intfiction.org

Kent Tessman posted an interesting bit of trivia about the top downloads at the Interactive Fiction Archive (http://www.ifarchive.org/). The post, which some may already have seen, is here:

http://www.joltcountry.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4003&sid=abd4ea178d4095cfd98f795227025e18

That's pretty interesting. I think the only Hugo game I've played so far is "Distress," and the only game on the top downloads list that I've played is "Curses" (both of which I liked a lot). What are "Fallacy of Dawn," "Guilty Bastards," and "LASH" about? Which ones are Hugo? What are your recommendations?

"Fallacy of Dawn" is a game by Robb Sherwin. I'm embarassed to admit I haven't played it either. "Guilty Bastards" is a mystery by Kent Tessman (creator of Hugo itself). Both feature graphics. Both were written in Hugo. LASH, I'm even less familiar with. It stands for "Local Asynchronous Satellite Hookup" (so says the IF Wiki), and was written by Paul O'Brian. It's supposed to be really good.

I really ought to play some of these games myself. Generally, I stick to console games (XBox, GC, PS2, DS, whatever), and play IF only around competition time. I'm probably missing a lot of good, classic IF that way.

I find that with so many games to choose from, it's hard to pick one out to play.

There are various "must play" lists out there. I may hunt around and post a list of them, when I get a chance.

One thing seems a little discouraging, though -- and this is a little off the topic. Most of the "highly recommended" IF, or the IF that gets discussed and mentioned frequently, is the older stuff, from IF's "revival" (mid to late 90's -- maybe 2000 and 2001). It seems more difficult for new authors to really make a mark now, or write a classic game, because there are bodies of work and certain authors that seem to have the market cornered on what's considered important and relevent today.

Is "Fallacy Of Dawn" an adult game? I'm sure I heard someone say that the "fallacy" in the title actually referred to, um, a sexual organ . Or am I thinking of a completely different game?

I've played "Guilty Bastards" - one of the first IF games I played after getting on the internet about five years ago. Damn good game. Never played "LASH" but I've heard good things about it.

Fallacy is not AIF. (There is a sex scene, but not really.)