XYZZYnews
September/October  1996       Issue #11

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HOLLOW VOICE
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Zorkers do it under the rug..."
--  quote from an Infocom fan's .sig file

Two items from the blowing my own horn department: first, I hope you'll
all stop by Folio magazine's mediacentral.com Web site to see a short but
sweet review of XYZZYnews by Steve Wilson in the Zine & Noted section.
You'll find the URL inside this issue as a Top 10 Pick for IF on the Web
-- naturally! :-)

Secondly, it looks like -- yet again! -- it's time for me to let you all
know I'm changing jobs. I'm joining IBM's corporate Internet programs,
where I'll serve as managing editor for the IBM home page. If there are
any IBM employees out there in the XYZZYnews readership, please give me a
holler -- you should have no trouble finding me in PROFS. :-)

In real IF news, it sounds like all material for the CD project shepherded
by Andrew Plotkin is proceeding apace; I'll report back on when the CD
will be available. I also may give a talk in the spring at New York
University about the popularity of interactive fiction, as part of their
Computer Advocacy Club's annual Theme Week.

(My apologies for such a short editorial this time around, but I swear
this issue would never get out otherwise!)

Until next issue, happy gaming!

                                                  Eileen Mullin
                                                   [email protected]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Contents:
     Top 10 Picks for IF on the Web
     Letters
     A Conversation with CosmoServe's Judith Pintar
     XYZZYnews Talks to the Bearded Oracle of Yonkers
     Announcing the XYZZY Awards
     Game Review: The Windhall Chronicles

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LEGALESE
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XYZZYnews is published bimonthly by Bran Muffin Communications,
160 West 24th Street, # 7C, New York, NY 10011, USA.
E-mail: [email protected].
URL: http://www.interport.net/~eileen/design/xyzzynews.html
Send all inquiries, letters, and submissions to any of the addresses above.

Contents (c) 1996 XYZZYnews. All rights reserved.
Published in the United States of America.

Electronic versions: There are currently three versions of XYZZYnews made
available online. One is in ASCII and can be viewed with any text reader.
You can also download a .PDF file that mirrors the layout of the print
version. Use the Adobe Acrobat Reader (available for Windows, Mac, DOS and
UNIX) to view the .PDF file; no special fonts or linked graphics are
needed. You can obtain Acrobat Reader from ftp.adobe.com in the
pub/adobe/applications/Acrobat folder, or follow the links from their Web
page at http://www.adobe.com. Thirdly, you can also read this issue of
XYZZYnews on the World Wide Web at
http://www.interport.net/~eileen/design/xyzzy.11.html

Subscriptions: All electronic versions are available at no cost. You can
obtain either the ASCII or PDF versions by FTPing to the
ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/magazines/XYZZYnews directory. To be added to the
mailing list, please write to [email protected] and specify text-only
or .PDF version. The print version includes a 3.5" Mac or PC disk and is
$21 (U.S.) for one year (6 issues) or $3.50 for a sample issue. For print
subscriptions outside the U.S. or Canada, please email or write for rates.

All products, names, and services are trademarks or registered trademarks
of their respective companies.

Editorial deadline for Issue #13 is December 31, 1996

Editor:
    Eileen Mullin

Contributors to this issue:
    Rob Daviau
    Neil deMause
    C.E. Forman
    Matt Newsome
    Andrew Pontious




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September/October Top 10 Picks for IF on the World Wide Web
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The rec.arts.int-fiction Silly Game
http://www.arnod.demon.co.uk/IF/sillygame/

Illusory Mental Images
http://www.execpc.com/~illusory/illusory.html

Frotz Z-machine interpreter home page
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/3222/frotz.html

War of the words: Review of XYZZYnews
http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/Folio/Zines/19961115.htm/737896

Atlantide 1664
http://www.1664.com/

Matthew's Computer Game Reviews
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~i9717029/Reviews.html

Digital Dimensions
http://www2.scifiu.com:80/scifiu/spaceb.html

Space Bar Preview
http://www.cdmag.com:80/adventure_vault/space_bar_preview/page1.html

Representing Human Characters in Interactive Games
http://reality.sgi.com/employees/prevost_studio/personality.html

Space on your hard drive: A brief history of science fiction gaming
http://www.scifi.com:80/scifi.con/gameroom/gamespot/index.html



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LETTERS
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Hi Eileen!

Just wanted to tell you that the ASCII versions of both Issue #9 and #10
of XYZZYnews are missing a very important "S" in the Legalese. The kind
offer for the readers to send anything to your address has become a harsh
denial: "end all inquiries, letters, and submissions to any of the
addresses above."

