XYZZYnews
January/February 1996 Issue #7
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HOLLOW VOICE
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Do you play text adventures by yourself, or as part of a group? I'm used
to considering it a solitary activity, so it was a real treat to get
together in early January -- on the first day of the Great Blizzard of
'96, no less! -- with several other IF fans in the New York City area.
(For those who couldn't make it because of the weather, yes, you
definitely had a valid excuse!) Since surfing the Web, playing sneak
previews of upcoming games, drinking coffee, and eating chocolate chip
cookies are four of my favorite things (not necessarily in that order),
I naturally had a great time. I hope to organize another such get-
together in the near-term.
I also wanted to give a quick mention to a book that came across my desk
recently called "Interactive Writer's Handbook," by Darryl Wimberley and
John Samsel (Los Angeles: The Carronade Group, 1995). Targeting writers,
producers, and designers interested in learning about writing
interactive screenplays, the book mainly addresses the creation of CD-
ROM games and other multimedia entertainment but I think that text
adventure game developers would draw inspiration from it too. Among
other notable interviews, the book includes a question-and-answer
session with Michele Em, screenwriter for Return to Zork that includes
some telling details about how that project was pieced together. For
example, she notes she had five or six weeks to write the dialogue --
including deciding where and how to place puzzle clues -- for 28
characters (the game had already been designed by this point). Raising
the level of ridiculousness up a notch, Return to Zork's producer also
wanted her to write the screenplay using Excel!
On the brighter side, Em notes that "I think that I got the job because
I was a screenwriter who actually played games. Infocom games were my
favorites. I had played the text version of Zork dozens of times." That
should be some consolation for those who've wondered aloud on the
rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup if their love of text adventures could
ever pay off for them financially. :)
Until next issue, happy gaming!
Eileen Mullin
[email protected]
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Contents:
Newsbriefs/Top 10 IF Web Sites
Letters
Tales From the Code Front: The Hard Part is Making It Look Easy
IF in 1995: The Year in Review
Article: Adventure Game Interfaces
Sneak Previews
More Tales From the Code Front: Rexx-Adventure
Game Review: Lethe Flow Phoenix
What's on the Disk
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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. Email:
[email protected]. Send all inquiries, letters, and submissions to
the address above.
Contents (c) 1996 XYZZYnews.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America.
Electronic versions: There are currently three versions of XYZZYnews
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http://www.interport.net/~eileen/xyzzy.7.html
Subscriptions: Both electronic versions are available at no cost. You
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For print subscriptions outside the U.S. or Canada, please email or
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All products, names, and services are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective companies.
Editorial deadline for Issue #8 is February 29, 1996.
Editor:
Eileen Mullin
Contributors to this issue:
Stuart Beach
Phil Darnowsky
Mike DeSanto
C.E. Forman
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January/February Top 10 Picks for IF on the World Wide Web
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Adventure for the Web
http://tjwww.stanford.edu/adventure.html
Dan's Home Page (Lethe Flow Phoenix)
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~scythe/lethe.html
hints.infocom.many
ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/games/solutions/hints.infocom.many
New Zork Times/The Status Line List
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/
infocom/articles/NZT%2bTSL.list
Pages and Pages of MUDs
http://csugrad.cs.vt.edu/soc/mud_page.html
The Rise and Fall of Infocom
http://speedracer.nmsu.edu/~jholder/if/ch3-if.html
Text Adventures -- Direct Downloadable Games
http://www.xs4all.nl/~gzbrn/DD/Textad.html
Virtual Rooms, or a Spatial Metaphor
http://www.well.com/user/mmcadams/units4.html
You Found It
http://bigdog.engr.arizona.edu/~scannelm/prize.html
Zork Nemesis
http://www.activision.com/zorknem/zorkhome.html
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LETTERS
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Second Reader Survey Results
---------------------------------------------
In Issue #6, reader David Palmer posed a number of questions to follow
up on our first reader survey. There were 28 responses to his questions
from readers in seven countries (Australia, Denmark, Finland, Great
Britain, Spain, Sweden, and USA). The leading responses are summarized
below:
* What major are student readers of XYZZYnews pursuing? Almost half of
the respondents said they were computer science majors. Other responses
that came up more than once were math, physics, and archeology.
* Do XYZZYnews readers like reading in general, and what are the
preferred genres and authors? Science fiction and fantasy were most
frequently mentioned, as was fiction in general. The most frequently
named favorite authors included Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, H.P.
Lovecraft, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
* How many of the readers have written any IF? Five of the 28 said
they have written an adventure, although all but one included self-
disparaging comments about the games' quality! :) Interestingly, 20 said
they would like to write a game or are in the middle of writing one.
* Do the readers like other forms of puzzles? The respondents were
somewhat split on this question: about half said yes, with some
distinguishing between math/logic puzzles and word puzzles, and the
other half mainly responded with no or pleaded a lack of time to play
such puzzles.
* What number of IF games has the average reader finished? No
consensus emerged here; responses ranged from none to "about 50-55
games."
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To XYZZYnews:
Would you tell Doug Atkinson that I loved his "You Know You've Played
Too Much Infocom When..." [Issue #7]
Reminds me of a running MAD magazine gag (only this time about something
I love, IF, and frankly his were funnier than MAD's usually are).
Haven't read all of the issue yet, but I laughed my head off at his
list, especially #33, about the afterlife and restoring, restarting or
quitting and that you keep everything you own in the living room, have
sugar cubes you've named, touch every mirror and look in it being
prepared to be insulted...well I could go on and on. But that was
priceless, absolutely priceless as good as or better than stuff in the
old Status Line. Better I think.
