Because I'm playing the games alphabetically (it's the best way to make sure I don't skip over a gem or two) I happened to play two Andy Phillips games almost ina row: "Heist" and "Heroine's Mantle".
Before either of these, of course, I'd tried "Enemies". My experience with it seems to be the experience most IFers who were around had when playing "Time: All Things Come To An End" (a game I will play, in time, but I antecipate not to enjoy much - from what I understand of Mr. Phillips and how the quality of his work progressed, I fully antecipate his first game will be the least enjoyable of the lot): the puzzles weren't just hard, they required a certain minutiae - sometimes in syntax, leading to guess-the-verb - that I was completely unprepared for.
Also, Mr. Phillips has some quirks of his own. Purple-flavoured prose (meaning it's not purple, but it feels as though it should be. Maybe "pulp" would be a good description? But without some of the negative connotations it has), insufficient information in disambiguation situations, inconsistently implemented multi-part objects... I went over these in my "Heist" review, and others have done the same in theirs. "Heroine's Mantle" suffers much less ftom these, so I imagine Mr. Phillips takes the criticisms seriously and strives to improve, without compromising his style.
Now, when you play a Phillips game, there is much room to hate, to curse, to swear. Especially because of the things Phillips doesn't seem to compromise in is in rewarding a player, after a hard puzzle, with another puzzle, instantly. There is no room to breathe, and that gets very tiresome. That alone would make some players think many times before playing a game of his with the intent to see it through. The knowledge that the game's puzzles are 99% logical and 99% guess-the-verb free, but that the 1% DOES exist and if you're stumped you're never quite sure whether it's a 99% situation or whether you DO need to hit the walkthrough...
But, and here is the point of this blog, we will always need an Andy Phillips. I'm very glad we have him. I have never seen a post of his in IntFiction, and I came to RAIF too late to recognise him if he was there at all, but I fervently hope he's still here. Still writing his mammoth games.
An Andy Phillips game is, first and foremost, dense. He insists on using ZMachine, and does it so well I sincerely hope he never turns to Glulx (he shouldn't need to, his games are big enough already!). The constraints imposed by his chosen platform and his own megalomania create, by necessity, a game where everything is packed *tight*. The sheer size of his stories is amazing enough. That he manages to cram in the puzzles he does is more amazing still - creative puzzles, of the sort that often make you feel good about solving them (A-HA!). In his later games, at least, he goes to the trouble of making sure almost everything you see in the room is interactable with - but if it's not *necessary*, you simply get the standard "That item isn't necessary for winning the game". It doesn't detract from the world he's built, and at the same time steers us away from red herrings, so we can concentrate on the IMPORTANT stuff. Without this, the games would be too frustrating to play.
We need these games. Not on a daily basis. Not even, possibly, on a yearly basis. They are too much, and to really savour them (those of us, that is, who can savour such games - a lot of the IF community nowadays, or at least a very vocal part, shies away from them, claiming not to be good at puzzles*) we need time, and we need effort, and we need a damn big break between each game. But when we do have them, it's a real treat. Atmospheric games, which at their best instill trust in the player. The player *trusts* the game to the extent that the player will experiment in order to achieve success. Andy Phillips still believes the fun in IF is experimenting, discovering what happens in specific circumstances, and then deciding for ourselves how we can turn that to our advantage. There is a certain movement away from this, but we can't really live without it. Call it the gaming aspect of IF, call it "the I in IF", call it the sheer pleasure of using brainpower, it's a fundamental of the genre that, as much as we try to disguise or shy away from, we still need, in some form or another.
So Andy, if you're reading this... what are you doing, wasting time reading what I'm writing instead of programming your next game?!
*Well, I used to think I was pretty sucky at them myself. And then I started playing these games. And I got stuck, and I kept on, and I checked the hints, and I played another game, and well, I'm not so sucky anymore. Is it, I wonder, that we simply don't have the time or inclination to create/solve puzzleboxes? "A Flustered Duck" seems to be crafted in such a way that at some point the player will HAVE to look at the puzzles; discussion about it in IntFiction led me to believe that's a trend, "If the puzzle stops the game, the player need only check the hints to proceed". I appreciate the narrative and pacing value of this, but I would be very worried if this were to be a dominating trend. We've seen that there IS room for IF within the "casual gaming" niche, but reducing IF to that, or to static fiction that wants you to see the story so badly it actually does away with the puzzles or gives them little thought on the basis of "The player has hints they can check", seems to be nothing short of criminal.
Sábado, 13 de Abril de 2013
Sábado, 23 de Fevereiro de 2013
Verbous Verbosity
I used to be a firm defender of verbosity in IF. I'm playing a text game, I want text, I would say. I want detailed room descriptions, I want a psychological background, I want all the text you can throw at me!
Now I'm not so sure.
The thing is, while I still enjoy well-written prose, when I play IF I am interacting with the world. I'm not just passively reading a room description like in static fiction; I'm also scanning for items I can interact with. And lately (I've bought an iPod Touch just so I could play IF on the go, and am finally getting around to play Glulx games properly, and of course they tend to have more text because they have next to no limitations...) I've been noticing that verbose games can be a bit of a pain.
It turns out that verbose room descriptions are wonderful mood-setters but really lousy when you're actually trying to solve the damn game. Because you have to keep re-reading the text. And however genial it is, it does grow dull.
There is, naturally, a trend towards the verbosity nowadays. There are no hard limits anymore. The budding writers in IF aspire to write, especially with the advent of Inform 7, marketed especially for writers-not-programmers. The result are games which...
...well, games which really, really wanted to be IF.
