Infocom's Dave Lebling Interviewed 152
flip-flop writes: "The Adventure Collective has an interview with Dave Lebling, of olde Infocom fame. The quite lengthy Q&A covers topics such as the early days of Infocom, what Dave is doing these days, and even the origin of the name "Zork." A must-read for anyone old enough to remember those legendary text adventures ... *sigh* Those were the days: 'Get up. Turn on light ...'"
and here... (Score:1)
Yellow (Score:4)
Re:ASCII is all we ever needed (Score:1)
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Re:aaaahhhh zork... (Score:5)
Is it just me or do all of the text based roguelike authors seem to have some dread fear that someone somewhere might win the game?
I especially remember rogue (I still play it once in a while) where it seems like anytime your character starts doing good (you find the two handed sword, a ring of rust resistance (or whatever it's called), and some nice armor the RNG will decide to do you in and stop putting food on the levels, leaving your adventurer to eventually starve to death or faint while fighting a dragon.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Re:Hitchhiker's Guide (Score:1)
--
Hitchhiker's Guide (Score:3)
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Asylum!!! (Score:2)
Asylum [swobi.at] wasn't Infocom, it was published by Med Systems, and it was the most amazing thing ever published on the TRS-80. The company later did a IBM PC port that I actually saw once, but it seems to have dropped off of the face of the net.
Asylum had a parser every bit as good as Infocom's, but they added a terrific 3d graphics display on the TRS-80's 128x48 pixel display. Asylum was immersive in a way that very few other games I have ever seen were, and in only 16k. Really one of the best adventure games ever published.
And it was HARD.
Med Systems [lysator.liu.se] also published an excellent adventure game called Lucifer's Realm, in which you had to go to hell and convince the devil to let you go to heaven.
All of these games were in many ways more exciting than the Infocom ones, because they melded graphics and a first-rate adventure parser that really took advantage of the *cough* awesome power of the TRS-80.
- jon
Re:Any NEW converts out there? (Score:2)
>j00 533 4 d00r
0p3/\/ d00r.
>th3 d00r 15 10x0r3d.
Un10j00 n33d 4 k3y.
Wonder what he thinks about Neverwinter Nights? (Score:2)
Re:Audio Zork (Score:2)
Would have been fine, except Enchanter ONLY took "NE" and "northeast" to mean Go NorthEast (and same for NWSESW) and I couldn't get Dragon NS to think of NorthEast as one word...it kept separating them. And "Spell 'N','E'" didn't seem too much more successful either. I finally gave up on it.
--
You know, you gotta get up real early if you want to get outta bed... (Groucho Marx)
Re: I remember! (Score:2)
You wake up. The room is spinning very gently round your head. Or at least it would be if you could see it which you can't.
It is pitch black.
>get up
Very difficult, but you manage it. The room is still spinning. It dips and sways a little.
>turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
Bedroom
The bedroom is a mess.
It is a small bedroom with a faded carpet and old wallpaper. There is a washbasin, a chair with a tatty dressing gown slung over it, and a window with the curtains drawn. Near the exit leading south is a phone.
There is a flathead screwdriver here.
There is a toothbrush here.
>get robe
Luckily, this is large enough for you to get hold of. You notice something in the pocket.
>open pocket
It's hard to open or close the pocket unless you're wearing the gown.
>wear gown
You are now wearing your gown.
>look in pocket
Opening your gown reveals a thing your aunt gave you which you don't know what it is, a buffered analgesic, and pocket fluff.
>take pill
You swallow the tablet. After a few seconds the room begins to calm down and behave in an orderly manner. Your terrible headache goes.
Re: Damn it... (Score:2)
Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:1)
I want to see a FPS combined with air combat simulation, tank simulation, strategy, and adventure--a complete battlefield.
Re:Play! via Webinterface (Score:1)
Mind you I don't have a secret passphrase so I couldn't get in to have a look at it. Is there a web page somewhere with some more details on it?