Still grateful (boy, have I been missing something ignoring the .PDF
version),

    Miron
    [email protected]

Yikes! Let me thank you for catching that typo; that should explain any
lapses in the amount of e-mail I get. :-)   -- EM

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Hi Eileen,

Firstly, I want to say that I enjoy reading the XYZZYnews each and every
time it is mailed to me, and I do appreciate the trouble that you take to
send it directly. It's a fine publications which celebrates an
all-too-ignored genre in the gaming world.

At the end of the last issue, you asked if you should discontinue the
"What's on the Disk" section to save time and space for those of us who
receive it electronically, and therefore don't recieve the diskette. Well,
I thought I'd throw my two cents in and say that I really did miss that
section, because it often serves as a reminder and guide to me to all the
new games out there that I should be looking for. It also serves as a bit
of an unintentional quality guide, because I assume that your standards
for including these games on your distribution disk are somewhat similar
to mine, and therefore, I rarely waste my time if I FTP to gmd.de and look
for those specific games. Perhaps this is a use for your "What's on The
Disk" column which you hadn't counted on, but I assure you that in my
opinion, it is nevertheless an extremely valuable portion of the
XYZZYnews, and it shouldn't be left out, if at all possible.

Thanks for everything,

    Meg
    [email protected]

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To XYZZYnews:

Back in the early '80s a friend of mine and I spent several afternoons
playing Adventure.  Just before the floppy drive on the PC went dead, we
had discovered a set of rooms under the Troll Bridge.  To get down, we had
to remove the Troll's Sign and hang the Golden Chain from the Sign Post. I
have been looking for a version of Adventure that has this "feature" but
can not find one.  Do you or any of your readers have any insight?

    Jim Mcdonnell
    [email protected]

I'll throw this one open to the group for answers...any suggestions,
folks? -- EM

------------------------------------------------------

To XYZZYnews,

Hi! First of all...let me say that XYZZYnews is terrific...you have just
done an outstanding job. It's a treat to read. I have a bug for the
list... in the Witness (the LTOI I version, anyhow), if you drop the
mystery book in the office, Phong picks it up and starts reading... even
though he is in his bedroom!

    SLaM
    [email protected]

------------------------------------------------------

Dear Eileen,

First off, I'd like to thank and congratulate you regarding this excellent
and needed publication.  I thought I was one of the last people on Earth
who still had an interest in Infocom games, as well as IF in general.

Recently, I happened to be shopping for entertainment software and was
becoming a bit depressed by the fact that there are only a few games,
constantly re-packaged, available anymore (war simulations, sci-fi and
action type shoot-'em-ups, icon-driven fantasy adventures, sports
simulators and classic board and strategy games), or so it would seem.
Much to my astonished delight, I found a single copy of Infocom
Masterpieces, which includes 33 of their published text adventures
(apparently every one except  Hitchhiker's Guide, Shogun, Quarterstaff and
Mini-Zork).  The fact that the price, $19.94, was about half what a single
Infocom title used to cost me was arguably the best news of all!

Needless to say, my intense, but by necessity, largely dormant interest
in IF was re-kindled in a big way so I decided to to do a Net search of
"Infocom," expecting to find nothing, but still hopeful.  Again, it was
wonderful to be wrong.  During the 1980s I solved 12 text adventures,
including Zork I and II, Enchanter, Planetfall and Witness, plus seven
from other companies.  I'm currently making rapid progress on Sorcerer,
Stationfall and Infidel, plus the original Adventure, which I downloaded
from the glorious IF archive.  Anyway, my question is this:  I would like
to begin writing my own IF, but I have very limited programming abilities
(and aptitude, I suspect).  I can write some in BASIC but their appeal is
apt to be limited. I have heard several mentions of AGT and other IF
development systems but was wondering which one might be regarded as the
best for a person with limited programming abilites (and where I might
acquire such, if not in the IF archive).  Thanks for any help you can
offer and keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

    Kevin "The Cretin" O'Keeffe
    [email protected]

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Infocom Bugs List Update
------------------------------------------------------

Hi, Eileen,

Greetings! Love the 'zine. Anyway, I'm writing to tell you that I think
I may have an addition to the Infocom Bug List -- read on:

Here begins a transcript of interaction with ZORK ZERO: The Revenge of
Megaboz ( Release 393 / Pix 14 ).

>LOOK
Plain
  You are on an amazingly flat plain of sun-bleached sand.
The plain seems to stretch endlessly in all directions.

>I
You are carrying a ceramic pigeon and a ceramic perch. You
are wearing a cloak.

>DROP PIGEON
Dropped.

>E
Plain
  You are on an amazingly flat plain of sun-bleached sand.
The plain seems to stretch endlessly in all directions.

>SE
Plain
  You are on an amazingly flat plain of sun-bleached sand.
The plain seems to stretch endlessly in all directions.
  There is a soldier on horseback here. His armor is made of the
shiniest metals, and his steed is lighter than drifted snow.