Marnie A. Parker
[email protected]
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To XYZZYnews:
In reply to two inquiries (from Finland and Denmark) that arose because
of my letter being published in XYZZYnews, I have dug out the old floppy
disks and (with some kind help) managed to get 32 additional AGT games
uploaded to ftp.gmd.de/if-archive. These include a number of contest
"honorable mentions" from the second through seventh contests, as well
as several very old games written using GAGS or the very first release
of AGT.
By my count, there are now more than 80 games written using GAGS and AGT
posted in the interactive fiction archive, about a third posted with
complete source code.
The files are currently in ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive but I have
sent a message to
[email protected] and I assume the files will shortly be
transferred to the appropriate games and source directories.
Mark J. Welch
[email protected]
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Dear XYZZYnews:
Frankly , I'm a little annoyed at all the AGT bashing I see going
around. Here in XYZZYnews, the review of TimeSquared cites that its
being a good game is amazing in light of its being AGT. On Baf's Guide
to the IF archive, he lists the reasons a game could be poor as (and I
paraphrase) "Being poorly written, having a picky parser, or being
written in AGT."
AGT has produced many excellent games, Klaustrophobia, The Multi-
Dimensional Thief, and others I won't even list. People keep on
commenting on its "guess-the verb" games. All the included verbs are the
most common ones (open, close, look, inventory, score, n, s, e, w,
up, down, enter, exit: what else does one need?) but if common
synonyms don't work, it's because the designer didn't put them in.
Without the designer's influence, even the much-praised Inform wouldn't
know that a CD, compact disc, disc, disk, and round flat plastic thing
were all the same object!
Despite the fact that AGT is much less powerful than inform, it has one
major power over it: It's easy to use. I have a genius-level IQ, can
write in BASIC, and a little Pascal, but I can't seem to do much with
Inform. (I even tried typing in an example verbatim from the manual, and
it didn't work!) John Menichelli's modification to the source code in
the form of AGT v1.83 is as much like the infocom format as Inform
(well, almost), it has a built-in undo feature, twice-a-turn metacommand
processing, and loads of other features that would take more programming
in Inform than I care to contemplate.
Thanks for letting me whine...
L. Ross "Write Me" Raszewski
[email protected]
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Hi, Eileen!
I'm yet another old-time adventurer who's recently discovered the
underground IF world. Have you considered providing a checklist to help
us newcomers write our opening paragraphs? Something like:
1. Just stumbled onto XYZZY Web page (Y/N)
2. Am old-time Infocom fan (Y/N)
3. Have since rekindled old love thanks to blah blah blah (Y/N)
4. Am planning to try my hand at writing my own blah blah blah (Y/N)
This would probably save all of us a lot of time. <g>
Thanks for doing such a great job with this magazine!
Kory Heath
[email protected]
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Infocom Bugs List Update
------------------------------------------------------
Here's some more info on Zork II bug #7. On the Apple II interpreter
which came with Release 7, you get it. It also occurs with ZORK III,
Release 15.
The second release of Zork I neatly avoids it by having "IT" refer to
the mailbox initially.
Here's how the bug looks in Zork 2, Release 7 (UG3AU5), on the Apple II
>LOOK AT IT
I SEE NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THE BUT ZU.
Technical stuff: The bug is actually in the story files -- the code
attempts to get a property from object 0, which doesn't exist. This is
undefined behavior.
Matthew Russotto
[email protected]
------------------------------------------------------
To XYZZYnews:
How embarrassing ... I tried to send this to Graeme Cree and cc it to
[email protected], and managed to misspell the word "net" :-)
Here, as I promised, are some bug reports for Infocom's "Journey,"
release 26/890316:
While looking for the white stone (after having found the dwarf-, nymph-
and elf stones), I sent Hurth down a hole, where he found a key and a
skull. Although Esher was at the top of the pit, the description when
asking him to examine the key still starts with "Esher took the key and
looked it over." This seems even more strange if you consider that the
pit was too deep for the rope to reach all the way down.
Earlier in this search, Bergon is wounded. It is possible to heal him,
but out of curiosity, I wanted to see what would happen if I left him to
die. On getting out of the caves, the party is trapped by some half-
sentinent trees. Although Bergon was no longer in the party, he remarked
darkly that he had seen those trees before (when looking for westflake
root, or whatever it was that could cure the bite of Nightfang).
To get to the Misty Isle, you have to use the 'wind' spell. If you
haven't figured out the direction, the game will prompt you for if you
really want to chance it. If you do, the party will perish. If you
don't, you still use up one unit of air essence, even though the text
says Praxix puts the essence back into his pouch.
On using the 'wind' spell to successfully get to the Misty Isle, Praxix
is struck unconscious. Even though he is out cold, he still remarks that
the spell used up the last of the air essence.
Dropping the rope while Praxix is unconscious still earns a reprimand
from him.
That's all I can think of at the moment, but I only replayed parts of
it. One of these days, I'll have to go back and play through the whole
thing. If nothing else, Praxix's encounter with the talking tree would
make it well worth it. :-)
Torbjorn Andersson
[email protected]
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TALES FROM THE CODE FRONT:
The Hardest Part is Making It Look Easy, or,
Five Simple Steps to Coding a Stetson
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by Phil Darnowsky (
[email protected])
This vacation, I decided to amuse myself (and, hopefully, others) by
writing my own text adventure. The hardest part, I found, was not
thinking up a plot line, or writing puzzles. The hardest part was making
my objects, the player, and the game world interact in a natural-seeming
manner -- in other words, making it look easy.
As it turned out, one of the most difficult objects to implement (as of
this stage of coding, anyway) was a simple gray hat. Simple? Sure. Read
on and see just how simple a hat can be to implement...