Re:VikingMUD (Score:1)
Re:game packaging (Score:1)
Yeah, I loved the cloth map in Ultima V (the last, great Ultima before that isometric drek); a very nice touch, and actually useful in the game, too.
Re:Other than Infocom (Score:1)
Watson, "Where is the doctor?"
Oh, in case you've forgotten: They also had the very popular adaption of The Hobbit and the way less popular adaptions of the first two volumes of LotR.
Re:The Rewards of Text-Gaming (Score:1)
I have this problem where I havn't been able to solve any interactive fiction games. I've put all of my efforts into Jigsaw lately, because it's rather big but the sub-plots are small. Maybe I'll finish it someday... I even gave up on the Kings Quest series.
Oh I can remember... (Score:1)
If it wasn't for infocom I probably would have gotten my masters in CS..
no wait, that was the beer that stopped that progress....
Oh well
All roguelikes are winnable. (Score:1)
Re:Any NEW converts out there? (Score:2)
You can kill the thief. He's just really tough.
Audio Zork (Score:5)
What if you got a good narrator to record all the text from a game, and hooked up a speech-to-text engine for input. Then you could put it on a laptop, sit back in your favorite chair, put on some headphones, close your eyes and just imagine... completely and totally immersed in the story in your mind.
It wouldn't be too hard to do; the main impediment would be to get some decent voice talent to do the recordings. Otherwise, it should be doable entire with existing open source code.
(okay, there is one other problem - copyright. but maybe if this was done in an open source freely available way, they wouldn't mind...)
interview with steve meretzky there as well... (Score:4)
http://www.adventurecollective.com/articles/inter
from the interview:
Re:It makes one misty eyed. (Score:2)
>Open pants
Pants are open.
>Get hot grits
You already have hot grits.
>pour hot grits in pants
Natalie Portman is petrified of hot grits in your pants.
...
A CmdrTaco appears.
>Hello.
The CmdrTaco screams: Yuo troll! No hto girts or Natalie Protman err allowed at my diskusion bord! Your are to reed my PERL cod 5 tims befroe you're can go ot slep!
>Back!
Contacting images2.slashdot.org.........
Server is not responding.
>Please God no!
You have been Taco-spaghettified to death.
--
Old Commie? (Score:2)
FWIW, I had a Vic 20 to play the Scott Adams adventure games, then a PCjr where I finally got into Infocoms
Hell, I went out and bought Trinity and Buerocracy back in 1989 for my first year of University (still using the 5 year old PCjr at that point), and I STILL haven't solved them! I swear, a year of post-modernist critique damaged my faculties beyond repair. :)
Re:too bad.... (Score:1)
She showed me the suit of commands like mfeel, gsex, msex
What do the mfeel, gsex, and msex commands actually do?
Scott Adams (Score:1)
Oh, the OTHER Scott Adams. He has released a new game last year called Return To Pirates Island 2 [msadams.com]. You can also
play online version of his classic games [javaarcade.com].
Plot vs Graphics (Score:3)
Of course, you didn't have to pay artists and musicians, either.
Yes, some of today's games have good stories, but too many rely on whiz-bang graphics and sound and skimp on actual playability.
--
Charles E. Hill
What does a plot have to do with playability? (Score:3)
Tetris has no plot.
DooM/Quake et al never needed one, it was good that Epic realized this with Unreal Tournament.
you can't unilaterally say games suck because they don't have plots. if a game depends on its plot for part of its interest and enjoyment, and the plot is weak then yes, that is a fault.
but if it's merely extraneous,.. then that's like complaining that zork never had fancy graphics.
...dave
Play! (Score:5)
http://infocom.elsewhere.org/ [elsewhere.org] Telnet mode
http://www.saturn.powerup.com.au/ddesoto/infocom.
---
Zork! (Score:1)
The best way to burn your brain, and it runs great on a C64...
