
The SPAG Frequently Asked Questions File (FAQ)

version 2.8, August 10, 2005
Maintained by Jimmy Maher (maher@grandecom.net)

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What is SPAG?

SPAG is an informative e-zine designed primarily to keep the gaming
public aware of text adventures and other types of interactive narrative 
available today. Most of the space is devoted to reviews. A new edition 
of SPAG is published each quarter.  Generally, you can expect a new issue
around the first of January, April, July, and October of each year.

SPAG was founded by G. Kevin "Whizzard" Wilson, and is currently
edited by Jimmy Maher.

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What about graphic adventures? 

SPAG has traditionally focused on games whose primary medium is text, and
this general policy will continue.  There is, however, a wider universe
of interactive storytelling, and SPAG may ocassionally (to thoroughly mix
my metaphors) dive into these waters when something particularly 
fascinating, such as the recent "interactive drama" Facade, is unleashed.
If you are interested in writing a review of a graphical game, feel free 
to contact the editor to see if your proposal will be a good fit for
SPAG.  The main thing to remember is that SPAG is not about kill counts,
frames per second, or any of the other traditional video game metrics.
We are rather all about this brave new medium of storytelling on the
computer.

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What does SPAG stand for?

As you may have guessed, SPAG is an acronym. It means "The Society for
the Promotion of Adventure Games". Originally, the 'P' was for
"Preservation"; however, in early 1997 a growing consensus that text
adventures weren't in immediate danger of extinction any more led to a
name change. 


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Cool. How do I join?

Well, actually you don't. There is no formal Society, just a loose
association of the contributors and readers of the SPAG 'zine. In a
sense, you join SPAG by reading it and/or writing for it.

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What is SPAG's format?

Each issue will begin with an editorial, any articles or letters to the
editor, and a news section reporting new games and recent developments in
the IF community. After that come the reviews, which will make up the
bulk of any issue. Some issues will include a "SPAG Specifics" section
after the regular reviews. This section is devoted to in-depth analyses
of IF, with spoilers included. Lastly, at the end of each issue will be
the SPAG submission policy and any closing notes. 

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Didn't there used to be a scoreboard or something?

For its first eight years, SPAG featured a scoreboard, a chart listing
the scores that SPAG readers gave to various IF games. The scoreboard
was discontinued as of issue #29 (June 20th, 2002), but the final
results are still available on the SPAG website. 

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How did the scoring system work for the Readers' Scoreboard?

The scale worked like this: there are 4 categories, and readers awarded
up to 2 points in each. The categories are:

Atmosphere
          0 - Little or no attempt at atmosphere.
         .5 - A few nice touches.
          1 - Good Atmosphere.
        1.5 - Feels like you're there.
          2 - Edge of your seat the whole way.

Gameplay  0 - Frustrating to play, poor parser, few synonyms.
         .5 - A little better.  Still pretty unbearable.
          1 - Good parser.  Not too hard to figure out.
        1.5 - Good parser.  Most 'ease of use' commands implemented.
          2 - Excellent gameplay.  Understands almost everything you try.

Writing   0 - Poorly written.  Lots of spelling errors, sloppily done.
         .5 - Some effort put into the writing.  Still terrible.
          1 - Few or no spelling errors.  Stumbles along shakily.
        1.5 - Good grammar, prose flows well, absorbing writing.
          2 - Excellent prose and style, on a par with that in "The
              Witness".

Plot      0 - Poorly planned, incoherent plot.
         .5 - Rudimentary plot, adds little to game.
          1 - Developed, simple plot.  Fairly linear.
        1.5 - Complex plot, well planned and implemented.
          2 - Excellent plot.  Twists and turns, holds you on the edge of 
              seat.  Enough freedom for the player to feel free to try
              things easily.

NOTE: These point values are merely benchmarks.  Readers could award any
value between 0 and 2 so long as they kept it down to one decimal
place.  This scoring system is loosely based on the Olympic system.