I should give practical examples. Well, most recently I'm played "Broken Legs", which I just couldn't get into. The authorial voice was much too strong and much too distasteful for me, I had zero motivation, and sorting out the interactive bits from the rest of the text was a bit of a chore (mind you, apart from that, the prose was great - if it were static fiction I'd have loved it). "Bonehead" was too baseball-y for me, and once I got into the ballpark it got to be too much, but I already had the feeling I was reading static fiction. "Calm" did a much better job, and even emphasised important keywords so as to help, but "Calm" was more old-school than the others and in this one it was glaring - as I played I kept wishing to enter NORMAL mode instead of verbose.
But some games forbid that. And if I do that, how do I know I won't miss some vital room description change?
I used to think VERBOSE = DEFAULT was a good thing. Not any more, I don't. I don't carefully examine a room every time I enter it, and if I did, I would be as bored as I am when I have to go through the same rooms in IF over twenty times and always have that description (in a modern game, a LONG descriptions) presented to me. But the alternative is to risk not being shown a change in the room!
There is a thread currently in the IntFiction Forums about a SEMIVERBOSE mode, which would work like NORMAL but re-print the description if something about it changed. I think it's bloody brilliant.
There's a lot to be said about the functional prose of yesteryear, but it doesn't have to be that sparse. No one doubts Emily Short's gift as a writer, or Zarf's, or Cadre's, or Reed's, or so many other that we are very lucky to have. I can't think of a game I played by any of them where I felt there was simply too much text. But they don't underdo it, either.
I suppose it's only natural, it has to do with mastery of the medium. A good IF author will balance the right amount of prose, as well as the right amount of interactivity. That's bloody hard, and makes for a bloody wonderful game. Also, we're in a bit of a backlash against the yesteryear way of doing things.
Personally, I think we're taking the backlash too far, in some instances. Functional prose can be effective, funny, creepy, suspenseful. A well-placed hunger or inventory limit can be at the heart of a segment. Puzzles that the player has to solve don't have to be a bogeyman - as long as the player is given the means to solve them.
So yeah. Give me NORMAL mode anytime, especially in a game with more than five rooms. Or you'll have me skimming text even before we get to the interesting bits.
Mind you, I have nothing against cutscenes. Unlike room descriptions, those I can just sit back and enjoy. :)
Now I'm not so sure.
The thing is, while I still enjoy well-written prose, when I play IF I am interacting with the world. I'm not just passively reading a room description like in static fiction; I'm also scanning for items I can interact with. And lately (I've bought an iPod Touch just so I could play IF on the go, and am finally getting around to play Glulx games properly, and of course they tend to have more text because they have next to no limitations...) I've been noticing that verbose games can be a bit of a pain.
It turns out that verbose room descriptions are wonderful mood-setters but really lousy when you're actually trying to solve the damn game. Because you have to keep re-reading the text. And however genial it is, it does grow dull.
There is, naturally, a trend towards the verbosity nowadays. There are no hard limits anymore. The budding writers in IF aspire to write, especially with the advent of Inform 7, marketed especially for writers-not-programmers. The result are games which...
...well, games which really, really wanted to be IF.
I should give practical examples. Well, most recently I'm played "Broken Legs", which I just couldn't get into. The authorial voice was much too strong and much too distasteful for me, I had zero motivation, and sorting out the interactive bits from the rest of the text was a bit of a chore (mind you, apart from that, the prose was great - if it were static fiction I'd have loved it). "Bonehead" was too baseball-y for me, and once I got into the ballpark it got to be too much, but I already had the feeling I was reading static fiction. "Calm" did a much better job, and even emphasised important keywords so as to help, but "Calm" was more old-school than the others and in this one it was glaring - as I played I kept wishing to enter NORMAL mode instead of verbose.
But some games forbid that. And if I do that, how do I know I won't miss some vital room description change?
I used to think VERBOSE = DEFAULT was a good thing. Not any more, I don't. I don't carefully examine a room every time I enter it, and if I did, I would be as bored as I am when I have to go through the same rooms in IF over twenty times and always have that description (in a modern game, a LONG descriptions) presented to me. But the alternative is to risk not being shown a change in the room!
There is a thread currently in the IntFiction Forums about a SEMIVERBOSE mode, which would work like NORMAL but re-print the description if something about it changed. I think it's bloody brilliant.
There's a lot to be said about the functional prose of yesteryear, but it doesn't have to be that sparse. No one doubts Emily Short's gift as a writer, or Zarf's, or Cadre's, or Reed's, or so many other that we are very lucky to have. I can't think of a game I played by any of them where I felt there was simply too much text. But they don't underdo it, either.
I suppose it's only natural, it has to do with mastery of the medium. A good IF author will balance the right amount of prose, as well as the right amount of interactivity. That's bloody hard, and makes for a bloody wonderful game. Also, we're in a bit of a backlash against the yesteryear way of doing things.
Personally, I think we're taking the backlash too far, in some instances. Functional prose can be effective, funny, creepy, suspenseful. A well-placed hunger or inventory limit can be at the heart of a segment. Puzzles that the player has to solve don't have to be a bogeyman - as long as the player is given the means to solve them.
So yeah. Give me NORMAL mode anytime, especially in a game with more than five rooms. Or you'll have me skimming text even before we get to the interesting bits.
Mind you, I have nothing against cutscenes. Unlike room descriptions, those I can just sit back and enjoy. :)
Terça-feira, 12 de Fevereiro de 2013
Gargantuan Pack Gets Even More Gargantuany!
https://www.dropbox.com/l/CPGhtXubppUqyXSQ
(let me know if the link doesn't work, I'm new to this Dropbox thing)
http://rapidshare.com/files/3768487092/Huge2.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/3562367832/Huge2.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/1033454244/Huge2.part3.rar
I recently bought an iPod touch so I could play IF on the move. So that prompted me to add all the Glulx games I add to my mobile collection, and to include some PDFs and even the web-based games I had been able to download (as the iPod touch can run those).