Re:Porta-zork (Score:1)
You know you spent too much time playing HHGTTG (Score:3)
Between HHGTTG, Planetfall, Zork I and II, Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Deadline, I lost many hours of my childhood. And I'll never regret it as long as I live.
Now, if only I can find that Infocom Masterpieces CD for less than the $80.00 it goes for on eBay.
ASCII is all we ever needed (Score:2)
------------------------
Everquest?? (Score:2)
I guess that's where all his coding time has gone then. This game is one of the biggest time wasters around, but for some reason it's a lot of fun.
You are in a maze of twisty passages all alike (Score:2)
You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all alike...
Re:Porta-zork (Score:1)
Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:2)
No. I disagree. Most of the rich people that I know are dumb as rocks, so I discount the connection between cerebral and affluent. I think that Al Lowe (creator of Leisure Suit Larry games) said it best:
This quote was taken from his interview at at Applelinks
http://games.applelinks.com/moofie2001/al3.shtml [applelinks.com]. It's another good read with a giant from the golden age of adventure games.
--
Re:aaaahhhh zork... (Score:2)
Re:HHGTTG question.... (Score:1)
Re:Infocom- proof that programmers can be artists. (Score:1)
Re:Infocom- proof that programmers can be artists. (Score:2)
2) I was referring to the creators of Infocom games, who were both programmers in the grandest sense as well as artists of serious calibre. "Interactive" fiction is made up of TWO pieces, the "interactive" part (programming) and fiction (an artform).
If you don't think that Infocom games merit consideration as art, then you're an absolute idiot and I'd be surprised if you could program your own VCR.
Infocom- proof that programmers can be artists.. (Score:5)
Today's 'graphical extensions' of Zork might be a game like "Myst", or some of the other visual adventure games with puzzles-to-solve in the process. There are some parallels even in games like "Resident Evil" and other largely linear, puzzle-based games.
But in honesty, the beauty and genius of Infocom's games won't be replicated in a graphical gaming environment. As soon as the computer screen was doing the rendering that previously was up to the NVidia card in your head, your head didn't have to trouble itself.
Infocom games demanded that players use both their imaginations (to visualize the written word) and their problem-solving skills (to solve the myriad of problems encountered in the course of gaming).
I think that, while enormous imagination goes into *creating* today's best games, I think most require a lot less imagination on the part of the player. Games are becoming more cinematic. This isn't an entirely bad thing, but it is sad that the current generation of gamers are going to miss out on the truly rewarding experience of text-based adventure gaming.
And I still remember which so vivid clarity the profound emotion that Infocom games were able to cultivate during gameplay... I remember my abject terror when being captured by Krill's minions in "Enchanter" - madly scrambling to find a way out of the cell, only to be sacrificed on the altar by Krill himself, a glowing blade plunged into my heart. - I remember how hard I laughed when Floyd, the genius robot with the maturity of a 6-year old from "Planetfall" first starting took out a crayon and wrote his name on the elevator wall, and how I wept (WEPT you heartless cynical punkasses, copious tears!) when he sacrificed his life to help me solve the game.
Text-based systems required more of the participants, but gave back so much more to those who invested the time...Which reminds me...
When is Slashdot going to get-with-the-times, dump all this text-based news commentary crap, and GIVE US NEWS WE CAN JUST SIT BACK AND WATCH!
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:2)
The whole point of the Infocom parser was that it WASN'T limited to stupid two word combinations.
> get all of the goo and the candle. blow out the candle then attack the interviewer
Red goo: taken.
Blue goo: taken.
Silvery mystery goo: taken.
Brown goo: you cannot carry any more.
Candle: you cannot carry any more.
You blow out the candle, leaving everyone in a pitch blackness. The stench of a grue becomes apparent.
You can't see the interviewer. You have been attacked by a grue.
Re:Audio Zork (Score:4)
What if you got a good narrator to record all the text from a game, and hooked up a speech-to-text engine for input. Then you could put it on a laptop, sit back in your favorite chair, put on some headphones, close your eyes and just imagine...