>KNIGHT, GO NW THEN W
"I'm off!" The mounted soldier and his steed jump high into
the air and vanish! A moment later, you hear a proud whinny
in the distance.
  With a surprisingly high-pitched squeal of alarm, a
mounted soldier materializes nearby. He seems somewhat
dazed by the experience.

>L
Plain
  You are on an amazingly flat plain of sun-bleached sand.
The plain seems to stretch endlessly in all directions.
  There is a soldier on horseback here. His armor is made
of the shiniest metals, and his steed is lighter than drifted
snow. It seems that the mounted soldier has a ceramic
pigeon.

>W
Plain
  You are on an amazingly flat plain of deep, rich loam.
The plain seems to stretch endlessly in all directions.

>NW
Plain
  You are on an amazingly flat plain of deep, rich loam.
The plain seems to stretch endlessly in all directions.
  There is a soldier on horseback here. His armor is made
of the shiniest metals, and his steed is lighter than drifted
snow. It seems that the mounted soldier has a ceramic
pigeon.

This could be useful if there is ever a shortage of knights in the
kingdom... :)

-- Admiral Jota
[email protected]



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A CONVERSATION WITH COSMOSERVE'S JUDITH PINTAR
Exploring artificial intelligence, and a defense of AGT
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
by C.E. Forman ([email protected])


XYZZYnews:   Please tell us a little about yourself and what you do for
a living and in your spare time.

Judith Pintar:   My current preoccupation is finishing my PhD in
Sociology. I'm studying the social and cultural effects of mass violence,
looking specifically at the former Yugoslavia. I am at the predissertation
stage, applying for grant money to go into the field. This academic
venture is a departure from my previous life as a health-insurance-less
artiste. While I was writing CosmoServe, I worked as a children's theatre
director, and for the ten years before that I was a actress, storyteller
and concert musician. I play the celtic harp and have recorded three
albums with the Sona Gaia label of Narada Media. After a couple of years
of Graduate School I have to say that I miss my artistic life, and hope to
somehow manage to do it all.


XYZZYnews: What first inspired you to write CosmoServe?  How much of the
game was based on real-life net experiences?  Which parts of CosmoServe
are your own personal favorites?

JP:   I'm an Infocom fan from way back. From the moment that I first PUT
BAT GUANO IN CANNON, I was hooked. My favorite Infocom game was SUSPENDED.
What I liked about it so much was the sense you get that lots of stuff is
happening all at the same time, that there are a whole set of independent
actors. When I decided I wanted to write a professional-length game, I
wanted to develop that same quality. The other influence on CosmoServe is
that early AI program, Eliza, that pretends to be a therapist and responds
seemingly intelligently to everything you say. I "talked" to Eliza at the
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in the early '80s, and spent about
an hour asking her over and over, "Do you love me?" After she ran through
the gamut of "Is it important that I love you?" "Why do you care if I love
you?" "Did your mother love you?" "What is love?" etc...", she finally
answered 'Yes." I was sure I had aggravated her into consciousness!
Anyway, long story to say that I have always liked the illusion of
artificial intelligence (until the real thing comes along).
    The characters in CosmoServe are not based on anybody I know, but
they are definitely influenced in a more general sense by friendships I
have made online through the years. My favorite part of the game? Hmm, I'd
have to say I'm pretty fond of Lucille (the crazed plumbing essay
competitor), and I really enjoyed coming up with the fake conference
announcements for each forum. Writing the sex conference was a lot of fun
too.


XYZZYnews:   CosmoServe won first place in the 5th Annual SoftWorks AGT
Contest (tied with "The Multi-Dimensional Thief").  I'm sure many IF-ers
completely missed these competitions.  Could you tell us a little about
them?

JP:   I started writing IF in the mid-'80s, when the XT I bought happened
to have GAGS (Generic Adventure Game System) on it, the precursor to AGT.
I wrote my first games in EDLIN, of all prehistoric dos editors! When I
joined CompuServe in 1990, I tried to find Mark Welch, to register GAGS,
and discovered that it had become AGT and was administered by the co-author,
David Malmberg. He had run several annual game-writing contests, and I was
determined to enter (and win!). CosmoServe tied for first place. I won again
the following year with Shades of Gray (more on that later). Most of the
winners (and many of the runners-up) are commonly available in IF archives
and collections. The contests stopped when AGT became freeware.
    Maybe this is a good place for me to make a strident defense of AGT.
I have had very good results using the program. I think it's terrific. The
limits that people complain about are easily transcended by a quick trip
into the Pascal source code. I tweaked the code for both CosmoServe and
Shades of Gray to get the visual effects I wanted, to increase the number
of verbs trapped for, and to change the standard responses. Easy as pie.
AGT games can be as professional or as simple as the game writer wants,
and has time to make them. Don't blame poorly-written and designed games
on the game system! It's the writer's responsibility to thoroughly bug-test
a beta version before public release, and it's really not that hard to put
in a few extra hours trapping for unusual verbs. Okay, end of my little
rant.