1. I get an idea for a puzzle: The player needs to cross a certain
obstacle with their hands free, and yet transport a pack of cigarettes
across it. The solution that occurs to me? Allow the player to put the
cigarettes in their hat! Humming contentedly, I begin coding.
2. I give the hat the "container" attribute (Note: I program in Inform,
but I'm sure TADS programmers have had similar experiences). I re-
compile and check my inventory. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the
hat had sub-objects (a hat-band, specifically), and now that the hat was
a container, the hat-band was described as being in the hat, rather than
part of it. No sweat: this is why I keep the Inform Designers' Manual
handy. After flipping through it for a minute, I find the property
add_to_scope, which allows me (among a host of other uses) to define
sub-objects of a container, without actually putting the things in the
container. I fix that, and re-compile.
3. Upon testing it yet again, I realize my new dilemma. Due to the way
that Inform treats containers and scope rules, my choices are two:
either have the contents of the hat visible to the player all the time,
or only when the hat is "open." Since neither an invisible hat nor an
"openable" one appeal to me, I come up with a clever little routine that
"opens" the hat whenever it is removed, and "closes" it (and thus hides
any objects inside) whenever it is put on. Re-compile and smoke break.
4. That now works, but ever the perfectionist, I decide that when the
hat is "open" (i.e. unworn) EXAMINING the hat should provide a list of
whatever is inside it. That's easy enough to implement, but I realize,
upon re-compiling yet again, that the description of the hat describes
the hat as "empty" when there is nothing in it -- which is right in
itself, but gives the puzzle away. Another quick consultation of the
Designers' Manual provides me with the answer, and I type the command to
compile with a deep sense of pessimism.
5. One which is well-founded: although the description of the hat
doesn't give away the fact that things can be put inside it, I realize
that ANYTHING can be put in this hat, including such unwieldy things as
a mandolin case. A quick slash and burn through the code later, having
marked as "small" everything small enough to fit in the hat, and a re-
compile, the hat finally works, more or less.
This whole process took me more than an hour, from conception of the
puzzle to the final testing. What do I get for my hour of work? A hat
that interacts properly with its environment.
Some people would feel that spending that long on such a seemingly
unimportant object is foolish. They are overlooking the importance of
suspension of disbelief, the magic ingredient that makes fiction work.
Suspension of disbelief is a funny thing: people will believe in
dragons, fairies, and the honesty of the government, but give them a hat
that they can look through while it's on their head and you've lost
them. Making it look easy may be the hardest trick, but it's also the
most important.
[Author's Note: After writing this, I discovered one or two more small
bugs in the code for the hat, which I squelched rapidly. If you like,
think of this as "Seven Easy Steps to Coding a Stetson."]
--------------------
Source code example: Defining the Stetson
--------------------
This is all of the code associated with the Stetson that gave me merry
hell, with the backslashes omitted for clarity. -- P.D.
Attribute small; ! Will fit in the hat
Object arthur "Arthur, King of the Hats"
with name "arthur" "king" "hat" "stetson" "fedora" "gray" "heirloom"
"classic",
description [; print "This gray Stetson fedora is a classic, first
worn by your grandfather. It's an old family
heirloom, and you're proud to have it.";
if (feather in hatband) print " There's a pigeon
feather jauntily stuck in the hatband.";
if ((children(self) ~= 0) && self has open)
<<Search self>>;
" ";
],
before [; Receive: if (noun == feather) <<Insert feather hatband>>;
if (self hasnt open)
"You'd have to take the hat off first.";
if (noun hasnt small)
"That won't fit in your hat.";
Wear: give self ~open;
Disrobe: give self open;
],
invent [; if (inventory_stage == 2)
if (self hasnt open || children(self) == 0) rtrue;
rfalse;
],
add_to_scope hatband,
capacity 3
has clothing worn proper container ~openable;
Note that this chunk of code is still not bug-free. Back to the text
editor...
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IF in 1995: The Year in Review
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by C.E. Forman
Thanks to everyone on rec.*.int-fiction who mailed contributions and
suggestions! -- C.E.F.
--------------------
January
--------------------
"Waystation" by Stephen Granade, becomes the first major IF release of
1995.
--------------------
February
--------------------
"John's Fire Witch" by John Baker earns rave reviews on rec.games.int-
fiction, demonstrating the strong points of a short work of IF (an
interesting precursor to the competition).
"MacWesleyan/PC University" by Neil deMause is released on the IF
archives at GMD.
--------------------
April
--------------------
David Baggett unveils the latest Unnkulian Unventure from Adventions,
titled "The Legend Lives!"
After bemoaning a shortage of practical Inform code examples, designers
on rec.arts.int-fiction begin discussing the possibility of an Inform
programming competition, with the intent of increasing the amount of
Inform public-domain code. Not wanting to be left out, TADS users raise
a plea to create their own entries. At this point, little is agreed
upon, and whether the contest will actually be held remains uncertain.
--------------------
May
--------------------
Rules for the competition are debated, but remain vague. Authors are
eager to begin their entries but frustrated by the lack of consensus.
--------------------
June
--------------------
Activision re-releases the classic Infocom adventures, organized into
five separate packages by genre and sold for around $20 each.
Version 1.0 of the Hugo adventure game compiler is released. Updated
versions 1.1, 1.2, and 2.0 are released in the months that follow.
The latest version of the Inform compiler (5.5) appears on the archive.
Inform 5.5 is a refinement of version 5.4, with few major enhancements.
(Graham Nelson happily reports that the Inform language is now quite
stable.)
--------------------
July
--------------------
Gerry Kevin Wilson takes on administration of the IF competition,
solidifying procedures for entries. The deadline is set for the end of
August, and prizes begin to be donated.
