Legerdemain

By: Derek Yu

On: January 15th, 2008

Legerdemain is an interesting Roguelike hybrid that eschews the typical fantasy setting and randomly-generated dungeons of the Roguelike genre in favor of a surreal storyline which you have to uncover piece by piece. The developer also states that the game is influenced, part, by Interactive Fiction.

The game opens by asking you questions to “shape your philosophy as a Manipulator.” Manipulation is the “magic” of Phenomedom, an ancient art that few understand and many are fearful of. Once your character is created, you awake in a Doobah prison cell, an amnesiac. Although your ultimate goal is to “uncover a vast conspiracy full of morbid secrets and ancient puzzles,” your immediate one is to escape the prison. Grabbing the prime brush laying next you (a tool used for manipulation), you set out on your quest.

The repetitiveness of the first dungeon put me off a bit, but once you emerge into the overworld, things definitely pick up. Examining points of interest (represented by “?”), collecting “paragraphs” (large chunks of storyline), and talking to the various inhabitants of the world of Phenomedom is quite engaging – you can hail, chat, gossip, offer, or ask people about keywords that get brought up during conversation. Even though combat initially seems shallow compared to other Roguelikes, there’s no lacking in things to see or learn once you escape the Doobah prison.

All in all, Legerdemain is a bold experiment that runs the risk of alienating fans of RLs, RPGs, or IF because it’s not quite any of them. Still, the world of Phenomedom is a captivating one, and there’s obviously a lot under the hood that’s there to be discovered.

Note: The game is programmed in Java and requires a Java Virtual Machine (at least 1.4) to run. A link for this download is on the developer’s website.

(Source: Slash, via Rogue Temple)

Text the Halls: Results

By: Terry

On: January 4th, 2008

And it’s all over! The winner is Pacian, with the excellent Snowblind Aces – which also finished first with a unanimous Miss Congeniality vote! Congratulations also to Akhel, who managed a very close second place with The Snowman in both the main vote and the MC vote. Finishing third is TIGSaga in the main event (keep an eye out for TIGStory!), and My Magic Tire Hoax in the MC vote (probably the most imaginative entry to the contest).

You can find the rest of the results in this thread.

Despite the low voter turnout, I think it’s safe to call this contest a success! The overall standard was amazing, especially for a contest where many were writing their first piece of interactive fiction. Everything, all the way down to tenth place is worth playing, and if you haven’t played them yet, you really should.

We definitely need to have another one of these text adventure contests!

Edit: IF blogger Jason Dyer has reviews up of the top three, Snowblind Aces, The Snowman, and TIGSaga. Definitely worth checking out. I’ll try to keep an eye out for more reviews if they crop up.

Text the Halls: Voting

By: Terry

On: December 26th, 2007

Text the Halls is finished! A huge congratulations to everyone who took part, and to everyone who tried to take part!

We’ve had a total of ten entries, titled:

• Breathe
• Capture Santa!
• The Christmas Party
• Midwinter Rites
• My Magic Tire Hoax
• Panorama
• Snowblind Aces
• The Snowman
• TIGSaga
• X-Maton 2010

You can find more information (and download links) on the forums, as well as information on where you can find interpretors to play the games. Voting will run for a week, starting now [Edit: Due to a mess up on my part, we have to restart voting. If you’ve already voted, please take a moment to vote in the new thread (linked above).]. A lot of the entries are quite short, so that should be plenty of time to play them all and make your mind up!

Oh, and authors – we’re also holding a Miss Congeniality contest, IFComp style. Send me a PM on the forums with your votes if you want to take part!

Text the Halls: a TIGSource IF Competition

By: Derek Yu

On: December 10th, 2007

Sorry, guys. It’s time to learn how to read!

Move or Die

By: Derek Yu

On: November 17th, 2007

A brother and sister are driving together late at night and run over the corpse of an old man who is carrying 10,000 dollars. So begins Move or Die, a visual novel where you play a hitchhiker riding with the duo who must advise them on what to do.

Unfortunately, Move or Die suffers from the same problem many games in this genre do: there are too few “right” choices, and the “right” choices are not obvious. Discovering a winning solution requires too much trial-and-error versus using your noggin. I have to say, though, I found the basic idea behind this one to be interesting.

The creators have more episodes planned, but considering this first one was released in 2005, I wouldn’t hold my breath!

(Thanks, bigbossSNK!)

Pac-Txt

By: Derek Yu

On: November 2nd, 2007

Someone’s done and turned Pac-Man into a text adventure game.

(Source: The Random Gnome’s Lair!)

Word Play

By: Terry

On: October 19th, 2007

Veteran game reviewer Kieron Gillen (who’s previously written for PC Gamer, EDGE and Eurogamer, among others) has reposted an old EDGE article to his collaborative games blog, Rock Paper Shotgun. The article is entitled “”http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=440">Word Play", and it’s about the use of text in videogames.

The first half of the article is compelling enough, I suppose, but it’s the second part that’s really interesting to me. Kieron moves on to discuss “one corner of the modern games scene [where text] is dominant… the Interactive Fiction or IF Community. Or, as they were known in the eighties, text adventures.”

This section includes interviews with IF notables Emily Short and Adam Cadre (the authors of Galatea and Photopia, respectively), and talks about their influences, their approach to game design, and their view of how things are going to pan out for IF in the future.