XYZZYnews:   CosmoServe was written in 1991.  In what ways do you feel its
subjects (computers, BBSes, Internet culture) have changed since then? Do
you feel these changes have adversely affected the realism of CosmoServe
in any way?

JP:   The biggest change, I suppose is the move to the graphical interface
for just about anyone logging onto CompuServe. But the nearly universal
shift from DOS to Windows has the amusing consequence of making the
DOS-related puzzles even more challenging. To win the game, you do need to
know how to change directories from a DOS prompt, run programs and, the
quaintest and most esoteric of all, PARK the hard drive to turn off the
computer. This out of date aspect I kind of like. I think there will be
people logging on from DOS machines into the 21st century. R.J. Wright,
the hero of CosmoServe is definitely one of those people.


XYZZYnews:   Looking back, was there anything you might have done
differently in designing or writing CosmoServe, knowing what you know now?

JP:   I think CosmoServe captures a particular moment in the history of
online interaction, and for that reason I would be inclined to let it stand
as I wrote it.
    If I did rewrite it, I would get rid of the time-pressure requirement
to finish the game by midnight. It necessitates a lot of restarts, to play
the game more optimally, and the jokes get less funny the fifth time around.


XYZZYnews:   You also worked as part of a team on Shades of Gray, which is
generally considered the finest AGT game of all time.  Which segments of
Shades were yours? Shades of Gray also fascinates me in that none of its
seven authors have ever met face-to-face.  Could you describe the design
process that occurred? How was the project organized?

JP:   After I won the AGT contest, I didn't think it was sportsmanlike to
enter it again. But the contest was so much fun and such a good incentive
I had the idea of writing a game as part of a group venture. I posted this
idea in CompuServe's Gamer's forum, and a small group of people responded.
We brainstormed over a period of about a month, both about the content of
the game and the way we would organize the project. We decided that the
best way to work together was to have a high degree of autonomy. We
discussed general ideas, but gave each other a lot of latitude in the
individual parts of the game that we were responsible for.
    The mini-adventures were initially separate "games" that could run
on their own. Mark Baker wrote the opening sequences, (including the
hallucinations), as well as the endgame. Steve Bauman wrote the civil war
sequence. Mike Laskey did the Robin Hood sequence. Elizabeth Ellison (who
was chiefly responsible for the historical research underlying the game)
wrote the mind/memory sequence. I wrote the fortune teller and the code
linking the separate parts of the game together, using the device of the
card reading. I also tweaked the AGT source code to make it do what we
needed it to do. I must admit to being fairly authoritarian in my editing
of both text and code when I put it together, to make sure that the game
was stylistically consistent. The two other credited authors did not write
text for the game, but were crucial to the project. We were given a
private area in the forum to post our messages to one another and to share
game files. Hercules, a Gamer's Forum sysop maintained this space for us,
processed our files, etc., and was our guardian angel. Cynthia Yans stayed
with us from brainstorming to bugtesting, offering valuable feedback and
support.
    The initial brainstorming and decision-making about the general plot
outline took about a month, then individual writers took about two months
to write their parts. I took another two months to merge the code (a
nightmarish process), to write the aspects of the game that overarched the
parts, and to edit the text. Finally we had about a month for the group
effort of text polishing and bug-testing. We ended up winning the contest
(in a special category, because we were a group project), and were
delighted when the game was included in a CD rom collection of shareware
games put out by the Waite Group (Fatal Distractions by David Gerrold). It
was an amazing project, on a lot of levels, and I think I'd like to try it
again sometime.


XYZZYnews:   Do you still play or write I-F?  If so, have you any new works
around  the corner?  Were you planning to enter the r.*.i-f competition
this year?

JP:   I won't be entering the competition, but don't count me out of the
game-writing world. I have been planning a sequel to CosmoServe for years
now. The problem is that I started writing a new game system and parser
from scratch, and when that project got bogged down, the game did too. I
do believe I will get to it someday. Now that I've said it publically, I
have to do it, I guess. Anyway, I am a forever I-F fan. For my money
pictures can never be as clever or funny as words. You just can't beat
good writing.


XYZZYnews:   Are there any other thoughts on I-F (or anything) that you'd
care to add?

JP:   There has been ongoing XYZZYnews discussion about gender in games,
and I never got around to responding about how I handled it in CosmoServe.
I was concerned that the sexual scenes not be offensive to people
regardless of sexual preference. The character's name, R.J. is meant to be
gender-neutral, but there are two places in the game where I collect
specific information. In the sex conference, one character asks whether
R.J. prefers men or women. Then later, when R.J. gets his/her virtual
body, the player must choose a male or female body. The resulting
combination of sexual preference and gender determines whether you end up
in the virtual hotel with straight men, straight women, lesbians or gay
men. Unfortunately if you dally with any of them you can't finish the game
on time, but at least you get to leave the room with genuine regret,
rather than fear and loathing!



