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ISSUE #23 - December 29, 2000

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

                ISSUE # 23  -- 2000 IF Competition Special

               Edited by Paul O'Brian (obrian SP@G colorado.edu)
                         December 29, 2000

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

    SPAG #23 is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul O'Brian.
    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.

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

    Ad Verbum
    And The Waves Choke The Wind
    At Wit's End
    Being Andrew Plotkin
    The Big Mama
    Desert Heat
    Dinner With Andre
    The Djinni Chronicles
    The End Means Escape
    Guess The Verb!
    Kaged
    Masquerade
    Metamorphoses
    My Angel
    Nevermore
    1-2-3
    Planet Of The Infinite Minds
    Prodly The Puffin
    Rameses
    Shade
    Transfer
    YAGWAD

    SPECIFICS
    =========
    Shade

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

    I've been spending a little more time on ifMUD lately, and recently one
    of the denizens there asked me a question: "Why does SPAG have an annual
    competition issue?" I'm still turning this question over in my mind. Of
    course, there's an obvious, easy answer: tradition. SPAG had extremely
    close ties to the comp in its first few years, because the founder and
    then-editor of SPAG, Kevin "Whizzard" Wilson, was also the guy who *ran*
    the competition. It was only natural that the zine celebrate the comp
    with reviews, author interviews, in-depth analyses (precursor to the
    modern SPAG Specifics) and such. Since then, SPAG has chronicled the
    comp each year as a matter of standard practice.

    Still, tradition alone isn't a satisfactory answer to the question.
    After all, the zine and the comp are run by different people now. Too,
    competition reviews are hardly in short supply. In fact, reviewing comp
    games has become so de rigeur that by the time the comp issue of SPAG
    comes out, the community has already been treated to opinions from
    dozens of different comp reviewers, myself included. This is, of course,
    a great thing (as it would be if non-comp games got the same treatment),
    but it does tend to call into question the usefulness of an annual SPAG
    full of comp reviews.

    However, after giving it some thought, I believe there are several
    points in favor of an annual comp issue. One, SPAG solicits reviews that
    go into greater depth than the majority of the treatments that appear on
    rec.games.int-fiction. Looking through the reviews collected on Stephen
    Granade's site at http://interactfiction.about.com reveals that many
    consist of just a few sentences, transcribed notes, fragmentary
    thoughts, or offhand reactions; many also include spoilers, which make
    them unfriendly to people who haven't yet played the game. As the number
    of comp games increases, so too does this tendency toward brevity and
    skimming. SPAG reviews, on the other hand, try for a bit more cohesion,
    a bit more depth, and work hard to avoid spoilers. Even the comp reviews
    reprinted from rgif are selected with these qualities in mind. Including
    these reprints allows SPAG to feature a selection from some of the best
    reviews to appear on the newsgroups in the post-comp review glut.
    Reviews are chosen for their insight into particular points, their
    humor, or sometimes their sheer enthusiasm for a game that may have been
    overlooked by the majority of other respondents.

    It's important to me, though, that the comp issue not be dominated by
    these reprints -- I've always tried to keep the ratio of new reviews to
    reprints at least one to one, if not greater. In fact, I believe that
    original content is another good reason for a SPAG comp issue. The
    majority of comp reviews come in a massive deluge the day after the comp
    ends, and I think there's a value to comp reviews that are written after
    that initial flood, and that perhaps even respond to the points raised
    by some of those early assessments. Of course, this idea is predicated
    on people actually *writing* these reviews, and though fewer people seem
    to be drawn to this type of assignment, the output of those few can be
    quite valuable. This issue's original reviews were provided by Mark
    Musante, Duncan Stevens, and Tina Sikorski. Tina's reviews in particular
    are in a format which differs a bit from the traditional SPAG review --
    she assigns and explains letter grades for Writing, Puzzles, Plot, NPCs,
    Technical skill, and a final factor called "Tilt", which functions
    similar to the wildcard points in regular SPAG scores. In addition, she
    provides an overall grade and the score she submitted for the game.
    Though these reviews aren't SPAG's usual style, I found their
    postdiluvian perspective intriguing, and have included a healthy sample.

    One last justification: the SPAG comp issue has always contained more
    than just reviews. As in previous years, we've interviewed the authors
    of particularly successful comp games -- this time around we've got
    interviews with Ian Finley, Emily Short, and J. Robinson Wheeler,
    authors of the first, second, and third place comp games, respectively.
    All three of these authors took the time to give long and thoughtful
    answers to SPAG's questions, and their thoughts are likely to be
    interesting even to those who are a bit weary of comp game reviews.

    In the end, I've decided that the annual comp issue of SPAG is a
    worthwhile endeavour after all, but there are ways to make it even
    better. For next year's comp issue, I'll be soliciting creative ideas
    for comp-oriented material to stand alongside the reviews. This could be
    anything from authors' notes to humor pieces to essays looking at the
    patterns created by the comp games as a whole. The future of the comp
    issue, and the future of SPAG in general, is in the hands of its
    contributors as much as mine. I'm optimistic that the energy and
    creativity of the IF community will keep that future a bright one.

    NEWS ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    COMPETITION RESULTS
    There's been a general consensus that the 2000 IF competition was one of
    the best ever -- not only were a record number of games entered, but an
    impressive number of those were significant achievements. As usual, we
    all owe a debt of gratitude to organizer Stephen Granade and vote-
    counter Mark Musante. This issue is full of reviews that examine the
    comp games in depth, but for posterity's sake, here are the final
    results:

    1  Kaged                            Ian Finley
    2  Metamorphoses                    Emily Short
    3  Being Andrew Plotkin             J. Robinson Wheeler
    4  Ad Verbum                        Nick Montfort
    5  Transfer                         Tod Levi
    6  My Angel                         Jon Ingold
    7  Nevermore                        Nate Cull
    8  Masquerade                       Kathleen M. Fischer
    9  YAGWAD                           John Kean aka Digby McWiggle
    10 Shade                            Andrew Plotkin
    11 Guess the Verb!                  Leonard Richardson
    12 Letters from Home                Roger Firth
    13 Rameses                          Stephen Bond
    14 The Djinni Chronicles            J. D. Berry
    15 The Best Man                     Rob Menke
    16 And the Waves Choke the Wind     Gunther Schmidl
    17 At Wit's End                     Mike J. Sousa
    18 Dinner with Andre                Liza Daly
    19 Planet of the Infinite Minds     Alfredo Garcia
    20 The Big Mama                     Brendan Barnwell
    21 The End Means Escape             Stephen Kodat
    22 Punk Points                      Jim Munroe
    23 A Crimson Spring                 Robb Sherwin
       Enlisted                         G. F. Berry
    25 Futz Mutz                        Tim Simmons
    26 Return to Zork: Another Story    Stefano Canali
    27 Unnkulia X                       Valentine Kopteltsev
    28 Desert Heat                      Papillon
    29 Got ID?                          Marc Valhara
    30 Castle Amnos                     John Evans
    31 The Masque of the Last Faeries   Ian R Ball
    32 The Pickpocket                   Alex Weldon
    33 The Trip                         Cameron Wilkin
    34 Happy Ever After                 Robert M. Camisa
    35 Prodly the Puffin                Craig Timpany & Jim Crawford
    36 Withdrawal Symptoms              Niclas Carlsson
    37 Aftermath                        Graham Somerville
    38 The Clock                        Cleopatra Kozlowski
    39 Wrecked                          Campbell Wild
    40 Threading the Labyrinth          Kevin F. Doughty
    41 VOID: CORPORATION                Jonathan Lim
    42 1-2-3...                         Chris Mudd
    43 Escape from Crulistan            Alan Smithee
    44 Stupid Kittens                   Pollyanna Huffington
    45 Marooned                         Bruce Davis
    46 On the Other Side                Antonio Márquez Marín
    47 Jarod's Journey                  Tim Emmerich
    48 Infil-traitor                    Chris Charla
    49 Comp00ter Game                   Brendan Barnwell
    50 Little Billy                     Okey Ikeako
    51 Asendent                         Sourdoh Farenheit & Kelvin Flatbred
    52 What-IF?                         David Ledgard
    53 Breaking the Code                Gunther Schmidl

    NEW GAMES
    Even though the competition is over, the flow of new games has not
    stopped! Among the new arrivals are another fiendish Andy Phillips
    puzzler, an innovative storytelling experiment from the 6th place author
    in this year's comp, and the first game (to my knowledge) using the SUDS
    development environment.
       * The MONDAY Adventure by Mikel Rice
         (http://www.geocities.com/mondayadv/mdayndex.html)
       * Heroine's Mantle by Andy Phillips
       * Hortulus by Florian Edelbauer (a game in German, available at
         http://www.textadventures.de/hortulus/hortulus.html)
       * FailSafe by Jon Ingold
       * Snow Night by Chuck Smith
         (http://www.ksu.edu/wwparent/story/nature/)

    SO FIND
    A new website by the name of ifFINDER has recently appeared at
    http://www.corknut.org/ifFinder/. This site catalogs a collection of IF-
    related pages, sorting them by category and offering a search engine for
    those more specific requests. There are currently 109 pages indexed
    there, and the site offers a submission form if you know of a site that
    should be on there but isn't.

    INFOCOM POSTMORTEM
    It's been 11 years since the last Infocom text adventure, and in that
    time there has been no definitive resource chronicling the rise and fall
    of the most important company in Interactive Fiction history -- until
    now. A group of students from MIT, the same university that spawned the
    original group of Imps, has released a paper entitled "Down From the Top
    of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc." Their conclusion: "Infocom did
    not fail simply because it decided to shift its focus to business
    software... Behind the scenes, the transition created a litany of
    problems that hurt both the games and the business divisions of the
    company. Combined with some bad luck, these problems -- not simply the
    development of Cornerstone -- ultimately led to Infocom’s downfall." The
    paper is available at http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/infocom/

    UPTHUMB AND I
    Have you ever wanted to endorse a game personally, but not felt up to
    writing a review? Brendan Barnwell has the solution for you. It's called
    Upthumb, a web site at http://members.aol.com/brenbarn/upthumb.html.
    This site allows visitors to register their appreciation for IF games
    and be added to a list of that game's endorsers.

    REVIEWERS? ANYONE? ANYONE? BUELLER?
    SPAG lives or dies by the contributions you provide to it. If you want
    to review a game, but aren't sure which one to pick, consider choosing a
    candidate from the following list of my deep desires:

    SPAG 10 MOST WANTED LIST
    ========================
    1.  The Best Man
    2.  Dangerous Curves
    3.  FailSafe
    4.  Gateway 2: Homeworld
    5.  Heroine's Mantle
    6.  Letters From Home
    7.  The MONDAY Adventure
    8.  The Mulldoon Legacy
    9.  Snow Night
    10. T-Zero

    INTERVIEWS-----------------------------------------------------------------

    In addition to the innumerable hours they poured into their comp
    entries, the top three authors in this year's IF competition were kind
    enough to spend some time answering SPAG's questions about their lives,
    their work, and their opinions. J. Robinson Wheeler even took those
    questions and changed the whole thing from an interview to... something
    slightly different. You'll see when we get there. SPAG is proud to
    present the following interviews with Ian Finley, Emily Short, and J.
    Robinson Wheeler.

      -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Ian Finley, author of "Kaged"-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    SPAG: When SPAG last spoke with you, you were a 17-year-old high school
    student living in Bountiful, Utah. Aside from being three years older,
    what else has changed in your life between now and then?

    IF: Certainly not my maturity level ;) I'm currently studying acting at
    the University of Utah with vague hopes of going on to study directing
    at Columbia or NYU, and have graduated from a Byronic gay teen to full
    fledged glamour boy and queer activist. My focus lately has been on
    performance, including a series of original performance art pieces done
    as benefit for the Utah Gay and Lesbian Community Center, as well as
    playing the Logician in a production of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" that's
    going to tour California in February. Unfortunately neither acting nor
    IF quite pays the rent (let alone the tuition) so I've also been
    teaching at the university's Theatre Conservatory during the summers for
    the past couple of years, which has been incredibly rewarding.

    SPAG: Do you do any other kinds of writing besides IF?

    IF: Most of my writing lately has been for the stage (unsurprising,
    given the focus of my current studies). In the past three years I've
    written several plays and other theatrical pieces that have been
    performed around Salt Lake in different venues as I've slowly crept up
    the ladder towards competent writing.

    SPAG: What's your assessment of the current shape of IF?

    IF: Multifaceted. It's rare to find a "niche market" that has something
    for everyone. More than ever before, I think IF has broadened its scope
    and appeal; producing works ranging from comedy to tragedy, puzzle-based
    to puzzle-less, massive to miniature. Authors are beginning to see just
    how much this medium can accomplish (and becoming more aware of its
    weaknesses) and pushing the boundaries of that. This is an exciting time
    to be involved with the IF community.

    SPAG: You've been a perennial entrant to the IF competition. Now that
    you've won, what's next? Do you plan to write any more IF, and if so, do
    you think you'll submit it to the comp?

    IF: Good question. The reason I enter games in the competition is for
    the promise of response: I'm an actor, I need direct response to my
    craft to really feel it's working. On stage that's easy, (are they
    laughing? are they crying? are they cringing?) but with IF you have to
    hope and pray that if someone responds they'll be gracious enough to
    tell you. The competition greatly increases that chance. At the same
    time, part of the purpose of the comp is to encourage new authors, not
    glorify old ones, so I am wary of entering again.

    SPAG: Last year, you chose to enter anonymously (in fact, to enter twice
    under two different pseudonyms!) This year, you entered under your own
    name. What was your rationale for that decision?

    IF: Last year I didn't want people to see the name Ian Finley and think
    "Oh, this will be like Babel" and be utterly disappointed or confused by
    Exhibition. I also wanted Exhibition to stand or fall on its own merit,
    as opposed to people thinking they SHOULD like it because they enjoyed
    Babel. On the other hand, I entered Beal St. anonymously for very
    different reasons: I wasn't at all sure I wanted my name associated with
    it at all! If Adam Cadre and several others on the MUD hadn't figured me
    out that game might very well have gone unclaimed by any author to this
    day!

    Why then did I enter Kaged under my own name? Because I wanted it to get
    noticed. ;) People have certain natural feelings going into a work by an
    author they know: I sit down to open a volume of Camus in a totally
    different mindset than when I settle in to read Oscar Wilde or Jane
    Austen. This is neither good nor bad, just different. Repeatedly, I'd
    seen with "Hunter, In Darkness" in '99 the remark that if players had
    known it was Zarf they would have rated it higher, not just *because* it
    was Zarf but because they would then trust the author enough to take
    certain risks with him. Instead of "I'm in a maze, I'll quit playing
    now," players said they'd be more inclined to think, "This author
    wouldn't put this maze here without a reason, I'll keep playing." So, I
    figured this time around, since part of my overall concept was to appeal
    to as broad a base of players as possible, I'd submit under my own name.
    I can promise though that any games I do enter in the future will be
    under various cryptic pseudonyms.

    SPAG: What gave you the idea for Kaged?

    IF: As always happens with me, several different images came together in
    a sort of stew. The original idea came from reading some very clever,
    very short horror stories, all with one neat little twist and wondering
    how many times I could twist a plot, lie to the PC in some way, and
    still get away with it. Then I saw an amazing production of Kafka's
    "Metamorphosis" at the Lab Theatre here in Salt Lake. That same week I
    started studying the German expressionist silent films, most notably the
    classic "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." I began wondering how an
    expressionistic world-view wedded with Kafka's dark, to the point,
    bureaucratic style might work for IF. The visual style of "Cabinet,"
    filled with monstrously skewed perspectives and slanting, terribly acute
    angles, was one of its most memorable devices, so I began wondering how
    I could adapt that to non-visual IF. As a result, the descriptions of
    almost all the rooms in Kaged mention their odd angles, acute corners,
    and lack of perpendicular stability. After brewing for a bit, these
    random images crystallized into the backbone of Kaged. Interestingly
    enough, though many reviewers have likened the game world to 1984 or
    Brave New World, I have never actually read anything by Orwell or Huxley
    (I'm behind, I know, I know) and indeed if I had I may well have been
    too daunted or swayed by their worlds to attempt to create my own
    dystopia!

    SPAG: Some people have noted that Kaged is a more traditional IF game,
    and wondered if that's why it placed ahead of more experimental works
    like Rameses and My Angel. Did you set out to give Kaged a broad appeal,
    or was its form dictated by its content?

    IF: There's some truth behind both statements, but my return to a more
    traditional form was largely an intentional move to appeal to a broad
    audience. After Exhibition, which I felt accomplished the goals I had
    set out for it, I felt slightly guilty that I had somehow let the IF
    world down, after the popular success of Babel. Moreover, both
    download.com and AOL, which have distributed tens of thousands of copies
    of Babel, both refused to distribute Exhibition, apparently having no
    category it fit into. Add to that a seeming trend towards more
    completely puzzle-based games that's started to mirror the recent growth
    in puzzle-less games and which seems popular among many people on the
    newsgroup. For all these reasons, I made a little deal with myself,
    saying: "I'll alternate. For each experimental game I write I'll write a
    more traditional game with a broader appeal." I figured in this way I
    could reach audiences at both ends of the spectrum at one point or
    another, produce "games" which wider distribution mechanisms like
    download.com might be interested in (thus bringing more people into the
    IF community), and still have an opportunity to write experimental,
    story-oriented works, which are my biggest interest in the area of IF
    today. Sure, it could be said why don't I try to integrate both elements
    into one game, and I'm working on that (and I hope Kaged has at least a
    few unique, somewhat experimental elements to it) but I've not quite
    reached that level of proficiency yet. However, now that I have written
    a game that seems to have won the popular vote, I do intend on focusing
    my energies more towards experimental forms, like Exhibition and like
    this year's very unique and laudable experimental entries like Rameses
    and My Angel.

    SPAG: Of all the conversation systems on display in the comp, the one in
    Kaged was arguably the least interactive: the player simply types "TALK
    TO " and the game dictates the dialogue from there on. What were
    the advantages and disadvantages of using this method?

    IF: This is owed entirely to The Last Express, the finest piece of
    interactive storytelling I've ever seen. NPC interaction has always
    baffled me, and one of my primary efforts in writing IF has been finding
    ways to sidestep the issue. Babel was written to have no NPCs at all the
    character could interact with; Exhibition was written about themes
    isolation and the impossibility of communication at least in part to
    justify the inability to talk with the NPCs in the gallery. Oh, I'd
    tried other ways. The first season of Vivaldi, a massive IF epic that I
    started right after Babel and has gone down unforeseen and interesting
    paths since then, involved a NPC that responded with the usual ask/tell
    system. After coding responses on some seventy-five topics that varied
    with the given situation, I realized that writing NPCs in this way
    wasn't going to work (the fact that Emily Short somehow made it work is
    why I consider Galatea to be one of the true landmark games of modern
    IF). So, after tearing my hair out and attempting to program menu-based
    conversations for Kaged, I played The Last Express and hit upon the most
    elegant solution. If the PC is a well defined character, as I was hoping
    Aackmann would be, then in any given situation the plot will dictate
    what he is going to say if he chooses to talk. Of course, this required
    some puppeteering from behind the scenes and led to some slightly
    artificial almost-cut-scenes at some major plot points, but I felt that
    on the whole it allowed me to keep things under control without
    overloading my programming skills or utterly breaking mimesis. It was a
    good compromise for this game and may be something I return to,
    depending on its suitability, for other works in the future.

    SPAG: Speaking more generally, what are some of your thoughts on
    balancing the need for interactivity with the need for telling a story?

    IF: It's damn hard. ;) As a storyteller, I feel that I have to remain in
    control a great deal for the story to come through and I think that the
    best "story" games from this years comp (BAP, Rameses, etc.) were all
    fairly tightly controlled. Possibly the greatest "story" game of all
    time, Photopia, was a very controlled game, but I think there are ways
    of offering interactivity in other ways that don't necessarily
    relinquish that control. Level of detail is one of these for me.
    Essentially every object in Kaged is described, including the walls,
    floor and ceiling of every room, and down to the moss of the tiles in
    the showers in the bathroom. Several objects, and every single actor,
    has several different descriptions, based on when you look at them. Of
    course, there's always room for more detail, but the more you can add,
    the more time you're willing to put into that step the richer the world
    becomes and the more apparently interactive. There are scenes in Kaged
    where you're forced to stand about for several turns, but I felt if I
    could at least offer lots of different things to look at and poke at the
    more engaged the player would be. I don't think however there's any
    "right" balance of interactivity to story, there are just ratios that
    are more suitable and less suitable for what you're trying to convey and
    the audience you're trying to convey it to.

    SPAG: What did you think about this year's competition? Any favorite
    games?

    IF: SPLENDID competition. It was terrifying to see so many wonderful
    games. Shade, Rameses, Ad Verbum, My Angel, Masquerade; these were all
    fine and memorable games that have definitely earned a place on my hard
    drive. Above all though, I must say that Being Andrew Plotkin (which I
    waited for with great excitement since first seeing the title in an
    e-mail sent to all the authors) and Metamorphoses (which I waited for
    with even greater excitement since Emily first declined to test Kaged
    because she was putting together something of her own for the comp)
    especially charmed me and I'm honored to share the top rankings with
    them.

    SPAG: Any advice you'd care to offer for prospective competition
    entrants?

    IF: Beta-test! I know this sounds like old hat to everyone by now, but
    testing really is what makes a game successful. And I'm not just talking
    about cleaning up bugs here, but also cleaning up text and design
    errors. Hoooo boy, you should have seen Kaged (or any of my games) on
    their first drafts. Doubt you'd even recognize them. Get testers. Get
    LOTS of them (I think I sent inquiries off to about twenty people
    initially this year). Spend time with them, a period of time at least
    half as long as the time it took you to write the game, if not an equal
    period. Kaged took two months of steady work to program and another two
    months of steady work to test.

    And be gracious. These people are doing a tremendous job for you,
    absolutely for free, while trying to juggle lives of their own. These
    are the people who can really "make" your game and they deserve respect
    and gratuitous thanks. ;)

      -=-=-=-=-=-=-Emily Short, author of "Metamorphoses"-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    SPAG: For starters, could you tell us a little about yourself? Who are
    you, what do you do for a living, and so forth?

    ES: I'm a PhD student in Classics, which means that I have a teaching
    assistantship and go to classes. Whether or not this counts as doing
    something for a living is open to question.

    I also travel as much as I can, write fiction and nonfiction, teach a
    course in writing for home-schooled high school students, collect
    Requiem masses on CD, read the occasional romance, cook the occasional
    elaborate dinner. I frequently develop passionate fascinations with
    topics that have nothing to do with Greek, much to the frustration of my
    advisors: being an undergraduate was more fun. The world is an intensely
    interesting place and I would like to see as much of it as possible from
    as many angles as possible.

    SPAG: How did you first become introduced to IF?

    ES: My mother has held various computing jobs since the early 80s, and I
    have dim childhood recollections of watching her play Adventure and
    Zork, and then a bit later of trying my own hand at Infocom games. I was
    really fascinated by Deadline despite the fact that I had no idea what
    was going on or what I was supposed to be doing. Enchanter was another
    favorite of mine. I don't think I completely solved one on my own until
    Plundered Hearts, though. I even started (in BASIC, heaven help us, with
    the most primitive conception of a parser imaginable) a game called
    'RingQuest,' about which the less said, the better. I was twelve, so
    there may be some excuse.

    Then Infocom went under and I kind of figured that was that. I didn't
    hear about Inform or the new community or r*if until 1996 or 97, when a
    college friend of mine who knew about my old fondness for Infocom games
    introduced me to Curses. At which point it became clear that I had to
    learn the language and do one of these things myself.

