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ISSUE #50 - December 3, 2007

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    The  |___/ociety for the |_|romotion of  |_|_|dventure  \___|ames.

                             ISSUE #50

            Edited by Jimmy Maher (maher SP@G grandecom.net)
                           December 3, 2007

               SPAG Website: http://www.sparkynet.com/spag

    SPAG #50 is copyright (c) 2007 by Jimmy Maher.
    Authors of reviews and articles retain the rights to their contributions.

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

    ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ----------------------------------------------------

    Editorial
    IF News
    The H.P. Lovecraft Commonplace Book Project

    INTERVIEWS IN THIS ISSUE --------------------------------------------------

    David Cornelson
    Michael Gentry
    Graeme Jefferis

    REVIEWS IN THIS ISSUE -----------------------------------------------------

    Edificio 25
    Floatpoint
    Ghost of the Fireflies
    Lord Bellwater's Secret
    Regreso al Eden

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

    SPAG #50 has arrived!  If this were a big, glitzy commercial publication, I
    would feel obligated to fill it with retrospectives, lists, and highlights from
    the last thirteen years.  It's not, though, and the IF community is generally
    not given to such gratuitous back-patting, so I will let the milestone pass
    quietly.  Feel free to reflect amongst yourselves about the community's now
    rather startlingly lengthy history and SPAG's role in that history.

    I must in fact confess to having given considerable recent thought to SPAG's
    role, albeit from the perspective of a nervous editor looking to do the right
    thing by the community rather than that of a worshipful fan.  (You ARE all
    worshipful fans, aren't you?)  Things have been changing in the few years since
    I took this gig.  Many, although certainly not all, discussions are migrating
    away from the newsgroups to blogs and forums, and new tools are appearing to
    allow all of us to share reviews and feedback on games more quickly.  The IF
    Wiki, IFReviews.org and the IF Rating Site have of course been around for a
    little while; now we can add Michael J. Roberts's rather spectacular new IFDB to
    the list.  That's great.  Buzzword or not, it's time for IF to join the world of
    Web 2.0.  Us old fogeys may shed a tear for Usenet, but we need to reach the
    iTunes generation if we want to make of IF a living, vibrant literary scene
    rather than a relic of the past.

    All this does raise a difficult question for me, however: does where does an
    ASCII-based e-zine fit into this brave new world?  I've thought about it quite a
    lot over the last couple of months, even considering whether it might be time to
    retire SPAG gracefully after an even 50 issues, leaving the site alive of course
    for its historical archive of reviews.  I decided not to do that, for at least
    two reasons: 1) I think of SPAG as a community trust, and don't really feel
    empowered to take that kind of a momentous step without consulting you folks;
    and, more importantly, 2) I think the old girl still has something to contribute
    to the community, albeit perhaps something slightly different than what Keven
    Wilson envisioned all those years ago.

    As I mentioned, we have plenty of places to go to read and submit reviews now,
    many of them arguably more satisfying for both readers and writers than an old
    dinosaur like this.  What we don't have, though, are other places for in-depth
    articles, for interviews, and for careful, detailed analysises of games, all
    with the editorial supervision missing from the world of Web 2.0.  SPAG has kind
    of been traveling in this direction anyway, with the ongoing series on foreign
    language IF which should conclude next issue with features on the Italian
    community.  I'd like to formalize this change in emphasis at this point, though.

    I'm not going to keep pushing for huge numbers of capsule reviews in each issue,
    because frankly I think that's a losing battle.  Other places simply do that
    better in 2007.  What I would like to see are more thoughtful features.  Judging
    from recent feedback, I think many of you feel the same way.  I won't be
    maintaining a reviews wanted list anymore, and won't be pressing for
    reviews of every game that gets released.  I would, however, love to get reviews
    from you, and if you send them to me I'll certainly publish them.  But also
    please think about articles on IF craft, theory, history, or current events you
    might like to write, such as Peter Nepstad's feature in this issue about his
    Commonplace Book Exhibition.  Think about figures you might like to see
    interviewed, and either send me an email telling me who I should be talking to
    or (even better) offering to conduct the interview yourself.  Think abotut
    review packages you might like to put together, covering and comparing games
    from certain competitions or even just on a single theme.  (I'm planning one of
    these for next issue myself.)  And think about longer, more in-depth
    commentaries you might want to write on games that move you positively or
    negatively, or that just intrigue you.  You can do this as a SPAG Specifics
    piece if you like, which affords you the unique opportunity in IF criticism to
    indulge in all the spoiling you want to do on the way to making your point.
    I'll do my part, trying to write or drum up interesting features for each issue.
    I've already got a couple in the pipeline for next time around.  As always with
    SPAG, though, much of the work is up to you.

    IF NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------

    IF Competition 2007
    The biggest annual community event has come and gone, leaving in its wake
    another handful of games likely to be remembered years from now.  Check the IF
    Wiki page at http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/IF_Comp_2007 for a complete list of
    review sets.  Congratulations to those who placed well... aw, hell, to everyone
    who entered.  You all deserve it.  Look for interviews with the top finishers
    (assuming they agree to do them) in the next issue of SPAG.
    http://www.ifcomp.org

    1 Lost Pig, by Admiral Jota (writing as Grunk)
    2 An Act of Murder, by Christopher Huang (writing as Hugh Dunnett)
    3 Lord Bellwater's Secret, by Sam Gordon
    4 Across The Stars, by Dark Star & Peter Mattsson
    5 The Chinese Room, by Joey Jones and Harry Giles
    6 Varkana, by Maryam Gousheh Forgeot (writing as Farahnaaz)
    7 A Fine Day for Reaping, by revgiblet
    8 Orevore Courier, by Brian Rapp
    9 My Name is Jack Mills, by Juhana Leinonen
    10 A Matter of Importance, by Valentine Kopteltsev (writing as Nestor
    I. McNaugh)
    11 Ferrous Ring, by Carma Ferris
    12 Deadline Enchanter, by Alan DeNiro (writing as Anonymous)
    13 My Mind's Mishmash, by Robert Street
    14 In The Mind Of The Master, by David Whyld
    15 Gathered In Darkness, by Michael Millsap (writing as Dr. Froth)
    16 Fox, Fowl and Feed, by Chris Conroy
    17 Wish, by Edward Floren
    18 Packrat, by Bill Powell
    19 Slap that Fish, by Peter Nepstad
    20 Jealousy Duel X, by Alex Camelio
    21 Beneath: a Transformation, by Graham Lowther
    22 The Immortal, by Just Rob
    23 Eduard the Seminarist, by Heiko TheiĂn
    24 Press [Escape] to Save, by Mark Jones
    25 Reconciling Mother, by Glenn Engstrand (writing as Plone Glenn)
    26 The Lost Dimension, by C. Yong
    27 Ghost of the Fireflies, by Paul Panks (writing as Dunric)

    IntroComp 2007 Winners Announced
    The annual IntroComp competition for introductions to proposed longer works of
    IF is also complete, and I won!  It's all about me!  Me!  (Hey, what's the use
    of being the editor of an amateur publication covering an obscure hobby if you
    can't use it to bolster your self-esteem every once in a while?)
    http://www.xyzzynews.com/introcomp

    One Room Game Competition 2007
    A competition is currently in progress for games taking place within (you
    guessed it) a single room.  There are five entries in English and four in
    Italian, and you have until December 22 to play them and submit your scores.
    http://www.avventuretestuali.com/orgc/orgc-2007-eng