The result is the collection I now bring to you. You should know it's 1.9Gb, and I chose Dropbox because I hear it's the best free filesharing system currently out there, especially for such files as big as this.
The following caveats/notes apply:
* Included in this pack are English, French, Spanish and Italian games. When translations were available, I gave preference to the original language - if it's not English and an english version is available, both are supplied. If it's a foreign translation of an English game, I scrapped the translation. If both versions are non-English, chances are I kept both.
* Blorbed files are kept blorbed, unlike my previous collection, because my interpreter of choice - iFrotz - can read them.
* Playfic games - apart from Nautilisia, and maybe some other high-profile game or two - are NOT included, because until the author of Playfic (an otherwise superb utility) deigns to allow us access to older works, it's impossible to fully sort and collect them. So I'm not trying.
* This is a personal collection. As such, you'll find a few artifacts, like used saved games, or extraneous files.
* Includes Infocom, Scott Adams and Phoenix/Topologika games. As far as I know, the documentation is included - at least, as much as I could find.
* And speaking of Scott Adams, a work of caution - Savage Island Pt 1 is sadly known to suffer from a faulty conversion and is unwinnable in its Inform form. Worse yet, God knows how many other Scott Adams games suffered from the same fate. Play at your own risk (but that's a standard caveat for any SA game, anyway)
* If this pack is not, at this date, complete, please do let me know. Please do.
* Be aware that some games will not work with some interpreters, and I expect some of these might not work in any mobile environment at all. But if you just want a huge collection for your desktop, then you should be a-OK.
* If some games are not up to date... well, blame the author for not announcing it properly. I tried to be as up-to-date as possible. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find the latest versions of some games, particularly French games. And those that come in Glulx format and ZCode format, where the ZCode release number is higher than the Glulx one? Nightmarish.
* z6 games ARE included. This is because the maintainer of iFrotz has stated that he would like to support this format, in the future, and I thought I'd might as well make sure the games are there when he did!
* I don't plan on updating this list - it's not supposed to be an archive, just something I finished today and wanted to share. In case, you know, someone else had the hankering for a complete collection of games for their mobile. Could happen. Maybe.
* Naturally, this collection is about 1% masterpieces, 14% great pieces, and 60% solid crap (with the remainder going between great and not so great. Also, I'm guesstimating like hell). Be warned.
* Also included are the games known as the "University of Michigan Dearborn CIS 487 games" (see http://groups.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis487/z5/index.php). I don't know anything about them, but I can guess that they are end-of-term projects from students. I haven't played them all but I've played enough to say that none are spectacular, and quite a few are atrocious - but mostly because it seems the authors aren't really as familiar with IF conventions as they should be. Taking that in mind, it should be possible to appreciate some of these pieces.
* There is an utility for "ZCoding" Quill/PAW games (once-popular game-authoring systems for Spectrum and Commodore). I tried it out once. It didn't work very well for me, and besides, who knows how much those games rely on their graphics, which were lost in the conversion. So I chose not to "ZCodify" them... but if I had, you can bet they'd be here too.
* Currently, there may be some AIF games missing, as I only realised a couple of days ago that my AIF collection wasn't entirely complete (I didn't know about the ERIN Newsletter page). Also, I haven't included "Flexible Survival" because that one is currently being updated at a very quick pace which shows no signs of slowing down.
Well... enjoy. :) If you have a mobile interpreter which can play these (I reccommend iFrotz if you can, coupled with FileApp and DiskAid, which is how my collection is organised) have fun! If not, you may still wish to download this as it's, AFAIK, a complete list of Inform/Glulx games.
And again, if you find an omission... do, please, do let me know.
(let me know if the link doesn't work, I'm new to this Dropbox thing)
http://rapidshare.com/files/3768487092/Huge2.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/3562367832/Huge2.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/1033454244/Huge2.part3.rar
I recently bought an iPod touch so I could play IF on the move. So that prompted me to add all the Glulx games I add to my mobile collection, and to include some PDFs and even the web-based games I had been able to download (as the iPod touch can run those).
The result is the collection I now bring to you. You should know it's 1.9Gb, and I chose Dropbox because I hear it's the best free filesharing system currently out there, especially for such files as big as this.
The following caveats/notes apply:
* Included in this pack are English, French, Spanish and Italian games. When translations were available, I gave preference to the original language - if it's not English and an english version is available, both are supplied. If it's a foreign translation of an English game, I scrapped the translation. If both versions are non-English, chances are I kept both.
* Blorbed files are kept blorbed, unlike my previous collection, because my interpreter of choice - iFrotz - can read them.
* Playfic games - apart from Nautilisia, and maybe some other high-profile game or two - are NOT included, because until the author of Playfic (an otherwise superb utility) deigns to allow us access to older works, it's impossible to fully sort and collect them. So I'm not trying.
* This is a personal collection. As such, you'll find a few artifacts, like used saved games, or extraneous files.
* Includes Infocom, Scott Adams and Phoenix/Topologika games. As far as I know, the documentation is included - at least, as much as I could find.
* And speaking of Scott Adams, a work of caution - Savage Island Pt 1 is sadly known to suffer from a faulty conversion and is unwinnable in its Inform form. Worse yet, God knows how many other Scott Adams games suffered from the same fate. Play at your own risk (but that's a standard caveat for any SA game, anyway)
* If this pack is not, at this date, complete, please do let me know. Please do.
* Be aware that some games will not work with some interpreters, and I expect some of these might not work in any mobile environment at all. But if you just want a huge collection for your desktop, then you should be a-OK.