    SPAG: So far, you've created a game with a very deeply implemented
    character (Galatea) and a game with very deeply implemented objects
    (Metamorphoses.) What is it about this kind of depth that interests you?

    ES: I'm not very interested in the kind of game that consists chiefly of
    a series of puzzles with single solutions. (Especially if the puzzles
    are hard. At Wit's End is a perfect example: it's probably quite well
    done and very appealing to certain people, but it turned me off
    completely as soon as I realized how it worked. I play IF more for
    atmosphere and story than for the sake of enjoying the frustration
    factor.)

    Better, in my opinion, to set up a system with a set of rules that the
    player can learn and then manipulate in various ways to achieve various
    goals. In Galatea, there's not even a set problem -- you decide what you
    want to try to do. Metamorphoses is a lot closer to being a puzzle game,
    but the simulationist element means (I hope) that the player will feel
    as though the solutions are a seamless expression of the possibilities
    inherent in the world.

    I think this issue first came into my consciousness when I played Spider
    and Web. There's a two-stage process: figure out how the stuff you have
    works, and then come up with ways to use that knowledge. The experience,
    it seemed to me, was a lot more satisfying than your average get-thing,
    use-thing puzzle, no matter how trickily disguised.

    Ultimately I'd like my work to be effective as toy (richly implemented
    and fun to play with), as game (actions lead to progress towards a
    goal), and as story (actions fit naturally into the scheme of a plot).

    SPAG: You've become known as someone whose games are liable to feature a
    large number of endings. Tell us a bit about why you employ this
    strategy.

    ES: I'm not committed to writing only games where there are multiple
    endings; it just happens that both of the games I've released so far
    have seemed to demand it. In the case of Galatea, I wanted to keep the
    player a little off-balance all the time; I wanted to make a character
    who seemed a bit unpredictable. I particularly did *not* want there to
    be one "answer" or "explanation" that could be spoiled for people in
    advance. And I also wanted the process of discovery to be guided by what
    the player was interested in. It's a game designed to be as responsive
    as possible to the player's personal approach.

    With Metamorphoses I had a plot reason rather than a mechanical reason.
    The development of the PC is from slavery to freedom, from restriction
    to choice. So I wanted the freedom she gains to be reflected in the
    game-play. There's been some discussion, but I think this is the right
    choice: different players have liked different endings for the story.

    SPAG: What was your process for writing Metamorphoses? I'm wondering
    things like how long it took, what inspired it, how you went about
    coding it, and the like.

    ES: I talk about this a little bit more on my web page
    (emshort.home.mindspring.com/games.htm), but the basic gist is that I
    began it as a coding exercise for a materials-simulation library I was
    writing, and then it developed a life of its own.

    How long did it take? I spent a lot of time during the summer of 1999
    writing stuff that eventually found its way into the game -- room
    descriptions, objects, most of the puzzles -- as part of a much larger
    and more ambitious game under the working title "Practical Alchemy." The
    thematic material was broader -- Hermeticism, Kabbalism, Della Porta's
    natural magic, some strands of Chinese elemental theory -- a wide range
    of the stuff that fed into the alchemical tradition, rather than the
    simplified Neoplatonism of the game as it now stands. It was also going
    to have an extremely complicated Inquisitor NPC; a demon-possessed cat;
    divisible liquids and measurement puzzles; a 'copy' machine that would
    let you replicate any of your inventory... it was a mess. There were
    some bits for which the coding was cool: I had a mystical book coded up
    to produce randomized Latin gibberish that would still consistently scan
    as dactylic hexameter, for instance -- but WHO WAS GOING TO NOTICE? So I
    threw it out. And I did have the object-copying machine worked out, with
    a cute little copy room for it to go in. Along with the parse_name code
    that distinguished formerly identical objects one of which had been
    modified in size or material.

    So all that was there, sitting around, as of last November or so, and I
    shelved it to work on other projects.

    When it came time for comp registration I signed up without being
    certain which of several things-in-progress I'd wind up entering. Around
    the beginning of September, I came to the conclusion that none of my
    other projects was worthy of notice yet, that I liked the setting for
    this game better than anything else I had going on, and that I could
    make something workable out of it if I stripped the design down to
    basics. From there in it was a month of focused work. I cut extensively,
    designed the last couple of puzzles, reshaped the plot, and, as They
    say, raced like the wind to finish on time.

    The coding is not exotic. Everything difficult -- timed burn routines,
    divisible liquids, copied objects, breakables that leave behind shards
    sharp enough to be used to cut other objects -- all that got edited out
    of this game. I have a class of Changeable objects that have properties
    representing their materials and shapes and sizes. Verbs are reworked to
    behave appropriately, so that for instance hitting a glass object with a
    hard object breaks the glass -- there are some minor complexities
    involving containers, but mostly this was all just handled with a lot of
    switch statements. And then the puzzles check for the presence of the
    right physical characteristics. So instead of coding up a condition as

    if (noun == persian_rug) { blah blah blah; }

    I have

    if (noun.size > 2 && noun.shape == PLANAR && noun.mater == CLOTH)
    	{ blah blah blah; }

    Then I did a lot of tinkering around -- and had my beta testers do a lot
    of tinkering around -- trying to come up with interactions I hadn't
    thought of yet. It didn't occur to me that someone might try to hang
    cloth objects on the hook, obvious though that is, until it showed up in
    my sister's transcript.

    This pretty much describes how I seem to write IF in general. First I
    get some hair-brained idea for a system (conversation, material
    interactions); in the process of coding it up, an appropriate story and
    setting suggest themselves; then I play with the game a lot, and have
    other people play with it, in order to find the places where the
    implementation needs to be deepened. Of the changes I made between
    versions of Galatea, a couple stemmed from extra ideas I'd had in the
    meantime, but the majority came from looking at people's transcripts and
    listening to their complaints about what they wanted to be able to do.

    SPAG: Can you talk a bit about the relationship between the PC and her
    Master in Metamorphoses?

    ES: It's not quite as monolithically dark as some people seem to
    believe: he's somewhere between adoptive father, teacher, and
    slave-driver. He doesn't hate her; he just considers his ultimate goal
    more important than her comfort or his own, which means that he has to
    push her harder than is humane. And so far she hasn't done a very good
    job of standing up for herself -- *and* she's rather intrigued by this
    strange stuff she's involved in, isolating and difficult and painful
    though it sometimes is.

    SPAG: Do you plan to write more IF in the future?

    ES: I am writing more IF currently.

    SPAG: What did you think about this year's competition? Any favorite
    games?

    ES: Kaged, Shade, Being Andrew Plotkin, and Masquerade. BAP and Shade
    both earned points for producing a strong personal response: BAP was the
    funniest game I've played in a long time, and Shade the scariest. And
    Kaged and Masquerade were both engrossing, Masquerade because I wanted
    to find out what happened in the plot and Kaged because the atmosphere
    was so effective.

    I share the general opinion that the competition was a strong one this
    year, though there were also some things that I think should've been
    left in the oven a little longer. That's always the case, though.

    SPAG: Any advice you'd care to offer for prospective competition
    entrants?

    ES: Don't submit a game that's not ready. If you can't tell whether it's
    half-baked or not, get beta-testers with some experience with IF.
    (Showing it to three of your closest friends doesn't help if they don't
    know what the state of the art looks like.) This is obvious advice, but
    I think it's important.

    SPAG: Finally, you have a reputation as a passionate advocate of cheese.
    Is there anything you'd like to tell us about what drives this passion
    of yours? Are you planning to write the definitive cheese game?

    ES: Cheese is a glorious thing. All dairy products partake partially of
    this glory, but cheese stands at the apex. For those who are interested,
    I have a cheese-centric ratings/review page at
    emshort.home.mindspring.com/cheese.htm.

    If you look at that page, though, you'll note that there's a sad dearth
    of games that explore the pleasure and wonder of cheese in all its
    varieties. I'd like to write such a game, but I alone cannot be a
    sufficient advocate. Which is why we need a CheeseComp in the very near
    future.

      -=-=-=J. Robinson Wheeler, author of "Being Andrew Plotkin"-=-=-=

    We sent our SPAG correspondent-at-large, Snappy Von Beakerhead, to meet
    up with IF Competition winner Celie Paradis -- or rather, J. Robinson
    Wheeler. His previous IF release was the comedy 1998 Competition entry
    "Four in One," a game about the Marx Brothers set in the glory days of
    the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. His entry this year, "Being Andrew
    Plotkin," another movie-related comedy, placed third and garnered
    positive reviews, including a few raves.

    Von Beakerhead writes: "I met up with J. Robinson Wheeler, or Rob as he
    is familiarly known, in the upstairs section of a coffee house in
    Austin, Texas. He arrived about fifteen minutes late, wearing blue
    jeans, a blue button-collar shirt covered by a worn flannel overshirt
    (in a third shade of blue), and a blue fedora. He made polite apologies
    about traffic, and as we chatted he sipped alternately on a pint glass
    of coffee with milk and sugar and a pint glass of ice water.

    "When we started, he seemed moody, as if the world were weighing down on
    him, and he rarely made eye contact. As we talked, he seemed to
    brighten. When I asked about his upcoming TADS game, he lit up. I talked
    with him about 'Being Andrew Plotkin,' about this upcoming full-scale
    text adventure, and about what he sees for IF's future."

    SPAG: For starters, could you tell us a little about yourself? Who are
    you, what do you do for a living, and so forth?

    Rob: (laughs) These are actually the kinds of questions I have the most
    trouble with. The normal ones -- "So, what do you do?" "How are you
    today?"

    SPAG: Why is it a problem for you?

    Rob: I think it's that I have to gauge who I'm talking to because
    there's a number of ways I could answer, from superficially to very
    personally.

    SPAG: Well, feel free to answer however you like.

    Rob: I grew up in Austin, got a bachelor's degree from Stanford, pursued
    and then dropped out of graduate film studies at USC, where I also
    studied music. I was a cartoonist for a while, and a screenwriter, then
    I worked as a sound mixer for independent films, and as a freelance Web
    designer. I'm currently unemployed. My main activities this year have
    been directing and editing a movie and writing IF. How's that?

    SPAG: Fine. How did you first become introduced to IF?

    Rob: When I was in fifth grade, which was 1980-81, I had a friend named
    Mike Benedict. One day, Mike started raving to me about this "adventure
    game" called Zork. Our fathers were both professors in the astronomy
    department at UT-Austin, and so we'd walk over there after school, log
    into the VAX computer, and go to the games section. Later they took the
    games off the university computers because people were abusing the
    system resources. But before that, they had "Advent" and "Zork," as well
    as ones that are now lost to the mists of time -- one called "Haunt,"
    another one called "Aardvark."

    SPAG: I think "Aardvark" is on the gmd archive.

    Rob: Yeah, I downloaded it recently and sent it to my brother, who was
    obsessed with that game for a while. So anyway, after that I discovered
    there was a BBS [bulletin board service] in Austin called the Black Box,
    and they had Infocom games on-line. You could dial up and play. I
    remember playing "Starcross" on that, until we abused it so much they
    took the games off. (laughs) Then we used to get Infocom games for
    Christmas and birthdays and stuff. And from those earliest times, I
    tried writing my own text adventures using BASIC.

    SPAG: Did you finish any of them?

    Rob: Only one, and it was an end-of-year project for a Latin I class in
    7th grade. You wandered around ancient Pompeii and typed Latin
    vocabulary as commands. The teacher was impressed, since she'd never
    seen anything like it before.

    SPAG: So let's cut to the present. You just placed third in the 2000
    Comp with "Being Andrew Plotkin." How does that make you feel?

    Rob: Terrific.

    SPAG: So you're content, or would you rather have placed even higher
    than that?

    Rob: I'm content. Third place actually feels pretty good. "Kaged" and
    "Metamorphoses" were great entries. I still get to be interviewed by
    SPAG, so it's all good.

    SPAG: You've mentioned that you used some specific techniques to
    simulate the Zarfian mode, and also that you employed a different
    writing style for each viewpoint character. Can you go into a bit more
    detail about how you achieved these effects?

    Rob: I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "the Zarfian mode."

    SPAG: What I mean is, a Zarfian atmosphere to the game.

    Rob: Well, that effect was mostly achieved by cribbing bits of Zarf's
    actual writing and sticking it into the game at selected points. The
    game starts out in kind of style-neutral mode, with nothing particularly
    Zarfian going on. The first hint of it is when you start to move the
    file cabinet, and you get a little wisp of cool air -- an effect
    borrowed from the beginning of "So Far." I wanted people to think, hmm,
    obviously we're about to enter a Zarfian world, the same way you are led
    into the strange other worlds of "So Far" from a fairly mundane starting
    location. The next thing was to write a very detailed description of the
    weird tunnel that you enter. I was trying to describe the tunnel that
    was used in the "Being John Malkovich" movie, but with Zarf's diligence
    to detail. Evocative adjectives, active verbs. I spent a while writing
    that one description. I like the reference to sharkskin that it uses --
    it's slick and smooth in one direction and resists any movement against
    the grain. I think that it's a metaphor for the way that the game
    railroads the player along and doesn't give any rewards for straying off
    the track. The game doesn't go anywhere but forward.

    SPAG: Did you really mean it that way when you wrote the tunnel room
    description, or are you making that up in hindsight?

    Rob: I think I meant it but I didn't know it until later. I often find
    that there's a part of my brain that's smarter about making connections
    than my conscious mind is.

    SPAG: About the different viewpoint characters --

    Rob: Oh right. Well, it's not true that I used a completely different
    writing style for each character viewpoint. The writing style was
    basically the same for the Valerie and Peter characters, but being
    different people, they would see things differently.

    SPAG: For example?

    Rob: Oh, for example -- the window in the file room. Peter sees it as a
    "measly window letting in one tiny square of sunlight," as if it's this
    pathetic thing that aggravates him. It does so little to help brighten
    the confines of the room, that it might as well not be there. Valerie
    thinks the window gives the room -- which she sees in a positive way,
    because it's so tidy -- a sense of openness. She thinks it's a bonus.

    SPAG: Okay, but when the player character is Zarf --

    Rob: When the player character is Zarf, I decided to have some fun. How
    would Zarf see the world? And when I say Zarf, I kind of mean the
    mythological Zarf.

    SPAG: (interrupting) Who is the mythological Zarf?

    Rob: Well, I think it mostly comes from "So Far," which was such a
    surreal journey. You get the idea of a Zarfian landscape from there. And
    when Zarf writes this game, which is so provocative, and then refuses to
    explain what it means at all, that enigmatic silence seems Zarfian. So
    the mythological Zarf stems first from this notion of "Zarfian-ness." We
    collectively created the mythological Zarf as an attempt to fill in the
    blanks. I guess. By his silence he leaves it up to our imaginations, and
    we're an imaginative group.

    SPAG: The IF community is.

    Rob: Yeah. So I thought the mythos was a fun idea. How would this
    mythical Zarf see the world? What would be inside his head? The building
    blocks that created the real Zarf's creative output. As if to say, he's
    written this stuff because it's inside his head. And he puts a lot of
    detailed descriptions into his writing because that's how he sees the
    world. So that's what my fictional Zarf does. If I hadn't done that,
    people might have said, "Aw, I was hoping to see what the world looks
    like through Zarf's eyes." A lot of people noted that the
    world-through-Zarf's eyes was one of the things that made them laugh out
    loud in the game. It played directly to the Zarf mythos that we're all
    carrying around despite ourselves -- those of us who have played his
    games or have interacted with him on ifMUD, anyway -- and kind of nailed
    it. It wasn't even exactly in Zarf's style, but the excessive attention
    to detail and use of adjectives was enough of a nod for people to get
    the joke immediately. I think it's cool that we have a guy like Zarf in
    the community, a guy who has this funny reputation, a sort of public
    image that's a shared, tongue-in-cheek joke. Zarf plays along with it;
    we all do.

    SPAG: BAP is full of allusions and tiny homages. Can you mention a few
    that some players might have missed?

    Rob: Whew. Let's see. The first ones that come to mind are ones that
    people probably did catch. The dinner that Zarf is cooking in his
    kitchen is from his 1998 Xyzzy Awards acceptance speech. He had nothing
    to say, so he gave a recipe, and at the end he said we'd "better
    remember all that, because it's the solution to the endgame puzzle in
    next year's game." I couldn't work it into the endgame of BAP because of
    the plot structure, but it would have been a double or maybe triple joke
    if I had.

    SPAG: I think people probably caught that one.

    Rob: Well, let me try to get more obscure, then. In the game's opening
    text, there's a reference to a "bizarre interview with Human Resources"
    -- which was an allusion to "Human Resource Stories," the infamous game
    from Comp98, as if you got this file room job by having *that* be your
    interview. It mentions that the character Peter entered a previous comp
    and came in 16th -- which is an oblique "Four in One" reference.
    Melvin's last name, Prufrock, comes from the name of the detective in
    the first Choose Your Own Adventure book that I read, "Who Killed
    Harlowe Thrombey?" I think it was the ninth one in the series, and you
    were Inspector Prufrock. I might be wrong about that, but I think that's
    the memory I summoned when I was trying to think of a funny name.

    SPAG: Okay, that is definitely obscure. But it's distantly related to
    IF, so it counts.

    Rob: People might not know about the Zarf Classified/Declassified jokes.
    One is that the word "zarf" means a type of cup holder, which is what's
    in the Classified folder. The other is that there was this government
    document about something called "Zarf" which was stamped "Declassified"
    -- meaning only that the existence of some secret government project
    code-named "Zarf" was allowed to be known about, not the actual project
    itself. So, the code word "Zarf" was moved to "declassified" status.
    Zarf had a scan of this on his web page, but lost it in a disk crash,
    and unfortunately no one had a backup. I always thought that was sad, so
    I resuscitated it for the game. I could go on, if you want more
    references.

    SPAG: Maybe just a couple more.

    Rob: There are others that don't relate to IF at all. If you try to
    taste the secret door, it tastes like snozzberries. Which is a "Willy
    Wonka" reference. Peter's middle name, "Danielson," is the name of the
    female lead in the movie I'm making. For the name "Zefferelli" I was
    thinking of the film director who did "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet."
    In the endgame, Melvin brandishes these razor claws, which is obviously
    a reference to the superhero Wolverine -- but I was also thinking about
    Freddy Kreuger from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, who had razor
    blade fingers and would always end the movie by chasing the heroes
    through a twisty dream landscape.

    SPAG: Hard on the heels of the competition ending, you announced that
    you're in the testing phase of a massive TADS game called "First Things
    First." Tell us a little about this game.

    Rob: Aha. Well, this is actually the first real IF project I started
    writing when I discovered TADS and the IF newsgroups in 1996. All those
    years, following that Latin Adventure game, I'd had an itch to write IF.
    I don't know why it was there, because it was a strange impulse. Just
    this itch I couldn't scratch. "I want to write a text adventure game."
    Always kind of there, especially if I had an empty Saturday afternoon or
    something. Not to play IF, but to write one. Then my brother bought TADS
    -- it was shareware then -- and when I looked at it, I could instantly
    understand the language. Suddenly, I was free to unlock my imagination,
    because TADS just made perfect sense to me, unlike the other adventure
    game languages I'd looked at in those long intervening years. My brother
    and I both sat down to test out TADS. He wrote a one-room, one-puzzle
    game in about two days. I wrote a few rooms, then some more rooms, then
    some more rooms, and then found myself coming up with plot and puzzles.
    A few weeks later, he wondered when I'd be done. I told him just another
    week or so, but the thing kept growing. Now, four years later, it's
    finally almost done.

    SPAG: Okay, that's good, but what I really meant was: what is the story?
    What's the game about?

    Rob: Oops. It's a time travel story. The game is set in basically one
    location, outside the PC's house. The PC is a time travel buff who's
    always going to the library to read about it, about time travel. When
    the story starts, you're coming home one night and discover you've
    forgotten your keys and are locked out of your own house. How will you
    get in? In the course of wandering around trying to solve this most
    basic of IF puzzles, the locked door, the entire plot unfolds, taking
    you to the same physical location in five different eras -- twenty years
    ago, ten years ago, the present, ten years ahead, and twenty years
    ahead. And the future doesn't look as rosy as you might have hoped.
    Maybe there's something you can do about it. Or maybe not. Am I spoiling
    it?

    SPAG: If you stop there, probably not.

    Rob: Okay, good. Anyway, the people that are testing it seem to be
    enjoying it for the right reasons. I think it'll justify the work went
    into it, and I'm really looking forward to having it off my plate.
    Finally! Done! I'll do a little dance when I finally release it,
    sometime early in 2001 I guess.

    SPAG: Are you planning a post-comp update to BAP, and if so, do you
    foresee any significant changes to the game beyond bugfixes?

    Rob: Actually, I'm not planning a post-comp update to BAP. It was sort
    of part of the game that I would take a month to write it, and then I
    would be done with it. The bugs that are in it, I knew about them before
    I submitted it to the Comp, but they didn't seem essential to fix. The
    game kind of works anyway. BAP was never intended to be note-perfect. I
    think I just want to let the Comp version stand as the one and only
    official release.

    SPAG: Each of your newsgroup posts ends with a web address for something
    called "The Krone Experiment." What is this?

    Rob: This is the digital video movie I'm producing and directing, one
    with an interesting pedigree. It's an adaptation of a science thriller
    novel that my Dad, J. Craig Wheeler, wrote. It came out in 1986 and then
    in paperback in 1988, and sold fairly well both here and in the UK and
    Japan. Since my Dad's an astrophysicist, he paid careful attention to
    the science of the science fiction. We collaborated on the screenplay a
    few years ago, just after I left the graduate film program at USC. We
    sold it to a producer, then the rights reverted back to us. I decided
    that I wanted to make the movie myself rather than keep trying to get it
    produced by Hollywood. It's coming together well, and everyone involved
    is kind of excited, kind of confident that we might have a hit
    independent movie on our hands. We'll see. I don't want to get my hopes
    up falsely, but there is kind of a vibe.

    SPAG: Do you plan to write more IF in the future?

    Rob: Definitely. I kind of have to wait for the good ideas to hit me.
    There is another work in progress, a collaboration, but it's been top
    secret. I just learned that another IF author is working on a similar
    game, which is a bummer -- I had always intended to resume work on it
    after FTF was released. But there's also a new piece I just started
    cooking up a week ago. Maybe it'll end up being my Comp entry next year,
    because I can already tell it's going to be slow to develop.

    SPAG: Are you going to stick to comedy, or are you planning more serious
    works?

    Rob: Well, FTF isn't exactly a comedy. It starts out in a lighthearted
    mood, that sort of general Infocom style, and then gets darker as the
    story progresses. I think it might get too dark, though. I guess I'm
    going to keep searching for just the right balance, because that's the
    most satisfying for both the author and the player.

    SPAG: What did you think about this year's competition? Any favorite
    games?

    Rob: My three favorites, the ones I voted for Miss Congeniality, were
    "Dinner With Andre," "Shade," and "Rameses." After I read all the
    reviews, I played a few more games, and I was definitely impressed with
    "My Angel." I think it was a great step forward in storytelling IF as
    opposed to puzzle IF. I liked "Kaged," too, which I hadn't played before
    the judging was over. It gives me a good idea of what I might have to
    come up with if I want to place higher than 3rd next time.

    SPAG: Is that your goal?

    Rob: I would like to place first in the Comp someday, yes. Not just to
    have done that, but for the satisfaction of having written an excellent
    IF game.

    SPAG: What do you see as the future of the IF medium, and what's your
    place in it going to be?

