
| to do with the overall situation; but when I create a library in Planet | |
| of the Infinite Minds I'm just doing it 'cause it's there. In fact, "out | |
| of the frying pan and into the fire" may not be the most effective way | |
| of giving the player lower-level goals; letting the user set her own | |
| pace is probably a better experience most of the time. | |
| In fact, an "out of the frying pan and into the fire" sequence can end | |
| up just feeling like a series of set pieces--the mouse sequence in | |
| Transfer is a fairly good example of a set piece, although it does rely | |
| on one piece of game-specific knowledge--so a game that integrates its | |
| puzzles, rather than leaving them a series of disconnected events, may | |
| turn out to be a stronger work. In the case of DwA, though, I thought | |
| the pieces meshed together really well; they all tie into the initial | |
| scenario, and the pacing is superb: a series of linear puzzles, then the | |
| game "goes wide" with a tough multi-element puzzle, then tightens down | |
| and is at peace briefly, easy, relaxed, everything is going right... and | |
| then BAM, ouch, followed by an easy end game. Perfect. As an added plus, | |
| the elements of DwA end up serving as a bit of a parody of some romantic | |
| genre cliches, indeed with the ending almost coming off as | |
| (unintentionally) mocking Masquerade, which uses those cliches to create | |
| its archetypal romance genre story. | |
| AWE gets off to a rollicking start with simple, tight, timed puzzles, | |
| but then goes much too broad and much too hard, at least for my tastes. | |
| While all the puzzles seemed reasonably logical, but the breadth meant a | |
| lot of time pursuing irrelevant alternatives, and the difficulty would | |
| have required an awful lot of player time to solve without excessively | |
| relying on hints/walkthroughs, which I was unwilling to do. Therefore I | |
| can't comment on how successful the pacing is beyond that point. But up | |
| until it goes broad, it is an amusing alternation of "oh shit" and "ho | |
| hum, what now?" which I quite enjoyed, since at each moment (say, | |
| walking up to the house), I was tensing up waiting for what would go | |
| wrong next. (And the title helped--it was GOOD that I knew I was doomed | |
| to be going into the fire.) | |
| I'll go out on a limb and make a specific design suggestion of the sort | |
| I think is pretty pretentious of me to make, but what the hell: the | |
| spine of the story was trying to return (which generally meant escaping | |
| each situation); as far as I played, *everything* that happened was on | |
| the spine of the story, except having to eat. Having to eat jarred me | |
| horrendously because of that. Realistic? Sure. Related to the story? Not | |
| at all. I'd cut it. (You can argue that it's on the spine if the central | |
| peril of the story is dying, but that was how it felt to me | |
| anyway--tangential.) | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Sean T Barrett <buzzard SP@G world.std.com> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: Being Andrew Plotkin | |
| AUTHOR: J. Robinson Wheeler | |
| E-MAIL: wheeler SP@G jump.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/bap/bap.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| TITLE: Prodly The Puffin | |
| AUTHOR: Craig Timpany and Jim Crawford | |
| E-MAIL: timpany SP@G pingus.cx, pfister_ SP@G mindspring.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/prodly/prodly.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| >SAY "PARODLY IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY" | |
| I don't like Pokey the Penguin. | |
| In fact, Pokey the Penguin ranks right up with jerkcity in terms of | |
| massively annoying me, simply because *several* different people have | |
| recommended it to me, and each time I go check it out, look at it, and | |
| say "I still don't get it". Am I annoyed at other people for thinking | |
| it's funny? Am I annoyed at myself for not getting it? I don't know. I'm | |
| just annoyed. | |
| Like I said in my review of Asendent and Comp00ter Game. Misspelling? | |
| Funny once, maybe. For Prodly (PtP), non sequitur? Funny once. | |
| Ok, PtP is better than Pokey in this regards. I dutifully avoided asking | |
| myself about anything because that led to the stupidity that I fail to | |
| see any humor in. The rest of it was mildly amusing and surreal, along | |
| the lines of "Stupid Kittens", with a few great touches: the mysterious | |
| hovering beak, and the one bit that made me laugh out loud, the "bug in | |
| the menu system" bit. | |
| PtP is, then, a game which is sort of a parody and sort of an homage to | |
| an existing property which is itself (supposedly) humorous, and it | |
| managed to make me laugh out loud once. | |
| BAP is an homage to an existing property which is itself humorous, and | |
| it managed to make me laugh out loud twice. (And no other comp games | |
| made me laugh out loud.) | |
| Starting off, I was very worried about BAP (although perhaps not as much | |
| as I was PtP after seeing its opening quote), fearful that it would | |
| slavishly imitate "Being John Malkovich". And, in fact, it did at first. | |
| Worse yet, the initial scene's trivial puzzle is underwritten in an | |
| implementational sense: not only do you have no particular reason to | |
| push the button (indeed, the game will advance at that point simply | |
| because it triggers an unrelated event), but you can open the lid of the | |
| copier, and there's nothing in it to copy; and you're not carrying | |
| anything to copy, either. | |
| The game stayed pretty close to the movie for quite a bit longer, which | |
| continued to worry me, along with the questionable decision to make | |
| "open drawer" and "pull drawer" distinct commands--is there some other | |
| way to open a drawer? Still, it was managing to amuse me, and I stuck | |
| with it, and it turned out that the author very carefully both stuck to | |
| and deviated from the movie, in exactly the right way so that he could | |
| work economical fragments of humor by referencing the movie, and yet | |
| deliver jokes all his own. For example, Melvin, the character who maps | |
| onto the old lecherly guy with a secret in "Malkovich", is both wimpy | |
| and lecherly, but he not only has a different secret, but this secret | |
| explains those two behavior patterns in a totally different way--and | |
| indeed his POV was the first laugh-out-loud moment for me. | |
| "Malkovich" is about a puppeteer who gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance | |
| to control another human being. Of any funny movie one might choose to | |
| adapt into IF, this one gets the obvious thumbs up for the thematic | |
| relevance; indeed, I believe in the very old days some people would | |
| explain text adventures to newcomers by describing the PC as a 'puppet' | |
| under the player's control. (In fact, the first thing I tried to do | |
| after my tunnel ride was type something like "ZARF, DRINK"--and I was | |
| disappointed when this was misdirected at an object I was carrying.) | |
| In the end, I had so much fun with BAP I couldn't deny it second place | |
| of all the games I played (and no, I've never been on ifMUD). Of course | |
| it was horribly on rails. Why didn't this bother me? I don't know. | |
| Scenes I would have like to have seen: | |
| * a puzzle that required typing "x yz zy" instead of "x zy" | |
| * the player controlling Peter controlling Andrew Plotkin controlling | |
| Zarf, if you know what I mean | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| TITLE: Being Andrew Plotkin | |
| AUTHOR: J. Robinson Wheeler | |
| E-MAIL: wheeler SP@G jump.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/bap/bap.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| Walkthrough? Yes | |
| Genre: Mixed/Movie tribute/In-Joke/SF | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating B |Submitted Vote 8| | |
| |Writing B+|Plot B+| | |
| |Puzzles C |NPCs A | | |
| |Technical B |Tilt C+| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| Although I had not ever seen the movie _Being John Malkovich_, I had | |
| been fairly certain from the moment I saw the title that it was, in | |
| fact, related somehow. Reviewing this from the perspective of someone | |
| who doesn't know a -thing- about the movie may change things a bit; if | |
| you -have- seen the movie, you're probably better off with someone | |
| else's review. | |
| You'll notice I had a hard time classifying this into a specific genre. | |
| I'm open to other suggestions... | |
| *** Writing (B+) | |
| Throughout, the writing was consistently good. At times, it was actually | |
| far better than that. And what's best is that I often felt like the | |
| author was just having a plain old great time writing it, which for some | |
| reason always appeals to me. For instance, this line: | |
| Valerie plummets into the big hedge with an unladylike | |
| ka-thump-krickle. | |
| ...was the kind of thing that, had I written it, I would've been | |
| giggling a bit to myself when I did, not at my own cleverness but rather | |
| at the sheer delight of creating a line like that. I hope I'm right | |
| about this; people who have fun creating things tend to create more. | |
| Too, there were little bits like this: "There are sweat stains on them. | |
| Stifling the urge to make a comment, you adjust your grip to touch only | |
| the dry spots." Not really necessary, just color -- but what color it | |
| is! I read this and I think "Okay: So, Marvin is a loser, and you really | |
| don't care for him; he has COOOOOTIES." [Okay, well, maybe the author | |
| wasn't thinking of cooties, but hey, -I- was.] No need to spell it out | |
| explicitly; it's all about the feel. | |
| I also enjoyed the way things changed a bit when there was a perspective | |
| shift, but I'll get into that more under NPCs... | |
| *** Plot (B+) | |
| To be honest, this would probably have been different if I knew anything | |
| about the movie beyond the very, very basic premise. I found the | |
| execution of the idea hilarious (and I'm beginning to think I may have | |
| to go rent the movie if it's -anything- like this) and particularly with | |
| the bits and pieces that let you see the world in different ways (again, | |
| more under "NPCs"). To be perfectly honest, I didn't get the optimal | |
| ending, and I was in too much of a hurry to try replaying and fixing | |
| this, but for some reason that didn't faze me; perhaps just because what | |
| I'd experienced up to that point was... cool. | |
| The thing is, I can't actually narrow down what about it was cool -- | |
| which is a major fault in a reviewer, I admit, but alas, remains the | |
| case. Maybe it was just the entire idea of being in ZARF'S head (a scary | |
| idea to me). Maybe it was just the whole concept of your boss (I swear | |
| I've worked for this "man"). I wish I could explain. | |
| Suffice it to say: it was worth doing. | |
| *** Puzzles (C) | |
| Hmm. My notes don't go into a lot of details on this, which pretty much | |
| supports the mid-range rating. Taking a quick look through, the only | |
| time I seem to have gotten outright stuck (other than, I'm ashamed to | |
| admit, the recursion problem) was because it just didn't occur to me to | |
| type "look at mud" -- for some reason I wanted to "look at computer" | |
| (which didn't give me any more detail) or "type" (which just didn't | |
| work). For some reason, specifically thinking of the MUD as an object | |
| just didn't occur to me. | |
| *** NPCs (A) | |
| This was really, really the big strength of the game. Not only did we | |
| have several NPCs, we actually got to -be- some of them. And every time | |
| we did, something changed a bit about the perception of the world we | |
| were in. | |
| I thought -all- the characters were interesting. While they were a bit | |
| limited in conversational style, they still feel fully developed, and | |
| even better, when they look at -each other-, they see the people they | |
| interact with differently. This, to me, is primo stuff. I know that | |
| people like saying "Ho, hum, just character switching again, everyone | |
| does it", but... folks, not everyone does it WELL. In fact, it's quite | |
| rare. Again, as with the writing in general, the little touches are what | |
| makes this category absolutely superb, for instance, both Valerie and | |
| Peter dislike Melvin, but they still see him differently, and the rooms | |
| have some minor differences depending on who you are. | |
| *** Technical (B) | |
| Actually, in retrospect, I'm not sure I know why I gave this a B. Maybe | |
| just the sheer impressiveness of writing x number of different | |
| descriptions of each area based on who would visit it and keeping | |
| correct track of something on that scale. Too, I found no bugs, which is | |
| generally a good thing. So, er... (*fumbles*) Okay! Nothing to see here, | |
| move along. | |
| Oh wait. One -bad- thing: | |
| >go through secret door | |
| You can't, since the secret door is in the way. | |
| *** Tilt (C+) and Final Thoughts | |
| In retrospect, I think this deserved a higher 'tilt' from me. I suspect | |
| I was a bit frustrated with not finding the recursion puzzle answer when | |
| I handed out the 'tilt' score (which is always my initial score), and | |
| not seeing the last bits of the game. And some of it was just that while | |
| I enjoyed the game, it really was a one-time sort of joke. | |
| Here's a few other things that I have in my notes, for amusement value: | |
| You give the stuck cabinet drawer the old heave-ho, and instead of | |
| merely opening, it yanks loose from the wall, revealing a strange, | |
| small door in the wall! | |
| >of course it does | |
| That's not a verb I recognize. | |
| [I frequently talk to the games. This is probably not something you | |
| needed to know.] | |
| **** | |
| that code (Melvin) for some reason reminds me of COBOL, which is scary. | |
| **** | |
| No Ikea! Ikea bad! | |
| **** | |
| I don't WANT To be Zarf! It scares me! | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Adam Cadre <ac SP@G adamcadre.ac> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: The Big Mama | |
| AUTHOR: Brendan Barnwell | |
| E-MAIL: BrenBarn SP@G aol.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard, with conversation menus | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/bigmama/bigmama.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 8 | |
| I don't think the author was trying hard enough. If you're going to put | |
| the phrase "the big mama" into pretty much every response, why stop | |
| there? Why, it could've appeared in every paragraph or, indeed, every | |
| sentence. (The big mama.) I mean, if it's good ten thousand times, why | |
| not a hundred thousand? Why not write in the style of Henrietta | |
| Pussycat, only swapping in "the big mama" for "meow"? What a missed | |
| opportunity. Also, the big mama. | |
| So, let's see. I do like the idea of a sort of multi-turn AISLE. But the | |
| thing about AISLE was that most of the endings were really well-written | |
| and interesting in and of themselves, not to mention diverse. The same | |
| cannot be said of THE BIG MAMA. There are a lot of games in the comp for | |
| which I scribbled down notes like "rocky prose" or "semi-literate," but | |
| this game proves that you can have an excellent command of the language | |
| and still provoke winces. (The big mama.) Let's see, there was the bit | |
| where a sign warns you about how the next 1.5 miles of beach are | |
| private: "'Stupid imperial measurement,' you mutter." Urgh. Why not just | |
| give the player-character a renaissance flute while you're at it? Oh, | |
| and the little boy. "Almost every day I billa cassel." Throw this kid | |
| into the nearest wood chipper, please. I mean it. Stop him before he | |
| soliloquizes again. Also, the big mama. | |
| Even the less egregious paths all seem to lead to inane conversations | |
| and fairly ham-handed passages desperately trying to hammer home the | |
| theme that the ocean is pretty. Sometimes the inane conversations result | |
| in relationships, but none of these sequences is really even remotely | |
| convincing -- I'm sure every day there are beach encounters that lead to | |
| hookups, but I doubt that any of them have resembled even one of the | |
| paths set forth in this game. Also, the big mama. There are also some | |
| quirks with the way the various characters are programmed: the surfer | |
| alternates between sunbathing and surfing about every eight seconds, and | |
| the teenage girl seems to have no memory whatsoever -- you can scare her | |
| off with some creepy line, watch her wander off, and two turns later | |
| she's back and seems to have no idea who you are. This is the sort of | |
| thing that makes characters look like chunks of code rather than | |
| representations of people. Also, the big mama. | |
| More bugs of note: jumping the rail takes you to the beach, but once you | |
| get there, the game tells you that "You're not up for that kind of | |
| leap." Sounds like some routine is neglecting to return true somewhere | |
| in there. Oh, and while the game notes that "everyone in town speaks | |
| Spanish," I have to wonder -- "las" is a plural article. The only way | |
| that works with "Lorena" is if "Lorena" is a last name and the name of | |
| the town is a reference to a all-female family: "The Lorena Sisters", or | |
| some such. Which I could buy as a novelty musical act from the early | |
| 70s, but not as the name of a city. Also, the big mama. | |
| Perhaps my favorite bit: | |
| | 0: Say nothing. | |
| | 1: "Yeah, let's watch a movie." | |
| | 2: "A walk sounds great." | |
| | 3: "Let's play a game." | |
| | 4: "<illegal object number 357>" | |
| Me, I thought it was a bit early in the evening to propose illegal | |
| object number 357, but hey, turned out she was into it. Kinky! | |
| Score: a low THREE. Also, the big mama. | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| Walkthrough? No | |
| Genre: CYOA/Mixed/Romance | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating C |Submitted Vote 6| | |
| |Writing B |Plot C-| | |
| |Puzzles n/a|NPCs C+| | |
| |Technical C |Tilt C | | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| As a few other people have mentioned, I would have expected the sea to | |
| play a larger part in this work, which is basically a choose-your-own- | |
| adventure with no particular focus on the sea. I called it a "romance" | |
| genre game in part because a LOT of the routes seem concerned with | |
| romance, but there are a few other routes that don't contain it. | |
| *** Writing (B) | |
| I can't help but take a moment to compare this to last year's entry by | |
| this author (Lomalow, which I, quite frankly, did not like). Although | |
| the styles are different, there's an element to both of them that is | |
| similar: the attempt to evoke some specific emotions. This year's entry | |
| does a much better job with the writing; it doesn't feel as forced, as | |
| heavy-handed. It's still got some flaws, but overall I feel much less | |
| preached at than I did last year and there were times when there were | |
| hints of excellence. I don't know if you can attribute this to the | |
| different format, practice, or even the different topic matter, but | |
| whichever it is, I'm actually quite glad to see something I like from | |
| Brendan. | |
| If I had any complaint it was that at times it was too long, a hazard, I | |
| think, of the CYOA format choice. I do enjoy longer text breaks than | |
| some people will accept gracefully, but there were a few times when too | |
| much happened on a trigger. | |
| What I enjoyed the most, I think, were occasional clever or cute turns | |
| of phrase, such as these portions of some room descriptions: | |
| "These little establishments sell everything from shrink-wrapped, | |
| dessicated muffins to decent hot dogs." | |
| "The breeze is straight out of some beach-blanket B-movie: salty, | |
| soft, and refreshing." | |
| But even the more serious writing is honest, and while there isn't a LOT | |
| of substance to this as a game, (see "plot", below), I enjoyed reading | |
| it. | |