The other 2 points are discretionary, and could be awarded on the basis
of thoroughness, realism, or anything else the voter feels is important
to a text adventure. These are wildcard points, meant to encompass all
the little things in a good game. These five categories add up to a
maximum of 10 points. This is the total score. 

Finally, there are two seperate categories, rated the same as the
other five, that do not count in the total score, and are averaged
only with other votes on the same category.  These two are:

Characters   0 - No NPCs, or cardboard caricatures.
            .5 - Uninteresting NPCs.
             1 - Stereotypical NPCs, not developed too much.
           1.5 - Interesting NPCs, some background.
             2 - Well-developed cast of characters.  Realistic.

Puzzles      0 - Illogical puzzles.  Poorly implemented, or there is not
                 enough info in the game to solve them.
            .5 - Illogical, requires bizarre actions to solve.
             1 - Logical, uninteresting and add little to the game.
           1.5 - Logical, interesting.
             2 - Logical, fascinating, well implemented.  No 'guess the
	         word' puzzles.

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What do those strange "notes" mean?

Availability codes:

	C   - Commercial, no price given.
	C30 - Commercial, with a fixed price of US$30.
	F   - Freeware (including Public Domain).
	S20 - Shareware, registration costs $20.
	ARC - Available on the IF archive at ifarchive.org (and mirrors).
	
Platform codes show on which computers and operating systems you can
play the game. Some games are distributed as executable files
only. Such files are generally quite platform-specific.

	A   - Runs on Amigas.
	AP  - Runs on Apple IIs.
	GS  - Runs on Apple IIGS.
	AR  - Runs on Acorn Archimedes.
	I   - Runs on IBM compatibles under MS-DOS or Windows.
	M   - Runs on Macs.
	64  - Runs on Commodore 64s.
	ST  - Runs on Atari STs.

Other games are distributed as system-independent game files, that
require a special interpreter to run. Interpreters exist for a number
of different platforms, depending on which game system was used to
produce the game file. In some cases, you can extract a game file from
an executable, thus enabling you to play it on other platforms.

ADVSYS - Written with Advsys. Interpreters for MS-DOS and Mac
         are available from the IF-archive, as well as interpreter
         source code.
            
   AGT - The original AGT interpreters are available for MS-DOS,
         Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST. However, availability is strongly
         dependent on which version of AGT was used!

         There is also a portable interpreter called AGiliTy
         that can be used to play all (or almost all) AGT games.
         The IF archive contains the source for AGiliTy as well
         as compiled versions for MS-DOS, Linux, Mac and Amiga.

  ALAN - Written with ALAN. Interpreters are available for
         MS-DOS, Mac, Amiga, HP-UX, Solaris and Linux.

   ETC - Has been ported to quite a number of languages and development
         systems, and is present in many locations on the archive. 

   HUG - Written with Hugo.  Runs on:
         Windows (9x/NT), MS-DOS, BeOS, Linux/Unix, and Amiga,
         Acorn, Macintosh, and OS/2. The interpreter can also be 
         compiled for any platform for which a wxWindows, Glk, or
         stdio library is available. 
	
   INF - Infocom or Inform game. (Infocom invented the format,
         Inform is a freeware compiler that uses the same format).
         There are a large number of different interpreters for
         most existing computers, from mainframes to pocket-sized
         PDA's. See the IF-archive for more information. Interpreter
         source code available.

   MAG - Magnetic Scrolls. These (commercial) games were originally
         distributed as C64 and Amiga executables. There is now
         a portable interpreter, Magnetic, available for other
         platforms as well, including MS-DOS and Amiga. Interpreter
         source available.
	      
   TAD - Written with TADS.  The IF-archive contains interpreters
         for the following platforms:
                AmigaDOS, NeXT, MS-DOS, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, DECstation
                (MIPS) Ultrix, IBM RT, Linux, Macintosh,
                SGI Iris/Indigo running Irix, Sun 4 (Sparc)
                running SunOS or Solaris 2, Sun 3, OS/2, Acorn
                Archimedes.
         The interpreter source code is available so it can be
         ported to other platforms (including most Unix variants).