--------------------
August
--------------------
Brendon Wyber's interactive horror game "Theatre" reaches the archive,
becoming the first of several 1995 Inform releases.
"Christminster," by Gareth Rees, is released.
IF players worldwide celebrate the 10th anniversary of Brian Moriarty's
"Trinity," coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the
atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
The IF competition reaches its deadline, having amassed a total of
twelve entries.
--------------------
September
--------------------
Julian Arnold takes on the task of revising and maintaining the
rec.arts.int-fiction FAQ.
Votes for the first annual IF competition are counted, and the winners
are announced. First-place prizes go to Andrew Plotkin ("A Change in the
Weather") for the Inform category, and Magnus Olsson ("Uncle Zebulon's
Will") for the TADS category.
After two years of work, Graham Nelson's "Jigsaw" is finally released.
In the weeks to follow, players discuss the implications of a non-
gender-specific main NPC as a romantic interest in "Jigsaw."
--------------------
October
--------------------
David Baggett releases the TADS source code for "The Legend Lives!" to
the IF archive.
A new edition of the Inform Designer's Manual is completed and uploaded
to GMD. The latest version is nearly twice the size of the last
document, with many clarifications, updates, and a larger number of
examples.
--------------------
November
--------------------
"The Path to Fortune," volume 1 of the fantasy series "The Windhall
Chronicles," is released.
A draft of a document describing standards for Z-machine interpreters
(the format used in all Inform and Infocom games) is released, with a
final version expected shortly after the beginning of the new year.
Standardization of the Z-machine has made further progress in 1995 than
any previous year.
--------------------
December
--------------------
Carl Muckenhoupt's "Baf's Guide to the IF Archive" is substantially
revised and now totals 100 entries. The hundredth game reviewed is,
appropriately enough, "Jigsaw."
"The Light: Shelby's Addendum" is released to GMD and Compuserve.
--------------------
General Trends
--------------------
Judging from Usenet discussions, the first annual IF competition coupled
with the release of a large number of newly released titles marked 1995
as a banner year for the entire IF community. In addition to the short
works produced through the competition, close to a dozen major works
were released over the course of the year, many in the last six months
alone.
The main event in '95 was, obviously, the first Internet IF competition.
I haven't looked in the CompuServe GAMERS forum for quite some time, but
my personal impression is that the volume of newly written IF has
shifted from AGT and CIS/GAMERS to the Internet and rec.*.int-fiction.
(The annual competitions on CIS were dropped with the support of AGT,
and a new series of competitions -- I hope! -- was started here.)
Increased availability of quality IF has led to a substantial growth of
the GMD archive (with a decrease in the CompuServe GAMERS forum,
corresponding with the ending of maintenance and support for AGT), and
increased traffic on the rec.*.int-fiction newsgroups. My own rough
estimate is that the number of daily posts has almost tripled from the
end of 1994. Discussions themselves have begun to venture specifically
into the areas of evaluating and critiquing the latest works.
Graham Nelson put it best in an e-mail conversation: "We are slowly
moving towards intelligent criticism (rather than, as used to be the
case, discussion consisting only of praising old Infocom games to the
skies, as though they were all equally good)...At this moment, for
instance, people are debating 'isn't Jigsaw a rather patchy game?' and
I'm pleased to see this: people are singling out what they like and
dislike, in a way which didn't happen a few years ago with Curses, for
example." The beginning of the end of the IF shortage is perhaps largely
responsible for this turn in players' behavior, as gamers are no longer
afraid of "scaring off" any and all potential authors through such
scrutinization.
A shift in the TADS-to-Inform ratio marks another interesting aspect of
this year. Inform saw its first surplus with five new titles, all within
the last six months, while new TADS games were in short supply compared
to previous years, with only three or four major releases (although
there's no denying the fact that one of these, David Baggett's "The
Legend Lives!", drew anticipation unheard of since the days of Infocom).
At the time of this writing, I've heard of an almost equal number of
upcoming Inform and TADS games, so a major change in the language of
preference is not immediately apparent. The two still seem to be quite
equally balanced, and there were equal numbers of entries for each (six
apiece) in the competition. Now that more public-domain Inform source
code is readily available (again, largely through the competition), we
may see an increase in fledgling Inform programmers.
Aiding public interest in Inform were large strides toward sound, in
interpreters like ZIP2000, and graphics (version 6 of the Z-Machine),
which in turn were brought about primarily through the release of the
more clearly written and standardized version 0.2 of the "Specification
of the Z-Machine." The Inform language has also seen growth, with Inform
6.0 visible on the horizon and a fully-working Inform linker to be
released soon. A Spanish-language translation of the Inform system is
also essentially finished and awaiting release.
Mainstream interest in text adventures may also be picking up again.
This year we've seen a substantial increase in the number of both IF-
related Web sites and online hyperfiction (multiple-path stories in
which readers follow different links to influence the plot). Numerous
Infocom-related home pages and guides have made it easier for users to
locate and use the GMD archive. The summer re-release of the classic
Infocom adventures through Activision may rekindle players' memories of
text adventures, and a number of computer books and magazines have had
disks or CDs containing text adventures packaged along with them. The
possibility of packaging the entire GMD archive on CD-ROM, and the
upcoming InfoMac CD, have also generated discussion on Usenet.
All in all, 1995 was a tremendous year for IF, but (as FrobozzCo
International President John D. Flathead would say), 1996 should be even
tremendouser!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Interface Changes: A Brief Look at the
Evolution of the Adventure Game Engine
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
by C.E. Forman
Adventure games have gone through many changes since 1977, but is this
progress enough to enable all games to be enjoyed by people with vastly
different tastes?
