I now have a gameplay video online on the Facebook page - www.facebook.com/RewindTrilogy, in which I narrate the features of the interface and take you through the first couple of locations.
Feedback would be much appreciated 
You’ll want to set the video settings to HD when you watch though, otherwise you can’t read the text!
Another day, another update
I’ve now managed to work out a way of making the Rewind interface fit on lower resolution screens, and will be posting comparison shots of small and large screens on Facebook later. Basically, the window remains at the fixed width of 750 centred horizontally, but the vertical height scales down to fit on a 768 screen without losing any of the interface - the story panels just overlay the background.
I’m pleased with this, as I really didn’t think it would look good on small screens.
These are the instructions that came with my 1988 Interactive Fiction offering “The Sentient”. I intend to build much of the functionality described into Rewind, especially if I can work out how to get the source code off of a 5.25 inch floppy diskette…
REAL TIME ADVENTURES:
THE SENTIENT
By Simon Burford
Real time adventures work in exactly the same way as normal adventures insofar as the game tells you what you can see and what is happening, and you tell the computer what you want to do.
However, with real-time adventures, there is an added element of realism. As you play, other characters in the game move around of their own accord, events take place and the universe moves on, whether you are typing anything or not. People in the adventures move around and carry out events, and you will only learn of these if you are in the same place when they do something, or if you go there later and discover something that they have done. If you find that events are moving too quickly for you to keep up, then the real time universe can be paused at any time by pressing the escape key.
As events transpire, text will scroll onto the screen to tell you about things, as in “Jane enters”. If you are in the middle of typing something at the time, then you will be interrupted by the new text, but will be able to carry on typing while it is being scrolled or afterwards. Scrolling text does not affect what you are typing.
The parser in real time adventures is very advanced, and will understand either simple or complex phrasing of commands. Sometimes, you will be required to phrase your command in a long form, but at other times you will only need to type two words. Examples of commands accepted by the games are:
GET BOOK
TAKE THE LARGE BROWN PAPERBACK FROM THE TABLE
NORTH
Also, you will find that you can talk to the other characters in the game in a lot more detail than you have been able to before. Not only can you ask them questions about the game, but you can ask them to perform quite a lot of the things that you yourself are able to do. Usually, the most useful things the characters can do include taking things and dropping them, following you around and moving at your command. They can also answer questions.
You may talk to characters in two ways, the simplest being to type the name of the character followed by a comma and what do you want to say in speech marks. The other way is to type a command with a SAY verb, and tell the game explicitly who you want:
JANE, “WHERE IS THE SACRED MOUNTAIN?”
ZWEEBA, “GO NORTH”
SAY “MOVE THE STONE” TO BOBBY THE BARMAN
Another powerful facility in the game is multiple phrasing of commands. Rather than having to type lots of commands to perform a simple set of tasks, you can use one command to perform a lot of them at once. You can perform a command on a series of objects by specifying each object on the command line, separated by commas or the AND command. For example, the following are valid multiple phrased commands:
GET THE BOOK, THE PEN AND THE LETTER
PUT THE BOOK AND THE PEN IN THE SAFE
Further to all this, the popular ALL command has been included, along with its sister command EXCEPT. Using these two words, you can explain to the game in a rather powerful way exactly what you want to use and what you don’t want to use. ALL refers to all items in the room, except when you use it with DROP, in which case it refers to everything in your inventory. Because of this, some commands will not work properly if you are using ALL to refer to items in the cupboard, for example. The following are all powerful commands utilising these facilities of the adventure:
GET ALL
PUT ALL IN THE CUPBOARD
GIVE ALL EXCEPT THE PAPERBACK AND THE BOOK TO PETER
EXAMINE ALL EXCEPT THE PEN
When you use the ALL facility, items that are being acted upon are displayed on the screen. For example, if you typed the command:
EXAMINE ALL
and there were a pen, a book, and a letter in the room, then you may get the response:
(Pen) the pen is gold plated and embossed.
(Book) the book is very thick, and complex.
(Letter) it is sealed.
Another feature of these games is the ability to put several commands on one line, provided that you do not type a command that exceeds the screen length of 80 characters. To place several commands on one line, you can either separate them with full stops (.) or use the THEN command. When you mix multiple phrasing (see above) with this feature, you will begin to appreciate exactly how complex your commands can get. The following will all be understood by the adventure:
GET ALL. NORTH. EAST. LOOK
NORTH THEN KILL THE ORC
GET ALL EXCEPT THE PEN AND THE PACK OF CARDS THEN GO THROUGH THE DOOR
when you begin the adventure, the function key F1 is defined as a special key. It has the effect of cancelling the command in effect and prompting for you to enter another command. If, for example, you had taken every single item in the entire game and dropped them all in one place, the computer might take quite a long time to retrieve everything when you typed GET ALL. Pressing the F1 key tells the computer to stop what it is doing and not get anything else.
