Text Adventure
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Things get weird when a neural net is trained on text adventure games
We've seen people turn neural networks to almost everything from drafting pickup lines to a new Harry Potter chapter, but it turns out classic text adventure games may be one of the best fits for AI yet. This latest glimpse into what artificial intelligence can do was created by a neuroscience student named Nathan. Nathan trained GPT-2, a neural net designed to create predictive text, on classic PC text adventure games. Inspired by the Mind Game in Ender's Game, his goal was to create a game that would react to the player. Since he uploaded the resulting game to a Google Colab notebook, people like research scientist Janelle Shane have had fun seeing what a text adventure created by an AI looks like.
Simogo launches The Sensational December Machine on PC, Mac
Hot on the heels of launching its last narrative-driven game roughly one month ago, Simogo offered another game today for free, The Sensational December Machine. The Device 6 developer just teased the PC and Mac game on its Twitter account yesterday before offering it as a holiday gift to its fans today. Simogo's last game, The Sailor's Dream, was received rather well in our review and is available on iPad for $3.99. The Sensational December Machine is a "short interactive story about an inventor and her unusual new creation." The brief interactive story took three weeks to create and includes hand-drawn art and text as well as "dynamic music" that evolves alongside the story provided by Daniel Olsén, the composer for Device 6 and Year Walk. "We hope you'll snuggle up with this little seasonal, and very three-dimensional, tale in fullscreen mode," the developer added. "Perhaps with some good headphones, and a warm drink by your side." The Sensational December Machine can be downloaded through Simogo's website. [Image: Simogo]
Steam begins selling all-text interactive fiction with Heroes Rise
Text adventure developer Choice of Games placed the literary RPGs in the Heroes Rise series on Steam's shelves this week. Both games, The Hero Project and The Prodigy, are 33 percent off ($1.99 each) until June 24. The Heroes Rise bundle, which includes Perfect Legend Guides for both games and a "Warning System" add-on for The Hero Project, is 20 percent off ($3.99) until June 30. This marks the first time a pure text-only adventure (without complimentary audio and visual elements) has been available on Steam, according to Choice of Games. The developer's previous works include Choice of the Dragon, Mecha Ace and Neighbourhood Necromancer, some of its text adventures being freely available to play on its website while others have mobile versions for platforms like iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Other visual novels that found a home on Steam include Christine Love's Analogue: A Hate Story in April 2012 and its follow-up Hate Plus in August 2013 as well as Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest, which was Greenlit for Steam distribution in January. [Image: Choice of Games]
Adventure Time creator turns game maker as Twitter plays Pendleton Ward
Pendleton Ward is no stranger to gaming. His popular cartoon, Adventure Time, frequently references video games and tabletop roleplaying games, and even features an anthropomorphic video game console as a recurring character. Perhaps it's little surprise, then, that Ward would create a game (or something closely resembling a game) on Twitter. Yesterday, Ward tweeted an image of a jail cell with the caption: "You wake up in a dungeon cell. What do you do:" Ward then accepted input from other Twitter users, drawing the results, as if players were experiencing a classic text adventure game. He's since renamed his Twitter account "Quest Attack" and has continued to draw out players' progress and commands. It's kind of like Twitch Plays Pokemon, only there's a real human being being directed by the mob of onlookers. Since the game is operating in real-time, it gets put on pause every so often when Ward needs to take care of real-life business. Such as business lunches. [Image: Cartoon Network]
Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy playable for free online
The BBC has released a free online version of Infocom's classic PC text adventure The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the game's initial release. Designed by "Hitchhiker's Guide" author Douglas Adams, Infocom's game mixes humor, sci-fi, and frequent player death for an experience many regard as a high point in the text adventure genre. The BBC's latest adaptation follows up on a previous 20th anniversary re-release, and boasts improved in-game navigation along with a virtual keyboard suited for touch screens. If you plan to play through this one, remember to save frequently. That bulldozer is a killer. [Image: Infocom / BBC]
EVE Online, now in text adventure form
While it came out last July, EVE Online: The Text Adventure has only now come to our attention and so we bring it to yours. This satirical fan project attempts to "look at a day in the life of a grounded pod pilot, poking fun at CCP Games and some of their developmental missteps whilst celebrating the community and the people involved with EVE Online." The adventure takes a few spirited jabs at CCP's "walking in stations" concept while challenging players to explore and perhaps escape their officer's quarters. If you're a fan of the MMO or need a quick diversion from the mundanities of life, give it a whirl and see if you can't beat it.