* If some games are not up to date... well, blame the author for not announcing it properly. I tried to be as up-to-date as possible. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find the latest versions of some games, particularly French games. And those that come in Glulx format and ZCode format, where the ZCode release number is higher than the Glulx one? Nightmarish.
* z6 games ARE included. This is because the maintainer of iFrotz has stated that he would like to support this format, in the future, and I thought I'd might as well make sure the games are there when he did!
* I don't plan on updating this list - it's not supposed to be an archive, just something I finished today and wanted to share. In case, you know, someone else had the hankering for a complete collection of games for their mobile. Could happen. Maybe.
* Naturally, this collection is about 1% masterpieces, 14% great pieces, and 60% solid crap (with the remainder going between great and not so great. Also, I'm guesstimating like hell). Be warned.
* Also included are the games known as the "University of Michigan Dearborn CIS 487 games" (see http://groups.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis487/z5/index.php). I don't know anything about them, but I can guess that they are end-of-term projects from students. I haven't played them all but I've played enough to say that none are spectacular, and quite a few are atrocious - but mostly because it seems the authors aren't really as familiar with IF conventions as they should be. Taking that in mind, it should be possible to appreciate some of these pieces.
* There is an utility for "ZCoding" Quill/PAW games (once-popular game-authoring systems for Spectrum and Commodore). I tried it out once. It didn't work very well for me, and besides, who knows how much those games rely on their graphics, which were lost in the conversion. So I chose not to "ZCodify" them... but if I had, you can bet they'd be here too.
* Currently, there may be some AIF games missing, as I only realised a couple of days ago that my AIF collection wasn't entirely complete (I didn't know about the ERIN Newsletter page). Also, I haven't included "Flexible Survival" because that one is currently being updated at a very quick pace which shows no signs of slowing down.
Well... enjoy. :) If you have a mobile interpreter which can play these (I reccommend iFrotz if you can, coupled with FileApp and DiskAid, which is how my collection is organised) have fun! If not, you may still wish to download this as it's, AFAIK, a complete list of Inform/Glulx games.
And again, if you find an omission... do, please, do let me know.
Segunda-feira, 6 de Agosto de 2012
Gargantuan pack of ZCode games for your portable use
The following link leads to a complete - hopefully! - collection of every ZCode game (within certain conditions - see below) released up to August 6th, 2012.
https://rapidshare.com/files/3165281078/ZCode.rar (302.48mb) (REUPLOADED: "The Day I Mauled Mao" was a more recent, more unwinnable version)
This probably seems like a folly. Well, maybe it is, but now it's a sorted and complete folly I can carry around and play on my mobile phone at any time. I just wanted to share it. :) I play these with ZaxMidlet, and am saving up for a better phone so I can use JFrotzMidlet, which may not be the best interpreter ever but which does fixes some issues with ZaxMidlet. If you have a better interpreter - enjoy!
NOTES
* Included in this pack are English, French, Spanish and Italian games. When translations were available, I gave preference to the original language - if it's not English and an english version is available, both are supplied. If it's a foreign translation of an English game, I scrapped the translation.
* No blorbed files. Because ZaxMidlet, the interpreter I currently use, can't read them, I extracted the story files of every blorbed work. If you'd rather have the blorbs, tough - I did this for myself and for my interpreter of choice. But hey, it's not like you're missing much.
* Playfic games - apart from Nautilisia, and maybe some other high-profile game or two - are NOT included, because until the author of Playfic (an otherwise superb utility) deigns to allow us access to older works, it's impossible to fully sort and collect them. So I'm not trying.
* This is a personal collection. As such, you'll find a few artifacts, like used saved games, or extraneous files.
* Includes Infocom, Scott Adams and Phoenix/Topologika games.
* And speaking of Scott Adams, a work of caution - Savage Island Pt 1 is sadly known to suffer from a faulty conversion and is unwinnable in its Inform form. Worse yet, God knows how many other Scott Adams games suffered from the same fate. Play at your own risk (but that's a standard caveat for any SA game, anyway)
* If this pack is not, at this date, complete, please do let me know. Please do.
* Be aware that some games will not work with some interpreters, and I expect some of these might not work in any mobile environment at all. But if you just want a huge ZCode collection for your desktop, then you should be a-OK.
* If some games are not up to date... well, blame the author for not announcing it properly. I tried to be as up-to-date as possible. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find the latest versions of some games, particularly French games. And those that come in Glulx format and ZCode format, where the ZCode release number is higher than the Glulx one? Nightmarish.
* No z6, because it seems no-one wants to support it anymore (certainly I know of no mobile interpreter that does, and mobile was my target for this collection). Apart from the Infocom games, this also means no "Sunburst Contamination", "Moments Out of Time!" and "Sherlock Holmes Solo Adventures 2" (yes, that one is z6).
* If a certain game has a ZCode and a Glulz version, and if the Glulx version is of a higher release number than the ZCode, then the game isn't included. The reasoning is obvious - the game got too big for ZCode, and if I want to play the game proper I should head to the nearest Glulx VM.
* I don't plan on updating this list - it's not supposed to be an archive, just something I finished today and wanted to share. In case, you know, someone else had the hankering for a complete collection of games for their mobile. Could happen. Maybe.
* Naturally, this collection is about 1% masterpieces, 14% great pieces, and 60% solid crap (with the remainder going between great and not so great. Also, I'm guesstimating like hell). Be warned.
* Also included are the games known as the "University of Michigan Dearborn CIS 487 games" (see http://groups.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis487/z5/index.php). I don't know anything about them, but I can guess that they are end-of-term projects from students. I haven't played them all but I've played enough to say that none are spectacular, and quite a few are atrocious - but mostly because it seems the authors aren't really as familiar with IF conventions as they should be. Taking that in mind, it should be possible to appreciate some of these pieces.