A handy feature of this adventure lets you define the other nine function keys as you want. At the bottom of the screen is a bar on which the first six letters of each function key definition can be displayed all the time. You can define a function key by typing a definition in the following syntax:
SAVE FOLLOW TO 4
The effect of this will be to redefine key F4 as the word FOLLOW. If you then subsequently press the F4 key, then the command FOLLOW will be displayed: this can be used with common commands to save typing time in the game. If you include a semicolon at the end of the command when saving it to a key, then the computer will also enter it for you:
SAVE FOLLOW; TO 4
will enter the command FOLLOW when key F4 is pressed.
The following is an example transcript. It does not come from The Sentient, but will help you to understand some of the features. Some of the utilities of this game have not been explained here, and you will have to find them for yourself. The game has a vocabulary of several hundred nouns and verbs, so good luck in playing…
I am in a large shed, which contains some cows. Although I have no idea how I got here, I can see that there is an exit through the barn door to the north. From outside, I can hear muffled shouting.
There is a bucket and a cow here.
GET ALL
(Bucket) I have now got the bucket.
(Cow) how do you expect me to carry a cow?
NORTH
You are in a field. There is a cloud in the sky, and the only noise is that incessant muffled shouting that I mentioned earlier.
John and Peter are here.
JOHN, “HELLO”
John looks at me: “Who the hell are you?” He says.
JOHN, “TELL ME HOW I GOT HERE”
“Help me find my bucket,” replies John, “and I’ll tell you anything you like.”
GIVE THE BUCKET TO JOHN
John accepts the gift: “Thanks” he says.
EXITS
You can go south and east.
EAST
I am on a walkway over the river Mucham. A small bridge to the east separates me from the other side. There is a bull in the way.
… and so on.
Some special commands that you may find helpful are as follows:
AGAIN repeat your previous command. Can be abbreviated to G.
INVENTORY tells you what you are carrying. Can be abbreviated to INV or I.
LOOK remind you where you are.
EXITS tells you in which directions you can go.
QUIT ends the game.
RESTART restarts the game from the beginning.
SAVE/RESTORE allows you to save a game in progress to a floppy diskette, or restore a previously saved game.
You may also find the following of help:
A) To find out what the other characters are carrying at any time, you can just examine the character.
B) Always examine everything. You may discover things.
C) In The Sentient, more memory has been used on programming the parser, the ability to talk to people, the detail in which rooms are described, and the in-depth real time universe. Therefore, you will find a lot of fine detail in a very small area, and will have a lot that you can do even if you are stuck with a problem. Talk to people, and they may help you.
D) if you don’t know where to find something, the easiest way to find out is to ask Bobby the Barman. He is from a race of psychics, and will be able to tell you where any object or any person is located, provided that that information is not concealed by the game…
Good luck with the adventure. If you can’t keep up with the unfolding universe, then press the pause key (escape) while you have a think. Remember, though, that the game is more fun when you have the challenge of time to race against…
Reminds me of the Doppy And Pru trilogy.
I don’t remember getting anywhere in them, it was pure chaos. I somehow did win the second one, The Asylum, mostly by luck. I was thoroughly irritated by the real time elements. Then again, I found the real time elements in Border Zone just right. It’s all in how you do it, I suppose.
I don’t intend to have any real time elements in Rewind until near the end, as a sort of way of upping the challenge for advanced players. I’m more interested in what I did with the ability to command NPCs to do your bidding back then, which makes for much more interesting puzzles.
Consider:
You’re standing on the bank of a raging, crocodile infested river. Your friend Peter is on the other side and on the other bank with him is a gold coin that you want. In normal IF, you’d have to find a way across the river without drowning or being eaten by crocodiles. With the ability to get NPCs to do anything you can do just by referring to them and putting the command in speech marks in the form of speech, you can now do this:
PETER, “TAKE THE GOLD COIN”
PETER, "THROW THE GOLD COIN ACROSS THE RIVER
TAKE GOLD COIN
This makes, I think, for a whole new element of gameplay. The fact that you can’t see what’s happening to Peter if you send him into a maze and shout instructions to the middle from outside - hmm, now that could be evil.
My memory of The Sentient is that the real time elements were mainly people moving about, picking things up and putting them down - sort of like the minions in Dungeon Master 2. I don’t think I got overly complex with the puzzles, but I’m sure it would make for some interesting ones. You could, for example, leave something somewhere and wait for somebody with higher security clearance to pick it up randomly and move it into an area you can’t get to.
On a somewhat unrelated note, and hoping it’ll give you food for thought, I’ve always felt that the IF solution for ordering people about (“NPC, action” - I’d lose those speech marks if I were you) is elegant, sensible, and highly impractical. It’s OK when you want to use it once or twice, but playing Ollie Ollie Oxen Free quickly became very frustrating because of this. Ordering someone about in this manner is possibly the best solution we currently have, but if you have to do it at length, oh boy.
