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ISSUE #7

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      The  |___/ociety for the |_|reservation of  |_|_|dventure  \___|ames.
    				ISSUE # 7
            Edited by G. Kevin Wilson (whizzard SP@G uclink.berkeley.edu)

     		     /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
    		    < Special 1995 I-F Competition Issue >
               \__________________________________/

    All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine
    with the traditional 'at' sign.

    EDITORIAL--------------------------------------------------------------------

    Dear Readers,

    	I hope you aren't too upset, but this month's issue doesn't contain
    your standard SPAG stuff.  As the official (no one else wanted the job)
    organizer of the 1st Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, I'd like to
    take time out and just showcase the worthy efforts of the people who entered
    this year.  I am doing this because I'm excited about the competition.  It
    has brought I-F authors seemingly out of the woodwork to participate.  I am
    proud to be a part of it.
    	Now, as to this month's format, things will be recognizable, but
    different.  First, I will announce the winners of the competition, listing
    the title of their game, the game design system it uses, and what prize they
    received.  The details of the judging, prize distribution, etc. are all in
    SPAG #6, so I won't repost them here.  After the results will be the letters
    (if any) that I received related to the competition, as well as interviews
    with the authors of the games.  Then, there will be game reviews, but unlike
    most issues of SPAG, the reviews will be restricted to the competition
    entries.  After this is a section more for game authors than game players.
    Indeed, those who haven't yet played the contest entries will want to avoid
    this section, as it includes spoilers from several of the entries.  Your
    humble editor will analyze several of the entries, in depth, and point out
    just what makes them noteworthy games.  Finally, the usual closing comments
    and such.  The Reader Scoreboard, and any other missing sections will
    reappear next issue.  It's been a great competition.  Next year promises to
    be even better.  Oh yeah, you might want to be warned about those interviews.
    Some of them have a few spoilers as well.

    				G. Kevin Wilson
    				"Whizzard"

    CONTEST RESULTS--------------------------------------------------------------

    "Before we begin, I'll just point out that the prize draft began with the
    1st place Inform entry, skipped over to the 1st place TADS entry, went to the
    2nd place Inform entry, and so on, and so on.  Now, the envelope, please."

    -=-INFORM-=-

    1st Place: A Change in the Weather, by Andrew Plotkin.
    	Andrew chose as his prize: The very first copy of Avalon,
    	  autographed and donated by me.

    2nd Place: The Mind Electric, by Jason Dyer.
    	Jason chose as his prize: $50.00 cash, donated by Martin Braun

    3rd Place: The Magic Toyshop, by Gareth Rees.
    	Gareth chose as his prize: One free registration for "The Path to
              Fortune", donated by Christopher E. Forman.

    4th Place: MST3K1: Detective, by Christopher E. Forman "and Matt Barringer,"
    	Christopher chose as his prize: "Castles and Kingdoms: An
              electrifying compendium of 15 BASIC adventures you can type into
              your Commodore 64" by Bob Liddil, donated by Gareth Rees.

    5th Place: All Quiet on the Library Front, by Michael S. Phillips.
    	Michael chose as his prize: An autographed copy of my first novel, if
              and when it's published--for a winner who feels like taking a big
              gamble, donated by Jacob Weinstein.

    6th Place: Tube Trouble, by Richard Tucker.

    -==-TADS-==-

    1st Place: Uncle Zebulon's Will, by Magnus Olsson.
    	Magnus chose as his prize: $100.00 cash, donated by Eileen Mullin

    2nd Place: Toonesia, by C. J. T. Spaulding aka Jacob Weinstein, the author
      of Save Princeton.
    	Jacob chose as his prise: 1 year subscription to the printed version
              of XYZZYnews, donated by Eileen Mullin

    3rd Place: The One That Got Away, by 'The Author' aka Leon Lin
    	Leon chose as his prize: "Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur" for the
              Mac, complete with box, etc., donated by Jacob Weinstein.

    4th Place: "It appears to be a tie, ladies and gentlemen."
          A Night at the Museum Forever, by Chris Angelini.
    	Chris chose as his prize: One free registration for Save Princeton,
              donated by Jacob Weinstein.

          Undertow, by Stephen Granade.
    	Stephen chose as his prize: A copy of "Leather Goddesses of Phobos"
              on 5.25" disk for IBM compatibles, donated by Jon Uhler.

    5th Place: Undo, by Null Dogmas aka Neil Demause

    -=Editor's Award=-

    	Magnus Olsson, author of Uncle Zebulon's Will, will also receive a
    complimentary copy of Avalon (upon its completion) both as a sort of thanks
    for his help with SPAG, and as an editor's choice award.  It's not much to
    show my appreciation with, but thanks, Magnus.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-
    	You can reach the authors at the e-mail addresses below if you want
    to send fan mail, comments, bug reports, or what have you.

    Entry		Author			E-mail
    ======================================================================

    Toyshop		Gareth Rees		gdr11 SP@G cl.cam.ac.uk
    Library		Michael S. Phillips	msphil SP@G aardvark.cc.wm.edu
    MST3K1		C E Forman		ceforma SP@G rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu
    Tube		Richard Tucker		Richard.Tucker SP@G cl.cam.ac.uk
    Weather		Andrew Plotkins		erkyrath+ SP@G cmn.edu
    Mind Electric	Jason Dyer		jdyer SP@G indirect.com

    Museum		Chris Angelini		cangelin SP@G uoguelph.ca
    The One...	Leon Lin		leonlin SP@G uclink.berkeley.edu
    Undertow	Stephen Granade		sgranade SP@G scratchy.phy.duke.edu
    Toonesia	Jacob Weinstein		jweinste SP@G castor.usc.edu
    Undo		Neil Demause		neild SP@G echonyc.com
    Zebulon		Magnus Olsson		mol SP@G df.lth.se

    ======================================================================

    	"And that, as they say, is that."

    LETTERS TO THE EDITOR--------------------------------------------------------

    From: "Palmer Davis"

    This year's inaugural IF competition has come and gone, and with
    it comes an excellent chance to sound pretentious, "literary", and
    generally well-informed (no pun intended) about the genre by
    reviewing everyone's entries.  I learned quite a bit from this
    year's entries, from both strengths and weaknesses, and had hoped
    to have enough time to expand upon what I've noticed.  Sadly,
    I'm frantically scrambling to finish this up on the eve of the
    deadline for SPAG #7; I hope to have more time to do so and fill
    in the reviews that had to be left incomplete in time for SPAG #8.

    	[Palmer sent me his reviews with this paragraph heading, so I snipped
    it off and seperated the reviews into the proper places.  Hope he
    doesn't mind, since it looked like he wanted this printed.]

    -=-=-=-=-=-

    From: "Christopher E. Forman"

    Dear Gerry,

        Since I know I'm not to late, I wanted to get this out to you as soon
    as possible.
        I have seen this implied by the large number of posts on the I-F
    newsgroups, but no one has ever really come right out and said it, so allow
    me to:  Thanks for taking the time and energy to do one heckuva job on
    setting up the I-F competition this year.  With everyone wanting to get
    started, but no one quite sure how to go about it, you seized the reins
    and formed order where once there was nought but chaos.  You got this
    crazy thing under control before it was too late.
        Just thought you deserved a big round of applause from I-Fers
    everywhere.
        Looking forward to next year's competition!

    	[: "S'allright."]

    INTERVIEWS WITH THE AUTHORS--------------------------------------------------

    -=-Inform Authors-=-

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A Change in the Weather, by Andrew Plotkins.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    I was walking around the grounds of a restored Colonial-era mansion in
    Fredericksburg. Gardens, trees -- two sundials. Sunny, warm. I thought
    it would be nice to have a game with that kind of sensory detail. Then
    I thought it would be nifty if you had more than one perspective on
    the scenery. A tree is one thing on a sunny afternoon; it's quite
    another in the middle of a midnight thunderstorm, especially if it's
    hit by lightning very suddenly.

    The sundials didn't make it in, though. Possibly because of the next
    answer:

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    I have a graphical game (midway between a puzzle-game and IF) which is
    slowly being worked on. It will be called _Moondials_.

    But, I mean, *really* slowly. Other projects keep intervening.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Yes.

    >How did you think of the fox?  He's so cute.

    Ah, I see he fooled you, too. (It, I should say. The gender is
    deliberately not given.)

    I just wanted a foil for your character in the story. The fox's role
    varied wildly during game-construction. At first I thought you might
    need to rescue it, or even rescue a nest of cute little fox cubs. Then
    I decided that was much too cliched. For awhile the fox was supposed
    to be nesting in the back of the cave -- I guess it still might, but
    there's no evidence left of it.

    Eventually I just got to like the idea of a non-player character who
    knows more than you do, and never tells, and never stops smiling. The
    fox's character note is what it thinks of *you*.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Mind Electric, by Jason Dyer.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    No comment.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    I've working on a long project that I can only describe as psychological
    horror.  It's much different than anything else I have seen in the IF
    part of the genre.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Possibly, although I'll write something alot more silly if I do.

    >Did you have a particular vision of 'cyberspace' in mind when you began
     "Mind"?  How did it evolve as you went along?

    For the most part, what you see in "Mind" is what my original vision
    was.  I wasn't really too focused on what the cyberspace element would
    be like while writing, but rather how it would fit into the plot.  For
    example, I had originally planned to have much more interaction with the
    outside world; a "camera room" where you could see views of the outside
    world and cause various things to happen.  But in the end I decided to
    keep everything in virtualspace.

    >What are some of the hidden elements of "Mind"?

    I doubt most people knew what the cube's calibration message really was,
    so I'll give the poetry form and translation here.  The words are in Latin,
    from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

       In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
       corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
       adsirate meis primaque ab origine mundi
       ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen

       My mind wishes to tell of bodies changed into new forms...
       Gods (for you have made these changes) breathe favor on
       My undertaking and lead my song from the beginning of the earth
       To my own age...

    The sounds inside and outside the factory are related; watch the messages
    carefully.

    The cube has several interesting responses to questions: try asking
    it about Kaden, Souden, itself, and creator.  The language that the
    cube refers to in the first two responses is a form of Japanese.

    You can get quotes from trying to TASTE something, or pressing enter
    without typing anything.

    There are a few other interesting things hiding in the game but I'll leave
    them for others to discover.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Magic Toyshop, by Gareth Rees.