* The file is hosted at Rapidshare, which means that after a certain amount of time of inactivity it will be taken down. I won't bother with trying to keep it active (I suspect very few people will download it anyway). But if anyone does want this and the link doesn't work, give me a call and I'll re-upload.
* There is an utility for "ZCoding" Quill/PAW games (once-popular game-authoring systems for Spectrum and Commodore). I tried it out once. It didn't work very well for me, and besides, who knows how much those games rely on their graphics, which were lost in the conversion. So I chose not to "ZCodify" them... but if I had, you can bet they'd be here too.
Well, that's about it. Cheers!
PS - Turns out I did have to update it after all...
The game "The Day I Mauled Mao" is unwinnable in its present version - "Release 1 / Serial number 110603 / Inform 7 build 6G60 (I6/v6.32 lib 6/12N) ".
The thing is, I don't know where I got that version, which is more recent than the one in the IFDB - "Release 1 / Serial number 081224 / Inform 7 build 5U92 (I6/v6.31 lib 6/12N) ". But the newer version is unwinnable. The older version isn't.
Damn. I can't even tell where I got that 2011 version.
https://rapidshare.com/files/3165281078/ZCode.rar (302.48mb) (REUPLOADED: "The Day I Mauled Mao" was a more recent, more unwinnable version)
This probably seems like a folly. Well, maybe it is, but now it's a sorted and complete folly I can carry around and play on my mobile phone at any time. I just wanted to share it. :) I play these with ZaxMidlet, and am saving up for a better phone so I can use JFrotzMidlet, which may not be the best interpreter ever but which does fixes some issues with ZaxMidlet. If you have a better interpreter - enjoy!
NOTES
* Included in this pack are English, French, Spanish and Italian games. When translations were available, I gave preference to the original language - if it's not English and an english version is available, both are supplied. If it's a foreign translation of an English game, I scrapped the translation.
* No blorbed files. Because ZaxMidlet, the interpreter I currently use, can't read them, I extracted the story files of every blorbed work. If you'd rather have the blorbs, tough - I did this for myself and for my interpreter of choice. But hey, it's not like you're missing much.
* Playfic games - apart from Nautilisia, and maybe some other high-profile game or two - are NOT included, because until the author of Playfic (an otherwise superb utility) deigns to allow us access to older works, it's impossible to fully sort and collect them. So I'm not trying.
* This is a personal collection. As such, you'll find a few artifacts, like used saved games, or extraneous files.
* Includes Infocom, Scott Adams and Phoenix/Topologika games.
* And speaking of Scott Adams, a work of caution - Savage Island Pt 1 is sadly known to suffer from a faulty conversion and is unwinnable in its Inform form. Worse yet, God knows how many other Scott Adams games suffered from the same fate. Play at your own risk (but that's a standard caveat for any SA game, anyway)
* If this pack is not, at this date, complete, please do let me know. Please do.
* Be aware that some games will not work with some interpreters, and I expect some of these might not work in any mobile environment at all. But if you just want a huge ZCode collection for your desktop, then you should be a-OK.
* If some games are not up to date... well, blame the author for not announcing it properly. I tried to be as up-to-date as possible. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find the latest versions of some games, particularly French games. And those that come in Glulx format and ZCode format, where the ZCode release number is higher than the Glulx one? Nightmarish.
* No z6, because it seems no-one wants to support it anymore (certainly I know of no mobile interpreter that does, and mobile was my target for this collection). Apart from the Infocom games, this also means no "Sunburst Contamination", "Moments Out of Time!" and "Sherlock Holmes Solo Adventures 2" (yes, that one is z6).
* If a certain game has a ZCode and a Glulz version, and if the Glulx version is of a higher release number than the ZCode, then the game isn't included. The reasoning is obvious - the game got too big for ZCode, and if I want to play the game proper I should head to the nearest Glulx VM.
* I don't plan on updating this list - it's not supposed to be an archive, just something I finished today and wanted to share. In case, you know, someone else had the hankering for a complete collection of games for their mobile. Could happen. Maybe.
* Naturally, this collection is about 1% masterpieces, 14% great pieces, and 60% solid crap (with the remainder going between great and not so great. Also, I'm guesstimating like hell). Be warned.
* Also included are the games known as the "University of Michigan Dearborn CIS 487 games" (see http://groups.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis487/z5/index.php). I don't know anything about them, but I can guess that they are end-of-term projects from students. I haven't played them all but I've played enough to say that none are spectacular, and quite a few are atrocious - but mostly because it seems the authors aren't really as familiar with IF conventions as they should be. Taking that in mind, it should be possible to appreciate some of these pieces.
* The file is hosted at Rapidshare, which means that after a certain amount of time of inactivity it will be taken down. I won't bother with trying to keep it active (I suspect very few people will download it anyway). But if anyone does want this and the link doesn't work, give me a call and I'll re-upload.
* There is an utility for "ZCoding" Quill/PAW games (once-popular game-authoring systems for Spectrum and Commodore). I tried it out once. It didn't work very well for me, and besides, who knows how much those games rely on their graphics, which were lost in the conversion. So I chose not to "ZCodify" them... but if I had, you can bet they'd be here too.
Well, that's about it. Cheers!
PS - Turns out I did have to update it after all...
The game "The Day I Mauled Mao" is unwinnable in its present version - "Release 1 / Serial number 110603 / Inform 7 build 6G60 (I6/v6.32 lib 6/12N) ".
The thing is, I don't know where I got that version, which is more recent than the one in the IFDB - "Release 1 / Serial number 081224 / Inform 7 build 5U92 (I6/v6.31 lib 6/12N) ". But the newer version is unwinnable. The older version isn't.