    Rob: I'm intrigued that there's now the ability to integrate multimedia
    into IF with the standard languages and tools, but that not very much
    experimenting has been done yet. There were also these teasing
    developments this year, what with the notion that there might be a
    market for text games on mobile phones and such. I actually had a dream
    one night, last year I think, where I foresaw a commercial future for
    IF. I flipped open a Wired magazine in the dream, and saw this elegant
    advertisement for an IF company. They were marketing IF the way
    champagne is marketed, or any luxury item, as this high quality product
    for discerning tastes. Not as a broad appeal, but as a niche market, one
    with snob appeal. I think that might be one strategy to use if one were
    going to try to sell IF on a regular basis. Then again, it was just a
    dream. Maybe I ate some cold pizza before going to sleep, and that's all
    it was. But if it did go that way, I would love to work for that
    company. I'd love for there to be a business model that would work,
    where IF authors could at least make some good money on the side even if
    it can't ever be their sole income. I don't think it would work if it
    were a real company with a corporate headquarters, renting office space,
    with all of that overhead. I think it should be a virtual company, an
    organized version of the creative anarchy that we've already got in the
    community. With elegant advertising in Wired. How we'd pay for the ads,
    I have no idea.

    SPAG: Any advice you'd care to offer for prospective competition
    entrants?

    Rob: Let me see if I can think of something non-generic to say. Like,
    besides "Test, test, test your games, give yourselves enough time to
    finish," blah blah blah. Here's what I did. I wrote a Comp game,
    submitted it, and saw how it did, which was middling. I determined to do
    better the next time, so I listened to the reviews my game got. I also
    listened to the reviews the top games got. I played the top games. I
    then sat out for a year, and just watched the Comp play out from the
    sidelines. I read all of the discussions, again looked at how things
    did, the way that judges approach games, the way they're often
    short-tempered but will walk a mile with you if you give them what
    they're hungry for. There's no formula, but you can kind of suss out the
    rules of the game. This is assuming you're playing to win, but it's not
    crass to do that. It means you're endeavoring to write something good.
    By that I mean, there's no way to cheat. You either write something
    people like or you don't. And I don't think it's pandering to the lowest
    common denominator to please a large number of the judges with your
    work, because most of the judges are smart, creative people with good
    taste. That's what's been attractive to me about the IF community. So
    anyway, I guess my advice is, play to win. Enter the best you've got in
    you to enter. Swing for the fences. Oh, and be original.

    SPAG: Or be Zarf.

    Rob: Right, if you can't be original, be someone else. It worked for me.

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

    Consider the following review header:

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

    When submitting reviews:  Try to fill in as much of this info as you can.
    If you choose, you may also provide scores for the games you review, as
    explained in the SPAG FAQ. The scores will be used in the ratings
    section.  Authors may not rate or review their own games.

    More elaborate descriptions of the rating and scoring systems may be found
    in the FAQ and in issue #9 of SPAG, which should be available at:

            ftp://ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive/magazines/SPAG/
     and at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag

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

    From: Mark J Musante

    NAME: Ad Verbum
    AUTHOR: Nick Montfort
    EMAIL: nickm SP@G nickm.com
    DATE: October 2000
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Z-Machine interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: GMD
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/adverbum.z5
    VERSION: Release 1 / Serial number 000925

    One line summary: Nord and Bert with attitude.

    This isn't Nick's second game, but it is the second game of his that is
    fairly widely known. The first one was "Winchester's Nightmare" which
    took an interesting tack in trying to get the player to be really part
    of the story. Instead of the usual ">" prompt, the player is presented
    with "Sarah decides to", and you get to fill in what you would like her
    to decide to do.

    This really made you feel part of the action, but it had the drawback of
    eliminating the standard commands we came to know and love over the past
    20+ years of IF. Notably, 'i' for inventory, 'n' for north, and so on.
    "Sarah decides to sw" doesn't make much sense as a sentence.

    "Ad Verbum" takes this into account in a thoroughly amusing and clever
    way. If you use commands like 'up' and 'north', the room descriptions
    will also use them. If you instead use 'u' and 'n', so do the room
    descriptions. Some people might find this off-putting. I found it
    grin-worthy.

    But enough of that. The game itself presents the player with a seemingly
    simple stint: acquire all objects from a house and dump them in the
    Dumpster. The catch is that the house once belonged to the "cantankerous
    Wizard of Wordplay", so it's not as simple as going through each room
    and picking up the objects. You have to obey the rules.

    For example, in one room, you can only use words that begin with the
    letter 's', however the only way to leave it is to the north, which is a
    word you can't use. You also have to be able to pick up objects in those
    rooms, again only using 's'-words.

    Naturally, when you're in an 'n'-, 'e'- or 'w'-only room, it's hard to
    save the game, so Nick has you read a warning message before entering
    those rooms explaining the situation. It's a bit on the defensive side
    and it definitely breaks the flow of the game, but I'm sure that
    beginning players would find it useful. I, on the other hand, would have
    preferred to see that as a puzzle one discovered during the course of
    play.

    After all, the game is short enough. Too short, really, because these
    are the kinds of puzzles I love to see. Reading the text, thinking up
    possible solutions, a bright flash of discovery, the eagerness to see
    what's next... that's what IF is all about.

    The only downside to the game is that it didn't recognize quite as many
    words as I thought it ought to. It's frustrating to think of a perfectly
    good word ('scarper' to leave the 's' room, for instance) and then have
    it not work. I'm sure Nick will be getting plenty of suggestions from
    others, if he hasn't already.

    That being said, this was the game that made the whole competition for
    me. I enjoyed it from intro to quit. Nick, if you're reading this, keep
    writing more! I'd love to play a full-size game with this sort of wacky
    wordplay and perplexing puzzles.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    Infocom, in its heyday, produced some games the likes of which has never
    been seen since, either because there's no perceived interest in such
    games (the mysteries in particular) or because amateur IF writers don't
    have access to the proper technology (the more graphical games). Neither
    of those objections necessarily applies to Nord and Bert Couldn't Make
    Head or Tail of it, a wordplay game, but Nick Montfort's Ad Verbum is
    arguably the first free- or shareware IF game to follow in Nord and
    Bert's footsteps. (Dennis Cunningham's T-Zero had some points in common,
    but there was more going on than wordplay--pop culture references and
    such.) Ad Verbum is a worthy successor: like Nord and Bert, not all of
    it is particularly inspired, but the moments that work really, really
    work.

    The plot, again like Nord and Bert, is simply an excuse for wordplay
    puzzles--you're looking through the Wizard of Wordplay's mansion and
    moving through various rooms that are devoted to specific types of
    wordplay, thereby to collect objects. Many of the puzzles are a bit
    obscure, and some are only tangentially related to wordplay--or, rather,
    involve forms of wordplay that aren't necessarily familiar to anyone but
    the most hardened of GAMES magazine addicts. (One puzzle that involves
    moving a sofa down a flight of stairs is particularly baffling to those
    not on the author's wavelength.) Another, involving a little boy who's a
    dinosaur fan, I found simply misleading--at least, the solution
    suggested in the hints was something of a surprise to me.

    The heart of the game, however, lies on the "initial" floor of the
    house: there are passages lying to the north, east, west, and south, and
    going north yields this:

       "LISTEN WELL!" a sonorous voice booms out, in attempted hollowness.
       "Know ye that passage back through here is difficult for some,
       impossible for others! Should you wish to transport yourself -
       without your cherished possessions - out of these constrained
       confines, utter the magic command: NEW!"

       Neat Nursery
       Nice, nondescript nursery, noticeably neat. Normally, nurslings
       nestle noisily. Now, none. No needful, naive newborns.

       Nearby: ... nifty nappy.

    The parser, as you might have guessed, has been rewritten to require
    that every word of every command begin with N. Violating the rules
    elicits "No! No! Negative, novice. Nasty notation." or "No! No!
    Nefarious nomenclature. Narrate nicely, now." The NEW command mentioned
    above is your only way of getting out of the room: RESTORE, QUIT and
    everything else has been disabled. Needless to say, in the rooms to the
    east, west and south, the parser has been similarly reworked for the
    appropriate letter. You have a goal for each room--extracting some
    objects and getting out of the room, using only the appropriate
    letters--but even after the goal is accomplished, it's worth hanging
    around to experiment with the alliterative parser. The results are more
    often than not hilarious, as with the following:

       >nip nappy
       Naughty, naughty! Nibbling nappies not normal.

    Or:

       >examine effigy
       Enemy effigy. Extreme enormity evident. Execrable evildoer!

    There's plenty more amusing stuff in each room: the parser-rewriting was
    done with plenty of intelligence and wit. (WAIL in the appropriate room
    elicits "Waaaah!", which amuses me no end for some reason.) In short:
    nicely notated, Nick! Erudite, esoteric effusions entertain endlessly.
    Winsome, witty wizardry will woo wordsmiths, who will whisper "Wow!"
    without wearying. Surely, such semantic skill should solicit
    stratospheric scores.

    There are some variants on the alliterative parser--another S room with
    another restriction, and a room with objects whose content suggests that
    the proper TAKE replacement for each object will involve
    letter-avoidance of one sort or another. (There was a nasty bug in the
    competition version of this room that has been squashed--naturally, the
    game in the updated version reports a literal squashed bug.) The parser
    is not, however, rewritten for each object, so most of the fun of the
    alliterative rooms is lost, and only the wordplay puzzle remains. It's a
    fine puzzle, of course, but it doesn't have the same effect. The other
    puzzles are likewise not nearly as inspired--there's a "twin bedroom"
    that requires that all commands be in the form >HAMMER HAMMER, but there
    isn't nearly as much room for experimenting there.

    To the extent that Ad Verbum works--and it depends mostly, I think, on
    the extent to which the player is amused by the alliterative rooms--it
    works for different reasons than Nord and Bert worked. The latter called
    for all sorts of cleverness from the player, and getting through it
    produced a real feeling of accomplishment; some of the puzzles were
    quite difficult. In particular, certain scenarios required that the
    player deploy various clichés or idioms, often in amusingly twisted
    ways, to get through the scene--and not a small amount of creativity was
    required. Ad Verbum doesn't ask nearly as much of the player--the most
    difficult feat of wordplay is clearly coming up with the appropriate
    alliterative words, and in most rooms that's not especially difficult.
    (Getting out of the N room is a challenge--sufficiently obscure that if
    you go in there without first encountering the fellow who wanders around
    dropping hints, you're unlikely to get it--but the others are pretty
    straightforward.) But the author here has put his own skills on display,
    much more so than the Nord and Bert authors did, and the result is just
    as amusing. In other words, the fun is more passive here than it was in
    Nord and Bert--the interactivity isn't as important--but there's still
    fun to be had.

    Ad Verbum is not an unqualified success; without the alliterative
    parser, I don't think there'd be much interesting about it. But I got
    enough laughs out of those rooms that I can't give it anything less than
    a 9.

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

    From: Alfredo Garcia
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: And The Waves Choke The Wind
    AUTHOR: Gunther Schmidl
    E-MAIL: gschmidl SP@G gmx.at
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/atwctw/atwctw.z8
    VERSION: Release 1

    Here's a story that starts with the meat. It's a classic 'What the...?'
    moment for our PC, who awakens to find himself on a lifeboat, floating
    in an empty sea, bound and (it would seem, rather unnecessarily) gagged.
    The introductory puzzle is good, as it encourages us to examine the PC
    down to the smallest details, all of which are implemented well. Here's
    an ambiguity you don't have to clarify too often:

       >CUT HAIR USING THE KNIFE
       Which do you mean, your dreadlocks or your pubic hair?

    And if you think that's going a shade too far, you'll find that even
    your anus is implemented - a smuggling puzzle later on, perhaps? At
    first I thought this all a little excessive; in fact it was totally in
    keeping with the theme of (at least) this preview - self-scrutiny. The
    generic theme is more immediately obvious - Lovecraftian Horror. The
    author does well to create a sense of foreboding throughout the piece,
    and generally it succeeds in maintaining an atmosphere of dread. This
    was only occasionally deflated by a poorly chosen phrase ('butt naked'
    and a reference to 'the enemies you've wasted' seem anachronistic) or an
    unsuitable quotation (Lovecraft and the Necronomicron are fine -- but
    Nine Inch Nails?)

    As we progress, the PC is revealed to us through a series of flashbacks.
    It sounds like this shouldn't work, but it does. Too much pathos is
    injected, yet it's nice to feel something for your character by the end
    of the game, and I did.

    It's a shame the author didn't enter a more interactive section of his
    work. All there is to do here is explore. The descriptions are well
    handled, but I found very little for me to *act* on. I really didn't
    like the proliferation of talk menus towards the end - but then again, I
    really don't like talk menus generally. (More on this later)

    So then, as a game this seems a little uneven, but as a preview it
    really whets the appetite.

    Rating: 6

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

    From: Sean T Barrett
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: At Wit's End
    AUTHOR: Mike J. Sousa
    E-MAIL: msousa SP@G efortress.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/awe/awe.gam
    VERSION: 1.00

    TITLE: Dinner With Andre
    AUTHOR: Liza Daly
    E-MAIL: liza SP@G retina.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/dinner/dinner.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    >GET OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

    Take the PC and put him or her in a situation where everything has gone
    JUST RIGHT. The PC is on top of the world.

    And then something goes a little wrong. Just a little wrong, not
    ludicrous or unrealistic. But, hmm, a tad unfortunate.

    And then the player gets the PC out of the situation and things just go
    from bad to worse.

    AWE starts better: the PC is in a tough situation where things could go
    bad or things could go good. (Heck, it may actually be possible to fail
    the first puzzle, or it may not, I don't know.) Then by solving a really
    easy puzzle, *then* the PC is on top of the world. It's a really nice,
    cheesily happy moment--and then trouble starts. But the player got to
    participate in hitting that top of the world. You were pretty sure it
    was going to happen (although it was possible you'd fail and it would
    instead be a redemption story), but even so, it was a good moment. Oh,
    and then the accident. It doesn't rob the PC of being at the top of the
    world--the PC's achievement isn't called into question or offset in any
    way--the PC just starts having a (largely unrelated) misadventure.

    DwA does not start quite as strongly--your character is already (almost)
    at the top of the mountain, and you don't share in the experience of
    having gotten to the top. As well, DwA turns out to be a farce, but
    holds off on revealing this until things start going wrong--which makes
    it all the more crazy, but can get a player invested in the game the
    wrong way. Still, the waiter comes over, and if the player makes the
    obvious choice of answer, there's a nice moment of feeling "yes,
    everything is perfect" that is triggered by player action. Oh, but then
    things start going wrong. And where none of the problems of AWE relate
    to the achievement directly (the PC has already climbed back down the
    mountain he'd climbed), in DwA its the mountain itself being put at
    risk. A tremor, a threat of a landslide, and then wooosh...

    I think of these sorts of games as "out of the frying pan and into the
    fire" games because at every moment, once you resolve the situation, a
    new peril threatens. (The movie "After Hours" pops into mind as well.)
    The last half of Kaged was more explicit that way; in some ways it was
    more effective, since the peril threatened in Kaged was your life; the
    peril threatened in AWE is, well, your ability to return home; and the
    peril threatened in DwA is public humiliation.

    One of the reasons "out of the frying pan and into the fire games"
    tickle my fancy is because they make the character's motivation
    explicit. At any moment, I know what I'm supposedly to be accomplishing
    in the short term (crucial to being able to play the game) and I also
    know why that action fits in with my end goal (not getting humiliated,
    or returning home). Far too many games put you in a situation where all
    you can do is poke around at suspicious-seeming objects and solve the
    puzzles related to them.

    To me, this is what storytelling in IF should be about; giving the
    player a high-level goal (a story to achieve) and then giving the player
    enough information (e.g. a low-level goal) to be able to carry out tasks
    *for the purpose of achieving that goal*. Why is this storytelling? When
    the player of DwA confronts the challenge of the four waiters at once, I
    can imagine the zany British TV sitcom where this exact sequence of
    events plays out. Whereas many games, say, The Pickpocket or The Planet
    of the Infinite Minds or even Transfer, I can't imagine comprehending
    this go by on a screen; the motivations of the protagonist would be
    incomprehensible. Or maybe you could imagine it as a mystery where the
    audience is left in the dark; but when, in IF, the audience is
    controlling the protagonist, that way of looking at it makes little
    sense.

    "Out of the frying pan and into the fire" isn't the only way to achieve
    such "storytelling"; when I change the color of an object in Kaged it's
    for a pretty obvious reason, to achieve a pretty obvious goal that has
    to do with the overall situation; but when I create a library in Planet
    of the Infinite Minds I'm just doing it 'cause it's there. In fact, "out
    of the frying pan and into the fire" may not be the most effective way
    of giving the player lower-level goals; letting the user set her own
    pace is probably a better experience most of the time.

    In fact, an "out of the frying pan and into the fire" sequence can end
    up just feeling like a series of set pieces--the mouse sequence in
    Transfer is a fairly good example of a set piece, although it does rely
    on one piece of game-specific knowledge--so a game that integrates its
    puzzles, rather than leaving them a series of disconnected events, may
    turn out to be a stronger work. In the case of DwA, though, I thought
    the pieces meshed together really well; they all tie into the initial
    scenario, and the pacing is superb: a series of linear puzzles, then the
    game "goes wide" with a tough multi-element puzzle, then tightens down
    and is at peace briefly, easy, relaxed, everything is going right... and
    then BAM, ouch, followed by an easy end game. Perfect. As an added plus,
    the elements of DwA end up serving as a bit of a parody of some romantic
    genre cliches, indeed with the ending almost coming off as
    (unintentionally) mocking Masquerade, which uses those cliches to create
    its archetypal romance genre story.

    AWE gets off to a rollicking start with simple, tight, timed puzzles,
    but then goes much too broad and much too hard, at least for my tastes.
    While all the puzzles seemed reasonably logical, but the breadth meant a
    lot of time pursuing irrelevant alternatives, and the difficulty would
    have required an awful lot of player time to solve without excessively
    relying on hints/walkthroughs, which I was unwilling to do. Therefore I
    can't comment on how successful the pacing is beyond that point. But up
    until it goes broad, it is an amusing alternation of "oh shit" and "ho
    hum, what now?" which I quite enjoyed, since at each moment (say,
    walking up to the house), I was tensing up waiting for what would go
    wrong next. (And the title helped--it was GOOD that I knew I was doomed
    to be going into the fire.)

    I'll go out on a limb and make a specific design suggestion of the sort
    I think is pretty pretentious of me to make, but what the hell: the
    spine of the story was trying to return (which generally meant escaping
    each situation); as far as I played, *everything* that happened was on
    the spine of the story, except having to eat. Having to eat jarred me
    horrendously because of that. Realistic? Sure. Related to the story? Not
    at all. I'd cut it. (You can argue that it's on the spine if the central
    peril of the story is dying, but that was how it felt to me
    anyway--tangential.)

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

    From: Sean T Barrett
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: Being Andrew Plotkin
    AUTHOR: J. Robinson Wheeler
    E-MAIL: wheeler SP@G jump.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/bap/bap.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    TITLE: Prodly The Puffin
    AUTHOR: Craig Timpany and Jim Crawford
    E-MAIL: timpany SP@G pingus.cx, pfister_ SP@G mindspring.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/prodly/prodly.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    >SAY "PARODLY IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY"

    I don't like Pokey the Penguin.

    In fact, Pokey the Penguin ranks right up with jerkcity in terms of
    massively annoying me, simply because *several* different people have
    recommended it to me, and each time I go check it out, look at it, and
    say "I still don't get it". Am I annoyed at other people for thinking
    it's funny? Am I annoyed at myself for not getting it? I don't know. I'm
    just annoyed.

    Like I said in my review of Asendent and Comp00ter Game. Misspelling?
    Funny once, maybe. For Prodly (PtP), non sequitur? Funny once.

    Ok, PtP is better than Pokey in this regards. I dutifully avoided asking
    myself about anything because that led to the stupidity that I fail to
    see any humor in. The rest of it was mildly amusing and surreal, along
    the lines of "Stupid Kittens", with a few great touches: the mysterious
    hovering beak, and the one bit that made me laugh out loud, the "bug in
    the menu system" bit.

    PtP is, then, a game which is sort of a parody and sort of an homage to
    an existing property which is itself (supposedly) humorous, and it
    managed to make me laugh out loud once.

    BAP is an homage to an existing property which is itself humorous, and
    it managed to make me laugh out loud twice. (And no other comp games
    made me laugh out loud.)

    Starting off, I was very worried about BAP (although perhaps not as much
    as I was PtP after seeing its opening quote), fearful that it would
    slavishly imitate "Being John Malkovich". And, in fact, it did at first.
    Worse yet, the initial scene's trivial puzzle is underwritten in an
    implementational sense: not only do you have no particular reason to
    push the button (indeed, the game will advance at that point simply
    because it triggers an unrelated event), but you can open the lid of the
    copier, and there's nothing in it to copy; and you're not carrying
    anything to copy, either.

    The game stayed pretty close to the movie for quite a bit longer, which
    continued to worry me, along with the questionable decision to make
    "open drawer" and "pull drawer" distinct commands--is there some other
    way to open a drawer? Still, it was managing to amuse me, and I stuck
    with it, and it turned out that the author very carefully both stuck to
    and deviated from the movie, in exactly the right way so that he could
    work economical fragments of humor by referencing the movie, and yet
    deliver jokes all his own. For example, Melvin, the character who maps
    onto the old lecherly guy with a secret in "Malkovich", is both wimpy
    and lecherly, but he not only has a different secret, but this secret
    explains those two behavior patterns in a totally different way--and
    indeed his POV was the first laugh-out-loud moment for me.

    "Malkovich" is about a puppeteer who gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance
    to control another human being. Of any funny movie one might choose to
    adapt into IF, this one gets the obvious thumbs up for the thematic
    relevance; indeed, I believe in the very old days some people would
    explain text adventures to newcomers by describing the PC as a 'puppet'
    under the player's control. (In fact, the first thing I tried to do
    after my tunnel ride was type something like "ZARF, DRINK"--and I was
    disappointed when this was misdirected at an object I was carrying.)

    In the end, I had so much fun with BAP I couldn't deny it second place
    of all the games I played (and no, I've never been on ifMUD). Of course
    it was horribly on rails. Why didn't this bother me? I don't know.

    Scenes I would have like to have seen:

       * a puzzle that required typing "x yz zy" instead of "x zy"
       * the player controlling Peter controlling Andrew Plotkin controlling
       Zarf, if you know what I mean

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    TITLE: Being Andrew Plotkin
    AUTHOR: J. Robinson Wheeler
    E-MAIL: wheeler SP@G jump.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/bap/bap.z5
    VERSION: Release 1
    Walkthrough? Yes
    Genre: Mixed/Movie tribute/In-Joke/SF

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        B |Submitted Vote  8|
             |Writing               B+|Plot           B+|
             |Puzzles               C |NPCs           A |
             |Technical             B |Tilt           C+|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    Although I had not ever seen the movie _Being John Malkovich_, I had
    been fairly certain from the moment I saw the title that it was, in
    fact, related somehow. Reviewing this from the perspective of someone
    who doesn't know a -thing- about the movie may change things a bit; if
    you -have- seen the movie, you're probably better off with someone
    else's review.

    You'll notice I had a hard time classifying this into a specific genre.
    I'm open to other suggestions...

    *** Writing (B+)

    Throughout, the writing was consistently good. At times, it was actually
    far better than that. And what's best is that I often felt like the
    author was just having a plain old great time writing it, which for some
    reason always appeals to me. For instance, this line:

       Valerie plummets into the big hedge with an unladylike
       ka-thump-krickle.

