Interactive Fiction Competition Opens

Sargent1 writes "The 2004 Interactive Fiction Competition has opened for business. The yearly competition, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, is for short pieces of interactive fiction. At this point IF authors can sign up to take part in the competition, and everyone can learn how to judge the games when they are released in October of this year. If you're not sure what interactive fiction is, take a look at Slashdot's recent review of Twisty Little Passages, a book on interactive fiction from Adventure (and earlier antecedents) to present day."

Comments

The Farthest I ever go

[nevek]

Ahh I remember those, the only thing that ran on my old 286

Open door
You cant open this door
Close Door
The Door Isint open
Attack Door
Your Hand Hurts
Get Life
You go outside, blinded by the sun, you procede to the comic book store only to be beaten up on the way there, you then return home only to be taunted by CowboyNeal.

Re:The Farthest I ever go

[WWWWolf]

Curious. I can't remember any Infocom game that bluntly replied "invalid command" (Most reply like "I don't know the word "foo"). Infocom's competitors did ocassionally write less glorious parsers, however.

Besides, Infocom parser excelled at figuring out the ambiguities. In above case, it'd say something like "Which door do you mean, the north door or the south door?"

And besides, they usually had a little bit more clever replies to frustrated players, like:

>damn
Such language in a high-class establishment like this!

=)

Creative gaming design lost?

[cwm9]

I'd love to see this a Graphical Adventure contest like this one recieve the kind of coverage and participation that the interactive games get.

It's seems so sad to me that modern games seem so devoid of creativity. I pray for the day that the immense processing power of todays gaming machines are applied toward making a truely innovative and creative game, instead of ones that simply remake the same old FPS with better graphics.

Re:Creative gaming design lost?

[Tojo-Mojo]

I dunno, half-life certainly seemed very creative, focusing a lot more on adventure than just shooting things, and some other games have picked up on that.

I think the main reason you don't see a graphical competition is because the tools are so much more in-depth. Skill aside, it is somewhat easier to describe a vast scene because you can draw on the player's own knowledge and creativity than to have to painstakingly model every detail of it. Think of like that big tree from Rivne or something- describing would likely be a bit easier than modeling it in 3D.

Not that IF games are very easy to produce; in fact, though it is easy enough to make fun of their short comings, allowing for every possible outcome a person could possibly type in is a difficult task.

Sometimes I think we don't have all the concepts of a 'game' nailed down yet from what they started in the days of text adventure. I really enjoy books, but sometimes there are movies, such as Star Wars, that just wouldn't work like a book. I think that graphical games can show just as much creativity as an IF game, and IF games can suck just as much as the latest FPS.

Obligatory Homestar Runner reference

[angryflute]

Ye see a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.

Obligatory Strongbad

[dupper]

YOU ARE THY DUNGEONMAN

Ye find yeself in yon dungeon. Ye see a SCROLL. Behind ye SCROLL is a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH and DENNIS.

What wouldst thou deau?

>go dennis

Ye arrive at DENNIS. He wears a sporty frock coat and a long jimberjam. He paces about nervously. Obvious exits are NOT DENNIS.

>talk to dennis

You Engage Dennis in a leisurely discussion. Ye learns that his jimberjam was purchased on sale at a discount market and that he enjoys pacing about nervously. You become bored and begin thinking about parapets.

More here.

pacman?

[jjeffries]

So I see this story has the pacman icon. Pacman, however, is not a good example of interactive fiction.

You are at the center of a maze. To your front and rear are rows of dots that recede into the distance.

> forward

As you move forward, your open mouth causes you to consume a dot.

> forward

Your bulbous body thrusts forward once more, another dot disappearing into your maw.

> back

You turn around. In the distance you can see a ghost, coming right for you!

> down

You can't go in that direction.

> up

You slip into a side passage, continuing to dine on dots. Ahead there is a turn to the right.

> right

You turn, but a ghost is waiting for you right around the corner. There is no time to react, and you run right into it.

You are dead. Your score is 14/1000.

Play again? (y/n)

Re:Program in Martian ???

[Perseid]

Yes, but Inform and TADS already have excellent text parsers written for you, making life much simpler once you know the language. So you have to ask yourself which is more convenient - learning a new language to get a free parser or writing the parser yourself in a language you already know.

You also don't have to worry about cross-compatibility with the IF languages. Both of these languages create pseudo-code that runs under a virtual machine. Sort of the way Java works. If you code in C++, even if you write it to be truly portable it will still need to be compiled on each machine people want it run on.

To each his own, but you should at least take a good look at Inform/TAGS/Hugo.

Why pigeonhole gammers?

[wantedman]

The biggest problem with graphical adventures is that you must represent what your character is playing with graphically. You can't represent something that isn't obvous and the scenes must be uncluttered to keep your adventurer excited.

Let's take an example the standard cliche, taking stuff outta the trash. In IF, you can alude to stuf being in the trash, you can mention the trash can and hope the adventurer looks, you can relate a story about trashcans or you can hint to look directy. With graphical adventures, the trashcan looks like the recyclebin in Windows. Heaped full of papers one minute, take one sheet out and it's empty. It's pretty blunt when you think about it.

IMHO, most of the creativity was used to dress up a rather repeditive game genre.

Re:Program in Martian ???

[Zurd]

If you already know C, you're MUCH better off just spending a couple of hours picking up the idiosyncracies of Inform. 99% of your work will be wasted if you try to write IF from scratch in C.

Re:Interactive Fiction

[phrenq]

Come on, think before you post. That is one of the most ignorant things anyone's ever said about interactive fiction. No, it's not a synonym for "Text-based Adventure Game". No, it's not just Quake without graphics.

Interactive Fiction is a genre that focuses on a story - that includes plot and character development, dialogue, and creativity - and it allows the player to interact with te development of that story. You don't see much (if any) of that in Quake.

Good interactive fiction doesn't need (and doesn't have) graphics for the same reason that pictures don't make a good book any better.

Re:Hitchhiker's Guide

[Horizon_99]

If you're a fan and haven't played it, or just feel like taking a little trip back:

>Go Underdogs
[Using your web browser]You see a website offering tons of cool underrated games

>Examine Games
You see a list of hundreds of IF games"

>Get HHGTG
You download one of the best IF games ever

>Play game
[using Frotz] You play for a while before feeling a presence behind you. The lights go out. You have been eaten by a grue.