Damn. I can't even tell where I got that 2011 version.
Domingo, 29 de Julho de 2012
Plea for every IF designer
Right in the heels of a long rant, comes this appeal. It's short and simple.
Designers: IFDB has a "News" option to let people know that your game has been updated to some more recent version.
Please please please please PLEASE use it. Otherwise no-one will know. And people might play an older version and be completely unawares of a newer, better version. I just checked out the version in my collection of Hoosegow - it was v9. I happened to check out the latest version on IFDB - it was up to 15. Zero feedback. "Heist" offers a z5 file in v4, and an EXE file in v5. Darkiss! is up to v4 in ZCode, but only v3 in Glulx. And these are only cases off the top of my head.
If your game has 15 releases - each one is worthy of a news announcement. It's not spam. It's not flooding the site. We, the players, want to know! We do want to play the latest, bug-free, enhanced versions! Please, everyone, let us know!
Designers: IFDB has a "News" option to let people know that your game has been updated to some more recent version.
Please please please please PLEASE use it. Otherwise no-one will know. And people might play an older version and be completely unawares of a newer, better version. I just checked out the version in my collection of Hoosegow - it was v9. I happened to check out the latest version on IFDB - it was up to 15. Zero feedback. "Heist" offers a z5 file in v4, and an EXE file in v5. Darkiss! is up to v4 in ZCode, but only v3 in Glulx. And these are only cases off the top of my head.
If your game has 15 releases - each one is worthy of a news announcement. It's not spam. It's not flooding the site. We, the players, want to know! We do want to play the latest, bug-free, enhanced versions! Please, everyone, let us know!
Sábado, 28 de Julho de 2012
On the subject of literature in IF, and why it's impossible (and, indeed, silly to try and achieve) as well as some thoughts about something parallel, similar and quite distinct
Are video games, or can they be, art? I think "not necessarily" on
the first, and "definitely" on the second, but this is a widely-debated
issue that I won't concern myself with. I'll be narrowing the field
quite a bit.
Are text adventures, or can they be, literature?
Note I say "literature", not "art." My response to both questions is a resounding "no".
A certain individual, infamous in the IF community, occasionally pops up and delights in bemoaning how little there is of "literature" in IF. As a matter of fact, I think he's 100% right in his analysis, and 100% unhelpful in the way he goes about it. He speaks an unpopular truth, in an unpleasant manner and without seeing any further than his simple assessment of the situation. What's not to dislike about that? But he has a point.
Readers of my posts and reviews will know I'm a very emotional player. I react emotionally to games as I do to art. I enjoy analysing why some games work and why other games don't; why some games grab you by the seat of your pants, and why others leave you going "meh" after a few turns, even if the writing is good, and the plot is good, and the characters intriguing, and the puzzles teasing. And you can't really say "well, some games have art, others just have craft". A very well crafted game will always outshine an artistic, under-implemented, frustrating affair.
So I've given some thought to "literature in IF". A lot of digital ink has been set to digital paper on the various difficulties of the abusive and wandering player, on linearity, on writing descriptions, on pacing. Those are "craft" arguments. I won't aspire to talk of the "art" in the matter, but I will expound upon my emotional-tinged views.
Simply put: a reader is not a player. A player is not a reader. It behooves us to remember this.
When I read a book, however puzzling and provoking it may be, I'm a passive agent. The author is the active agent, and at best, he's set out a puzzle for me to solve - but mostly, he's just telling me a story. I may have an epiphany about a character; I may try to work out who the guilty party is; I may be juggling multiple viewpoints in my head; I may even re-read the whole thing on a totally different perspective; but ultimately, I *read* what the author *wrote*. I experience passively.
Well, obviously, in IF that goes out the window. I'm the player. However much I'm railroaded, Photopia-style, I'm still the moving engine. If I stop, the story stops. If I do something, or fail to do something, the output differs.
It's a wholly different mindset, and that's my point. Passive VS Active. A reader passively takes in the story, a player interacts with it and shapes it.
There is absolutely no space in IF for what we know as "literature". It's impossible. The author of a literary work needs absolute control in order to achieve whatever he/she wants to achieve. Control the pacing; the tone; the narrative voice; even the language. Be it "Os Maias", where Eça de Queirós uses the description of furniture to comment on the characters' psychological portraits, or "Finnegans Wake", with its use of language, or "Of Mice and Men" with it's fascinating play-novella format (fascinating for me, with my background in theatre), or "Moby Dick" with its wonderfully ecletic writing (sometimes somber, sometimes lively, something written as a play, sometimes stopping the whole action to describe a whale skeleton)... the author controls the whole experience.
Obviously this can't happen in IF. So, the gentleman I referred to at the beginning of this post is right. He is also very wrong in the way he goes flaunting this fact, bemoaning that our Plotkins and Cadres and Shorts don't approach, say, Nabokov. He's looking for static-IF literature where he'll never find it.
And here's a thought - "literature" evolved from just plain writing.
IF isn't static fiction. Why should it seek to emulate static fiction "literature"? Why not evolve for itself?
IF will always have text-adventures, dungeon-crawls. Static books will always have people who want to turn a quick buck, or just write for a certain age-group amidst a certain craze (which currently seems to be vampires). So we will always have pure entertainment - not to be scoffed at. Entertainment can keep us happy and active at monotonous times. Solid entertainment is as important as a good laugh.