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
XYZZYNEWS TALKS TO THE BEARDED ORACLE OF YONKERS
..otherwise known as Infocom legend Steve Meretzky
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
by Matt Newsome ([email protected])


XYZZYnews:   How did you feel about leaving Infocom?

Steve E. Meretzky:   Extremely sad. There is no one who worked at Infocom
who doesn't regard those years as the most fun and creatively satisfying
years of their lives. Although things had gone downhill during the
Activision Era (especially once Bruce Davis took over Activision), and
more and more creative decisions were being made by people in California
who didn't care a whit about quality, Infocom was still a fantastic place
to be right up until the end.


XYZZYnews:   Have you left Legend Entertainment?

SEM:   The four games that I wrote for Legend were all as an independent
contractor. I was never an employee of Legend, so I can't say that I've
left Legend. When I started Boffo Games, it certainly reduced the
likelihood of doing any more games for Legend, but there's always a chance
that Legend and Boffo could get together for a project.


XYZZYnews:   How interested are you now in interactive fiction?

SEM:   Highly interested. If you count Superhero League of Hoboken as
one-half (it was also partly a role-playing game), then 12.5 of my 14
games have been Interactive Fiction. And, in the future, I certainly
expect that a majority of the games I write will be Interactive Fiction.
It is a genre whose possibilities are still mostly unrealized.


XYZZYnews:   Do you feel you are making Interactive Fiction or Adventure
Games at Boffo?

SEM:   I consider the terms to be completely interchangeable. As far as
I am concerned, Interactive Fiction is just a term marketers invented to
make the genre sound more high-falluting. Certainly, Adventure Games isn't
a perfectly descriptive name for the genre, but it historically accurate
in that it pays homage to the grandaddy of the genre, and every computer
gamer knows what you're talking about when you say "adventure game." I
feel the same way about people who reject "science fiction" in favor of
phrases like "speculative fiction."


XYZZYnews:   What was it like to work with Douglas Adams? Did he keep to
schedule?

SEM:   Douglas is wonderfully creative, looks at things in a completely
different way than I do, and comes up with ideas that I never would. On
the other hand...Douglas has raised procrastination to an art form.
Hitchhikers Guide would never have gotten done if I hadn't gone over to
England and virtually camped out on his doorstep.


XYZZYnews:   Tell us a little about the plot in The Space Bar.

SEM:   The game is set on Armpit VI, a drab backwater mining planet. It
is a company planet in the way that some towns are company towns. You are
a company cop, working for the Amalgamated Vacuum Security Force. You are
a human being on a planet where humans are a despised minority.
        There has been a break-in at corporate HQ, and some extremely
valuable blueprints and prototypes have been stolen. The criminal is known
to be hiding out in a spaceport dive known as The Thirsty Tentacle. You
have several hours to go into the bar, figure out who the criminal is, and
arrest him/her/it before they can catch a shuttle to a planet beyond the
corporations jurisdiction.
    In the bar, you'll have to interrogate dozens of aliens. One of your
police skills is a technique called Empathy Telepathy, which involves
getting into the memories of the person you're talking to, and reliving an
event earlier in their lives. These flashbacks, set on various aliens home
planets, are small adventure-games-within-the-game, each of which is a
completely independent story, but each of which also contributes a clue
you need toward the main story of finding the criminal.


XYZZYnews:   What platforms will The Space Bar run on? When will it be
available and what price (roughly) will it retail at? Will it be marketed
in Europe also?

SEM:   The Space Bar will be available on PC and Mac. The minimum system
for the PC version is a P-75 with 16MB of RAM and a 4X CD-ROM drive. I
don't know the Mac minimum config. It should be available (in English, in
the U.S.) in October; I don't know anything about pricing. The game is
being distributed by Rocket Science, and one of their major investors is a
European distributor, so the game will be marketing heavily in Europe.
Translation work is already underway for several different languages.

XYZZYnews:   How does the BAGEL engine differ from other graphical
adventure interfaces we've seen of late, such as Z-Vision?

SEM:   Like Z-Vision, BAGEL (Boffo Adventure Game Engine and Libraries)
displays your environments panoramically, as pioneered by QuickTime VR.
But that's really where the similarity ends. BAGELs interface allows for
much more complex object and character interactions, and provides a deeper
and richer gameplay that I think you'll find is the closest thing that a
graphic adventure has come in reproducing the gameplay experience of the
Infocom text adventures. Basically, I looked at all the graphic adventure
games and adventure game engines from the last few years, in order to pick
and choose the features that worked best.