Judging from recent discussions on comp.sys.*.games.adventure and
rec.*.int-fiction, the answer is still "not yet." Many players think
fondly of the flexibility of text games and see anything GUI-oriented as
a step backward in interface design. Others detest typing, stress
quickness of play control, and insist that graphics are the only way to
go. Gamers everywhere agree that user-friendliness is the key to a
satisfying computer adventure, but not all players are in agreement on
how the term is defined.
Let's take a look at some of the more common (and a few of the
outstanding yet very obscure) software packages, and investigate some of
the advantages and disadvantages inherent in their play systems.
--------------------
In the Beginning...
--------------------
The all-text interface was the earliest play system, and, amazingly enough, is
still in wide circulation, due largely to the Infocom format and popular
imitations such as the AGT and TADS run-time programs. Screen layouts
and presentations vary greatly. A quick browse through the IF archive
will reveal:
* The Infocom-esque "prompt-and-status-line" display. The general
consensus is that this format is the most enjoyable text interface due
to readability, spontaneity, and the ability to see the author's
personal tastes reflected in the layout. A quality parser is necessary
to maintain player satisfaction with this type of game.
* Split-screens, with one half devoted to room descriptions and the
other to player's commands and game responses. Frequently objects and
exits are listed following brief room text. This format includes the
Scott Adams classics as well as many adventures that make use of the
simple game engine. Two-word, noun-and-verb parsers, are commonly
associated with this type of interface, and the somewhat mechanical
listing of rooms, objects, and exits may turn some players off. Although
the Scott Adams games are still played and enjoyed, very few new titles
use this particular format.
* Windowed text environments, often combining elements of the split-
screen and prompt/status-line layout. Often one window supplies valid
directions, a second for the command prompt and resulting text, a third
for the player's inventory, etc. Three particular commercial titles in
this format merit discussion here.
Mastertronic's "Demon's Tomb," a lesser-known commercial PC text game
(reviewed in XYZZYnews #2) combined optional windows with a prompt
interface, essentially a simplified clone of Infocom's. Separate windows
could be invoked for screen configuration and word selection. This
allowed players to use the cursor and alphabet keys to select verbs,
nouns, and prepositions to form a sentence, eliminating a large portion
of typing. It's still something of a surprise to me that this interface
didn't catch on, particularly with players who enjoyed text adventures
but disliked typing. Perhaps, had it come into play during Infocom's
height rather than in 1989, it may very well have.
One of the most unique and imaginative uses of the windowed play system
was Paragon Software's "Guardians of Infinity," released in 1988, around
the time Infocom was putting out their first graphic IF. The player in
"Guardians" spent the game in front of a textual control panel, issuing
commands to a set of time-travelling agents in an attempt to save
President Kennedy. A single reply window displayed different colored
text as each agent responded to the player's instructions, and control
could be switched between each agent's window at any time. The interface
was driven in real- time, similar to Infocom's "Border Zone," although
the multiple character aspect was strongly reminiscent of "Suspended."
Although I've never actually completed it, the game is definitely worth
checking out for the sheer novelty of implementation.
The most common mass-market game of this type was Infocom's "Beyond
Zork," which used windows for a map and prompt, as well as a
customizable window for room descriptions, the player's inventory, or
character statistics. The windowing aspect was optional, giving players
the ability to switch it off and use the full-screen prompt instead.
Interestingly, this had the side effect of causing the game to
mechanically list all the exits from a particular location, since
disabling the windows required disabling the map as well. In this
respect, "Beyond Zork" is perhaps the only all-text game that makes
extensive use of aspects of all three textual interfaces. (Then again,
most versions of BZ did incorporate some simple graphics into the window
and map, but BZ remains at heart a text game.
--------------------
"Text Adventures With Graphics"
--------------------
Graphic IF (or my preferred term, "text adventures with graphics"), have
been around almost as long as text quests themselves. Inspired by the
original Crowther and Woods "Colossal Cave," Ken and Roberta Williams
founded Sierra Online and, in 1979, released "Mystery House," the first
commercial text-and-graphic adventure.
Although primitive -- it used a two-word parser, had several puzzles
considered generic by today's standards, and the graphics were all
black-and-white -- it's quite able to hold its own with the Scott Adams
quests today (I'd recommend that IF history buffs pick up a copy if you
can locate one).
The layout consisted of a picture of the player's location, occupying
the entire screen with the exception of about four lines across the
bottom, where the prompt was located. Pressing <ENTER> without typing
anything temporarily cleared away the picture, allowing the player to
refer back to previous text which scrolled up "behind" the graphic. Thus
players could alternate between textual and graphic screens at their
leisure, and even had the option of playing the game as a pure text
adventure (by not tapping <ENTER> a second time to turn the graphics
back on).
Sierra continued this format into the early 1980s with titles such as
"Ulysses and the Golden Fleece" and "Wizard and the Princess." During
this time, substantial improvements were made to the graphics, although
the interface itself was somewhat lacking. The command prompt extended
almost halfway across the screen, severely limiting the player's typing
space. Limitations in text display were also apparent -- if the game
attempted to display more than three lines of text at one time, part of
it would inevitably scroll up behind the picture before the player had
had a chance to read it, forcing him/her to tap <ENTER> constantly.
In 1984, Adventure International used a similar engine to re-release
several of the Scott Adams quests, with graphic enhancements, calling
the games S.A.G.A.S. (Scott Adams' Graphic Adventure Series). (I've
played "Adventureland" and "Pirate Adventure" in this format, but am
uncertain how many of the other titles were released.)
