/ Brandon Boyer / 5:00 am Thu Nov 5, 2009

The EXAMINE'd Life: Keeping Interactive Fiction Alive

EDies.jpg As with my earlier column on the new vanguard and returning classic franchises that are keeping point and click adventures alive a decade or more past their prime, there's one other genre that all but the hardest-of-the-core and its tight-knit community itself seem to have forgotten: the text adventure. It's a genre that -- if you grew up gaming -- probably makes up some of your earliest memories: my own definitely revolve around waiting impatiently for the TI99/4A's cassette deck to finish screeching its way through loading Scott Adams' Adventure series (now playable online here) and pondering the etymology of "pieces of eight", continuing through my teens to the unmistakably British worlds of Graham Cluely's Jacaranda Jim and Humbug (the games that first taught me the word 'whinge'). And it's a genre that certainly is flourishing deep in the underground at places like The IFDB, the IFWiki, the yearly IFComp(etition), and the tireless work of people like Emily Short, but it took an Indiecade finalist and an iPhone app to hook me back in, with a short-list of the top games to try included below the fold.
Everybody Dies [Jim Munroe] It was the inclusion of Jim Munroe's Everybody Dies (pictured at top) as a 2009 Indiecade finalist that provided that first hook: a tale of life, death, suburban ennui and toilet-cleaning that inter-weaves the various employees of a remote Cost Cutters department store. Like most IF, it's a story and set of characters that you would be hard-pressed to find outside the text-only genre, and a setup that would be impossible to get through as neatly in almost any other way. Visit Munroe's post to play the game via Java (a necessary conceit to get the full impact of Michael Cho's interspersed artwork). Playing Munroe's game, though, reminded me that there was a huge body of work at my fingertips that I'd long been neglecting, with the early App Store release of Frotz, an iPhone interpreter that lets you browse, download, and play a staggering number of IF games on the go. It was with the reinstallation of Frotz that I went back to complete the one game that I'd heard repeatedly referred to as the new modern IF classic: photopia.jpgPhotopia [Adam Cadre] Now already more than a decade old, it doesn't take long to realize why the game's still only talked about in hushed, reverant tones: its own inter-woven tale is told so delicately and subtly, its emotional hooks and jabs hit you so softly you aren't even quite sure until minutes later that you've even been punched. Photopia's also unique in the way it utilizes color -- that is, simply the background color over which the text is overlaid -- as signifiers and symbols tied to the story itself. It's dream-like, sobering, and a struggle to recommend without giving away any information that would spoil the story. Play it via Frotz, or play in your browser through the free App Engine interpreter Parchment by clicking this link. violet.jpgViolet [Jeremy Freese] And finally, the last game I've made my way through in recent weeks took top prize in the IFComp's 2008 competition, Jeremy Freese's Violet. Like both games above, it's a premise that seems virtually untranslatable to any other genre of games, but one universally recognizable: your goal is simply to write 1000 words of your grad school dissertation, hounded constantly by another thousand tiny distractions. What sets it apart, though, is how it plays with the narration of text adventures themselves, as it describes your surroundings and actions via the lovingly chiding and pet-name-calling mental-voice of the main character's (current? ex?) girlfriend, an omni-presence but a player never actually in the room. Again, it's an essential play and perfect ambassador to the new guard of interactive fiction, playable again via Frotz or via Parchment by clicking this link. Obviously by no means exhaustive, this article should whet your appetite for the hundreds more games available: please leave suggestions for least of all me as we dig down further via the comments below!

18

  2. Ugh, text adventures are one thing I’m glad to see the backside of.

    YOU ENTER A WIDE OPEN FIELD. THERE ARE EXITS TO THE NORTHWEST AND WEST. A SWORD IS LYING ON THE GROUND

    > GET SWORD

    I DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET THE SWORD.

    I know they weren’t all like that, but even the best of them had at least one spot where the parser couldn’t figure out “PUT ON THE MAGIC HAT” because it was expecting “DON THE ELDRITCH HABERDASHERY.”

  3. I just procrastinated on my dissertation by playing Violet for a while. It amused me.

    Interactive fiction is often frustrating because I’m not quite thinking in the exact words that the game wants, but I’ve still enjoyed it regularly. Whether it was the months I spent trying to figure out Leather Goddesses of Phobos as an undergrad or being fairly mind-blown by Photopia, Spider and Web, or Shades of Grey, there’s an awful lot of art and enjoyment in this genre.

  4. I second hayagriva’s recognition of Galatea, and also add that Emily Short’s Savoir Faire is excellent.

    I usually play the top half of the list (in terms of score) of the IFComp entries, as well as games with good ratings on IF sites, and I’m very glad to see it mentioned on BB because I’m always looking for new suggestions. Like regular novels, there are few things worse than investing time into an IF adventure only to discover that it’s…well, not good. So everyone please post your suggestions!

    In that vein, I would like to suggest The Elysium Enigma. Great Fun!

  5. Everybody Dies and Violet are both excellent – somewhere between an entertaining afternoon of reading and gaming.

    Cho’s art really makes ED stand out. It just goes to show how versatile the genre is even decades later.

  6. I tried playing a simulation of one of the old INFOCOM games the other day. I loved these as a kid, but I find I simply don’t have the patience for these anymore. Back before games had eye-popping graphics, I guess I had lower expectations and was more content with messing around with interactive fiction. Seemed like “cutting edge” A.I. at the time, for all I knew as a teen. Now–yawn. I liked the games that evolved which had a textual description but also a graphic component above the text.

    I guess also as a kid I was easily amused by the language parser and into trying weird things just to see how it would react, often laughing at the results, but now it just induces groans. These games are a fond childhood memory, but I just can’t work up the same enthusiasm for them now.

    1. JJR & semiotix: like everything else, IF command parsers have come a long, long way in the past 25 years. You’d be surprised (as I was) at what you can try and succeed to do, and the shape of what the games offer and expect outside of pick up object/use object on object.

      Everyone else: thanks for the tips! I’m on to Galatea next.

  7. y, loved photopia, also enjoyed Anchorhead by michael gentry was a fun more traditional lovecraft related i/f from the same era.

  9. Thanks for the kick. I go through phases about every 3 years of replaying loads of classic IF, particularly from Magnetic Scrolls although infocom gets a good look in too. About time for another exploration!

  10. IF is alive and well….notably Blue Lacuna: http://lacunastory.com/

    An amazing and ambitious IF “game,” which I think does an amazing job of natural language and intuitive direction.

    google it for some reviews. Great stuff.

    Full disclosure, writer/programmer Aaron Reed is a friend of mine

  12. It’s not just the parsers that have improved dramatically – IF game writers have learned to avoid many of the annoying gameplay pitfalls of the early text adventures, making playing the newer games much more enjoyable.

  13. You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
    >E
    You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
    >W
    You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
    >U
    You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike. There is a lamp here.
    >Bite me
    I don’t see a “me” here.

    (those were the days)

Comments are closed.