| *** Plot (C-) | |
| As with many CYOA games, it's so hard to rate plot. First off, there are | |
| multiple "plots" here... although as I mentioned above, many of them | |
| seem to have the same basic tilt, which is: romance. But what I saw was | |
| a bit... thin. Not quite Calista Flockhart, but definitely thin. | |
| Still, they weren't bad little plots. Just not a lot of substance, much | |
| more the Twinkie of IF than the dinner at Ruth's Chris. [If you haven't | |
| ever encountered Ruth's Chris, they are the most incredible steakhouse | |
| ever.] | |
| *** Puzzles (n/a) | |
| Due to the CYOA format, I did not rate on puzzles, breaking my "formula" | |
| but, ultimately, I think, being more fair. | |
| *** NPCs (C+) | |
| This game is basically NPC driven, in that it's almost entirely | |
| conversationally driven. So you would hope that the NPCs would have some | |
| depth to them -- and, actually, they do in spots. But you don't really | |
| get a good glimpse about what they're -really- like, mostly because your | |
| interactions with them are so short. Whether this is a shortcoming of | |
| the format or whether they were simply undeveloped is hard to judge; | |
| they DO have personality, but it's pretty focused. | |
| *** Technical (C) | |
| There was certainly nothing in particular that was outstanding | |
| technically here, and only one bug of note, so I gave it an average | |
| rating. | |
| *** Tilt (C) and Final Thoughts | |
| I found 4 or 5 different endings before I stopped playing, so there may | |
| be more depths here I have not plumbed. Those of you with more patience | |
| than I (and a CYOA roto-rooter) may discover more. | |
| It was an amusing diversion. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| TITLE: Desert Heat | |
| AUTHOR: Papillon | |
| E-MAIL: amethystphoenix SP@G yahoo.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: None (CYOA) | |
| SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/ | |
| VERSION: 1 | |
| Walkthrough? No | |
| Genre: CYOA/Romance/Bodice-Ripper | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating B-|Submitted Vote 7| | |
| |Writing B+|Plot B | | |
| |Puzzles D |NPCs B | | |
| |Technical C |Tilt C+| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| A lot of people don't like choose-your-owns, so to them, this will not | |
| appeal. In truth, they don't always appeal to me. In this particular | |
| case, however, I actually thought it worked fairly well. I didn't | |
| explore all the possible choices (although I did double up on a couple | |
| paths) so I don't know how flexible the game ultimately was, but it | |
| looked to have at least some degree of freedom in it. | |
| *** Writing (B+) | |
| Despite some perhaps overly-lengthy prose in spots, the writing in this | |
| was rather well-done. I found many of the descriptions quite enchanting, | |
| bringing to mind a definite feel and genre that itself is quite magical, | |
| and one in which it is easy to get drawn in and lost within when it is | |
| (as it was) done correctly. | |
| Take, for instance, this bit from the opening: | |
| "The sound of windblown sand smoothing the dunes and scouring the | |
| city walls is the only song nature produces in Hajima." | |
| With the very first sentence, mood and setting are already firmly in | |
| place, a setting which is only enhanced (and never contradicted) by | |
| further room and event descriptions. And best yet, although the game | |
| does tell you "this is who you are, this is what you can do", it never | |
| seems to do it in a way that felt limiting (to me), though ultimately, | |
| of course, it was rather narrow in scope. | |
| *** Plot (B) | |
| As with all CYOAs (and how many times have I used that phrase, anyhow?), | |
| there is not a LOT of flexibility in plot, but as is more rare, there is | |
| a rich plot here. It is true that it is quite stereotypical. It is also | |
| true that sometimes that's a good thing. (See also NPCs, below.) | |
| Stereotypical stories are sometimes, instead, more -archetypal-; they | |
| use settings, people, and situations that we all are familiar with, and | |
| merely attempt to display the story in a manner in which will appeal. I | |
| believe that this was the author's intent (although don't know for | |
| sure), and if so, it worked quite well for me. Others, looking for | |
| something new and original, will probably prefer to give this a pass, | |
| although I might add that there is not much in the way of either new or | |
| original left in the world. It is merely the skill with which stories | |
| are displayed that, ultimately, determines how people react to it. | |
| *** Puzzles (D) | |
| As a CYOA adventure, it should perhaps not really be rated on puzzles, | |
| but as there are several critical decision points that can make a large | |
| difference, in this case I elected to do so. And that is where things | |
| fall short. | |
| Could it have been done differently and retained the format? Yes. There | |
| could have been more decision points; they could have been presented in | |
| a way that combined both more internal world knowledge with more | |
| difficult choices. When it came to a point where I had to make a choice, | |
| often I felt as if I were presented with choices that the -character- | |
| would understand the implication of but I would not. That, alas, was the | |
| big flaw in an otherwise enjoyable experience. | |
| *** NPCs (B) | |
| Adam Cadre, whose opinion I quite respect but with whom I frequently | |
| disagree, felt offended by the stereotypes in this game. Others saw his | |
| point. I disagreed, because I felt there was no intent to hold up and | |
| portray negative and shallow characters. I felt they were meant to be | |
| archetypes (see also Plot, above). | |
| So, be warned: there are no terribly deep characters in the game. You | |
| see only glimpses of their true personality, and even those show | |
| something fairly basic and, yes, cliche. But... it WORKS. This is not | |
| the real world. This is the storyworld, where everyone has a defined | |
| role, and everyone has a part to play. And it is the success in -that- | |
| upon which I rated the NPCs highly. | |
| Realism in NPCs is a prized thing, difficult to obtain, but the clever | |
| and careful use of caricature and archetype can result in some lovely | |
| story building. Desert Heat accomplishes this with flair. | |
| *** Technical (C) | |
| CYOA games are not difficult to produce. I found no bugs. | |
| *** Tilt (C+) and Final Thoughts | |
| This is definitely not a game for everyone. Simply the genre alone would | |
| ensure that; I myself have a love-hate relationship with romances, if | |
| you will pardon the potential pun. The format and style as well are both | |
| potentially off-putting. Still, if you have any interest in a richly | |
| told tale, I would suggest giving the game a chance. It was one of the | |
| more enjoyable -- if not one of the longest lived -- moments of the | |
| comp. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: The Djinni Chronicles | |
| AUTHOR: J.D. Berry | |
| E-MAIL: berryx SP@G earthlink.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/djinni.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 2 | |
| J.D. Berry's Djinni Chronicles is one of the shortest games of the comp, | |
| but it's also one of the densest--there's not much room for exploration | |
| or experimentation without save-restore. There are some game-specific | |
| rules, moreover, that make it likely that you'll have to do some | |
| save-restoring. Still, there are some ideas worth exploring that come | |
| across in those few moves. | |
| You are a djinni, discovered and summoned by various masters, whose | |
| wishes you strive to grant in one way or another--but you also have your | |
| own purposes that are only somewhat compatible with those of your | |
| masters. The nature of your existence is such that you can't stray far | |
| from your "container," the vessel where you reside when you're not about | |
| your business; indeed, the beginning of the game functions mostly as an | |
| introduction to the rules of your world. You learn, for example, that | |
| the tendency of wishes to come with unfortunate side effects isn't | |
| simply djinni contrariness; rather, it's because they don't (generally) | |
| have the power to accomplish the change by their own will, and have to | |
| harness the power of another "undercurrent" with somewhat different | |
| effects. You also learn that some djinni derive power from sources other | |
| than their summoners, and seek to gain enough power to act | |
| independently. The defining measure is known as "Purpose," here | |
| expressed as a number, and maintaining Purpose, one way or another, | |
| becomes your overriding goal. What emerges is an imaginative portrait of | |
| djinni ethics, as it were: the djinni that you play aren't bound by any | |
| particular ethical norms as such other than the desire to gain and | |
| maintain purpose. Arguably, those djinni that aren't bent on destruction | |
| serve their masters' wishes not out of any sense of loyalty, but simply | |
| because they derive no advantage from acting independently. (The | |
| anterior question, why some djinni are one way and some are another, | |
| isn't addressed, but the game is complex enough; there's no need to | |
| introduce another layer of cosmology.) | |
| In a sense, the path of the game is fairly well defined simply because | |
| the character's powers are limited; the player can't really expect to be | |
| able to wander away, since that causes the game to end promptly. The | |
| wishes of your masters also define your goals most of the time, and when | |
| they don't, the game spells out your personal objective. And yet | |
| figuring out your motivations at any given point can be complicated, | |
| particularly if you assume that you feel some inherent responsibility to | |
| your master--and it's not until about halfway through the game that you | |
| learn what you're really doing, so to speak. Once you understand the | |
| larger plot, it's intriguing; the only problem is that you don't have | |
| much part in influencing where it'll go, other than figuring out the | |
| command that will move things along. The linearity factor actually | |
| serves the purposes of the story--the whole point is that your powers | |
| are limited, and your ability to influence events doesn't go much beyond | |
| your master's interests--but it might also be a bit more satisfying to | |
| be able to affect how the plot turns out, not just whether the one | |
| possible plotline progresses. | |
| The end of the game suggests that the point isn't simply to devise an | |
| inventive mythology of djinni and how they work and what motivates them; | |
| rather, the behavior of the djinni suggests something about human nature | |
| and the ways that these particular spirits (with their own motivations) | |
| choose to manipulate their masters. In that respect, portraying the | |
| details of djinni existence serves some of the same function that C.S. | |
| Lewis's elaborate bureaucracy of hell did in Screwtape Letters: to | |
| describe the spirit world in order to provide a context for the way | |
| those spirits tempt and manipulate humans. Obviously, this is a little | |
| different, since the relationship isn't entirely adversarial--you need | |
| your masters to accomplish your purposes, which doesn't exactly describe | |
| Screwtape--but the message is related: suitable manipulation of our | |
| baser instincts can turn them into enormously destructive forces, and | |
| the game suggests that the less noble impulses are considerably more | |
| powerful than altruistic ones (since the djinni that serves a master | |
| with relatively unselfish goals doesn't seem to accumulate much | |
| Purpose). | |
| As a game, apart from the theory and theology that might underlie it, | |
| Djinni Chronicles works reasonably well. As noted, picking up on the | |
| rules takes a while, and the limitations on the character are initially | |
| frustrating when you're used to a great deal of freedom--but it doesn't | |
| take long to adjust and to appreciate your new powers. (For instance, | |
| walls are no hindrance.) The game is quite linear, true, but to some | |
| extent that's inevitable if the author wants to tell a particular story | |
| about the spirit world and human nature: if the player has the power to | |
| put a different spin on the relationship between the PC and its masters, | |
| the result is no longer what the author set out to tell. This sort of | |
| thing might not have gone over well just a few years ago, but linearity, | |
| I think, has come to be viewed as the inevitable price of more | |
| story-oriented IF, and when the story is as intriguing as this one, it's | |
| a price worth paying. There's another advantage to the linearity: the | |
| puzzles are well integrated into the plot, rather than artificial | |
| constructs that distract from the story. That's a feature not directly | |
| related to the breadth of the game, of course, but it's inevitable that | |
| a game with a large field of options doesn't really sustain much of a | |
| story, since the author can't exercise much control over how the game | |
| progresses--and by restricting the options, Djinni Chronicles ensures | |
| that the task at hand is always part of the story. Moreover, the | |
| linearity factor restricts the amount of things that can go wrong; this | |
| is a technically solid game, in part, perhaps, because the nature of the | |
| game prevents players from doing outlandish things that could violate | |
| the game's expectations. The only real fly in the ointment is a lengthy | |
| section that's written in not especially inspired verse; it doesn't | |
| serve an obvious purpose in the game, and it distracts the player from | |
| what was otherwise highly competent writing. | |
| The main flaw in Djinni Chronicles, at the end, is that it leaves the | |
| player wanting more--more plot, more character development--but there | |
| are worse sins, I suppose. It's an imaginatively told story--intelligent | |
| enough to earn a 9 from me. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Adam Cadre <ac SP@G adamcadre.ac> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: The End Means Escape | |
| AUTHOR: Stephen Kodat | |
| E-MAIL: skodat SP@G blazenet.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: TADS standard | |
| SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/endmeans/endmeans.gam | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| I really liked the first segment of this game. Not only were the animate | |
| objects cool and funny, but the way the player is meant to go about | |
| resolving the situation -- asking everyone about everyone else -- | |
| appealed to me much more than if the solution had been to perform some | |
| clever engineering trick. I wasn't quite sure how the stuff I was doing | |
| was getting me any closer to opening the door, but I went along with it | |
| and entered the book... | |
| ...and then splat. I didn't get part two at all. I understood how to | |
| manipulate the words -- the hint system told me that much -- but I | |
| didn't have the slightest clue what my goal was, and the hints crapped | |
| out at that point. So I put the game away, figuring I'd give it about a | |
| five. Then I read a solution to part two on the newsgroup -- and I | |
| *still* didn't get it. It was like getting stuck on a puzzle where | |
| you're trying to open a safe and finding out that the combination is | |
| 43-49-25... and why? Because it just sort of is. "You turn hard"? Say | |
| what? | |
| And then the third segment... goal, please? I think this says it all: | |
| >HINT | |
| There's just some people standing around. | |
| Right. And I was one of them. Maybe there are some people who, presented | |
| with a bunch of playing pieces in a game they don't recognize, would | |
| start messing around with the pieces for hours on end until something | |
| happened; me, I'm more inclined to just leave them alone until I have | |
| some *reason* to play with them, some *objective* I'm using them to try | |
| to accomplish. And "escape" is insufficient. Yes, you do escape, but how | |
| are you supposed to know that X will achieve Y? Doing what the hints | |
| tell you to do with the segments' various playing pieces, and | |
| consequently "escaping," is like the bit in A GOOD BREAKFAST from Comp97 | |
| where you're looking for a spoon, happen across a robot, play Lights-Out | |
| with it, and then when you win, the robot randomly hands you a spoon as | |
| a reward. Or, to use an invented example for the sake of clarity: | |
| You're in a cell. You want to get out. The door won't budge, and there's | |
| a guard posted outside. You have a gold coin. | |
| GOOD DESIGN: Get the guard to open the door and let you go free in | |
| exchange for the coin. | |
| BAD DESIGN: Swallow the coin. This randomly causes the door to fall off | |
| its hinges onto the guard, allowing you to make a break for it. | |
| THE END MEANS ESCAPE is full of examples of the latter type of design. | |
| Open up a guy's surgical incision? Why? Just because you can (with | |
| difficulty)? Apparently so -- that's how you advance to the next stage, | |
| though there's no particular reason why that's so. The end justifies the | |
| means? In this game, they rarely seem remotely connected. | |
| Score: a low THREE, and only because I did get some fun out of the first | |
| bit. | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| Walkthrough? No (in-game hints) | |
| Genre: Surrealism | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating B+|Submitted Vote 8| | |
| |Writing A-|Plot C+| | |
| |Puzzles B |NPCs B | | |
| |Technical B |Tilt A+| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| A lot of people really disliked everything but the first section of this | |
| game. I, on the other hand, got more into it the more I played it; I | |
| won't say I enjoyed the first section the least, but neither did I find | |
| it the best of the sections. I believe this will be a narrow appeal | |
| game, which in a way is a pity and in a way is just how things work. | |
| I will note that this was the game that got me to dub this "Surreal | |
| Comp"; between it, Shade, and (to a lesser extent) Planet of the | |
| Infinite Minds, not to mention the Rybread parody, this was probably the | |
| most surreal of the comps ever... | |
| *** Writing (A-) | |
| First off: bonus points for the correct use of "its", something a lot of | |
| authors don't seem to understand. | |
| Any game in which there are word puzzles is probably going to garner | |
| either a rather low or a rather high score in writing. In this case, you | |
| will see it's "rather high". But this was not only because of the | |
| (somewhat difficult, but entertaining) word puzzle in the second | |
| section, but the sheer amount of work that must have gone into crafting | |
| the initial section's NPCs, giving them character and consistency. | |
| Many of the descriptions were simple and unadorned, but knowing when to | |
| do this is as important to writing as elaborate, full, and intense | |
| descriptions of one's environment. Others (mostly later in the game) are | |
| detailed and interesting, but oddly those seem to occur when they are | |
| least important. I don't know if this was a deliberate stylistic choice, | |
| but for me it added to the surreal factor -- and I so enjoy the surreal | |
| factor, so this is a good thing. | |
| Possibly the best use of words was not in the writing itself, but one of | |
| the puzzles (see below). Indeed, until that section, I was actually | |
| somewhat out-of-sorts with the style presented; as I put it in my notes | |
| "This is the kind of HIGH-FALUTIN' High Art thing I dislike, isn't it?" | |
| However, it grows on one... | |
| *** Plot (C+) | |
| Now, those of you who played this game will be saying "Plot? Was there a | |
| PLOT?" Well, yes and no. There was certainly no coherent plot I could | |
| identify, but it seems as if each section contained a bit of one, and | |
| they were internally consistent. On this basis -- rather than that of | |
| understanding and being able to articulate the plot -- I rated it just | |