    ...was the kind of thing that, had I written it, I would've been
    giggling a bit to myself when I did, not at my own cleverness but rather
    at the sheer delight of creating a line like that. I hope I'm right
    about this; people who have fun creating things tend to create more.

    Too, there were little bits like this: "There are sweat stains on them.
    Stifling the urge to make a comment, you adjust your grip to touch only
    the dry spots." Not really necessary, just color -- but what color it
    is! I read this and I think "Okay: So, Marvin is a loser, and you really
    don't care for him; he has COOOOOTIES." [Okay, well, maybe the author
    wasn't thinking of cooties, but hey, -I- was.] No need to spell it out
    explicitly; it's all about the feel.

    I also enjoyed the way things changed a bit when there was a perspective
    shift, but I'll get into that more under NPCs...

    *** Plot (B+)

    To be honest, this would probably have been different if I knew anything
    about the movie beyond the very, very basic premise. I found the
    execution of the idea hilarious (and I'm beginning to think I may have
    to go rent the movie if it's -anything- like this) and particularly with
    the bits and pieces that let you see the world in different ways (again,
    more under "NPCs"). To be perfectly honest, I didn't get the optimal
    ending, and I was in too much of a hurry to try replaying and fixing
    this, but for some reason that didn't faze me; perhaps just because what
    I'd experienced up to that point was... cool.

    The thing is, I can't actually narrow down what about it was cool --
    which is a major fault in a reviewer, I admit, but alas, remains the
    case. Maybe it was just the entire idea of being in ZARF'S head (a scary
    idea to me). Maybe it was just the whole concept of your boss (I swear
    I've worked for this "man"). I wish I could explain.

    Suffice it to say: it was worth doing.

    *** Puzzles (C)

    Hmm. My notes don't go into a lot of details on this, which pretty much
    supports the mid-range rating. Taking a quick look through, the only
    time I seem to have gotten outright stuck (other than, I'm ashamed to
    admit, the recursion problem) was because it just didn't occur to me to
    type "look at mud" -- for some reason I wanted to "look at computer"
    (which didn't give me any more detail) or "type" (which just didn't
    work). For some reason, specifically thinking of the MUD as an object
    just didn't occur to me.

    *** NPCs (A)

    This was really, really the big strength of the game. Not only did we
    have several NPCs, we actually got to -be- some of them. And every time
    we did, something changed a bit about the perception of the world we
    were in.

    I thought -all- the characters were interesting. While they were a bit
    limited in conversational style, they still feel fully developed, and
    even better, when they look at -each other-, they see the people they
    interact with differently. This, to me, is primo stuff. I know that
    people like saying "Ho, hum, just character switching again, everyone
    does it", but... folks, not everyone does it WELL. In fact, it's quite
    rare. Again, as with the writing in general, the little touches are what
    makes this category absolutely superb, for instance, both Valerie and
    Peter dislike Melvin, but they still see him differently, and the rooms
    have some minor differences depending on who you are.

    *** Technical (B)

    Actually, in retrospect, I'm not sure I know why I gave this a B. Maybe
    just the sheer impressiveness of writing x number of different
    descriptions of each area based on who would visit it and keeping
    correct track of something on that scale. Too, I found no bugs, which is
    generally a good thing. So, er... (*fumbles*) Okay! Nothing to see here,
    move along.

    Oh wait. One -bad- thing:

       >go through secret door
       You can't, since the secret door is in the way.

    *** Tilt (C+) and Final Thoughts

    In retrospect, I think this deserved a higher 'tilt' from me. I suspect
    I was a bit frustrated with not finding the recursion puzzle answer when
    I handed out the 'tilt' score (which is always my initial score), and
    not seeing the last bits of the game. And some of it was just that while
    I enjoyed the game, it really was a one-time sort of joke.

    Here's a few other things that I have in my notes, for amusement value:

       You give the stuck cabinet drawer the old heave-ho, and instead of
       merely opening, it yanks loose from the wall, revealing a strange,
       small door in the wall!

       >of course it does
       That's not a verb I recognize.

    [I frequently talk to the games. This is probably not something you
    needed to know.]
    ****
    that code (Melvin) for some reason reminds me of COBOL, which is scary.
    ****
    No Ikea! Ikea bad!
    ****
    I don't WANT To be Zarf! It scares me!

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

    From: Adam Cadre
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: The Big Mama
    AUTHOR: Brendan Barnwell
    E-MAIL: BrenBarn SP@G aol.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard, with conversation menus
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/bigmama/bigmama.z5
    VERSION: Release 8

    I don't think the author was trying hard enough. If you're going to put
    the phrase "the big mama" into pretty much every response, why stop
    there? Why, it could've appeared in every paragraph or, indeed, every
    sentence. (The big mama.) I mean, if it's good ten thousand times, why
    not a hundred thousand? Why not write in the style of Henrietta
    Pussycat, only swapping in "the big mama" for "meow"? What a missed
    opportunity. Also, the big mama.

    So, let's see. I do like the idea of a sort of multi-turn AISLE. But the
    thing about AISLE was that most of the endings were really well-written
    and interesting in and of themselves, not to mention diverse. The same
    cannot be said of THE BIG MAMA. There are a lot of games in the comp for
    which I scribbled down notes like "rocky prose" or "semi-literate," but
    this game proves that you can have an excellent command of the language
    and still provoke winces. (The big mama.) Let's see, there was the bit
    where a sign warns you about how the next 1.5 miles of beach are
    private: "'Stupid imperial measurement,' you mutter." Urgh. Why not just
    give the player-character a renaissance flute while you're at it? Oh,
    and the little boy. "Almost every day I billa cassel." Throw this kid
    into the nearest wood chipper, please. I mean it. Stop him before he
    soliloquizes again. Also, the big mama.

    Even the less egregious paths all seem to lead to inane conversations
    and fairly ham-handed passages desperately trying to hammer home the
    theme that the ocean is pretty. Sometimes the inane conversations result
    in relationships, but none of these sequences is really even remotely
    convincing -- I'm sure every day there are beach encounters that lead to
    hookups, but I doubt that any of them have resembled even one of the
    paths set forth in this game. Also, the big mama. There are also some
    quirks with the way the various characters are programmed: the surfer
    alternates between sunbathing and surfing about every eight seconds, and
    the teenage girl seems to have no memory whatsoever -- you can scare her
    off with some creepy line, watch her wander off, and two turns later
    she's back and seems to have no idea who you are. This is the sort of
    thing that makes characters look like chunks of code rather than
    representations of people. Also, the big mama.

    More bugs of note: jumping the rail takes you to the beach, but once you
    get there, the game tells you that "You're not up for that kind of
    leap." Sounds like some routine is neglecting to return true somewhere
    in there. Oh, and while the game notes that "everyone in town speaks
    Spanish," I have to wonder -- "las" is a plural article. The only way
    that works with "Lorena" is if "Lorena" is a last name and the name of
    the town is a reference to a all-female family: "The Lorena Sisters", or
    some such. Which I could buy as a novelty musical act from the early
    70s, but not as the name of a city. Also, the big mama.

    Perhaps my favorite bit:

       | 0: Say nothing.
       | 1: "Yeah, let's watch a movie."
       | 2: "A walk sounds great."
       | 3: "Let's play a game."
       | 4: ""

    Me, I thought it was a bit early in the evening to propose illegal
    object number 357, but hey, turned out she was into it. Kinky!

    Score: a low THREE. Also, the big mama.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    Walkthrough? No
    Genre: CYOA/Mixed/Romance

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        C |Submitted Vote  6|
             |Writing               B |Plot           C-|
             |Puzzles              n/a|NPCs           C+|
             |Technical             C |Tilt           C |
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    As a few other people have mentioned, I would have expected the sea to
    play a larger part in this work, which is basically a choose-your-own-
    adventure with no particular focus on the sea. I called it a "romance"
    genre game in part because a LOT of the routes seem concerned with
    romance, but there are a few other routes that don't contain it.

    *** Writing (B)

    I can't help but take a moment to compare this to last year's entry by
    this author (Lomalow, which I, quite frankly, did not like). Although
    the styles are different, there's an element to both of them that is
    similar: the attempt to evoke some specific emotions. This year's entry
    does a much better job with the writing; it doesn't feel as forced, as
    heavy-handed. It's still got some flaws, but overall I feel much less
    preached at than I did last year and there were times when there were
    hints of excellence. I don't know if you can attribute this to the
    different format, practice, or even the different topic matter, but
    whichever it is, I'm actually quite glad to see something I like from
    Brendan.

    If I had any complaint it was that at times it was too long, a hazard, I
    think, of the CYOA format choice. I do enjoy longer text breaks than
    some people will accept gracefully, but there were a few times when too
    much happened on a trigger.

    What I enjoyed the most, I think, were occasional clever or cute turns
    of phrase, such as these portions of some room descriptions:

       "These little establishments sell everything from shrink-wrapped,
       dessicated muffins to decent hot dogs."

       "The breeze is straight out of some beach-blanket B-movie: salty,
       soft, and refreshing."

    But even the more serious writing is honest, and while there isn't a LOT
    of substance to this as a game, (see "plot", below), I enjoyed reading
    it.

    *** Plot (C-)

    As with many CYOA games, it's so hard to rate plot. First off, there are
    multiple "plots" here... although as I mentioned above, many of them
    seem to have the same basic tilt, which is: romance. But what I saw was
    a bit... thin. Not quite Calista Flockhart, but definitely thin.

    Still, they weren't bad little plots. Just not a lot of substance, much
    more the Twinkie of IF than the dinner at Ruth's Chris. [If you haven't
    ever encountered Ruth's Chris, they are the most incredible steakhouse
    ever.]

    *** Puzzles (n/a)

    Due to the CYOA format, I did not rate on puzzles, breaking my "formula"
    but, ultimately, I think, being more fair.

    *** NPCs (C+)

    This game is basically NPC driven, in that it's almost entirely
    conversationally driven. So you would hope that the NPCs would have some
    depth to them -- and, actually, they do in spots. But you don't really
    get a good glimpse about what they're -really- like, mostly because your
    interactions with them are so short. Whether this is a shortcoming of
    the format or whether they were simply undeveloped is hard to judge;
    they DO have personality, but it's pretty focused.

    *** Technical (C)

    There was certainly nothing in particular that was outstanding
    technically here, and only one bug of note, so I gave it an average
    rating.

    *** Tilt (C) and Final Thoughts

    I found 4 or 5 different endings before I stopped playing, so there may
    be more depths here I have not plumbed. Those of you with more patience
    than I (and a CYOA roto-rooter) may discover more.

    It was an amusing diversion.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    TITLE: Desert Heat
    AUTHOR: Papillon
    E-MAIL: amethystphoenix SP@G yahoo.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: None (CYOA)
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/
    VERSION: 1

    Walkthrough? No
    Genre: CYOA/Romance/Bodice-Ripper

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        B-|Submitted Vote  7|
             |Writing               B+|Plot           B |
             |Puzzles               D |NPCs           B |
             |Technical             C |Tilt           C+|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    A lot of people don't like choose-your-owns, so to them, this will not
    appeal. In truth, they don't always appeal to me. In this particular
    case, however, I actually thought it worked fairly well. I didn't
    explore all the possible choices (although I did double up on a couple
    paths) so I don't know how flexible the game ultimately was, but it
    looked to have at least some degree of freedom in it.

    *** Writing (B+)

    Despite some perhaps overly-lengthy prose in spots, the writing in this
    was rather well-done. I found many of the descriptions quite enchanting,
    bringing to mind a definite feel and genre that itself is quite magical,
    and one in which it is easy to get drawn in and lost within when it is
    (as it was) done correctly.

    Take, for instance, this bit from the opening:

       "The sound of windblown sand smoothing the dunes and scouring the
       city walls is the only song nature produces in Hajima."

    With the very first sentence, mood and setting are already firmly in
    place, a setting which is only enhanced (and never contradicted) by
    further room and event descriptions. And best yet, although the game
    does tell you "this is who you are, this is what you can do", it never
    seems to do it in a way that felt limiting (to me), though ultimately,
    of course, it was rather narrow in scope.

    *** Plot (B)

    As with all CYOAs (and how many times have I used that phrase, anyhow?),
    there is not a LOT of flexibility in plot, but as is more rare, there is
    a rich plot here. It is true that it is quite stereotypical. It is also
    true that sometimes that's a good thing. (See also NPCs, below.)

    Stereotypical stories are sometimes, instead, more -archetypal-; they
    use settings, people, and situations that we all are familiar with, and
    merely attempt to display the story in a manner in which will appeal. I
    believe that this was the author's intent (although don't know for
    sure), and if so, it worked quite well for me. Others, looking for
    something new and original, will probably prefer to give this a pass,
    although I might add that there is not much in the way of either new or
    original left in the world. It is merely the skill with which stories
    are displayed that, ultimately, determines how people react to it.

    *** Puzzles (D)

    As a CYOA adventure, it should perhaps not really be rated on puzzles,
    but as there are several critical decision points that can make a large
    difference, in this case I elected to do so. And that is where things
    fall short.

    Could it have been done differently and retained the format? Yes. There
    could have been more decision points; they could have been presented in
    a way that combined both more internal world knowledge with more
    difficult choices. When it came to a point where I had to make a choice,
    often I felt as if I were presented with choices that the -character-
    would understand the implication of but I would not. That, alas, was the
    big flaw in an otherwise enjoyable experience.

    *** NPCs (B)

    Adam Cadre, whose opinion I quite respect but with whom I frequently
    disagree, felt offended by the stereotypes in this game. Others saw his
    point. I disagreed, because I felt there was no intent to hold up and
    portray negative and shallow characters. I felt they were meant to be
    archetypes (see also Plot, above).

    So, be warned: there are no terribly deep characters in the game. You
    see only glimpses of their true personality, and even those show
    something fairly basic and, yes, cliche. But... it WORKS. This is not
    the real world. This is the storyworld, where everyone has a defined
    role, and everyone has a part to play. And it is the success in -that-
    upon which I rated the NPCs highly.

    Realism in NPCs is a prized thing, difficult to obtain, but the clever
    and careful use of caricature and archetype can result in some lovely
    story building. Desert Heat accomplishes this with flair.

    *** Technical (C)

    CYOA games are not difficult to produce. I found no bugs.

    *** Tilt (C+) and Final Thoughts

    This is definitely not a game for everyone. Simply the genre alone would
    ensure that; I myself have a love-hate relationship with romances, if
    you will pardon the potential pun. The format and style as well are both
    potentially off-putting. Still, if you have any interest in a richly
    told tale, I would suggest giving the game a chance. It was one of the
    more enjoyable -- if not one of the longest lived -- moments of the
    comp.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: The Djinni Chronicles
    AUTHOR: J.D. Berry
    E-MAIL: berryx SP@G earthlink.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/djinni.z5
    VERSION: Release 2

    J.D. Berry's Djinni Chronicles is one of the shortest games of the comp,
    but it's also one of the densest--there's not much room for exploration
    or experimentation without save-restore. There are some game-specific
    rules, moreover, that make it likely that you'll have to do some
    save-restoring. Still, there are some ideas worth exploring that come
    across in those few moves.

    You are a djinni, discovered and summoned by various masters, whose
    wishes you strive to grant in one way or another--but you also have your
    own purposes that are only somewhat compatible with those of your
    masters. The nature of your existence is such that you can't stray far
    from your "container," the vessel where you reside when you're not about
    your business; indeed, the beginning of the game functions mostly as an
    introduction to the rules of your world. You learn, for example, that
    the tendency of wishes to come with unfortunate side effects isn't
    simply djinni contrariness; rather, it's because they don't (generally)
    have the power to accomplish the change by their own will, and have to
    harness the power of another "undercurrent" with somewhat different
    effects. You also learn that some djinni derive power from sources other
    than their summoners, and seek to gain enough power to act
    independently. The defining measure is known as "Purpose," here
    expressed as a number, and maintaining Purpose, one way or another,
    becomes your overriding goal. What emerges is an imaginative portrait of
    djinni ethics, as it were: the djinni that you play aren't bound by any
    particular ethical norms as such other than the desire to gain and
    maintain purpose. Arguably, those djinni that aren't bent on destruction
    serve their masters' wishes not out of any sense of loyalty, but simply
    because they derive no advantage from acting independently. (The
    anterior question, why some djinni are one way and some are another,
    isn't addressed, but the game is complex enough; there's no need to
    introduce another layer of cosmology.)

    In a sense, the path of the game is fairly well defined simply because
    the character's powers are limited; the player can't really expect to be
    able to wander away, since that causes the game to end promptly. The
    wishes of your masters also define your goals most of the time, and when
    they don't, the game spells out your personal objective. And yet
    figuring out your motivations at any given point can be complicated,
    particularly if you assume that you feel some inherent responsibility to
    your master--and it's not until about halfway through the game that you
    learn what you're really doing, so to speak. Once you understand the
    larger plot, it's intriguing; the only problem is that you don't have
    much part in influencing where it'll go, other than figuring out the
    command that will move things along. The linearity factor actually
    serves the purposes of the story--the whole point is that your powers
    are limited, and your ability to influence events doesn't go much beyond
    your master's interests--but it might also be a bit more satisfying to
    be able to affect how the plot turns out, not just whether the one
    possible plotline progresses.

    The end of the game suggests that the point isn't simply to devise an
    inventive mythology of djinni and how they work and what motivates them;
    rather, the behavior of the djinni suggests something about human nature
    and the ways that these particular spirits (with their own motivations)
    choose to manipulate their masters. In that respect, portraying the
    details of djinni existence serves some of the same function that C.S.
    Lewis's elaborate bureaucracy of hell did in Screwtape Letters: to
    describe the spirit world in order to provide a context for the way
    those spirits tempt and manipulate humans. Obviously, this is a little
    different, since the relationship isn't entirely adversarial--you need
    your masters to accomplish your purposes, which doesn't exactly describe
    Screwtape--but the message is related: suitable manipulation of our
    baser instincts can turn them into enormously destructive forces, and
    the game suggests that the less noble impulses are considerably more
    powerful than altruistic ones (since the djinni that serves a master
    with relatively unselfish goals doesn't seem to accumulate much
    Purpose).

    As a game, apart from the theory and theology that might underlie it,
    Djinni Chronicles works reasonably well. As noted, picking up on the
    rules takes a while, and the limitations on the character are initially
    frustrating when you're used to a great deal of freedom--but it doesn't
    take long to adjust and to appreciate your new powers. (For instance,
    walls are no hindrance.) The game is quite linear, true, but to some
    extent that's inevitable if the author wants to tell a particular story
    about the spirit world and human nature: if the player has the power to
    put a different spin on the relationship between the PC and its masters,
    the result is no longer what the author set out to tell. This sort of
    thing might not have gone over well just a few years ago, but linearity,
    I think, has come to be viewed as the inevitable price of more
    story-oriented IF, and when the story is as intriguing as this one, it's
    a price worth paying. There's another advantage to the linearity: the
    puzzles are well integrated into the plot, rather than artificial
    constructs that distract from the story. That's a feature not directly
    related to the breadth of the game, of course, but it's inevitable that
    a game with a large field of options doesn't really sustain much of a
    story, since the author can't exercise much control over how the game
    progresses--and by restricting the options, Djinni Chronicles ensures
    that the task at hand is always part of the story. Moreover, the
    linearity factor restricts the amount of things that can go wrong; this
    is a technically solid game, in part, perhaps, because the nature of the
    game prevents players from doing outlandish things that could violate
    the game's expectations. The only real fly in the ointment is a lengthy
    section that's written in not especially inspired verse; it doesn't
    serve an obvious purpose in the game, and it distracts the player from
    what was otherwise highly competent writing.

    The main flaw in Djinni Chronicles, at the end, is that it leaves the
    player wanting more--more plot, more character development--but there
    are worse sins, I suppose. It's an imaginatively told story--intelligent
    enough to earn a 9 from me.

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

    From: Adam Cadre
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: The End Means Escape
    AUTHOR: Stephen Kodat
    E-MAIL: skodat SP@G blazenet.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/endmeans/endmeans.gam
    VERSION: Release 1

    I really liked the first segment of this game. Not only were the animate
    objects cool and funny, but the way the player is meant to go about
    resolving the situation -- asking everyone about everyone else --
    appealed to me much more than if the solution had been to perform some
    clever engineering trick. I wasn't quite sure how the stuff I was doing
    was getting me any closer to opening the door, but I went along with it
    and entered the book...

    ...and then splat. I didn't get part two at all. I understood how to
    manipulate the words -- the hint system told me that much -- but I
    didn't have the slightest clue what my goal was, and the hints crapped
    out at that point. So I put the game away, figuring I'd give it about a
    five. Then I read a solution to part two on the newsgroup -- and I
    *still* didn't get it. It was like getting stuck on a puzzle where
    you're trying to open a safe and finding out that the combination is
    43-49-25... and why? Because it just sort of is. "You turn hard"? Say
    what?

    And then the third segment... goal, please? I think this says it all:

       >HINT
       There's just some people standing around.

    Right. And I was one of them. Maybe there are some people who, presented
    with a bunch of playing pieces in a game they don't recognize, would
    start messing around with the pieces for hours on end until something
    happened; me, I'm more inclined to just leave them alone until I have
    some *reason* to play with them, some *objective* I'm using them to try
    to accomplish. And "escape" is insufficient. Yes, you do escape, but how
    are you supposed to know that X will achieve Y? Doing what the hints
    tell you to do with the segments' various playing pieces, and
    consequently "escaping," is like the bit in A GOOD BREAKFAST from Comp97
    where you're looking for a spoon, happen across a robot, play Lights-Out
    with it, and then when you win, the robot randomly hands you a spoon as
    a reward. Or, to use an invented example for the sake of clarity:

    You're in a cell. You want to get out. The door won't budge, and there's
    a guard posted outside. You have a gold coin.

    GOOD DESIGN: Get the guard to open the door and let you go free in
    exchange for the coin.

    BAD DESIGN: Swallow the coin. This randomly causes the door to fall off
    its hinges onto the guard, allowing you to make a break for it.

    THE END MEANS ESCAPE is full of examples of the latter type of design.
    Open up a guy's surgical incision? Why? Just because you can (with
    difficulty)? Apparently so -- that's how you advance to the next stage,
    though there's no particular reason why that's so. The end justifies the
    means? In this game, they rarely seem remotely connected.

    Score: a low THREE, and only because I did get some fun out of the first
    bit.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    Walkthrough? No (in-game hints)
    Genre: Surrealism

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        B+|Submitted Vote  8|
             |Writing               A-|Plot           C+|
             |Puzzles               B |NPCs           B |
             |Technical             B |Tilt           A+|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    A lot of people really disliked everything but the first section of this
    game. I, on the other hand, got more into it the more I played it; I
    won't say I enjoyed the first section the least, but neither did I find
    it the best of the sections. I believe this will be a narrow appeal
    game, which in a way is a pity and in a way is just how things work.

    I will note that this was the game that got me to dub this "Surreal
    Comp"; between it, Shade, and (to a lesser extent) Planet of the
    Infinite Minds, not to mention the Rybread parody, this was probably the
    most surreal of the comps ever...

    *** Writing (A-)

    First off: bonus points for the correct use of "its", something a lot of
    authors don't seem to understand.

    Any game in which there are word puzzles is probably going to garner
    either a rather low or a rather high score in writing. In this case, you
    will see it's "rather high". But this was not only because of the
    (somewhat difficult, but entertaining) word puzzle in the second
    section, but the sheer amount of work that must have gone into crafting
    the initial section's NPCs, giving them character and consistency.