This is just the sort of thing that we need to install in cars to keep the driver awake!
> drive south
You are feeling drowsy. You are likely to crash into a grue.
Netrek has both. Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:1)
And it's graphics suck.
But DAMN that's a fun game. A bunch of semiold players (semiclue++) telling all new players to go to hell and evict them from the game if at all possible. And a bunch of old players who don't really care.
My gf has to pull me out of the appartement by the ear to get me away from that game. Too bad the playerbase is getting smaller by the day.
"Rc++ @ Ald!!!!"
Unfortunately... (Score:5)
Interviewer: ask question
Dave: I don't understand what you are trying to say. Perhaps if you rephrase your statement?
Interviewer: talk Dave
Dave: You can't do that here!
Interviewer: query Dave
Dave: I don't understand the command "query".
Interviewer:bah!
Dave: I don't understand the command "bah".
Interviewer: kill Dave
Dave: A strong wind has blown out Interviewer's candle. Interviewer has been attacked by a grue for 106 points Interviewer has died!
Re:Hitchhiker's Guide (Score:1)
Re:Any NEW converts out there? (Score:1)
It's amazing... (Score:2)
--
Re:aaaahhhh zork... (Score:2)
Though I have nothing against it as a game, and indeed admire it, I find myself occasionally referring to Diablo as "rogue/nethack for people with short attention spans."
Yeah, I play NetHack in text mode.
-jRe:aaaahhhh zork... (Score:2)
You have a point. Solutions: either get real patient, and as another poster pointed out, think out every move, or start doing the savefile copying thing. (I went through a savefile copy phase, and accumulated 20megs of archived savegames, before it turned sour. I don't know why, but it just felt weird. I was cheating, after all.)
I do the patience thing these days. I don't do much 'puter gaming at all, so my nethack sessions are far between but intense. I die a lot. But I manage to learn a lot, too.
The game, as a whole, works for some people. For others, it doesn't. *shrug*
-jThe new meaning of Adventure (Score:3)
I think a good deal of the 'problem' (if it is actually a problem) is that the audience is different. Back when the original Zorks came out -- I learned to read off of Zork I -- they were novelties. There was nothing like them. I suspect (but have no actual data) that people of all ages bought them, because home computers were new enough so that there was no generation gap yet. They really were immersive. It was and still is the best example of an on-line book where you influence the ending (remember when on-line meant 'on your computer,' in the early 80s?)
I've done a lot of work in the MUSH world with RPG systems and entirely free-form roleplaying. A quick jaunt around MUSH/MOO/MUD sites will tell you which games are popular, though. My impression is that MUDs with nothing but hack'n'slash have completely caved to things like Everquest, but MUDs were outside my expertise. The actual 'roleplaying' games, where there are no levels, no fighting, only storytelling, are numerous, but most of them are not successful. Their audience tends to be in the 14-20 age range, which makes these 'adventure' games an excellent tool for kids to learn how to write, but rarely can you find really good storytelling. The 'popular' games are based on franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, or Anne McCaffrey's novels, and except in the case of the latter, typically have shiny buttons and 'game-like' systems that more resemble computer games than storytelling forums. These games try to be all things to all people, and inevitable fail, because a text environment simply cannot compete with Everquest or UO; their success depends entirely on the proper selection of a goal, of a forum that Everquest can't provide very well (like, for example, storytelling).
There have already been threads on how graphics have dominated the game market. So has the requirement for an online component. With the single exception of The Longest Journey, there have no 'adventure' games that aren't mostly dependent on graphics or gameplay rather than story. Myst, IMO, has been recycled and redone too many times to qualify on the same level as The Longest Journey does. And TLJ didn't sell very well in the US, unfortunately. I think the reason why games like UO and Everquest can't accomodate storytelling on a very real level -- and the reason that really good adventure games like TLJ and Zork can't ever be multiplayer and won't sell well is because a story is a very intimate process. It accomodates, at most, a small group. With a book, you're engaged by the characters in the story; in a MUSH or a Zork, you
end tirade.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Hitchhiker's Guide (Score:1)
Not that missing Shogun is a bad thing, from what I hear...