Jaws: The Text Adventure eats yachts in your browser
Over the years, we've found that sharks are pretty awesome, and that text adventure games are equally great. A new browser-based game called Jaws: The Text Adventure seeks to combine the two. Created by indie developer Matt Round for UsVsTh3m, the HTML5 game has players controlling the infamous shark on a quest to fill its stomach with whatever it can find. It's a funny little excursion that offers multiple endings and a few hidden references to the 1975 Steven Spielberg-directed film.
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.
GOG gets Zork [something, something, eaten by a grue]
I gave Police Quest some good-natured ribbing for its antiquated presentation, but that was before I learned today's other Good Old Games addition was The Zork Anthology, which includes Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero and Planetfall (the lone non-Zork title). Sure, you get six games for six bucks but (and I'm not making this up) they don't have any pictures. Like, none. If I was scoring the graphics, I'd give them a "None" because they don't have them. OK, Zork Zero has a graphical user interface and a couple of graphical minigames, but that's a slim part of one of the six games. That may be statistically significant in your book, but not mine. Nope, I'm sticking with no graphics. Some of the guys on staff will chide me and say that I shouldn't disparage a hilarious, important series of games just because there are no pictures to accompany the text-based adventures. Then they'll probably say something about a grue. They've got a point, sure ... but like, no graphics. Zilch. Six dollars may be a steal, but it's also a mighty big gamble on whether or not you still have a functioning imagination.
Livescribe hack lets you play Zork with (smart) pen and paper
Livescribe's pen certainly seems like a hackable enough device, but for some reason we haven't seen many hacks or mods that make the smart pen even smarter (or dumber, for that matter). One big one quietly popped up last month, however, and has apparently gone largely unnoticed until now. YouTube user "chipos81" has managed to port Infocom's Z-Machine virtual machine to the pen (the Echo, specifically), and you know what that means: Zork on paper. Look down. Examine link. Go past break. Watch video. [Thanks, Charlie]
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.
> Text adventures come to Kindle, other e-readers
We're ... we're just so proud of all the would-be e-readers. Following known non-book Scrabble's ascent to the top of the Kindle sales charts, we learn from Ars Technica that a handful of gaming entrepreneurs have brought Zork I, II, III and Mini-Zork to the Kindle and other e-readers. While an e-reader's typically nubby keyboard might not be the best form of input for an interactive novel like this, we're strong supporters of any innovation that allows us to use our books to play video games. One hang-up, though -- can't we get a game on the Kindle that doesn't require so much reading?
Impressions: Action Castle
We ask for your patience as you attempt to wrap your mind around the concept behind Action Castle: It's a text adventure akin to Zork, only the dialogue and choices are conducted by speaking -- no pen, paper or arduous typing is involved in the process. Can you comprehend that? If so, you're one step ahead of Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik (a.k.a. Gabe), who was flummoxed when presented with a live demonstration of the "game" during the PA Q&A panel yesterday afternoon. Check out a NSFW video of the demo after the jump. We missed the first part of the presentation, but here's the prompt which kicked things off: "You are in a cottage. There is a fishing pole here. Exits are out." Hilarity ensues.