I remember reading it in EDGE a few years ago, and at the time, I’d only played Photopia and some older well known text adventures like Zork and Colossal Cave. This article is what finally got me to explore Interactive Fiction in more depth, and I’m quite glad I did! There seemed to be something missing from this republished version though, so I dusted off my collection of old copies of EDGE and had a look for the original article (it’s November 2004, E142). Huzzah! The original had a little separate boxed off section titled “A short IF reading list”, which listed a number of introductory titles that I recommend checking out as soon as you possibly can, if you haven’t already.

I don’t know why this wasn’t included in this version of the article, but it’s well worth reading, so I’ve copied it from the original and reproduced it here. Hit the extended to read it!

A short IF reading list [from EDGE 142, November 2004]

With hundreds of games available, it’s difficult to know where to start with IF. In an attempt to avoid such difficulties, these are a handful of relatively accessible base camps to start your explorations.

PHOTOPIA (ADAM CADRE)
A fractured narrative piece that takes its time to unwind, juxtaposing real-world encounters with a dreamy fantasy story. When it hits its emotional target, it takes off the top of your head.

SHADE (ANDREW PLOTKIN)
Kitchen-sink realism transforms into unresolved, lingering and disturbing psychodrama. Also consider the longer, puzzle-based Spider and Web, based around flashbacks from an interrogation.

GALATEA (EMILY SHORT)
A conversation between an art critic (the player) and a living statue (the single, highly developed NPC). With dozens of endings, this is unique and literate. Consider also Short’s later, relatively short romances Pytho’s Mask and Best of Three.

SHRAPNEL (ADAM CADRE)
More of a fragment, in every definition of the word, than a fully developed piece, this is still a memorable and brutally powerful work.

RAMESES (STEPHEN BOND)
Minimal in terms of player action, this uses forced inaction as a metaphor for teenage depression.

All games are available from the IF Archive. Links and reviews are available from Baf’s IF Guide. Most games will require a Z-Code interpreter to play, also available from the above. We recommend WinFrotz for Windows, but MacOS, Linux and PocketPC versions, among others, are also available.

Little Falls: an Interactive Fiction experience.

By: Shapermc

On: October 9th, 2007

<img src=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2166/1526579894_85f674a47d_o.jpg align=left hspace=“10” vspace=“5” />The Interactive Fiction Little Falls claims to be an experience rather than just a story. Released earlier this year by Mondi Confinanti in English (originally published in Italian), Little Falls has the widest range of multimedia I’ve ever seen used in an IF. Images and sound add to the story in a way that makes them inseparable from the experience (even though you can play the IF without them).

The main character (aside from being You) is a police officer from the small Minnesota town of Little Falls. The IF starts in the police officer’s past, the root for a myriad of his problems which the game attempts to deal with. In this town a maniac stalks young women, and You are investigating him. A compelling hook in the beginning keeps the story going for a while, even through some frustrating puzzles (as a bit of a non-spoiler tip: the title of this game contains a very helpful verb).

As successful an experience Little Falls is, it still fails on fundamental level of storytelling. I’ll give the game a little credit for being translated from a foreign language—I’m sure some subtleties are lost in translation—but the writing is so heavy handed that there’s no real sense of mystery or fear. The added visuals and audio nearly compensate for this though, allowing the story to unfold in a pleasing manner.

For someone who’s looking to develop a more story based game Little Falls will offer some excellent inspirational fodder, and may give you a new avenue to look into for game development.

IF Comp 2007

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: October 7th, 2007

Just a friendly reminder that the 13th Annual IF Competition is underway. As a recent convert to IF myself, I gotta say, I’m excited!

Now, if only I had enough time to play through all the games and vote before the November 15th deadline… Oh well — hopefully you loyal readers will pick up my slack!

Download all the games here.
View the complete list of entries (with individual downloads) here.

EDIT: Don’t know where to start?
IF author Emily Short is currently reviewing each entry on her blog. (Thanks Terry!)

Textfyre – The second craziest thing I’ve heard today!

By: Xander

On: September 24th, 2007

It would come first, but I apparently slept through a tornado this morning…

Textfyre Inc are a recently formed company (so recently that their website is close to the size of a novel’s blurb at the moment) with a relatively ambitious goal. Comparable I’d argue to deflecting a cataclysmic meteor with your face. To quote the company themselves on this;

“Over the last year we’ve been diligently working to build a new publishing company, to create new interactive fiction works, and to bring those works to the public. As of June 2007, we’re getting closer and closer to an official launch date. We still have a lot of work ahead of us and as we pass each milestone in our development processes, we’ll report back to you here about it.”

So, their mission statement is simple; Revive the interactive fiction genre. It’s an interesting goal, because it isn’t really like the genre is dead (Although it does depend on your distinction between Text Adventure and Interactive Fiction, so the following may sit less well with some than others). We did just have Pacian’s fantastic Poizoned Mind for the B-Game competition, and of course the IF Comp which always draws a strong creative response (Deadline for uploading is on the 29th don’t forget! I want to play!). However, the genre has been isolated from the commercial market for longer than I’ve been alive, with just boxed copies of ‘Zork’ and ’Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ for me to know that era by.

It definitely seems a challenge to try and sell these kinds of games again when such accomplished efforts as Slouching Towards Bedlam exist not only as incredible freeware IF, but also despite this greatly unknown and underappreciated. As much as I would love to see Adam Cadre works as successful financially as they are in my pants, I also know that it’s a long shot. A very long shot. From a bouncy castle. Covered in landmines.

(Source: Kotaku)