    > What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    I can't remember.

    > Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    Yes.  It's secret, though.

    > Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Maybe.  If I have the time.

    > Where did you get all those neat puzzles?

    Dots & Boxes and Dodgems from "Winning Ways" by Conway, Berlekamp & Guy.

    Tic-tac-toe and Towers of Hanoi are so well-known that it seemed a good
    opportunity to turn the tables a bit.

    The robot mouse maze was suggested by the one in "Curses"; the parity
    puzzle itself is related to the moving rocks puzzle in "Spellbreaker".

    The gnomon was suggested by the one in "Trinity".

    The egg was suggested by the eggs in the "Unnkulia" series; the mahogany
    matchstick is the rod of fire from "Curses"

    The glueing-the-robot-mouse puzzle seemed a good way to introduce the
    glue for the Towers of Hanoi without making it obvious what the glue was
    for.

    The lock puzzle is based on the "Monte Carlo Lock Puzzle" in "The Lady
    or the Tiger?" by Raymond Smullyan.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    MST3K1: Detective, by Christopher E. Forman "and Matt Barringer,"

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    It was actually Graeme Cree's review of "Detective" in SPAG 5 that first got
    me thinking about it, but I didn't begin seriously working on it until about
    a week before the competition deadline.  At that time, there was a delay
    from my co-author in regards to text for the game the two of us are
    currently writing, so I had about a week with nothing to do.  I used four
    of those days to put together the MST3K game.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    The completion date for my current project, which my cousin and I are
    co-authoring, is rapidly approaching.  It's a lighthearted fantasy game
    titled "The Path to Fortune," the first in a planned series known as "The
    Windhall Chronicles."  Currently, I'm wrapping up programming the "fun
    stuff" for players to try, and then I plan to send it off to playtesters for
    a couple of weeks before correcting any problems.  The release date is set
    for the end of October (perhaps coinciding with that of Avalon B-).  After
    that, I plan to work on an interactive sci-fi short story, and then another
    I-F fan and I are teaming up to do "something very, very big."  (I'm not
    saying any more.)  The second "Windhall Chronicles" game will be released
    sometime in 1996.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Oh, definitely, most likely with a more serious entry the next time around.
    (I've already got a story idea that I've been tossing around.)

    >Some have commented that MiSTing a game isn't really writing a game.  What
    >do you think about the matter? [Obviously your entry created quite a bit of
    >controversy. :)]

    Well, I suppose it's not truly writing a game in the sense that MiSTing a
    film isn't the same as making a movie.  However, the MST3K crew *is* making
    a TV show, despite the fact that it's primarily involved with making fun of
    bad movies.  I've essentially done the same with an I-F piece, and although
    it may not be a true game, it has to be considered *something*.  Doesn't
    writing a game mean that you sit down and type the code?  It shouldn't matter
    one way or another whether the game is a true original or merely an enhanced
    port with humorously derogatory comments added -- I still had to sit down and
    code the thing.  If my MiSTing doesn't count as a "real game," then neither
    should any other port from one language to another.  (And if it isn't a game,
    what exactly is it?)

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    All Quiet on the Library Front, by Michael S. Phillips.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    It was one of those caffeine-induced periods of lucidity, in which
    suddenly an idea springs forth, fully formed.  The fact that it was
    immediately after 8 straight 10 hour+ days, staring four more in the face
    before the week-end, probably helped.  Oh yeah, I suppose I should
    mention that I am the 'techie' for the William & Mary Law Library.  That
    had a lot to do with it :-)

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    Yes.  Two projects are taking my spare time at the moment.

    The first is Release 2 of LIBRARY, which will include several enhancements
    (now that I have a better grip on Inform).  The help system will be
    menued, something I didn't feel I had the time to mess with before, there
    are two new rooms, and there are a couple of "niceties".

    The second is a game tentatively titled "DJINN!", which takes place in an
    Arabian Nights setting.  Pieces are falling into place, but I think I'll
    borrow a line on when it'll be done: "When it's ready."

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Certainly!  This time I have a whole year, and not a month, to come up
    with something..... :-)

    >Tell us more about how you wrote "Library."

    Well, at the time the idea struck me, we were beginning a shift from one
    library system to another (VTLS to SIRSI, for those who care), and there
    were an awful lot of hours put in upgrading staff and public PC's.  I was
    feeling a little zany, and I had just re-discovered a love of IF (thanks
    to seeing pinfocom on comp.os.linux.announce, and discovering ZIP and
    ftp.gmd.de).  I had seen that a competition was being held, and the ideas
    just sort of suddenly gelled.  If memory serves, it was the end of a
    rough day, having just spent the whole week-end working, and I was just
    staring at the security gates at our entrance.

    There was very little time to do much work (I started coding July 31), and
    there was a lot to learn.  It was also slow going, because my primary
    machine is a 386SX20 with 4Mb of RAM.  Fortunately, I'm a Linux user, so I
    didn't have to get a drink every time I compiled (which, by the end, was
    taking upwards of 3 minutes each time), and I took advantage of the
    virtual consoles to have one editing, one compiling, and one playing.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tube Trouble, by Richard Tucker.

    > What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    Camden Town tube station, in London. I've often arrived at one
    platform and ran to another one to change trains, only to find
    the train I wanted to catch leaving just as I reach it. Also
    they used to have very old chocolate machines that were usually
    broken and would swallow your money without giving you anything.

    > Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    I'm working on a game that was going to be my competition entry until
    I realized it would take me much longer than I thought (that's why
    I turned to converting an earlier game). It's my attempt to get around
    the classic "guess the verb" problem by substituting a "guess the noun"
    problem. Perhaps I'll enter it next year.

    I'd love to try and write a full-sized game, but the amount of planning
    involved is so much greater.

    > You mentioned that "Tube" was based upon an earlier game.  Can you
    > elaborate?

    I had written a crude adventure system for the BBC micro, a popular
    machine in the UK and the precursor of the modern-day Archimedes, and wanted
    to write a small game on it. I coded the annoying station, and then together
    with a friend the rest of the game. All the puzzles and much of the text
    were identical in the inform version, but I added considerably to the
    responses and introduced a horrible bug too. Converting the game was
    a question of reading the original source, remembering how it worked, and
    then coding up the puzzles from scratch in inform, which is very quick.
    Internally the two versions are very different.

    Originally we had plans for a game of which Tube was just one part. It's
    (rather quirky) plot was that you were at a party where your host instructed
    you to "eat, drink and be merry". When you tried to eat, by picking up a
    piece of chocolate cake, the room would go all hazy and you'd find yourself
    in the tube station (for no reason at all). Then if you died or won, you'd
    return to the party. In the 'be merry' section you had to change your name
    by deed poll. The idea was to give the player a choice of what order
    to attempt the puzzles in and to make it clear that they couldn't influence
    each other, by putting them in different and unrelated scenarios -- this
    was something I admired in the Hitchhiker game.

    Looking back on it, it seems completely incoherent, and I wouldn't want
    to write it now. Then again, my other plans are incoherent too...

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    -==-TADS-==-

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Uncle Zebulon's Will, by Magnus Olsson.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    A sudden flash of inspiration, I suppose. I was considering possible ideas
    for short IF, and started thinking about the player exploring a wizard's
    house.

    Now, why would anyone want to do that? Would the wizard still be around?
    No, that would be too dangerous, and besides the idea of entering a wizard's
    house to steal his things or to defeat him is pretty hackeneyed by now. Maybe
    the wizard's dead, and you've come to collect your inheritance? Mmm, sounds
    good.  What do you find in a wizard's home, then? Lots and lots of neat
    stuff, but preferably not just the usual, tired old paraphernalia like
    wands and potions and so on. Maybe if there was a [censored to remove the
    spoiler]?

    Great idea, I said to myself. But could it be made into a puzzle? Yes, for
    example if there was a demon guarding the door, and... One thing led to
    another, and within about thirty minutes I had the basic idea of the game,
    and about half of the plot in my head.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    Yes. I started working on "Bast", a Gothic story with some twists to it,
    this winter, but I put it aside this spring due to lack of time, and
    haven't re-started work on it yet.  "Akorny", a more traditional Zork-like
    game, lies dormant since last summer.  Then there are some projects that
    haven't resulted in any code yet, but which are being processed at very low
    priority somewhere in the back of my mind.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Yes, if I can find the time to finish a game in time.

    >When can we expect the sequel you mentioned at the end of "Zebulon"?

    Perhaps I'll enter it in next year's competition, but don't hold your
    breaths; right now it's even more vapourware than "Avalon" :-).

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Toonesia, by C. J. T. Spaulding aka Jacob Weinstein, the author of Save
      Princeton.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    I'm a big fan of animation--I'd rank it as one of America's most
    significant cultural contributions to the world. I've wanted to do a
    complete game based on my favorite cartoons for a long time. Originally, I
    had planned on making it a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" type thing, with
    references to all of my favorite animated works. But after percolating in
    the back of my mind for two or three years, the idea didn't develop much
    beyond the walking-over-the-cliff puzzle, which was the very first one I
    had come up with. So, when the IF contest came up, I decided to narrow my
    focus, and make it just a tribute to the Warner Brothers universe. I'd love
    to write that longer 'toon game, some day, and pay homage to Droopy, Dumbo,
    and some of the other greats, too.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    Well, I'm working on Logomancer, in which you play the Logomancer General
    of a sleepy magical world. Or, at least, I'm sort of working on it. I've
    been doing a tiny bit at a time ever since I finished Save Princeton, some
    three years ago, but haven't really had the time to go at it full force.
    One problem with delaying so long, by the way, is that other people steal
    your ideas first. A big plot point of the game is that spells have started
    working backwards. You can imagine my chagrin when Graham Nelson came up
    with a similar idea in Balances.

    But I digress.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Definitely. It's a great way to motivate myself to produce something. And
    sprinting is always more fun than long-distance running, for me, at least.

    >So, just how many 'rascally' puns are floating around Toonesia, anyway?

    That's a tough one. When I moved cross country, I left my old computer
    behind, and I haven't yet transferred all my files to my new Mac, so I
    don't have the source code for Toonesia handy. But let's see: there's
    rascally Cavett, rascally rabbi, rascally Babbit, rascally habit, and
    rascally Cabbot--that's five. There may be one or two I've forgotten. (And
    as I type this list, I realize that I didn't think of "rascally ribbit" or
    "rascally robot." I'll have to work those in to the next version, in
    addition to fixing bugs. And if you don't mind, I'll use your "rascally
    abbot" line, too.)