| above average, consistency being one of the building blocks of a good | |
| plot. So if you're looking for a full-blown story, I'm afraid you are | |
| out of luck; this game does not, so far as I could tell, have one. | |
| There are basically four (five?) little tableaus that are, at least as | |
| far as I could tell, separate, yet each has as its basis understanding | |
| or at least discovering the nature of something. This, I think, is what | |
| ties the game together. I may be the only person getting this out of the | |
| game (other comments certainly suggest such) but... for me it works. | |
| *** Puzzles (B) | |
| Oh GOD, the PUZZLES. They are fiendish! They are evil! They required me | |
| to use the hints regularly... | |
| ...and yet... | |
| I'm fascinated by word puzzles. I was particularly fascinated by the one | |
| in part two of this game, where your inventory contains a certain number | |
| of words, the room contains a certain number of words, and you have to | |
| manipulate them in various ways to make certain phrases. In the interest | |
| of leaving -some- surprises to the reader, I shall not reproduce the | |
| entire puzzle, but I will say that: | |
| a) There is more than one (somewhat) sensical "solution", but only one | |
| actually -works- | |
| b) Yes, it did mean something to ME (though not, I gather, to others). | |
| Then there was the puzzle with the basically inanimate people. That one, | |
| I did not like. No. But it wasn't because I felt it was unfair or even | |
| that it was difficult to figure out (aside from being very limited in | |
| solvability). It was just that it was... icky. I suspect it was meant to | |
| be metaphorical, but some metaphors I'd rather not, er, explore. | |
| Still... frustrating at times, but the hints do work well, and... if you | |
| like symbolism and wordplay, you should enjoy this aspect of the game. | |
| *** NPCs (B) | |
| Well, some of the NPCs were a bit wooden and stiff... (that's a joke | |
| only those who have played the game will get). | |
| Many of the Others you interact with in this game are not, strictly | |
| speaking, people. They have personalities, they speak, they react, | |
| but... they're objects. Animate objects. It's quite bizarre. Surreal, | |
| even. | |
| And I loved the way it was done. Each object had a personality that fit | |
| with what it was. Each object had something to say about its | |
| surroundings and fellow objects. Sure, it was simple, a closed | |
| environment, but that's something you can't say about some games: the | |
| NPCs knew about each other and would comment on each other. In fact... | |
| it was vital to the game. | |
| *** Technical (B) | |
| A few little neat tricks gave me reason to up the technical score a bit, | |
| despite a couple really nasty disambiguation problems in one section. | |
| Specifically, I liked the fact that changing state (due to actions | |
| taken) resulted in changing responses (descriptions and reactions), | |
| something that takes some time and care and effort to do, and I enjoyed | |
| the word-inventory puzzle as a purely interesting technical feat as well | |
| as just as a puzzle. It's nice to see a little extra like this. | |
| *** Tilt (A+) and Final Thoughts | |
| Many people started this game, liked it, and then slowly grew to dislike | |
| it. I started out not enjoying the philosophical High Art but grew to | |
| appreciate it once I began to see the full shape of things, and aside | |
| from an "ick" factor at one point, enjoyed the entire experience. This | |
| may say more about me than the game. | |
| If you can deal with fiendish (if well-hinted) puzzles, surreal | |
| situations, and the sense that you are in an alien landscape -- or if | |
| those things outright appeal to you -- this game is worth checking out. | |
| Even if that is not your usual bag, the first section is possibly worth | |
| taking a look at. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| TITLE: Guess The Verb! | |
| AUTHOR: Leonard Richardson | |
| E-MAIL: leonardr SP@G segfault.org | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/guess.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| Walkthrough? Yes (in-game) | |
| Genre: SpecFic (but see below) | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating B |Submitted Vote 7| | |
| |Writing B+|Plot B | | |
| |Puzzles C |NPCs C | | |
| |Technical C-|Tilt B | | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| When I saw the name of the game, I said, "Oh, no. NOT a joke game!" | |
| No. It's not. Well, at times it is (it certainly doesn't take itself too | |
| seriously), but it's not the -obvious- joke game. | |
| I put this under the category 'Speculative Fiction' (otherwise known as | |
| "sf/fantasy") because it contained elements that were (including the | |
| initial premise), but I think perhaps it might also fall into the | |
| category of "comedy". | |
| *** Writing (B+) | |
| Any game in which I can read the description of a corn dog and be | |
| entertained really has something going for it: | |
| >l at corn dog | |
| The corn dog is a curious creature. Its life cycle begins when the | |
| larval corn dog is cooked and put on a stick. The corn dog is dipped | |
| in batter to form a cocoon and fried. Inside the batter cocoon, the | |
| baby corn dog metamorphoses into an adult phase which is then | |
| purchased, slathered with mustard, and eaten. The rumbling of your | |
| stomach tells you that the end is near for this particular corn dog. | |
| We will miss you, corn dog. | |
| Much of the game's description, even when more serious than this, | |
| contains elements of this style. It's clever, it's cute (in the good | |
| way), and it is, above all, interesting. | |
| I did not bestow an A rating on the writing simply because while it is | |
| true that the writing meets my criteria for "good", it never thoroughly | |
| immersed me in the experience. This may be a result of the game's style, | |
| not a reflection on the author's ability; I don't think we were really | |
| -meant- to be immersed. | |
| *** Plot (B) | |
| Really, this should be "plots", plural; these are several stories tied | |
| together solely by method of entry. Perhaps if you complete all the | |
| scenarios there is a larger plot revealed, but if so, I did not find it. | |
| Certain sections were better than others, but all contained a sort of | |
| "Now rejoining your regularly scheduled program in progress" sort of | |
| feel at insertion point, which is another interesting way to tie things | |
| together. Whether or not this was deliberate is something only the | |
| author could answer. | |
| Some sections might be more interesting to people than others, as there | |
| is quite a range covered by this. | |
| *** Puzzles (C) | |
| Puzzles were definitely a weak point, not because they were bad but | |
| merely because they were tough and at times very difficult to understand | |
| the context of. Whether this was a function of the fragmented nature of | |
| the plot or the function of poor puzzle design is not something I feel I | |
| can judge. I could not solve several of the puzzles, however, and as a | |
| result never saw the -complete- version of several of the scenarios, | |
| despite the availability of a walkthrough. I think an adaptive hint | |
| system would have been a BIG help in this game; I didn't really want to | |
| ruin other sections by walkthrough-consulting that forced me to read all | |
| of it. | |
| *** NPCs (C) | |
| We never really seem to see enough of any given NPC for it to feel | |
| particularly deep, and there is definitely a problem with | |
| non-responsiveness even in the required interactions. | |
| *** Technical (C-) | |
| There were at least two points in which directions were not | |
| bi-directional (which is to say, going east does not result in west | |
| returning you to your original point). If this was deliberate, so be it, | |
| but if not, I would suggest correcting this. (One occurs getting to and | |
| from the area behind the booth, one occurs in the college scenario.) | |
| Aside from that, I found no particular bugs and no particular tricks. | |
| *** Tilt (B) and Final Thoughts | |
| Despite the problems I had with the puzzles and the walkthrough, I did | |
| find this an interesting diversion. I think it might be interesting to | |
| see some expansion on this game, some more involved scenarios, in a | |
| post-comp release that didn't have to fit a 2-hour limit, but even as is | |
| the game is worth a look; if nothing else, if you don't get a scenario | |
| you like, restoring to right before you choose is easy enough. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Suzanne Britton <tril SP@G igs.net> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: Kaged | |
| AUTHOR: Ian Finley | |
| E-MAIL: domokov SP@G aol.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: TADS standard | |
| SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/kaged/kaged.gam | |
| VERSION: 1 | |
| I hope Ian leads a happier life than his protagonists. His games get | |
| grimmer every year. | |
| "Kaged" is a dystopian tale strongly reminiscent of 1984 (but not | |
| derivative). Like just about everything its author has produced, it is | |
| strikingly original, evocative, well-written, and suicidally depressing | |
| :-) I quite liked it, though it is, in my opinion, not as successful as | |
| "Exhibition" or "Babel". It is more ambitious than either of those | |
| works, which leads me to be somewhat forgiving of its failures. | |
| As a mood piece, "Kaged" is excellent. Every bleak, oppressive nuance of | |
| the world you live in comes to life in the vivid writing, enhanced by | |
| graphics and sound (the opening picture is especially evocative), and | |
| your own character is well-drawn. As a story, it is ambitious, but less | |
| excellent. I felt that what began as tightly woven threads unraveled | |
| near the end--and not just because of the protagonist's dissolving | |
| sanity. I came out of the experience with no real understanding of what | |
| had happened and why. Many hints, many seeming contradictions, no | |
| certainties. Normally, I like it when a game leaves the player with a | |
| mystery, but this was just unsatisfying. It's hard to pinpoint | |
| why...perhaps partly because I felt I was expected to understand much | |
| more than I did. Certainly, my protagonist seemed to be way ahead of me, | |
| and as a result, I felt less connection with him. | |
| (Postscript: I've since spoken with Ian, and to some extent "it's | |
| intentional". Apparently, his playtesters kept pushing him for more | |
| ambiguity. Ah, well.) | |
| The programming was also not quite as polished as I've come to expect of | |
| this author. Again, it was trying to accomplish more than in earlier | |
| works, I think. The world was very fleshed-out, but flawed. I | |
| encountered a number of guess-the-verb problems. Perhaps the most | |
| egregious was the matchbook. It was lazily (and unintuitively) | |
| implemented as a single object, leading me to fumble for awhile before I | |
| simply typed "strike match": | |
| >get match | |
| You already have the book of matches! | |
| >get match from matchbook | |
| The book of matches isn't in the book of matches. | |
| >look in matchbook | |
| There's nothing in the book of matches. | |
| Rating: 8 | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Suzanne Britton <tril SP@G igs.net> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: Masquerade | |
| AUTHOR: Kathleen M. Fischer | |
| E-MAIL: mfischer5 SP@G aol.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/mask/mask.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 3 | |
| "Masquerade" is an excellent work of story-based IF in a little-used | |
| genre (romance, specifically, Civil-War era romance). It is perhaps the | |
| most immersive game I've played yet this year. When I started playing, | |
| my mind was still spinning with outside thoughts and residual stress. | |
| Soon, I became utterly engrossed in the well-sketched gameworld and all | |
| else faded to black. | |
| The setting is impeccable: no anachronisms or oversights. I truly felt | |
| like I was in the 1800's. The protagonist (a feminist before her time) | |
| also came across quite strongly, and I enjoyed stepping into the shoes | |
| of someone so like and yet unlike me. | |
| Though the plot of "Masquerade" is fairly linear, for most of the way, | |
| there are several forks in the later parts of the game which lead to | |
| different endings based on your decisions. This was a big part of my | |
| enjoyment: of the 12 endings, I've found about a third, and am eager to | |
| go back and find more after the comp. I was especially pleased that | |
| choosing to strike out on your own (sans deed, sans husband) was a valid | |
| option, and though the author didn't quite sanction it as a "winning" | |
| ending (an odd word to use with story-based IF anyway), the outcome was | |
| positive and rewarding (it's my favorite ending of those I found). In | |
| that respect, Masquerade is hardly a "genre" romance. | |
| In spite of this praise, "Masquerade" didn't quite make my 9-10 bracket. | |
| There are several reasons for this. The first is something the author | |
| couldn't have done much about: the genre is not my usual cup of tea. I | |
| prefer stories with fantastical or SF elements (the story-in-a-story in | |
| "Photopia" counts) to straight fiction. | |
| The second is implementation: there were enough guess-the-verb and | |
| guess-the-action problems to be annoying. This is an especial | |
| show-stopper in such a linear game, which often halts your progress | |
| entirely, locking you in your current location, until you deal with the | |
| matter at hand. Example: "dance with Jonathan". It sounds embarrassingly | |
| obvious now, but at the time, I assumed that we would go into the | |
| ballroom together, then dance. But "west" returned the stock failure | |
| message about Mrs. Stanford being at the door, and this stymied me for a | |
| while. | |
| Sometimes the problem is syntax, other times it's more a problem of | |
| being expected to read the author's mind. I'm not referring to puzzles | |
| (of which there are a few), rather cases where what I want to do is | |
| obvious, but how to tell the game that is not-so-obvious. Another | |
| example: the only way I've found to get Ethan's attention in the train | |
| is to "get tickets". Until I've done that, I can't talk to him, touch | |
| him, sit with him, or otherwise interact with him. The reason given is | |
| fairly lame ("You wouldn't want to be that forward") and doesn't do much | |
| to point me in the right direction. Worse, if I flounder around like | |
| that for more than a few turns, I'm ejected from the train and it takes | |
| off! | |
| When the game mechanics worked--and make no mistake, they often | |
| did--they worked splendidly. I wended my way through the story in | |
| mimetic bliss, barely conscious of the fact that I was typing rather | |
| than living out my actions. The tight boundaries of the gameworld | |
| remained invisible. But when the mechanics failed, they failed with a | |
| loud crunching halt. | |
| (One extra positive note on implementation: I was impressed by and | |
| appreciative of the many stock message replacements [in fact, I've been | |
| impressed that way by several games this year]. E.g., when you type an | |
| invalid command: "You mutter something incomprehensible". Or for | |
| disambiguation, "You pause to think, <x> or <y>?") | |
| Third: the game sometimes went overboard in limiting my actions. Some of | |
| this is acceptable--there are things a 19th-century woman simply does | |
| not do--but some of it came across as programming laziness. Whatever the | |
| reason, I was disappointed at not being allowed to give Jonathan a good | |
| slap! | |
| Rating: 8 | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| Walkthrough? No (in-game hints) | |
| Genre: Historical Romance | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating B |Submitted Vote 8| | |
| |Writing A |Plot B | | |
| |Puzzles C |NPCs B | | |
| |Technical B |Tilt A+| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| It's interesting. I'm not a big romance story fan, but I am a fan of | |
| historical romance... perhaps because I'm a big fan of historical | |
| -anything-. And this story is set in a period that I find fascinating. | |
| So right from the start, I was interested. | |
| But it wouldn't have held if the game wasn't so extremely well | |
| constructed.... | |
| *** Writing (A) | |
| Simply put, the writing in this story is first-rate. It was descriptive, | |
| it was evocative, it was thorough without being wordy, it was fun to | |
| read, and best of all, it fit the period the game was set in. If there | |
| -were- any errors, they escaped my notice. | |
| The example I have in my notes -- which I feel is representative -- is | |
| from the interior of a coach: | |
| "The coach is richly appointed, with two leather cushioned benches | |
| facing each other and a nice clean smell that marks it as either | |
| privately owned or an expensive rental. Heavy black drapes have been | |
| drawn across the windows, casting the interior in a gloom that | |
| precludes close scrutiny of the conveyance or its passenger." | |
| As someone who is a big fan of (mostly horror) stories written in the | |
| late 1800s, I can say that this actually is the type of writing one | |
| encounters in that period, which, not coincidentally, is when this story | |
| is set. | |
| *** Plot (B) | |
| Although I was disappointed with the particular ending I got and once or | |
| twice felt that things were a bit forced, the overall story in this is | |
| good. It's not simply a boy-meets-girl style romance by any means; the | |
| actual initial thrust of the plot (and, in fact, potentially the | |
| majority of it) has nothing to do with romance. | |
| I think perhaps the complaint some people have of heavily story-driven | |
| IF -- notably, if you've been not reading reviews regularly, that maybe | |
| they would do better as static IF -- would probably apply here, but as | |
| usual, I am not one of those people. There is flexibility here you could | |
| not incorporate into a static work, and while the plot advances are an | |
| unstoppable force, you can change things a bit by your reactions. | |
| *** Puzzles (C) | |
| There were a few. They weren't bad. If that seems a bit short, let me a | |
| note that I was so captivated by the story I didn't really notice them. | |
| I certainly didn't get hung up on them, so that's all that really | |
| mattered to me in the end. | |
| *** NPCs (B) | |
| The NPCs were, for the most part, quite well developed, although at | |
| times the interactions with them were a bit too predestined for my | |
| taste, hence the "mere" B rating. | |
| *** Technical (B) | |
| I have to say that this rating is predicated on two particular biases of | |
| mine: rich, full, detailed story worlds, and alternate conversational | |
| styles (the ask/tell routine is not exactly my favorite, and IMO doesn't | |
| work very well in stories like this). The fact that I could | |
| >smell stranger | |
| ...and get a valid response was worth a lot. Too, the fact that standard | |
| library messages were altered to fit the mood and setting was nice. None | |
| of this is necessarily -difficult-, but it does take the type of | |
| forethought and planning that many people do -not- bring to their games. | |
| *** Tilt (A+) and Final Thoughts | |
| I found this game so enticing and so thoroughly enjoyable that I intend | |
| on playing it again to see what alternate endings I get, and expect that | |
| even the parts that repeat will still seem wonderful and fresh. If not | |
| for the fact that I like surreal better than I like romance, this would | |
| have easily been my favorite of the games I played. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: Metamorphoses | |
| AUTHOR: Emily Short | |
| E-MAIL: emshort SP@G mindspring.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard (mostly) | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/metamorp.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 2 | |
| As has often been noted, there are many difficulties inherent in telling | |