Other than Infocom (Score:1)
Write your Own Operating System [FAQ]!
Re:Other than Infocom (Score:1)
Write your Own Operating System [FAQ]!
I remember! (Score:1)
take robe
open pocket
take anagesic
Speaking of which, I have a headache...
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Re:You know you spent too much time playing HHGTTG (Score:2)
I picked up a copy in Nov. 98 from www.cdromsonline.com, but it looks like they've been eaten by a grue.
You're best bet may be to check the abandonware sites; HHGTTG wasn't included in the Masterpieces CD (odd), so abandonware may be the only way to get it.
i tried to go follow the link (Score:4)
Re:Any NEW converts out there? (Score:1)
Write Your Own Text Adventure (Score:1)
http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive.html [ifarchive.org]
There's a plethora of independantly authored games, specifications for the Z-Machine, and a few programming languages and compilers (Inform and TADS being the most popular) for writing "interactive fiction" in a faily high level, object oriented manner. Plus, the Z-Machine has been expanded to have some pretty huge memory allowances, such that games the size of the entire Zork and Enchanter series combined can be written and played.
This space intentionally left blank. (Score:2)
Re:aaaahhhh zork... (Score:2)
--
Re:Any NEW converts out there? (Score:2)
--
Re:aaaahhhh zork... (Score:2)
--
Re:Text Adventures are Alive and Well... (Score:2)
There are some truly amazing games out there. I'm in the process of trying to write one myself (just started; don't ask if you can be a beta tester).
/Brian
Re:Zork?! (Score:2)
/Brian
Re:You are in a maze of twisty passages all alike (Score:2)
http://bang.dhs.org/if/
This is the easiest way to get around the Interactive Fiction FTP archive.
And if you want to write your own, use Inform or TADS... though Inform is the package that they used for Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (the last Infocom game, part of Zork: Grand Inquisitor, I believe). Inform actually compiles to Z-machine code.
/Brian
Re:Kyoto Treaty (Score:2)
Incidently, Slashdot wasn't doing the interviewing here, rather they just linked to another site which conducted the interview.
PDP-10 Zork (Score:2)
__
Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:5)
OK, maybe it is that bad then.
Any of you remember what Roberta Williams once said, how in the olden days, when computers were more expensive, only the more well-off (and usually more educated) could afford them, which is why adventures, especially the cerebral Infocom kind, were more popular? Nowadays when just about everyone can buy a cheapo PC or worse still, a console
I don't know if I fully agree with that, but it's certainly an interesting conjecture.
Any NEW converts out there? (Score:3)
Whenver I read discussions about the original implementors, there's lots and lots of reminiscing by people in my age group (er, 28-33).
But I'm curious, have any of you younger fellers played and Zorks, Enchanters, Deadline, Suspect, Starcross, Suspended, Plantefall, etc...??
I'm wondering if young gamers of today (13-18) even have the patience to play all-text games, or if the memories of Zork are unique only to a certain age group...
---
Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:3)
Look at those gibs fly!
Loved the book... found the game unplayable. (Score:3)
I was maybe 8-10 years old when Zork I was out. I remember a choose-your-own-adventure type book that came out for it, which I read and enjoyed thoroughly. I found the Zork logo (with the opening door as the letter 'O') rather inviting...
We didn't have a computer at home at that time (unless you count the Atari 2600, which I don't, though it was a lot of fun) but a friend of my mom's did. As it happened, they had Zork for their machine, which must've been an old 8086 or possibly a '286.