    	[Later, Jacob sent me...]

    I've finally restored all the files from my old computer to my new
    computer, and I can give you a run-down of all the "rascally rabbit" puns
    in Toonesia:

    1) When you try to blow on something, you get the following message:
    "You take a deep breath and exhale. If it weren't for that pack-a-day habit
    you had as a teenager, you might be able to blow with more force. Oooh,
    that rascally habbit!" (Note the misspelling of "habit". I'll have to fix
    that.)

    2) When you read the rabbit season sign: ""This accursed interference in
    the rights of honest hunters like yourself is signed 'Bruce Babbit,
    Secretary of the Interior.' Ooooh, that rascally Babbit!"

    3) When you try to climb the cliff: "You don't have the strength to climb
    the ledge, due in large part to your habit of ordering your servants to
    exercise for you. Ooooh, that rascally habit!"

    4) When you examine the pictures on Buds' wall:
    "The pictures include a photo of Bud Bunny at a party with Chuck Jones,
    Fritz Freleng, Tex Avery, and Mel Blanc; a reproduction of the famous
    painting, "The Assumption of St. Peter Rabbit;" and an autographed photo of
    Dick Cavett. Seeing the last of these reminds you of the humiliation you
    suffered as  a guest on his show; unbeknownst to you, the talk show host
    had arranged for your fellow guests to be the president of Handgun Control,
    Inc, and the vice-chairman of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
    Ooooh, that rascally Cavett!"

    5) When you try to pick up a gem in the mine:
    "As you reach down to pick up a gem off the huge pile, you recall something
    your accountant said to you yesterday: "Mr. Fuld, right now, you're in the
    nine-nine-point-nine-percent tax bracket. If your value increases by more
    than a thousand dollars before the end of the fiscal year, you'll be in the
    one hundred percent bracket, and you'll have to give everything you own to
    the government." Since any one gem in this mine would be worth several
    thousand at least, you realize that your tax bracket prevents you from taking
    anything out of here (except that obviously worthless old lamp). Oooh, that
    rascally bracket!"

    6) When you smell the cologne:
    "Smelling it reminds you of the childhood day when little Vincent Cabot,
    scion of the only family in town wealthier than the Fulds, held you face down
    in a carrot patch until you begged for mercy, thereby instilling in you a
    lifelong hatred of the long orange vegetable and all creatures associated
    therewith. If only he had left you alone, you might have been spared the
    tremendous frustration that faces you every rabbit season. Oooooh, that
    rascally Cabot!"

    7) When you try to kiss an inanimate object:
    Just as you are about to kiss  you recall that, back when
    your name was Elmo Fuldstein, your rabbi always warned you against getting
    into a mixed relationship. And since a relationship with an inanimate
    object is about as mixed as you can get, you withdraw your lips,
    overwhelmed with guilt. Oooh, that rascally rabbi!"

    So, that's 7 of them. (Six if you don't want to count "habit" a second time.")

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The One That Got Away, by "The Author" aka Leon Lin

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    I'd love to say that I got the idea for the game while out at some
    beautiful lake, trolling idly for fish, the sun warming my tired soul and
    the sweet breezes blowing faintly...but I'm afraid I can't. At the risk of
    having had the most banal inspiration for an IF game in history, I'd have
    to say that the trigger that started my game was an episode of "The
    Simpsons" that I saw one night, about Homer going out fishing and
    struggling against one of those "mighty fish of the past." That must have
    made some kind of an impression on me, because, some morning afterwards, I
    was lying in bed when I thought, you know, no one has ever written an IF
    game about fishing. Before long, I was up and at my computer. The map
    quickly coalesced in my mind, and the game more or less wrote itself. (Of
    course, "The One That Got Away," despite its inspiration, is a wholly
    original story, with a tip of the hat to some rather tall tales about
    angling.)

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    At about the same time I was writing "The One," I also started work on a
    TADS object library to implement role-playing game elements such as NPCs,
    magical items, weapons, armor, and lighting sources, as well as a demo game
    to showcase the library. As complex as the library is, I haven't finished
    it yet, and hopefully I'll be able to get more work done on it despite my
    schoolwork and other responsibilities.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Sure, why not! In fact, I should start planning my entry now! ^_^

    >So, will we really get to go back in 30 years for a sequel?

    I have an idea for a plot and title for a sequel, if I ever write one. But
    any continuation of the story is still quite a ways into the future.
    Nevertheless, even if I don't write the story, The Old One will still be
    waiting... ^_^

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A Night at the Museum Forever, by Chris Angelini.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

      I had wanted to do something involving time travel as a puzzle, but
    needed a setting. I've always been a Larry Niven fan, so I wanted to use
    a 'long dead race', and the idea for a museum housing artifacts of time
    was added to bring these all together.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

      Yes. At the moment, I'm working on two games, one set in the Superguy
    world, and another, more serious ;->, game called Wanderer. The latter
    one is fantasy.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

      Yes.

    >Any particular reason you decided to write about time travel?

      I love the genre, and wanted to use it in a game. My original plans
    were more elaborate, but I ran out of time to implement them, and had to
    go with a simpler time-based puzzle.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Undertow, by Stephen Granade.

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    Believe it or not, it was the Sting video for "All This Time."  I had been
    mulling over the possibility of writing an entry for the IF competition
    when I ran across the video on TV.  If you haven't seen it, it takes place
    on a boat which ends up becoming very cramped.  I started thinking of the
    possibilities of a game set on a yacht--a yacht makes for a tiny setting
    compared to the setting of most other IF games.  However, it was just the
    size for a two-hour game.  In addition, I could more easily convey the
    sense of claustrophobia I wanted for my game.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    The short answer is "sort of."  The long answer is: I've just started
    physics grad school, so my time has become incredibly curtailed.  I have
    been working on a large game called "Losing Your Grip" for about a year
    and a half, with little progress so far.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    Possibly, depending on whether or not I have the inspiration and the free
    time.

    >Why did you write a mystery game, in particular?

    I had the setting for my game before I had a plot.  I thought about what
    kind of game could take place on a yacht, and decided that a mystery would
    be perfect.  I had never written a mystery before, and my earlier IF games
    have had a remarkable lack of NPCs in them.  This was a perfect chance for
    me to take on the challenge of setting a game in a tiny environment,
    mastering NPCs, and writing a mystery all at once.

    What can I say?  I wanted an ambitious project.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Undo, by Null Dogmas aka Neil Demause .

    >What first gave you the idea for your entry?

    I first wrote an earlier version of Undo for a friend's birthday -- it's
    based on an inside joke between the two of us.

    For the record, the joke goes: "A frog walks up to a hole. 'My, what a
    big hole,' he says. A small duck walks up to the hole. 'What large hole?'
    says the duck. 'What small duck?' says the frog."

    Not much of a joke, it's true -- more of a joke about jokes, like the
    Dadaist riddle (one of my favorites): "What's the difference between a
    duck? One leg is both the same!" Anyway, after discarding a much better
    idea for the I-F contest as taking way too much time, I thought of a
    bunch of things I could throw into Undo to turn it, sort of, into a
    playable game, though there's still only really one puzzle.

    The only purpose of Undo, really, aside from being vaguely weird and
    entertaining, is to challenge some of the I-F conventions -- like having
    everything be a puzzle (most of the rooms are mere clues at best, and at
    worst just diversions), having a score (the "score" of 86 you're shooting
    for is another negation joke -- as in, "eighty-six that"), winning at the
    end, and so on. It's sort of an "anti-game" in that sense.

    >Are you working on any other IF, if so, what?

    "Lost New York" is about a month away from beta-testing, three months
    away from release. It's a medium to long game (a good bit longer and more
    complex than MacWesleyan) set in historical New York -- if you liked
    "Time and Again" you should like it.

    I also have ideas for three other specific games (including the one I
    didn't get around to writing for this year's competition) that I'd like
    to do, but I need to finish Lost NY first before I can start on another one.

    >Are you planning to enter again next year?

    I'd like to, if the timing's right.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    	Let's have a big round of applause for all the entrants!

    KEY TO SCORES AND REVIEWS----------------------------------------------------

    Consider the following review header:

     NAME: Cutthroats                                PARSER: Infocom Standard
     AUTHOR: Infocom                                 PLOT: Two Seperate Paths
     EMAIL: ???                                      ATMOSPHERE: Well Done
     AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2                            WRITING: Good
     PUZZLES: Good                                   SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
     CHARACTERS: Not Bad                             DIFFICULTY: Medium

    	First, you'll notice that the score has been removed, and replaced
    by one or two word ratings.  These are pretty arbitrary, and should allow
    more freedom to the reviewers.  The EMAIL section is for the e-mail address
    of the game author, not the reviewer.  AVAILABILITY will usually have either
    Commercial ($price), Shareware ($price), or Freeware.  If the commercial
    price varies in stores, then it will just say Commercial.  If it has been
    released in the LTOI collection, this line should say so.  Lastly, if it is
    available on ftp.gmd.de, the line should add GMD.  (Demo) if it's a demo
    version.  The body of the review hasn't changed.

    When submitting reviews:  Try to fill in as much of this info as you can.
    Also, scores are still desired along with the reviews, so send those along.
    The scores will be used in the ratings section.  Authors may not rate or
    review their own games.

    SPAG accepts reviews of any length, letters to the editor, the occasional
    interesting article on text adventures (no reprints please), and even just
    ratings for your favorite game, if you don't have the time to do a full
    review.  Please though, at least send me info for each game you have rated
    equivalent to the review header for Cutthroats, above.  All accepted
    materials will be headed by the submitter's name and e-mail address, unless
    you request that they be withheld, or do not supply them, in which case the
    header will read as "Anonymous."

    CONTEST REVIEWS--------------------------------------------------------------

    From: "Palmer Davis"

      NAME: All Quiet on the Library Front   PARSER: Inform v1502
      AUTHOR: Michael Phillips               SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
      EMAIL: ???                             AVAILABILITY: GMD
      ATMOSPHERE: Just a little thin         WRITING: Expository
      CHARACTERS: Cardboard                  PLOT: Linear
      PUZZLES: Quite simple                  DIFFICULTY: Easy

    The premise is quite straightforward: you need to borrow a normally
    unobtainable book from your college library in order to write a
    research paper.  After a bit of wandering around, finding objects
    lying about, and giving them to the appropriate people, you do.