XYZZYnews:   Can you give us a broad-brush description of how you at Boffo
go about writing a game, i.e. do you use a scripting tool built from C++
or similar; do you write some parts which have to be optimal in assembler,
etc.

SEM:    BAGEL itself is written in C++ and includes a scripting language
which allows high-level programming of the specific game environments,
puzzles, object interactions, and character dialogues. All of the
underlying libraries are written in machine-independent code for easy
porting to other platforms.


XYZZYnews:   How do you feel The Space Bar pushes the boundaries of the
adventure game genre?

SEM:   As I mentioned earlier, I think it comes closest to recapturing the
depth we've only seen until now in text adventures, but in a graphic
adventure format. Also, the flashback structure of the game to some degree
turns the game from an interactive novel to an interactive short story
collection (although having the meta-game to keep it all tied together).


XYZZYnews:   Some of the latest arcade games are starting to support
virtual reality headgear. Do you think adventure games would benefit from
such a feature?

SEM:   I certainly didn't enjoy my one experience with VR headgear -- I
felt like I was looking through the world with my hands cupped around my
eyes. Really bad tunnel vision. Also, I kept getting wrapped up in the
cord. But, if the hardware starts appearing on PCs in large numbers and is
popular, Ill write games that use it.


XYZZYnews:   How do you sleep at night knowing that there are STILL people
trapped in the GUE, or trying to get a damned babel fish, or trying to
decipher a strange alien message?

SEM:   When people STOP wanting to enjoy my games, that's when I'll have
trouble sleeping at night.


XYZZYnews:   What is your favorite of all the games you have written?

SEM:   I get asked that a lot, and I don't have any single answer. There
are various elements from various games that I like a lot or am very proud
of: Floyd from Planetfall, the scope and political message of A Mind
Forever Voyaging, the puzzles and GUE history and sheer size of Zork Zero,
the appeal of Hodj 'n' Podj to many different types of non-computer
gamers, the blending of adventure and RPG elements in Superhero League of
Hoboken, the shattering of some computer game taboos with Leather
Goddesses of Phobos... But overall, no one clear favorite.


XYZZYnews:   What is your favorite Infocom game other than those you wrote?

SEM:    Zork II was my favorite for a while, and then Starcross was my
favorite for a while. The Witness my favorite of the mystery games.
Suspended wasn't my favorite game, but it was probably the most
interesting and daringly different game that Infocom ever did. But my
hands-down all-time favorite Infocom game is Nord and Bert.


XYZZYnews:   What is your favorite game of all time?

SEM:   It's hard to name just one, but here are ten of my all-time
favorites: Pac-Man, Shanghai, Tetris, SimCity, Civilization, The Fools
Errand, Might and Magic, President Elect, MacRisk, The Incredible Machine.
As you can see, its quite a diverse group.


XYZZYnews:   What is your inside leg measurement?

SEM:   I don't have an inside leg. Just two outside legs


XYZZYnews:   So how was the game written? Are you entirely responsible for
the plot?

SEM:   I had two design assistants, Patricia Pizer and Tomas Bok, both
confederates in interactive crime dating back to Infocom days. Also, Ron
Cobb was at a few of the early design brainstorming sessions, so his
involvement is more than just conceptual design.


XYZZYnews:   Were you involved in the technical development of the game?

SEM:   I helped to designed the interface, and to figure out what
functionality BAGEL ought to have, and have answered (to date) 14,583
questions from the programmers, but I haven't done any actual  coding
myself.


XYZZYnews:   How long did it take to write The Space Bar?

SEM:   Well, I first started thinking about the idea about 5 years ago,
so material has been gathering in the back cobwebby corners of my brain
since then. I started formally working on the design around May of 1995.
The design was complete enough for engineering and graphics work to
commence around mid-September of 1995. Writing of the dialogue continued
through the fall, and the first audio recording session was in early
December. Writing additional dialogue to be recorded, text for signs and
plaques and computer screens and so forth, and other incidental design
continues even through today.


XYZZYnews:   A Mind Forever Voyaging was a profound vision of the future
in terms of the political and  social direction of western society in the
coming centuries. It was a great success with IF fans and you are
obviously very proud of it, so why have you never re-entered the genre
with subsequent works?

SEM:   Well, I continue to meet people now and then who think it was
great, who think it was my best game, who think it was the best thing
they've seen on a computer. On the other hand, at the time I got a lot of
mail from people who were disappointed in the game: too quick, too easy,
too unlike Zork, etc.  And it didn't do that well sales-wise (about 35,000
which was pretty mediocre for an Infocom game at the time). I would love
to do other "serious" "message" games, but it's not what publishers seem
interested in at this time. AMFV was partly made possible by the
tremendous success of Hitchhiker's Guide...so push The Space Bar a lot, so
it'll do really well and I'll have the creative freedom to do more games
like AMFV.


XYZZYnews:   Just how formative an experience was packing nuts and bolts
in your father's hardware  business?