And if we go looking for higher quality, well, IF is lucky enough to have some very talented writers. And some visionaries. Photopia was interesting in that it opened the door (arguably it'd been open since A Mind Forever Voyaging, but Photopia is, for various reasons, the example everyone talks about) to puzzleless IF, and it's easy to regard it as IF approaching SF (static-fiction), but it's more than that - it opened the way to Rameses, for instance. And the deal about Rameses is that it uses interactivity to hammer home the lack of interactivity. And all of a sudden, "interactivity" is part of the whole experience - we've gone meta in a huge way, not unlike how Joyce went meta with language.
Yes, I know, I'm comparing Joyce to Photopia and Rameses. I won't apologise for it, I've explained *why* well enough.
There is a great deal of IF that I wouldn't consider "literature" - but perhaps we need a new name for what literature in IF would be, because we certainly have the games (stories? works?). Aisle, Rameses, Photopia. Galatea, for its pioneering work, and Alabaster for a more elaborate result of that same work. Blue Lacuna, Make it Good. And oh, there are so many, so many, some even going beneath the radar like "Bliss".
IF is evolving still, and I'm very happy to watch it grow. It's a thing of itself, and will probably never be appreciated by the truly literary crowd, as it requires a very different mindset to experience. It's also growing away from the gaming crowd (arguably has been ever since the late eighties). It's not a book you can participate in, not really; it's a brain teaser, a story, an experience, an experiment, a huge sprawling world where every decision counts, a one room dilly, pure escapism, cerebral stimulation. And for some of us - sadly, not me - it's a trip down memory lane, especially those who still have that Wishbringer stone or those Deadline pills.
It's a thing of itself, and to hell with all facsimiles.
And to hell with trying to find "literature" in IF. It's best suited to SF. IF will have its own, high-quality, well-written, well-programmed, well-designed masterpieces.
Bah, what am I saying? It already has.
Are text adventures, or can they be, literature?
Note I say "literature", not "art." My response to both questions is a resounding "no".
A certain individual, infamous in the IF community, occasionally pops up and delights in bemoaning how little there is of "literature" in IF. As a matter of fact, I think he's 100% right in his analysis, and 100% unhelpful in the way he goes about it. He speaks an unpopular truth, in an unpleasant manner and without seeing any further than his simple assessment of the situation. What's not to dislike about that? But he has a point.
Readers of my posts and reviews will know I'm a very emotional player. I react emotionally to games as I do to art. I enjoy analysing why some games work and why other games don't; why some games grab you by the seat of your pants, and why others leave you going "meh" after a few turns, even if the writing is good, and the plot is good, and the characters intriguing, and the puzzles teasing. And you can't really say "well, some games have art, others just have craft". A very well crafted game will always outshine an artistic, under-implemented, frustrating affair.
So I've given some thought to "literature in IF". A lot of digital ink has been set to digital paper on the various difficulties of the abusive and wandering player, on linearity, on writing descriptions, on pacing. Those are "craft" arguments. I won't aspire to talk of the "art" in the matter, but I will expound upon my emotional-tinged views.
Simply put: a reader is not a player. A player is not a reader. It behooves us to remember this.
When I read a book, however puzzling and provoking it may be, I'm a passive agent. The author is the active agent, and at best, he's set out a puzzle for me to solve - but mostly, he's just telling me a story. I may have an epiphany about a character; I may try to work out who the guilty party is; I may be juggling multiple viewpoints in my head; I may even re-read the whole thing on a totally different perspective; but ultimately, I *read* what the author *wrote*. I experience passively.
Well, obviously, in IF that goes out the window. I'm the player. However much I'm railroaded, Photopia-style, I'm still the moving engine. If I stop, the story stops. If I do something, or fail to do something, the output differs.
It's a wholly different mindset, and that's my point. Passive VS Active. A reader passively takes in the story, a player interacts with it and shapes it.
There is absolutely no space in IF for what we know as "literature". It's impossible. The author of a literary work needs absolute control in order to achieve whatever he/she wants to achieve. Control the pacing; the tone; the narrative voice; even the language. Be it "Os Maias", where Eça de Queirós uses the description of furniture to comment on the characters' psychological portraits, or "Finnegans Wake", with its use of language, or "Of Mice and Men" with it's fascinating play-novella format (fascinating for me, with my background in theatre), or "Moby Dick" with its wonderfully ecletic writing (sometimes somber, sometimes lively, something written as a play, sometimes stopping the whole action to describe a whale skeleton)... the author controls the whole experience.
Obviously this can't happen in IF. So, the gentleman I referred to at the beginning of this post is right. He is also very wrong in the way he goes flaunting this fact, bemoaning that our Plotkins and Cadres and Shorts don't approach, say, Nabokov. He's looking for static-IF literature where he'll never find it.
And here's a thought - "literature" evolved from just plain writing.
IF isn't static fiction. Why should it seek to emulate static fiction "literature"? Why not evolve for itself?
IF will always have text-adventures, dungeon-crawls. Static books will always have people who want to turn a quick buck, or just write for a certain age-group amidst a certain craze (which currently seems to be vampires). So we will always have pure entertainment - not to be scoffed at. Entertainment can keep us happy and active at monotonous times. Solid entertainment is as important as a good laugh.
And if we go looking for higher quality, well, IF is lucky enough to have some very talented writers. And some visionaries. Photopia was interesting in that it opened the door (arguably it'd been open since A Mind Forever Voyaging, but Photopia is, for various reasons, the example everyone talks about) to puzzleless IF, and it's easy to regard it as IF approaching SF (static-fiction), but it's more than that - it opened the way to Rameses, for instance. And the deal about Rameses is that it uses interactivity to hammer home the lack of interactivity. And all of a sudden, "interactivity" is part of the whole experience - we've gone meta in a huge way, not unlike how Joyce went meta with language.
Yes, I know, I'm comparing Joyce to Photopia and Rameses. I won't apologise for it, I've explained *why* well enough.