    Commodore C-40 Contest
    Sam Trenholme is running a contest for minimalist IF games, or other forms of
    ASCII-based entertainment.  Entrants must be capable of running on a
    hypothetical Commodore C-40 machine featuring a whopping 40K of memory, meaning
    they must be less than 40K in length and must be in Z-Machine version 3 or
    version 5 format.  2004's C-32 contest, to which this is a succesor, was a lot
    of fun and produced some surprisingly playable little gems.  Deadline for
    sending your games to Sam is December 4, so there probably isn't time to write
    something (unless you work really, really fast).  You can certainly judge,
    however.
    http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/C-40_Contest

    Interactive Short Fiction Competition
    Mark Engelberg is hosting a competition for short, gentle games designed to ease
    the beginning player into IF.  Entries must be written in Inform 7 or TADS 3,
    and there is a $50 cash prize.  The deadline for submissions is February 15.
    http://mark.engelberg.googlepages.com/interactiveshortfictioncompetition

    Spring Thing 2008
    Greg Boettcher will be running the Spring Thing Competition again next year,
    focusing on longer works of IF that must pass a quality control standard to be
    eligible.  It's a great idea that never seems to attract the interest it
    deserves. Perhaps we can finally change that this time.  Authors must notify
    Greg of their intention to enter and pay their $5 US entry fees by March 15 of
    next year, with the finished games being due on April 2.
    http://www.springthing.net/2008

    IFDB
    Mike Roberts of TADS fame has just rendered a wonderful new service to the
    community: the IFDB (Interactive Fiction Database).  Taking the IMDB (Internet
    Movie Database) as its obvious model, the IFDB is place for players to rate
    games and share their recommendations with others.  That's how Mike chooses to
    describe it, anyway, but really he's selling himself short in doing so, for
    there are a host of other neat features to be found there, including a new and
    badly needed system for quickly and conveniently downloading and playing
    interesting games iTunes style, with the correct interpreter being automatically
    chosen or even installed if necessary.  Check this one out, folks.  It well and
    truly rocks.
    http://ifdb.tads.org

    Inform 7 for Linux
    The Linux version of the Inform 7 IDE has matured enough to stand beside the
    Windows and Macintosh versions as an officially supported port available from
    the Inform 7 website.  Great news for those of you using Linux I'm sure.
    http://inform-fiction.org

    Textfyre on Gamasutra
    The professional game development webzine Gamasutra recently published an
    article on David Cornelson's new commercial IF company Textfyre, along with an
    interview with David.
    http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15481

    Command Lines: An IF Dissertation
    Jeremy Douglass has made his recently completed IF-focused PhD dissertation
    available online.  The work, entitled Command Lines, makes a good argument for
    recasting the traditional narrative about IF history, treating the commercial
    era as a brief abberation rather than a sort of golden age.  More interesting
    still, though, are his close crtical readings of several works of modern IF.
    There's a lot here (almost 400 pages), so dig in.
    http://jeremydouglass.com/dissertation.html

    THE H.P. LOVECRAFT COMMONPLACE BOOK PROJECT by Peter Nepstad --------------

    I've put together this article based on a recommendation by "Urbatain," who at
    the close of the project recommended that everyone write a little something
    about the project for the different IF magazines, he for SPAC, me for SPAG. The
    Spanish language article, an interview between all participants, is in SPAC #51
    and a great read, if you read Spanish and/or are willing to copy/paste into
    Google Trans: http://www.caad.es/spac/spac51.htm.

    1. In the Beginning...

    To start with, I was working on a series of Interactive Fictions based on early
    fantasy/horror authors who were inspirations to H.P. Lovecraft. I had just
    completed the first two in the series (based on stories by Lord Dunsany) and was
    working on a third, when around mid-February of 2007, I decided I hadn't read my
    Lovecraft in so long, that it was time to re-read those stories, as well. So I
    started with the books I had, and researched ones I didn't. I kept reading about
    Lovecraft's Commonplace Book -- his repository for story ideas that he never
    completed -- and got online to try tracking down a copy.

    Using the near-mystical powers of Google, I promptly stumbled onto a site that
    had posted information about an upcoming Lovecraft-inspired art exhibit in
    Switzerland, based on the Commonplace Book. [The site is Monster Brains, and one
    that I have bookmarked and now regularly visit, a compendium of monster art, old
    and new. The posting I stumbled across is located here:
    http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2007/01/exhibit-of-unspeakable-things.html].
    Reading through the invite to exhibit, I immediately noticed two things: One,
    that it looked like a cool project, and Two, that I had already missed the
    deadline for Artists contracts, but the confirmation of artist participation
    deadline was still a couple weeks off. But it immediately struck me that the
    Commonplace Book ideas would make natural jumping-off points for works of IF. I
    mean, take this example:

    - "Ancient and unknown ruins, strange and immortal bird who speaks in a language
    horrifying and revelatory to the explorers."

    or this:

    - "Individual, by some strange process, retraces the path of evolution and
    becomes amphibious."

    Great stuff.

    So, I did a little research. The exhibit was to be held at Maison d'Ailleurs,
    aka The Museum of Science Fiction and Utopias, which for starters, is a
    completely cool topic to have a museum for. It is located in Yverdon-les-Bains,
    a town in the French speaking region of Switzerland. The website is at
    http://www.ailleurs.ch/uk/index.php, and there you can find additional
    information about the museum, its collection, and the exhibits. The curator of
    the museum is Patrick Gyger, who has his own wikipedia entry here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Gyger, and who has worked previously on the
    European Space Agency's ITSF project, which compiled all possible suggestions of
    Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for space applications. What a
    project! Combing through science fiction books and documenting the best ideas
    for actual engineers and scientists to discuss and think about -- a visionary
    and inspirational project if there ever was one.

    The more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be possible to
    contribute a work of Interactive Fiction for the exhibit. And the more I thought
    about that, the more I thought that maybe some other authors would be interested
    in contributing as well. So, I sent Mr. Gyger an email that very same day. I may
    be too late because of the first missed deadline, I thought, but there was no
    sense wasting any more time.

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

    SUBJECT: An Exhibit Of Unspeakable Things: Request to Participate

    I have just today discovered your plans for "An
    Exhibit Of Unspeakable Things" and am very interested
    in somehow participating in the exhibit.

    However, my chosen media is "Interactive Fiction." In
    short, I write text-based, interactive stories that
    can be played on a computer.

    I am currently working on a series of stories adapted
    from the works of Lord Dunsany. For example, see the
    adaptation of THE EBB AND FLOW OF THE TIDE, here:

    http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/The_Ebb_and_Flow_of_the_Tide

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

    And so my memo began. A little background, a little explanation, and the Lord
    Dunsany game to give him an idea of what I was on about (note I linked to the
    ifwiki page for the game, which I felt gave the cleanest introduction to the
    work, compared to other sites). I went on to make my proposal: (1) that I write
    a game for the exhibit, (2) that I get other IF authors to write games for the
    exhibit, and that I would (3) provide at least one work in French. At this time,
    I had absolutely no idea how I might pull that off, but it seemed like the right
    suggestion to make for the venue in question. I added a couple links, to JOURNEY
    OF THE KING (my second Dunsany game) and a review of 1893 (so that he knows I am
    not just some completely random person emailing him out of nowhere), and I hit
    send, and waited.

    It didn't take long to get a response:

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

    SUBJECT: re: An Exhibit of Unspeakable Things: Request to Participate

    Dear Peter Nepstad,

    Thank you for your email regarding our exhibition.

    These works you link to seem very interesting. The Ebb and Flow is
    great (although I haven't made very good progress in the game, I must
    admit)...

    Your idea is very original and we'd be very happy to pursue this
    further. Something in English + French would be great, so that it
    would somehow be of interest to different types of audiences.

    How can I assist you in this project? Also, let me know if I can give
    you more info about the exhibit.

