4 ms·

Too bad so few people turned up to play the Interactive Fiction Competition this year. Only about ~50 votes per game were recorded on average. I think people li

Too bad so few people turned up to play the Interactive Fiction Competition this year. Only about ~50 votes per game were recorded on average. I think people like to reminisce rather than play I.F., or maybe we've all been broken by 3D. The winning game in 2020 was truly whimsical, and the Magpie scored a place in the top-5 again! https://ifcomp.org/ https://ifcomp.org/

Waterluvian 6y ago
I find these games super boring alone but so much fun in small groups. I think they need to be designed as a facilitator of a story, ultimately played and told by you and your friends. Kind of like if the story part of D&D was a standalone product where the software is the DM.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  > but so much fun in small groups. In my 40+ years playing IF, I never considered this. What an interesting idea. I did play an email correspondence campaign in the early 90's but that was a ton of work for the DM since he was writing pages and pages of story. But it was a fun in-between.
- cproctor 6y ago
  In my academic studies using IF to teach CS [1], I've found it can be very powerful to "play" or "tell" stories in person. (These are middle- and high-school students.) Usually, at the end of a class authors will volunteer to share their stories, and then they will ask for a volunteer to be the protagonist while the author reads as the narrator. (This becomes important when the stories are serious and touch on real-life situations where it could be painful to have someone else misread, misinterpret, or make fun of your story.) [1] Proctor, C., & Garcia, A. (2020). Hogg, L., Stockbridge, K., Achieng-Evenson, C., & SooHoo, S. (Eds.). Student voices in the digital hubbub. Pedagogies of With-ness: Students, Teachers, Voice, and Agency. Myers Educational Press. https://chrisproctor.net/media/publications/proctor_2020_pedagogies.pdf https://chrisproctor.net/media/publications/proctor_2020_ped...
- skybrian 6y ago
  I don't know how to find the reference, but I read somewhere that originally they were meant to be played in groups, sort of a campus-wide puzzle contest.
zorked 6y ago
I play some IF here and there and the comp is my go-to place for what to play. I'm frequently years late though. It's not a thing I think I should track in real time. Infocom games were nice and all but modern IF is where it's at. The genre moved forward, there's better design, better stories, more interesting mechanics. Gigantic labyrinth worlds that you can't win because you missed a one-time chance to pick up bubblegum in the first area of the game isn't something that is done anymore.
- hubblesticks 6y ago
  I grew up playing Return to Zork and just missed the original Zorks. I couldn't get into them but really wanted to. I love the execution of IF and the stories they weave. What would be a good modern IF to jump into that isn't as punishing as the original Zorks, and not too hard for an IF newbie? Thank you!
  - anthk 6y ago
    Anchorhead.
    - brox 6y ago
      For those familiar with the original 1998 version, note that a remastered and illustrated edition was released in 2018--worth a replay and a good way of supporting the author! https://store.steampowered.com/app/726870/Anchorhead/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/726870/Anchorhead/
      - 7thaccount 6y ago
        I don't use Steam, but would gladly play this on pretty much anything else.
        brox 6y ago
        You can buy it on itch.io as well: https://www.anchorhead-game.com/purchase/ https://www.anchorhead-game.com/purchase/
mbunch 6y ago
It's frustrating how hard of a sell the text medium can be, especially with how creative authors have grown to explore what visual media isn't well-suited for. So many of my avid gamer friends just won't give anything with such a minimal UI an honest shot, even if they loved playing similar games in the past when it was more of a necessity. Incidentally, I was actually thinking of submitting something that I'd been working on for the competition, but I didn't think it would qualify since it was already publicly distributed. It's up at https://writtenrealms.com/worlds/7996/brimstone-prologue https://writtenrealms.com/worlds/7996/brimstone-prologue, so if anybody is into this kind of thing and has some time to kill, I'd actually love to hear any feedback!
jmcgough 6y ago
I think a lot of people who would have played IF now play visual novels.

Waterluvian 6y ago

I find these games super boring alone but so much fun in small groups. I think they need to be designed as a facilitator of a story, ultimately played and told by you and your friends. Kind of like if the story part of D&D was a standalone product where the software is the DM.

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
> but so much fun in small groups. In my 40+ years playing IF, I never considered this. What an interesting idea. I did play an email correspondence campaign in the early 90's but that was a ton of work for the DM since he was writing pages and pages of story. But it was a fun in-between.
cproctor 6y ago
In my academic studies using IF to teach CS [1], I've found it can be very powerful to "play" or "tell" stories in person. (These are middle- and high-school students.) Usually, at the end of a class authors will volunteer to share their stories, and then they will ask for a volunteer to be the protagonist while the author reads as the narrator. (This becomes important when the stories are serious and touch on real-life situations where it could be painful to have someone else misread, misinterpret, or make fun of your story.) [1] Proctor, C., & Garcia, A. (2020). Hogg, L., Stockbridge, K., Achieng-Evenson, C., & SooHoo, S. (Eds.). Student voices in the digital hubbub. Pedagogies of With-ness: Students, Teachers, Voice, and Agency. Myers Educational Press. https://chrisproctor.net/media/publications/proctor_2020_pedagogies.pdf https://chrisproctor.net/media/publications/proctor_2020_ped...
skybrian 6y ago
I don't know how to find the reference, but I read somewhere that originally they were meant to be played in groups, sort of a campus-wide puzzle contest.

zorked 6y ago

I play some IF here and there and the comp is my go-to place for what to play. I'm frequently years late though. It's not a thing I think I should track in real time. Infocom games were nice and all but modern IF is where it's at. The genre moved forward, there's better design, better stories, more interesting mechanics. Gigantic labyrinth worlds that you can't win because you missed a one-time chance to pick up bubblegum in the first area of the game isn't something that is done anymore.

hubblesticks 6y ago
I grew up playing Return to Zork and just missed the original Zorks. I couldn't get into them but really wanted to. I love the execution of IF and the stories they weave. What would be a good modern IF to jump into that isn't as punishing as the original Zorks, and not too hard for an IF newbie? Thank you!
- anthk 6y ago
  Anchorhead.
  - brox 6y ago
    For those familiar with the original 1998 version, note that a remastered and illustrated edition was released in 2018--worth a replay and a good way of supporting the author! https://store.steampowered.com/app/726870/Anchorhead/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/726870/Anchorhead/
    - 7thaccount 6y ago
      I don't use Steam, but would gladly play this on pretty much anything else.
      - brox 6y ago
        You can buy it on itch.io as well: https://www.anchorhead-game.com/purchase/ https://www.anchorhead-game.com/purchase/

mbunch 6y ago

It's frustrating how hard of a sell the text medium can be, especially with how creative authors have grown to explore what visual media isn't well-suited for. So many of my avid gamer friends just won't give anything with such a minimal UI an honest shot, even if they loved playing similar games in the past when it was more of a necessity. Incidentally, I was actually thinking of submitting something that I'd been working on for the competition, but I didn't think it would qualify since it was already publicly distributed. It's up at https://writtenrealms.com/worlds/7996/brimstone-prologue https://writtenrealms.com/worlds/7996/brimstone-prologue, so if anybody is into this kind of thing and has some time to kill, I'd actually love to hear any feedback!

jmcgough 6y ago

I think a lot of people who would have played IF now play visual novels.