    I must confess that I was somewhat put off by the fact that the
    game is set on a college campus; the college game is second only
    to the Colossal Cave-style undirected dungeon crawl/scavenger hunt
    for being drastically overdone.  It worked in _Lurking_Horror_,
    and it's working now in _Christminster_, whose setting is different
    enough not to be stale, but every other such game since (not to
    mention the innumerable campuses that have been set up on MUDs
    worldwide) has felt like walking into someone else's inside joke.
    That includes a number of rather popular games that have fallen
    flat for me, and I'm probably stepping on a number of toes here;
    I tried not to let my feelings for the genre color my judgement.

    This entry doesn't just happen to take place on campus, however;
    the entire plot is centered around writing a research paper, and
    therein lies the problem.  Most IF transports the player to a
    fantastic place or situation that's genuinely interesting, sometimes
    more so than what's going on outside the screen.  That's not the
    case here -- being stuck in the library working on an undergraduate
    research paper is something that one plays IF to *escape*, not
    encounter, and the game never really transcends the ultimately
    pedestrian nature of its central task.

    It is possible to create good interactive fiction based entirely
    on everyday experiences if the writing stands out enough to carry
    the game on atmosphere (see _A_Change_in_the_Weather_, below).
    It is also possible to make a good game out of a fundamentally
    unpleasant situation (_Theatre_, for example, or _Bureaucracy_)
    if the game provides gripping drama or offers a fresh perspective
    on the events in question.  _Library_ does neither, offering a
    fairly routine scenario executed in expository but uninspiring
    prose.

    Oddly, the stairwell leading to the upper floor, an area in which
    none of the plot takes place, is one of the game's bright spots as
    far as writing goes -- the descriptions there are nearly as long
    as in busier areas, which gives the author enough space to breathe
    life into details like the paintings.  Had the rest of the map been
    executed with that much care, the game would have worked much better.
    It's not necessarily that more words are needed elsewhere (see
    _Enchanter_, for example), it's that more thought is needed to make
    the descriptions come to life.

    Overall, the game is solidly crafted, but feels like it's just
    going through the motions.  This isn't a *bad* game by any means,
    but somehow lacks that certain spark that makes well-written IF
    such a joy.  Cleaned up and commented, the source to this would
    probably make pretty good example code for new authors; it's solidly
    crafted, including a basic help system that gives a hint for the next
    puzzle.

    (After writing most of this review, I learned that the entry was the
    author's first attempt at writing IF.  It's obvious that the author
    *has* in fact mastered the motions that need to be gone through to
    create IF, and is just starting to catch on to a writing style; I
    look forward to seeing full-length works from him in the future.)

    BOTTOM LINE: An accurate simulation of a tedious chore.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: A Change in the Weather		  Parser: Inform
      Author: Andrew Plotkin		  Plot: Non-linear
      Email: erkyrath+ SP@G cmu.edu		  Atmosphere: Excellent
      Availability: F, GMD			  Writing: Excellent
      Puzzles: Time-critical		  Supports: Infocom ports
      Characters: One, simple but memorable   Difficulty: Above average

    During a picnic with your friends, you decide that you'd like some
    privacy and walk away on your own to explore the nearby hills. Soon,
    however, the warm, beautiful summer evening turns into the proverbial
    dark and stormy night (the "change in the weather" of the title), and
    you find yourself cut off from your friends by a rain-swollen stream
    that threatens to carry away the only bridge...

    Although unpleasant, such a mundane situation may not seem like the
    stuff from which a tale of wonder and adventure is built. That,
    however, is just what Andrew Plotkin has succeeded in creating. With
    very small means he manages to increase tension until your attempts to
    save the bridge turn into a nightmarish struggle against time. The
    writing is excellent, as are the atmosphere and the changes in mood.
    As if to demonstrate further how far you can get with deceptively
    simple means, the one NPC of this game - an endearing little fox -
    doesn't do very much, but is nevertheless very effective (of course,
    animal NPC's are simpler than humans since they don't speak).

    Despite its small size, "A Change in the Weather" is not an easy game.
    The author himself classifies this game as "cruel", and that is no
    great exaggeration.  The puzzles aren't very diffciult in isolation,
    but they are very time-critical and you have to perform actions in a
    carefully timed order to win. You should be prepared to save and
    restore a lot, even to replay from the beginning, since the tiniest
    mistake will put the game in an unsolvable state.

    This kind of game behaviour has been condemned in the debate on
    rec.arts.int-fiction, the main argument being that all the restoring
    and replaying ruins the enjoyment of the game and disrupts the
    story. Also, of course, it lowers realism if, for example, you have to
    die five times beofre finding the right way to disarm a bomb; in real
    life you have to get it right the first time.

    In this particular case, however, having to save and restore
    frequently didn't detract anything from my enjoyment of the game;
    in fact, somehow knowing that the smallest mistake may mean disaster
    actually enhanced the sense of drama and urgency. It may of course
    have helped that you can't die in this game (the worst thing that can
    happen is that you have to wade across the stream to get home). The
    size of the game certainly played an important part - having to
    restart from the beginning is less cumbersome in a tiny game like this
    than in a larger game.

    To summarize, this is an excellent little game: well written, with a
    simple goal that isn't that easy to attain, an interesting sequence of
    logical puzzles and an excellent atmosphere; all of which makes this
    perhaps the most memorable of all the competition entries.

    From: "Palmer Davis"

      NAME: A Change in the Weather       PARSER: Inform v1405
      AUTHOR: Andrew Plotkin              SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
      EMAIL: erkyrath+ SP@G cmu.edu            AVAILABILITY: GMD

      ATMOSPHERE: Outstanding
      WRITING: Generally well written, though eye slides past in spots
      CHARACTERS: Memorable
      PLOT: Mutual exclusion between branches
      PUZZLES: Nicely done, but with dead ends and save/restore puzzles
      DIFFICULTY: Moderately challenging

    Now *this* is more like it.  The game starts out rather slowly:
    you wander away from a picnic to go exploring in the park.  After
    a beautifully described sunset (and an encounter with the
    competition's most memorable NPC), the idyllic day suddenly turns
    nasty, and you are forced to seek shelter, eventually thrusting
    you into a dreamlike race against time and vague, sinister evil.

    The atmosphere, scenery, and overall sense of immersion in this
    entry were far and away the best in either division, approaching
    that of Infocom's better efforts in spots.  In one or two spots,
    the writing is dense enough that the casual reader's eye slides
    right past (lists of exits, mostly), but otherwise the writing
    is among the best in this year's field.

    If there's a weakness here, it's the rather languid pace that the
    game gets off to at first.  That's an unavoidable consequence of
    the tranquil, contemplative mood that the author creates in the
    first section, but it makes it difficult to warm up to the game
    at first.  The plot really needs a kick in the tail that it doesn't
    get until after nightfall; an opening with enough action to make
    wandering off alone seem a welcome respite (playing volleyball until
    you get sick of it, perhaps?) might correct this.  (The virtues of
    establishing emotional context through player interaction rather
    than imposing it by fiat have been discussed at length elsewhere.)
    Of course, the game flirts perilously with the two hour limit as
    it is; leaving out such an opening is understandable given the
    nature of the competition.  Furthermore, the contrast between the
    slow pace of the first section and the frantic pace of the dream
    sequence works quite well, and is perhaps the sole example of
    such a mood shift in the contest.

    The save/restore nature of the section after nightfall is also
    likely to put off many players, as is the game's ability to be
    closed off after the player attempts actions that are otherwise
    perfectly reasonable.  While any race against time necessarily
    runs the risk of degenerating into save/restore, a bit more time
    between the appearance of the light source and the expiration of
    the player's time might have been nice; as it was, I didn't get
    past that part before time ran out.  Likewise, a second (possibly
    more difficult) option for getting into the cave after the
    destruction of the needed object would also have helped.  Still,
    the game was quite satisfying, especially in contrast to the
    rest of the division.

    BOTTOM LINE: Yes.  Like that.  My choice for the division winner.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: Detective - an Interactive MiSTing / MST3K1
      Author: C.E. Forman
      Email: ceforma SP@G rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu	  Parser : Hacked Inform
      Plot: See review			  Atmosphere: Demented
      Availability: F, GMD			  Writing: Excellent
      Puzzles: What puzzles?		  Supports: Infocom Ports
      Characters: See review		  Difficulty: Self-solving

    This piece of IF is not really a game, but a commentary on a game -
    or, as the author calls it, an Interactive MiSTing. The strange acronym
    MST3K1 refers to "Mystery Science Theater 3000", a TV show that hasn't
    reached the European networks, but this fact shouldn't scare away any
    non-American readers, since the concept is made sufficiently clear
    anyway (I had it explained to me by Whizzard after I played the game,
    but I didn't really miss anything).

    Similar to the TV show, this game consists of the characters of
    "Mystery Science Theater" playing - and commenting on - an existing
    game: "Detective" by Matt Barringer. "Detective", reviewed in SPAG 4,
    is an amazingly bad game; basically, Barringer has committed every
    possible mistake in writing it, even forgetting to put in any puzzles.

    The core of "MST3K1" is a faithful re-implementation in Inform of
    "Detective", complete down to the last bug. As the player walks
    through the game (and, believe me, walking through "Detective" is all
    there is to winning it), he or she is treated to the commentary of the
    MST characters. And this commentary is simply hilarious; together with
    the unconscious comedy of the original "Detective", the result must be
    the funniest IF ever written. I'm exaggerating only slightly when
    writing that "MST3K1" had me rolling on the floor with laughter.

    Rating "MST3K1" according to the usual SPAG rules is of course
    impossible, since the only game aspects are those of "Detective", which
    is a very very bad game. Suffice it to say that the "MST" part of the
    writing is excellent, though the satire is perhaps a bit heavy-handed
    in places - I sincerely hope that Matt Barringer has a sense of humour!