| a story through the IF medium, and one of the most-remarked-upon is the | |
| difficulty of keeping the player/reader involved (by giving him/her | |
| something to do) while still telling the story that the author wants to | |
| tell. The solutions usually boil down to relinquishing control of the | |
| pace of the story (typically through giving the player puzzles to | |
| solve), or avoiding/minimizing the puzzle aspect of IF and sending the | |
| player through the story with little opportunity to affect it. Emily | |
| Short's Metamorphoses doesn't, exactly, transcend this usual duality in | |
| IF design, but it does do some interesting things that help bring the | |
| poles together, and it's a wonderfully immersive playing experience. | |
| What's going on is hard to pin down, but the heart of it is that you're | |
| a slave/servant girl sent on a quest/errand of sorts by your master, | |
| with whom you have an uneasy and complicated relationship. The literal | |
| content of the quest (to the extent that there is any) disappears as the | |
| setting changes: the game is set in a fantasy world of sorts, though | |
| it's not quite accurate to call it fantasy. The action, so to speak, | |
| lies mostly in the realm of the figurative: you're encouraged (well, I | |
| felt encouraged) to view your quest as important more in what it | |
| suggests than in what it literally depicts. By the same token, when you | |
| encounter puzzles, they have symbolic significance that goes beyond the | |
| "acquire the object" goal. (All the more so since it's not immediately | |
| obvious why you're acquiring the objects.) Since the plot goes on | |
| beneath the surface of the literal action, the game can safely permit | |
| the player to do whatever he or she wants with the pace and order of the | |
| story, since there isn't really a narrative thread as such that can be | |
| broken. For example: one puzzle requires that you give up something | |
| familiar to you to advance the story, an act which clearly has its own | |
| resonances, and another requires that you transform another familiar | |
| object and put it to a novel use. The game comments directly on some of | |
| these points but not all--very little is spelled out. | |
| The world where all this takes place is only indirectly related to the | |
| ordinary physical world, and the relationship parallels other elements | |
| in the plot. Idealized forms play an important part: two statues of a | |
| man and a woman are described in ways that suggest Greek sculpture, and | |
| perfect solids are central to the story. Essences are important as well: | |
| virtually every object is made of a single elemental substance (wood, | |
| glass, metal, etc.), and you have the power to alter those substances in | |
| certain ways. Symmetry is everywhere (in the game's map, and elsewhere | |
| as well), and the multiplicity of mirrors suggests the reflection and | |
| introspection that are central to the plot. (Likewise, the idealized | |
| forms suggest the absolutes that make up the plot.) At the same time, | |
| the game's world is sterile, arid: there's nothing particularly warm or | |
| welcoming about it, and there's no suggestion that you find it pleasant | |
| or comfortable. (Left ambiguous is whether the dryness reflects the | |
| protagonist's life as it has been, or represents some hostile reality | |
| external to her that she's trying to overcome.) The setting itself tells | |
| a story, in other words, in a way not often found in IF. | |
| Not only does the setting play a part in the plot, however, but it's | |
| also beautifully described, with plenty of arresting imagery--some | |
| descriptive, others suggestive. For instance: | |
| Dome of Broken Light | |
| A straight white light comes through the hole in the ceiling, but it | |
| is soon after twisted and bent: mirrors cast it from angle to angle; | |
| crystal divides it; glass stains it. | |
| The picture is indeterminate: the reader is encouraged to imagine a riot | |
| of reflections and refractions. The only perfection here is that of | |
| perfect confusion. Here, by contrast: | |
| Glass Grove | |
| An orchard of glass trees: trunks slender and orderly as the columns | |
| of the Alhambra, foliage iridescent and frail. No wind stirs, and | |
| yet, from time to time, a leaf casts free of its branch and drifts to | |
| the ground. The whole floor of the cavern is deep with them. | |
| The image is more concrete: "iridescent and frail" conveys both the | |
| beauty and the sterility of the game's world. The writing also | |
| underscores the contrasts between the two locations: the (relative) | |
| activity of the first is reflected by the active verbs ("mirrors cast," | |
| "crystal divides," "glass stains"), whereas the aridity of the second is | |
| suggested by the intransitive verbs ("casts free," "drifts", "is | |
| deep"--and the first sentence has no verbs at all). Most of the writing | |
| is spare, like the game itself--you eventually learn some things about | |
| yourself, your past, and how you came to be in your present position, | |
| but the snippets are small indeed. What's there, however, is well worth | |
| reading. | |
| Metamorphoses does an impressively nuanced job of worldbuilding, in | |
| short, but what's noteworthy is that the gameplay is nearly as good. The | |
| puzzles feel reasonably novel, due mostly to the | |
| transmutation/magnification machines you're given and which figure in | |
| all the puzzles. The technical aspect is impressive--the objects by and | |
| large do what they're supposed to do when transmuted or enlarged or | |
| shrunk, and they interact with each other in plausible ways, nothing to | |
| sneeze at considering the complexity involved. Moreover, there are | |
| plenty of multiple solutions that draw on the various qualities of the | |
| objects whose size and essence you can alter, which makes the puzzles | |
| flow by fairly quickly. (This is not, in other words, a "guess what the | |
| author's thinking" sort of game, at least not when it comes to puzzle | |
| solutions.) Not every object in every state and size gets a customized | |
| description, of course, but everything behaves sensibly enough. | |
| Metamorphoses is not a flawless effort--some of its design choices risk | |
| leaving the player cold in certain respects. In particular, the game | |
| leaves so much about the protagonist ambiguous for so long that it's | |
| difficult to connect to her emotionally. Some of the most emotional | |
| experiences for the protagonist come early enough in the story that the | |
| player is unlikely to be as strongly affected as he or she might be with | |
| some more setup and explanation. As always, the tradeoff between story | |
| and puzzle raises the possibility that the player will forget about the | |
| story amid all the mechanical fiddling (particularly here, where there's | |
| so much fiddling to do)--the puzzles are reasonably well integrated into | |
| the story, for the most part, but most of the plot is sufficiently | |
| abstract that it's easy to lose sight of what's supposed to be going on. | |
| Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are a lot of endings to | |
| Metamorphoses, and many of them don't provide much resolution in any | |
| obvious way; finding an end to the story that adequately brings the | |
| various threads together may take a while for some players. In a way, | |
| that works here; it reflects the general bleakness of the game's world | |
| that the end of the story doesn't tie up all the loose ends or furnish | |
| an especially satisfying conclusion. The game aspect, however, demands | |
| some sort of conclusion, whether optimal or not, and only a few of the | |
| endings offer real conclusions as such. | |
| These drawbacks are to some extent inherent in what Metamorphoses | |
| appears to be trying to do, though; tastes on what constitutes a | |
| satisfying game experience differ--and the latitude for experimentation | |
| provided by the machines helps make up for any other problems. For my | |
| part, the setting itself was enough to make this the only 10 of this | |
| year's competition (and the only one I've given since 1997)--as | |
| worldbuilding, this is a triumph. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: My Angel | |
| AUTHOR: Jon Ingold | |
| E-MAIL: ji207 SP@G cam.ac.uk | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard (mostly) | |
| SUPPORTS: Most z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/my_angel/my_angel.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| The unusual approach to formatting that Jon Ingold's My Angel adopts is | |
| the most obvious of its innovations, but in some ways it's the least | |
| interesting. What works about this story works whether or not the text | |
| is formatted in the conventional way or not. | |
| The game calls the innovation NOVEL mode, and it's a nov--er, it's a | |
| creative idea: your input is moved up to a status line and most of the | |
| program's output occupies the main part of the screen. Parser messages | |
| ("there's no such object here" and such) are also on the status line. | |
| The paragraphing on the main part of the screen is handled fairly | |
| well--most of the breaks are logical--so the output does, in most | |
| respects, actually resemble a story written in the first person. It | |
| seems, however, that the main effect would be on the appearance of the | |
| transcript, rather than on the player's experience: the player is still | |
| getting the parser messages, and if they're illogical or indicate bad | |
| programming (failing to recognize a seemingly important object or | |
| failing to understand a logical action), the effect on the player is | |
| still to wrench him or her out of the flow of the story. Put another | |
| way, it appears that another well-done game that strives to accommodate | |
| all logical approaches would work just as well if given a similar | |
| treatment--the point is to minimize those parser messages. (I've | |
| certainly never heard anyone complain that having the input lines right | |
| there in the middle of the output breaks the feel of the story, but | |
| maybe I haven't been listening.) There's also a distraction | |
| factor--whenever you do get a parser message and no output appears at | |
| the bottom of the main screen, you need to look back up at the status | |
| line, which takes some adjustment. (To be fair, the game also gives the | |
| option of NORMAL mode, in which the output is standard | |
| alternating-input-and-output, so if the looking back and forth drives | |
| you nuts, you're not required to put up with it.) I suspect that, | |
| eventually, it wouldn't feel any less unnatural than having the input | |
| lines and parser messages right in the middle of everything, but it's | |
| fairly jarring at first. The point isn't that NOVEL mode is a bad | |
| idea--it's clever in its way. I'm just not convinced that it advances | |
| the state of the art much, if at all. | |
| There's more to My Angel than the formatting, fortunately, and the | |
| reason it works as a story has very little to do with the appearance of | |
| the transcript. The story flips back and forth between the main thread | |
| and some flashback sequences in a reasonably seamless way, and you can | |
| actually interact with the characters and objects in the flashback | |
| sequences. Technically, of course, that has the potential to make no | |
| sense, but the game manages to limit your options to assure that it | |
| controls what actually happens in the flashback sequences while still | |
| providing more interactivity than a simple cut scene. Moreover, since | |
| you only get a few moves in each flashback sequence, and there's more | |
| than a few moves' worth of exploration in each one, there's some replay | |
| potential here. The one aspect of the story that suffers, however, is | |
| that it's easy to get confused about what exactly happened in the | |
| flashbacks--the game throws several names and relationships at you and | |
| essentially expects you to keep them straight (if you want to understand | |
| what really happened at the end). The flashback approach can, in fact, | |
| work well in IF, but there's also an inherent disadvantage that static | |
| fiction doesn't pose--it's harder to flip back to an earlier moment to | |
| check on details that you missed the first time around. Simplicity is | |
| key, and the flashbacks in My Angel are complex enough to push the | |
| envelope. (Babel, by way of contrast, solves this problem by allowing | |
| the player to access the flashbacks repeatedly and at will.) | |
| The relationship at the core of the story is also nicely done with an | |
| interesting innovation: you and your companion are telepaths, it seems, | |
| and THINK ABOUT object lets you know her take on that object and often | |
| triggers a series of brief communications about the object or associated | |
| ideas. The effect is sometimes akin to having two PCs rather than one, | |
| all the more so because the character of the main PC isn't especially | |
| well developed--you don't get much of his personality, just his | |
| experiences. The PC's thoughts tend to be bound up with his companion's | |
| thoughts, in other words, so the player rarely sees either person | |
| thinking or acting independently. As a result, most of the game unfolds | |
| as if there were one mind in two bodies, and when the two are apart--as | |
| they are for roughly the last half of the story--the PC and, | |
| consequently, the player feel bereft, incomplete. The telepathic | |
| interactions don't only come when invited by THINK ABOUT, of | |
| course--they're interjected at all sorts of moments, and the two | |
| characters comment back and forth on the other's thoughts. It's a trick | |
| that works particularly well in IF, since the player isn't necessarily | |
| expecting to find a PC with a persona that's distinct from the player's. | |
| The indistinctness is here, but it's on another front. | |
| The game aspect isn't a total success, however. Some of the puzzles | |
| reflect the story well--your telepathy plays into them in more or less | |
| logical ways--but others just feel like puzzles. The game refers to them | |
| as "optional," but I'm not sure why--it appears to me that the story | |
| won't progress to its ending if the puzzles aren't solved. They're not | |
| fiendishly difficult, but they're not blindingly obvious either, and one | |
| in particular seems rather improbable (or turns on a object property | |
| that's inadequately described). More importantly, they make the flow of | |
| the story feel uneven, since large chunks of the story go by independent | |
| of your input. For instance, there are several sequences of moves where | |
| you're traveling, and while you can interact with the scenery as you go | |
| by, you can't stop the movement. This actually works fairly well--it's a | |
| good balance between keeping the story moving and letting you poke and | |
| prod things--but when you get to the points where the story stops until | |
| you solve the puzzle, the story loses some of its pace. Usually, it's | |
| not so bad--since the first several puzzles aren't all that hard--but | |
| the more difficult puzzles break the mood by bringing everything to a | |
| halt. | |
| The writing, for its part, is solid, good enough not to get in the way, | |
| though it does occasionally lurch into total abstraction at times when | |
| the player simply wants to know what's going on. I suppose that fits the | |
| telepathy theme--thoughts don't lend themselves to description, and | |
| experiences whose most important features are the shared thoughts | |
| between you and your companion will inevitably be a little abstract--but | |
| it's also frustrating. A sample: | |
| The centre of the stone twists around, and it flares with a pulsing | |
| light - or does it, maybe I see this only in my head, my eyes seem | |
| nothing to do with it. It is talking to me, gibbering, squawking. No | |
| - the speech goes beyond me, beyond her, it is talking to the | |
| distance, to the air. There is a shriek that tells us "HEAR-SPEAK" | |
| and then my eyes cease to function totally and all I am aware of is | |
| the black, and Angela there in my mind like an aura. Unbidden, shapes | |
| loom up from the blackness; things I have blotted and forgotten pull | |
| at me, whispering. | |
| This is called synesthesia--using sensory language, but associated with | |
| the "wrong" sense--and while it's a good attention-getting device, only | |
| the most determined readers will actually manage to feel like they're | |
| still in the character's shoes; the rest are relegated to observer | |
| status. After a brief flashback, you get this: | |
| Then slowly, fades light back in. The clearing still, we inside are - | |
| my mind still spins - the clearing. By the stone, as though a fruit | |
| dangling from the elm-tree's bent branch, is a darkness. Darkness is | |
| made an object. Darkness is present, as a - gap - in what is. A rift, | |
| as though the wind itself were riven. Light falls into it and will | |
| not return. Angela pictures a passage, passage itself. | |
| This is nicely poetic writing, but it comes at an unfortunate point; | |
| Something Has Happened, and the player (this player, at least) doesn't | |
| want to hear about how the darkness is like a fruit dangling from an | |
| elm-tree. The effect is murkiness to no real purpose--at least, no | |
| purpose that I could discern, because what's there is very much there; | |
| it's not as if the abstract language refers to something that only | |
| exists in the abstract. Much of the game avoids this sort of thing--the | |
| shared thoughts are usually exchanged in terms of images that the player | |
| can grapple with--but there are some unfortunate moments at the end when | |
| the game loses some of its grip, so to speak. | |
| Still, in a competition well-populated by games with flaws much more | |
| significant than insufficiently concrete writing, it's not exactly fair | |
| to criticize My Angel too harshly on those terms. It's a well-told story | |
| that manages to keep the player involved, mostly, and I gave it an 8. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: Nevermore | |
| AUTHOR: Nate Cull | |
| E-MAIL: culln SP@G xtra.co.nz | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/never/never.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 10 | |
| Literary adaptation is an underpopulated IF genre, and Nate Cull's | |
| Nevermore is a thoughtful and well-intentioned attempt at bringing Poe's | |
| "The Raven" to the world of IF. While what emerges isn't a bad game, | |
| it's less the poem than a series of events in a similar setting with a | |
| somewhat similar mood, In other words, if you're a particular fan of the | |
| poem, you might not well not be a fan of this game. | |
| As it happens, I committed "The Raven" to memory when I was in seventh | |
| grade or so, and I still like the poem even though I've somewhat | |
| belatedly realized that it's not a very good poem. (It's been said that | |
| the popularity of Poe's poems varies inversely with their quality, and | |
| while that's not strictly true--he wrote some lousy poems that remain | |
| thoroughly obscure--the three Poe poems that are probably the best | |
| known, "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "The Bells", are far from his | |
| best.) That is, I like it despite its repetitiveness and its tendency to | |
| use 20 words when two or three would do, simply because I like the drama | |
| of it. No one would ever call "The Highwayman" a great poem, but it's | |
| definitely a good ghost story in verse form that's well suited for being | |
| read aloud; ditto, I think, for "The Raven," and I still enjoy being | |
| able to recite it--and "The Highwayman" and others--from memory. So when | |
| I saw the initial premise of Nevermore, my first reaction was something | |
| between "Cool!" and disappointment that I hadn't gotten there first, | |
| because it was an idea I'd been kicking around (very casually). And when | |
| I saw that the game was using snippets from the poem but not binding the | |
| player to the text, I said, aha, perfect--use the poem's story, its | |