    Many of the descriptions were simple and unadorned, but knowing when to
    do this is as important to writing as elaborate, full, and intense
    descriptions of one's environment. Others (mostly later in the game) are
    detailed and interesting, but oddly those seem to occur when they are
    least important. I don't know if this was a deliberate stylistic choice,
    but for me it added to the surreal factor -- and I so enjoy the surreal
    factor, so this is a good thing.

    Possibly the best use of words was not in the writing itself, but one of
    the puzzles (see below). Indeed, until that section, I was actually
    somewhat out-of-sorts with the style presented; as I put it in my notes
    "This is the kind of HIGH-FALUTIN' High Art thing I dislike, isn't it?"
    However, it grows on one...

    *** Plot (C+)

    Now, those of you who played this game will be saying "Plot? Was there a
    PLOT?" Well, yes and no. There was certainly no coherent plot I could
    identify, but it seems as if each section contained a bit of one, and
    they were internally consistent. On this basis -- rather than that of
    understanding and being able to articulate the plot -- I rated it just
    above average, consistency being one of the building blocks of a good
    plot. So if you're looking for a full-blown story, I'm afraid you are
    out of luck; this game does not, so far as I could tell, have one.

    There are basically four (five?) little tableaus that are, at least as
    far as I could tell, separate, yet each has as its basis understanding
    or at least discovering the nature of something. This, I think, is what
    ties the game together. I may be the only person getting this out of the
    game (other comments certainly suggest such) but... for me it works.

    *** Puzzles (B)

    Oh GOD, the PUZZLES. They are fiendish! They are evil! They required me
    to use the hints regularly...

    ...and yet...

    I'm fascinated by word puzzles. I was particularly fascinated by the one
    in part two of this game, where your inventory contains a certain number
    of words, the room contains a certain number of words, and you have to
    manipulate them in various ways to make certain phrases. In the interest
    of leaving -some- surprises to the reader, I shall not reproduce the
    entire puzzle, but I will say that:

    a) There is more than one (somewhat) sensical "solution", but only one
    actually -works-
    b) Yes, it did mean something to ME (though not, I gather, to others).

    Then there was the puzzle with the basically inanimate people. That one,
    I did not like. No. But it wasn't because I felt it was unfair or even
    that it was difficult to figure out (aside from being very limited in
    solvability). It was just that it was... icky. I suspect it was meant to
    be metaphorical, but some metaphors I'd rather not, er, explore.

    Still... frustrating at times, but the hints do work well, and... if you
    like symbolism and wordplay, you should enjoy this aspect of the game.

    *** NPCs (B)

    Well, some of the NPCs were a bit wooden and stiff... (that's a joke
    only those who have played the game will get).

    Many of the Others you interact with in this game are not, strictly
    speaking, people. They have personalities, they speak, they react,
    but... they're objects. Animate objects. It's quite bizarre. Surreal,
    even.

    And I loved the way it was done. Each object had a personality that fit
    with what it was. Each object had something to say about its
    surroundings and fellow objects. Sure, it was simple, a closed
    environment, but that's something you can't say about some games: the
    NPCs knew about each other and would comment on each other. In fact...
    it was vital to the game.

    *** Technical (B)

    A few little neat tricks gave me reason to up the technical score a bit,
    despite a couple really nasty disambiguation problems in one section.
    Specifically, I liked the fact that changing state (due to actions
    taken) resulted in changing responses (descriptions and reactions),
    something that takes some time and care and effort to do, and I enjoyed
    the word-inventory puzzle as a purely interesting technical feat as well
    as just as a puzzle. It's nice to see a little extra like this.

    *** Tilt (A+) and Final Thoughts

    Many people started this game, liked it, and then slowly grew to dislike
    it. I started out not enjoying the philosophical High Art but grew to
    appreciate it once I began to see the full shape of things, and aside
    from an "ick" factor at one point, enjoyed the entire experience. This
    may say more about me than the game.

    If you can deal with fiendish (if well-hinted) puzzles, surreal
    situations, and the sense that you are in an alien landscape -- or if
    those things outright appeal to you -- this game is worth checking out.
    Even if that is not your usual bag, the first section is possibly worth
    taking a look at.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    TITLE: Guess The Verb!
    AUTHOR: Leonard Richardson
    E-MAIL: leonardr SP@G segfault.org
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/guess.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    Walkthrough? Yes (in-game)
    Genre: SpecFic (but see below)

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        B |Submitted Vote  7|
             |Writing               B+|Plot           B |
             |Puzzles               C |NPCs           C |
             |Technical             C-|Tilt           B |
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    When I saw the name of the game, I said, "Oh, no. NOT a joke game!"

    No. It's not. Well, at times it is (it certainly doesn't take itself too
    seriously), but it's not the -obvious- joke game.

    I put this under the category 'Speculative Fiction' (otherwise known as
    "sf/fantasy") because it contained elements that were (including the
    initial premise), but I think perhaps it might also fall into the
    category of "comedy".

    *** Writing (B+)

    Any game in which I can read the description of a corn dog and be
    entertained really has something going for it:

       >l at corn dog
       The corn dog is a curious creature. Its life cycle begins when the
       larval corn dog is cooked and put on a stick. The corn dog is dipped
       in batter to form a cocoon and fried. Inside the batter cocoon, the
       baby corn dog metamorphoses into an adult phase which is then
       purchased, slathered with mustard, and eaten. The rumbling of your
       stomach tells you that the end is near for this particular corn dog.
       We will miss you, corn dog.

    Much of the game's description, even when more serious than this,
    contains elements of this style. It's clever, it's cute (in the good
    way), and it is, above all, interesting.

    I did not bestow an A rating on the writing simply because while it is
    true that the writing meets my criteria for "good", it never thoroughly
    immersed me in the experience. This may be a result of the game's style,
    not a reflection on the author's ability; I don't think we were really
    -meant- to be immersed.

    *** Plot (B)

    Really, this should be "plots", plural; these are several stories tied
    together solely by method of entry. Perhaps if you complete all the
    scenarios there is a larger plot revealed, but if so, I did not find it.

    Certain sections were better than others, but all contained a sort of
    "Now rejoining your regularly scheduled program in progress" sort of
    feel at insertion point, which is another interesting way to tie things
    together. Whether or not this was deliberate is something only the
    author could answer.

    Some sections might be more interesting to people than others, as there
    is quite a range covered by this.

    *** Puzzles (C)

    Puzzles were definitely a weak point, not because they were bad but
    merely because they were tough and at times very difficult to understand
    the context of. Whether this was a function of the fragmented nature of
    the plot or the function of poor puzzle design is not something I feel I
    can judge. I could not solve several of the puzzles, however, and as a
    result never saw the -complete- version of several of the scenarios,
    despite the availability of a walkthrough. I think an adaptive hint
    system would have been a BIG help in this game; I didn't really want to
    ruin other sections by walkthrough-consulting that forced me to read all
    of it.

    *** NPCs (C)

    We never really seem to see enough of any given NPC for it to feel
    particularly deep, and there is definitely a problem with
    non-responsiveness even in the required interactions.

    *** Technical (C-)

    There were at least two points in which directions were not
    bi-directional (which is to say, going east does not result in west
    returning you to your original point). If this was deliberate, so be it,
    but if not, I would suggest correcting this. (One occurs getting to and
    from the area behind the booth, one occurs in the college scenario.)

    Aside from that, I found no particular bugs and no particular tricks.

    *** Tilt (B) and Final Thoughts

    Despite the problems I had with the puzzles and the walkthrough, I did
    find this an interesting diversion. I think it might be interesting to
    see some expansion on this game, some more involved scenarios, in a
    post-comp release that didn't have to fit a 2-hour limit, but even as is
    the game is worth a look; if nothing else, if you don't get a scenario
    you like, restoring to right before you choose is easy enough.

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

    From: Suzanne Britton
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: Kaged
    AUTHOR: Ian Finley
    E-MAIL: domokov SP@G aol.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/kaged/kaged.gam
    VERSION: 1

    I hope Ian leads a happier life than his protagonists. His games get
    grimmer every year.

    "Kaged" is a dystopian tale strongly reminiscent of 1984 (but not
    derivative). Like just about everything its author has produced, it is
    strikingly original, evocative, well-written, and suicidally depressing
    :-) I quite liked it, though it is, in my opinion, not as successful as
    "Exhibition" or "Babel". It is more ambitious than either of those
    works, which leads me to be somewhat forgiving of its failures.

    As a mood piece, "Kaged" is excellent. Every bleak, oppressive nuance of
    the world you live in comes to life in the vivid writing, enhanced by
    graphics and sound (the opening picture is especially evocative), and
    your own character is well-drawn. As a story, it is ambitious, but less
    excellent. I felt that what began as tightly woven threads unraveled
    near the end--and not just because of the protagonist's dissolving
    sanity. I came out of the experience with no real understanding of what
    had happened and why. Many hints, many seeming contradictions, no
    certainties. Normally, I like it when a game leaves the player with a
    mystery, but this was just unsatisfying. It's hard to pinpoint
    why...perhaps partly because I felt I was expected to understand much
    more than I did. Certainly, my protagonist seemed to be way ahead of me,
    and as a result, I felt less connection with him.

    (Postscript: I've since spoken with Ian, and to some extent "it's
    intentional". Apparently, his playtesters kept pushing him for more
    ambiguity. Ah, well.)

    The programming was also not quite as polished as I've come to expect of
    this author. Again, it was trying to accomplish more than in earlier
    works, I think. The world was very fleshed-out, but flawed. I
    encountered a number of guess-the-verb problems. Perhaps the most
    egregious was the matchbook. It was lazily (and unintuitively)
    implemented as a single object, leading me to fumble for awhile before I
    simply typed "strike match":

         >get match
         You already have the book of matches!

         >get match from matchbook
         The book of matches isn't in the book of matches.

         >look in matchbook
         There's nothing in the book of matches.

    Rating: 8

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

    From: Suzanne Britton
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: Masquerade
    AUTHOR: Kathleen M. Fischer
    E-MAIL: mfischer5 SP@G aol.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/mask/mask.z5
    VERSION: Release 3

    "Masquerade" is an excellent work of story-based IF in a little-used
    genre (romance, specifically, Civil-War era romance). It is perhaps the
    most immersive game I've played yet this year. When I started playing,
    my mind was still spinning with outside thoughts and residual stress.
    Soon, I became utterly engrossed in the well-sketched gameworld and all
    else faded to black.

    The setting is impeccable: no anachronisms or oversights. I truly felt
    like I was in the 1800's. The protagonist (a feminist before her time)
    also came across quite strongly, and I enjoyed stepping into the shoes
    of someone so like and yet unlike me.

    Though the plot of "Masquerade" is fairly linear, for most of the way,
    there are several forks in the later parts of the game which lead to
    different endings based on your decisions. This was a big part of my
    enjoyment: of the 12 endings, I've found about a third, and am eager to
    go back and find more after the comp. I was especially pleased that
    choosing to strike out on your own (sans deed, sans husband) was a valid
    option, and though the author didn't quite sanction it as a "winning"
    ending (an odd word to use with story-based IF anyway), the outcome was
    positive and rewarding (it's my favorite ending of those I found). In
    that respect, Masquerade is hardly a "genre" romance.

    In spite of this praise, "Masquerade" didn't quite make my 9-10 bracket.
    There are several reasons for this. The first is something the author
    couldn't have done much about: the genre is not my usual cup of tea. I
    prefer stories with fantastical or SF elements (the story-in-a-story in
    "Photopia" counts) to straight fiction.

    The second is implementation: there were enough guess-the-verb and
    guess-the-action problems to be annoying. This is an especial
    show-stopper in such a linear game, which often halts your progress
    entirely, locking you in your current location, until you deal with the
    matter at hand. Example: "dance with Jonathan". It sounds embarrassingly
    obvious now, but at the time, I assumed that we would go into the
    ballroom together, then dance. But "west" returned the stock failure
    message about Mrs. Stanford being at the door, and this stymied me for a
    while.

    Sometimes the problem is syntax, other times it's more a problem of
    being expected to read the author's mind. I'm not referring to puzzles
    (of which there are a few), rather cases where what I want to do is
    obvious, but how to tell the game that is not-so-obvious. Another
    example: the only way I've found to get Ethan's attention in the train
    is to "get tickets". Until I've done that, I can't talk to him, touch
    him, sit with him, or otherwise interact with him. The reason given is
    fairly lame ("You wouldn't want to be that forward") and doesn't do much
    to point me in the right direction. Worse, if I flounder around like
    that for more than a few turns, I'm ejected from the train and it takes
    off!

    When the game mechanics worked--and make no mistake, they often
    did--they worked splendidly. I wended my way through the story in
    mimetic bliss, barely conscious of the fact that I was typing rather
    than living out my actions. The tight boundaries of the gameworld
    remained invisible. But when the mechanics failed, they failed with a
    loud crunching halt.

    (One extra positive note on implementation: I was impressed by and
    appreciative of the many stock message replacements [in fact, I've been
    impressed that way by several games this year]. E.g., when you type an
    invalid command: "You mutter something incomprehensible". Or for
    disambiguation, "You pause to think,  or ?")

    Third: the game sometimes went overboard in limiting my actions. Some of
    this is acceptable--there are things a 19th-century woman simply does
    not do--but some of it came across as programming laziness. Whatever the
    reason, I was disappointed at not being allowed to give Jonathan a good
    slap!

    Rating: 8

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    Walkthrough? No (in-game hints)
    Genre: Historical Romance

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        B |Submitted Vote  8|
             |Writing               A |Plot           B |
             |Puzzles               C |NPCs           B |
             |Technical             B |Tilt           A+|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    It's interesting. I'm not a big romance story fan, but I am a fan of
    historical romance... perhaps because I'm a big fan of historical
    -anything-. And this story is set in a period that I find fascinating.
    So right from the start, I was interested.

    But it wouldn't have held if the game wasn't so extremely well
    constructed....

    *** Writing (A)

    Simply put, the writing in this story is first-rate. It was descriptive,
    it was evocative, it was thorough without being wordy, it was fun to
    read, and best of all, it fit the period the game was set in. If there
    -were- any errors, they escaped my notice.

    The example I have in my notes -- which I feel is representative -- is
    from the interior of a coach:

       "The coach is richly appointed, with two leather cushioned benches
       facing each other and a nice clean smell that marks it as either
       privately owned or an expensive rental. Heavy black drapes have been
       drawn across the windows, casting the interior in a gloom that
       precludes close scrutiny of the conveyance or its passenger."

    As someone who is a big fan of (mostly horror) stories written in the
    late 1800s, I can say that this actually is the type of writing one
    encounters in that period, which, not coincidentally, is when this story
    is set.

    *** Plot (B)

    Although I was disappointed with the particular ending I got and once or
    twice felt that things were a bit forced, the overall story in this is
    good. It's not simply a boy-meets-girl style romance by any means; the
    actual initial thrust of the plot (and, in fact, potentially the
    majority of it) has nothing to do with romance.

    I think perhaps the complaint some people have of heavily story-driven
    IF -- notably, if you've been not reading reviews regularly, that maybe
    they would do better as static IF -- would probably apply here, but as
    usual, I am not one of those people. There is flexibility here you could
    not incorporate into a static work, and while the plot advances are an
    unstoppable force, you can change things a bit by your reactions.

    *** Puzzles (C)

    There were a few. They weren't bad. If that seems a bit short, let me a
    note that I was so captivated by the story I didn't really notice them.
    I certainly didn't get hung up on them, so that's all that really
    mattered to me in the end.

    *** NPCs (B)

    The NPCs were, for the most part, quite well developed, although at
    times the interactions with them were a bit too predestined for my
    taste, hence the "mere" B rating.

    *** Technical (B)

    I have to say that this rating is predicated on two particular biases of
    mine: rich, full, detailed story worlds, and alternate conversational
    styles (the ask/tell routine is not exactly my favorite, and IMO doesn't
    work very well in stories like this). The fact that I could
    >smell stranger

    ...and get a valid response was worth a lot. Too, the fact that standard
    library messages were altered to fit the mood and setting was nice. None
    of this is necessarily -difficult-, but it does take the type of
    forethought and planning that many people do -not- bring to their games.

    *** Tilt (A+) and Final Thoughts

    I found this game so enticing and so thoroughly enjoyable that I intend
    on playing it again to see what alternate endings I get, and expect that
    even the parts that repeat will still seem wonderful and fresh. If not
    for the fact that I like surreal better than I like romance, this would
    have easily been my favorite of the games I played.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: Metamorphoses
    AUTHOR: Emily Short
    E-MAIL: emshort SP@G mindspring.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard (mostly)
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/metamorp.z5
    VERSION: Release 2

    As has often been noted, there are many difficulties inherent in telling
    a story through the IF medium, and one of the most-remarked-upon is the
    difficulty of keeping the player/reader involved (by giving him/her
    something to do) while still telling the story that the author wants to
    tell. The solutions usually boil down to relinquishing control of the
    pace of the story (typically through giving the player puzzles to
    solve), or avoiding/minimizing the puzzle aspect of IF and sending the
    player through the story with little opportunity to affect it. Emily
    Short's Metamorphoses doesn't, exactly, transcend this usual duality in
    IF design, but it does do some interesting things that help bring the
    poles together, and it's a wonderfully immersive playing experience.

    What's going on is hard to pin down, but the heart of it is that you're
    a slave/servant girl sent on a quest/errand of sorts by your master,
    with whom you have an uneasy and complicated relationship. The literal
    content of the quest (to the extent that there is any) disappears as the
    setting changes: the game is set in a fantasy world of sorts, though
    it's not quite accurate to call it fantasy. The action, so to speak,
    lies mostly in the realm of the figurative: you're encouraged (well, I
    felt encouraged) to view your quest as important more in what it
    suggests than in what it literally depicts. By the same token, when you
    encounter puzzles, they have symbolic significance that goes beyond the
    "acquire the object" goal. (All the more so since it's not immediately
    obvious why you're acquiring the objects.) Since the plot goes on
    beneath the surface of the literal action, the game can safely permit
    the player to do whatever he or she wants with the pace and order of the
    story, since there isn't really a narrative thread as such that can be
    broken. For example: one puzzle requires that you give up something
    familiar to you to advance the story, an act which clearly has its own
    resonances, and another requires that you transform another familiar
    object and put it to a novel use. The game comments directly on some of
    these points but not all--very little is spelled out.

    The world where all this takes place is only indirectly related to the
    ordinary physical world, and the relationship parallels other elements
    in the plot. Idealized forms play an important part: two statues of a
    man and a woman are described in ways that suggest Greek sculpture, and
    perfect solids are central to the story. Essences are important as well:
    virtually every object is made of a single elemental substance (wood,
    glass, metal, etc.), and you have the power to alter those substances in
    certain ways. Symmetry is everywhere (in the game's map, and elsewhere
    as well), and the multiplicity of mirrors suggests the reflection and
    introspection that are central to the plot. (Likewise, the idealized
    forms suggest the absolutes that make up the plot.) At the same time,
    the game's world is sterile, arid: there's nothing particularly warm or
    welcoming about it, and there's no suggestion that you find it pleasant
    or comfortable. (Left ambiguous is whether the dryness reflects the
    protagonist's life as it has been, or represents some hostile reality
    external to her that she's trying to overcome.) The setting itself tells
    a story, in other words, in a way not often found in IF.

    Not only does the setting play a part in the plot, however, but it's
    also beautifully described, with plenty of arresting imagery--some
    descriptive, others suggestive. For instance:

       Dome of Broken Light
       A straight white light comes through the hole in the ceiling, but it
       is soon after twisted and bent: mirrors cast it from angle to angle;
       crystal divides it; glass stains it.

    The picture is indeterminate: the reader is encouraged to imagine a riot
    of reflections and refractions. The only perfection here is that of
    perfect confusion. Here, by contrast:

       Glass Grove
       An orchard of glass trees: trunks slender and orderly as the columns
       of the Alhambra, foliage iridescent and frail. No wind stirs, and
       yet, from time to time, a leaf casts free of its branch and drifts to
       the ground. The whole floor of the cavern is deep with them.

    The image is more concrete: "iridescent and frail" conveys both the
    beauty and the sterility of the game's world. The writing also
    underscores the contrasts between the two locations: the (relative)
    activity of the first is reflected by the active verbs ("mirrors cast,"
    "crystal divides," "glass stains"), whereas the aridity of the second is
    suggested by the intransitive verbs ("casts free," "drifts", "is
    deep"--and the first sentence has no verbs at all). Most of the writing
    is spare, like the game itself--you eventually learn some things about
    yourself, your past, and how you came to be in your present position,
    but the snippets are small indeed. What's there, however, is well worth
    reading.

    Metamorphoses does an impressively nuanced job of worldbuilding, in
    short, but what's noteworthy is that the gameplay is nearly as good. The
    puzzles feel reasonably novel, due mostly to the
    transmutation/magnification machines you're given and which figure in
    all the puzzles. The technical aspect is impressive--the objects by and
    large do what they're supposed to do when transmuted or enlarged or
    shrunk, and they interact with each other in plausible ways, nothing to
    sneeze at considering the complexity involved. Moreover, there are
    plenty of multiple solutions that draw on the various qualities of the
    objects whose size and essence you can alter, which makes the puzzles
    flow by fairly quickly. (This is not, in other words, a "guess what the
    author's thinking" sort of game, at least not when it comes to puzzle
    solutions.) Not every object in every state and size gets a customized
    description, of course, but everything behaves sensibly enough.

    Metamorphoses is not a flawless effort--some of its design choices risk
    leaving the player cold in certain respects. In particular, the game
    leaves so much about the protagonist ambiguous for so long that it's
    difficult to connect to her emotionally. Some of the most emotional
    experiences for the protagonist come early enough in the story that the
    player is unlikely to be as strongly affected as he or she might be with
    some more setup and explanation. As always, the tradeoff between story
    and puzzle raises the possibility that the player will forget about the
    story amid all the mechanical fiddling (particularly here, where there's
    so much fiddling to do)--the puzzles are reasonably well integrated into
    the story, for the most part, but most of the plot is sufficiently
    abstract that it's easy to lose sight of what's supposed to be going on.
    Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are a lot of endings to
    Metamorphoses, and many of them don't provide much resolution in any
    obvious way; finding an end to the story that adequately brings the
    various threads together may take a while for some players. In a way,
    that works here; it reflects the general bleakness of the game's world
    that the end of the story doesn't tie up all the loose ends or furnish
    an especially satisfying conclusion. The game aspect, however, demands
    some sort of conclusion, whether optimal or not, and only a few of the
    endings offer real conclusions as such.

    These drawbacks are to some extent inherent in what Metamorphoses
    appears to be trying to do, though; tastes on what constitutes a
    satisfying game experience differ--and the latitude for experimentation
    provided by the machines helps make up for any other problems. For my
    part, the setting itself was enough to make this the only 10 of this
    year's competition (and the only one I've given since 1997)--as
    worldbuilding, this is a triumph.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: My Angel
    AUTHOR: Jon Ingold
    E-MAIL: ji207 SP@G cam.ac.uk
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard (mostly)
    SUPPORTS: Most z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/my_angel/my_angel.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    The unusual approach to formatting that Jon Ingold's My Angel adopts is
    the most obvious of its innovations, but in some ways it's the least
    interesting. What works about this story works whether or not the text
    is formatted in the conventional way or not.