Where Sierra really struck gold, however, was with Roberta Williams'
"King's Quest" series, which took the split-screen "picture and prompt"
format to new heights, adding animation and pseudo-3D locations, and an
on-screen alter-ego to represent the player.
The series was enhanced by a parser that, although nowhere near the
power of Infocom's, permitted direct and indirect objects, articles, and
reasonable synonyms. Games of this sort fell short of being pure
adventure, however, as the need to move the character about the screen
using the cursor keys provided ample opportunity for unfair arcade-style
puzzles. Among the more irritating were the need to be immediately
beside an object to interact with it, avoiding dangerous characters,
and, most infuriating, maneuvering the character across tiny, winding
paths where one slip meant instant death.
"King's Quest 4," the last of this particular class of Sierra games, was
released in 1988, at about the time Infocom, through Mediagenic, first
went graphical. During the next two years, Infocom surpassed its typical
number of releases, issuing a steady stream of RPGs ("BattleTech,"
"QuarterStaff," "Journey") and graphical IF ("Arthur," "Shogun," "Zork
Zero"). For the most part, the new IF format kept the classic Infocom
features, while adding graphical puzzles, maps, screen borders, a
compass rose, and pictures to complement the textual imagery.
When Infocom folded shortly thereafter, authors Steve Meretzky and Bob
Bates teamed up to co-found Legend Entertainment, with the intention of
continuing the commercial release of IF. By this time, though, graphics
were (and still are) the hot topic, and many players, new and old,
frowned on typing, despite the fact that countless Infocom fanatics
still loved the old method of computer storytelling.
Bates and a couple other Legend employees completely redid the text
adventure system architecture, splitting the screen into four parts -- a
text window, a graphics window (which could also be made to display room
descriptions or player inventories), a set of parallel vertical menus
(one for nouns, one for verbs and prepositions), and a box containing a
clickable compass rose and buttons for customizing the screen layout. If
the player desired, it was possible to remove the word menus, leaving
half the screen devoted to text, or even to remove everything and bring
back the all-text interface.
This game engine gained attention and praise from the adventuring
community immediately, because it catered to both typists and non-
typists, to both graphics players and text players. One computer
magazine even proclaimed that Legend "finally got the adventuring system
right." For a short time longer, text adventures had mass-market appeal.
One disadvantage here was that, as Legend expanded their game engine,
the increasing memory required to handle each package meant that players
with very old systems could not run them. Legend's game format was
nowhere near the efficiency of Infocom's method of Z-Code and
interpreters. Another problem came about as more and more verbs were
added to the menu bars. Non-typists would have to continually scroll
down to find the location of the verb they wanted to use. (Although, for
the most part, Legend avoided this by putting the commonly used verbs at
the top, within easy access. However, in later releases, they then began
bringing up obscure verbs when they became relevant to the game, which
tended to give away puzzles.)
Legend is not the only company that attempted to make the parser
adventure more commercially accessible by adding bells and whistles.
Virgin Games, after using a split screen for text and graphics in games
such as "The Pawn" and "Jinxter," brought several of its titles into the
"Magnetic Scrolls" format in early 1990. This GUI-based environment
behaved similarly to Windows or the Macintosh operating system, with
different windows for text, objects in the room, inventory, graphics,
the compass, hints, and maps.
Unlike Legend, the Magnetic Scrolls windows were mobile and resizeable,
allowing greater flexibility in the customization of the interface. A
menu bar along the top replaced the status line and provided small,
organized lists of common verbs, and a cut-and-paste option allowed
players to highlight words in the text itself and copy them to the
prompt.
Like Legend's engine, though, Magnetic Scrolls required more modern
hardware to permit the usage of all its features. The animated graphics
in particular were taxing to processor speed and memory, and, when using
such features, a 386 was barely enough to squeak by.
Earlier attempts (mid- to late-1980's) at graphical IF interfaces
included Interplay's "Tass Times in ToneTown" (co-authored by Michael
Berlyn), and ICOM's windowed series, both of which appear to have
influenced Magnetic Scrolls. ICOM's adventures ("Deja Vu," "Uninvited,"
"Shadowgate") were initially released solely for the Macintosh platform,
but several years back found their way to PCs, and even the Nintendo
Entertainment System. (Too bad the latter didn't support keyboards -- IF
could have made a comeback!)
One other product deserves a special mention here -- Stuart Smith's
"Adventure Construction Set," published in 1984 by Electronic Arts. ACS
was the first serious attempt at distributing a piece of software that
permitted users to create and play their own text/graphic adventures.
The computer-aided design system used a screen layout similar to
Sierra's, but the interface was all its own. The graphic portion of the
screen was divided into "blocks," each of which contained a stack of one
or more "things" (there were 12 different classes of these) or
creatures. Using the cursor keys (or mouse or joystick), up to four
players took turns exploring the game world.
The combat system was quite RPG-oriented, but ACS was suited nicely to
the construction of simple puzzles, provided that players were willing
to take the time to learn how to make creative use of the design system.
ACS had its limitations, but it was truly a remarkable piece of
software.
--------------------
The Graphic Revolution
--------------------
The turn toward graphics began, not surprisingly, as soon as existing
hardware became powerful enough to support their extensive development.
In commercial software today, pseudo-parsers typically replace the
traditional method of sentence formation. Players select actions from a
limited menu of verbs, and nouns from a graphic location picture and/or
inventory window.
LucasArts' "Maniac Mansion" and "Secret of Monkey Island" games, as well
as Adventuresoft's "Simon the Sorcerer," among others, use this
interface. Legend Entertainment's more recent releases ("Companions of
Xanth," "Death Gate," and the soon-to-be-released "Mission Critical")
use a similar game engine. Activision's attempt, used in "Return to
Zork" (and, I expect, in their upcoming "Planetfall" game) has players
connect an icon to other icon in a set, where each icon represents a
particular item or action.