| strong point, but don't bind us to the text, which isn't its strong | |
| point. Just use the text for echo effect. | |
| It was about five moves into the game that the author's vision of the | |
| poem diverged from mine, however, and it continued to diverge more and | |
| more over the course of the game. This, in a sense, is good: had the | |
| author felt constrained not to offend fellow fans of the poem and | |
| slavishly followed the text, the result wouldn't have been much | |
| different from reading the text itself. But I had such a hard time | |
| squaring the author's vision with mine that before long I simply forgot | |
| the origin of the game and no longer associated it with my mental images | |
| of the setting as portrayed in the poem; it was just, in other words, | |
| another comp entry. This is partly because the plot of Nevermore | |
| involves elements like alchemy, pagan rituals, and lots of drugs, and it | |
| would have been an odd coincidence if both the author and I had imagined | |
| those things as part of a more fleshed-out story--but it's more that the | |
| mood differed from the mood as I imagined it. To take one among many | |
| examples, the protagonist of Nevermore takes cocaine approximately every | |
| 20 moves; if you don't, you're told that "a dull, dark weariness drifts | |
| over you," which leads to death in a few moves if not corrected with | |
| cocaine (at which point "a sense of raw alertness rushes through your | |
| nerves, setting them all on edge"). It's certainly not implausible to | |
| view the mood of the poem's subject as more generally consistent with "a | |
| dull, dark weariness" than a cocaine-fueled "raw alertness," though--I | |
| mean, it's a pretty melancholy poem--and I simply couldn't fit the | |
| protagonist of Nevermore into my preconceived image. (Well, okay, the | |
| poem's subject summons up some energy toward the end, but there's an | |
| obvious cause that isn't cocaine.) In short, the author has his own | |
| rather distinctive vision of who the protagonist is and what the poem's | |
| about, and Your Mileage May Vary. | |
| All that aside, the game works reasonably well, though it's not | |
| flawless. The cocaine habit mentioned about doesn't add much to the | |
| game, and it recurs frequently enough to be irritating after a while. | |
| The puzzles also depend on a set of books that you're required to read, | |
| while is fine except that (a) the snippets in the books are randomized, | |
| so it's possible to miss one even if you've seen all the other snippets | |
| twice or more, and (b) the snippets are written in a sort of | |
| pseudo-medieval English that takes an awful lot of work to make sense | |
| of. (Impenetrable poetry I can deal with; impenetrable puzzle-solving | |
| instructions are more of a problem.) It's also easy to push the game | |
| into unwinnable states, and though there's a WINNABLE command (which | |
| informs you whether the game is presently in such a state), I would have | |
| preferred game design that simply makes it a little harder to screw up | |
| (or, better, is more forgiving when you do screw up). The opacity of the | |
| instructions also had me stumped for a while toward the end--it turned | |
| out that I'd left out a key step in the puzzle-solving and hadn't | |
| realized it (and there aren't really contextual hints that could suggest | |
| what you might have done wrong). | |
| This is sounding more negative than I mean to be, because there were | |
| parts of Nevermore that I genuinely enjoyed. The ending, for one thing, | |
| is terrific--dark and dripping with irony. (In that respect, quite | |
| faithful to Poe himself.) Some of the action turns on flashbacks, which | |
| also struck me as genuinely Poeish--a protagonist for whom the past is | |
| more real than the present absolutely belongs in this game. The writing | |
| is strong--economical and atmospheric--and the box quotes from Edgar are | |
| nicely placed (though, curiously, the last and most dramatic part of the | |
| poem is largely absent). The personality of the protagonist even felt | |
| right--an odd mix of sentimentality and obsessiveness. | |
| Nevermore does a lot of things right, and you could argue that it did as | |
| well as any work of IF could do in adapting this particular poem; it's | |
| certainly a worthy attempt. Through no fault of the game, however, it | |
| didn't really connect with me, and I gave it a 7 in the competition. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| TITLE: 1-2-3... | |
| AUTHOR: Chris Mudd | |
| E-MAIL: muddchris SP@G netscape.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: TADS standard | |
| SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/123/1-2-3.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| Walkthrough? Yes | |
| Genre: Psychological Drama | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating C |Submitted Vote 6| | |
| |Writing C |Plot C+| | |
| |Puzzles D+|NPCs D+| | |
| |Technical C |Tilt B-| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| Okay, I know that some people thought this was terrible, that some were | |
| completely turned off by the very idea, that there were definitely | |
| problems (yes, even I agree) with implementation, and that it may | |
| qualify as the most controversial entry in the comp. But damn it, I | |
| liked the idea, and I gave it a 6 because despite the flaws I want to | |
| encourage people to continue to work in this genre. | |
| *** Writing (C) | |
| Yes, there were some really bad spots in the writing. I will agree fully | |
| with anyone who says that. In particular, the conversational style was | |
| really irritating (but that's really more a technical flaw). But the | |
| game did do a good job on several occasions of evoking the inner mind of | |
| the psychopath, and that's something that I enjoyed. | |
| One of my favorite bits is early on: | |
| >l at me | |
| What you see disturbs you, but there is nothing -- absolutely nothing | |
| -- you can do about it. Something has clicked within you. Your time | |
| is now. | |
| With two short lines, the game lets you know that something very odd is | |
| going on, and that the person you are playing feels helpless to stop it. | |
| It, along with the first room description in the game, though both very | |
| short, give you chilling atmosphere, a hint to plot, and a bit of | |
| mystery and intrigue all at once. -That- is part of why I rated the game | |
| more highly than many other reviewers did, and why I thought it showed | |
| such potential. | |
| Alas, I will be the first to admit that some of this potential went to | |
| waste, but I do think the game showed promise. If only the | |
| conversational style had lived up to these initial descriptions, I would | |
| have rated it far more highly in this category at least. | |
| I would like to encourage the author, however, to continue developing | |
| and honing that skill, learning to apply it to other portions of the | |
| writing. I think that with some practice, some damn fine games could | |
| result. | |
| *** Plot (C+) | |
| Understand that this score is predicated more on what I felt the author | |
| was -trying- to do than on the actual execution. Had it been executed | |
| properly... well, I suspect had it been executed properly, fewer people | |
| would have been quite so down on the game. After all, movies like | |
| _Seven_ and _Silence of the Lambs_ and _Kiss the Girls_ are -very- | |
| popular. More than that, I would have probably been in love with the | |
| game; serial killer stories, particularly ones that attempt to delve | |
| into the mind of the killer, fascinate me. | |
| The two biggest plot-related flaws were both predicated on timing: the | |
| actual flow of the game (chock full of nose-leading) and the | |
| conversational style, the latter of which I will expand on under NPCs. | |
| No doubt about it, the execution of the pieces of the story left | |
| something to be desired. While I truly enjoyed the perspective shifts, | |
| the method of revealing the storyline was haphazard, seemed unconnected | |
| to the player actions to a great degree, and was, in a word, 'choppy'. I | |
| found myself unable to determine 'what to do next' until I realized that | |
| basically the answer was 'talk to people and wait for scene changes'. | |
| This works for some games, and it probably even could have worked for | |
| this one, but the attempt to drive the player this way really -did- feel | |
| like an attempt to 'drive' the player. I would hesitate to do more than | |
| speculate, but I wonder if perhaps the author has written static fiction | |
| and was trying to convert it to an IF format; it has that feel to it. | |
| In summary: Good idea that I'd like to see better developed. | |
| *** Puzzles (D+) | |
| Really, there weren't any to speak of, except for conversational choice | |
| puzzles. I found to be 'take woman' fairly obvious given the inner | |
| monologue before then, and of course, every veteran IF player knows to | |
| always check the fridge. That's about it... | |
| *** NPCs (D+) | |
| The conversational style was, in a word, painful. We are not talking | |
| about "I dropped a brick on my toe" painful or even "I just gave birth | |
| to a 10 lb child" painful (unless you are a male, in which case we may | |
| be). We are talking about "I just had every inch of my skin scoured by | |
| sandpaper" painful. So, as you can see, I did in fact have a bad opinion | |
| of a portion of this game. | |
| So, by now, almost everyone who has played this game or read a review | |
| has commented on "Don't you want to ask me about her breasts?" | |
| Therefore, I see no need to revisit that line. What I -would- like to | |
| focus on is the following exchange, which I think fully illustrates my | |
| problem (and most other folks') with the conversation system: | |
| > ask him about woman | |
| He smiles an empathetic smile. "Don't you want to ask me about the | |
| victim, Riessa?" he asks. | |
| Yes. that's why I said 'woman'. She was a woman. Yes? | |
| Synonyms are very, very much your friend. They are quite useful. I will | |
| grant that the higher the synonym count, the higher the chance of a | |
| disambiguation problem, but in this case I don't believe it applies -- | |
| or even if it does, I think it could have been handled far more | |
| gracefully than it was. | |
| Forcing the player to word questions a very, very precise way (such as | |
| the worst example, "ASK HIM ABOUT WHEN HE THINKS THE MURDERER WILL | |
| STRIKE AGAIN") with very little in the way of a good feedback system | |
| (hint: telling me precisely how to phrase it really isn't a good | |
| feedback system, honest) is a very, very annoying choice, and should be | |
| discarded and replaced with something else, even if that 'something | |
| else' is a menu of questions, something that would not be my -first- | |
| choice for this particular type of game but which would have been a | |
| serious improvement under the circumstances. | |
| Since the game is driven by completing conversations, this presents even | |
| more of a problem than it looks like on the first glance; you simply | |
| can't go somewhere else and do something (that choice isn't available) | |
| and then come back when you have a new idea. I suspect this lay at the | |
| heart of many folks' frustration with this entry. | |
| *** Technical (C) | |
| I found no bugs; the only real flaw was conversation-style related. | |
| Character and location switching is not a terribly impressive trick but | |
| it at least took a bit of forethought. | |
| *** Tilt (B-) and Final Thoughts | |
| As I mentioned above, I really do enjoy serial killer stories, and | |
| really think that this game has potential. With some reworking of the | |
| conversational style, a bit more depth to the world and the people, and | |
| perhaps a slightly longer path to the solution, I think it could have | |
| been a solid game. Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but then, what is? | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Matthew Clemson <matthew.clemson SP@G keble.ox.ac.uk> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: Planet Of The Infinite Minds | |
| AUTHOR: Alfredo Garcia | |
| E-MAIL: Five-0 SP@G oceanfree.net | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: TADS standard | |
| SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/planmind/planmind.gam | |
| VERSION: 1 | |
| Er. Um. It's... odd, there's no denying that. It's generally | |
| bug-and-typo free, but it's resoundingly... odd. It's what I'd imagine a | |
| Rybread Celsius game to be like if it was done, well, right. Some great | |
| puzzles, although there's rather a lot of guess-the-author's-mind - I | |
| had to use hints several times - we're back to the oddness again; | |
| indeed, parts of it kept reminding me of Nord and Bert. Indeed, like | |
| N&B, it's at times laugh-out-loud funny - the problems relating to the | |
| end of the universe spring to mind. | |
| Some puzzles, OTOH, are really ingenious, although they are, again, | |
| sometimes let down by the guess-the-author's-thoughts aspects; I | |
| particularly (gasp) *enjoyed the maze*; it was a different approach to | |
| any I'd known, and worked well. Mind you, most people would argue that | |
| it's not a maze :-). | |
| There was one puzzle towards the end which was a little out-of-sorts, | |
| though; and the author admits it in the walkthrough. All-in-all, I | |
| didn't dock a point for it, since I enjoyed the rest of the game so | |
| much; other people might be tempted to, and I'd understand it if they | |
| did. In retrospect, looking at the walkthrough, it's at least nice that | |
| they allowed a cleaner verb than the one I actually used, which probably | |
| says more about my mind than that of the author :-) | |
| It's a little too enthusiastic with 'last lousy points', but they do | |
| seem at least vaguely logical; OTOH, the entire response to Xyzzy is a | |
| whole new and intelligent approach that I've not encountered before. I | |
| didn't enjoy the game from the challenge and puzzle aspect - but from | |
| the entertainment aspect, I was enthralled. | |
| Rating: 7 | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| Walkthrough? Yes | |
| Genre: Speculative Fiction | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating A-|Submitted Vote 9| | |
| |Writing A |Plot B+| | |
| |Puzzles B |NPCs B | | |
| |Technical B |Tilt A-| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| I'm definitely not the only person who liked this game, but I may be the | |
| only person who did not find the library puzzle baffling.... | |
| *** Writing (A) | |
| The thing is, the writing was really funny. | |
| It wasn't actually as perfectly technically executed as my letter grade | |
| might imply; there were awkward turns of phrase here and there and the | |
| occasional misuse of punctuation. But it was very, very funny. | |
| One of my favorite bits (quite far into the game): | |
| "All at once you enter the chimney with a sound that can only be | |
| described as a Floop. All around is darkness. Then, with a | |
| Binco-diddy-diddy you career downwards through metal ledges and wire | |
| meshes. There is a resonating Ting as your body crashes against a curve | |
| in the pipe. You slide downward at this angle towards light. The light | |
| becomes brighter and brighter until it finally engulfs you, as you shoot | |
| out of a large fireplace and into a tasteful room." | |
| The subtitle of this game is "an interactive farce", and the author is | |
| not kidding. It doesn't take itself seriously. It doesn't take you | |
| seriously. It certainly doesn't take the protagonist or the NPCs | |
| seriously. | |
| Funny. | |
| *** Plot (B+) | |
| It's surreal, but it's cohesive... and that's a neat trick. | |
| Sort of a cross between 1950s sf, a physics major's worst nightmares | |
| (I'm betting the author is or was a physics major), and a comedy (well, | |
| it DID say 'farce'), the basic plot is... nearly incomprehensible, yet, | |
| strangely appealing, much like the sideshow freaks at a circus. Watching | |
| it unfold is somewhat akin to watching that guy in the sideshow who does | |
| terrible things to his own body: you wince, but you watch anyhow because | |
| it's fascinating, and you wonder how it's done. | |
| Whether or not the ultimate conclusion makes any sense isn't the point. | |
| The point is, it's fun to watch the progress. | |
| *** Puzzles (B) | |
| Some people found the puzzles baffling, inaccessible, incomprehensible | |
| on several levels. I used the walkthrough a lot myself. But they do make | |
| sense, and they contain an element of originality... | |
| ...and this game has, hands down, my favorite puzzle of the comp. It may | |
| not actually have been terribly original, but I don't recall having seen | |
| a puzzle quite like it before. Without giving away too much, there is a | |
| point at which you have a certain set of objects, and you must | |
| manipulate your environment such to match those objects. I found one of | |
| the things necessary to do this nearly impossible to figure out, but the | |
| rest was definitely a fun exercise. | |
| There was a puzzle at the end I found mildly objectionable, but it was | |
| obnoxious in a way some people might find funny. It involved a toilet. | |
| *** NPCs (B) | |
| You don't actually have a lot of control over your interaction with the | |
| NPCs, but for some reason this did not bother me. I actually found the | |
| characters (or, perhaps, caricatures) rather interesting, particularly | |
| one repeating encounter... poor man. I think most important is that they | |
| provided color that went well with the rest of the game. | |
| *** Technical (B) | |
| The aforementioned favorite puzzle, something I thought was a pretty | |
| good coding trick, was worth an extra point or two in technical score. I | |
| found no noticeable bugs. | |
| *** Tilt (A-) and Final Thoughts | |
| It's possible I enjoyed this game as much as I did because I used to | |
| make a career out of baiting my physics-major ex-boyfriend. (I used to | |
| tell him that physicists were just guessing anyhow, for instance.) Or | |
| maybe it's just that I have a soft place in my heart for 1950s bad | |
| science movies. But I think even without those biases, I would probably | |
| have found the game very amusing. Given the existence of the walkthrough | |
| for people stuck on the admittedly not always straightforward puzzles, I | |
| think I would recommend this to nearly everyone with a sense of humor. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: Rameses | |
| AUTHOR: Stephen Bond | |
| E-MAIL: stephenbond SP@G ireland.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/rameses.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 2 | |
| If you'd asked me before this year's competition began to envision a | |
| game whose lack of interactivity was among its primary virtues, I'd have | |
| had trouble coming up with an example. My imagination is clearly | |
| lacking, however, because Stephen Bond's Rameses is just such a game, | |
| one that uses the player's inability to interact (in part) to tell its | |
| story. It's an interesting concept that's well implemented here. | |
| Rameses is a tale of adolescence, which, for those who remember last | |
| year's A Moment of Hope, isn't necessarily a good sign; making the | |
| trials of adolescence compelling to those of us who are no longer in | |
| that stage is not easy. But Rameses manages to find the balance between | |
| turning the trials in question into melodrama (by exaggerating them) and | |
| making them too trivial to be compelling. Specifically, you're a | |
| teenager at a boarding school, enduring your two unpleasant roommates | |
| and your own homesickness, or something akin to it--and the roommates | |
| aren't monsters, they're just obnoxious. Nor is your character a | |
| misunderstood saint--he's flawed in many respects. The protagonist | |
| manages to elicit the player's sympathy despite (or perhaps because of) | |
| the game's refusal to demand such sympathy. | |
| How? Several ways. First, much of Rameses consists of conversation (in a | |
| menu format)--and for long stretches of the conversation, your | |
