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Magic Words - Interactive Fiction in the 21st Century

Posted by simoniker on from the zorkmid-exchange-rate-on-the-rise dept.

An anonymous reader writes "1UP has just published a nine-part article on Interactive Fiction, the politically correct name for what used to be called text adventure games (e.g. Zork, Stationfall, etc.). The feature includes an overview of the genre and its history, lengthy interviews with the genre's leading current creators, and resources for aspiring IF writers. Anyone who has fond memories of typing their way through dank caverns or outsmarting leather goddesses and ravenous bugblatter beasts with nothing but a keyboard should read this -- not just for the nostalgia, but to see what's become of the format."

9 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. Archive of IF games by smr2x · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.ifarchive.org/ seems like the right place for all you nostalgic types... or the curious ;-)

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  2. Hitchhiker's Guide! by Faust7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The feature includes an overview of the genre and its history,

    Man, and only one brief mention of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

    Seriously, that game takes the prize for descriptive prose. Forget "eerie dungeons" and "lush fields" and whatnot--the opening takes the cake:

    "You wake up. The room is spinning very gently round your head. Or at least it would be if you could see it which you can't."

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    The coolest voice ever.
    1. Re:Hitchhiker's Guide! by PressReturn · · Score: 5, Informative

      grrr, will now attempt to hit the proper button
      infocom HHGTG game

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      When I speak, no one believes me. When I write it down, people know it's true. (Basquiat)
  3. Re:Would really like to remember... by smr2x · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sounds like it.

    From http://www.infocom-if.org/games/planetfall/planetf all.html:

    Released: 1983

    About 20 years. Good luck and hope it's the right one.

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  4. Dunnet by Aardpig · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ah, the joy of typing M-x dunnet into emacs:

    Dead end
    You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east.
    In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The
    trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant
    from each other.
    There is a shovel here.
    >

    The only text editor to have a built-in advdenture game?

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    Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
  5. The IF community is still alive by Rope_a_Dope · · Score: 5, Informative
    There's the newsgroups:

    rec.arts.int-fiction
    rec.games.int-fiction

    And there is also the yearly interactive fiction competition. The competition is a fairly big deal in the Interactive Fiction community, as fans submit games, play them, and rate them. 30 games were submitted this year. There are also a number of games, and interpreters that run on everything from Windows, Mac, Linux, Palm, and almost anything else you can think of.

  6. Re:XYZZY by Aardpig · · Score: 5, Informative

    I miss Infocom... not only did they have the best games (at the time, and I daresay the games still are more fun than a lot of the flashy color thingys those kids play nowadays), Infocom had the best packaging, bar none.

    I'm not sure whether its still in the shops, but a few years ago I bought the Lost Treasures of Infocom, which brings together many of their best games. Unfortunately, you don't get the actual memorabilia -- just a large book with pictures of all the items which accompany each game.

    Infocom were indeed great -- their games had such a wonderful depth. However, many of the modern post-Infocom IF games, such as Curses, Jigsaw, Christminster, A Change in the Weather, really are fantastic -- even bigger and more sophisticated than the original Infocom stuff. All of these games are free (as in beer), and can easily be found on the internet.

    Remember: it's dark and you are likely to be eaten by a Grue.

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    Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
  7. New book by illuminatedwax · · Score: 5, Informative
    The Onion AV club has a review of Twisty Little Passages , a new book about interactive fiction by Nick Montfort.

    --Stephen

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    Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
  8. Linux compatibility with IF is excellent by 0x0d0a · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except for games that use audio or graphics, Linux has pretty much spot-on compatibility with any IF game, as do most operating systems. IF games are extremely portable, written to one of a number of portable VMs (and all this years before Java...and with better compatibility than Java).

    TADS (IMHO the most advanced engine, though Inform is very close) just plain runs on Linux. You want this to play .gam files.
    There is Frotz to run Inform (.z5 files...I believe a couple other .zX formats, but I've only played .z5).
    There is an ADRIFT implementation called SCARE for Linux. It has a less-than-perfect parser. To be honest, ADRIFT is a much simpler engine, and I generally fine TADS or Inform games to be much more fun and impressive.

    Note that other classic adventure game VMs -- the ones for commercial graphical adventures -- like the Sierra (King's Quest, among others) and Lucasarts (Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Secret of Monkey Island, among others) VMs have been ported to Linux in the form of Sarien, FreeSCI, and ScummVM. I don't believe there have been any new AGI/SCI/SCUMM adventures made -- the engines are static and no improved games will be made for them, but they're still neat projects to have fun playing the originals on.

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    May we never see th