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

    I was very impressed that he took the time to download an interpreter and
    download a game and play it before responding (and also he of course showed
    great taste in his appreciation of the game! :)). At the same time, I had to
    laugh -- of course, my most rash proposal -- sending a game in French -- was one
    he seized on immediately. But it looked like it was a go, so it was time to get
    down to business. And really from that moment on, until the opening of the
    exhibit in October, I spent some time every single week emailing dozens of
    people, working with the museum and other authors, developing my game, running
    the comp, creating a user interface for all the games, making sure they worked,
    and getting them to the museum in time for the opening. So there are really two
    lessons about this project for everyone: First, you don't know if you can do
    something unless you ask. Second, you'd better be prepared to back up your
    request with a lot of work.

     - "Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a
    horrible death."

    2. Inviting Other Authors to Participate

    I resolved in my mind that the exhibit would simply not be possible without a
    contribution from some French language authors. I thought this was a great
    opportunity for a global project, and excited at the prospect, but at the same
    time was (1) mostly unfamiliar with the French IF scene, and (2) took a couple
    years of French in High School but that was a loooooooong time ago. So it looked
    like I needed to find a bilingual French author at that. I decided to contact
    "JB", because he recently released a high quality French game that included
    graphics, called Ekphrasis, which was favorably discussed. I sent him an awkward
    message soliciting his interest, which is now saved for all to see in the French
    IF forum, located here: http://ifiction.free.fr/forumBB/viewtopic.php?t=263.
    Again, I was pleasantly surprised at the interest and excitement generated by
    the request. And I knew that we were going to make something happen, when JB
    included in his response:

    ...I already have written a piece of IF in french about the Lovecraft universe
    called "dreamlands", and it won the 2nd place at the 2006 french comp. Actually,
    I am a big fan of the Lovecraft works...

    The proposal generated enough interest among French authors that they decided to
    create a single work by multiple authors, each tackling one entry in the
    Commonplace Book. This was not exactly to the specifications of the exhibit
    (which required each work be inspired by only one entry in the book), but I
    figured it was close enough, and a much more interesting project, as well. The
    "French Team" as I will call them were an inspiration to me for the project as a
    whole. I communicated for a time with JB, and then when other matters began to
    take his time, Eric Forgeot filled the gap. Because they were so pleasant to
    work with, I wanted to expand the scope of the project, and reached out to the
    Italian IF community, via Roberto Grassi, but in his words, they were "sleeping"
    at that time and decided not to participate. I did not know of any other
    languages that had an IF community at that time, or I would have reached out to
    them as well. In the event, a few weeks later, I received a communication from
    "Depresiv" requesting that the Spanish IF community take part, creating a
    collaborative game after the French model. Needless to say, I was thrilled, and
    the end product was quite astonishing in its professional presentation. The
    international contingent of the project was set.

    And then came the hard part: getting more English language games! Most authors
    wait for the annual IFComp to submit games, as when you do, you receive much,
    much more by way of feedback and reviews than you would at any other time of the
    year. Other competitions tend not to draw very many participants. But by this
    point, it seemed that inclusion would be the secret to the success of this
    project. So I opened the competition for Interactive Fiction. And I asked David
    Whyld to open a concurrent competition on the Adrift forums. My reasoning for
    having two comps was so that there could be an Adrift "Best in Show" along with
    a TADS/Inform "Best". In the event, David's entry was the only Adrift entry, so
    the two comps were combined. I also solicited the graphics-based gaming sites
    for entries, based on LASSIE, AGS, and other engines. The original announcement
    is online, here:
    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.int-fiction/browse_frm/thread/d49794384
    c593cd4/8fa942f509bcbd14#8fa942f509bcbd14.

    The competition ran for eight weeks -- too short by many estimates to get a game
    completed, and many who expressed an interest unfortunately could not complete a
    game for the exhibit. For myself, I discovered that organizing a competition and
    trying to write a game myself for it is simply to much. I did manage to complete
    my entry, "Ecdysis", before the deadline, but it did not get properly tested
    until after -- illustrated by the six updated versions I eventually did to clear
    out all the bugs and kinks. I wrote most of the game during a business trip to
    Washington DC, which given the subject matter, somehow seems fitting.

    In the end, seven games were created for the project: one in French, one in
    Spanish, three in English, and two that were graphics-based. I had hoped for
    more, but in the event, the small number of entries meant that most of them
    could be featured at the museum, whereas with a larger group, far more would
    have to be cut from the program and alternate venues determined. My biggest
    disappointment with the competition game turnout was that there were no AGS
    games. I feel the AGS community and the IF community could easily cross over.
    Well, there's always next time.

    - "Hand of dead man writes."

    3. "Best in Show"

    I wanted to give IF players a way to participate in the exhibit as well, and
    introduced the concept of voting for the "Best in Show" among the
    English-language games. I was reluctant to implement a more serious voting
    system because I felt that sometimes reviews for games that a player doesn't
    like are often disheartening for the author, and causes the player to
    unnecessarily dwell on games they would rather not. With a "Best in Show" voting
    system, instead, players could just focus on the game they liked the most and
    why and nevermind the others. (I wouldn't favor this system for the annual IF
    Comp, but it worked well here). In the event, all the games had some positive
    aspects, and among the many reviews that cropped up around the web, found people
    favoring each over the other for various reasons. I felt that it was probably
    inappropriate for me to manage the voting of a comp in which I had a game, and
    originally planned to not include my game in the competition, but because there
    were so few, I left it in; also after playing the other games, I didn't worry so
    much about winning, anyway! Jon Ingold's "Dead Cities" won "Best in Show," and I
    highlighted that on the Competition website. I also tried to give the game "pole
    position" in the exhibit and in exhibit materials. In the invite for the
    exhibit, for example, Jon is listed first over the rest of us poor slobs. In
    this way I could honor the votes cast by IF players.

    - "Lost winter day—slept over—20 yrs. later. Sleep in chair on summer
    night—false dawn—old scenery and sensations—cold—old persons now
    dead—horror—frozen?"

    4. Other venues

    In addition to the Maison d'Ailleurs, I contacted every other Lovecraft related
    festival I could find that was running this year, via email. None of them
    responded to my messages, which generally introduced the project and tried to
    look for ways that the project could participate in their fests.

    - "To find something horrible in a (perhaps familiar) book, and not to be able
    to find it again."

    5. Getting the Games to Exhibit

    Once the games were finished, released, and voted on, there was a lot to do to
    get them exhibit ready. First, bug-fix versions were released. Then, my game
    "Ecdysis" and Jon Ingold's "Dead Cities" were updated to exhibit versions, with
    hypertext linking to make it easier to interact with the work in a gallery
    environment. Finally, there was a user interface that needed to be created that
    could launch all the games consistently and easily. This was difficult to
    achieve, but eventually I decided on an extremely low-tech way of launching the
    games: a web page with large, clickable images, one for each game, which ran
    batch files that opened the games in their appropriate players. (I've never
    designed a webpage this way before, but I actually created it in PowerPoint 2007
    and converted it to HTML using its built in converter. Actually, I thought it
    turned out pretty well and took care of a lot of problems that I would have had
    to code around. I especially liked the way the web page it produced would
    automatically resize the graphics depending on the size and shape of the browser
    window. The resulting file was huge, but that didn't matter since the package
    would be installed locally.) By this point it was early October, and I was
    getting a bit nervous that the show would come off at all. After all, we worked
    the entire time without contracts among any of the parties, just by mutual
    agreement and friendly discussion. It isn't a bad way to operate, but there is
    always the chance that it would all amount to nothing. I contacted Emily Short
    and got her permission to include her Introduction to Playing IF guide as a
    printout to have on hand at the exhibit, bundled it together and sent it all
    off:

    SUBJECT: Re: HPL exhibit: Interactive Fiction - Final Package Interface

    I've completed the interface package, and believe
    everything should work. Also, I've included a few
    instructional files that you may wish to print out and
    have near the computer terminal...

