Interactive Fiction Competition Opens

Sargent1 writes "The 2004 Interactive Fiction Competition has opened for business. The yearly competition, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, is for short pieces of interactive fiction. At this point IF authors can sign up to take part in the competition, and everyone can learn how to judge the games when they are released in October of this year. If you're not sure what interactive fiction is, take a look at Slashdot's recent review of Twisty Little Passages, a book on interactive fiction from Adventure (and earlier antecedents) to present day."

The Farthest I ever go

Ahh I remember those, the only thing that ran on my old 286

Open door
You cant open this door
Close Door
The Door Isint open
Attack Door
Your Hand Hurts
Get Life
You go outside, blinded by the sun, you procede to the comic book store only to be beaten up on the way there, you then return home only to be taunted by CowboyNeal.

Re:The Farthest I ever go

OPEN DOOR
INVALID COMMAND

OPEN THE DOOR
INVALID COMMAND

OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR
DON'T USE NAUGHTY WORDS

I'd get to the point where I'd throw the damn thing out the window, only to realize a day later I should have typed:

OPEN THE NORTH DOOR

*sigh* Damn Infocom.

Re:The Farthest I ever go

Curious. I can't remember any Infocom game that bluntly replied "invalid command" (Most reply like "I don't know the word "foo"). Infocom's competitors did ocassionally write less glorious parsers, however.

Besides, Infocom parser excelled at figuring out the ambiguities. In above case, it'd say something like "Which door do you mean, the north door or the south door?"

And besides, they usually had a little bit more clever replies to frustrated players, like:

>damn
Such language in a high-class establishment like this!

=)

It's good to see

that people are still making text based adventure games. They sure do pass the time like nothing else. That and text games can be made by anyone with a little bit of programming knowledge and too much time on their hands, thus creating a great variety of games not seen in other genres.

Re:It's good to see

I couldn't agree more...and for a blast from the past for all you fans of text based adventure games: There are, of course the old games from Infocom and the http://infocom.elsewhere.org/ gallery which allows you to still play some of the originals online, and look at exhibits featuring the original accessories from nearly all the Infocom lines. Truly a step down memory lane.

I tried to enter

But I made the wrong choice at some point and wound up dead.

Try lojban, not English.

Lojban would be ideal for interactive fiction--it's parsable like any computer language. Homonyms are just a silly artifact prevalent in English that obscures the interesting subject of computer linguistics.

Re:Try lojban, not English.

Seeing Lojban mentioned somewhere other than a constructed languages group was kind of surprising. I know it shouldn't be -- Slashdotter's like arguing what features should go into a computer language, while Conlangers like to do the same with human languages, so there probably is a bit of crossover with people who like both.

Still, I'd give you a mod point if I could just for bringing up something I think is interesting. Constructed languages like Lojban would be interesting in computer games -- they could replace "made up" languages of magic, or aliens, or even be turned into logic puzzles. The better ones have an underlying order that can often be sensed, even if the language itself is totally foreign.

I'll go back to A.C. lurking now, I just wanted to make sure others didn't think someone was schizophrenically responding to their own post.

Creative gaming design lost?

I'd love to see this a Graphical Adventure contest like this one recieve the kind of coverage and participation that the interactive games get.

It's seems so sad to me that modern games seem so devoid of creativity. I pray for the day that the immense processing power of todays gaming machines are applied toward making a truely innovative and creative game, instead of ones that simply remake the same old FPS with better graphics.

Re:Creative gaming design lost?

There doesn't seem to be any reason you couldn't enter a graphical game (so long as you don't enter a non-interactive one). You'd get fewer judges, probably, than one that was text-based, and there would probably be a bunch of discussion, but that doesn't mean you couldn't enter it. Of course, it would be judged against text, which is a much easier medium to be expressive in.

Re:Creative gaming design lost?

I dunno, half-life certainly seemed very creative, focusing a lot more on adventure than just shooting things, and some other games have picked up on that.

I think the main reason you don't see a graphical competition is because the tools are so much more in-depth. Skill aside, it is somewhat easier to describe a vast scene because you can draw on the player's own knowledge and creativity than to have to painstakingly model every detail of it. Think of like that big tree from Rivne or something- describing would likely be a bit easier than modeling it in 3D.

Not that IF games are very easy to produce; in fact, though it is easy enough to make fun of their short comings, allowing for every possible outcome a person could possibly type in is a difficult task.

Sometimes I think we don't have all the concepts of a 'game' nailed down yet from what they started in the days of text adventure. I really enjoy books, but sometimes there are movies, such as Star Wars, that just wouldn't work like a book. I think that graphical games can show just as much creativity as an IF game, and IF games can suck just as much as the latest FPS.

Why pigeonhole gammers?

The biggest problem with graphical adventures is that you must represent what your character is playing with graphically. You can't represent something that isn't obvous and the scenes must be uncluttered to keep your adventurer excited.