VC in Brief: Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom (NES)
Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom is your usual text-based adventure game, with a decidedly vegetarian twist. It's tough for us to provide you with a comprehensive look at a genre with so much content -- plus all of the trial-and-error. It wouldn't make for a very comprehensive and enlightening video, however we soldier on. Check out the latest episode of VC in Brief above! Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (NES, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Every week, we like to check out what's new on the Virtual Console. We offer these videos as a sort of taste to help you decide whether or not you would want the game in question. We also toss in our own two cents because we're pushy jerks like that.
J.J. Abrams would like to make a Zork game
OK, so maybe not a Zork game per se, but some sort of text adventure would be right up Infocom fan (and Lost creator) J.J. Abrams' alley. That revelation comes from a recent conversation the writer/producer/director had with MTV, which you can find after the break. Though he's at least half-kidding, he says he'd be interested in trying to create a really good parser and simulation of human interaction.His text adventure fondness shouldn't come as a complete surprise, considering that Locke and Co. spent all of Season Two playing the world's most boring adventure game.
Frotz brings text adventures to the iPhone App Store
Ever since the iPhone App Store launch last month, we've been on the hunt for apps we can load on our fancy phones and not forget about immediately. Occasionally something pops up but, sure enough, we manage to forget about it in a matter of days. But here ... this is different. Frotz we'll keep around for a long time. Some of you may be familiar with Frotz; it's a Z-machine, used to read and, therefore, play interactive fiction. Yes, that's "text adventures" for you old timers. Now that the app has made it to the iPhone, we can explore Zork's Great Underground Empire from anywhere. The app is free, comes with a bunch of public-domain IF titles, and you can "specify other download repositories" if you're more interested in nabbing some of those Infocom classics. Might we recommend Steve Meretzky's classic Leather Goddesses of Phobos?[Thanks, Hank]
Gradius as a type-em-up
Some game series are strong enough in setting, storyline, and theme that they work well in multiple genres. Super Mario RPG comes to mind as a good genre change, though it isn't exactly 100% faithful to its source material. Perhaps the best transition has been The House of the Dead 2, which went from light-gun shooter to typing game to English trainer. Postman, of the blog Shoot the Core (apparently a Gradius fan to begin with), has reimagined Konami's legendary shooter in a much slower-paced gametype: an Infocom-style text adventure. The results, predictably, are awesome. It's Gradius! Even as a completely different, vaguely nonsensical game, it's great.[Via Game|Life]
Snatcher Pilot Disk ported, fantastic
Fresh off its abridged port of visual novel Fate/Stay Night: Trial Edition, Multiple: Option has posted another homebrew adaptation of a text-heavy game, Snatcher Pilot Disk.This release is based on the PC-Engine demo of Hideo Kojima and Konami's acclaimed adventure title, but uses still images from the Sega CD version. Though there isn't much players can do to deviate from the game's very linear progression, the cyberpunk plot and voice acting keep Snatcher Pilot DS interesting. For those of you who demand interactivity beyond selecting text options, there's also a fun bug-blasting segment towards the end.Unfortunately, this "pilot" comprises only the first act of the full Snatcher game, taking players through the J.U.N.K.E.R. headquarters and factory scene (Multiple: Option does not plan to port the complete game). Still, it's an entertaining, 10-minute experience worth playing through. [Via PAlib]
Text adventures arrive on the DS via unofficial channels
We can't tell you to download them (in fact, we'll tell you not to), but we can definitely applaud the technical achievement. A homebrew genius called papafuji has ported a massive selection of classic text adventures and early graphic adventure games to the DS, including all of Infocom's text adventures and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams' interactive fiction.These aren't just barebones ports, either: you can save games, and you can choose to enter text via an onscreen keyboard or handwriting input! And the game engine contains shorthand functionality for common commands like cardinal directions and "get". Some of the games are public domain, but most aren't, and we aren't sure which games fall in which category. Therefore, we're officially warning you: if you download these games, there's a good chance that you are a pirate.[Thanks, Joq!]
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.
