intfiction.org

Not sure if anyone here noticed, but there's a new text adventure being published by Cabrera Brothers. It's a commercial release. It's not a CYOA or anything like that; it's a real text adventure with a parser and graphics.

http://www.cabrerabrothers.com

I have to say this looks quite interesting. I don't suppose anyone here has already played it and can comment on whether this is worth buying? (There doesn't seem to be a demo of it.)

Looks amazing. I hope those fairly complicated commands don't mean guess-the-verb.

This was mentioned on ifMUD earlier today; the general impression was that it had shiny peripherals but distinctly-less-than-spectacular writing, and perhaps has a higher opinion of itself than is entirely justified. Then we complained a lot about the website design and made some Malinche jokes. We are bitter old sceptics.

(The comment thread at rockpapershotgun suggests that the parser has all the usual failings of homebrew systems, too.)

First time I've heard of it, but it does look super interesting. Did you notice in the demo video how they replace text in the transcript?

The website is really painful to read, in many ways.

The website didn't bother me at all. The comment thread at RPS is a bit damning, though.

It's a bit hard to tell from the video, but it looks more like clear screen + implicit look (or examine) after every command rather than modifying the transcript itself.

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Vorple UI library — Beta testing site — Blog

Three major no-nos.

Number 1: you can't skip the introductory screens. I don't mean the intro, I mean the "This game brought to you by". Two or three non-skippable screens every time you load the game.

Number 2: You have to type "MORE" at the prompt when there is too much text. Seriously. No "press any key", no "press spacebar" - you actually have to type "MORE" and press return.

Number 3: No "x" for examine. Have these guys ever played a text adventure after the 80s?

Bonus no-no: in the RPS comments, the authors alluded to the myryad of typos and bad grammar as "bugs". They say that bugs are natural in games and software and will be resolved (which is true) and say that typos and such as the "bugs" (which does not put me at ease and makes me think the game itself might be buggy as hell, if these guys don't know what bugs are).

Presentation? Very slick. Looks cool. And I have absolutely zero desire to play it.

I guess it is a starting point, anyway. I'm thinking about the same interface (graphics, sound et al.) around an Inform or Tads parser.

What I don't understand is that much, offensive hatred generated in RPS.

But you see, the same interface around an Inform or TADS parser would automatically be better, because TADS and Inform have been improving their parsers for decades.

And as for "starting point"... Legend Entertainment was a starting point too. So was, in a sense, Textfyre. Surely we've had enough of "starting points", we want quality now. And CYPHER seems to fall short on some key points on the briefest of glances (and while there *may* be a good game under there, who's going to actually pay for it if the very first impressions are like "have these guys even been playing IF lately?").

I bought the Textfyre games, and I'm glad I did, and I'll keep buying them. I couldn't afford to help Kickstart Haedan Lands, but I'm buying it when it comes out (for PC, anyway). But this? It isn't worth my money.

...ok, so I turned a bit hostile myself. But maybe you can know understand the reasons.