Let's take an example the standard cliche, taking stuff outta the trash. In IF, you can alude to stuf being in the trash, you can mention the trash can and hope the adventurer looks, you can relate a story about trashcans or you can hint to look directy. With graphical adventures, the trashcan looks like the recyclebin in Windows. Heaped full of papers one minute, take one sheet out and it's empty. It's pretty blunt when you think about it.

IMHO, most of the creativity was used to dress up a rather repeditive game genre.

Interactive Fiction

No, it's not such a difficult concept. It's simply a synonym for "Text-based Adventure Game". For those of us who were not yet born when the genre started, it's Quake _without_ the visual feedback, or the sound, or the mission objective. It's the Quake of a time when computers were not powerful enough to play Quake. Now, for some reason, some people are still in love with the old way ... and these are good people .....................

___________
says a young programmer & weblog newbie [afriguru.com] to even younger programmers ;-)

Re:Interactive Fiction

Come on, think before you post. That is one of the most ignorant things anyone's ever said about interactive fiction. No, it's not a synonym for "Text-based Adventure Game". No, it's not just Quake without graphics.

Interactive Fiction is a genre that focuses on a story - that includes plot and character development, dialogue, and creativity - and it allows the player to interact with te development of that story. You don't see much (if any) of that in Quake.

Good interactive fiction doesn't need (and doesn't have) graphics for the same reason that pictures don't make a good book any better.

Obligatory Homestar Runner reference

Ye see a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.

Program in Martian ???

The website says For this reason, the use of a language designed specifically for IF, such as TADS, Hugo, Inform, or ADRIFT, is recommended. Who in the world uses that ??

The language websites for Hugo, Inform etc explain that they have been designed specifically for text based adventure games.... Talk about specialization !!!!

Any way I have registered and am going to do plain old C ( okay, okay C++)

Re:Program in Martian ???

Yes, but Inform and TADS already have excellent text parsers written for you, making life much simpler once you know the language. So you have to ask yourself which is more convenient - learning a new language to get a free parser or writing the parser yourself in a language you already know.

You also don't have to worry about cross-compatibility with the IF languages. Both of these languages create pseudo-code that runs under a virtual machine. Sort of the way Java works. If you code in C++, even if you write it to be truly portable it will still need to be compiled on each machine people want it run on.

To each his own, but you should at least take a good look at Inform/TAGS/Hugo.

Re:Program in Martian ???

If you already know C, you're MUCH better off just spending a couple of hours picking up the idiosyncracies of Inform. 99% of your work will be wasted if you try to write IF from scratch in C.

Obligatory Strongbad

YOU ARE THY DUNGEONMAN

Ye find yeself in yon dungeon. Ye see a SCROLL. Behind ye SCROLL is a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH and DENNIS.

What wouldst thou deau?

>go dennis

Ye arrive at DENNIS. He wears a sporty frock coat and a long jimberjam. He paces about nervously. Obvious exits are NOT DENNIS.

>talk to dennis

You Engage Dennis in a leisurely discussion. Ye learns that his jimberjam was purchased on sale at a discount market and that he enjoys pacing about nervously. You become bored and begin thinking about parapets.

More here [homestarrunner.com].

L.O.R.D

I remember my old BBS had a door game I ended up actually paying for.

L.O.R.D: Legend of the Red Dragon

What a game. Kind of like a MUD too.

Those were the days. I wish there were still some BBSes (dialup) alive and thriving... I'd go sign up, maybe even pay for it.

L.O.R.D - You can still play it

Lots of BBSes still around that you can access via telnet:

http://www.3dham.com/telnet/

pacman?

So I see this story has the pacman icon. Pacman, however, is not a good example of interactive fiction.

You are at the center of a maze. To your front and rear are rows of dots that recede into the distance.

> forward

As you move forward, your open mouth causes you to consume a dot.

> forward

Your bulbous body thrusts forward once more, another dot disappearing into your maw.

> back

You turn around. In the distance you can see a ghost, coming right for you!

> down

You can't go in that direction.

> up

You slip into a side passage, continuing to dine on dots. Ahead there is a turn to the right.

> right

You turn, but a ghost is waiting for you right around the corner. There is no time to react, and you run right into it.

You are dead. Your score is 14/1000.

Play again? (y/n)

Re:pacman?

At least it's not like final fantasy X, which somehow passes for "interactive fiction":

> [press right button on D-pad]

You have found another cutscene! Feel free to grab another soda and order a pizza or two, because lord knows our animation studio has created 30 minutes more of stunning footage depicting some relatively unimportant and excessively corny love sequence between two minor characters! [music begins to play].

Hrmmm

I noticed a good concept of choose your own adventure book over at somethingawful.com

Yeah....

http://images.somethingawful.com/inserts/article pi cs/photoshop/04-16-04-media/sparsely.jpg

You can't beat photoshop fridays... not even with a really big stick.