    The game calls the innovation NOVEL mode, and it's a nov--er, it's a
    creative idea: your input is moved up to a status line and most of the
    program's output occupies the main part of the screen. Parser messages
    ("there's no such object here" and such) are also on the status line.
    The paragraphing on the main part of the screen is handled fairly
    well--most of the breaks are logical--so the output does, in most
    respects, actually resemble a story written in the first person. It
    seems, however, that the main effect would be on the appearance of the
    transcript, rather than on the player's experience: the player is still
    getting the parser messages, and if they're illogical or indicate bad
    programming (failing to recognize a seemingly important object or
    failing to understand a logical action), the effect on the player is
    still to wrench him or her out of the flow of the story. Put another
    way, it appears that another well-done game that strives to accommodate
    all logical approaches would work just as well if given a similar
    treatment--the point is to minimize those parser messages. (I've
    certainly never heard anyone complain that having the input lines right
    there in the middle of the output breaks the feel of the story, but
    maybe I haven't been listening.) There's also a distraction
    factor--whenever you do get a parser message and no output appears at
    the bottom of the main screen, you need to look back up at the status
    line, which takes some adjustment. (To be fair, the game also gives the
    option of NORMAL mode, in which the output is standard
    alternating-input-and-output, so if the looking back and forth drives
    you nuts, you're not required to put up with it.) I suspect that,
    eventually, it wouldn't feel any less unnatural than having the input
    lines and parser messages right in the middle of everything, but it's
    fairly jarring at first. The point isn't that NOVEL mode is a bad
    idea--it's clever in its way. I'm just not convinced that it advances
    the state of the art much, if at all.

    There's more to My Angel than the formatting, fortunately, and the
    reason it works as a story has very little to do with the appearance of
    the transcript. The story flips back and forth between the main thread
    and some flashback sequences in a reasonably seamless way, and you can
    actually interact with the characters and objects in the flashback
    sequences. Technically, of course, that has the potential to make no
    sense, but the game manages to limit your options to assure that it
    controls what actually happens in the flashback sequences while still
    providing more interactivity than a simple cut scene. Moreover, since
    you only get a few moves in each flashback sequence, and there's more
    than a few moves' worth of exploration in each one, there's some replay
    potential here. The one aspect of the story that suffers, however, is
    that it's easy to get confused about what exactly happened in the
    flashbacks--the game throws several names and relationships at you and
    essentially expects you to keep them straight (if you want to understand
    what really happened at the end). The flashback approach can, in fact,
    work well in IF, but there's also an inherent disadvantage that static
    fiction doesn't pose--it's harder to flip back to an earlier moment to
    check on details that you missed the first time around. Simplicity is
    key, and the flashbacks in My Angel are complex enough to push the
    envelope. (Babel, by way of contrast, solves this problem by allowing
    the player to access the flashbacks repeatedly and at will.)

    The relationship at the core of the story is also nicely done with an
    interesting innovation: you and your companion are telepaths, it seems,
    and THINK ABOUT object lets you know her take on that object and often
    triggers a series of brief communications about the object or associated
    ideas. The effect is sometimes akin to having two PCs rather than one,
    all the more so because the character of the main PC isn't especially
    well developed--you don't get much of his personality, just his
    experiences. The PC's thoughts tend to be bound up with his companion's
    thoughts, in other words, so the player rarely sees either person
    thinking or acting independently. As a result, most of the game unfolds
    as if there were one mind in two bodies, and when the two are apart--as
    they are for roughly the last half of the story--the PC and,
    consequently, the player feel bereft, incomplete. The telepathic
    interactions don't only come when invited by THINK ABOUT, of
    course--they're interjected at all sorts of moments, and the two
    characters comment back and forth on the other's thoughts. It's a trick
    that works particularly well in IF, since the player isn't necessarily
    expecting to find a PC with a persona that's distinct from the player's.
    The indistinctness is here, but it's on another front.

    The game aspect isn't a total success, however. Some of the puzzles
    reflect the story well--your telepathy plays into them in more or less
    logical ways--but others just feel like puzzles. The game refers to them
    as "optional," but I'm not sure why--it appears to me that the story
    won't progress to its ending if the puzzles aren't solved. They're not
    fiendishly difficult, but they're not blindingly obvious either, and one
    in particular seems rather improbable (or turns on a object property
    that's inadequately described). More importantly, they make the flow of
    the story feel uneven, since large chunks of the story go by independent
    of your input. For instance, there are several sequences of moves where
    you're traveling, and while you can interact with the scenery as you go
    by, you can't stop the movement. This actually works fairly well--it's a
    good balance between keeping the story moving and letting you poke and
    prod things--but when you get to the points where the story stops until
    you solve the puzzle, the story loses some of its pace. Usually, it's
    not so bad--since the first several puzzles aren't all that hard--but
    the more difficult puzzles break the mood by bringing everything to a
    halt.

    The writing, for its part, is solid, good enough not to get in the way,
    though it does occasionally lurch into total abstraction at times when
    the player simply wants to know what's going on. I suppose that fits the
    telepathy theme--thoughts don't lend themselves to description, and
    experiences whose most important features are the shared thoughts
    between you and your companion will inevitably be a little abstract--but
    it's also frustrating. A sample:

       The centre of the stone twists around, and it flares with a pulsing
       light - or does it, maybe I see this only in my head, my eyes seem
       nothing to do with it. It is talking to me, gibbering, squawking. No
       - the speech goes beyond me, beyond her, it is talking to the
       distance, to the air. There is a shriek that tells us "HEAR-SPEAK"
       and then my eyes cease to function totally and all I am aware of is
       the black, and Angela there in my mind like an aura. Unbidden, shapes
       loom up from the blackness; things I have blotted and forgotten pull
       at me, whispering.

    This is called synesthesia--using sensory language, but associated with
    the "wrong" sense--and while it's a good attention-getting device, only
    the most determined readers will actually manage to feel like they're
    still in the character's shoes; the rest are relegated to observer
    status. After a brief flashback, you get this:

       Then slowly, fades light back in. The clearing still, we inside are -
       my mind still spins - the clearing. By the stone, as though a fruit
       dangling from the elm-tree's bent branch, is a darkness. Darkness is
       made an object. Darkness is present, as a - gap - in what is. A rift,
       as though the wind itself were riven. Light falls into it and will
       not return. Angela pictures a passage, passage itself.

    This is nicely poetic writing, but it comes at an unfortunate point;
    Something Has Happened, and the player (this player, at least) doesn't
    want to hear about how the darkness is like a fruit dangling from an
    elm-tree. The effect is murkiness to no real purpose--at least, no
    purpose that I could discern, because what's there is very much there;
    it's not as if the abstract language refers to something that only
    exists in the abstract. Much of the game avoids this sort of thing--the
    shared thoughts are usually exchanged in terms of images that the player
    can grapple with--but there are some unfortunate moments at the end when
    the game loses some of its grip, so to speak.

    Still, in a competition well-populated by games with flaws much more
    significant than insufficiently concrete writing, it's not exactly fair
    to criticize My Angel too harshly on those terms. It's a well-told story
    that manages to keep the player involved, mostly, and I gave it an 8.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: Nevermore
    AUTHOR: Nate Cull
    E-MAIL: culln SP@G xtra.co.nz
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/never/never.z5
    VERSION: Release 10

    Literary adaptation is an underpopulated IF genre, and Nate Cull's
    Nevermore is a thoughtful and well-intentioned attempt at bringing Poe's
    "The Raven" to the world of IF. While what emerges isn't a bad game,
    it's less the poem than a series of events in a similar setting with a
    somewhat similar mood, In other words, if you're a particular fan of the
    poem, you might not well not be a fan of this game.

    As it happens, I committed "The Raven" to memory when I was in seventh
    grade or so, and I still like the poem even though I've somewhat
    belatedly realized that it's not a very good poem. (It's been said that
    the popularity of Poe's poems varies inversely with their quality, and
    while that's not strictly true--he wrote some lousy poems that remain
    thoroughly obscure--the three Poe poems that are probably the best
    known, "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "The Bells", are far from his
    best.) That is, I like it despite its repetitiveness and its tendency to
    use 20 words when two or three would do, simply because I like the drama
    of it. No one would ever call "The Highwayman" a great poem, but it's
    definitely a good ghost story in verse form that's well suited for being
    read aloud; ditto, I think, for "The Raven," and I still enjoy being
    able to recite it--and "The Highwayman" and others--from memory. So when
    I saw the initial premise of Nevermore, my first reaction was something
    between "Cool!" and disappointment that I hadn't gotten there first,
    because it was an idea I'd been kicking around (very casually). And when
    I saw that the game was using snippets from the poem but not binding the
    player to the text, I said, aha, perfect--use the poem's story, its
    strong point, but don't bind us to the text, which isn't its strong
    point. Just use the text for echo effect.

    It was about five moves into the game that the author's vision of the
    poem diverged from mine, however, and it continued to diverge more and
    more over the course of the game. This, in a sense, is good: had the
    author felt constrained not to offend fellow fans of the poem and
    slavishly followed the text, the result wouldn't have been much
    different from reading the text itself. But I had such a hard time
    squaring the author's vision with mine that before long I simply forgot
    the origin of the game and no longer associated it with my mental images
    of the setting as portrayed in the poem; it was just, in other words,
    another comp entry. This is partly because the plot of Nevermore
    involves elements like alchemy, pagan rituals, and lots of drugs, and it
    would have been an odd coincidence if both the author and I had imagined
    those things as part of a more fleshed-out story--but it's more that the
    mood differed from the mood as I imagined it. To take one among many
    examples, the protagonist of Nevermore takes cocaine approximately every
    20 moves; if you don't, you're told that "a dull, dark weariness drifts
    over you," which leads to death in a few moves if not corrected with
    cocaine (at which point "a sense of raw alertness rushes through your
    nerves, setting them all on edge"). It's certainly not implausible to
    view the mood of the poem's subject as more generally consistent with "a
    dull, dark weariness" than a cocaine-fueled "raw alertness," though--I
    mean, it's a pretty melancholy poem--and I simply couldn't fit the
    protagonist of Nevermore into my preconceived image. (Well, okay, the
    poem's subject summons up some energy toward the end, but there's an
    obvious cause that isn't cocaine.) In short, the author has his own
    rather distinctive vision of who the protagonist is and what the poem's
    about, and Your Mileage May Vary.

    All that aside, the game works reasonably well, though it's not
    flawless. The cocaine habit mentioned about doesn't add much to the
    game, and it recurs frequently enough to be irritating after a while.
    The puzzles also depend on a set of books that you're required to read,
    while is fine except that (a) the snippets in the books are randomized,
    so it's possible to miss one even if you've seen all the other snippets
    twice or more, and (b) the snippets are written in a sort of
    pseudo-medieval English that takes an awful lot of work to make sense
    of. (Impenetrable poetry I can deal with; impenetrable puzzle-solving
    instructions are more of a problem.) It's also easy to push the game
    into unwinnable states, and though there's a WINNABLE command (which
    informs you whether the game is presently in such a state), I would have
    preferred game design that simply makes it a little harder to screw up
    (or, better, is more forgiving when you do screw up). The opacity of the
    instructions also had me stumped for a while toward the end--it turned
    out that I'd left out a key step in the puzzle-solving and hadn't
    realized it (and there aren't really contextual hints that could suggest
    what you might have done wrong).

    This is sounding more negative than I mean to be, because there were
    parts of Nevermore that I genuinely enjoyed. The ending, for one thing,
    is terrific--dark and dripping with irony. (In that respect, quite
    faithful to Poe himself.) Some of the action turns on flashbacks, which
    also struck me as genuinely Poeish--a protagonist for whom the past is
    more real than the present absolutely belongs in this game. The writing
    is strong--economical and atmospheric--and the box quotes from Edgar are
    nicely placed (though, curiously, the last and most dramatic part of the
    poem is largely absent). The personality of the protagonist even felt
    right--an odd mix of sentimentality and obsessiveness.

    Nevermore does a lot of things right, and you could argue that it did as
    well as any work of IF could do in adapting this particular poem; it's
    certainly a worthy attempt. Through no fault of the game, however, it
    didn't really connect with me, and I gave it a 7 in the competition.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    TITLE: 1-2-3...
    AUTHOR: Chris Mudd
    E-MAIL: muddchris SP@G netscape.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/123/1-2-3.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    Walkthrough?  Yes
    Genre: Psychological Drama

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        C |Submitted Vote  6|
             |Writing               C |Plot           C+|
             |Puzzles               D+|NPCs           D+|
             |Technical             C |Tilt           B-|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    Okay, I know that some people thought this was terrible, that some were
    completely turned off by the very idea, that there were definitely
    problems (yes, even I agree) with implementation, and that it may
    qualify as the most controversial entry in the comp. But damn it, I
    liked the idea, and I gave it a 6 because despite the flaws I want to
    encourage people to continue to work in this genre.

    *** Writing (C)

    Yes, there were some really bad spots in the writing. I will agree fully
    with anyone who says that. In particular, the conversational style was
    really irritating (but that's really more a technical flaw). But the
    game did do a good job on several occasions of evoking the inner mind of
    the psychopath, and that's something that I enjoyed.

    One of my favorite bits is early on:

       >l at me
       What you see disturbs you, but there is nothing -- absolutely nothing
       -- you can do about it. Something has clicked within you. Your time
       is now.

    With two short lines, the game lets you know that something very odd is
    going on, and that the person you are playing feels helpless to stop it.
    It, along with the first room description in the game, though both very
    short, give you chilling atmosphere, a hint to plot, and a bit of
    mystery and intrigue all at once. -That- is part of why I rated the game
    more highly than many other reviewers did, and why I thought it showed
    such potential.

    Alas, I will be the first to admit that some of this potential went to
    waste, but I do think the game showed promise. If only the
    conversational style had lived up to these initial descriptions, I would
    have rated it far more highly in this category at least.

    I would like to encourage the author, however, to continue developing
    and honing that skill, learning to apply it to other portions of the
    writing. I think that with some practice, some damn fine games could
    result.

    *** Plot (C+)

    Understand that this score is predicated more on what I felt the author
    was -trying- to do than on the actual execution. Had it been executed
    properly... well, I suspect had it been executed properly, fewer people
    would have been quite so down on the game. After all, movies like
    _Seven_ and _Silence of the Lambs_ and _Kiss the Girls_ are -very-
    popular. More than that, I would have probably been in love with the
    game; serial killer stories, particularly ones that attempt to delve
    into the mind of the killer, fascinate me.

    The two biggest plot-related flaws were both predicated on timing: the
    actual flow of the game (chock full of nose-leading) and the
    conversational style, the latter of which I will expand on under NPCs.

    No doubt about it, the execution of the pieces of the story left
    something to be desired. While I truly enjoyed the perspective shifts,
    the method of revealing the storyline was haphazard, seemed unconnected
    to the player actions to a great degree, and was, in a word, 'choppy'. I
    found myself unable to determine 'what to do next' until I realized that
    basically the answer was 'talk to people and wait for scene changes'.

    This works for some games, and it probably even could have worked for
    this one, but the attempt to drive the player this way really -did- feel
    like an attempt to 'drive' the player. I would hesitate to do more than
    speculate, but I wonder if perhaps the author has written static fiction
    and was trying to convert it to an IF format; it has that feel to it.

    In summary: Good idea that I'd like to see better developed.

    *** Puzzles (D+)

    Really, there weren't any to speak of, except for conversational choice
    puzzles. I found to be 'take woman' fairly obvious given the inner
    monologue before then, and of course, every veteran IF player knows to
    always check the fridge. That's about it...

    *** NPCs (D+)

    The conversational style was, in a word, painful. We are not talking
    about "I dropped a brick on my toe" painful or even "I just gave birth
    to a 10 lb child" painful (unless you are a male, in which case we may
    be). We are talking about "I just had every inch of my skin scoured by
    sandpaper" painful. So, as you can see, I did in fact have a bad opinion
    of a portion of this game.

    So, by now, almost everyone who has played this game or read a review
    has commented on "Don't you want to ask me about her breasts?"
    Therefore, I see no need to revisit that line. What I -would- like to
    focus on is the following exchange, which I think fully illustrates my
    problem (and most other folks') with the conversation system:

       > ask him about woman
       He smiles an empathetic smile. "Don't you want to ask me about the
       victim, Riessa?" he asks.

    Yes. that's why I said 'woman'. She was a woman. Yes?

    Synonyms are very, very much your friend. They are quite useful. I will
    grant that the higher the synonym count, the higher the chance of a
    disambiguation problem, but in this case I don't believe it applies --
    or even if it does, I think it could have been handled far more
    gracefully than it was.

    Forcing the player to word questions a very, very precise way (such as
    the worst example, "ASK HIM ABOUT WHEN HE THINKS THE MURDERER WILL
    STRIKE AGAIN") with very little in the way of a good feedback system
    (hint: telling me precisely how to phrase it really isn't a good
    feedback system, honest) is a very, very annoying choice, and should be
    discarded and replaced with something else, even if that 'something
    else' is a menu of questions, something that would not be my -first-
    choice for this particular type of game but which would have been a
    serious improvement under the circumstances.

    Since the game is driven by completing conversations, this presents even
    more of a problem than it looks like on the first glance; you simply
    can't go somewhere else and do something (that choice isn't available)
    and then come back when you have a new idea. I suspect this lay at the
    heart of many folks' frustration with this entry.

    *** Technical (C)

    I found no bugs; the only real flaw was conversation-style related.
    Character and location switching is not a terribly impressive trick but
    it at least took a bit of forethought.

    *** Tilt (B-) and Final Thoughts

    As I mentioned above, I really do enjoy serial killer stories, and
    really think that this game has potential. With some reworking of the
    conversational style, a bit more depth to the world and the people, and
    perhaps a slightly longer path to the solution, I think it could have
    been a solid game. Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but then, what is?

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

    From: Matthew Clemson
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: Planet Of The Infinite Minds
    AUTHOR: Alfredo Garcia
    E-MAIL: Five-0 SP@G oceanfree.net
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/tads/planmind/planmind.gam
    VERSION: 1

    Er. Um. It's... odd, there's no denying that. It's generally
    bug-and-typo free, but it's resoundingly... odd. It's what I'd imagine a
    Rybread Celsius game to be like if it was done, well, right. Some great
    puzzles, although there's rather a lot of guess-the-author's-mind - I
    had to use hints several times - we're back to the oddness again;
    indeed, parts of it kept reminding me of Nord and Bert. Indeed, like
    N&B, it's at times laugh-out-loud funny - the problems relating to the
    end of the universe spring to mind.

    Some puzzles, OTOH, are really ingenious, although they are, again,
    sometimes let down by the guess-the-author's-thoughts aspects; I
    particularly (gasp) *enjoyed the maze*; it was a different approach to
    any I'd known, and worked well. Mind you, most people would argue that
    it's not a maze :-).

    There was one puzzle towards the end which was a little out-of-sorts,
    though; and the author admits it in the walkthrough. All-in-all, I
    didn't dock a point for it, since I enjoyed the rest of the game so
    much; other people might be tempted to, and I'd understand it if they
    did. In retrospect, looking at the walkthrough, it's at least nice that
    they allowed a cleaner verb than the one I actually used, which probably
    says more about my mind than that of the author :-)

    It's a little too enthusiastic with 'last lousy points', but they do
    seem at least vaguely logical; OTOH, the entire response to Xyzzy is a
    whole new and intelligent approach that I've not encountered before. I
    didn't enjoy the game from the challenge and puzzle aspect - but from
    the entertainment aspect, I was enthralled.

    Rating: 7

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    Walkthrough? Yes
    Genre: Speculative Fiction

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        A-|Submitted Vote  9|
             |Writing               A |Plot           B+|
             |Puzzles               B |NPCs           B |
             |Technical             B |Tilt           A-|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    I'm definitely not the only person who liked this game, but I may be the
    only person who did not find the library puzzle baffling....

    *** Writing (A)

    The thing is, the writing was really funny.

    It wasn't actually as perfectly technically executed as my letter grade
    might imply; there were awkward turns of phrase here and there and the
    occasional misuse of punctuation. But it was very, very funny.

    One of my favorite bits (quite far into the game):

    "All at once you enter the chimney with a sound that can only be
    described as a Floop. All around is darkness. Then, with a
    Binco-diddy-diddy you career downwards through metal ledges and wire
    meshes. There is a resonating Ting as your body crashes against a curve
    in the pipe. You slide downward at this angle towards light. The light
    becomes brighter and brighter until it finally engulfs you, as you shoot
    out of a large fireplace and into a tasteful room."

    The subtitle of this game is "an interactive farce", and the author is
    not kidding. It doesn't take itself seriously. It doesn't take you
    seriously. It certainly doesn't take the protagonist or the NPCs
    seriously.

    Funny.

    *** Plot (B+)

    It's surreal, but it's cohesive... and that's a neat trick.

    Sort of a cross between 1950s sf, a physics major's worst nightmares
    (I'm betting the author is or was a physics major), and a comedy (well,
    it DID say 'farce'), the basic plot is... nearly incomprehensible, yet,
    strangely appealing, much like the sideshow freaks at a circus. Watching
    it unfold is somewhat akin to watching that guy in the sideshow who does
    terrible things to his own body: you wince, but you watch anyhow because
    it's fascinating, and you wonder how it's done.

    Whether or not the ultimate conclusion makes any sense isn't the point.
    The point is, it's fun to watch the progress.

    *** Puzzles (B)

    Some people found the puzzles baffling, inaccessible, incomprehensible
    on several levels. I used the walkthrough a lot myself. But they do make
    sense, and they contain an element of originality...

    ...and this game has, hands down, my favorite puzzle of the comp. It may
    not actually have been terribly original, but I don't recall having seen
    a puzzle quite like it before. Without giving away too much, there is a
    point at which you have a certain set of objects, and you must
    manipulate your environment such to match those objects. I found one of
    the things necessary to do this nearly impossible to figure out, but the
    rest was definitely a fun exercise.

    There was a puzzle at the end I found mildly objectionable, but it was
    obnoxious in a way some people might find funny. It involved a toilet.

    *** NPCs (B)

    You don't actually have a lot of control over your interaction with the
    NPCs, but for some reason this did not bother me. I actually found the
    characters (or, perhaps, caricatures) rather interesting, particularly
    one repeating encounter... poor man. I think most important is that they
    provided color that went well with the rest of the game.

    *** Technical (B)

    The aforementioned favorite puzzle, something I thought was a pretty
    good coding trick, was worth an extra point or two in technical score. I
    found no noticeable bugs.

    *** Tilt (A-) and Final Thoughts

    It's possible I enjoyed this game as much as I did because I used to
    make a career out of baiting my physics-major ex-boyfriend. (I used to
    tell him that physicists were just guessing anyhow, for instance.) Or
    maybe it's just that I have a soft place in my heart for 1950s bad
    science movies. But I think even without those biases, I would probably
    have found the game very amusing. Given the existence of the walkthrough
    for people stuck on the admittedly not always straightforward puzzles, I
    think I would recommend this to nearly everyone with a sense of humor.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: Rameses
    AUTHOR: Stephen Bond
    E-MAIL: stephenbond SP@G ireland.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/rameses.z5
    VERSION: Release 2

    If you'd asked me before this year's competition began to envision a
    game whose lack of interactivity was among its primary virtues, I'd have
    had trouble coming up with an example. My imagination is clearly
    lacking, however, because Stephen Bond's Rameses is just such a game,
    one that uses the player's inability to interact (in part) to tell its
    story. It's an interesting concept that's well implemented here.

    Rameses is a tale of adolescence, which, for those who remember last
    year's A Moment of Hope, isn't necessarily a good sign; making the
    trials of adolescence compelling to those of us who are no longer in
    that stage is not easy. But Rameses manages to find the balance between
    turning the trials in question into melodrama (by exaggerating them) and
    making them too trivial to be compelling. Specifically, you're a
    teenager at a boarding school, enduring your two unpleasant roommates
    and your own homesickness, or something akin to it--and the roommates
    aren't monsters, they're just obnoxious. Nor is your character a
    misunderstood saint--he's flawed in many respects. The protagonist
    manages to elicit the player's sympathy despite (or perhaps because of)
    the game's refusal to demand such sympathy.