| character's head is bursting with things to say (as evidenced by the | |
| menu), and yet he never says any of the things. There are always | |
| explanations, of course, some of them plausible--nasty insults are | |
| withdrawn with something akin to "You'd rather not start a fight right | |
| now"--but what emerges is a striking portrait of frustration, of a | |
| bottled-up character. It's not, exactly, that he's bottled up by | |
| circumstances, by the Awful Consequences Of His Oppressive Life; that | |
| would push it into melodrama, and this isn't melodramatic. It's more a | |
| picture of a highly inarticulate character whose fear of expressing | |
| himself borders on the neurotic, and drawing out that inarticulateness | |
| by trying a range of conversational options (from the polite to the | |
| highly antisocial), only to have the character reject all of them, is a | |
| nicely done depiction of the character. (It's not exactly | |
| inarticulateness--what's in your head is often quite well put--it's more | |
| a fear of expressing oneself, for which there's no concise term that I | |
| know. So I'm calling it inarticulateness.) | |
| There's more to the character than unwillingness to talk, | |
| though--there's also a healthy dollop of insecurity. A date of sorts is | |
| imminent, and your character is terrified and would like nothing more | |
| than to get out of it--he simply doesn't feel ready for that particular | |
| aspect of adolescence. Most of that particular hangup is captured in a | |
| monologue, but the date itself brings it alive as well: you're with two | |
| girls, and you're at a loss, for turn after turn, for anything to say to | |
| them. The few things you do manage to come up with only highlight the | |
| general futility of the exercise. If there's a better way to make an IF | |
| player feel frustrated and inarticulate than giving him TALK TO as a | |
| conversation option and consistently giving him no menu options, I can't | |
| imagine what it would be. In those respects, then, preventing the player | |
| from interacting is one of the story's greatest accomplishments. | |
| Equally effective for different reasons is the portrayal of the | |
| protagonist's relationship with a boyhood friend named Daniel, a | |
| relationship left behind in the trip to boarding school. The friendship | |
| seems to represent for the protagonist a more secure and less | |
| intimidating world. In particular, the protagonist appears to have been | |
| able to communicate with Daniel easily, naturally, and the interactions | |
| depicted (in the PC's memory) stand in contrast to the rest of his | |
| interactions, most of which amount to awkward mumbling. Naturally, | |
| however, one of the PC's main frustrations is that he's received a | |
| letter from Daniel, and he can't seem to put the words together to | |
| respond: | |
| God, I tried so often to write that letter. Practically every night I | |
| would stare at a page that was blank except for the words "Dear | |
| Daniel" at the top. I just couldn't think of anything to say. "Just | |
| be yourself," I kept thinking, "And write down whatever comes into | |
| your head." But nothing came into my head. | |
| A few weeks passed, and I still hadn't written a reply. And then I | |
| couldn't think of any excuses for my lateness. The longer it went on, | |
| the more ashamed I became about the delay, and the harder it was to | |
| write. I must have read and re- read Daniel's letter fifty times, | |
| looking for inspiration. I still have that letter. I still haven't | |
| replied. | |
| The writing, here and elsewhere, is unspectacular but effective--too | |
| elegant or too creative turns of phrase would cast the PC's professed | |
| inability to express himself in a strange light. One particularly well | |
| done passage conveys the PC's sudden mood swing: | |
| Quay | |
| Everything here is so peaceful, so beautiful - why have I never | |
| noticed it before? Raindrops dance on the river bay beneath my feet. | |
| Seagulls play in the air above me. Old fishing boats sway gently with | |
| the lapping of the water. And the air - I always thought the salt air | |
| was foul before, but now it seems so fresh, so clean, so pure! | |
| Quay | |
| The quay must be the most miserable place in the whole town, | |
| especially when the rain is pissing down like it is now. Beneath my | |
| feet, the rain-pelted river flows like sludge, which probably has | |
| something to do with all the raw effluent that's pumped into it. The | |
| smell, needless to say, is truly nauseating. A handful of rusty old | |
| boats lie abandoned against the quay wall, and seagulls scream | |
| overhead. | |
| The first passage might seem saccharine out of context, but it works as | |
| a contrast with the PC's generally gloomy outlook, and the second | |
| passage likewise works as a return to the status quo. The game is | |
| well-written enough that painful moments for the PC aren't painful to | |
| read, hardly a given. | |
| To add to the feeling of impotence, there's a scene in which two of his | |
| three roommates are picking on the third, and the PC (despite the | |
| player's urgings, of course) fails to step in, lamely explaining | |
| (internally) that "it's no use." Here, there's a variant on the | |
| nonconversational theme--your character will speak up, but only to say | |
| things that make things even worse (joining in the mockery of the third | |
| roommate, in other words)--and after the scene is over the PC addresses | |
| the player directly, explaining that the roommate's gratitude would have | |
| been too great a burden to bear. The scene brings out the ramifications | |
| of the PC's repressed nature--by not saying anything he hurts others as | |
| well as himself--and prevents the player from feeling too much sympathy | |
| for the PC. Nor does the player feel particularly complicit in the PC's | |
| cowardice, since the player can try all he or she wants to help out the | |
| hapless third roommate; the game trades complicity for imprisonment in | |
| the PC's neuroses. Whether it's a good trade is, of course, a matter of | |
| taste. | |
| Most of the action, such as it is, in Rameses is internal to the | |
| character, and even then very little of it actually constitutes | |
| action--in a sense, the player spends most of the game getting to know | |
| the PC, and the only significant thing that happens, as far as the PC is | |
| concerned, comes at the very end. Moreover, there's virtually no | |
| deviation possible in the course of the game; replays can provide more | |
| information, in the form of conversation (or non-conversation) options | |
| that weren't exercised before or people that weren't EXAMINEd, but not a | |
| tremendous amount, and the course of the story won't change at all. As | |
| mentioned, that usually indicates to me that the story would work better | |
| as static fiction--but the tension between player and PC sets up its own | |
| kind of interaction that makes this a surprisingly successful game. | |
| Rameses is certainly not to everyone's tastes; there are no puzzles, and | |
| the experience of playing it is more frustrating than fulfilling. But | |
| it's a sufficiently clever experiment that I gave it a 9 in this year's | |
| competition. | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| Walkthrough? No | |
| Genre: Slice-of-life | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating B |Submitted Vote 7| | |
| |Writing B |Plot B | | |
| |Puzzles n/a|NPCs B | | |
| |Technical C+|Tilt B-| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| Puzzleless IF seems to be gaining in popularity at least insofar as the | |
| comp goes; CYOA and almost entirely conversational-driven works account | |
| for a fairly significant percentage of this year's crop. Alternate view | |
| styles (from the traditional 2nd person) are also gaining in popularity, | |
| although perhaps not to the same degree. Games with these styles tend to | |
| see a fairly wide range of scores, and often some hot debate. | |
| This game goes a step further: the protagonist is not only presented | |
| with a different viewpoint (first-person) in a puzzleless environment, | |
| but sometimes outright refuses to do what the player tells him to. This | |
| ended up producing some fairly interesting and diverse commentary | |
| amongst other reviewers and players. | |
| How well did it work? Well, applying the same standards to it I apply to | |
| other games, it rated a solid B from me, so perhaps well. But let's move | |
| on to some categorical comments... | |
| *** Writing (B) | |
| The writing is solid and has a lot of character -- in some places, | |
| possibly a wee bit too much character. Still, as in several other | |
| offerings this year, the style fit perfectly the mood and environs. It | |
| reads, to my mind, something like those TV shows where a character | |
| chooses to narrate the goings-on would were they in a written format, a | |
| trick that works with the right characters and situations... which this | |
| game has. | |
| The opening -- perhaps not in retrospect surprising -- reminds me highly | |
| of Trainspotting, a movie which I admit to having enjoyed a great deal. | |
| I say 'perhaps not surprising' because it has a similar regional feel | |
| throughout; not precisely the same, but certainly reminiscent. | |
| Much of the description contains interesting little editorials, a | |
| definite plus in a game written in first-person. "Here I see a blah" is | |
| a temptation that would probably be easy to succumb to in such a case; | |
| this game does not suffer from it. Instead, we have this lovely opener: | |
| "With horror I realise that I'll have to spend another day in St. | |
| Enda's college. A familiar fact I have to face each morning - but | |
| four years here have not made it any easier to face. St. Enda's - how | |
| I have come to despise this place. A decrepit old red-brick shagpile | |
| which has become the focal point of this filthy little town in the | |
| arse-end of nowhere. The cheapest boarding school in the country, | |
| probably, but also surely the most pompous and inflated. A haven for | |
| the worst kind of social climbers, parvenus, thick, ignorant farmers' | |
| sons..." | |
| And this is not the only room in which this happens. Descriptions are | |
| definitely colored throughout with commentary (although not always), and | |
| indeed, that's just how a first-person game should be done. | |
| *** Plot (B) | |
| On the surface, this is just another school game. In reality, it's a | |
| meandering through the mind of someone who does not like his life, his | |
| surroundings, the people he deals with, and, most especially, himself. | |
| It is something many works are not: it's realistic. Teens are like this. | |
| Not all teens, sure, and certainly not always to this extreme, but it is | |
| likewise certainly not unheard of. | |
| I don't end up with much sympathy for the schmoe in the game. He is, as | |
| he admits himself, an asshole, and a bit of a whiner to boot. Yet, it | |
| feels right for him to be this way. | |
| There is a holy-grail aspect to the game as well: The missing friend, | |
| Daniel. Was everything better when our protagonist was younger? Or does | |
| he just think that anything would be better than now? And, of course, | |
| there's a girl -- wouldn't there have to be? | |
| The ultimate ending (or, as someone hinted at, endingS) is not much of a | |
| resolution, when you come right down to it, but then, isn't that true of | |
| everyone's life? Not everyone lives happily ever after. | |
| *** Puzzles (n/a) | |
| Although I believe there are a few choices one can make that subtly or | |
| otherwise alter the game, there are no puzzles to speak of; I chose, | |
| therefore, to not rate what did not exist. | |
| *** NPCs (B) | |
| The conversational style is juvenile, which is not surprising in a game | |
| about, well, juveniles. If it were adult, it would be entirely too | |
| Dawson's Creek for me (a show I watched precisely once). But it never | |
| seems to be juvenile simply for the sake of being juvenile; rather, it | |
| is juvenile simply because it is. | |
| Are the characters believable? Yes, and no. I -have- seen such | |
| stereotypes wandering the landscape, particularly in that stage of life, | |
| but they do seem to acquire the level of 'caricature' at times. But | |
| perhaps this is simply because they're seen through the eyes of someone | |
| who is inclined to emphasize faults as one more away of painting his own | |
| life as shitty. | |
| Perhaps the only reason I did not end up giving this an even higher | |
| rating is simply because your interaction with them is so limited in | |
| many ways. | |
| *** Technical (C+) | |
| I enjoy alternate conversational styles, as I mention elsewhere in my | |
| reviews. Aside from that, there is nothing special to speak of. | |
| *** Tilt (B-) and Final Thoughts | |
| I think this stands on its own merits as a good game -- or at least, a | |
| good work of IF, if not a 'game' per se -- but let me revisit the | |
| complaint some people had about the refusal of the protagonist to | |
| perform certain actions. I do not feel that this is unique. I think this | |
| work is just more obvious about it. | |
| For instance, in most games there are dozens of actions closed off to | |
| the player by what the designer did and did not implement. Some of these | |
| are simply shortcuts to saying "that won't work". Some of them are | |
| deliberate choices to only implement a single solution to a puzzle (and | |
| some are less deliberate). If an author decides to say "this action | |
| won't work", how is that terribly different from the -protagonist- | |
| saying the same thing? | |
| I think it is not. I submit that particularly given the premise of this | |
| game, it makes perfect sense for these actions to be closed off not by | |
| author fiat but by the protagonist's own inability. If anything, I | |
| conclude that this is an additional bit of stylistic brilliance. | |
| I will admit to having in my notes the following: | |
| -Hah. "I can't believe I said that. Why did you make me say that?" | |
| -Well, because everything else I was trying to say you turned down the | |
| -chance to say? | |
| But that was, in the end, part of the game's appeal. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Tina Sikorski <tina SP@G eniac.stanford.edu> | |
| TITLE: Shade | |
| AUTHOR: Andrew Plotkin | |
| E-MAIL: erkyrath SP@G eblong.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/shade.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 2 | |
| Walkthrough? No (hints) | |
| Genre: Surreal | |
| +------------------------------------------+ | |
| |Overall Rating A |Submitted Vote 9| | |
| |Writing A |Plot B+| | |
| |Puzzles C+|NPCs n/a| | |
| |Technical C+|Tilt A+| | |
| +------------------------+-----------------+ | |
| *** Initial Thoughts | |
| Mmm. Games that aren't what they seem at first. Except that this one, I | |
| already had a feeling wasn't going to be what it was presented at first, | |
| simply from the quality. | |
| I have to say, with all due respect to Zarf, that I was a bit surprised | |
| to discover he was the author; I generally don't enjoy his games this | |
| much simply because his puzzles are usually beyond me. That is just not | |
| a problem in this game. | |
| It will be very difficult for me to discuss this game without revealing | |
| spoilers, I'm afraid; I'll try to keep it to a minimum. | |
| *** Writing (A) | |
| First-rate, and from the opening paragraphs I was nearly certain that | |
| the pseudonymous author was someone with prior experience. I never | |
| formed a solid opinion about the potential author -- I'm actually not | |
| very good at such things in any event -- but I was sure it would turn | |
| out to be someone whose name I recognized. | |
| Consider, if you will, this bit of description: | |
| "Odd, how the light just makes your apartment gloomier. Pre-dawn | |
| darkness pools in the corners and around the tops of walls. Your desk | |
| lamp glares yellow, but the shadows only draw your eyes and deepen." | |
| This is something well-crafted. Without getting terribly verbose, it | |
| reveals information, sets mood, and (though you don't yet know it) also | |
| firmly sets the plot in motion. Light and darkness are important in this | |
| game (or at least certainly in my view of the game), and they definitely | |
| are properly introduced in the first paragraph. | |
| Beyond that, I could continue to quote, but why ruin your chance to see | |
| the writing develop? The writing is excellent, details abound even where | |
| strictly speaking unnecessary, and responses to your actions are superb. | |
| *** Plot (B+) | |
| This is the thing that is so hard to discuss without giving anything | |
| away, because it is on the one hand so terribly simple, but on the | |
| other, there are some twists. Perhaps one of the most interesting parts | |
| is that there comes a time when you know precisely what will happen (at | |
| least for a while) and yet... there is still this sort of frantic "what | |
| happens next" reaction. It's eerie, it's creepy, it's just plain fun. | |
| *** Puzzles (C+) | |
| This would be the one area the game is a little weak in. Oh, sure, the | |
| puzzles are fairly straight-forward and oftentimes even sensical. There | |
| is an in-game hint of sorts. But... it would be fair to say that the | |
| puzzles pretty much exist to give you something to do while you're | |
| waiting for the next, er, cascade of story, and unfortunately, because | |
| of a few timing problems, it -feels- that way. | |
| *** NPCs (n/a) | |
| Except for possibly once, there are no NPC encounters. | |
| *** Technical (C+) | |
| The way the apartment was implemented was interesting. There wasn't much | |
| else in the way of neat trickage (fairly surprising in retrospect). | |
| There were a couple disambiguation problems, and maybe one bug (but it | |
| may have been on purpose) with the in-game hint provision, but overall | |
| it was fairly bug-free. | |
| *** Tilt (A+) and Final Thoughts | |
| I cannot, without revealing entirely too much about this game, explain | |
| to you just what it was that had me raving about this game for two days | |
| afterwards, including randomly piping up with a particular rant that | |
| would, again, spoil things. Let me just assure you that this is the | |
| case: for two days, I was so haunted by this game that it was constantly | |
| in my head, teasing me... waiting for me in the darkness. In the | |
| shadows. | |
| In the Shade. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: Transfer | |
| AUTHOR: Tod Levi | |
| E-MAIL: jessical SP@G ix.netcom.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/transfer/transfer.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 9 | |
| Tod Levi's Transfer is straight-up science fiction with few real | |
| surprises--the setting (research lab) and plot (experiment goes awry) | |
| are well-used, and the execution incorporates most of conventional | |
| science fiction's strong points and drawbacks. Still, it's entertaining | |
| enough, and there are a few creative twists among all the familiarity. | |
| You and the rest of your research team are trying to perfect transfer of | |
| consciousness between entities, including across species--but the head | |
| of the team seems to be dying. Mayhem ensues when the transferring | |
| technology gets used and it appears that someone on the premises, | |
| naturally, is up to no good. Most of the mayhem, actually, is your | |
| doing--the other characters in Transfer are largely bumps on logs. Not | |
| only is there minimal interaction with them, but they don't appear to | |
| notice much of the havoc you wreak; evading their notice could have been | |
| a puzzle in itself in several cases, but the game doesn't take that | |
| opportunity. (Which makes the one instance when you're told not to | |
| wander around in plain sight a little confusing--it's not necessarily | |
| apparent why the characters who were blind and deaf a moment before | |
| would be so alert now.) Worse still, the few things that they know about | |
| don't appear to change much, if at all, over the course of the | |