    And a few days later, just a couple weeks before opening, Mr. Gyger responded:

    Hi Peter,

    All this was extremely clear, thanks so much! Not all worked
    completely, but one of our staff is a computer geek and he sorted it
    out in no time... So all works fine. It's really fun and easy to use
    now, and I'm sure people will enjoy this tremendously!

    -------

    And I hope they are.

    - "Ancient castle within sound of weird waterfall—sound ceases for a time under
    strange conditions."

    6. A couple final thoughts

    Because there were so many different resources working all over the globe on
    this project, it was extremely difficult to project manage. It would have been a
    lot easier if my original proposal was smaller (for example, just me), but it
    just didn't seem as though that would have been very fun. Working on this
    project, for the most part, was. It remained fun because everyone involved was
    respectful, interested, and pleasant to work with.

    There were a couple disappointments: I had hoped to try and get some of the game
    transcripts in the exhibit catalog, but they were too long. Another author and I
    trimmed ours down to tiny little 300 word snippets and resubmitted, but the
    catalog was off to the printer by then. It is a shame, as the catalog as it
    turns out is a nifty little hardcover book! I also at one point hoped to put the
    games together on a CD-ROM. But because I was unable to connect with any
    Lovecraft festivals, there would be no venues through which I could at least get
    a return on the investment. And finally, it is a shame there were so few reviews
    of the games by members of the IF community, though this gap has at least in
    part been filled by bloggers with an interest in casual gaming and Lovecraft who
    have commented on the works.

    But these disappointments are small. Weighing this on the other side, we
    successfully completed a project that included Interactive Fiction authors
    writing in three different languages, and I hope future competitions will
    consider setting their parameters to include them as well. (Next time: try to
    get the Italian and Russian IF communities on board, too!). I met some great
    people, including Mr. Gyger, and my correspondents from the various IF
    communities, who I will surely try to gather together for drinks should my work
    ever take me to their cities. And the final result: the games have joined an
    exhibit for which they were never requested in the first place, and a new venue
    for Interactive Fiction has been opened up: IF in art galleries: the wave of the
    future? Who knows. They are there. When working on the project on a day to day
    basis, it always seemed such a simple thing, a commonplace thing, but when
    judged from a distance, it can be seen that, like Lovecraft's Commonplace Book,
    sometimes "commonplace" is anything but.

    THE SPAG INTERVIEW -------------------------------------------------------

    I recently conducted the following joint interview with David Cornelson, Michael
    Gentry, and Graeme Jefferis.  David is of course the driving force behind
    Textfyre, a new company which aims to market commercial IF titles to young
    adults.  David, Michael and Graeme are the team behind Textfyre's first game,
    entitled Secret Letter and planned for release... well, just as soon as it's
    done.

      JM: Anyone who follows the IF community at all is probably familiar with David
      Cornelson from his multitude of projects -- creating the IF Wiki and
      publishing the Inform Designer's Manual on paper are but two -- and Michael
      Gentry from his two IF classics Little Blue Men and Anchorhead.  Graeme is
      something of a new figure on the scene, though.  Perhaps you could tell us a
      bit about yourself, how you became interested in IF, and how you ended up with
      Textfyre?

    GJ: I've mostly kept quiet in an attempt to foster an air of enigmatic mystique
    -- really entirely as a ruse to hide the actual unremarkability of myself and my
    everyday life. I'm a 28 year old software developer from Portsmouth, UK; now
    living in Edinburgh with my fiancee, who is a disabled person I care for, and
    her son, who I am of course step-father to.

    It sounds terribly corny, but IF really has always been part of my life.  My
    earliest memories involve watching my dad play Melbourne House's "The Hobbit" on
    the ZX Spectrum; and later I graduated to play some of the classic adventure
    games: by Infocom, Acornsoft, Level 9, Magnetic Scrolls. I was lucky enough to
    catch Graham Nelson's series of articles in Acorn User magazine back in the
    mid-90s, so that's how I stumbled across Curses! and the old gmd.de archive, and
    the then-nascent IF scene.

    As for Textfyre, I think I got in touch with Dave right away after reading his
    initial announcement, I was that excited about it. But there's no great mystery
    or magic there either; it was a job I applied for and I'm very grateful to David
    for allowing me the opportunity to come on board.

      JM: David, you have made it clear that you feel that IF that is sold
      commercially must present a more attractive, professional face to the player
      than most of the interpreter / game combinations that are currently available.

      Perhaps you could tell us, in as much detail as you feel comfortable with, how
      it will feel to play a Textfyre game.  How extensive will be your use of
      multimedia assets? Will there be shortcuts such as word choice menus?  I am
      envisioning something similar to the old Legend games of the early nineties.
      Am I in the ballpark?

    DC: No, I don't think so. The interface we're developing is something entirely
    new. I'll try to give you a visualization as best I can. The user will execute
    our game by clicking on a Textfyre game icon. A glassy window will open with
    highly polished comic book graphic illustrations. The interface will show a
    scrolling list of saved game positions and/or the phrase "The Beginning". The
    user selects one of these and the select-game dialogue will fly or spin out of
    the window while the game UI elements spin into the window.

    The elements moving onto the screen include:
      - an open book with two panels, optionally switched to a single wide panel.
      - a 3-dimensional hint element that can be manipulated to retrieve hints about
        various topics.
      - context-sensitive help.
      - a 3-dimensional compass rose.
      - a title bar (similar to the status line.
      - a map element that can be manipulated by dragging it to the center of the
        screen or by clicking on it or by using function keys. As its dragged, it
        will expand. A slider control will allow you to alter the opacity.
      - a conversation window, which will be similar to menus, but prettier.

    All of the illustrations and text will be the highest quality. So the same type
    of font experience you get with the hobbyist interpreter front-end Gargoyle;
    we're going to have a similar presentation.

    There are a couple of other features we're going to introduce that I'm keeping
    under wraps because they're very special and will coincide with our marketing
    efforts.

      JM: So, tell us about Secret Letter, the game you are writing.  What's it
      about? Where is it set?  Genre?

    MG: In Secret Letter, you play Jack, an orphan growing up in the city of Toresal
    in northern Miradania. When hired mercenaries start chasing you through the
    local marketplace, you are quickly swept up into a conspiracy that includes the
    powerful and devious Baron Fossville, your adventuresome best friend Bobby, and
    even the Royal Family. Why is Fossville after an orphan like you? Why is the
    Queen interested in Toresal? Why does Bobby drive you so crazy? It's a mystery
    story, with twists, reveals, and betrayals. It's a lot of fun.

      JM: You have developed a methodology for the creation of IF that is quite
      different not only from the current freeware model but also from that used by
      Infocom.  Each game will be created by a team consisting of a designer, a
      writer, and a coder.  Perhaps you could describe the model in more detail, and
      each of you could tell us about your role on the current project.  How is it
      working out, both for the project as a whole and for each of you personally?

    DC: I'm going to give a lot of credit for the process working as well as it has
    to Mike. I started the process with a lot of conceptual elements, started the
    design, but once Mike got seriously involved, he really made the design document
    come to life. Mike and I went back and forth on the design elements and then
    Mike took over to work in the prose. Once we got to a point where we felt it was
    mostly complete, we brought Graeme in to begin coding. He completed the first
    cut of code in less than two weeks. Now the design and writing took over six
    months, but we're fairly sure we can improve on that as we become more
    comfortable with our processes. We're finalizing the last bits of the
    design/story and then we have to do what I call "finishing", which will be to
    have testers play it, and have a few editors go over everything to tighten it
    up, develop the hint tree, the help, and then we're done. Oh yeah, Graeme is a
    great Inform 7 developer.

