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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?
I can't wait to try these out on my new Nvidia Geforce 6800!!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
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.
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.
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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.
>jump left
>step right
>put hands on hips
>bring knees in tight
>thrust pelvis
>do time warp
>again
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game/guide .swf
Modern IF tends to avoid such problems (and also things like mazes, hunger puzzles, etc). There's an annoying bit of a trend toward "puzzleless" IF, but there's still lots of good new IF that incorporates puzzles but doesn't have the "traditionally annoying" factor.
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.
For what it's worth, by the standards of modern IF, all of these things would be considered design flaws. The games that win the annual Comp, especially, tend to play fair and usually have puzzles that are both logical and well integrated into the storyline.
>examine laser
The laser, though portable, is still fairly heavy. It has a long, slender barrel and a dial with six settings, labelled "1" through "6." This dial is currently on setting 5. There is a depression on the top of the laser which contains a new battery.
Floyd produces a crayon from one of his compartments and scrawls his name on the wall.
>turn dial to 3
The dial is now set to 3.
>use laser on floyd
I don't know the word "use."
>shoot floyd with laser
The laser emits a narrow beam of light which strike Floyd. "Yow!" yells Floyd. He jumps to the other end of the room and eyes you warily.
>version
PLANETFALL
Infocom interactive fiction - a science fiction story
Copyright (c) 1983 by Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
PLANETFALL is a trademark of Infocom, Inc.
Release 37 / Serial number 851003
"Last version was better," says Floyd. "More bugs. Bugs make game fun."
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There are two main IF platforms (TADS 2/3 and Infocom/Inform/Z-Code/Glulx). As you can see in the list of IFComp entrants, most games are written using one of these two, and most discussion on r.a.i-f is about one of these two.
There are also several second-tier platforms (Hugo and Adrift for example), which attract less people, but have enough followers to survive. They are usually less discussed on r.a.i-f (except for the occasionnal whats-the-best-platform flamefests) but often have dedicated forums where fans gather. They attract a slightly different bunch of people than TADS/Inform/r.a.i-f, for example it looks like Adrift attracts people more in interested in quick-n-easy graphical development.
Then there are many other platforms, either older ones that have done their time, or platforms that never really took off. Alan was in this tier, but is right now going back to second tier, with a new major version in the works after several years without updates.
Overall, the reason there are so many platforms is that there is no commercial competition, and that several (if not many) people enjoy writing their own platforms (a not uncommon subject of discussion on r.a.i-f). A handful of fans is enough to have games produced for a platform and sometimes submitted to IFComp, so every year or so you are in the need to download an exotic interpreter of some sort.
That said, note that judges do not have to play all the games, especially those for which there's no interpreter on their OS. Playing five games is the minimum to become a judge, and as you can see, a TADS and a Z-Code interpreter are more than enough to cover that.
Great, you brought several aknowledged design issues and used that as an argument that adventure games are lame.
HGTG is considered to be one of the worst desigened adventure games of all time puzzlewise. And Jane Jensens adventure games either are not an example of well designed puzzles. People love the Gabriel Knight series because of the excellent stories, the blend of real existing material with myths and legends, but not for the puzzle design, where the series never did shine.
If you take that argument, then I have to say, ok, I played Daikatana, all shooters are bad. (Although the works of Jensen are far above Daikatana in quality)