4 ms·
Emily Short, Zarf, Adam Cadre. All masters breaking the boundaries of the IF genre. Adam Cadre's Photopia [1] made me choke some tears. His 9:05 [2] is darkly
by the_af 4y ago
Emily Short, Zarf, Adam Cadre. All masters breaking the boundaries of the IF genre.
Adam Cadre's Photopia [1] made me choke some tears. His 9:05 [2] is darkly comical, and is fun to explore again once you know what it is about.
Zarf's Spider and Web [3] is both a thrilling spy tale and a subversion of text adventure mechanics. For those who are never going to play this game, a minor spoiler. The setting is a fictional Cold War-style spy setting, your "adventure" is you being interviewed by your captor, recounting your story so far; for much of the game, whenever you make a false move -- the kind which would result in your death in a traditional adventure -- your captor will just simply tell you "...except that's not what actually happened, is it?" and rewind the story to the last checkpoint, where something has changed.
Then there's Rematch [4]. It's essentially a one-move game. One move -- that is, one complex multi-clause sentence -- and you die, except if you figure it out. And the kinds of things you can do in that one move are very complex!
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[1] Photopia: http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html
[2] 9:05: http://adamcadre.ac/if/905.html http://adamcadre.ac/if/905.html
[3] Spider and Web: https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/ https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/
[4] Rematch: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=22oqimzgf8snv002 https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=22oqimzgf8snv002
- Bakary 4y agoVaricella is amazing, too. (the game, not the infectious disease)
- the_af 4y agoYes! I forgot. To be honest, there are too many cool and genre-breaking IF games to list.
- Bakary 4y agoThere are two games I have really enjoyed but that I'm unable to find again - A single room game where you have to get rid of your inventory (it's a lot more compelling than it sounds) - Having to figure out a constructed language in a tribal setting to get medicine for your son
- the_af 4y agoBoth sound interesting. I've played enough IF to know just "getting rid of your inventory" is a promising starting point!
- cenazoic 4y agoI think the second one is The Gostak, by Carl Muckenhoupt: https://www.ifwiki.org/The_Gostak https://www.ifwiki.org/The_Gostak
- Bakary 4y agoI definitely want to play the game you just linked and thanks for alerting me to it. However, in the game I was thinking of, the parser and descriptive text are in English, but characters speak in the constructed language and only respond to it
- olvy0 4y agoSpider and Web is such an awesome game. I remember playing it years and years ago, possibly circa 2005, on the bus on my way to my first job, on my old and battered Nokia phone, for which I found a IF interpreter somehow. I remember at one point I managed to overcome a tricky part of the game, then lifted my head and smiled to myself, satisfied. Then I saw that the game printed at me "You smile in the darkness" and I went "wtf". People stared at me. At that time not too many people were busy with their phone during bus rides.