    MG: In the writing department, the biggest challenge has been establishing a
    format that is easy for the programmer to convert into code, while not requiring
    the writer to know a lot about Inform. In IF the writing and the
    coding are difficult to separate, because the writer must pay attention to not
    only *what* the player will read, but *when* and *in what order* -- and those
    last two things are handled with code. I think we've managed to hammer out a
    good middle ground, where the writing document is structured according to
    certain coding coventions, without making reference to any specific coding
    language.

    All that said, the second biggest writing challenge has been hitting deadlines.

    GJ: David and Michael have loads of IF experience between them, and so it's been
    remarkably easy for me to take their design and implement it as Inform 7 code -
    and it helps that I7 itself is already so intuitive and feature-rich. I've found
    programming in it to be a pleasure; there's no doubt in my mind that it's been
    absolutely the right choice.

      JM: Tell us about the tools you are using.  Inform 7 for the game, right?
      Subversion for bug-tracking, I believe?  Tell us how you fit everything
      together into a managable team project.  Any chance that any of your tools or
      techniques could be released for the use of other IF authors in the future?

    DC: We're using Inform 7, Subversion with Trac, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft
    Visio. We're also going to be developing side tools to help with complex
    conversation systems, but these tools will simply generate Inform 7 syntax.

    It's entirely possible that we will share some of our internal processes and
    tools with the hobbyist community. Now that Jesse McGrew has developed the VM
    and I've had a chance to get a working prototype running, it's very exciting
    to see and I would love to share our stuff with everyone (when the time is right
    of course). We're also going to be developing authoring tools that enhance the
    design and writing processes and as those are completed and vetted, I can see
    those being opened up for everyone to use.

      JM: How are you handling the testing process?  Have you already recruited a
      team of beta-testers?

    DC: Nothing formal yet. We've had a few inquiries, but so far we're keeping
    things pretty closed. We have just recently received some feedback from a few
    eleven year old market testers and the results were actually great. They were
    excited about the idea of being the main character and the parser almost no
    impact on their enthusiasm.  They simply asked direct questions on how to do
    things. When the prototype has the help and hints implemented, these kids will
    probably fly through an episode in a few hours, which is exactly what we're
    targeting. We also received some interesting marketing ideas from the testers
    that we need to move on. They had some ideas that they thought would make the
    whole thing a slam dunk with their age group. For now, those ideas are top
    secret.

      JM: Will Secret Letter be the first release from Textfyre?  And can you tell
      us a realistic release date for both it and for your other games in
      development?

    DC: Secret Letter will definitely be the first game, but a firm release date is
    still unknown. As I have said in the past, we'll get there when we get there.
    Now: once we get past the first published game, we'll be going full speed on
    every release thereafter and games will be appearing every month or two. I'm
    hoping that we can meet a Q1 release date, but I can't be sure. Maybe we'll
    honor Graham and Inform by releasing our first game on April 30th.

      JM: I would like to talk just a bit about your marketing plans for Textfyre.
      Your games will be (at least initially) download only, correct?  Have you
      settled on a price?  What about advertising?  You have stated that you will
      target the young adult market that made Harry Potter such a success, but how
      will you reach that market with this new-fangled (to them) sort of interactive
      book?

    DC: Download is actually one strategy. We're also going to produce a CD version
    in a DVD case with a comic book. Online and mobile versions will follow soon
    after. One goal is to get Borders and BN to display our games in the young
    readers sections of their brick and mortar stores. Prices are likely to be in
    the $15 to $25 range. We're going to push our online marketing towards parents
    and school teachers. We may spend marketing dollars on magazines that connect
    with that audience as well. I'm also toying with the idea of putting special
    editions on smart USB thumb-drives.

      JM: I have a couple of questions that arise from Peter Nepstad's experience in
      selling 1893: A World's Fair Mystery.  First, Peter feels that the only way to
      really get IF noticed is to sell it as a physical product in stores again. Do
      you agree at all, and do you have hopes of getting Textfyre's games into
      stores at some point?  Peter also found from his survey of purchasers that his
      game's parser was just about the least-loved thing about it.  Any thoughts on
      this rather disturbing piece of information?

    DC: We're planning to push physical product, no doubt. I take Peter's experience
    very seriously. On the parser subject, I think kids are a lot more forgiving.
    I've already done some testing in this area and kids generally feel challenged
    by the parser. Here's the deal. The Infocom parser wasn't all that great and
    they really didn't make a huge effort to provide a lot of assistance. But what
    they did do is create great stories. The humor and game play was fabulous and
    some of those games hold up extremely well, despite the parser. I'm not knocking
    Peter's humor or story, I like 1893 a lot. But I don't think he was focused on
    the same things we're focused on. We're trying to entertain kids. There's a
    sizable difference there.

      JM: David, you caused a stir of excitement recently when you revealed that you
      have been in touch with Activision about licensing the old Infocom properties.
      This won't happen, at least right away, but it does make me wonder what your
      plans for them were.  To re-release them as is?  To give them a facelift and
      general sprucing up and re-release them that way?  Or something more
      ambitious?

    DC: I'd prefer not to say too much, but Activision was very interested in our
    proposal. We feel we have a chance to close that deal. When that happens and
    what resulting products are published is not something I'm ready to disclose.

      JM: Have you considered licensing other media franchises for Textfyre?

    DC: Yes. I have contacted J.K. Rowling's agent. I've also talked to a few
    prominent Sci-Fi/Fantasy authors about their willingness to partner on their
    existing works becoming IF games or on new material.

      JM: David and Michael, you were both recently interviewed for Jason Scott's
      forthcoming video documentary Get Lamp.  Can you tell us a bit about the
      experience?

    DC: Jason came over, set up his cameras, asked a lot of grueling questions,
    packed up, and left into a snow storm. I barely remember what he asked or what I
    said. I'm likely to end up on the editing floor.

    MG: Jason is a formidably intelligent guy who thinks -- and sometimes talks --
    about a hundred and fifty times faster than anyone I know. He pointed the camera
    at me and I did my best to not come across as a complete doofus. Unfortunately,
    we had to cut our time short because my neighbor's home-improvement project kept
    intruding on the soundtrack. But with any luck, in the final cut of the film
    you'll see a 2-second snippet of me sitting there with my mouth hanging open.

      JM: Finally, I have to ask a purely selfish question just to Michael: what
      does all this Textfyre activity mean for our Special Edition of Anchorhead?
      Has this been put on hiatus for the time being?

    MG: Yeah, unfortunately I've had to put Anchorhead SE on hold for a while, but
    it's still something I'm excited about and have every intention of finishing.
    When Secret Letter is wrapped and the second game is underway, we should have
    our process organized enough that I'll have time to start working on it again.
    In the meantime, Inform 7 will have had a chance to percolate a bit more, which
    ultimately means more/better/cooler features when Anchorhead SE is finally done.

      JM: Huge thanks to all three of you for taking time from your work with
      Textfyre to do this interview!

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

    Consider the following review header:

    TITLE: Cutthroats
    AUTHOR: Infocom
    EMAIL: ???
    DATE: September 1984
    PARSER: Infocom Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2
    URL: Not available.
    VERSION: Release 23

    When submitting reviews:  Try to fill in as much of this info as you can.
    Authors may not review their own games.

    REVIEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------

    From: Maureen Mason (antares SP@G well.com)

    When the fall 2007 Spanish-language IF COMP was announced on r.g.i-f, I decided
    to be a IF tourist and give it a go.  I'd tried some non-English games from time
    to time but never got far, finding myself defeated by playing "guess the verb"
    and not knowing whether the fault was mine or the game's.  The Spanish comp
    proved welcoming and very fun:  not only did I discover several well-polished
    and original games but also a community of friendly IFers ready to give hints
    and encouragement.  If you're curious about international trends in IF, or are
    just looking for a game that feels fresh, I recommend you brush off that
    language you took in college, fire up a decent online dictionary, be willing to
    ask for hints, and take the plunge.

    The Spanish language comp ("FICOMP") has a different theme every year:  in 2007
    it was science fiction.  The games were discussed on the community's web forum
    (www.caad.es/foro) all through the judging period, and authors regularly offered
    hints there and responded to player critiques.  Four games were submitted in
    2007, all quite thoughtful and polished.  The overall winner "Macetas" (Best
    Game and Best Story) by Incanus from Chile, aka Juan Sebastian Armas Maturana,
    is a mystery set on an  asteroid mine and stars a funny, jaded space worker with
    an anti-authoritarian streak reminiscent of Jayne in "Firefly" or one of the
    Marines with Ripley in "Aliens".  The game was a sequel to Incanus' 2006 FICOMP
    winner "Goteras" (see http://www.caad.es/incanus for download links to both
    games).

    Two of the 2007 games were entered by a single author, Jarel aka Luis David
    Arranz Perez from Madrid, and for comp entries they were surprising in their
    range and polish. "Edificio 25" was a well constructed puzzle-box, "Regreso al
    Eden" (which won Best Puzzle) an action-packed epic.  They both contained high
    quality, homemade multimedia, including original music and sound fx, and Eden
    had some excellent animation made using layered PNG images and an Inform-Glk
    real-time function.  This is an author who knows how to make a game *move*, and
    both of these stories included some of the best chase scenes I've ever
    experienced in IF.

    I've always been drawn to "literary" IF.  I tend to side with the narrative over
    the crossword, and so really appreciate the advances in interactive
    storytelling--evocative writing, branching plot-lines, multiple endings,
    increasingly sophisticated NPCs--that I've seen in the English-speaking IF
    community.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Jarel's games, though
    difficult and puzzle-laden, were just terrific fun.  His immersive action
    sequences and multimedia effects come closer to a good graphical adventure game
    or videogame than any IF I've tried.  His games feel choreographed, or
    cinematic, not only because of the graphics but because timed sequences and well
    integrated puzzles--this author has the enviable ability to just churn out good
    puzzles effortlessly--keep the story and the player in motion.  The effect is
    fun and original and more than a little addictive.

    TITLE: Edificio 25 (Building 25)
    AUTHOR: jarel
    E-MAIL:  genhag SP@G yahoo.com
    DATE: September 1, 2007
    PARSER: InformATE 6 (Spanish)
    SUPPORTS: Glulx interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware; IF-Archive
    URL: http://usuarios.lycos.es/gen/av_aventuras.html
    VERSION: 1.0

    El Edificio 25, at its core, is a treasure hunt set in a puzzle-box of a mansion
    inhabited by nonconversational NPCs who variously help, hinder or ignore the PC.
    But what a mansion!  The setting is retro-futuristic or quasi-steampunk, spiced
    with a dash of horror, and you are as likely to come across an elegantly dressed
    android servant amid old-world furnishings as a Frankenstein-style talking head,
    dirigibles, vast libraries that violate the laws of physics, groomed gardens,
    high-tech surveillance robots and more.   The atmosphere is enhanced by black-
    and-white photos that accompany room descriptions, as well as music and other
    sound effects ranging from echoing footsteps to birdsong to humming forcefields
    to eerie laughter from far-off rooms.

    Some IF players can't hear the sound effects in games, or just find them
    annoying.  Jarel's effects are very professionally done, and normally fade out
    to silence, only persisting in a very few situations.  Sounds that alert you to
    possible danger, like approaching footsteps, are also described in the text so
    if you prefer to play without sound, you can just toggle the command "sonido" to
    turn them off.  I recommend trying out the sound if you can.  There are a few
    scenes where it is extremely immersive, including one where you are threatened
    by a surreal, manic character and another where the *absence* of sound suddenly
    becomes very threatening, making you suspect that someone is waiting to ambush
    you.

    At first Edificio 25 struck me as overly chilly and spare--the PC is a complete
    cypher ("Citizen 429") and there is only a bare outline to the story--but the
    game drew me in and became quite addictive as the puzzles built up.  The mansion
    opens up to you as you find pieces of what you need in one area and move on to
    the others.  The puzzles are well-clued and interlaced in interesting ways.
    Best of all, many actions and objects are implemented, so you don't have to play
    guess-the-verb (this is really important if you are playing the game in a
    foreign language), and the game nearly always rewards further exploration and
    thought any time you are stuck.  While the house seems rather static at first,
    you quickly discover that the androids who are drifting through it--part of a
    vast number of humanoid workers that were constructed to serve a dwindling and
    now completely passive human population--have agendas of their own.  They may
    ignore you, help you or even try to kill you.

    In fact, you won't enjoy this game if you hate to be killed.  As the game
    progresses, missteps can be fatal and undo (or reload) will be your friend--the
    game's Inform-based parser responds to "undo" even though the stock game-over
    message doesn't offer you this choice.  At first the threat of violence is only
    implicit, or perhaps discovered by accident--e.g., a dignified android playing a
    haunting melody at the piano will, if provoked, stand up and instantly beat you
    to death with a chair!--but eventually you reach a point in the story where you
    must respond with the right moves very quickly, i.e., in one or two turns, or
    die.

    Edificio's endgame has a short action sequence that has the feel of a good movie
    or arcade game, and puts to use everything you've learned so far about how to
    avoid being chased down and killed.  Every move counts.  You fumble with doors,
    try to remember which way to run, think about what you might use from your
    inventory--there is no time to waste a turn looking at anything.  Instead of
    being just annoying or artificial, this is actually quite suspenseful and I felt
    a real sense of accomplishment when I *didn't* have to undo or reload a saved
    game.

    My one major criticism of the game is that a central puzzle, evading a killer
    android known as a "Narizotas" (apparently it stalks you by smell, using its
    "nariz"), is extremely difficult and game-stopping if you are unable to solve
    it.  The author plans to revise this puzzle in his next release of the game.

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

    From: Maureen Mason (antares SP@G well.com)

    TITLE: Regreso al Eden (Return to Eden)
    AUTHOR: jarel
    E-MAIL: genhag SP@G yahoo.com
    DATE: September 1, 2007
    PARSER: InformATE 6 (Spanish)
    SUPPORTS: Glulx interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware; IF-Archive
    URL: http://usuarios.lycos.es/gen/av_aventuras.html
    VERSION: 2.0

    Jarel's second entry in the FICOMP, "Regreso al Eden", is an ambitious space
    opera with the length and quality of an excellent commercial graphic adventure-
    -in fact, it was far too long for a comp game and few people finished it in
    time.  Extensive action sequences, punctuated with blocks of text, tell a
    complex and well-written story.  There are long conversational cutscenes,
    beautiful cinematic multimedia and constant video arcade-style obstacles, where
    you have to make the next right move or be killed.  It was one of the most
    original and polished pieces of IF that I have played in a long time.

    Here's how the story begins, zooming you in from the galaxy to the middle of a
    firefight.  If you want to try it, type "fuera" at the first prompt in the
    game's prologue.  (Note: Translation and all the ellipses are mine.)