(Although I can accept most of the graphical games I've played as they
are, I must admit, I really missed typing here.)
Others, such as "Myst," "The 7th Guest," and Roberta Williams' latest
offering, "Phantasmagoria," veer away from traditional puzzle-solving
adventure and toward the newer medium of the "interactive movie." But
that's another article.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SNEAK PREVIEWS:
Lights, Camera...Demo!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
With this issue, I'd like to announce two new developments in my Sneak
Preview procedures. Where space permits, I'd like to print opening game
descriptions, like the one shown below for "Gumshoe." In a similar vein,
I now have software for creating animations of on-screen activity, which
means that I can create short movies of the opening moves of a text
adventure game. I'd like to create such movies for Sneak Preview games
and make the movie files available on my Web site. This will allow the
game developers to create a short demo of their games without any extra
coding, and will be a service for my Web readers who want to download
these demo files. Without any other further ado, here are this month's
sneak previews -- two IF games-in-the-works that should be available
soon:
1. "Gumshoe" by Mike Oliphant (
[email protected]) is an upcoming
Inform game that he says is "about midway through testing and should be
released this spring."
Reluctantly, you crack a gluey eyelid to the world. Your head surges
with pain, and you quickly shut it again.
The whiskey gods were not kind to you last night.
You search your memory for the reason behind this latest drinking binge.
This proves difficult, because there have been many such nights since
you were removed from your job as detective on the force. Now it comes
back to you. The rent being past due on your new office. Marge badgering
you about her paycheck. Your empty bank account. Your complete lack of
clients. The money you owe Jimmy Voigt. You wince, not even wanting to
think about Jimmy Voigt.
Last night, you took your troubles to 'ole Johnny Walker and he listened
good. One drink led to another, and that naturally led to the next. Now
you find yourself awakening on a cold, tiled floor. You bravely reopen
your eyes and see that you are curled up at the foot of some private
investigator's office door.
Hey! It's your office!!
The one you owe rent on... You wince again. Ignoring the warning bells
going off in your head, you slowly get to your feet and manage to
stand shakily. You're beginning to understand what it means to be a...
Gumshoe
An Interactive Investigation
Copyright (c) 1995 by Mike Oliphant
Release 1 / Serial number 960106 / Inform v1502 Library 5/12
2. "Reality Shift, The Green Crystal, Part 1" is an upcoming AGT game
by L. Ross Raszewski (
[email protected]) in which you're on
a mission to save the world. The game includes pop-up hints, over 100
locations, four player characters and some 15 non-player characters.
Beta testers are welcomed.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TALES FROM THE CODE FRONT:
Porting from OS/2?
Rexx-Adventure Steps Up to the Plate
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
by Mike DeSanto (
[email protected])
The idea of writing a text adventure engine (the term interactive
fiction is a new one to me) has been wandering around in my head for
about 4 years. I played with AGT while I was in college, but got bogged
down with classes and never really got anywhere. I also spent some time
fiddling with LambdaMOO in the Metaverse at Illuminati Online (io.com).
That never really went anywhere either.
I always get frustrated, you see, with "guess the verb" problems. With
graphic adventures it got even worse with "find the pixel" garbage. The
other problem with most adventures, text or graphics, is telling
background objects from objects you can manipulate. The usual routes
around this are 1) including only objects you can manipulate in the
descriptions or 2) spending a lot of time reading "I don't know what the
XXXX is."
I wanted a game where it was always clear exactly what you could
manipulate and how you could manipulate it. Take, for example, the
aquarium in Zork II. You have to break the aquarium by throwing the
sword at it. Swords, in my experience, are not made to be thrown. You
throw spears, rocks, or knives. You do not throw swords. If throwing is
an option for the sword, I bloody well want to know that before I go
looking for a hammer!
So, Rexx-Adventure was born. Since 90 percent of creativity is
intellectual property theft, I will credit my sources. Much of the data
storage design was inspired by LambdaMOO. I loved the simple IF-THEN-
ELSE CONTINUE structure of AGT. The screen layout was inspired by the
early Legend games (Time Quest in particular), and the Magnetic Scrolls
series.
So, I started working on Rexx-Adventure. In the design, I tried to meet
the following goals:
1. Simple to use. Playing a game should not require instructions.
Simply start the engine, load the source, and play.
2. Simple to program. A simple game should not require extensive
programming knowledge.
3. Everything based on objects, not on fixed flags and verb lists.
Every object has its own verb list and arbitrary flags.
4. No guessing about what you can and can not manipulate, or how you
can manipulate it.
These goals have been met. Rexx-Adventure will automatically load and
run a game simply by double-clicking the game source file. The source
files are easy to read and reasonably logically laid out. All checks
done every turn are stored in a centralized place (a special object just
for that task).
Every object can have any number of flags to determine light, weight,
open/closed, or any other property you wish. Fewer than five flags are
required, and several of those can be ignored if you want to.
Programming is simple, with 20 or so functions providing everything you
need for the average game. If you need more, outside functions can be
added. In fact, any program that will run under OS/2 can be a part of
Rexx-Adventure.
However, there are a couple of serious limitations, hopefully to be
fixed in the next release. First, there is no implementation of indirect
objects. When I started, I said "Adventure didn't need indirect objects,
why do I?" Now I know better. The other major limitation is the absence
of "object in object" support. For example, "water (in the bottle)" or
"fluff (In the thing-your-grandmother-gave-you-that-you-don't-know-what-
it-is).