I can’t think of a better solution, except maybe to temporarily switch the PC to the character you’re commanding, and there’s lots of reasons why you may not want to do that.
Anyway. Just ranting a bit, hoping that some of it’ll help you make the best game you can. 
You’ve never played Curses, I see. 
(ok, so this may be a spoiler for anyone reading who hasn’t played Curses, but look, you’ll thank me for it when you do)
EDIT - Somewhat unrelated note, Fail-Safe is a game everyone should play. You rely on an NPC’s feedback the entire game.
Things to check out, there. If I can work out a way of getting the bleeping source code for all my old games off the bleeping 5.25 inch diskettes, then I can see how I went about a lot of stuff back then
PC games, I mean. All my TI99/4a games load perfectly well on my old TI and I can view the source code, but getting code from an 80s pre-pc era computer onto a modern iMac without physically typing it all out again will be… Interesting.
That man might be a lifesaver
Update: With a bit of luck, there will now be a limited demo of Rewind: Interactive Edition for PC, as I’ve just purchased a developer license from Xojo to do so. If the Kickstarter pitch is successful when launched, I’ll be able to buy licenses to compile to other platforms and release further playable demos as development continues, but for now I reckon a demo for PC will reach the biggest audience.
Watch this space.
I’ve just uploaded a 29 second teaser comprising the start of the Kickstarter pitch to the Rewind Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/RewindTrilogy.
It’s not much, just a little taster with more to come
What rewards would YOU like to see?
With only weeks to go before I launch the Kickstarter campaign to bring the Rewind universe to a computer or tablet near you in the form of an epic interactive adventure, I’d like to hear what rewards you would like to see in return for your donation toward the goal.
Whether you give £2, £5 or £1000, what would you like to see in return by way of perks? Obviously, I plan to give out copies of the game and limited edition items as is expected from any self-respecting Kickstarter pitch, but what would YOU like to see?
Rewind: Interactive Edition can only make it past the planning stages with funding from its potential players, and I want my backers to feel as though they’ve got something other than a game to show for it.
Over to you.
Feelies? they seem to be pretty common rewards for backers; something like a poster or some other printable related to the story maybe?
I’m a big fan of feelies - I have an original TI Zork box in front of me. Well, technically to the east of this big White House I’m standing in front of, but you get the picture. There’ll be plenty of them. The current gifts on the preview Kickstarter page are a starting point, but I’d like to know what people would really love to see that might be maybe a bit different
I’m currently working on a demo of Rewind for PC, which hopefully should be released over the next week or so - you’ll be able to explore the first areas of the game, including the airlock, changing rooms, market street and the apartment block where Kantrell lives with his wife Marie - up to and including your character’s arrival home and encounter with a security droid.
At the end of the demo, the game will analyse how you did and make suggestions about what you missed, allowing you to go back and see more.
So here’s the million dollar question: what would YOU like to see in the full version of Rewind? What features did you always think we’re lacking from interactive graphic fiction that technology now has the ability to fix? Who knows - if it’s good, I may well cram it in there for you
Like cool interfaces, but torn about your secret love for minimalism? Rewind: Interactive Edition has the solution.
I’ve just posted some screenshots on the Rewind Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/RewindTrilogy) showcasing the new “Old School” mode in the upcoming demo - with just the click of a button, you can toggle the interface between full colour and a simple white option in which the graphics are branded onto the background and the text reverts to good old black on white.
The really handy thing about Old School mode is that you can toggle it on or off any time you choose - so if you decide to play the game by candlelight in a darkened room and the interface makes your eyes hurt, you could actually choose to play the whole game in Old School mode and just flip over to the full colour version whenever a new graphic background appears to see it in all its colourful glory!
Screenshots comparing the standard and Old School interface can be seen at www.Facebook.com/RewindTrilogy
Inline graphics are now in place, so that the Rewind demo is able to display illustrations in with the text as you play. There’s a screenshot on my Facebook page at Facebook.com/RewindTrilogy.
I’ve just this moment realised that I can post images on this forum, so I’ll be doing that later. I’ve been using the quick entry box at the bottom of the posts and for some reason that doesn’t provide any attachment ability 
Ok, here are some screenshots from Rewind, showing in-line illustrations and the difference between playing in full colour and Old School mode.
Looks gorgeous and no mistake. I’m really looking forward to that demo!
Thank you kindly. One of the things I want to do with any funds raised on Kickstarter is give the game a full atmospheric soundtrack to go with the visuals - something well outside my time or cash flow at the moment. I don’t simply mean ambient sounds for the room you’re in - if you open a door, you’ll hear the door open, if you walk across a gravel beach you’ll hear your footsteps as you do so, just for a moment.
The demo will be a mere taster of what’s to come