SEM:   Clearly, the nuts had more of an impact than the bolts.


XYZZYnews:   Are you still the "Bearded Oracle of Yonkers" or did you
shave/move/lose your voice?

SEM:   I am still bearded, I often give advice on topics ranging from lawn
care to the proper use of balsamic vinegar, and hardly does a season go
by where I do not find myself in Yonkers. Speaking of which, a joke: An
Englishman goes to New York for a vacation. Upon returning home, he was
asked how his vacation was. He replied, "Oh, I had a smashing time. But
there's one thing that I'm still puzzled  about. What are Yonkers?"



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ANNOUNCING THE XYZZY AWARDS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The movie industry has their Oscars, TV its Emmys, advertising its Cleos
-- all glorious excuses to take a break from creative endeavors and
instead engage in some good old-fashioned competitiveness and back-biting.
And, in the words of the immortal Cowardly Lion, what do they got that we
ain't got? Nothing -- at least, not anymore. Not with the inauguration of
the first annual XYZZY Awards for outstanding achievement in the field of
text-based interactive fiction.

The rules are as follows:

ELIGIBILITY: All IF games uploaded to ftp.gmd.de during the year 1996
are eligible for the 1996 Xyzzys. Short games, long games, even games
with chicken pox -- all will be thrown together into the same
bloodthirsty voting arena. A complete listing of all the eligible games
(in alphabetical order) is given at the bottom of your ballot.

VOTING: Anyone is eligible to vote. You may not vote twice. Voting by dead
people, fictional characters, and inanimate objects is strictly prohibited.
Authors may not vote for their own games, nor may they threaten, cajole
or otherwise intimidate their friends into voting for their games. While
it is suggested that you play as many of the eligible games as possible
before casting your ballot, we're not going to get ridiculous here.

CATEGORIES: There are eight XYZZY categories: Best Game, Best Writing,
Best Story, Best Setting, Best Puzzles, Best NPCs, Best Individual Puzzle,
and Best Individual NPC. In the first six categories, vote for the game
you feel is tops in that respect; in the last two, vote for a particular
puzzle and NPC within a game. Vote once in each category, then stop.

DEADLINE: All ballots must be returned to [email protected] or XYZZYNews,
160 W. 24th St., Apt. 7C, New York, NY 10011, by February 1, 1997.
Ballots arriving after that date will be consider null and void. (Well,
null, anyway.)

And now, on with the voting:


BEST GAME:_____________________

BEST WRITING:___________________

BEST STORY:_____________________

BEST SETTING:___________________

BEST PUZZLES:___________________

BEST NPCS:_____________________

BEST INDIVIDUAL PUZZLE:___________________________________________________

                      ___________________________________________________

BEST INDIVIDUAL NPC:__________________________

LIST OF ELIGIBLE GAMES:

A Night at the Computer Center
Aayela
Alien Abduction?
BSE
Delusions
Don't Be Late!
Fear
Frobozz Magic Support
Frozen
Gumshoe
Hero Inc., Vol. 1
In The End
Kissing the Buddha's Feet
The Light: Shelby's Addendum
Lists and Lists
Looking For Godot
Lost New York
Maiden of the Moonlight
My First Stupid Game
Of Forms Unknown
Past Tense
Pastoral Pitfalls
Phlegm
Piece of Mind
Promoted!
Punkirita Quest One
Ralph
Return to Karn
Reverberations
Rippled Flesh
Silence of the Lambs
Sir Ramic Hobbs and the Oriental Wok
Small World
So Far
SpiritWrak
Stargazer
Tapestry
The Broken String
The Curse of Eldor
The House of the Stalker
The Land Beyond the Picket Fence
The Meteor, the Stone, and a Long Glass of Sherbet
The Underoos That Ate New York
The Wedding
Time: All Things Come To An End
Urban Cleanup
Vindaloo
Wearing the Claw



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
GAME REVIEW
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

-----------------------------
The Windhall Chronicles
release 4
Parser: Inform
Author: C.E. Forman ([email protected]) and Jeff Cassidy
       ([email protected])
Availability: ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/
Cost: Shareware ($10). Registering gives you a map and Invisiclue-style
     hints
Requires: Inform run-time interpreter
Response to the XYZZY command: "Such archaic magic is no longer practiced
in this day and age."
-----------------------------

I have always suspected that the IF-playing audience and the fantasy RPG
audience overlapped heavily; after all, both are interactive forms of
storytelling. Well, for all you D&D players and Tolkein fans out there,
The Windhall Chronicles Volume 1: Path to Fortune, by C.E. Forman and Jeff
Cassidy may be just for you. The plot is nothing revolutionary: you are
Aerin, an apprentice blacksmith in the medieval/fantasy village of
Windhall. The town is in a bind -- taxes are due to Lord Osrich in a week
and there's no way for the town to pay them. Someone comes up with the
idea of finding an ancient dragon's lair and taking its treasure. Guess
who gets nominated for the task?