    "The human race left the solar system and expanded into the galaxy, flowering
    into two great empires, Napua and Masanai.  In the Uruma system, the ship Tanis
    takes off from the Vegan cruiser Eberrenan and heads towards the Trisolian
    system... Forest creatures flee into the shadows as the Tanis lands.  The ship
    tears at the vegetation with gusts of turbulence, flooding the surrounding
    forest with light and expelling a hot cloud of gas from the reactors.  The
    airlock opens and a group jumps to the ground: four humans and numerous android
    BARP troops... "Ten to the entrance and five here!"  The BARP obey.  Some start
    to shoot their way down the corridor; the rest deploy around the entryway and
    then let go with all of their firepower.  "I think this is it," Gina Lambo says,
    her voice shaking slightly as she holds up one of the discs.  Neka takes it and
    snaps it into a protective case.  "Let's go"...  Debris is falling from the roof
    and walls, burying pieces of the BARP robots th!
    at have already gone down...  You press yourself to the floor at the south end
    of the room.  On the other side--to the north--Gina Lambo and Mondur have
    barricaded themselves behind a fallen structure.

    You can see a protective case."

    All of this is accompanied by beautiful graphics at the top of the screen, along
    with the sounds of the battle.  There is only one move that can save you; all
    other options--including waiting too long to figure out what to do--lead either
    to capture or instant death.

    This opening exemplifies both the strengths and weaknesses of the game.  The
    story is overwhelming at times, and it's hard to keep track of the various
    alliances, empires, and character names without taking notes.  On the other
    hand, the game uses the story's large sweep to move you between worlds, and back
    and forth in time, and also between four different major PCs.  For example,
    early on you switch from playing the main character, a mercenary who steals a
    data disc holding the key to a powerful alien technology, and become the
    military commander on Masanai who is supervising the forces trying to capture
    him.  This makes for an interesting story experience as the two characters'
    agendas conflict and, as more treacheries and twists are revealed, begin to
    coincide.

    The other feature which is outstanding is the immediacy of the danger you feel.
    You hit the ground running, escaping one Indiana Jones-like trap only to run
    straight into the next.  Lost that group of bounty hunters who were hot on your
    heels?  Managed to avoid drowning horribly in that tunnel with the water rising?
    You can be sure when you turn the corner you'll find a sentry has just caught
    sight of you, or a vicious pack of alien wolves is running your way.  Together
    with the excellent multimedia effects, this really lets you know you are not
    reading a book.  You are playing a game!

    Of course, some people will hate this experience of being chased and harried and
    killed.  After all, in a *bad* videogame it's just boring and frustrating to
    keep failing and dying and having to restart.  You will most likely be using
    "undo" (or save and reload) early and often.  And yes, the story, at its core,
    has a linear plot with puzzle after puzzle that you must solve to advance.  The
    reason I had fun in spite of this limitation was that those puzzles are very
    smart and very fair--even the ones that involve (mercifully short) mazes.
    (Note: I was surprised to find that just about every FICOMP game had a maze of
    some kind.  Clearly mazes do not have the bad reputation in Spain and Latin
    America that they have elsewhere.)  Also, there are often alternative solutions
    to the puzzles.  For example, the mountain range that the fugitive PC must cross
    in the first part of the game has three separate routes through its subterranean
    tunnels, each with different obstacles of its !
    own.  Finally, there are in-game hints which are clever and lighthanded and
    never spoil the satisfaction of solving a puzzle (just type "pista" to see if a
    hint is available).  If there is no hint at your location, that's a sure sign
    you are in cul-de-sac and need to search for the solution elsewhere.

    One persistent drawback to this game, however, is that because there are so many
    locations--this game is just huge--you will be getting the "That isn't important
    right now" message a lot.  This is not a game where you can leisurely explore
    scenery, lovingly implemented.  You don't have to let this spoil the immersion
    for you, though.  Just take it as a sign to keep moving.

    My one major criticism of the game is that by the second half I began to get
    impatient with long blocks of text that broke up my interaction with the story.
    There are so many interesting plot twists, hidden identities and double crosses
    in this game that I found myself wanting to *make* some character choices
    instead of just reading about them.  Is that shipmate who is behaving
    suspiciously a spy?  Should I trust an enemy who insists he has changed sides?
    I longed for some agency to act on the conclusions I was drawing, the way I can
    in some of Emily Short's games or in a role playing game, where my choice of
    allies has consequences.   The author seems aware of the difficulty of keeping
    players engaged in such a long linear game and keeps injecting new elements,
    including a brief (and very funny) menu-driven NPC dialog, a chess-based puzzle
    and a space-navigation logic puzzle.  In the end, the fresh puzzles and my
    desire to see how the story came out kept me going.

    Overall Regreso al Eden is quite a feat, and Jarel's two games in the FICOMP
    showed a remarkable range.  I really look forward to playing whatever he makes
    next.

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

    From: Michael Bacon

    [I was unable to reach Michael to thank him for his review, as the email address
    he provided did not work.  So Michael, if you're out there, drop me a line! --
    JM]

    TITLE: Floatpoint
    AUTHOR: Emily Short
    E-MAIL:  emshort SP@G mindspring.com
    DATE: September 30, 2006
    PARSER: Inform 7
    SUPPORTS: Glulx interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware; IF-Archive
    URL: http://emshort.wordpress.com/my-work/

    "Good" is not high praise. It is praise though, and I praise Floatpoint with
    disappointment.

    Puzzles are of little importance or challenge in this mildly short work, which
    is a matter of little consequence, because the focus is on story, artful prose,
    and player choice rather than on player ability. The final "puzzle" is really a
    decision reflective of a particular player's reaction to the primary situation
    portrayed in the story. This sandbox-esque element of the game is rewarding by
    way of its delicate responses to each choice.

    Emily Short's prose is good, and her morally-interested science fiction world is
    exceptionally well-developed, mostly by way of careful descriptions, for so
    short a story. Most prominently, several of the endings and player-character
    flashbacks made me want to think more highly of the work than when analyzing it
    as a whole. It impressed some emotions and concerns upon me, as intended.

    The overall design of Floatpoint is elegant, as one would always expect of
    Short, but the actual implementation is oddly impaired by several odd bugs which
    do not prevent the completion of the game. One of them, however, starkly
    emphasizes the necessity of disbelief in the fiction before the reader/player
    which had been so well built up by descriptive writing. Now, nearly a year later
    (in the midst of IF Comp 2007), these problems have still not been addressed,
    which confuses me further since it is the fiction of such a productive and
    usually, I felt, meticulous designer.

    Floatpoint is not in the same category as the strongest of Emily Short's
    interactive fiction, but its worth is very much equal to the time one puts into
    it. I recommend it to the many who seem to have only completed one or two of her
    pieces, but not as highly as some of her other works such a person might have
    missed.

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

    From: Valentine Kopteltsev (uux SP@G mail.ru)

    TITLE: Ghost of the Fireflies
    AUTHOR: Paul Panks
    DATE: September 30, 2007
    PARSER: home-grown
    SUPPORTS: MS-DOS
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware; IF Archive
    URL: http://if-archive/games/competition2007/windows/firefly.exe

    This review is going to be somewhat unusual, in that it's only going to
    describe the positive aspects of the game. The reason? Well, this work's
    author is Paul Panks. I think that over the last few years, he had the
    opportunity to gain more than enough information on things people *don't*
    like about his games; I myself rated the vast majority of them a one. Ghost
    of the Fireflies, on the other hand, while still problem-ridden, does
    represent a major change. It still hardly can be recommended to most players,
    but it shows potential; at the very least, it isn't a slightly modified
    version of one and the same text RPG with rearranged locations and
    repositioned monsters, as, say, all his entries in the last year's Comp were.
    Thus, this review is more for the game author himself than for the players;
    FWIW, there is certainly at least one person who'd be going to like his games
    better if he took account of my comments in his future projects: me.