I couldn't get through the game to save my life. Of course, I didn't have any of the game's documentation (if there was any) but I found the game to be majorly frustrating, as the game barfed at roughly 90% of the commands I tried to give it. I could only manage to get through a very small portion of the game, and only then due to my memory of the choose-your-own-adventure, not due to any actual ability to solve problems.
I concluded that the game was a disappointment and eventually (after several days of getting nowhere) gravitated to the Space Invaders ripoff "Wavy Navy" instead. Still, I did really dig the book version...
----jjjiii
Text based games are not dead (Score:3)
As I am an old MUD addict who still do the occational crusades online, I have noticed that the user-base on these things are not declining at any noticable rate. The average age of the players may be higher than in the "golden days" of text adventures, but they still do have a strong following.
FYI: I mostly play on Viking MUD [vikingmud.org] - not the largest of the MUDs, but it's the one I've been hanging around. I also use Frotz [geocities.com] - the multiplatform Z-Engine - to play Infocom games on Linux. Not to forget of course, the original text adventure "Adventure" that has always been part of the Slackware [slackware.com] Linux distribution, and the unforgettable Foom [inetw.net] - a text adventure based on ID Softwares Doom game, using TADS [tela.bc.ca] - the Text Adventure Development System.
Re:You know you spent too much time playing HHGTTG (Score:2)
Agreed, I have a floppy collection but would much rather have CD. Hmm.. if enough of us asked nicely, would They "reprint" it?
(And I still have fond thoughts of HHGTTG every time I pull a wad of fluff out of my pockets...)
Re:HHGTTG question.... (Score:2)
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pete/Infocom/hitchhikers.h
roguelikes (Score:2)
Ularn [ularn.org] is quite winnable though (I have won it and I am a lousy and impatient roguelike player who never wins things.. ironic?), and is even being actively maintained again. As for all these newfangled games like Nethack and Angband, haven't played 'em yet, so can't comment.
Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:2)
Roberta Williams of Sierra Online, right? The company that had it's first big hit with SoftPorn, and brought us seven or so episodes of Leisure Suit Larry? Yeah, catering to the smarter computer user...
The bottom line is text-based adventures came first because the graphics were limited. The thing that sets one text-based game over another is how clever it is, how challenging it is. Half-Life, the Infocom game, would have been interesting as well, but nothing like Half-Life, the Valve game.
BTW, Looking Glass may be dead, but it seems Deus Ex II and Thief III are being made, by the same people but in a different company (Ion Storm). Plus, Half-Life (my favorite example) taught that a little story-telling in your 1st person shooter goes a long way - I think we'll see a minority of action games with plots and thought required, and that these will win the end-of-the-year awards. Yes, a minority, but two or three a year is enough for me (and all the time and money I can afford).
Re:Plot vs Graphics (Score:2)
There's a .jpeg of the box cover for Softporn [hispeed.com] at this website [hispeed.com].
Al Lowe confirms that Roberta Williams is one of the women in the hot tub, in Chapter 2 [sierrastudios.com] of the The Official Book of Leisure Suit Larry.
them was the days... (Score:2)
Ah. I've often wanted to build my own www-based text adventure. But can you imagine a page refresh for every mistyped command?
Take the wrench
[page refresh]
"What do you mean?"
Open the toolbox
[page refresh]
"What toolbox?"
Look up
[page refresh]
"You see a shiny new toolbox sitting on the top shelf"
Take the toolbox
[page refresh]
"You now have the toolbox"
Open the toolbox
[page refresh]
"You see a shiny new wrench inside the toolbox."
Take the wrench
[page refresh]
"You now have the toolbox. I hope you're happy."
Quit
The Baseball Diamond puzzle (Score:2)
I actually had to disassemble the Z-machine code to the game to figure out that puzzle. I had no clue that it was even a baseball reference until I read the object code.
