InteractiveFiction
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Linden Lab releases Versu, an interactive fiction system for iPad
Linden Lab is best known for putting together the old social MMO Second Life, but more recently the company has been getting involved in tablet development, releasing its first iPad app last year. Today, Linden has released another app, and like Creatorverse and Second Life, this app is more of an engine than a game -- it's an interactive fiction platform essentially, designed to upgrade the idea of traditional text adventure games into something more replayable and dynamic. Versu is what it's called, and you can download it for free on the App Store right now. There are only a few stories available right away, with most of them based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. As you can see in the app, the action plays out like a text adventure: you get a description of the surroundings and the setting, and then can interact with various characters at different moments, either engaging them in dialogue, or performing certain simple actions. The big innovation here is that Versu allows you to play through the same scene or story from multiple perspectives, so you can play once through as one character, and then play through the same scene again as another character, playing out different reactions every time. Unfortunately, what's available right now with Versu isn't very much -- the platform's potential is impressive, but the current content is more of a demo than anything else. But the app's FAQ says this will turn into a content creation system very soon, and that seems like the fun part: users will be able to create their own characters, actions and even stories, and fit them into the Versu system. There have been some really intriguing interactive fiction games showing up lately, and Versu could do a lot to really expand upon and improve that genre -- if it can get those content creation tools out and running. In the meantime, you can check the app out for free, and you should, if you want a look at what Linden Lab has been working on. Hopefully, they'll open the platform for creation very soon, and then we should see some really intriguing uses for this new app.
They Might Be Giants fans celebrate 'Apollo 18' anniversary with geekiest tribute imaginable
We love us some They Might Be Giants, and not just because the two Johns took the time to sit down with us for an episode of The Engadget Show last year. Of course, we're not the only ones out there with a strong appreciation for the fiercely original New York duo. When you've got a fanbase as geeky and devoted as TMBG's, you're bound to get some strange and wonderful tributes out of the deal. Take "Apollo 18+20: The IF Tribute Album," a collection of 38 interactive fiction games created to pay homage to the 20th anniversary of one of the group's most beloved albums. Ever wondered how "I Palindrome I" would play out, were it a text-based computer game, instead of a rock song? Manonam, click the source link to find out.
Interactive fiction meets interactive typewriter, pilfers the kingdoms of Zork (video)
You are standing in an open field as usual, or perhaps you're in the darkness, likely to be eaten by a grue, but the words aren't etching their way into your soul from the familiar computer terminal -- they're on freshly printed paper. Like a player piano, the Automatypewriter lets you play games like Zork by automatically keying in letters via a series of solenoids and fishing line to tell you where you are, and it records your input, too; every time you type "XYZZY" in vain, it's an Arduino board that sends signals to the text parser, which directs a hollow voice to pity your foolish word. Forget the iPad typewriter -- this is old-school. See it in action after the break, or hit the source link for the schematics to build one yourself. Just be sure to install Planetfall, too.
Interactive fiction on the iPhone
Before the iPod and the iPhone, there was iFiction-- err, interactive fiction, which is what we now call what I used to know of as "text adventures," those text-based games where you moved "north," "look," and then "pick up phone."But now, interactive fiction has met the iPhone-- spathiwa has created a z-machine interpreter for the iPhone, which means that (once you've jailbroken it), you too can play all the old favorites-- Hitchhiker's Guide and Zork, and even newer (relatively) stuff like So Far. I never even considered the idea of typing "eat analgesic" with the iPhone's text entry, but combining old school gaming with new school gadgetry is always cool.The latest version (.2) even saves games when the iPhone is put to sleep, so now you can play your favorite text adventure till the end where ever you take your iPhone.Thanks, Mark!
The History of Zork examines a legend
The idea of a commercially successful videogame with nary a single picture is, in today's market, absurd. But there was a day when the typed word reigned supreme, and Zork was the undisputed king. Gamasutra has just posted a thorough history of Zork discussing its lasting impact on games and the gaming community. The article is the first in what will be a series of features presenting detailed official histories of each of the first ten games voted into the Digital Game Canon.A whole generation of gamers have grown up with graphics as the centerpiece of entertainment. Many haven't played a single text-based game, let alone the granddaddy of them all. Despite its downtrodden reputation with the "new, hip" modern gamer, interactive fiction is thriving with authors such as Emily Short stretching the boundaries with every release. Even though text adventures aren't as flashy, they're the stuff real gaming is made of.
Interactive fiction writer Emily Short talks about her craft
Emily Short doesn't design dull or formulaic interactive fiction. Each one of her releases is remarkable in some way, whether it's a technical achievement or artful storytelling. Her 2000 title Galatea centered around player and non-player character interaction, creating one of the most believable NPCs ever. Her latest work, Floatpoint, won the 2006 Interactive Fiction Competition and was top in several categories in the annual XYZZY awards.Gamasutra recently interviewed Emily about one of her games, Savoir-Faire, and the process of creating interactive fiction. The interviewer gives a fascinating example of Emily's programming prowess. Savoir-Faire features an intricate linking system where similar objects can be tied together through the use of spells. The interviewer linked a cuckoo clock with a snuff box. A few turns passed and a message popped up saying the box had opened -- and then closed. A bit later, the same message appeared. Random coincidence or unsightly game glitch? Far from it. By linking these items together, the box was "programmed" to open every time the clock struck the hour. That sort of logical creativity is what keeps Emily's interactive fiction at the top of our must-play list.