    How? Several ways. First, much of Rameses consists of conversation (in a
    menu format)--and for long stretches of the conversation, your
    character's head is bursting with things to say (as evidenced by the
    menu), and yet he never says any of the things. There are always
    explanations, of course, some of them plausible--nasty insults are
    withdrawn with something akin to "You'd rather not start a fight right
    now"--but what emerges is a striking portrait of frustration, of a
    bottled-up character. It's not, exactly, that he's bottled up by
    circumstances, by the Awful Consequences Of His Oppressive Life; that
    would push it into melodrama, and this isn't melodramatic. It's more a
    picture of a highly inarticulate character whose fear of expressing
    himself borders on the neurotic, and drawing out that inarticulateness
    by trying a range of conversational options (from the polite to the
    highly antisocial), only to have the character reject all of them, is a
    nicely done depiction of the character. (It's not exactly
    inarticulateness--what's in your head is often quite well put--it's more
    a fear of expressing oneself, for which there's no concise term that I
    know. So I'm calling it inarticulateness.)

    There's more to the character than unwillingness to talk,
    though--there's also a healthy dollop of insecurity. A date of sorts is
    imminent, and your character is terrified and would like nothing more
    than to get out of it--he simply doesn't feel ready for that particular
    aspect of adolescence. Most of that particular hangup is captured in a
    monologue, but the date itself brings it alive as well: you're with two
    girls, and you're at a loss, for turn after turn, for anything to say to
    them. The few things you do manage to come up with only highlight the
    general futility of the exercise. If there's a better way to make an IF
    player feel frustrated and inarticulate than giving him TALK TO as a
    conversation option and consistently giving him no menu options, I can't
    imagine what it would be. In those respects, then, preventing the player
    from interacting is one of the story's greatest accomplishments.

    Equally effective for different reasons is the portrayal of the
    protagonist's relationship with a boyhood friend named Daniel, a
    relationship left behind in the trip to boarding school. The friendship
    seems to represent for the protagonist a more secure and less
    intimidating world. In particular, the protagonist appears to have been
    able to communicate with Daniel easily, naturally, and the interactions
    depicted (in the PC's memory) stand in contrast to the rest of his
    interactions, most of which amount to awkward mumbling. Naturally,
    however, one of the PC's main frustrations is that he's received a
    letter from Daniel, and he can't seem to put the words together to
    respond:

       God, I tried so often to write that letter. Practically every night I
       would stare at a page that was blank except for the words "Dear
       Daniel" at the top. I just couldn't think of anything to say. "Just
       be yourself," I kept thinking, "And write down whatever comes into
       your head." But nothing came into my head.

       A few weeks passed, and I still hadn't written a reply. And then I
       couldn't think of any excuses for my lateness. The longer it went on,
       the more ashamed I became about the delay, and the harder it was to
       write. I must have read and re- read Daniel's letter fifty times,
       looking for inspiration. I still have that letter. I still haven't
       replied.

    The writing, here and elsewhere, is unspectacular but effective--too
    elegant or too creative turns of phrase would cast the PC's professed
    inability to express himself in a strange light. One particularly well
    done passage conveys the PC's sudden mood swing:

       Quay
       Everything here is so peaceful, so beautiful - why have I never
       noticed it before? Raindrops dance on the river bay beneath my feet.
       Seagulls play in the air above me. Old fishing boats sway gently with
       the lapping of the water. And the air - I always thought the salt air
       was foul before, but now it seems so fresh, so clean, so pure!

       Quay
       The quay must be the most miserable place in the whole town,
       especially when the rain is pissing down like it is now. Beneath my
       feet, the rain-pelted river flows like sludge, which probably has
       something to do with all the raw effluent that's pumped into it. The
       smell, needless to say, is truly nauseating. A handful of rusty old
       boats lie abandoned against the quay wall, and seagulls scream
       overhead.

    The first passage might seem saccharine out of context, but it works as
    a contrast with the PC's generally gloomy outlook, and the second
    passage likewise works as a return to the status quo. The game is
    well-written enough that painful moments for the PC aren't painful to
    read, hardly a given.

    To add to the feeling of impotence, there's a scene in which two of his
    three roommates are picking on the third, and the PC (despite the
    player's urgings, of course) fails to step in, lamely explaining
    (internally) that "it's no use." Here, there's a variant on the
    nonconversational theme--your character will speak up, but only to say
    things that make things even worse (joining in the mockery of the third
    roommate, in other words)--and after the scene is over the PC addresses
    the player directly, explaining that the roommate's gratitude would have
    been too great a burden to bear. The scene brings out the ramifications
    of the PC's repressed nature--by not saying anything he hurts others as
    well as himself--and prevents the player from feeling too much sympathy
    for the PC. Nor does the player feel particularly complicit in the PC's
    cowardice, since the player can try all he or she wants to help out the
    hapless third roommate; the game trades complicity for imprisonment in
    the PC's neuroses. Whether it's a good trade is, of course, a matter of
    taste.

    Most of the action, such as it is, in Rameses is internal to the
    character, and even then very little of it actually constitutes
    action--in a sense, the player spends most of the game getting to know
    the PC, and the only significant thing that happens, as far as the PC is
    concerned, comes at the very end. Moreover, there's virtually no
    deviation possible in the course of the game; replays can provide more
    information, in the form of conversation (or non-conversation) options
    that weren't exercised before or people that weren't EXAMINEd, but not a
    tremendous amount, and the course of the story won't change at all. As
    mentioned, that usually indicates to me that the story would work better
    as static fiction--but the tension between player and PC sets up its own
    kind of interaction that makes this a surprisingly successful game.

    Rameses is certainly not to everyone's tastes; there are no puzzles, and
    the experience of playing it is more frustrating than fulfilling. But
    it's a sufficiently clever experiment that I gave it a 9 in this year's
    competition.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    Walkthrough?  No
    Genre: Slice-of-life

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        B |Submitted Vote  7|
             |Writing               B |Plot           B |
             |Puzzles              n/a|NPCs           B |
             |Technical             C+|Tilt           B-|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    Puzzleless IF seems to be gaining in popularity at least insofar as the
    comp goes; CYOA and almost entirely conversational-driven works account
    for a fairly significant percentage of this year's crop. Alternate view
    styles (from the traditional 2nd person) are also gaining in popularity,
    although perhaps not to the same degree. Games with these styles tend to
    see a fairly wide range of scores, and often some hot debate.

    This game goes a step further: the protagonist is not only presented
    with a different viewpoint (first-person) in a puzzleless environment,
    but sometimes outright refuses to do what the player tells him to. This
    ended up producing some fairly interesting and diverse commentary
    amongst other reviewers and players.

    How well did it work? Well, applying the same standards to it I apply to
    other games, it rated a solid B from me, so perhaps well. But let's move
    on to some categorical comments...

    *** Writing (B)

    The writing is solid and has a lot of character -- in some places,
    possibly a wee bit too much character. Still, as in several other
    offerings this year, the style fit perfectly the mood and environs. It
    reads, to my mind, something like those TV shows where a character
    chooses to narrate the goings-on would were they in a written format, a
    trick that works with the right characters and situations... which this
    game has.

    The opening -- perhaps not in retrospect surprising -- reminds me highly
    of Trainspotting, a movie which I admit to having enjoyed a great deal.
    I say 'perhaps not surprising' because it has a similar regional feel
    throughout; not precisely the same, but certainly reminiscent.

    Much of the description contains interesting little editorials, a
    definite plus in a game written in first-person. "Here I see a blah" is
    a temptation that would probably be easy to succumb to in such a case;
    this game does not suffer from it. Instead, we have this lovely opener:

       "With horror I realise that I'll have to spend another day in St.
       Enda's college. A familiar fact I have to face each morning - but
       four years here have not made it any easier to face. St. Enda's - how
       I have come to despise this place. A decrepit old red-brick shagpile
       which has become the focal point of this filthy little town in the
       arse-end of nowhere. The cheapest boarding school in the country,
       probably, but also surely the most pompous and inflated. A haven for
       the worst kind of social climbers, parvenus, thick, ignorant farmers'
       sons..."

    And this is not the only room in which this happens. Descriptions are
    definitely colored throughout with commentary (although not always), and
    indeed, that's just how a first-person game should be done.

    *** Plot (B)

    On the surface, this is just another school game. In reality, it's a
    meandering through the mind of someone who does not like his life, his
    surroundings, the people he deals with, and, most especially, himself.
    It is something many works are not: it's realistic. Teens are like this.
    Not all teens, sure, and certainly not always to this extreme, but it is
    likewise certainly not unheard of.

    I don't end up with much sympathy for the schmoe in the game. He is, as
    he admits himself, an asshole, and a bit of a whiner to boot. Yet, it
    feels right for him to be this way.

    There is a holy-grail aspect to the game as well: The missing friend,
    Daniel. Was everything better when our protagonist was younger? Or does
    he just think that anything would be better than now? And, of course,
    there's a girl -- wouldn't there have to be?

    The ultimate ending (or, as someone hinted at, endingS) is not much of a
    resolution, when you come right down to it, but then, isn't that true of
    everyone's life? Not everyone lives happily ever after.

    *** Puzzles (n/a)

    Although I believe there are a few choices one can make that subtly or
    otherwise alter the game, there are no puzzles to speak of; I chose,
    therefore, to not rate what did not exist.

    *** NPCs (B)

    The conversational style is juvenile, which is not surprising in a game
    about, well, juveniles. If it were adult, it would be entirely too
    Dawson's Creek for me (a show I watched precisely once). But it never
    seems to be juvenile simply for the sake of being juvenile; rather, it
    is juvenile simply because it is.

    Are the characters believable? Yes, and no. I -have- seen such
    stereotypes wandering the landscape, particularly in that stage of life,
    but they do seem to acquire the level of 'caricature' at times. But
    perhaps this is simply because they're seen through the eyes of someone
    who is inclined to emphasize faults as one more away of painting his own
    life as shitty.

    Perhaps the only reason I did not end up giving this an even higher
    rating is simply because your interaction with them is so limited in
    many ways.

    *** Technical (C+)

    I enjoy alternate conversational styles, as I mention elsewhere in my
    reviews. Aside from that, there is nothing special to speak of.

    *** Tilt (B-) and Final Thoughts

    I think this stands on its own merits as a good game -- or at least, a
    good work of IF, if not a 'game' per se -- but let me revisit the
    complaint some people had about the refusal of the protagonist to
    perform certain actions. I do not feel that this is unique. I think this
    work is just more obvious about it.

    For instance, in most games there are dozens of actions closed off to
    the player by what the designer did and did not implement. Some of these
    are simply shortcuts to saying "that won't work". Some of them are
    deliberate choices to only implement a single solution to a puzzle (and
    some are less deliberate). If an author decides to say "this action
    won't work", how is that terribly different from the -protagonist-
    saying the same thing?

    I think it is not. I submit that particularly given the premise of this
    game, it makes perfect sense for these actions to be closed off not by
    author fiat but by the protagonist's own inability. If anything, I
    conclude that this is an additional bit of stylistic brilliance.

    I will admit to having in my notes the following:

    -Hah. "I can't believe I said that. Why did you make me say that?"

    -Well, because everything else I was trying to say you turned down the
    -chance to say?

    But that was, in the end, part of the game's appeal.

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

    From: Tina Sikorski

    TITLE: Shade
    AUTHOR: Andrew Plotkin
    E-MAIL: erkyrath SP@G eblong.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/shade.z5
    VERSION: Release 2

    Walkthrough? No (hints)
    Genre: Surreal

             +------------------------------------------+
             |Overall Rating        A |Submitted Vote  9|
             |Writing               A |Plot           B+|
             |Puzzles               C+|NPCs          n/a|
             |Technical             C+|Tilt           A+|
             +------------------------+-----------------+

    *** Initial Thoughts

    Mmm. Games that aren't what they seem at first. Except that this one, I
    already had a feeling wasn't going to be what it was presented at first,
    simply from the quality.

    I have to say, with all due respect to Zarf, that I was a bit surprised
    to discover he was the author; I generally don't enjoy his games this
    much simply because his puzzles are usually beyond me. That is just not
    a problem in this game.

    It will be very difficult for me to discuss this game without revealing
    spoilers, I'm afraid; I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

    *** Writing (A)

    First-rate, and from the opening paragraphs I was nearly certain that
    the pseudonymous author was someone with prior experience. I never
    formed a solid opinion about the potential author -- I'm actually not
    very good at such things in any event -- but I was sure it would turn
    out to be someone whose name I recognized.

    Consider, if you will, this bit of description:

       "Odd, how the light just makes your apartment gloomier. Pre-dawn
       darkness pools in the corners and around the tops of walls. Your desk
       lamp glares yellow, but the shadows only draw your eyes and deepen."

    This is something well-crafted. Without getting terribly verbose, it
    reveals information, sets mood, and (though you don't yet know it) also
    firmly sets the plot in motion. Light and darkness are important in this
    game (or at least certainly in my view of the game), and they definitely
    are properly introduced in the first paragraph.

    Beyond that, I could continue to quote, but why ruin your chance to see
    the writing develop? The writing is excellent, details abound even where
    strictly speaking unnecessary, and responses to your actions are superb.

    *** Plot (B+)

    This is the thing that is so hard to discuss without giving anything
    away, because it is on the one hand so terribly simple, but on the
    other, there are some twists. Perhaps one of the most interesting parts
    is that there comes a time when you know precisely what will happen (at
    least for a while) and yet... there is still this sort of frantic "what
    happens next" reaction. It's eerie, it's creepy, it's just plain fun.

    *** Puzzles (C+)

    This would be the one area the game is a little weak in. Oh, sure, the
    puzzles are fairly straight-forward and oftentimes even sensical. There
    is an in-game hint of sorts. But... it would be fair to say that the
    puzzles pretty much exist to give you something to do while you're
    waiting for the next, er, cascade of story, and unfortunately, because
    of a few timing problems, it -feels- that way.

    *** NPCs (n/a)

    Except for possibly once, there are no NPC encounters.

    *** Technical (C+)

    The way the apartment was implemented was interesting. There wasn't much
    else in the way of neat trickage (fairly surprising in retrospect).
    There were a couple disambiguation problems, and maybe one bug (but it
    may have been on purpose) with the in-game hint provision, but overall
    it was fairly bug-free.

    *** Tilt (A+) and Final Thoughts

    I cannot, without revealing entirely too much about this game, explain
    to you just what it was that had me raving about this game for two days
    afterwards, including randomly piping up with a particular rant that
    would, again, spoil things. Let me just assure you that this is the
    case: for two days, I was so haunted by this game that it was constantly
    in my head, teasing me... waiting for me in the darkness. In the
    shadows.

    In the Shade.

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

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: Transfer
    AUTHOR: Tod Levi
    E-MAIL: jessical SP@G ix.netcom.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition2000/inform/transfer/transfer.z5
    VERSION: Release 9

    Tod Levi's Transfer is straight-up science fiction with few real
    surprises--the setting (research lab) and plot (experiment goes awry)
    are well-used, and the execution incorporates most of conventional
    science fiction's strong points and drawbacks. Still, it's entertaining
    enough, and there are a few creative twists among all the familiarity.

    You and the rest of your research team are trying to perfect transfer of
    consciousness between entities, including across species--but the head
    of the team seems to be dying. Mayhem ensues when the transferring
    technology gets used and it appears that someone on the premises,
    naturally, is up to no good. Most of the mayhem, actually, is your
    doing--the other characters in Transfer are largely bumps on logs. Not
    only is there minimal interaction with them, but they don't appear to
    notice much of the havoc you wreak; evading their notice could have been
    a puzzle in itself in several cases, but the game doesn't take that
    opportunity. (Which makes the one instance when you're told not to
    wander around in plain sight a little confusing--it's not necessarily
    apparent why the characters who were blind and deaf a moment before
    would be so alert now.) Worse still, the few things that they know about
    don't appear to change much, if at all, over the course of the
    game--they don't comment on the latest development, no matter how
    bizarre or noteworthy, or even take notice of something fairly obvious
    that' s going on right at that moment. To be sure, the characters are
    important in the plot, and the plot is quite complex--but interacting
    with them is rarely rewarding.

    The main strength of Transfer is the gadget itself, and the variety of
    ways you put it to use; the game could plausibly be considered an
    extended riff on the central idea of identity-switching, in that the
    idea gets used in unexpected (and occasionally hilarious) ways. The
    element of the story that revolves around the machine is sufficiently
    convoluted that one question in the hints late in the game is,
    essentially, "Huh?"--but the story is sufficiently well crafted that the
    complexity doesn't feel gratuitous. In this respect, Transfer is classic
    science fiction: the gadgetry is intricate and fun to play with and it
    leads the story in all sorts of unexpected places, often steamrolling
    right over the characters, who end up (naturally) pretty flat. The
    presumption, in other words, is that the player is more interested in
    playing with the gadget than in plausible character interactions.

    The puzzles are entertaining, if sometimes difficult--at various points,
    the game leaves you wandering around the research complex with no clear
    cues as to what you're supposed to be trying to do next. The most
    egregious such example involves one point when you're apparently
    supposed to intuit that because two separate documents mentioned the
    same date, you're supposed to find out more about that date, thereby to
    advance the plot. Fortunately, there's a comprehensive hint system that
    helps bridge the gaps, and on the whole the puzzles make sense once the
    necessary inferences are supplied. (Meaning that the inferences aren't
    illogical, they're just obscure.) Also, the game doesn't become
    unwinnable without warning, according to the author' s notes, and as far
    as I can tell it never becomes unwinnable at all (aside from death,
    which doesn't happen all that often)--there are virtually no meaningful
    time limits, and no resources that you can waste. At times this strains
    realism, of course--even when you're somewhere that you shouldn't be,
    you don't need to rush to get your business done because no one's going
    to interrupt you--and it takes the edge off any tension that might have
    been produced. But for fairness and ease of play, it certainly works.

    The writing, for its part, is competent, though it tends toward the
    laconic: not only are there no exclamation points, but the game never,
    as far as I remember, imputes any sort of emotion to you, even when the
    emotion (e.g., fear when you're apparently about to die) seems pretty
    obvious. The emphasis is more on conveying what's going on than dazzling
    you with picturesque or evocative settings, though, and from that
    perspective, things work fine, writing-wise--there are no errors that I
    noticed, and the relevant information is always there. Likewise, the
    technical aspect is strong: the various transfers are handled well, and
    your interactions with the world in your various incarnations all made
    sense, as far as I remember. The only real game design problem I
    encountered was that something could be done in one move that I assumed
    would take two, meaning that a puzzle solution was a total surprise to
    me when I gave up and looked at the hints. That's a product of my
    expectations more than a design flaw, though, and it certainly wasn't a
    glaring weakness.

    Transfer isn't particularly revolutionary, but it's one of the better
    examples of its genre (a very crowded genre)--it brings more creativity
    to the table than many of its fellows. While unabashed puzzlefests
    usually aren't my thing, I enjoyed this one enough to give it a 9.

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

    From: Suzanne Britton
    [originally posted to Usenet on rec.games.int-fiction]

    TITLE: YAGWAD (Yes, Another Game With A Dragon)
    AUTHOR: "Digby McWiggle" aka John Kean
    E-MAIL: digby_mcwiggle SP@G hotmail.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/yagwad.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    An utterly conventional and thoroughly delightful adventure game. I was
    in a lousy mood when I started playing--I left the computer with a big
    smile on my face. That is the highest praise I can give.

    Let's back up. YAGWAD is, as advertised, a game about a dragon. You're
    an unlikely hero hoping to rescue the princess from the nefarious beast
    and win the king's favor. So why did I love it, when so many games of
    this sort merit only a yawn and a shrug?

    There are quite a few reasons. First and foremost, YAGWAD is the
    funniest game I've played this year. From the rousing prologue (and
    responses to "score" and "fullscore" therein), to the delightful ascii
    art animation in the title, to the encyclopedia salesman (insert Monty
    Python clip), to the friendly teeth, the troll, the answering machine,
    the monks....well, I could go on all day. Suffice to say, YAGWAD kept me
    grinning ear to ear from beginning to end. The humor is dead on,
    comparable to Steve Meretzky's and often better.

    Programming is very solid. I ran into a few relatively harmless bugs,
    and that's it (notable: I can read the diary without picking it up). The
    writing is not the lush, purple prose of much story-based IF (don't get
    me wrong--I like well-done purple prose!), but it is comfortable to
    read, grammatical, and often funny. The room descriptions, in
    particular, have an economy of expression reminiscent of Infocom. Few of
    them span more than five lines, yet they lay out scenery and evoke a
    mood with ease:

       The forest stops short of this slope of mountainside, where a
       crumbling monastery stands with forlorn dignity overlooking the
       tangled remnants of an overgrown garden. A cracked stone walk winds
       from the forest opening north, through lank beds of herbs and
       wildflowers, and up to the wide stairs and darkened doorway leading
       west.

    The plot ties together neatly. In fact, figuring out exactly what
    happened years ago to leave things in their current state is part of the
    fun. It's impossible to put the game in an unwinnable state (a feat
    which clearly required some extra programming), and there are no sudden
    deaths. Puzzles are relatively simple, but fun to solve, and a few of
    them are clever enough to yield that nifty "aha!" feeling when you think
    of the answer. I especially liked the hilt-password puzzle, and when I
    realized the solution to the final puzzle, I laughed aloud. It was just
    perfect.

    Bottom line: YAGWAD is a polished gem. It was written by an author who
    clearly knew what he was doing and took the time to do it right.

    "Digby McWiggle": Thank you for reminding this world-weary judge why she
    fell in love with IF in the first place.

    Rating: 10

    READERS' SCOREBOARD -------------------------------------------------------

    The Readers' Scoreboard is an ongoing feature of SPAG. It charts the
    scores that SPAG readers and reviewers have given to various IF games
    since SPAG started up. The codes in the Notes column give information as
    to a game's availability and the platforms on which it runs. For a
    translation of these codes and for more detailed information on the
    scoreboard's format, see the SPAG FAQ. This FAQ is available at the
    ftp.gmd.de IF-archive or on the SPAG web page at
    http://www.sparkynet.com/spag.