You are amazed by twisty little passages (Score:3)
Zork I-III were a major disappointment. I picked up Zork (note: Not 'I') for the Apple ][ when it first hit the shelves and scampered (not ran, not shambled, not left a cycops shaped hole in the door, etc.) down to our college Apple Lab and booted up the game. I finished in about 15 minutes and was stunned how watered down it was and at how much was missing. I didn't bother to get the rest until picking up a collection of Infocom text adventures at a shop (probably for less than the Apple Zork disk cost me, not even accounting for inflation) and finished Zork II and was equally unimpressed. Haven't bothered with Zork III, but figure it's probably most of the other parts of the original VAX/PDP11 version with a couple new twists.
Did enjoy his Lurking Horror game. Living in Michigan and being somewhat snowbound for a while I really got into it. Pity some of the puzzles were so non-obvious I had to buy the clue book. Even with the clue book some puzzles still seemed completely bizzare. I blame that on Activision, tho, since I believe this was after their acquisition of Infocom and an attempt to extract more bucks out of game players (a trend that seems to continue even today in action games.)
Last Infocom game I got was DNA's Beauracracy. Too damn fun. I should pull that one out and play through it again.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Re:Try Tokimeki Memorial... plot and cute girls. (Score:2)
I'm waiting for a reliable and easy-to-install modchip for my PS2 so I can finally start importing all the dating/school-sim goodness!
GTRacer
- My high school experience SUCKED. At least on console, I can reload if things don't go my way...
Re:Audio Zork (Score:2)
It would have been a neat experiment in usability and accessibility but I don't think it ever got out of the proposal stage - especially after the delay and subsequent commercial flop of Starship Titanic.
It makes one misty eyed. (Score:5)
The browser is now open.
>Point browser at slashdot.
I can't see any slashdot here!
>Type slashdot.org in browser.
You quickly type the information into the browser and press enter, the browser slowly... very slowly loads the web page.
>Examine browser.
The browser is currently displaying the slashdot.org home page. There is an interview here.
>Skip interview.
You don't read the interview.
>Get first post.
The first post is already taken.
Comment removed (Score:4)
Text Adventures are Alive and Well... (Score:2)
Here are a few modern, independently-written Interactive Fiction games that match or beat anything Infocom has produced:
Photopia [adamcadre.ac] (scroll down)
Metamorphoses [mindspring.com]
For a Change [dfan.org]
Babel [wurb.com]
Worlds Apart [igs.net]
For lots more, head over to The Best of IF [igs.net].
Re:Play! (Score:2)
These old Infocom games may be the best reply to all the whiners asking "What good are Java Applets, anyway?"
Plot? What's that? (Score:2)
A good computer game is like a good novel, it creates the image of a world and forces your mind to fill in the details with your own imagination.
The better text adventure games (and to a lesser extent, some of the earlier graphical RPG's, like Ultima III to VI) did an excellent job of this. Modern games tend to do a very poor job, they just do it with stereo sound and texture maps.
Then again, we shouldn't be surprised. A trip to the movie theatre will show you that for the most part special effects long ago replaced imagination.
Re:Kyoto Treaty (Score:2)
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that slashdot, or it's readers, or even you are shallow and politically naive. I think there is lots of evidence supporting that this is not the case.
I just sometimes don't understand the decision making process of the editors here at all; There's old news (Alan Cox resigning from Usenet), editor's own petpeeves (CmdrTaco's anime article), rather blatantly poorly written articles (JonKatz's 'movie review') etc. I do like slashdot, I come here every day and I like the discussions a lot, but sometimes you really have to wonder what drugs the editors are on :) Maybe that's part of the charm of the site, that we also get to nag at the editors a lot... SO NAG!! :)
Re:Why do you expect so much? (Score:2)
Now, in case you don't realise this, it is US who pay these people their income, mostly through ad revenues. We are their customers. Your opinion that 'THATS FINE' is like Adobe customers saying 'THATS FINE' when Adobe sells them crap.
Lastly, I said in my previous post that I LIKE slashdot, I APPRECIATE slashdot, BUT my criticism stands. It's my opinion, it's a well explained opinion too.