| game--they don't comment on the latest development, no matter how | |
| bizarre or noteworthy, or even take notice of something fairly obvious | |
| that' s going on right at that moment. To be sure, the characters are | |
| important in the plot, and the plot is quite complex--but interacting | |
| with them is rarely rewarding. | |
| The main strength of Transfer is the gadget itself, and the variety of | |
| ways you put it to use; the game could plausibly be considered an | |
| extended riff on the central idea of identity-switching, in that the | |
| idea gets used in unexpected (and occasionally hilarious) ways. The | |
| element of the story that revolves around the machine is sufficiently | |
| convoluted that one question in the hints late in the game is, | |
| essentially, "Huh?"--but the story is sufficiently well crafted that the | |
| complexity doesn't feel gratuitous. In this respect, Transfer is classic | |
| science fiction: the gadgetry is intricate and fun to play with and it | |
| leads the story in all sorts of unexpected places, often steamrolling | |
| right over the characters, who end up (naturally) pretty flat. The | |
| presumption, in other words, is that the player is more interested in | |
| playing with the gadget than in plausible character interactions. | |
| The puzzles are entertaining, if sometimes difficult--at various points, | |
| the game leaves you wandering around the research complex with no clear | |
| cues as to what you're supposed to be trying to do next. The most | |
| egregious such example involves one point when you're apparently | |
| supposed to intuit that because two separate documents mentioned the | |
| same date, you're supposed to find out more about that date, thereby to | |
| advance the plot. Fortunately, there's a comprehensive hint system that | |
| helps bridge the gaps, and on the whole the puzzles make sense once the | |
| necessary inferences are supplied. (Meaning that the inferences aren't | |
| illogical, they're just obscure.) Also, the game doesn't become | |
| unwinnable without warning, according to the author' s notes, and as far | |
| as I can tell it never becomes unwinnable at all (aside from death, | |
| which doesn't happen all that often)--there are virtually no meaningful | |
| time limits, and no resources that you can waste. At times this strains | |
| realism, of course--even when you're somewhere that you shouldn't be, | |
| you don't need to rush to get your business done because no one's going | |
| to interrupt you--and it takes the edge off any tension that might have | |
| been produced. But for fairness and ease of play, it certainly works. | |
| The writing, for its part, is competent, though it tends toward the | |
| laconic: not only are there no exclamation points, but the game never, | |
| as far as I remember, imputes any sort of emotion to you, even when the | |
| emotion (e.g., fear when you're apparently about to die) seems pretty | |
| obvious. The emphasis is more on conveying what's going on than dazzling | |
| you with picturesque or evocative settings, though, and from that | |
| perspective, things work fine, writing-wise--there are no errors that I | |
| noticed, and the relevant information is always there. Likewise, the | |
| technical aspect is strong: the various transfers are handled well, and | |
| your interactions with the world in your various incarnations all made | |
| sense, as far as I remember. The only real game design problem I | |
| encountered was that something could be done in one move that I assumed | |
| would take two, meaning that a puzzle solution was a total surprise to | |
| me when I gave up and looked at the hints. That's a product of my | |
| expectations more than a design flaw, though, and it certainly wasn't a | |
| glaring weakness. | |
| Transfer isn't particularly revolutionary, but it's one of the better | |
| examples of its genre (a very crowded genre)--it brings more creativity | |
| to the table than many of its fellows. While unabashed puzzlefests | |
| usually aren't my thing, I enjoyed this one enough to give it a 9. | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| From: Suzanne Britton <tril SP@G igs.net> | |
| [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction] | |
| TITLE: YAGWAD (Yes, Another Game With A Dragon) | |
| AUTHOR: "Digby McWiggle" aka John Kean | |
| E-MAIL: digby_mcwiggle SP@G hotmail.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/yagwad.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 1 | |
| An utterly conventional and thoroughly delightful adventure game. I was | |
| in a lousy mood when I started playing--I left the computer with a big | |
| smile on my face. That is the highest praise I can give. | |
| Let's back up. YAGWAD is, as advertised, a game about a dragon. You're | |
| an unlikely hero hoping to rescue the princess from the nefarious beast | |
| and win the king's favor. So why did I love it, when so many games of | |
| this sort merit only a yawn and a shrug? | |
| There are quite a few reasons. First and foremost, YAGWAD is the | |
| funniest game I've played this year. From the rousing prologue (and | |
| responses to "score" and "fullscore" therein), to the delightful ascii | |
| art animation in the title, to the encyclopedia salesman (insert Monty | |
| Python clip), to the friendly teeth, the troll, the answering machine, | |
| the monks....well, I could go on all day. Suffice to say, YAGWAD kept me | |
| grinning ear to ear from beginning to end. The humor is dead on, | |
| comparable to Steve Meretzky's and often better. | |
| Programming is very solid. I ran into a few relatively harmless bugs, | |
| and that's it (notable: I can read the diary without picking it up). The | |
| writing is not the lush, purple prose of much story-based IF (don't get | |
| me wrong--I like well-done purple prose!), but it is comfortable to | |
| read, grammatical, and often funny. The room descriptions, in | |
| particular, have an economy of expression reminiscent of Infocom. Few of | |
| them span more than five lines, yet they lay out scenery and evoke a | |
| mood with ease: | |
| The forest stops short of this slope of mountainside, where a | |
| crumbling monastery stands with forlorn dignity overlooking the | |
| tangled remnants of an overgrown garden. A cracked stone walk winds | |
| from the forest opening north, through lank beds of herbs and | |
| wildflowers, and up to the wide stairs and darkened doorway leading | |
| west. | |
| The plot ties together neatly. In fact, figuring out exactly what | |
| happened years ago to leave things in their current state is part of the | |
| fun. It's impossible to put the game in an unwinnable state (a feat | |
| which clearly required some extra programming), and there are no sudden | |
| deaths. Puzzles are relatively simple, but fun to solve, and a few of | |
| them are clever enough to yield that nifty "aha!" feeling when you think | |
| of the answer. I especially liked the hilt-password puzzle, and when I | |
| realized the solution to the final puzzle, I laughed aloud. It was just | |
| perfect. | |
| Bottom line: YAGWAD is a polished gem. It was written by an author who | |
| clearly knew what he was doing and took the time to do it right. | |
| "Digby McWiggle": Thank you for reminding this world-weary judge why she | |
| fell in love with IF in the first place. | |
| Rating: 10 | |
| READERS' SCOREBOARD ------------------------------------------------------- | |
| The Readers' Scoreboard is an ongoing feature of SPAG. It charts the | |
| scores that SPAG readers and reviewers have given to various IF games | |
| since SPAG started up. The codes in the Notes column give information as | |
| to a game's availability and the platforms on which it runs. For a | |
| translation of these codes and for more detailed information on the | |
| scoreboard's format, see the SPAG FAQ. This FAQ is available at the | |
| ftp.gmd.de IF-archive or on the SPAG web page at | |
| http://www.sparkynet.com/spag. | |
| Name Avg Sc Chr Puz # Sc Issue Notes: | |
| ==== ====== === === ==== ===== ====== | |
| 9:05 6.2 0.5 0.5 6 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Aayela 7.4 1.2 1.5 5 10 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Abbey 6.8 0.6 1.4 1 S10_I_GMD | |
| Above and Beyond 7.3 1.5 1.6 5 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Acid Whiplash 5.3 0.6 0.2 3 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Acorn Court 6.1 0.5 1.5 2 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| Adv. of Elizabeth Hig 3.1 0.5 0.3 2 5 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Adventure (all varian 6.2 0.5 1.1 12 8,22 F_INF_TAD_ETC_GMD | |
| Adventureland 4.5 0.5 1.1 5 F_INF_GMD | |
| Adventures of Helpful 7.0 1.3 0.9 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Afternoon Visit 4.1 1.0 0.8 1 F_AGT | |
| Aisle 6.6 1.4 0.2 7 18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Alien Abduction? 7.5 1.3 1.4 5 10 F_TAD_GMD | |
| All Quiet...Library 5.0 0.9 0.9 6 7 F_INF_GMD | |
| Amnesia 6.9 1.5 1.3 4 9 C_AP_I_64 | |
| Anchorhead 8.7 1.7 1.5 23 18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Another...No Beer 2.4 0.2 0.8 2 4 S10_I_GMD | |
| Arrival 7.9 1.3 1.4 5 17 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Arthur: Excalibur 8.0 1.3 1.6 44,14,22 C_INF | |
| Augmented Fourth 7.7 1.5 1.5 4 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Aunt Nancy's House 1.3 0.1 0.0 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Awakened 7.7 1.7 1.6 1 | |
| Awakening 5.6 0.9 1.1 2 15,18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Awe-Chasm 3.0 0.7 0.7 2 8 S_I_ST_GMD | |
| Babel 8.4 1.7 1.3 9 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Balances 6.6 0.7 1.2 8 6 F_INF_GMD | |
| Ballyhoo 7.3 1.5 1.5 6 4 C_INF | |
| Bear's Night Out 7.3 1.2 1.4 6 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Beat The Devil 5.5 1.2 1.1 4 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Beyond the Tesseract 3.7 0.1 0.6 1 6 F_I_GMD | |
| Beyond Zork 8.0 1.5 1.8 9 5, 14 C_INF | |
| BJ Drifter 7.0 1.2 1.2 4 15 F_INF_GMD | |
| Bliss 6.3 1.1 0.8 4 20 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Bloodline 7.7 1.4 1.1 2 15 F_INF_GMD | |
| Border Zone 7.2 1.4 1.4 7 4 C_INF | |
| Break-In 6.1 1.1 1.4 3 21 F_INF_GMD | |
| Broken String 3.9 0.7 0.4 4 F_TADS_GMD | |
| BSE 5.7 0.9 1.0 3 F_INF_GMD | |
| Bureaucracy 6.9 1.5 1.3 11 5 C_INF | |
| Busted 5.2 1.0 1.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Calliope 4.7 0.9 0.8 3 F_INF_GMD | |
| Cask 1.5 0.0 0.5 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Castaway 1.1 0.0 0.4 1 5 F_I_GMD | |
| Castle Elsinore 4.3 0.7 1.0 2 I_GMD | |
| CC 4.2 0.4 1.0 1 F_ALAN_GMD | |
| Change in the Weather 7.6 1.0 1.4 11 7,8,14 F_INF_GMD | |
| Chaos 5.6 1.3 1.1 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Chicken under Window 6.9 0.6 0.0 3 F_INF_GMD | |
| Chicks Dig Jerks 5.2 1.1 0.7 9 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Chico and I Ran 7.2 1.7 1.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Christminster 8.2 1.6 1.6 16 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| City 6.1 0.6 1.3 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Coke Is It! 6.2 1.0 1.0 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Coming Home 0.6 0.1 0.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Common Ground 7.2 1.6 0.4 2 20 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Commute 1.3 0.2 0.1 1 F_I_GMD | |
| Congratulations! 2.6 0.7 0.3 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Corruption 7.2 1.6 1.0 4 14, 21 C_MAG | |
| Cosmoserve 7.8 1.4 1.4 5 5 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Cove 7.4 1.1 0.8 2 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Crypt v2.0 5.0 1.0 1.5 1 3 S12_IBM_GMD | |
| Curses 8.0 1.2 1.7 19 2, 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Cutthroats 5.7 1.3 1.1 9 1 C_INF | |
| Dampcamp 5.0 0.8 1.1 3 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Danger! Adventurer... 3.2 0.3 0.7 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Dangerous Curves 8.6 1.5 1.6 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Day For Soft Food 6.8 1.0 1.3 5 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Deadline 6.8 1.3 1.3 8 20 C_INF | |
| Death To My Enemies 4.4 0.9 0.7 4 F_INF_GMD | |
| Deep Space Drifter 5.6 0.4 1.1 3 3 S15_TAD_GMD | |
| Deephome 4.0 0.5 0.9 2 21 F_INF_GMD | |
| Delusions 7.9 1.5 1.5 5 14F_INF_GMD | |
| Demon's Tomb 7.4 1.2 1.1 2 9 C_I | |
| Detective 1.0 0.0 0.0 9 4,5,18 F_AGT_INF_GMD | |
| Detective-MST3K 5.8 1.1 0.1 9 7,8,18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Ditch Day Drifter 6.7 0.9 1.7 4 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Down 6.0 1.0 1.2 1 14 F_HUG_GMD | |
| Downtown Tokyo 5.7 0.8 0.9 5 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Dungeon 7.1 1.0 1.7 2 F_GMD | |
| Dungeon Adventure 6.8 1.3 1.6 1 4 F_ETC | |
| Dungeon of Dunjin 6.0 0.7 1.5 5 3, 14 S20_IBM_MAC_GMD | |
| Edifice 8.2 1.5 1.8 8 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Electrabot 0.7 0.0 0.0 1 5 F_AGT_GMD | |
| E-Mailbox 3.1 0.1 0.2 2 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Emy Discovers Life 5.0 1.1 0.8 3 F_AGT | |
| Enchanter 7.3 1.0 1.4 9 2,15 C_INF | |
| Enhanced 5.0 1.0 1.3 2 2 S10_TAD_GMD | |
| Enlightenment 7.1 1.3 1.6 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Erehwon 6.2 1.2 1.5 4 19 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Eric the Unready 7.8 1.5 1.6 4 C_I | |
| Everybody Loves a Par 7.0 1.2 1.2 3 12 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Exhibition 6.2 1.4 0.3 6 19 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Fable 2.0 0.1 0.1 3 6 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Fable-MST3K 4.1 0.7 0.1 2 F_AGT_INF_GMD | |
| Fear 6.3 1.2 1.3 3 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Fifteen 1.5 0.5 0.4 1 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Firebird 7.1 1.5 1.3 4 15 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Fish 7.5 1.3 1.7 4 12, 14 C_MAG | |
| Foggywood Hijinx 6.2 1.2 1.3 3 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Foom 6.6 1.0 1.0 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| For A Change 8.0 0.9 1.3 6 19, 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Forbidden Castle 4.8 0.6 0.5 1 C_AP | |
| Four In One 4.4 1.2 0.5 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Four Seconds 6.0 1.2 1.1 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Frenetic Five 5.3 1.4 0.5 3 13 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Frenetic Five 2 6.6 1.5 1.0 3 21, 22 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Friday Afternoon 6.3 1.4 1.2 1 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Frobozz Magic Support 7.2 1.2 1.5 3 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Frozen 5.5 0.7 1.3 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Frustration 5.7 1.1 0.9 1 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Galatea 7.8 1.9 0.7 3 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Gateway 8.6 1.4 1.8 6 11 C_I | |
| Gateway 2: Homeworld 9.0 1.8 1.9 5 C_I | |
| Gerbil Riot of '67 6.3 0.7 1.1 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Glowgrass 6.9 1.4 1.4 4 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Gnome Ranger 5.8 1.2 1.6 1 C_I | |
| Golden Fleece 6.0 1.0 1.1 1 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Golden Wombat of Dest 6.3 0.7 1.1 1 18 F_I_GMD | |
| Good Breakfast 4.9 0.9 1.2 2 14 F_INF_GMD | |
| Great Archeolog. Race 6.5 1.0 1.5 1 3 S20_TAD_GMD | |
| Guardians of Infinity 8.5 1.3 1 9 C_I | |
| Guild of Thieves 6.9 1.2 1.5 4 14 C_MAG | |
| Guilty Bastards 6.9 1.4 1.2 5 22 F_HUG_GMD | |
| Guitar...Immortal Bar 3.0 0.0 0.0 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Gumshoe 6.2 1.0 1.1 7 9 F_INF_GMD | |
| Halothane 6.6 1.3 1.2 4 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| HeBGB Horror 5.7 0.9 1.1 2 F_ALAN_GMD | |
| Heist 6.7 1.4 1.5 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Hero, Inc. 6.8 1.0 1.5 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Hitchhiker's Guide 7.4 1.4 1.5 14 5 C_INF | |
| Hollywood Hijinx 6.5 0.9 1.6 11 C_INF | |
| Holy Grail 6.2 0.9 1.2 1 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Horror of Rylvania 7.2 1.4 1.4 5 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Horror30.zip 3.7 0.3 0.7 2 3 S20_I_GMD | |
| Human Resources Stori 0.9 0.0 0.1 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Humbug 7.4 1.6 1.3 4 11 F_I_GMD | |
| Hunter, In Darkness 7.6 0.9 1.5 5 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| I didn't know...yodel 4.0 0.7 1.0 5 17 F_I_GMD | |
| I-0: Jailbait on Inte 7.7 1.5 1.2 17 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Ice Princess 7.5 1.4 1.6 2 A_INF_GMD | |
| In The End 4.9 0.6 0.0 2 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| In The Spotlight 3.2 0.2 1.0 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Infidel 6.9 0.3 1.4 14 1 C_INF | |
| Informatory 5.5 0.5 1.3 1 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Ingrid's Back 7.0 1.6 1.6 2 C_I | |
| Inheritance 5.0 0.3 1.0 3 20 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Inhumane 4.4 0.4 1.0 3 9, 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Intruder 6.7 1.3 1.1 4 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Jacaranda Jim 7.5 1.0 0.9 3 F_GMD | |
| Jacks...Aces To Win 7.1 1.3 1.2 3 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Jewel of Knowledge 6.3 1.2 1.1 3 18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Jeweled Arena 7.0 1.4 1.3 2 AGT_GMD | |
| Jigsaw 8.1 1.5 1.6 17 8,9 F_INF_GMD | |
| Jinxter 6.1 0.9 1.3 3 C_MAG | |
| John's Fire Witch 6.5 1.0 1.5 9 4, 12 S6_TADS_GMD | |
| Jouney Into Xanth 5.0 1.3 1.2 1 8 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Journey 7.2 1.5 1.3 5 5 C_INF | |
| King Arthur's Night O 5.9 0.9 1.0 4 19 F_ALAN_GMD | |
| Kissing the Buddha's 8.0 1.8 1.4 5 10 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Klaustrophobia 6.4 1.1 1.3 6 1 S15_AGT_GMD | |
| Knight Orc 7.2 1.4 1.1 2 15 C_I | |
| L.U.D.I.T.E. 2.7 0.2 0.1 4 F_INF_GMD | |
| Lancelot 6.9 1.4 1.2 1 C_I | |
| Land Beyond Picket Fe 4.8 1.2 1.2 1 10 F_I_GMD | |
| LASH 8.5 1.4 1.0 2 21 F_INF_GMD | |
| Leather Goddesses 7.1 1.3 1.5 11 4 C_INF | |
| Leaves 3.4 0.2 0.8 1 14 F_ALAN_GMD | |
| Legend Lives! 8.2 1.2 1.4 4 5 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Lesson of the Tortois 7.1 1.4 1.4 4 14 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Lethe Flow Phoenix 6.9 1.4 1.5 5 9 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Life on Beal Street 4.7 1.2 0.0 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Light: Shelby's Adden 7.5 1.5 1.3 6 9 S_TAD_GMD | |
| Lightiania 1.9 0.2 0.4 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Lists and Lists 6.3 1.3 1.1 3 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Little Blue Men 8.2 1.4 1.5 10 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Lomalow 4.6 1.0 0.6 3 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Losing Your Grip 8.5 1.4 1.4 6 14S20_TAD_GMD | |
| Lost New York 7.9 1.4 1.4 4 20 S12_TAD_GMD | |
| Lost Spellmaker 6.1 1.3 1.1 4 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Lunatix: Insanity Cir 5.6 1.2 1.0 3 F_I_GMD | |
| Lurking Horror 7.2 1.3 1.3 15 1,3 C_INF | |
| MacWesleyan / PC Univ 5.1 0.7 1.2 3 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Madame L'Estrange... 5.1 1.2 0.7 1 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Magic Toyshop 5.2 1.1 1.1 5 7 F_INF_GMD | |
| Magic.zip 4.5 0.5 0.5 1 3 S20_IBM_GMD | |
| Maiden of the Moonlig 6.4 1.3 1.5 2 10 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Matter of Time 1.4 0.3 1.4 1 14F_ALAN_GMD | |
| Mercy 7.3 1.4 1.2 6 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| Meteor...Sherbet 7.8 1.4 1.5 7 10, 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| Mind Electric 5.2 0.6 0.9 4 7,8 F_INF_GMD | |
| Mind Forever Voyaging 8.2 1.3 0.9 12 5,15 C_INF | |
| Mindwheel 8.5 1.6 1.5 1 C_I | |
| Mission 6.0 1.2 1.4 1 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Moist 6.8 1.4 1.2 4 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Moment of Hope 5.0 1.3 0.3 3 19 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Moonmist 5.9 1.2 1.0 14 1 C_INF | |
