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2004 IF Competition Games Available
An anonymous submitter writes "For the last ten years, the readers of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction have held a yearly interactive fiction competition. For fans of the old Infocom games as well as for newcomers to the genre, the competition is a chance to enjoy some of the best short adventure games available anywhere. And now, this year's entries are finally available for public testing. Visit IFcomp.org to download the games and interpreters for all of your favorite platforms. For the next six weeks, judges will play, score, and review." The website explains Windows and Mac installation pretty well; you'lll have to figure it out on your own for Linux but there is plenty of help available (i.e., "apt-cache search infocom" for Debian).
Great, now I can be eaten by a grue on multiple platforms. Grue screen of death anyone?
We'll send a big guy named Bubba right over for you.
I can't wait to try these out on my new Nvidia Geforce 6800!!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Shoot Floyd with laser, please. Or don't, because robots are tough. Nothing can hurt robots.
Blah.
http://www.gizmo-a-gogo.org/ZeeME/.
it's pretty cool, even if not so mature.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
the guy you want is shorty .
"..You'll have to figure it out on your own for Linux but there is plenty of help available (i.e., "apt-cache search infocom" for Debian)."
I tried to do that. Unfortuately on the way I got lost in the maze, dropped my lantern in the chasm and missed when I threw the knife at the gnome.
my password is private, but unchanged.
You find yourself in a dark cave surrounded by nerd-zombies.
>hit zombies with stick
Your attempt to ward of the nerd-zombies fails.
You should have drawn a picture of Kournikova on the wall to distract the zombies while you fled on your segway.
>
Free iPods? Sure.
I would just like to note that the IF community is still going strong, still maintaining its IF-specific programming platforms (see TADS 3, Glulx, Inform, Hugo), and have even published books (Inform Designer's Manual, Inform Beginner's Guide, Twisty Little Passages) and has a theoretical analysis book in the works for future publishing. If you're looking for a game, stop by http://www.wurb.com/if/ or check out the archive at http://www.ifarchive.org/ where all of the free games and interpreters are there to be downloaded for free. Visit rec.arts.int.fiction or rec.games.int.fiction if you want to discuss building or playing games and if you're really in need of an IF fix, stop by the ifMUD at ifmud.port4000.com:4000.
http://chicagodave.wordpress.com
So, the interactive part is clicking on the download link, and the fiction part is actually finishing the download while the servers are being slashdotted! This is the most fun I've had all day!
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
open chest, look chest, take wand, close chest, east, east, east, east, north, inventory, quit.
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
We totally need a bittorrent set up for these games. Insta-mirror!
I hate most adventure games. The only ones I can stand are the Lucasarts variety. This article pretty much sums up why. For those who don't want to RTFA, it's basically the frustration factor. In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Infocom adventure, as well as several others, you have to do a couple things in the beginning of the game in order to win it. If you don't, you will still be able to progress to the critical point where you need them, at which point you will have to RESTART YOUR GAME FROM THE BEGINNING. The seriously destroys the fun factor. Also, many puzzles are needlessly arbitrary, such as the disguise puzzle in Gabriel Knight 3 pointed out in the article. They're simply puzzles for the sake of puzzles that have solutions that no sane person would actually guess. The solutions to these puzzles can only concievably be attained by randomly clicking on everything and seeing what happens, which seriously ruins your suspension of disbelief.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game/guide .swf
Which interpreter do you mean, the CLI, the X, or the Palm interpreter?
>CLI.
Frotz is a great CLI interpreter with lots of ports to other OSes. A very good place to start, keeps it simple, and brings back all the nostalgia of white-on-black text.
>OOPS, X.
If you're dedicated to X, try Zoom. It handles later versions of Z with graphics and sound as well.
>OOPS, PALM.
For those on the go, Frobnitz is a Z-Code machine for Palm Pilots, but I've found it has some weird display kinks. One really nice feature, though, is that you can extended-click a word on the screen and get a pop-up menu of common commands like Take, Examine, and so on, all pre-selected with the word in mind. It takes longer to explain than to learn how to use.
Grand Text Auto
it's good. and has a silly name.
when Push Comes to Shove
For those of us with a PalmOS device with OS 4.0 or later, I suggest trying CliFrotz from Sourceforge. It supports the high resolution displays often found on the Clies and the Tungstens. It's based on the Frotz core and supports V6 graphics. Nice.
if (!NULL){
i_win = TRUE;
}
shit, this challange is damn easy!
cant wait for the for loop challange.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
My business is currently involved in this now, except we are mixing it up a bit by working w/ authors and turning their novels into online games...
MultiUser RolePlay Entertainment (MURPE) is a total game development and publishing enterprise that was designed to be the next stage in a real-time, immersive game evolution. Working with multi-genre authors and their publishing vendors, we intend to turn these novels into living works of art, but applying a totally dynamic story-like atmosphere through online gaming.
Website: http://www.murpe.com/
-- Michael
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Please use responsibly!
So my question is: Why are there so many interpreters? The contest requires at least SIX different ones (from the competition site): You'd think that after so many years, there would be some standardization. Are these all viable platforms, and why?
The website explains Windows and Mac installation pretty well; you'lll have to figure it out on your own for Linux
It's pretty easy on FreeBSD: pkg_add -r jzip.
Anyone remember that bbs game called fazuul? It was multiplayer and it had items that you could put together to make other items. These items sometimes were useful. Quite fun! Is there anything else out there that has both of those features or is Fazuul available on some internet connected bbs?
TADS: http://www.tads.org/
Glulx: http://www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/ (looks like a 32-bit Z-Machine)
Inform: http://www.inform-fiction.org/ (this is the infocom virtual machine)
Hugo: http://www.generalcoffee.com/hugo.html
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
Have been playing the hitchhikers guide and a few other IF games on my Pocket PC recently. Brings back the feeling of playing them on older 8 bit computers for some reason. Everything else PDAs do is still rubbish though.
And if you're a bit masochistic, and have a GBA and a flash cart, you can get frotz for your Gameboy Advance. And yes, it is useable (if a bit tedious)... I finished Shade on this (which, BTW, is an awesome little game). Much fun. :)
It's some funny timing for me to see this story. This past August, I found a copy of Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Infocom on the Amiga (yes, occasionally I like to old school it with my Amigas...) and found I had a blast reliving my youth by playing it. It was written by the man himself I believe and it's incredibly clever (well, duh!).
Maybe I'll give these new games a spin to see what they have to offer!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I luv gentoo
want to make your own games?
emerge inform (the compiler)
The original version is small, efficient, can be played on anything from a palmtop to a mainframe, on a variety of interpreters, and doesn't need a net connection. The new one needs a constant net connection, screen space, colour, Flash, JavaScript, and a fast machine; it adds lots of eye candy without actually adding anything to the basic game.
If that's 'bringing it up to date', then I fear for the current state of software...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I have a copy of the Lost Treasures for Mac, and I have downloaded several Z-machine emulators for OS X, however the original games were designed to be run as standalone games and the data files are enclosed in the runtime files.
Is there any way of extracting the data files from the original games to run them under an emulator?
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Yes I fear for the current state of software too. :c)
CLIFrotz looks nice, it's true, but the requirement of keeping the Z-Code on an expansion card makes me sad. It would probably be the first time in history that I'd *upgrade* my computer to play an Infocom-style game.
.pdb to let it live in main memory. With 64M onboard my Tungsten, that's not a problem at all.
Frobnitz, on the other hand, has a utility that will convert Z-Code into a