Oh wait, one more thing. What you call 'obscure' is all over the world considered to be a MAJOR milestone of very big importance. It even surpasses your beloved American right of Free Speech or the DMCA. If you can't BREATHE, you cannot speak you know. Reconsider your opinion and read the article I pointed out, and also try and find somewhat less American centric news reporting about it, it's worth the read, PARTICULARLY for nerds who want to be around and who want their children to be around for a few more generations.
Re:Why do you expect so much? (Score:2)
200 countries have signed the treaty. But thank God that the "developped" USA that locks underdevelopped foreigners in jail comes to the rescue.
Here's how to write a graphic driver Infocom-style (Score:3)
Here's a small excerpt (Formatting is a bit cruddy):
You are in a cube. In front of you is a 16" (visible) Sony monitor. In front of that is a Mitsumi keyboard and an unbranded mouse. Just to the right is a 266 MHz PC clone. The system is running a development version of BeOS R4.
There is a graphics card here.
There is a floppy disk here.
There is a note from your boss here.
There is a Hoberman sphere here.
> INVENTORY
You have a well-used satchel. Inside it are
- A set of screwdrivers
- A small telescope
- A 16M laptop RAM module
- A book on decorative knots
- A PCMCIA Ethernet card
- Last year's tax return
- A 166 MHz Pentium laptop computer
- A bottle of echinacea capsules
- Hair sticks
Your wallet contains $3200.> REPLACE KEYBOARD
You put aside the amazingly cruddy Mitsumi keyboard and substitute your favorite AT&T keyboard.
> PUT LAPTOP ON DESK
The laptop is now on the desk.
> READ NOTE
"Write a driver for this card. We'd like it in time for R4 release."
> EXAMINE GRAPHICS CARD
You are evidently the proud owner of a Yoyodyne Monstra VelocElite-LX 128-3D-AGP graphics card.
> INSERT CARD IN MACHINE
The machine emits a curious and worrying noise.
> TURN OFF MACHINE AND INSERT CARD
The graphics card is now installed in the machine.
> TURN ON MACHINE
BeOS R4(devel) boots. You are looking at a gray scale desktop.
> EXAMINE FLOPPY DISK
The handwritten label reads, "Programming docs."
>INSERT DISK AND PRINT DOCS
Nothing happens.
> INSERT DISK, MOUNT DISK, AND PRINT DOCS
The drive spins for a moment, and the command prompt returns.
> READ DOCS
I see no docs here.
> GO TO PRINTER AND GET DOCS
The printer is out of paper.
> PUT PAPER IN PRINTER
There is no paper here.
> STEAL PAPER FROM COPIER UPSTAIRS
After installing the liberated paper in the printer, you print your docs.
too bad.... (Score:2)
I never played Zork too much because I was busy playing Leisure Suit Larry
Re:too bad.... (Score:2)
You [insert adjective here] feel/rub/touch/kiss the [insert another adjective] [insert body part] of [insert character name]
followed by a response from the character. Depending on the character traits, the character will generate some type of sound like a purr, a grunt, a schriek, or they will return the favor, or they will instigate further action
The Rewards of Text-Gaming (Score:4)
Even modern adventure/puzzle games, which can be quite good (Last Express, Discworld, etc.), don't really match the level of achievement I felt when playing A Mind Forever Voyaging, for example.
I mean, one of the single most vivid memories of my youth was sitting in from of my old Commie and finally figuring out the last bit of the Babel Fish puzzle.
A measly little air frag with a railgun will never, ever equal it.
Demise ofthe Adventure genre?? (Score:4)
IMO the adventure genre is still alive, only it has taken on many different forms. And even if there seems to be a decline of "adventure" in today's games, I'm sure it'll come back in fashion tomorrow because the video game industry cycles. Games like Zork are simply to frickin' sweet to just fade away out of existence like that.
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HHGTTG question.... (Score:2)