| Mop & Murder 5.0 0.9 1.0 2 5 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Mother Loose 7.0 1.5 1.3 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Mulldoon Legacy 7.4 1.2 1.8 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Multidimen. Thief 5.6 0.5 1.3 6 2,9 S15_AGT_GMD | |
| Muse 7.9 1.5 1.2 4 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Music Education 3.7 1.0 0.7 3 F_INF_GMD | |
| Myopia 6.1 1.3 0.6 2 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Mystery House 4.1 0.3 0.7 1 F_AP_GMD | |
| New Day 6.6 1.4 1.1 4 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Night At Computer Cen 5.2 1.0 1.0 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Night at Museum Forev 4.2 0.3 1.0 4 7,8 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Night of... Bunnies 6.6 1.0 1.4 1 I_INF_GMD | |
| Nord and Bert 5.9 0.6 1.1 8 4 C_INF | |
| Not Just A Game 6.9 1.0 1.3 1 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Not Just... Ballerina 5.3 0.8 0.9 3 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Obscene...Aardvarkbar 3.2 0.6 0.6 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Odieus...Flingshot 3.3 0.4 0.7 2 5 F_INF_GMD | |
| Of Forms Unknown 4.5 0.7 0.5 1 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Offensive Probing 4.2 0.6 0.9 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| On The Farm 6.5 1.6 1.2 2 19 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Once and Future 6.9 1.6 1.5 2 16 C30_TAD_CMP | |
| One That Got Away 6.4 1.4 1.1 7 7,8 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Only After Dark 4.6 0.8 0.6 4 F_INF_GMD | |
| Oo-Topos 5.7 0.2 1.0 1 9 C_AP_I_64 | |
| Outsided 2.5 0.7 0.2 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Pass the Banana 2.9 0.8 0.5 3 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Path to Fortune 6.6 1.5 0.9 3 9 S_INF_GMD | |
| Pawn 6.3 1.1 1.3 2 12 C_MAG | |
| Perilous Magic 4.9 0.9 1.1 1 21 F_INF_GMD | |
| Perseus & Andromeda 3.4 0.3 1.0 1 64_INF_GMD | |
| Persistence of Memory 6.2 1.2 1.1 1 17 F_HUG_GMD | |
| Phlegm 5.2 1.2 1.0 2 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Photopia 7.6 1.5 0.7 20 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Phred Phontious...Piz 5.2 0.9 1.3 2 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Piece of Mind 6.3 1.3 1.4 1 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Pintown 1.3 0.3 0.2 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Pirate's Cove 4.8 0.6 0.6 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Planetfall 7.3 1.6 1.4 13 4 C_INF | |
| Plant 7.3 1.2 1.5 4 17 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Plundered Hearts 7.0 1.4 1.2 9 4 C_INF | |
| Poor Zefron's Almanac 5.6 1.0 1.3 3 13 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Portal 8.0 1.7 0.2 3 C_I_A_AP_64 | |
| Purple 5.6 0.9 1.0 1 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Pyramids of Mars 5.8 1.2 1.1 2 AGT_GMD | |
| Quarterstaff 6.1 1.3 0.6 1 9 C_M | |
| Ralph 7.1 1.6 1.2 3 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Rematch 7.9 1.5 1.6 1 22 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Remembrance 2.7 0.8 0.2 3 F_GMD | |
| Reruns 5.2 1.2 1.2 1 AGT_GMD | |
| Research Dig 4.8 1.1 0.8 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Reverberations 5.6 1.3 1.1 1 10 F_INF_GMD | |
| Ritual of Purificatio 7.0 1.6 1.1 4 17 F_GMD | |
| Sanity Claus 7.5 0.3 0.6 2 1 S10_AGT_GMD | |
| Save Princeton 5.6 1.0 1.3 5 8 S10_TAD_GMD | |
| Scapeghost 8.1 1.7 1.5 1 6 C_I | |
| Sea Of Night 5.7 1.3 1.1 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Seastalker 5.1 1.1 0.8 10 4 C_INF | |
| Shades of Grey 7.8 1.3 1.3 6 2, 8 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Sherlock 7.0 1.3 1.4 5 4 C_INF | |
| She's Got a Thing...S 7.0 1.7 1.6 3 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Shogun 7.0 1.2 0.6 2 4 C_INF | |
| Shrapnel 6.8 1.3 0.5 5 20 F_INF_GMD | |
| Simple Theft 5.8 1.3 0.8 1 20 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Sins against Mimesis 5.5 1.0 1.2 3 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Sir Ramic... Gorilla 6.0 1.2 1.2 2 6 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Six Stories 6.3 1.0 1.2 4 19 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Skyranch 2.8 0.5 0.7 1 20 F_I_GMD | |
| Small World 6.2 1.3 1.1 3 10 F_TAD_GMD | |
| So Far 8.0 1.2 1.5 11 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| Sorcerer 7.2 0.6 1.6 7 2,15 C_INF | |
| Sound of... Clapping 7.0 1.2 1.3 7 5 F_ADVSYS_GMD | |
| South American Trek 0.9 0.2 0.5 1 5 F_IBM_GMD | |
| Space Aliens...Cardig 1.5 0.4 0.3 6 3, 4 S60_AGT_GMD | |
| Space under Window 7.2 0.8 0.4 5 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| Spacestation 5.6 0.7 1.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Spellbreaker 8.5 1.2 1.8 8 2,15 C_INF | |
| Spellcasting 101 6.7 1.0 1.3 2 C_I | |
| Spellcasting 201 7.8 1.6 1.7 2 C_I | |
| Spellcasting 301 6.0 1.2 1.2 2 C_I | |
| Spider and Web 8.4 1.6 1.7 15 14F_INF_GMD | |
| SpiritWrak 6.7 1.2 1.3 6 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Spodgeville...Wossnam 4.3 0.7 1.2 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Spur 7.1 1.3 1.1 2 9 F_HUG_GMD | |
| Spyder and Jeb 6.2 1.1 1.4 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Starcross 6.6 1.0 1.2 7 1 C_INF | |
| Stargazer 5.4 1.1 1.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Stationfall 7.7 1.6 1.5 7 5 C_INF | |
| Statuette 3.7 0.0 0.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Stiffy 0.6 0.0 0.0 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Stiffy - MiSTing 4.7 1.1 0.4 5 F_INF_GMD | |
| Stone Cell 6.0 1.1 1.0 3 19 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Strangers In The Nigh 3.2 0.7 0.6 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Sunset Over Savannah 8.7 1.7 1.4 6 13 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Suspect 6.0 1.2 1.1 7 4 C_INF | |
| Suspended 7.5 1.5 1.4 7 8 C_INF | |
| Sylenius Mysterium 4.7 1.2 1.1 1 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Symetry 1.1 0.1 0.1 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Tapestry 7.1 1.4 0.9 5 10, 14 F_INF_GMD | |
| Tempest 5.3 1.4 0.6 3 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Temple of the Orc Mag 4.5 0.1 0.8 2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Theatre 6.9 1.1 1.4 12 6 F_INF_GMD | |
| Thorfinn's Realm 3.5 0.5 0.7 2 F_INF_GMD | |
| Time: All Things... 3.9 1.2 0.9 2 11, 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| TimeQuest 8.0 1.2 1.6 4 C_I | |
| TimeSquared 4.3 1.1 1.1 1 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Toonesia 5.8 1.1 1.1 6 7, 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Tossed into Space 3.9 0.2 0.6 1 4 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Town Dragon 3.9 0.8 0.3 2 14, 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Trapped...Dilly 5.1 0.1 1.1 2 17 F_INF_GMD | |
| Travels in Land of Er 6.1 1.2 1.5 2 14 F_INF_GMD | |
| Trinity 8.7 1.4 1.7 16 1,2 C_INF | |
| Tryst of Fate 7.1 1.4 1.3 1 11 F_INF_GMD | |
| Tube Trouble 4.2 0.8 0.7 2 8 F_INF_GMD | |
| Tyler's Great Cube Ga 5.8 0.0 1.7 1 S_TAD_GMD | |
| Uncle Zebulon's Will 7.3 1.0 1.5 12 8 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Underoos That Ate NY 4.5 0.6 0.8 2 F_TAD_INF_GMD | |
| Undertow 5.4 1.3 0.9 3 8 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Undo 2.9 0.5 0.7 4 7 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Unholy Grail 6.0 1.2 1.2 1 13 F_I_GMD | |
| Unnkulian One-Half 6.7 1.2 1.5 9 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Unnkulian Unventure 1 6.9 1.2 1.5 8 1,2 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Unnkulian Unventure 2 7.2 1.2 1.5 5 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Unnkulian Zero 8.4 0.7 0.8 21,12,14 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Varicella 8.2 1.6 1.5 9 18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Veritas 6.6 1.3 1.4 4 S10_TAD_GMD | |
| Vindaloo 2.9 0.0 0.4 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| VirtuaTech 6.1 0.0 1.2 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Water Bird 5.0 1.1 0.8 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Waystation 5.5 0.7 1.0 4 9 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Wearing the Claw 6.6 1.2 1.2 5 10, 18 F_INF_GMD | |
| Wedding 7.4 1.6 1.3 3 12 F_INF_GMD | |
| Where Evil Dwells 5.1 0.8 1.1 1 F_INF_GMD | |
| Winchester's Nightmar 6.9 1.5 0.5 1 22 F_INF_GMD | |
| Winter Wonderland 7.6 1.3 1.2 7 19 F_INF_GMD | |
| Wishbringer 7.4 1.3 1.3 13 5,6 C_INF | |
| Witness 6.5 1.5 1.1 9 1,3,9 C_INF | |
| Wonderland 5.4 1.3 0.9 2 C_MAG | |
| World 6.5 0.6 1.3 2 4 F_I_ETC_GMD | |
| Worlds Apart 7.6 1.7 1.4 8 21 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Your Choice 5.5 0.0 1.1 1 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Zanfar 2.6 0.2 0.4 1 8 F_AGT_GMD | |
| Zero Sum Game 7.2 1.5 1.5 3 13 F_INF_GMD | |
| Zombie! 5.2 1.2 1.1 2 13 F_TAD_GMD | |
| Zork 0 6.3 1.0 1.5 10 14C_INF | |
| Zork 1 6.1 0.8 1.4 21 1, 12 C_INF | |
| Zork 2 6.5 1.0 1.5 12 1, 12 C_INF | |
| Zork 3 6.5 0.9 1.4 8 1, 12 C_INF | |
| Zork Undisc. Undergr. 6.0 0.9 1.1 2 14F_INF_GMD | |
| Zork: A Troll's Eye V 4.4 0.6 0.1 3 14 F_INF_GMD | |
| Zuni Doll 4.0 0.6 0.9 2 14 F_INF_GMD | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| The Top Ten: | |
| A game is not eligible for the Top Ten unless it has received at least | |
| three ratings from different readers. This is to ensure a more | |
| democratic and accurate depiction of the best games. | |
| We've had a paltry 33 contributions to the SPAG scoreboard since the | |
| last issue. I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt -- maybe | |
| all of you were dedicating your time to the competition. Well the | |
| competition's over now, folks. Submit those scores! I encourage any and | |
| all SPAG readers to learn the scoring system from the FAQ and then | |
| submit scores for any piece of IF they play. The more contributions | |
| there are, the more useful the scoreboard is for everybody. This time | |
| around, as you might expect, the top ten list has remained almost | |
| unchanged from last issue. The only small differences are a narrowing of | |
| the gap between first and second place, and Babel's drop from 5th place | |
| to 9th. | |
| 1. Gateway 2: Homeworld 9.0 5 votes | |
| 2. Sunset over Savannah 8.7 6 votes | |
| 3. Trinity 8.7 16 votes | |
| 4. Anchorhead 8.7 23 votes | |
| 5. Gateway 8.6 6 votes | |
| 6. Losing Your Grip 8.5 6 votes | |
| 7. Spellbreaker 8.5 8 votes | |
| 8. Spider and Web 8.4 15 votes | |
| 9. Babel 8.7 9 votes | |
| 10. Christminster 8.2 16 votes | |
| As always, please remember that the scoreboard is only as good as the | |
| contributions it receives. To make your mark on this vast morass of | |
| statistics, rate some games on our website | |
| (http://www.sparkynet.com/spag). You can also, if you like, send ratings | |
| directly to me at obrian SP@G colorado.edu. Instructions for how the rating | |
| system works are in the SPAG FAQ, available from GMD and our website. | |
| Please read the FAQ before submitting scores, so that you understand how | |
| the scoring system works. After that, submit away! | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| ___. .___ _ ___. ___. | |
| / _| | \ / \ / ._| / _| | |
| \ \ | o_/ | | | |_. \ \ | |
| .\ \ | | | o | | | | .\ \ | |
| |___/ |_| |_|_| \___| |___/ PECIFICS | |
| SPAG Specifics is a small section of SPAG dedicated to providing in- | |
| depth critical analysis of IF games, spoilers most emphatically | |
| included. | |
| WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE FOLLOWING GAME: | |
| Shade | |
| PROCEED NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU HAVE PLAYED THIS GAME! | |
| THIS IS NOT A TEST! GENUINE SPOILERS TO FOLLOW! | |
| LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SPOILAGE! | |
| From: Duncan Stevens <dnrb SP@G starpower.net> | |
| TITLE: Shade | |
| AUTHOR: Andrew Plotkin | |
| E-MAIL: erkyrath SP@G eblong.com | |
| DATE: 2000 | |
| PARSER: Inform standard | |
| SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters | |
| AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD) | |
| URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/shade.z5 | |
| VERSION: Release 3 | |
| Andrew Plotkin's Shade is a thoroughly creepy game, as you no doubt | |
| already know if you're reading this, but it's also an unusual one--and | |
| part of the reason it's so creepy is that it does things decidedly | |
| contrary to IF players' expectations. | |
| For one thing, there's the | |
| changing-details-without-drawing-attention-to-the-change factor, namely | |
| the hyacinth/spider/cactus. It's a particularly interesting choice | |
| because the plant changes come amid a whole lot of other changes that | |
| you are aware of--so it adds an air of uncertainty to the confusion, to | |
| the extent that that makes sense. My initial impression, in fact, was | |
| that there were more changes going on below my sight line; as it | |
| happens, I was wrong, but the detail of the changing plant is enough to | |
| give the player that feeling (i.e., that not only are things acting | |
| funny, they're doing so behind your back as well as in front of your | |
| nose). The book also gives you slightly different readings at different | |
| times. | |
| There's also that favorite of IF theorists (this one, anyway), the | |
| player-PC relationship, which takes a few odd turns here. For the first | |
| few items that crumble into sand, the player and the PC appear to be in | |
| the same position--something like "huh?" As the apartment disintegrates, | |
| there's an inevitable shift for the player--he/she sees the trend and | |
| says, okay, to get the story's conclusion I'm going to have to seek out | |
| more things to turn into sand, so bring it on. (I actually didn't | |
| realize that the list adapted when I first played the game, so I was | |
| reduced to wandering around the apartment poking and prodding things in | |
| hopes that they'd turn into sand, which obviously heightened the effect | |
| a bit.) What's interesting is that the PC's approach also changes to | |
| follow suit--the PC appears to welcome the disintegration after a while, | |
| find a certain perverse pleasure in watching everything crumble. To wit: | |
| The toilet? Yes, it's the toilet's turn! You press the handle, | |
| grinning maniacally. And indeed, the sand rushes down the sides of | |
| the bowl. | |
| Carefully? You shove a paper-stack off the desk; it's a shower of | |
| sand before it hits the ground. Ha! You push another, and another, | |
| and then sweep the whole mass over the edge. White sand cascades | |
| everywhere. Laughing, you feel the desk itself give way. | |
| The cabinet and counter start to groan as soon as you touch them. You | |
| slam the cabinet for good measure; and the stained pressboard | |
| crackles white, shivers, and explodes into sand. All right! | |
| There's more than one way to look at this, of course; you could take it | |
| as a sign that the PC is beginning to lose it, or simply doesn't care. | |
| But it's also one of many meta-IF moments--where the game breaks the | |
| fourth wall, addresses the player directly, rather than observing the | |
| usual player/PC distinction. The computer is one example--"right now, | |
| however, there's a game on the screen -- one of the text adventures, or | |
| interactive fictions, or whatever they are this month"--but there are | |
| plenty of others. One of the things you hear on the radio is "Sharp | |
| words between the superpowers," which is the first line of Trinity. | |
| (Naturally, you comment to yourself "there are still superpowers?" An | |
| unremarkable line in 1986, somewhat out of place now.) There's also | |
| this: "The far side of the mirror is just as shadowy as this one. It's | |
| probably meant as commentary; not more space, just more of the same." | |
| "Shadowy" sounds like a So Far reference, but the "commentary" line | |
| yanks the player out of the story altogether by drawing attention to the | |
| author. There are also odd bits of humor here and there--if you read the | |
| list during the move when the kitchen ceiling is about to cave in, the | |
| list will say "stay out of kitchen!" At another point: "Another month of | |
| this and you'll indistinguishable from this apartment -- beige, | |
| featureless, and up for cheap rent." And the songs on the radio, of | |
| course, are mostly comic relief. | |
| Myself, I didn't guess the game's author (though I didn't think about it | |
| much either), but I should have--partly because of the random song | |
| generator (reminiscent of the cave generator in Hunter), but even more | |
| so because of the taxi scene, in which the player opens the door and is | |
| suddenly overcome with a fear of what's outside. No explanation for the | |
| fear, no rationalization of why you'd prefer to stay inside, just--no. | |
| Try to open the door, once you've already opened it and looked outside, | |
| and you get "You do not want that." The parallels to Change in the | |
| Weather seem obvious, in retrospect--nameless horror that the PC won't | |
| deign to put his finger on, inexplicable dread of something you | |
| eventually end up confronting anyway. (Well, sort of, in this | |
| case--there's nothing there to confront other than your own | |
| consciousness, though that's plenty scary in its own way.) Shade is also | |
| classically Zarfian in its opacity--what exactly is going on when the | |
| apartment flashes back to its original state is anyone's guess, and | |
| while it 's easy to simply chalk it up to the general hallucination | |
| (which is fading at that point--you can no longer interact with the | |
| illusory scene), it's also tempting to try to read more into it. Ditto, | |
| of course, for the last scene with the tiny figure. Certain key points | |
| in Change in the Weather and Spider and Web were likewise open to | |
| multiple interpretations, and the author naturally has never resolved | |
| those ambiguities. | |
| I don't really have any good guesses about the ambiguities, myself. My | |
| first guess was that the figure was your subconscious, and the "my turn | |
| again" meant that your mind is yielding to hallucination again--but why | |
| "you win", and why is the figure "dead"? Other ideas have been bruited | |
| about, most of them more plausible than that one. I do suspect, though, | |
| that Shade was written for effect, written to weird the player out, and | |
| that dissection and deconstruction on this level--symbolism and | |
| such--probably weren't the main things Zarf had in mind. It's possible | |
| that the significance of the figure lies somewhere between nothing (more | |
| hallucination), and mere weirdness and perversity (a way of injecting a | |
| memorable/chilling last line). The heart of the game for me, though, | |
| remains the moment when I opened the jar of peanut butter, since that | |
| was a turning point of sorts, when I stopped trying to impute rational | |
| explanations. It was one of the most unsettling IF experiences I can | |
| remember. | |
| Had I realized that there was a less cumbersome way to move things along | |
| than prodding everything in the apartment, I might have considered | |
| giving Shade a 10, as it was, it got an enthusiastic 9 and a special | |
| place in my IF library. | |
| SUBMISSION POLICY --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| SPAG is a non-paying fanzine specializing in reviews of text adventure | |
| games, a.k.a. Interactive Fiction. This includes the classic Infocom | |
| games and similar games, but also some graphic adventures where the | |
| primary player-game communication is text based. Any and all text-based | |
| games are eligible for review, though if a game has been reviewed three | |
| times in SPAG, no further reviews of it will be accepted unless they are | |
| extraordinarily original and/or insightful. SPAG reviews should be free | |
| of spoilers. | |
| Authors retain the rights to use their reviews in other contexts. We | |
| accept submissions that have been previously published elsewhere, | |
| although original reviews are preferred. | |
| For a more detailed version of this policy, see the SPAG FAQ at | |
| http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/spag.faq. | |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Thank you for helping to keep text adventures alive! | |
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