    So, first of all, I'd like to concentrate on the technical aspects. Let's
    start with *the parser*.

    A short digression: I'm not someone who'd complain about the parser just
    because it isn't advanced enough. In particular, I can be pretty content with
    a two-word parser -- provided it doesn't impede gameplay. In the context of
    most Mr. Panks' works, the parser was pretty adequate; in GOF, he seemed to
    exceed himself by even making it customizable. Also, kudos for removing the
    "feature" that was so annoying in earlier games -- now "EXAMINE" can be
    abbreviated to "X". I don't even mind being called a "weirdo", although I
    suspect that's partly because Russians generally are more immune against
    insults (this last remark has nothing to do with chauvinism -- I believe such
    an attitude is just a matter of training; in everyday life, an average
    Russian citizen has to deal with rude behavior and offenses a lot more than
    most Americans or Europeans).

    Another purely technical improvement is *the multiple save feature*. While
    it's not free of bugs, it'd certainly help in any at least the slightest bit
    advanced RPG -- especially after the problems are sorted out:).

    Now, I start crossing the bridge between technical and creative aspects of
    the game's design, for *the battle system* can be put into either of these
    categories. Panks chose single-step combat for this particular work, allowing
    the player (at least theoretically) to select a weapon and/or an action (such
    as "hit", "run", "cast a spell", etc.) after each turn. As funny as that
    might sound -- it even didn't matter none of those options seemed to work;
    such a system is clearly a step forward compared to fully automated fighting
    most of his other works sported. I felt the author was on the right track
    here; of course, the ultimate answer would be a combination of both
    approaches (letting the player switch forth and back between the two modes
    any time (s)he wants; say, use step-by-step for developing the optimal
    tactics for defeating a specific enemy, then change to automatic mode once
    one made sure the tactics works, and then returning back to single-step if
    something goes wrong).

    Now, to *puzzles*. So feeble they may appear against the ones of any decent
    modern game, they represent a great progress compared to previous works by
    Panks I played. In particular, I liked the "rainbow wall" puzzle: on one
    hand, it's not trivial, on the other hand, it's actually recognizable as a
    puzzle (although it's also a bit guess-the-verb'y, and can be solved by brute
    force). An approach to keep up (and to improve, of course)!

    Finally, I'd like to praise the game's *writing, atmosphere, and backstory*.
    The backstory may be inconsistent, but at least (again, contrary to most
    other works by Mr. Panks I've seen so far) it's there. The writing is
    probably the best thing about the game: it's somewhat uneven, but (oh no, I'm
    starting talking in cliches!) it hints at brilliance. I also appreciate the
    amount of personality the author gave to the player character and the NPCs.
    Yeah, I read in other reviews that the dog who follows you around through the
    whole games is one of the most annoying sidekicks in IF-history, and,
    speaking objectively, it even may be true (although I for myself didn't mind
    having him around at all); but it's still better than having no other company
    than primitive monster bots for NPCs. (BTW, the few enemies in the games I
    encountered had a personality of sorts, too.)

    Now, don't get me wrong: Ghost of the Fireflies is by no means a good game --
    it's bug-ridden, it's barely playable, and has lots of jokes most people (me
    excluded, though) would find offending. Still, it's probably the first game
    by Mr. Panks that made me wish seeing an updated, decently debugged and
    polished version of it.

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

    From: Valentine Kopteltsev (uux SP@G mail.ru)

    TITLE: Lord Bellwater's Secret
    AUTHOR: Sam Gordon
    E-MAIL: sam_r_gordon SP@G hotmail.com
    DATE: September 30, 2007
    PARSER: Inform 7
    SUPPORTS: Z-Machine interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware; IF-Archive
    URL: http://if-archive/games/competition2007/zcode/bellwater/bellwater.zblorb

    All the way while playing Lord Bellwater's Secret, I couldn't help myself
    comparing it to the game by the same author I reviewed in the previous SPAG
    issue, Final Selection. It must be said LBS gives lots of occasions for such
    a comparison. Even more, in many respects it seems to be a downsized version
    of the older game, although initially, it hints at a better developed
    backstory.

    First of all, both works are essentially one-(Victorian)-room games. The
    clever idea with the PC moving to a "sublocation" within the room when he
    wants to manipulate a specific item is still there, too; the problem is --
    well, I've seen it before. Now, don't misunderstand me -- there is nothing
    wrong with the author repeatedly using his own code in later projects; it's
    just not as impressive when you see exactly the same thing for the second
    time.

    Another aspect where LBS clearly loses points (at least, in my eyes) in
    comparison to its predecessor are the puzzles. In Final Selection, they were
    challenging and creative, with cleverly inserted red herrings. Here, we have
    a really great starter (and I do mean it's great -- not too difficult yet not
    totally trivial, either, evoking that "aha!" feeling so often mentioned in
    reviews), followed by a sequence of "read the instructions carefully and
    carry out them directly"-type of problems. The final puzzle, again, might
    have been crowning the story decently (although I wouldn't call it
    outstanding anyway). However, at this point the game suddenly demonstrated
    refractoriness, becoming overly sensitive to the wording of the commands;
    well, the fact at least one of the game themes were courts and lawyers
    probably showed through here;). Seriously, the game's reactions to my
    basically correct, yet inaccurately formulated directives were so unhelpful
    they even made me think I was using an entirely wrong approach, so that I
    tried a different tactic, which also seemed reasonable in the context of the
    story. But no -- pretty soon it became clear the author hadn't had this
    alternative path in mind at all, which left me with no other choice than
    check the walkthrough.

    This issue appears to be especially annoying since in every other respect,
    the game implementation shines. For instance, we have a bookcase here with
    over 1000 volumes, which can be referred to individually (well, it probably
    doesn't really provide an individual description for each book, but at least
    enough for the vast majority of players to give up before all descriptions
    are exhausted); a similarly implemented diary with entries on each day for
    half a year or so; finally, it was amazing to find out (from the game's
    "About"-section) how much historical detail the author had to consider to
    make his game authentic. However, I'd really appreciate it if he invested a
    driblet of these efforts into making the final puzzle recognize a few more
    synonyms. LBS certainly would profit from that (well, at least if the author
    wasn't trying to make a point here -- in which case, I have to admit, I must
    have missed that point entirely).

    But enough of this. Now we come to the part where LBS could potentially
    recoup itself -- namely, to the aforementioned backstory. Unlike Final
    Selection, where the PC basically does puzzle-solving for the sake of
    puzzle-solving, here the protagonist breaks into his master's study to find
    out the truth about his bride's seemingly accidental death. The author
    chose a very good device for establishing the PC's personality: namely,
    sudden remembrances about "his beloved Elsie" that occur when he examines
    certain things. Unfortunately, these reminiscences quickly fade out, so that
    towards the middle of the story, our hero seems to turn into an impassive
    treasure- and secret-hunter. That's a pity; normally, I'm not too
    enthusiastic about melodrama, but here, a little more tear-jerking certainly
    would help building up the atmosphere.

    Considering all the above-said, I rated the game 6 out of 10 (which means
    "Pretty solid, but nothing special" on my scale).

    My final comment on the game ending may be somewhat spoilery; thus, if you
    haven't played LBS yet, you should stop reading here.

    S
    P
    O
    I
    L
    E
    R

    S
    P
    A
    C
    E

    I really was stunned by the optimal ending. It seemed to me our PC collected
    enough materials any modern court would consider cast-iron proof of him being
    the legitimate inheritor. Well, maybe "modern" is the keyword here, and I'm
    just underestimating the class prejudices of the XIX-th century.

    SUBMISSION POLICY ---------------------------------------------------------

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    games, but also some graphic adventures where the primary player-game
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