    Finally, let me just step onto the soapbox for a minute to express
    some concern. The immediate reaction to this program on Usenet was
    something along the lines of "Great idea! There are lots of bad games
    out there; let's MiST them as well!" I sincerely hope that these
    people think not only once, but twice and thrice before starting to
    write their own MiSTings. If nothing else, there's the simple rule of
    all comedy: a good joke is extremely funny the first time it's told.
    The second time, it's already old. The third time, it's routine. The
    tenth time, people hate it. Let's not beat this excellent idea to
    death by repeating it ad nauseam.

    Also, and far more seriously, the line between poking gentle fun at
    something and cruelly mocking it is a fine one indeed. The present
    author has managed to stay on the right side, but it takes
    considerable skill to do so. We've all written things we're less than
    proud of; even the good Homer nods. Indiscriminate derision of these
    games - perhaps youthful first tries - could have disastrous
    consequences for the small, fragile IF community.

    Of course, these words of warning should not reflect at all on the
    present MiSTing; in fact, I think it's brilliant. Let's just not
    pervert such a good idea.

    From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304 SP@G compuserve.com>

      NAME:  DETECTIVE:  An Interactive MiSTing
                                             GAMEPLAY:  Inform Parser
      AUTHOR:  C. E. Forman                  PLOT:  Trivial
      EMAIL:  ceforma SP@G rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu   ATMOSPHERE:  Demented
      AVAILABILITY:  GMD incoming            WRITING:  Pathetic
      PUZZLES:  None                         SUPPORTS:  All Inform Ports
      CHARACTERS:  Cardboard                 DIFFICULTY:  None at all

         Normally, looking at the above category descriptions (such as
    "Trivial", "Demented", and "Pathetic") one would expect a pretty bad
    game.  Yet, such is not the case here.  In the zany world of Mystery
    Science Theater 3000, (MST3K for short) where schlock is fun, and all
    involved want "More cheese, please", such descriptions denote an
    excellent game.  Detective, the game least likely to be ported, now
    exists (with enhancements) for Inform.
         A little background is in order to understand this game.  SPAG #4
    featured a review of an AGT game called Detective, which stated that
    the author had made every possible mistake, and that the game should be
    avoided.  In SPAG #5 I wrote a second review in which I stated that the
    game, though awful, was in fact loaded with unintentional laughs and
    bizarre incongruities that were sure to entertain the player, and that
    the game would make an excellent episode of Mystery Science Theater
    3000.
         For those who don't know, MST3K is a cable television show (soon to
    be a major motion picture) on Comedy Central, that involves a man shot
    into space by two mad scientists and forced to watch bad movies so that
    his reactions can be monitored.  Throughout the movie we can see the
    silhouettes of Mike and his robot companions (whose outer casings are
    made out of things like a gumball machine, a bowling pin, and a
    lacrosse helmet) at the lower right-hand corner of the screen, and hear
    them deliver a barrage of sarcastic remarks, pop-culture references,
    and suggested dialogue.  For example in Godzilla vs. Megalon, a
    close-up of Godzilla waving his arms and bellowing drew the response "I
    am Kirok!!", a reference to a classic bit of Shatner overacting in Star
    Trek's The Paradise Syndrome episode.  In Marooned, when three
    astronauts, stranded in space are arguing over who will leave the ship
    (there was only enough oxygen to sustain two until the rescue ship
    arrived) one of the robots observed "they could toss a coin, but it
    would never come down."
         The show is in its 7th season, and each episode is two hours long.
     Their bread-and-butter is schlocky sci-fi movies, but they have hit
    almost every genre, including the occasional biker movie.  Before and
    after the show, as well as during intermissions, they do short amusing
    skits, often based on scenes from the movie.
         Chris Forman has taken this format and adapted it into a text
    game, almost seamlessly.  The original Detective game has been
    transferred verbatim to Inform, even retaining the AGT default
    responses, and snappy responses from Mike and the robots have been
    inserted everywhere; into room descriptions, item descriptions,
    response descriptions, et cetera.  Repetition is avoided, enhancing
    believability.  The first time you enter a room you get one set of
    responses.  The second time you will get either a different set, or
    none at all.  The jokes are generally top quality, turning an already
    (unintentionally) amusing game into a laugh riot.  The level of
    imitation is flawless; if you have seen the show, you can almost hear
    the dialogue coming out of the actors' mouths.
        A typical MST3K episode features a short skit and an invention
    exchange with the mad scientists before the movie actually begins.  Mr.
    Forman has represented this by including a special introductory text
    file that highlights the robots attempting to write their own text
    games, and Dr. Forrester's "fictionary", a device that inputs the
    vocabulary of a text game directly into the player's mind, with
    hilarious results.
         The only thing that could put anyone off about this game might be
    found in Stefan Jokisch's original SPAG review:  "we should not forget that
    Matt [the original author of Detective] wrote this game with good intentions
    and he offered it for free, so who are we to mock at his efforts?"
    Matt Barringer's game is "mocked" here, but previous MST3K episodes have
    had movies featuring the likes of Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman, Linda Evans,
    Peter Graves, James Earl Jones, and Bela Lugosi, putting Mr. Barringer
    in very august company indeed.
         This may not be my all-time favourite text adventure, but it is
    one of the few that I would recommend to absolutely everyone.

    From: "Palmer Davis"

    NAME: _Detective_ MST3Kization            PARSER: Inform (imitating AGT)
    AUTHOR: C. E. Forman (and Matt Barringer) SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
    EMAIL: ceforma SP@G rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu       AVAILABILITY: GMD

    ATMOSPHERE: Precisely on target
    WRITING: ROTFL!
    CHARACTERS: Non-interactive
    PLOT: Laughable, but that's the point
    PUZZLES: Nonexistent, except for occasional sudden death
    DIFFICULTY: Also nonexistent

    Obviously inspired by Graeme Cree's review from SPAG #5, this is a
    port of Matt Barringer's (infamous) AGT game _Detective_, onto which
    the cast of _Mystery_Science_Theater_3000_ has been grafted, providing
    a Greek chorus that pokes hilarious fun at _Detective_'s shortcomings.
    This was the first game that I returned to finish after my initial
    ten minute look at each entry, and it succeeds brilliantly at the same
    sort of appeal as the real MST3K.

    Trying to evaluate this entry relative to the others in the division
    was difficult.  However creative the writing may be, the fact remains
    that this is not an original work of IF, which was the whole point of
    the contest.  On the other hand, this entry also essentially defines
    an entirely new genre: the interactive work of criticism.  Is it a
    work of IF that happens to be critical or a work of criticism that
    happens to be interactive?  And how much credit is due the author for
    pioneering something as yet untried, especially given the much lower
    level of technical difficulty in producing it?  In any case, comparing
    this to the other entries is like comparing apples and oranges.

    In the end, I wound up deciding to place this at the enjoyability
    threshold, and score it behind any more technically difficult works
    that succeeded at being entertaining, but ahead of any that didn't.
    Had I been scoring for awards other than first, this would have
    wound up taking second in its division, and certainly deserves an
    honorable mention for its writing, but future works of this kind
    will have to be crafted with great care to avoid becoming stale.

    BOTTOM LINE: This is the entry most likely to continue to be
    downloaded and played after the end of the contest; it's likely to
    become a (cult) classic simply by being the preferred way to
    experience the wonderful awfulness of _Detective_.  I can't wait to
    see the crew take on _Space_Aliens_Laughed_at_my_Cardigan_!

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Palmer Davis"

      NAME: The Magic Toyshop                PARSER: Inform v1502
      AUTHOR: Gareth Rees                    SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
      EMAIL: gdr11 SP@G cl.cam.ac.uk              AVAILABILITY: GMD

      ATMOSPHERE: Nonexistent (be sure to wear a pressure suit!)
      WRITING: Minimalist to the point of information underload
      CHARACTERS: Unresponsive
      PLOT: What plot?  (Sequential pairs of puzzles.)
      PUZZLES: "Guess the verb", "What am I thinking?", and the like
      DIFFICULTY: Frustrating

    I really wanted to like this game.  I really did.  In a competition
    that intends to reward meaningful brevity, a one room adventure is
    a really neat idea.  And a very spare, minimal writing style can work
    well if done right, as in _Enchanter_ (and _Christminster_'s opening).
    Unfortunately, this entry takes both concepts too far.

    There is a brief blurb in the teaser about wandering into a Victorian
    toy shop with a rocking horse in the window, in search of a birthday
    present for your niece, but rocking horse, window, and the charm of
    a Victorian toy shop are all entirely absent from the game itself.
    The player is dumped into an apparently empty room with a chest and
    a young woman, both of which frustrate most attempts at interaction.
    This can be unintentionally funny in spots:

      > CATHARINE, OPEN THE CHEST
      Catharine has better things to do.

      Catharine opens the chest and roots around inside it.  "I wonder
      if your niece would like something like this?" she says....
      [Your score just went up by 1 point.]

    In the example above, Catharine *still* would have opened the chest,
    even had the player said nothing, or waited, or looked around, or
    done *anything*; all interaction with her (except for her function
    as a primitive hint system) is initiated by her, and you are awarded
    points for doing absolutely nothing!  In fact, both Catharine and
    verbs pertaining to her are incompletely implemented:

      > SAY "GO WEST" TO THE ROBOT MOUSE
      (to Catharine)

      Catharine has better things to do.

    Top quality interactive fiction requires both good writing and good
    programming.  _Detective_ MST3K had wonderful writing, but the
    technical content wasn't there.  _Toyshop_ presumably (I ran out of
    time playing "guess the verb" and therefore didn't encounter most of
    it) contains some clever programming, but the writing isn't there.
    Literally.  The game's sole location doesn't even have a description,
    just a rhetorical question asking what might be contained therein.
    Object descriptions omit useful details like shapes and features,
    and the parser doesn't know about most of what detail there is.

    The limited vocabulary set combined with the sketchy descriptions
    of what is going on reduce _Toyshop_ to one of the most frustrating
    games of "guess the verb" that I've had the misfortune to encounter
    in years.  This may sound nitpicky, but is there is an important
    distinction between

      > EMPTY THE BOX
      The box is empty already.

    and

      > EMPTY THE BOX
      You can't see anything inside the box!