Despite these limitations, I am proud of Rexx-Adventure. It is a very
powerful engine with (hopefully) a promising future. I hope all of you
out there with OS/2 will try it. Rexx-Adventure is released as freeware.
Feel free to write shareware games using the engine, as long as it is
clear that the fee is for your game, not my engine.
Rexx-Adventure requires OS/2 Presentation Manager. It was written using
VX-REXX from Watcom Inc.
If anyone is interested in porting Rexx-Adventure to other REXX
platforms, I will help in any way I can, including giving you the source
code. REXX interpreters are available for all IBM mainframes, Macintosh
and Amiga. REXX is also included with IBMs PC DOS 7, and MS-DOS
interpreters are available.
Matthew Raymond has inquired to me about writing an AGT-to-Rexx-
Adventure conversion program. He can be contacted at
[email protected].
I would be glad to hear any questions or comments about both Rexx-
Adventure and The Resident. I can be reached at
[email protected].
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
GAME REVIEW
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-----------------------------
Lethe Flow Phoenix: A Flight of Fantasy, release 2
Parser: TADS
Author: Daniel Shiovitz (
[email protected])
Availability: ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/lethe.zip or
lth-noio.zip
Requires: TADS run-time interpreter
-----------------------------
Set in a refreshingly far-off, sometimes mystical environment, Lethe
Flow Phoenix has a number of satisfying, not-too-difficult puzzles and
some interesting NPCs. The game's highly metaphorical plot and
screensful of explanatory background material, however, made it
difficult for me to get really drawn into the setting.
As the game begins, your character (a woman, incidentally, although this
seems pretty arbitrary) has headed off on a solo camping trip one
Halloween for some soul-searching and contemplation. Awakened by strange
noises, you venture into the night and accidentally pitch yourself over
a cliff. When you awaken, you find yourself in a grassy field, left both
to discover how to maneuver about this completely unfamiliar environment
and your purpose here. The game reminded me a little of "The Sound of
One Hand Clapping" in terms of some similarities in tone and style, and
I wasn't surprised to see that game listed in the credits as the
author's favorite work of IF.
I'll admit I was at first put off by the timed how-to-avoid-dying-of-
starvation puzzle that begins the game, the kind that crops up in so
many text adventures. There are a couple of fatal endings to the game --
for example, walking off another cliff or carrying around a hand grenade
after removing its pin -- but none that seem unfair. Overly cautious
players may miss some important information, however; for example, for
much of the time I played I avoided exploring desert areas for fear of
dying of thirst, although I still think that that's a reasonable
assumption to make.
Lethe Flow Phoenix really contains only about a dozen or so puzzles in
terms of getting around obstacles or obtaining the objects you need to
overcome an obstacles. Experienced players should be able to progress
most of the way through the game, if not complete it, in the course of a
few hours of play.
I really liked the scoring system used in Lethe Flow Phoenix. Instead of
informing the player that a certain number of points are awarded for
solving a puzzle, the game states how many "major goals" and "minor
goals" the player has solved, identifies what each of those goals are,
and tallies what percentage of the total this constitutes.
Examining every object and studying room descriptions were extremely
helpful for figuring out what to do next. The object descriptions were
probably the best guide for how to implement each item. I really didn't
experience any "guess-the-verb" problems that sometimes come up in
trying to solve IF puzzles.
There is a help command, but the only hints included in the game are
fairly general and there are no explicit spoilers. There are a couple of
NPCs who will answer questions posed to them, but each has information
about only a few limited objects (in my experience, at least). I found
it a little frustrating to try to elicit information from these
characters, especially because you have only a few turns to ask one of
the NPCs any questions. Some more explicit hints would be good to
include for beginners.
The game is small in terms of number of rooms, but feels much more
extensive with the sudden, concentrated onrush of background material
and character development in the main part of the game. While the game's
title is explained in a READ.ME 1ST document, the background information
necessary to understanding the game's goal is only introduced once
you've progressed past the game's beginning section.
I did run across a few technical difficulties in running the game. Two
versions are available on the GMD site -- one using the file i/o
features available in TADS 2.2 to read and write to a file for saving
options from game to game. Unfortunately, neither TADS file would run on
my Mac, although I was able to get the game to run on a PC. Like so many
text adventures, this release had several bugs I ran across that would
not be difficult to re-code. For example, at one point I generated a
TADS error. At another point in the game, giving the command LOOK UNDER
BUSHES resulted in my picking up everything that was under said bushes.
While I was a little disappointed with the game's story development, I
did enjoy the puzzles and the NPCs, especially the garden beasts (who
seemed like something out of Disney's "Fantasia"). Although I found the
story a little rough, I'm looking forward to seeing future games from
this author.
-- Stuart Beach
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT'S ON THE DISK
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The companion disk for XYZZYnews #7 contains the following game
files. It's a good deal for people who have slower modems - at 2400
bps, it'd take 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 #7 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.
THE LIGHT: SHELBY'S ADDENDUM -- In this TADS game by C.A. McCarthy, as
Shelby you're just the low man on the totem pole at the lighthouse, but
you know something's definitely wrong as you make your return there. An
intriguing mystery and race against time. Available in separate
standalone versions for Mac and PC users.
This issue also includes three games originally written by Jim MacBrayne
(
[email protected]) in 1989-90 and recently ported to TADS:
FRUSTRATION -- Chasing after a wayward shopping list, you accidentally
plummet down an open manhole. What adventures await you at the other
end?
THE MISSION -- A quest for a shoelace? Well, there's a lot at stake
here...and it's up to you whether or not you win the bet and succeed at
your mission.
HOLY GRAIL -- The consequences to be faced if you fail in your mission
are dire indeed. Are you up to the challenge?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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.
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