Along the way to finding the dragon, you will explore a section of the
richly defined world of the Realm of Rysch (in the Mendevel Empire),
learning magic and sword skills, combating traditional fantasy foes, and
learning of past history.

The NPCs are plentiful and well-defined, even though they are fantasy
stereotypes. There's the mirthful elf, the dour dwarf blacksmith, the
bearded wizard in a tower. Some of them are more defined than others. All
are useful in some way. Although they stay in the same place, the
characters all sleep at different times, giving a fairly good illusion of
a town in motion.

This game is difficult, usually in a good way. The puzzles are, by and
large, challenging and logical. However, there are a few that just don't
make sense to me, and I don't see how they could be solved without help.
In particular, solving a Tower Of Hanoi type puzzle, entering the wizard's
tower (which still makes no sense), and finding a critical item are all
game-stoppers. Another aspect of the game that starts out interesting but
becomes more annoying is the fact that all of the NPCs have critical
information, items, or skills needed for your quest. This means that every
time you find a new topic, you need to visit all the NPCs and ask them
about the new topic. Add this to their changing sleep schedules and this
can quickly become a pain. My advice is to save several versions of the
game when you are with different NPCs, then RESTORE back to them to ask
new information.

One nice feature that the authors have included is the "Warning" mode.
When the warning mode is on, the game will periodically jump in and warn
you when it would be a good idea to "undo and save" before entering a room
or when you put the game in an unwinnable state by wasting something or
breaking something. At first, I was reluctant to use this feature, as it
felt like cheating, but after the first notice that I (would have) put the
game in an unwinnable state, I was glad to have it.

All in all, Path To Fortune is a well-defined, well-thought out story that
makes you feel that this is a real little fantasy world populated with
real people. The puzzles are indeed tough, but mostly fair. And the
endgame message (the longest I've ever read in IF) sets the stage for the
next segment of Aerin's adventures (more magic and more swordplay),
showing that the authors have a vision for this series. If they can smooth
out some of the more illogical puzzles and make the time-of-day elements
less awkward, then future Windhall Chronicle adventures could become true
fantasy IF classics.

-- Rob Daviau



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT'S ON THE DISK
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The companion disk for XYZZYnews #11 contains the following game files.
It's a good deal for people who have slower modems -- at 2400 bps, it'd
take a heck of a long time to download the contents of the companion disk.
It's also a good deal for people with limited or no access to FTP sites or
online services as a source for new games. If you're reading an electronic
version of this issue, you can obtain this games disk with a print copy of
XYZZYnews #11 by enclosing $3.50 for postage and handling with the coupon
on the bottom of this page. If you play and enjoy these games, please pay
the shareware fees as applicable.

COSMOSERVE -- In honor of this issue's interview with Judith Pintar, we've
included her classic AGT game here. As R.J. Wright, a computer programmer
who also fixes indoor plumbing to make ends meet, you have several problems
you must solve -- and quickly -- in both your personal and online lives.

PERDITION'S FLAMES -- Welcome to the afterlife! As play begins in this
freeware TADS games from Mike Roberts, you're on a boat that's pulling up
to the gates of Hell. Somehow it all seems very... bureaucratic?

DEEP SPACE DRIFTER -- In this classic TADS game by Mike Roberts and Steve
McAdams, you are a lone space explorer adrift in your trusty spaceship.
You've just discovered a terrible miscalculation has been made, leaving
you nearly out of fuel and in the middle of nowhere.  Now you'll have to
send out a distress call and hope that somebody hears your signal.  But,
as you'll soon discover, getting rescued could become an adventure in
itself. Freeware.

DITCH DAY DRIFTER -- This is another classic TADS game by Mike Roberts.
An undergraduate at Caltech, you discover that today is Ditch Day, the
Caltech tradition in which seniors leave campus  for the day and bar the
doors to their rooms with all sorts of complex puzzles and devices called
"stacks." Your job is to defeat the stack left by the senior who lives
across the hall from you, in order to get into his room and claim whatever
bribes might have been left behind. Freeware.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
XYZZYnews Magazine/Disk Order Form
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Checks and money orders preferred. Please send coupon with
payment to: Eileen Mullin, XYZZYnews, 160 W. 24th Street, Ste. 7C,
New York, NY 10011.

O  Please send me a copy of the print version and companion games disk
  for XYZZYnews Issue #11. I have enclosed $3.50 for postage &
  handling. (Check one: Mac disk  ___  or PC disk ___ )

O  I need just the companion games disk for XYZZYnews Issue #11. I have
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O  Sign me up for a 6-issue subscription. I have enclosed $21 for
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  (Check one: Mac disk  ___  or PC disk ___ )


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