Interactive Fiction rules

Those interested in the contest might want to check out these resources [nwu.edu] for getting started with Inform. And for a short ten-minute adventure, I will engage in some self-publicity and recommend Escape from Station V [nwu.edu].

Re:Interactive Fiction rules

...and you might like to look at the list of winners from last year [ifcomp.org] and perhaps warm up on some of the better ones [ifarchive.org]. If the last Interactive Fiction game you played was Zork or Advent, you might be pleasantly surprised by how far the genre has come.

For example, most of the higher-ranking games don't let you mess things up (e.g. by "shattering the crystal key" or whatever) and they let you UNDO actions if you find that you don't like how things are going.

Hitchhiker's Guide

I could never enter that. Everything I tried would wind up being colored by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That game has so thoroughly embedded itself in the choose-your-own-adventure part of my brain.

With likes like these, who can blame me?

"You wake up. The room is spinning very gently round your head. Or at least it would be if you could see it which you can't."

"A tree outside the window collapses. There is no causal relationship between this event and your picking up the toothbrush."

Re:Hitchhiker's Guide

If you're a fan and haven't played it, or just feel like taking a little trip back:

>Go Underdogs [the-underdogs.org]
[Using your web browser]You see a website offering tons of cool underrated games

>Examine Games [the-underdogs.org]
You see a list of hundreds of IF games"

>Get HHGTG [the-underdogs.org]
You download one of the best IF games ever

>Play game
[using Frotz [csubak.edu]] You play for a while before feeling a presence behind you. The lights go out. You have been eaten by a grue.

IF Pacman

It really exists guys. Don't we all just love our text mode pacman! > Up The ghost looms ahead! Download it here: www.freewebs.com/dansworlddomination/PACMAN.EXE

interactive fiction?

Interactive Reality may require a larger investment in order to get a satisfieing level of game play, but the rewards are better, not to mention the graphics are like none other, and the tactile interface is truely ground breaking.
Unfortunatly, i am a broke student and can't afford to play. My stack of quarters will only go so far, so I am stuck in the "pinball" level.

Recent IF games

Adam Cadre's stuff [adamcadre.ac] is pretty cool. IF isn't dead, not by a long shot.

Ok

Cue 150 comments of

"yeah but nobody wants to buy a text-based game"

Misunderstanding..

Input: look

You find yourself inside a dark room. There is a locked door in front of you. You have a key in your hand.

Input: open door

The door is locked.

Input: use key

What for?

Input: use key with door

You can't use the key with that.

You sit there for half an hour tinking...

Input: look door

The door is plain brown. There is a lock keeping it close.

Input: use key on lock

You get shocked.

You knock the monitor down and start hitting it with the mouse while the neighboors watch you in awe.

Diego

Infocom's greatest ad campaign

I loved Infocom from the very beginning, not only because they made great interactive fiction / text adventures, but because they had really funny ads.

One of the best was a picture of a brain with the caption: WE STICK OUR GRAPHICS WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE.

Re:Infocom's greatest ad campaign

Pic [infocom-if.org]

Awesome, time to..

Time to load up Zangband (www.zangband.org), and describe my short, 15-minute adventure.

Interactive Fiction...

...by the esteemed David Wong [pointlesswasteoftime.com]. Warning: some of these stories will be quite possibly the stupidest thing you'll ever read.

Slashdot Editor: The Game

You are the editor of a site called SLASHDOT. You see a SUBMISSION. Do you open it? (Y/N)

>Y

You open SUBMISSION. It is an article on FREE SPEECH that bashes the Bush Administration. You possible actions are (P)OST, (R)EJECT, or (T)EST FOR DUP. (P/R/T)

>T

Archives shows that this article is a duplicate of one posted 8 hours ago. POST anyway? (Y/N)

>N

Article posted!

Well, that would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

Scott Adam's Adventure Games

My favorite were the adventure games created by Scott Adams. I played them on my C64.

Adventureland
Pirate's Cove
Mission Impossible
Voodoo Castle
The Count

In Voodoo Castle, there was a cast-iron pot in the game. I typed: smoke pot
and the game replied: That's illegal!

A step back in time

Wow! It is absolutely wonderful to see that IF still has such a loyal following. I grew up on IF games and still have several IF titles for the PC. I even still have some "choose your own adventure" books on my shelves. Regardless of what they can do with graphics today, nothing compares with what you can do within your own mind. The realism you can get with text based games such as IF and MUDS allows you to truly step into the "role" of your favorite characters and live that alternate life most people only dream of. I always enjoy a good book more than a good movie just as I enjoy a good IF game as much if not more than a good graphic adventure. If you have never gave IF a chance, or are too young to remember it then check out the articles above and give it a shot, you won't regret it ;)

Re:For truly interactive fiction...

just read /. twice a day. "troll" that.