In-depth: Is it time for a text game revival? For years, the traditional publishing industry has been telling us that nobody wants story-driven adventures or game forms oriented around interactive storytelling. But the Kickstarter age has been showing us something a little bit different, amid successful fundraising for developers of renowned adventure games of yore. But there's more than just nostalgia contributing to a potential revival for interactive stories. A broader gaming audience means appetites for game forms we might have once called "casual" in another time -- and furthermore, the popularity of tablets and e-readers means there's a real appetite for game forms that take advantage of a culture now habituated to reading on luminous screens in ways prior generations were widely not. In a market where books and games are close rivals for the most popular category on app stores, what happens when today's new gamers are hungry for something more than word puzzles? Text gaming: Back to the roots Playing with books, too
Interactive Fiction Top 50 of all time (2011 edition) People were asked to send in a list of between 1 and 20 of their favourite IF games of all time (in no particular order). The number of points a game got was the number of lists on which it appeared. 35 participants cast a total of 437 votes on 183 different games; only the 48 games with 3 or more points are listed below. More information can be found here and here. News & updates (RSS) Details Games and Awards 1st Place: Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin2nd Place: Lost Pig, by Admiral Jota2nd Place: Photopia, by Adam Cadre4th Place: Anchorhead, by Michael Gentry5th Place: A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Steve Meretzky6th Place: De Baron, by Victor Gijsbers6th Place: Blue Lacuna, by Aaron A. This is version 6 of this page, edited by Victor Gijsbers on 1 October 2011 at 04:25 PM
Fabled Lands Interactive Fiction: Playing, Studying and Writing Text Adventure Games (Dennis G. Jerz, Seton Hill University) Brass Lantern Downloading and Running Text Adventures: Z-Code and AGT Z-Code Z-code games are, to some extent, the most complex of the ones discussed in this article. Z-code games are written for a virtual machine known as the z-machine, which was developed by Infocom. All of Infocom's text adventures ran on the z-machine, and the text adventure language Inform creates z-code games by default. Z-code game files come in several varieties: .z3, .z5, .z8, and sometimes .dat. Most z-machine interpreters are variants on one of two basic types, Frotz and Zip. Once upon a time AGT bestrode the world of amateur interactive fiction like a Sauroposeidon. The AGT interpreter was originally only available for MS-DOS, but Robert Masenten wrote AGiliTy.
inkle » blog | interactive literature It's finally ready, and looking more beautiful than ever: the first part of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! will be hitting the Google Play and Amazon App stores on the March 12th. Prepare to journey through the Shamutanti Hills, face deadly foes, and explore hundreds of different branches, areas, with thousands of choices, all of which are remembered. You can save as many different play-throughs as you want, ready to pick them up in Part 2 - which is over four times as long, and adds a host of new features. Originally released for iOS last May, Sorcery! A long time coming So - we promised this at least six months ago. Our developer, Iain Merrick, has managed to recreate the underlying iPhone and iPad systems used for user interface, imaging, audio and much more, in around three months. It also means Sorcery! Actually - it's not quite a copy. (The best thing about this port? What news on Part 3? We're typing away furiously, but we've got a few more months to go.
The Interactive Fiction Database - IF and Text Adventures Interactive Fiction Interactive fiction was the first great computer-game craze. Through the early 1980s, the most sophisticated, complex, involving games available were the text adventures. Everyone agreed. Of course, advancing graphics eventually washed away IF’s supremacy. I’ve been part of that community for a decade and a half. You can play my games freely (and for free). (Okay, except for Hadean Lands. If you’ve never played IF before... Everyone’s heard that IF is hard to play. Furthermore, most situations in every game are amenable to a handful of common commands. (Click for PDF version, HTML version, print-quality bitmap, or others. If you still feel overwhelmed, I recommend you start with The Dreamhold, listed below. Hadean Lands An interactive alchemical interplanetary thriller. This is my next game. Bigger Than You Think Fanfic of xkcd “Click and Drag,” with a dash of Invisible Cities Marco Polo tells the Khan of an unusual underground journey. Cold Iron Where's that axe? The Matter of the Monster
Interactive Fiction Interactive fiction was the first great computer-game craze. Through the early 1980s, the most sophisticated, complex, involving games available were the text adventures. Everyone agreed. Go look up up old videogame rating charts; Infocom was always on the list — with several games. Of course, advancing graphics eventually washed away IF’s supremacy. By 1990, all the text game companies were closed, or about to be. I’ve been part of that community for a decade and a half. You can play my games freely (and for free). (Okay, except for Hadean Lands. If you’ve never played IF before... Everyone’s heard that IF is hard to play. Furthermore, most situations in every game are amenable to a handful of common commands. (Click for PDF version, HTML version, print-quality bitmap, or others. If you still feel overwhelmed, I recommend you start with The Dreamhold, listed below. Hadean Lands An interactive alchemical interplanetary thriller. This is my next game. Bigger Than You Think Cold Iron Shade