    The second is a clue that some sense other than vision must be
    used to determine if there's anything in the box; the first is
    an unequivocal statement that there isn't anything in there.
    Since the game uses the first wording rather than the second,
    I wasted my entire two hour review period searching in vain for
    an alternative solution to the robot mouse assembly puzzle that
    wasn't there.  (The sole hint that the game provided wasn't any
    help either, and no walkthrough was included.)  I played an endless
    series of stalemates at tic-tac-toe in the hope that Catharine
    would give me a tube of glue after losing, I mistook the "carpet"
    for a glue strip to be peeled off, and I tried to break into
    the chest or search elsewhere all with no success (there being
    no elsewhere!).  There may also be a cultural issue at work
    here -- in the United States, tubes of glue are not normally
    provided inside model kits.  Airfix may in fact do this in the
    UK, but it was only through process of elimination that I finally
    tried searching, examining, looking into, reaching inside, throwing,
    dumping, tearing, destroying, opening the other end (to peer through),
    and jumping up and down on top of the box (all in vain) before
    finally guessing that "shake" was the magic word.  By that time,
    the review period had expired, so I am basing my review on what I
    encountered up to that point.

    _Toyshop_ gave me of the most unpleasant experiences that I have
    ever had from a work of IF.  You are dumped into a bare room and
    told to fiddle with a group of vague objects that are handed to
    you, for no clear reason, and must contend with a rather limited
    set of ways to manipulate them and eventually guess which of
    several possible solutions has been implemented.  From what I've
    read on r.g.i-f since completing my evalutation, I'm not alone
    in getting stuck; this is probably *not* a two hour game.  Especially
    given how nice Gareth's other work has been, _Toyshop_ is a most
    unpleasant surprise.

    BOTTOM LINE: This game is evil, and must be destroyed.  Gareth Rees
    is also evil, but must *not* be destroyed -- at least not until he
    has a chance to finish the next _Christminster_....

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: The Mind Electric		  Parser: Inform
      Author: Jason Dyer			  Plot: Linear
      Email: jdyer SP@G indirect.com		  Atmosphere: Quite good
      Availability: F, GMD			  Writing: Quite good
      Puzzles: Logical but difficult	  Supports: Infocom ports
      Characters: Simple                      Difficulty: Quite difficult

    This game takes place in cyberspace. Not the cyberspace of
    "Neuromancer" - the infinite, open matrix where you move at will
    between network nodes - but rather the opposite: your enemies have
    captured your consciousness inside a virtual prison of just a few
    rooms. Not surprisingly, your task is to escape before your virtual
    body dissolves.

    Like dream scenes, a story set in virtual reality demands a lot of the
    author. Somewhat paradoxically, the very fact that anything is
    possible in your world makes it very important that you make it believable
    to the reader. Bearing this in mind, I think that the author has done
    quite well; he's managed to create a small world with its own laws and
    a pervasive atmosphere. Where he fails is perhaps in making it quite
    credible; I couldn't quite suspend my disbelief at some points. This
    shouldn't be taken as a very serious criticism, though; my doubts never
    quite broke the spell; true to the game's sub-title "An Interactive Vision",
    the author does have visions and he does manage to get them through.

    The writing is quite good, with one exception: the final denoument
    just doesn't feel right. I can appreciate the point the author is
    making, and why he's making it; still, I felt that the last page of
    text detracts from the quality of the game. Perhaps this is because
    he, having a lot to explain (including hitherto unprovided background)
    in just a page of text, falls into the classic trap of letting a
    character hold a short speech that neatly explains everything;
    whatever the reasons, the present ending is not very effective and
    dramatically unsatisfying. Perhaps some of the information the speech
    provides could be moved back into the story proper; this would also
    add some foreshadowing of the ending.

    What I found disappointing about this game was the puzzles. It's not
    that they are bad - they certainly aren't, and a few of them are quite
    clever, but rather that I constantly felt that I had too little
    information to solve them. The solutions are certainly logical, but
    there weren't enough clues to find them, and I found the game's world too
    strange for previous experience to guide me. Fortunately, the game has
    a comprehensive hint system - a bit too comprehensive, perhaps, since
    it's not context sensitive and it's easy to read too far - without
    which I'm afraid I wouldn't have made much progress at all. Of course,
    what's cryptic to one player may be obvious to another (and I freely
    admit to not being very good at solving adventure puzzles), but I have
    the feeling that the author should have provided more clues to allow
    the player to deduce the internal logic of the puzzles. Alternatively,
    the puzzles could have been made a bit more intuitive; as it is, the
    they were simply too difficult for me to enjoy them.

    Finally, a very minor thing: the game uses Inform's "box" command to
    present a number of rather obscure quotes; this is a nice feature of
    Inform, but a feature that shouldn't be overused. I feel that "The
    Mind Electric" does overuse it a bit, considering the very small size
    of the game.

    "The Mind Electric" is a very interesting game, and in many ways a
    very good one. With some rewriting (especially of the ending), and
    perhaps with more intuitive puzzles, it would be even better; as it
    is, it is still one of the best games of the competition.

    From: "Palmer Davis"

      NAME: The Mind Electric                PARSER: Inform v1502
      AUTHOR: Jason Dyer                     SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
      EMAIL: ???                             AVAILABILITY: GMD

      ATMOSPHERE: Incomprehensible
      WRITING: Surreal
      CHARACTERS: Limited
      PLOT: Linear, branching in two in several spots.
      PUZZLES: Quite a bit of "What am I thinking?"
      DIFFICULTY: Easy enough once you figure out what is going on

    This is the only game in the division with a clear plot not firmly
    tied to the everyday.  You are captured by the other side in some
    sort of virtual reality war, and your "mind essence" is somehow
    imprisoned (exactly how is never satisfactorily explained); the
    object of the game is to escape.

    The environment is highly stylized and rather surreal, like many
    cyberpunk depictions of the "Net"/"Matrix"/"Cyberspace"/VR/whatever.
    Too stylized and surreal, in fact -- the game doesn't always provide
    enough context to figure out what is going on without resorting to
    the help system, making much of the game an exercise in trying to
    guess what the author is thinking.  I *still* don't understand why
    the answer to one puzzle that I stumbled across by brute force
    worked!  You don't even get a large part of the background to the
    situation until you reach the very end.

    The endgame was perhaps this entry's strongest feature; a nice (and
    finally understandable!) little puzzle led to a denouement with a
    neat philosophical twist that left a much nicer impression than the
    previous two hours of head-scratching otherwise would have.  Sadly,
    the issues raised in the teaser and ending have no impact on the
    rest of the game and aren't otherwise expanded upon.

    A nice plus, particularly for a reviewer anxious to explore as widely
    as possible within the two hour time limit, was the rather extensive
    help system, like that in _Zork_Zero_.  It isn't context-dependent,
    and the player can completely spoil the game by referring to it, but
    it's quite complete, and, for that matter, the best in the competition.
    Unfortunately, it is needed to explain what's going on in places where
    the game is undecipherable.

    BOTTOM LINE: Huh?

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: A Night At The Museum Forever	  Parser: TADS
      Author: Chris Angelini		  Plot: Linear, rather clever
      Email: cangelini SP@G uoguelph.ca		  Atmosphere: Weak
      Availability: F, GMD			  Writing: Adequate
      Puzzles: Simple, not too original	  Supports: TADS ports
      Characters: None			  Difficulty: Quite simple

    This game has been endowed with a slightly misleading title: it does
    take place in a museum, but neither in one night or forever - three
    thousand years would be more appropriate! The museum is a strange one
    indeed: a temporal museum, with exhibits collected from both the past
    and the future. Abandoned for a thousand years, it has been ransacked and
    all the exhibits stolen.  All the exhibits, that is, but one. A priceless
    diamond ring remains, and it is your mission to retrieve it, a task which
    is harder than it seems, since the ring's presence involves a temporal
    paradox.  Fortunately, the museum's time machine is still in working
    order...

    Resolving the paradox and retrieveing the ring isn't that difficult;
    in fact, the game is quite small and easy, just as the competition
    entries should be. Both in style and execution it's quite similar to
    an early Infocom game (a treasure hunt through a deserted house
    containing some interesting gadgets as well as more commonplace
    objects, all conveniently placed where you can find them). The writing
    is not quite up to Infocom's standards, but quite adequate; the
    puzzles may not be very original but are clever and logical; the plot
    is simple but quite clever and the time travel is handled nicely.

    My only big complaint about the game is its almost total lack of
    atmosphere. After all, you're exploring a mysterious, deserted museum
    where many explorers/looters before you have vanished in a temporal
    paradox, you're travelling thousands of years back and forward in
    time, and yet the author conveys almost no sense of wonder. It's almost
    as if the hero would say "OK, so I've resolved a temporal paradox
    and retrieved a priceless ring before lunch today. Maybe I should take
    the dog for a walk this afternoon?"

    In some circumstances, leaving the museum leads to sudden death. This
    may be motivated by the plot, and anyway you can undo. What's worse,
    however, is that leaving the museum under certain other circumstances
    will cause the game to think you want to quit, and you're just taken
    out of the program without even the chance to undo.  This is really a
    Bad Thing since it's easy to take a wrong turn in the corridors - it
    happened several times to me.

    Despite these complaints, the game is quite clever and enjoyable. It
    nicely meets the One Rule of the contest: to be solvable in two hours,
    which is more than one can say for most of the more sophisticated
    entries.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: The One That Got Away		  Parser: TADS
      Author: anonymous			  Plot: Linear, simple
      Email: 				  Atmosphere: Superb
      Availability: F, GMD			  Writing: Outstanding
      Puzzles: Rather simple		  Supports: TADS ports
      Characters: Very good			  Difficulty: Below average

    Among the joys of fishing, perhaps the greatest is telling about it
    afterwards; stories not just about the fish you caught, but above all
    about the ones that got away. This game is about the grandfather of
    all the fish that ever got away - the Old One, a fish of mythical
    proportions, reputed to be centuries old, showing itself only once
    every thirty years. By some strange chance, one of its appearances
    happens to coincide with your fishing holiday. Of course you can't
    resist the challenge of succeeding where everybody else has failed,
    and bagging the Old One...

    This game tells the story of your encounter with the Old One. The
    emphasis is on the word "tells", since this game is more a piece of
    interactive literature than a traditional game. There certainly are
    puzzles, but the important thing is the story, not the puzzle solving.

    As a reading experience, "The One That Got Away" is very enjoyable
    indeed. The writing is perhaps the best I've ever seen in an adventure
    game; not as poetic or beautiful as in "The Sound Of One Hand
    Clapping", but perfect for telling this kind of story. There's rather
    a lot of it, too: the introduction alone takes up more than two screen
    pages. The author manages to create just the right setting and
    atmosphere for his (her?) story, and the only real NPC, old Bob in the
    bait shop, is nicely characterized and has a lot to tell if you ask
    him.

