I’m reading through it and finding it pretty interesting. I am a little worried by his insistence that anything with puzzles is really just making a game tedious and adds no enjoyment. This seems to be a personal preference and really doesn’t belong in a “history”. Personally I find puzzles to be interesting and fun, but I’m also a fan of literature and good story telling. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy both types of IF and games that balance the two would be the best IMHO.
I agree Dastari. There are some really good games in the archives that balance them well. I agree with what has been said about ‘consistent puzzle mechanics’ being a good way to achieve this. Thinking back most of my favourite games work that way.
Laroquod came up with quite a comprehensive list right there.
When you’re fed up with the original mainframe or early PC classics and their inconsistency and roughness, there’s only one way to go: Infocom games and the renaissance brought forth by TADS, Inform and the annual intfiction competition…
I come from the console world too, Megaman dude. I agree much of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy glory can be traced back to IF indirectly through Ultima and rogue-likes… in particular, I see echoes of Floyd the robot from Infocom’s Planetfall in Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII…
Oh Infocom is the “goal”. I just saw how much it costs to buy those games used so I thought I’d start with the free stuff that’s easily downloadable. My intention is to at least play all of the Infocom games though and any other games from the Infocom period that are recommended to me by people while I work my way up to what’s hot these days.
It is trivially easy in this day and age to acquire all of the Infocom games, including documentation, for free, and there is really no good argument to be made that it is unethical, since these games are so old that for most of them there is no way to buy commercially (a few of the less interesting ones are on GOG.com I hear), and even if there were a way to buy them, zero of that money would ever get back to actual designers of the games. Furthermore, the company that would receive the benefit of your cash is Activision and in my opinion they do not deserve it. Money given to Activision does not serve the cause of supporting small, indie, or retro game designers — just the opposite.
I would just have linked you to a download page without any of this preaching, but linking to abandonware is against the policy here and despite my strong views that piracy in these cases is preservationism and an absolute cultural good, I have reluctantly agreed to abide by that policy.
Paul.
Nord and Bert?
If you want to talk about playing with language. My Dad got a little worried about me spending so much time with this game. It’s totally about playing with language, and … well, isn’t an adventure game per se, but it is interesting and makes you think around corners…
Anyone?