There is a great deal of IF that I wouldn't consider "literature" - but perhaps we need a new name for what literature in IF would be, because we certainly have the games (stories? works?). Aisle, Rameses, Photopia. Galatea, for its pioneering work, and Alabaster for a more elaborate result of that same work. Blue Lacuna, Make it Good. And oh, there are so many, so many, some even going beneath the radar like "Bliss".
IF is evolving still, and I'm very happy to watch it grow. It's a thing of itself, and will probably never be appreciated by the truly literary crowd, as it requires a very different mindset to experience. It's also growing away from the gaming crowd (arguably has been ever since the late eighties). It's not a book you can participate in, not really; it's a brain teaser, a story, an experience, an experiment, a huge sprawling world where every decision counts, a one room dilly, pure escapism, cerebral stimulation. And for some of us - sadly, not me - it's a trip down memory lane, especially those who still have that Wishbringer stone or those Deadline pills.
It's a thing of itself, and to hell with all facsimiles.
And to hell with trying to find "literature" in IF. It's best suited to SF. IF will have its own, high-quality, well-written, well-programmed, well-designed masterpieces.
Bah, what am I saying? It already has.
Quinta-feira, 12 de Julho de 2012
Interactive Fiction, alias Text Adventures, How I Prefer Thee Above Point And Click Graphical Adventures. Let Me Count The Ways.
1 - Your animators, artists, voice actors and musicians are the best in the world (yes, yes, a clichè, we all know that "our imagination makes the best graphics", so it goes first to get it out of the way).
2 - Moving around is simple and efficient. "n.e.s" and I'm instantly where I want without having to traverse a numbers of different screens.
3 - No pixel hunting! Huzzah!
4 - If I want something done in a room, it will be done (or it will fail) instantly; there will be no fiddly character movement, which can sometimes fail spectacularly even on commercial games.
5 - There are no such things as "hotspots". Oh yes, there is "scenery" and there are "objects", but the difference is never as glaring as in a graphic adventure, that tells you what to ignore.
5a - Therefore, I ignore nothing, and the game-world is that much more vivid.
6 - Typing is automatic, and involves very little effort. It's like thinking with my fingertips. The mouse, however, which must select a verb then an item, or just click on an item, becomes a barrier over time. It even makes my wrist ache the way typing doesn't.
7 - I'm never surprised at an interaction, the way I am if I click "Hand" on a "Bookshelf" and, instead of taking out a book, the PC pushes the whole thing.
8 - Puzzles make more sense! They do, because they have to! A player who is stuck in a point and click adventure will resort to using everything on everything, and like it or not, that makes designers a bit more lax. In IF, if you're stuck, you're going to have to experiment wildly or to stop and really think about it, and "wear puppy" is never ever ever ever EVER going to work.
9 - An IF room can be devoid of interactable objects and still be a lot more exciting than a P&C room devoid of hotspots.
10 - No stupid minigames.
...hang on, there *are* stupid minigames in some IF. Ok, scratch that.
New 10 -Less Fewer stupid minigames.
11 - I control the pace of the gameplay, instead of the voice-actor/character-movement-time/animations-time.
12 - Portability! Yay! Play zcode games on my mobile phone anywhere! I actually played Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Hollywood Hijinx to completion on the go, and with much less hints than I usually require. Fresh mind and all that.
13 - No silly walking-path puzzles (if you don't know what I mean, try one of the early King's Quest games - heck, early? Try any up to King's Quest V! - and reach a fiddly path).
Ok, that's enough. And before you start, yes, P&C Graphical Adventures have their own advantages and their own strong points. But this is a list I've been mentally compiling after playing a lot of graphic adventures, good AND bad.
2 - Moving around is simple and efficient. "n.e.s" and I'm instantly where I want without having to traverse a numbers of different screens.
3 - No pixel hunting! Huzzah!
4 - If I want something done in a room, it will be done (or it will fail) instantly; there will be no fiddly character movement, which can sometimes fail spectacularly even on commercial games.
5 - There are no such things as "hotspots". Oh yes, there is "scenery" and there are "objects", but the difference is never as glaring as in a graphic adventure, that tells you what to ignore.
5a - Therefore, I ignore nothing, and the game-world is that much more vivid.
6 - Typing is automatic, and involves very little effort. It's like thinking with my fingertips. The mouse, however, which must select a verb then an item, or just click on an item, becomes a barrier over time. It even makes my wrist ache the way typing doesn't.
7 - I'm never surprised at an interaction, the way I am if I click "Hand" on a "Bookshelf" and, instead of taking out a book, the PC pushes the whole thing.
8 - Puzzles make more sense! They do, because they have to! A player who is stuck in a point and click adventure will resort to using everything on everything, and like it or not, that makes designers a bit more lax. In IF, if you're stuck, you're going to have to experiment wildly or to stop and really think about it, and "wear puppy" is never ever ever ever EVER going to work.
9 - An IF room can be devoid of interactable objects and still be a lot more exciting than a P&C room devoid of hotspots.
10 - No stupid minigames.
...hang on, there *are* stupid minigames in some IF. Ok, scratch that.
New 10 -
11 - I control the pace of the gameplay, instead of the voice-actor/character-movement-time/animations-time.
12 - Portability! Yay! Play zcode games on my mobile phone anywhere! I actually played Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Hollywood Hijinx to completion on the go, and with much less hints than I usually require. Fresh mind and all that.
13 - No silly walking-path puzzles (if you don't know what I mean, try one of the early King's Quest games - heck, early? Try any up to King's Quest V! - and reach a fiddly path).
Ok, that's enough. And before you start, yes, P&C Graphical Adventures have their own advantages and their own strong points. But this is a list I've been mentally compiling after playing a lot of graphic adventures, good AND bad.
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