Other computers will be added as pointed out to the editor. Readers are
asked to notify the editor if any games are available on a platform for
which SPAG does not list them.

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What is SPAG's submission policy?

Reviews, letters and ratings should be sent by email to Jimmy Maher,
maher@grandecom.net. ASCII text format is preferred, but MS Word and
other formats will be accepted as attachments. If in doubt, query first.

A SPAG review should be an intelligent discussion of a piece of
interactive fiction, and it should be written in polished prose. Within
those guidelines, all publishable reviews will be accepted as long as
they deal with a game that satisfies a (rather broad) definition of "text
adventure" or "interactive fiction". Reviews of games that have already
been reviewed three or more times in SPAG will only be accepted if they
make a significant original contribution to the discussion of those
games. Authors may not review their own games.

SPAG employs a "no-spoiler" policy for reviews, with the exception of
reviews intended for SPAG Specifics (see below). This policy has been
stretched a bit in the past, but now that SPAG Specifics exists, the no-
spoiler policy will be enforced rather more strictly.

SPAG Specifics is a small section that appears in some issues of SPAG.
This section is devoted to in-depth criticism of text adventures and
has no restrictions on spoilers, recognizing that avoidance of spoilers
can sometimes hinder the detailed examination of a piece of interactive
fiction. Specifics reviews are required to provide in-depth analysis to
justify their use of spoilers. 

SPAG also occasionally publishes articles. If you'd like to submit an
article for the next issue of SPAG, query first.

SPAG does not pay anything for contributions. Authors retain the
rights to their works. SPAG accepts reviews that have been published
before, but original works are preferred.

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Must I have completed a game to review it for SPAG?

In general, yes.  You would probably not be impressed by a published
movie review from someone who had wandered into the theatre halfway
through, or by a book review from someone who had lost interest and quit
reading before reaching the end.  An interactive fiction review is really
no different.  To give a game a fair shake, the reviewer must have seen
it through to the end.

The only exceptions apply to more experimental pieces which perhaps have
no traditional ending, or to games which are so bug-ridden as to be
uncompletable.  (Whether the latter is even worth your effort as a
reviewer when there are so many serious efforts worthy of your attention
is of course very much an open question.)

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How is SPAG distributed?

SPAG is primarily distributed via a mailing list. To subscribe,
send email to majordomo@df.lth.se with the line:

subscribe spag <your e-mail address here>

To be removed from the list, send an email message to the same address
with the line

unsubscribe spag <your e-mail address here>

SPAG is also available from the if-archive:

ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/magazines/SPAG/

Finally, SPAG has a web page of its own which includes all published
issues, a partial index of reviews, and HTML tables displaying the
Readers' Scoreboard. The web site is:

http://www.sparkynet.com/spag

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Why don't you just post SPAG to <some newsgroup>?

The current policy is to distribute SPAG via the mailing list, and
just post pointers on Usenet. One reason for this is keeping track
of the number of readers (currently over 400).

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Where can I get back issues of SPAG?

Through anonymous FTP on ifarchive.org, in /if-archive/magazines/SPAG/.
Just login as 'anonymous' and give your e-mail address as your password.
The archive is kept current now, so don't worry about asking for the
latest copy when you subscribe (which we still strongly encourage you
do.) Back issues are also available from the web page, at
http://www.sparkynet.com/spag.

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Revision History

v 2.0 970917 - FAQ taken over by Magnus Olsson. Major revision.
v 2.1 970918 - Added ADVSYS and ALAN to platform codes.
v 2.2 990820 - FAQ taken over by Paul O'Brian. Minor revision.
v 2.3 991203 - Revision to scoring info and web page address
v 2.4 000925 - Updated submission policy
v 2.5 010925 - Changed GMD references to IF Archive
v 2.6 020617 - Updated FAQ to reflect discontinuation of scoreboard
v 2.7 050720 - FAQ taken over by Jimmy Maher  Revisions to follow.
v 2.8 050810 - Made a few changes to SPAG's editorial focus,
               publication schedule, and submission policy.
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Thank you for helping to keep text adventures alive!