XYZZY interactive fiction awards dispensed
The annual XYZZY awards have been announced, flaunting the gobs of creativity still flowing from the interactive fiction community. Overall best game went to Eric Eve's The Elysium Enigma, a science fiction story that casts you as an Imperial officer charged with contacting a technophobic settlement on a remote planet. Best setting and NPCs went to Floatpoint (which also won the 2006 Interactive Fiction Competition), Emily Short's deep and mysterious story about a human settlement on a far planet in desperate trouble. Notice a sci-fi theme with remote planets this year? A dozen other categories were also voted on, so check the winners list for the complete collection.
Hotel Dusk: worth reading or worth playing?
In his attempts to solve the enigma buried within the story of Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Wired's Clive Thompson gets caught up in another mystery entirely. Is Hotel Dusk a game or a novel? While the general consensus is that the DS adventure is somewhat of a novel game (see what we did there?), the copious amounts of text, glacial pacing and rigorous story lead Thompson to believe that the distinction between Hotel Dusk and an "average airport novel" is less than clear.Interestingly, he suggests that interactive elements like branching dialogue are the prime culprits in not only seperating the game from a novel, but preventing it from telling a story on par with the best of books. The piece concludes that games like Hotel Dusk and Phoenix Wright represent compromises between the interactive nature of games and the unresponsive presentation of books -- terms like "novel" and "interactive" don't quite capture the experience the games try to convey. It's a good read, but we'd be remiss not to append our own conclusion: Hotel Dusk is a choose-your-own-adventure novel!
Interactive phiction: Zork phone demo is online
Remember ZoiP (née Zasterisk), the open source implementation of the text-adventure classic that you play on the phone? Installation required rolling up your sleeves and installing some *NIX-y stuff which, despite my urgent desire to experience this, I never got around to doing. Fine, the real reason I never got around to doing it was because the project's author, simon, promised to have a call-in number available to test the project out. Why do today what someone else will do for you later, y'know what I'm saying?It's later and, true to his word, simon's put the public beta of ZoiP online. All it took was a little linkage from Boing Boing, Make: Blog, digg, and ... ahem ... Joystiq to get the old motivation meter up. Here's how you do it: Call 416-548-7557 (Toronto, ON, Canada) which is the "best quality." Otherwise try 360-226-7386 (WA, USA) which is "a little choppy." Or use a SIP-compliant program like Gizmo and add zoip@demo.zoip.org and dial out. This method worked the best for me (and it's free). I'm not sure if it's just me, but some calls seem to go much better than others in regards to voice recognition. On some, I can roll right through, other times I'm stuck repeating myself more often than "blue" in Brain Age. He warns to speak naturally, as "careful enunciation actually seems to make things worse." Give it a shot and let us know how far you get.
Stuck on hold? Zork is the new soft jazz
Forget Michael Bolton, Zork is the best hold music ever! From Zasterisk:"I was tinkering with Asterisk and the Festival text-to-speech engine, and wrote some short Asterisk::AGI scripts to read back live weather reports. After that, I thought I needed something more interactive to work with..."Now Zork is back! Listen as the eerie voice of Festival takes you into the Underground Empire, and marvel as you explore this world with your dial pad, unlocking the secrets within!"You'll need to install the Asterisk open source phone-switcher (*NIX only, that includes you Mac users), the Festival text-to-speech application, and then let Zasterisk work its special brand of magic, turning that boring phone tree into a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Too much work, you say? Good news! On March 13th the project's creator, simon, announced "over the next few weeks I'll be putting a public beta online for you to call in to." A few weeks is, like, right now! We're officially on the lookout.[Via Boing Boing]
WoW: The Text Adventure
This Wired column takes a sideways look at WoW, re-imagining it in the form of a text adventure. It's an excellent parody of some of the gameplay mechanics we've come to know and love, but I find it interesting for other reasons too.Having managed to log over ten days of play in a MUD character in the past (my WoW habit now puts that to shame), I wonder if the addictiveness of text-based multiplayer gameplay is often underestimated by those who joined the game when graphics were the de facto standard. After all, a great deal of the social interaction in WoW is done via text, even in this age of emotes and stunning visuals--that addictive social factor was a huge part of what kept me playing the MUD, and what keeps me playing WoW.
WoW reimagined as a text adventure
Lore Sjöberg, formerly of Brunching Shuttlecocks, has reimagined massively multiplayer online role-playing juggernaut World of Warcraft as... what else? A text adventure! It begins:"You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is an elf with an exclamation point above her head here.>Talk elf"Alas," she says. "There is a great darkness upon the land. Fifty years ago the Dwarf Lord Al'ham'bra came upon the Dragon Locket in the Miremuck Caverns. He immediately recognized the ..."> Click Accept"Hey," the elf protests. "This is important expository. Azeroth is a rich and storied land, with a tapestry of interwoven ..."> Click Accept"Good stuff. When will the practice of reinterpreting things as text adventures get old? (Don't answer that if you disagree!)See also:Gamers respond with Thompson text-adventuresHamlet - The Text AdventureIraq war as text (mis)adventure[Via Boing Boing]