    This emphasis on writing doesn't mean that the gameplay aspects are
    neglected. On the contrary, the game flows nicely and the author seems
    to have thought of almost everything, providing appropriate - and
    often very funny - responses to most of the weird things an adventurer
    might try doing. The puzzle involving the actual fishing is perhaps a
    bit awkward, but implementing fishing at the level of detail it's done
    in this game is not a simple feat. To help you get an idea of what
    you're supposed to do there's a very humorous and detailed transcript
    of another fishing adventure available online. If you get totally
    stuck, the author has included a walkthrough in the distribution - not
    that it should be needed, since the game is quite simple.

    So far for the good sides of this game, and they are good indeed.
    What's not so good is what happens once you're ready for some action.
    After the monumental introduction and a lot of build-up during your
    conversations with Bob and your attempts to get the right bait, you're
    ready for a monumental struggle, but instead you're presented with quite
    an anticlimax. After finishing the game, one can't help but to get a
    feeling of "Was this all?"

    Still, despite the anticlimax, its literary quality makes this game
    a truly memorable one, one worth playing and replaying several times,
    just as one returns to a favourite novel.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: Toonesia			  	Parser: TADS
      Author: C. J. T. Spaulding (pseudonym)  	Plot: Linear
      Email: an355952 SP@G anon.penet.fi		  	Atmosphere: Excellent
      Availability: F, GMD			  	Writing: Very Good
      Puzzles: Original and rewarding	  	Supports: TADS ports
      Characters: Good, but a bit non-interactive
      Difficulty: Rather simple

    In this delightful little game you assume the persona of Elmo Fuld,
    millionare and hunter. When the game starts, it seems as if your
    eternal adversary, Bud Bunny (that rascally rabbit!), holds a distinct
    advantage: not only has he stolen your gun, but he's imprisoned you in
    a room without an exit. But don't despair: you're as resourceful as
    ever, and in this world the laws of nature are quite flexible...

    Does this sound familiar? It should, since this game is a loving
    re-creation of the world of classic cartoons (with the names slightly
    changed, probably for copyright reasons). During your adventures in
    Toonesia (don't worry, you do escape your doorless prison) you'll meet
    not only Bud Bunny but Dizzy Duck and other characters, and you'll end
    up in a number of typical cartoon situations, hauntingly familiar yet
    with certain new angles, situations posing problems that can only be
    solved by thinking in the slightly twisted way of a 'toon.

    This game may not be very profound, but it's clearly one of the most
    entertaining adventure games I've ever played. It's not very large and
    not very difficult (and comes with extensive online hints if you're
    stuck), the puzzles are all very much in character and have logical
    and satisfying solutions (possibly with one exception: the helmet
    problem seems a bit contrived), the ending is very appropriate, and
    above all it's funny.

    My only complaint is that the game seems to have been rushed out in a
    hurry (it was even released a week before the competition deadline),
    giving it a slightly unpolished feeling in places. The NPCs could be a
    bit more interactive, and there are a few inconsistencies (such as the
    Tazmanian (sic) Devil escaping through a tunnel that ends inside a
    locked cage - yet when you follow him, he's gone!). I found one quite
    serious bug: for some reason, the room description of the mesa
    reverses east and west, which made me quite frustrated when trying to
    escape, until I literally stumbled onto the solution by
    trial-and-error.

    These are relatively minor things, however. I hope that the author
    will step forward after the competition to accept our congratulations;
    with products of this quality, there's really no reason to be
    anonymous.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Magnus Olsson"

      Name: Undo				Parser: TADS (hacked)
      Author: null dogmas			Plot: What plot?
      Email: ???				Atmosphere: Weird
      Availability: F, GMD			Writing: Adequate
      Puzzles: Very strange			Supports: TADS ports
      Characters: Props			Difficulty: Almost unplayable

    One pleasant fact about the competition entries is that several of the
    authors have not just aimed at writing "classic", Infocom-style games,
    but actually tried to renew the genre; to, despite the small format,
    produce something new and original.

    The author of this game has obviously tried very hard to come up with
    something original, and he or she has certainly succeeded, in the sense
    that this game is totally unlike any other piece of IF I've ever seen.
    In fact, I'm not even sure of what "Undo" really is - a game, an
    experiment in TADS programming, a parody of IF, a meta-game? Perhaps
    it's a little of each. Sometimes when playing it, I had the feeling
    of being the victim of a strange practical joke.

    In any case, the meta-game aspects are pretty obvious. This is a game
    about a game that has crashed just when you were about to win; only a
    few steps to your east, a "You have won" sign beckons enticingly.
    However, the way is blocked by a large hole that's just appeared in
    the ground, and as you explore this little world (just five rooms),
    you'll find that things have suddenly started to behave very strangely
    indeed.

    True to his (or her, but for simplicitly I'll be politically uncorrect
    and use the masculine pronoun) pseudonym, the author has apparently
    tried to turn all the conventions of IF upside down. Doing this
    involves some wordplay, some self reference, and a lot of hacking of
    the TADS library.

    The results are of dubious quality. In turning everything upside down,
    the author seems to have totally dispensed with internal logic and
    consistency. The world consists of a number of locations and objects,
    only very weakly connected and all behaving in very odd ways. There is
    basically no way of deducing how things will work, which means that
    the only way of solving the game - at least the only way I found - is
    pure trial and error. Paradoxically, the fact that there are very few
    actions to try makes this process of trial and error more, rather than
    less, frustrating; trying to do a lot of things with no apparent
    effect and no sensible messages can be very irritating indeed.

    I played this game some time and got steadily more and more
    frustrated, getting nowhere, making some quite surprising discoveries
    about innoculous-looking objects, all of which turned out to be
    absolutely useless, and without getting a single point for my
    troubles. In desperation, I posted a plea for help on Usenet, and was
    kindly nudged in the correct direction; yet even with that help, some
    further trial and error was needed before I stumbled on a sequence of
    actions that actually won the game - but still without giving me any
    points.

    It seems as if there's only one real puzzle in the game. In retrospect,
    its solution has a certain weird logic to it, but you must probably
    have as twisted a mind as the author to be able to solve it by
    reasoning - sheer luck or trial and error seem far more likely
    methods. The solution only involves one room and two objects; all the
    rest has apprently been put in either just because they're neat ideas
    or as red herrings.

    The score (or rather, absense of score) seems to be a pure red herring;
    the game keeps telling you that you have zero points out of 86, but no
    action (not even winning the game) seems to increase it. All this is
    further aggravated by the fact that there seem to be a few genuine bugs
    in the program (for example, try taking the zero while carrying things,
    then putting it back in the swamp, or referring to it as "0" while
    carrying it) - but, of course, in this game you can never be sure whether
    the "bugs" are intentional or not.

    The author should certainly be credited for his creativity. Many of
    the items in the game are very neat ideas, when seen in isolation;
    perhaps they should be viewed as jokes. The recursive description of
    the writing in the self-referential room is clearly a logical joke
    (logic's equivalent of a word game?). There are also some quite
    conventional (I'm shocked!) verbal jokes: the bogus error messages in
    the dark room are very funny, while other jokes fall flat on the
    ground.

    However, when all these elements are just thrown together and
    presented as a game without any further explanation, the result is
    more frustrating than amusing. If there had been some hidden internal
    logic to be discovered it would have posed an intellectual challenge;
    but personally I don't find trying to solve puzzles that aren't there
    very challenging, especially when the only way forward seems to be
    trial and error; it just makes me feel like the author is pulling my
    leg.

    Had this been made into a "real" game (where there actually is a point
    to it all) it could have been a great success.  As it is, perhaps the
    most appropriate characterization would be to call it an anti-game. To
    the prepared and not-too-weak-of-heart player I suppose it can be
    quite a kick, but unleashing it on the unsuspecting contest judges without
    a warning is cruel.

    IN DEPTH ANALYSES---------------SPOILER WARNING! BEWARE!---------------------

    	First, I am going to apologize to every author whose game I am taking
    apart with tweezers below.  I'm sure you'll all refuse to speak to me for a
    month or so after reading my analyses of your games.  I promise you this,
    however.  I will endeavor to explain WHY I say the things I say.  There will
    be no 'empty' criticism in these articles if I can help it.

    		[This space intentionally left blank.]

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    			     TOONESIA

    	Toonesia is not a visionary game.  Let me start by saying that.  The
    author has no artistic pretensions coming into this game.  Considering the
    subject matter, that's probably just as well. :)

      TECHNICAL ASPECTS: Jacob did a pretty good job with his parser, and the
    appearance of his game.  He's a bit short on synonyms in certain areas,
    like trying to put on the carrot cologne, but he has some code that holds up
    well under fire.

      PLOT: While not exactly original, Toonesia is a work of inspired borrowing
    from various cartoons.  My problem with the plot is its strict linearity.  It
    borrows from the obstructionist school of game writing.  I would suggest to
    Jacob that he needs to loosen up his plots more, and allow the player more
    room to breathe.  This may not really be a valid complaint, as the
    competition had tight time constraints, but it is one I will bring up just in
    general.  A good plot tree, to me, looks something like this:

    				1
    			      / | \
    			    2   3   4
    			  / | X | X | \
    			5   6   7   8   9
    			  \ |    \  |   |
    			    A       B   C
    			    |	      \ |
    			  END1	      END2

    There are many other significant plot forms, but this is a good, solid one.

      ATMOSPHERE: I can't complain too much about this.  Jacob did an admirable
    job portraying the world of cartoons.  I even felt like saying, "Shhhh!  Be
    Vewy, Vewy Qwiet." at one point.  Concrete suggestions: More mobile NPCs,
    a few more scenery objects (most of the rooms were too empty.), and a few
    more hints of the wackiness that makes cartoon so near and dear to so many of
    us.  Essentially a very good job in this area, though.

      WRITING: I'd like to point out one room description, and a quick player
    action.

    -=-=-

    Inside the Mine
       You are inside a vast cave that vanishes into darkess on all sides, except
    for the entrance to the west.  The lush carpet of wealth contained herein is
    enough to make even you, Elmo Fuld, millionaire, gasp.  A narrow beam of
    sharp desert light flows in from outside and reflects off a ruck of rubies,
    from where it bounces off into brood of beryl, heads for a heap of
    heliotrope, crashes into a clot of carnelian, hurries to a hunk of hyacinth,
    bashes into a battillion of bloodstone, careens into a cohort of carbuncle,
    makes for a murmuration of moonstone, and, completely zonked, catches some
    z's in a crowded zareba of cubic zirconium.

    >get jewels
    As you reach down to pick up a gem off the huge pile, you recall something
    your accountant said to you yesterday:  "Mr.  Fuld, right now, you're in the
    nine-nine-point-nine-percent tax bracket.  If your value increases by more
    than a thousand dollars before the end of the fiscal year, you'll be in the
    one hundred percent bracket, and you'll have to give everything you own to
    the government."  Since any one gem in this mine would be worth several
    thousand at least, you realize that your tax bracket prevents you from taking
    anything out of here (except that [CENSORED by GKW]).

    Oooh, that rascally bracket!

    -=-=-

    Solid, humorous writing.  Nothing too pretentious, nothing too terribly
    obnoxious (although the gem listing comes close), and it's good for a
    chuckle or two.  I like this sort of writing quite well.  Not everything has
    to be deep and meaningful, or as symbolic as The Mind Electric's writing.
    I'm perfectly okay with this.  If I had any suggestions about Jacob's
    writing, I would just mention that his writing style is particularly suited
    to brevity and straightforwardness.  Again, I *like* that, but I'm not sure
    if he's completely comfortable with that style.  I have a tendency to be
    long-winded and flowery, so it's a relief for me to see short, concise
    descriptions.

      PUZZLES: Toonesia's puzzles are okay.  I was too busy being entertained by
    the fun writing to worry about them too much.  I did need the hints to
    figure out where the gun was hidden though, more out of impatience than any
    real difficulty in the game.

      CHARACTERS: Somehow, although these characters are described as doing more,
    they are less interesting than the fox in A Change in the Weather.  It's
    probably that I expect a lot if you let a character talk.  Taz was just
    right, but Bud and Dizzy fell flat-footed. (That's a joke, son.)  I wanted to
    talk to them about what they were doing, about their careers.  I wanted to
    see Dizzy occasionally reenter the mine to grab some more gems (possibly
    throwing you out if you try to enter with a "Mine mine mine!  They're all
    mine!"  Hell, I even wanted to marry the disguised rabbit at the end just to
    see if I could do it, since it says that you want to in the game.  To Jacob,
    I would suggest expanded topics of conversation for his NPCs in the future,
    along with a more aggressive, less passive role in the game's action.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    			Uncle Zebulon's Will

    	Uncle Zebulon's Will is a complacently tradition, highly effective
    narrative.  It combines the quirky unreality of Trinity with the gizmo-filled
    atmosphere of Spellbreaker or Starcross.  Of course, I don't say this merely
    to lavish praise upon Magnus, but also to point out certain key elements that
    make the game _work_.  First and foremost is that the game elements are well
    balanced in comparison to one another.  Other entries had excellent stories,
    a good level of difficulty, interesting puzzles, but none of them combined
    all these things as well as Zebulon did.

    TECHNICAL ASPECTS: Magnus Olsson did an excellent job with his parser.  I
    found a few small problems though.  Notably, the lack of the nouns: idol,
    and fountain in certain spots.  There was also difficulty with the wood
    shavings puzzle that smacked of guess the verb ever so slightly.  The final
    complaint I have has to do with the use of the pronoun 'it'.  If you were to
    type 'search chair', you find a wand, however, immediately typing 'get it'
    returns "You can't have the armchair."  Magnus needed to setit(wand) [For you
    TADS users out there.] Still, these are very minor complaints, all things
    considered.

    PLOT: Zebulon shines here.  You are drawn into the story quickly, with a
    small opening area, and an NPC early on.  The notes and letters from Zeb are
    excellent expository, brief and to the point, while remaining in character.
    Uncle Zebulon's personality comes across through these writings, and we get
    an idea of just why he's our favorite uncle.  You come for a small
    remembrance of your uncle, but leave with a world of adventure ahead of you.
    	This is an often-used device in fantasy fiction.  Beginning with
    small expectations, you build up the importance of a minor task until it
    has become a monumental undertaking of heroic proportions.  Think of Bilbo
    Baggins and the riddle match with Gollum.  He walks away from it with a
    handy little invisibility ring, or so we think.  Turns out to be much more
    important than that, and the adventures of his descendants suddenly take on
    mythic proportions.
    	This technique is a good one because it doesn't create any overblown
    expectations in the player.  He gets more than he asked for, in fact.

    ATMOSPHERE: Just a brief room description:

    Study
       You're in what uncle Zebulon used to call his study, but which also
    doubled as his bedroom.  You remember this room as being full of books:
    not only the bookshelves, but the desk was overflowing with books and
    pieces of paper, and there were always stacks of books on the floor as well.
       Now, the bookshelves gape empty; the narrow, rickety bed is gone, as are
    the soft carpets.  Only your uncle's desk remains, along with the smell of
    old books and stale tobacco smoke.  The only door leads north, back into the
    hall.
       On the desk you see a book and a crystal ball.

    	To me, when I read this, I was outraged, as though my uncle really
    had died, and my relatives had gone scrounging through his house like a pack
    of wild vultures.  You are given memory ties with your uncle in the first
    paragraph, and then the current status of the room.  This is a common pattern
    in uncle Zeb's house, and I got angrier and angrier as I went along.  I tend
    to heavily 'get into character' when I'm playing text adventures, and this
    was no exception.  Magnus uses this juxtaposition of past and present to
    create a feeling of continuity, and make the world more real.

    WRITING: The writing, I have little to say about that has not already been
    said.  Magnus claims that the writing is rather plain.  Perhaps it is.  But
    consider for a moment how well this works.  I find that the writing style,
    involving ordinary descriptions, run-of-the-mill adjectives and so forth,
    provides a perfect foil to the fantastic world in which the game is set.  In
    fact, the writing is just down-to-earth enough to keep me believing in the
    magical world of the irrepressible Zebulon.  If I was a visitor to Zeb's
    world from Earth, surely everything would seem strange and marvellous to me.
    Adjectives like eldritch and mystical would abound.  But the I in the game
    has lived in this world all my life.  Why should things appear unusual to
    that me until I get to the alternate world?  When I get there, the writing
    compensates and becomes more stylish.  I call this not plain writing, but
    staying in character.

    PUZZLES: The puzzles were all logical enough and simple enough that I beat
    the game without hints, and still had a great time doing it.  What greater
    praise could there be?  The crystal ball was a big help on certain puzzles.
    Without it, I wouldn't have searched the shavings, and probably wouldn't have
    realized that the tomato was important.  With it, these puzzles dropped back
    to a reasonable level of difficulty.

    CHARACTERS: The demon and uncle Zeb were the only two NPCs in the game.  The
    demon was standard, boring, and mostly there as a puzzle.  He might have
    reacted to more things being done to/shown to/asked of him, but that's the
    biggest criticism Zebulon will get from me.
    	To offset the rather standard, rather underdeveloped demon, we have
    uncle Zeb.  He appears nowhere in the game, but his presence pervades the
    entire game.  In a zen sort of way, the game and Zeb are one.  We are given
    all sorts of hints and tidbits about him, rather like the journal entries
    used so cleverly in _Theatre_.  In this way, Zeb takes on a life of his own,
    albeit a fairly eccentric, cynical life.  Still, I wouldn't mind having an
    uncle like him, and again, wishing he were a real relative is high praise
    indeed.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    	That concludes my analyses for now.  I will continue this practice
    in future issues of SPAG, unless there is some great demand that I
    discontinue it.

    CLOSING COMMENTS-------------------------------------------------------------

    	I just want to say a last thank you to everyone who helped out with
    the contest, either by voting, donating prizes, entering it, or, to Volker
    Blasius, maintaining it on ftp.gmd.de.  It's been a great first contest, and
    I hope to see even more entries next year.

    	1.) Also, I am interested in finding someone to take over the vote
    counting next year.  It's a lot of work, so be prepared to put at least a few
    hours into it.  Email me if interested in either doing it, or automating the
    process for me.

    	2.) If you are interested in becoming an official betatester for next
    year's competition, please email me and let me know.  You will not be
    eligible to vote, but you will get to play the games much earlier than anyone
    else.  Please be sure that you will have some free time in which to do this.
    It will involve spending several hours on each entry, but you will only be
    betatesting each game once, as long as I get enough volunteers for this job.

    	3.) If you have prizes you wish to donate for next year's
    competition, get in touch with me and let me know.

    	4.) For those of you interested in entering next year, here are my
    prelimary first draft rules.  Again, short and sweet and to the point, but
    expanded somewhat to cover some contingencies that occured this year.

    -=-=-=-

    	The MAIN Rule:  The text adventure you enter must be winnable in
    under two hours.  Judges will be asked to rate it after playing for that
    long.

    	The MINOR Rules:

    	A)  The text adventure you enter must be completely original, and
    your own work.  You may not re-use an older game you have written by porting
    it to TADS or Inform.  [Basically, this would disallow MiSTings, which are
    more controversy than they're worth.]  All entries will be uploaded to
    ftp.gmd.de within a 48 hour period.  Entries uploaded before or after that
    will be disqualified.  All entries will be anonymous this time, more to
    follow on this later.  Possibly will entail use of the anon service.

    	B)  You must keep the text adventure to yourself until the Upload
    Window.  Do not show it to anyone else who might be voting in the competition
    until that time.  You may opt, however, to have it betatested by the
    contest's official betatesters, and only them.  They will be under strict
    orders not to spend more than X hours betatesting each game, but there will
    be 2-4 'drafts', and your game will be tested by different betatesters each
    draft.

    Possible Deadlines:

    	1st Beta: April X, 96.
    	2nd Beta: April X, 96.
    	3rd Beta: May X, 96.
    	Final Draft: End of May, 96.
    	Voting: End of Sept, 96.

    	Alternately, we can have the games due after summer break, etc.
    Please send me your thoughts on this.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-

    	As the great Schnozzola used to say, "Good night, Missus Calabash,
    wherever you are."

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    	   Thank you for helping to keep text adventures alive!

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