    Name                   Avg Sc     Chr     Puz # Sc  Issue Notes:
    ====                   ======     ===     === ====  ===== ======
    9:05                      6.2     0.5     0.5    6     20 F_INF_GMD
    Aayela                    7.4     1.2     1.5    5     10 F_TAD_GMD
    Abbey                     6.8     0.6     1.4    1        S10_I_GMD
    Above and Beyond          7.3     1.5     1.6    5        F_TAD_GMD
    Acid Whiplash             5.3     0.6     0.2    3     17 F_INF_GMD
    Acorn Court               6.1     0.5     1.5    2     12 F_INF_GMD
    Adv. of Elizabeth Hig     3.1     0.5     0.3    2      5 F_AGT_GMD
    Adventure (all varian     6.2     0.5     1.1   12   8,22 F_INF_TAD_ETC_GMD
    Adventureland             4.5     0.5     1.1    5        F_INF_GMD
    Adventures of Helpful     7.0     1.3     0.9    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Afternoon Visit           4.1     1.0     0.8    1        F_AGT
    Aisle                     6.6     1.4     0.2    7     18 F_INF_GMD
    Alien Abduction?          7.5     1.3     1.4    5     10 F_TAD_GMD
    All Quiet...Library       5.0     0.9     0.9    6      7 F_INF_GMD
    Amnesia                   6.9     1.5     1.3    4      9 C_AP_I_64
    Anchorhead                8.7     1.7     1.5   23     18 F_INF_GMD
    Another...No Beer         2.4     0.2     0.8    2      4 S10_I_GMD
    Arrival                   7.9     1.3     1.4    5     17 F_TAD_GMD
    Arthur: Excalibur         8.0     1.3     1.6    44,14,22 C_INF
    Augmented Fourth          7.7     1.5     1.5    4     22 F_INF_GMD
    Aunt Nancy's House        1.3     0.1     0.0    2        F_INF_GMD
    Awakened                  7.7     1.7     1.6    1
    Awakening                 5.6     0.9     1.1    2  15,18 F_INF_GMD
    Awe-Chasm                 3.0     0.7     0.7    2      8 S_I_ST_GMD
    Babel                     8.4     1.7     1.3    9     13 F_INF_GMD
    Balances                  6.6     0.7     1.2    8      6 F_INF_GMD
    Ballyhoo                  7.3     1.5     1.5    6      4 C_INF
    Bear's Night Out          7.3     1.2     1.4    6     13 F_INF_GMD
    Beat The Devil            5.5     1.2     1.1    4     19 F_INF_GMD
    Beyond the Tesseract      3.7     0.1     0.6    1      6 F_I_GMD
    Beyond Zork               8.0     1.5     1.8    9  5, 14 C_INF
    BJ Drifter                7.0     1.2     1.2    4     15 F_INF_GMD
    Bliss                     6.3     1.1     0.8    4     20 F_TAD_GMD
    Bloodline                 7.7     1.4     1.1    2     15 F_INF_GMD
    Border Zone               7.2     1.4     1.4    7      4 C_INF
    Break-In                  6.1     1.1     1.4    3     21 F_INF_GMD
    Broken String             3.9     0.7     0.4    4        F_TADS_GMD
    BSE                       5.7     0.9     1.0    3        F_INF_GMD
    Bureaucracy               6.9     1.5     1.3   11      5 C_INF
    Busted                    5.2     1.0     1.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Calliope                  4.7     0.9     0.8    3        F_INF_GMD
    Cask                      1.5     0.0     0.5    2        F_INF_GMD
    Castaway                  1.1     0.0     0.4    1      5 F_I_GMD
    Castle Elsinore           4.3     0.7     1.0    2        I_GMD
    CC                        4.2     0.4     1.0    1        F_ALAN_GMD
    Change in the Weather     7.6     1.0     1.4   11 7,8,14 F_INF_GMD
    Chaos                     5.6     1.3     1.1    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Chicken under Window      6.9     0.6     0.0    3        F_INF_GMD
    Chicks Dig Jerks          5.2     1.1     0.7    9     19 F_INF_GMD
    Chico and I Ran           7.2     1.7     1.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Christminster             8.2     1.6     1.6   16     20 F_INF_GMD
    City                      6.1     0.6     1.3    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Coke Is It!               6.2     1.0     1.0    2        F_INF_GMD
    Coming Home               0.6     0.1     0.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Common Ground             7.2     1.6     0.4    2     20 F_TAD_GMD
    Commute                   1.3     0.2     0.1    1        F_I_GMD
    Congratulations!          2.6     0.7     0.3    1        F_INF_GMD
    Corruption                7.2     1.6     1.0    4 14, 21 C_MAG
    Cosmoserve                7.8     1.4     1.4    5      5 F_AGT_GMD
    Cove                      7.4     1.1     0.8    2     22 F_INF_GMD
    Crypt v2.0                5.0     1.0     1.5    1      3 S12_IBM_GMD
    Curses                    8.0     1.2     1.7   19  2, 22 F_INF_GMD
    Cutthroats                5.7     1.3     1.1    9      1 C_INF
    Dampcamp                  5.0     0.8     1.1    3        F_TAD_GMD
    Danger! Adventurer...     3.2     0.3     0.7    1        F_INF_GMD
    Dangerous Curves          8.6     1.5     1.6    1        F_INF_GMD
    Day For Soft Food         6.8     1.0     1.3    5     19 F_INF_GMD
    Deadline                  6.8     1.3     1.3    8     20 C_INF
    Death To My Enemies       4.4     0.9     0.7    4        F_INF_GMD
    Deep Space Drifter        5.6     0.4     1.1    3      3 S15_TAD_GMD
    Deephome                  4.0     0.5     0.9    2     21 F_INF_GMD
    Delusions                 7.9     1.5     1.5    5      14F_INF_GMD
    Demon's Tomb              7.4     1.2     1.1    2      9 C_I
    Detective                 1.0     0.0     0.0    9 4,5,18 F_AGT_INF_GMD
    Detective-MST3K           5.8     1.1     0.1    9 7,8,18 F_INF_GMD
    Ditch Day Drifter         6.7     0.9     1.7    4      2 F_TAD_GMD
    Down                      6.0     1.0     1.2    1     14 F_HUG_GMD
    Downtown Tokyo            5.7     0.8     0.9    5     17 F_INF_GMD
    Dungeon                   7.1     1.0     1.7    2        F_GMD
    Dungeon Adventure         6.8     1.3     1.6    1      4 F_ETC
    Dungeon of Dunjin         6.0     0.7     1.5    5  3, 14 S20_IBM_MAC_GMD
    Edifice                   8.2     1.5     1.8    8     13 F_INF_GMD
    Electrabot                0.7     0.0     0.0    1      5 F_AGT_GMD
    E-Mailbox                 3.1     0.1     0.2    2        F_AGT_GMD
    Emy Discovers Life        5.0     1.1     0.8    3        F_AGT
    Enchanter                 7.3     1.0     1.4    9   2,15 C_INF
    Enhanced                  5.0     1.0     1.3    2      2 S10_TAD_GMD
    Enlightenment             7.1     1.3     1.6    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Erehwon                   6.2     1.2     1.5    4     19 F_TAD_GMD
    Eric the Unready          7.8     1.5     1.6    4        C_I
    Everybody Loves a Par     7.0     1.2     1.2    3     12 F_TAD_GMD
    Exhibition                6.2     1.4     0.3    6     19 F_TAD_GMD
    Fable                     2.0     0.1     0.1    3      6 F_AGT_GMD
    Fable-MST3K               4.1     0.7     0.1    2        F_AGT_INF_GMD
    Fear                      6.3     1.2     1.3    3     10 F_INF_GMD
    Fifteen                   1.5     0.5     0.4    1     17 F_INF_GMD
    Firebird                  7.1     1.5     1.3    4     15 F_TAD_GMD
    Fish                      7.5     1.3     1.7    4 12, 14 C_MAG
    Foggywood Hijinx          6.2     1.2     1.3    3     21 F_TAD_GMD
    Foom                      6.6     1.0     1.0    1        F_TAD_GMD
    For A Change              8.0     0.9     1.3    6 19, 22 F_INF_GMD
    Forbidden Castle          4.8     0.6     0.5    1        C_AP
    Four In One               4.4     1.2     0.5    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Four Seconds              6.0     1.2     1.1    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Frenetic Five             5.3     1.4     0.5    3     13 F_TAD_GMD
    Frenetic Five 2           6.6     1.5     1.0    3 21, 22 F_TAD_GMD
    Friday Afternoon          6.3     1.4     1.2    1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Frobozz Magic Support     7.2     1.2     1.5    3        F_TAD_GMD
    Frozen                    5.5     0.7     1.3    1        F_INF_GMD
    Frustration               5.7     1.1     0.9    1     21 F_TAD_GMD
    Galatea                   7.8     1.9     0.7    3     22 F_INF_GMD
    Gateway                   8.6     1.4     1.8    6     11 C_I
    Gateway 2: Homeworld      9.0     1.8     1.9    5        C_I
    Gerbil Riot of '67        6.3     0.7     1.1    1        F_TAD_GMD
    Glowgrass                 6.9     1.4     1.4    4     13 F_INF_GMD
    Gnome Ranger              5.8     1.2     1.6    1        C_I
    Golden Fleece             6.0     1.0     1.1    1     21 F_TAD_GMD
    Golden Wombat of Dest     6.3     0.7     1.1    1     18 F_I_GMD
    Good Breakfast            4.9     0.9     1.2    2     14 F_INF_GMD
    Great Archeolog. Race     6.5     1.0     1.5    1      3 S20_TAD_GMD
    Guardians of Infinity     8.5             1.3    1      9 C_I
    Guild of Thieves          6.9     1.2     1.5    4     14 C_MAG
    Guilty Bastards           6.9     1.4     1.2    5     22 F_HUG_GMD
    Guitar...Immortal Bar     3.0     0.0     0.0    1        F_INF_GMD
    Gumshoe                   6.2     1.0     1.1    7      9 F_INF_GMD
    Halothane                 6.6     1.3     1.2    4     19 F_INF_GMD
    HeBGB Horror              5.7     0.9     1.1    2        F_ALAN_GMD
    Heist                     6.7     1.4     1.5    2        F_INF_GMD
    Hero, Inc.                6.8     1.0     1.5    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Hitchhiker's Guide        7.4     1.4     1.5   14      5 C_INF
    Hollywood Hijinx          6.5     0.9     1.6   11        C_INF
    Holy Grail                6.2     0.9     1.2    1     21 F_TAD_GMD
    Horror of Rylvania        7.2     1.4     1.4    5      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Horror30.zip              3.7     0.3     0.7    2      3 S20_I_GMD
    Human Resources Stori     0.9     0.0     0.1    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Humbug                    7.4     1.6     1.3    4     11 F_I_GMD
    Hunter, In Darkness       7.6     0.9     1.5    5     19 F_INF_GMD
    I didn't know...yodel     4.0     0.7     1.0    5     17 F_I_GMD
    I-0: Jailbait on Inte     7.7     1.5     1.2   17     20 F_INF_GMD
    Ice Princess              7.5     1.4     1.6    2        A_INF_GMD
    In The End                4.9     0.6     0.0    2     10 F_INF_GMD
    In The Spotlight          3.2     0.2     1.0    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Infidel                   6.9     0.3     1.4   14      1 C_INF
    Informatory               5.5     0.5     1.3    1     17 F_INF_GMD
    Ingrid's Back             7.0     1.6     1.6    2        C_I
    Inheritance               5.0     0.3     1.0    3     20 F_TAD_GMD
    Inhumane                  4.4     0.4     1.0    3  9, 20 F_INF_GMD
    Intruder                  6.7     1.3     1.1    4     20 F_INF_GMD
    Jacaranda Jim             7.5     1.0     0.9    3        F_GMD
    Jacks...Aces To Win       7.1     1.3     1.2    3     19 F_INF_GMD
    Jewel of Knowledge        6.3     1.2     1.1    3     18 F_INF_GMD
    Jeweled Arena             7.0     1.4     1.3    2        AGT_GMD
    Jigsaw                    8.1     1.5     1.6   17    8,9 F_INF_GMD
    Jinxter                   6.1     0.9     1.3    3        C_MAG
    John's Fire Witch         6.5     1.0     1.5    9  4, 12 S6_TADS_GMD
    Jouney Into Xanth         5.0     1.3     1.2    1      8 F_AGT_GMD
    Journey                   7.2     1.5     1.3    5      5 C_INF
    King Arthur's Night O     5.9     0.9     1.0    4     19 F_ALAN_GMD
    Kissing the Buddha's      8.0     1.8     1.4    5     10 F_TAD_GMD
    Klaustrophobia            6.4     1.1     1.3    6      1 S15_AGT_GMD
    Knight Orc                7.2     1.4     1.1    2     15 C_I
    L.U.D.I.T.E.              2.7     0.2     0.1    4        F_INF_GMD
    Lancelot                  6.9     1.4     1.2    1        C_I
    Land Beyond Picket Fe     4.8     1.2     1.2    1     10 F_I_GMD
    LASH                      8.5     1.4     1.0    2     21 F_INF_GMD
    Leather Goddesses         7.1     1.3     1.5   11      4 C_INF
    Leaves                    3.4     0.2     0.8    1     14 F_ALAN_GMD
    Legend Lives!             8.2     1.2     1.4    4      5 F_TAD_GMD
    Lesson of the Tortois     7.1     1.4     1.4    4     14 F_TAD_GMD
    Lethe Flow Phoenix        6.9     1.4     1.5    5      9 F_TAD_GMD
    Life on Beal Street       4.7     1.2     0.0    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Light: Shelby's Adden     7.5     1.5     1.3    6      9 S_TAD_GMD
    Lightiania                1.9     0.2     0.4    1        F_INF_GMD
    Lists and Lists           6.3     1.3     1.1    3     10 F_INF_GMD
    Little Blue Men           8.2     1.4     1.5   10     17 F_INF_GMD
    Lomalow                   4.6     1.0     0.6    3     19 F_INF_GMD
    Losing Your Grip          8.5     1.4     1.4    6      14S20_TAD_GMD
    Lost New York             7.9     1.4     1.4    4     20 S12_TAD_GMD
    Lost Spellmaker           6.1     1.3     1.1    4     13 F_INF_GMD
    Lunatix: Insanity Cir     5.6     1.2     1.0    3        F_I_GMD
    Lurking Horror            7.2     1.3     1.3   15    1,3 C_INF
    MacWesleyan / PC Univ     5.1     0.7     1.2    3        F_TAD_GMD
    Madame L'Estrange...      5.1     1.2     0.7    1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Magic Toyshop             5.2     1.1     1.1    5      7 F_INF_GMD
    Magic.zip                 4.5     0.5     0.5    1      3 S20_IBM_GMD
    Maiden of the Moonlig     6.4     1.3     1.5    2     10 F_TAD_GMD
    Matter of Time            1.4     0.3     1.4    1      14F_ALAN_GMD
    Mercy                     7.3     1.4     1.2    6     12 F_INF_GMD
    Meteor...Sherbet          7.8     1.4     1.5    7 10, 12 F_INF_GMD
    Mind Electric             5.2     0.6     0.9    4    7,8 F_INF_GMD
    Mind Forever Voyaging     8.2     1.3     0.9   12   5,15 C_INF
    Mindwheel                 8.5     1.6     1.5    1        C_I
    Mission                   6.0     1.2     1.4    1     21 F_TAD_GMD
    Moist                     6.8     1.4     1.2    4        F_TAD_GMD
    Moment of Hope            5.0     1.3     0.3    3     19 F_TAD_GMD
    Moonmist                  5.9     1.2     1.0   14      1 C_INF
    Mop & Murder              5.0     0.9     1.0    2      5 F_AGT_GMD
    Mother Loose              7.0     1.5     1.3    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Mulldoon Legacy           7.4     1.2     1.8    1        F_INF_GMD
    Multidimen. Thief         5.6     0.5     1.3    6    2,9 S15_AGT_GMD
    Muse                      7.9     1.5     1.2    4     17 F_INF_GMD
    Music Education           3.7     1.0     0.7    3        F_INF_GMD
    Myopia                    6.1     1.3     0.6    2        F_AGT_GMD
    Mystery House             4.1     0.3     0.7    1        F_AP_GMD
    New Day                   6.6     1.4     1.1    4     13 F_INF_GMD
    Night At Computer Cen     5.2     1.0     1.0    2        F_INF_GMD
    Night at Museum Forev     4.2     0.3     1.0    4    7,8 F_TAD_GMD
    Night of... Bunnies       6.6     1.0     1.4    1        I_INF_GMD
    Nord and Bert             5.9     0.6     1.1    8      4 C_INF
    Not Just A Game           6.9     1.0     1.3    1     20 F_INF_GMD
    Not Just... Ballerina     5.3     0.8     0.9    3     20 F_INF_GMD
    Obscene...Aardvarkbar     3.2     0.6     0.6    1        F_TAD_GMD
    Odieus...Flingshot        3.3     0.4     0.7    2      5 F_INF_GMD
    Of Forms Unknown          4.5     0.7     0.5    1     10 F_INF_GMD
    Offensive Probing         4.2     0.6     0.9    1        F_INF_GMD
    On The Farm               6.5     1.6     1.2    2     19 F_TAD_GMD
    Once and Future           6.9     1.6     1.5    2     16 C30_TAD_CMP
    One That Got Away         6.4     1.4     1.1    7    7,8 F_TAD_GMD
    Only After Dark           4.6     0.8     0.6    4        F_INF_GMD
    Oo-Topos                  5.7     0.2     1.0    1      9 C_AP_I_64
    Outsided                  2.5     0.7     0.2    2        F_INF_GMD
    Pass the Banana           2.9     0.8     0.5    3     19 F_INF_GMD
    Path to Fortune           6.6     1.5     0.9    3      9 S_INF_GMD
    Pawn                      6.3     1.1     1.3    2     12 C_MAG
    Perilous Magic            4.9     0.9     1.1    1     21 F_INF_GMD
    Perseus & Andromeda       3.4     0.3     1.0    1        64_INF_GMD
    Persistence of Memory     6.2     1.2     1.1    1     17 F_HUG_GMD
    Phlegm                    5.2     1.2     1.0    2     10 F_INF_GMD
    Photopia                  7.6     1.5     0.7   20     17 F_INF_GMD
    Phred Phontious...Piz     5.2     0.9     1.3    2     13 F_INF_GMD
    Piece of Mind             6.3     1.3     1.4    1     10 F_INF_GMD
    Pintown                   1.3     0.3     0.2    1        F_INF_GMD
    Pirate's Cove             4.8     0.6     0.6    1        F_INF_GMD
    Planetfall                7.3     1.6     1.4   13      4 C_INF
    Plant                     7.3     1.2     1.5    4     17 F_TAD_GMD
    Plundered Hearts          7.0     1.4     1.2    9      4 C_INF
    Poor Zefron's Almanac     5.6     1.0     1.3    3     13 F_TAD_GMD
    Portal                    8.0     1.7     0.2    3        C_I_A_AP_64
    Purple                    5.6     0.9     1.0    1     17 F_INF_GMD
    Pyramids of Mars          5.8     1.2     1.1    2        AGT_GMD
    Quarterstaff              6.1     1.3     0.6    1      9 C_M
    Ralph                     7.1     1.6     1.2    3     10 F_INF_GMD
    Rematch                   7.9     1.5     1.6    1     22 F_TAD_GMD
    Remembrance               2.7     0.8     0.2    3        F_GMD
    Reruns                    5.2     1.2     1.2    1        AGT_GMD
    Research Dig              4.8     1.1     0.8    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Reverberations            5.6     1.3     1.1    1     10 F_INF_GMD
    Ritual of Purificatio     7.0     1.6     1.1    4     17 F_GMD
    Sanity Claus              7.5     0.3     0.6    2      1 S10_AGT_GMD
    Save Princeton            5.6     1.0     1.3    5      8 S10_TAD_GMD
    Scapeghost                8.1     1.7     1.5    1      6 C_I
    Sea Of Night              5.7     1.3     1.1    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Seastalker                5.1     1.1     0.8   10      4 C_INF
    Shades of Grey            7.8     1.3     1.3    6   2, 8 F_AGT_GMD
    Sherlock                  7.0     1.3     1.4    5      4 C_INF
    She's Got a Thing...S     7.0     1.7     1.6    3     13 F_INF_GMD
    Shogun                    7.0     1.2     0.6    2      4 C_INF
    Shrapnel                  6.8     1.3     0.5    5     20 F_INF_GMD
    Simple Theft              5.8     1.3     0.8    1     20 F_TAD_GMD
    Sins against Mimesis      5.5     1.0     1.2    3     13 F_INF_GMD
    Sir Ramic... Gorilla      6.0     1.2     1.2    2      6 F_AGT_GMD
    Six Stories               6.3     1.0     1.2    4     19 F_TAD_GMD
    Skyranch                  2.8     0.5     0.7    1     20 F_I_GMD
    Small World               6.2     1.3     1.1    3     10 F_TAD_GMD
    So Far                    8.0     1.2     1.5   11     12 F_INF_GMD
    Sorcerer                  7.2     0.6     1.6    7   2,15 C_INF
    Sound of... Clapping      7.0     1.2     1.3    7      5 F_ADVSYS_GMD
    South American Trek       0.9     0.2     0.5    1      5 F_IBM_GMD
    Space Aliens...Cardig     1.5     0.4     0.3    6   3, 4 S60_AGT_GMD
    Space under Window        7.2     0.8     0.4    5     12 F_INF_GMD
    Spacestation              5.6     0.7     1.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Spellbreaker              8.5     1.2     1.8    8   2,15 C_INF
    Spellcasting 101          6.7     1.0     1.3    2        C_I
    Spellcasting 201          7.8     1.6     1.7    2        C_I
    Spellcasting 301          6.0     1.2     1.2    2        C_I
    Spider and Web            8.4     1.6     1.7   15      14F_INF_GMD
    SpiritWrak                6.7     1.2     1.3    6     22 F_INF_GMD
    Spodgeville...Wossnam     4.3     0.7     1.2    2        F_INF_GMD
    Spur                      7.1     1.3     1.1    2      9 F_HUG_GMD
    Spyder and Jeb            6.2     1.1     1.4    1        F_TAD_GMD
    Starcross                 6.6     1.0     1.2    7      1 C_INF
    Stargazer                 5.4     1.1     1.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Stationfall               7.7     1.6     1.5    7      5 C_INF
    Statuette                 3.7     0.0     0.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Stiffy                    0.6     0.0     0.0    1        F_INF_GMD
    Stiffy - MiSTing          4.7     1.1     0.4    5        F_INF_GMD
    Stone Cell                6.0     1.1     1.0    3     19 F_TAD_GMD
    Strangers In The Nigh     3.2     0.7     0.6    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Sunset Over Savannah      8.7     1.7     1.4    6     13 F_TAD_GMD
    Suspect                   6.0     1.2     1.1    7      4 C_INF
    Suspended                 7.5     1.5     1.4    7      8 C_INF
    Sylenius Mysterium        4.7     1.2     1.1    1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Symetry                   1.1     0.1     0.1    2        F_INF_GMD
    Tapestry                  7.1     1.4     0.9    5 10, 14 F_INF_GMD
    Tempest                   5.3     1.4     0.6    3     13 F_INF_GMD
    Temple of the Orc Mag     4.5     0.1     0.8    2        F_TAD_GMD
    Theatre                   6.9     1.1     1.4   12      6 F_INF_GMD
    Thorfinn's Realm          3.5     0.5     0.7    2        F_INF_GMD
    Time: All Things...       3.9     1.2     0.9    2 11, 12 F_INF_GMD
    TimeQuest                 8.0     1.2     1.6    4        C_I
    TimeSquared               4.3     1.1     1.1    1        F_AGT_GMD
    Toonesia                  5.8     1.1     1.1    6  7, 21 F_TAD_GMD
    Tossed into Space         3.9     0.2     0.6    1      4 F_AGT_GMD
    Town Dragon               3.9     0.8     0.3    2 14, 22 F_INF_GMD
    Trapped...Dilly           5.1     0.1     1.1    2     17 F_INF_GMD
    Travels in Land of Er     6.1     1.2     1.5    2     14 F_INF_GMD
    Trinity                   8.7     1.4     1.7   16    1,2 C_INF
    Tryst of Fate             7.1     1.4     1.3    1     11 F_INF_GMD
    Tube Trouble              4.2     0.8     0.7    2      8 F_INF_GMD
    Tyler's Great Cube Ga     5.8     0.0     1.7    1        S_TAD_GMD
    Uncle Zebulon's Will      7.3     1.0     1.5   12      8 F_TAD_GMD
    Underoos That Ate NY      4.5     0.6     0.8    2        F_TAD_INF_GMD
    Undertow                  5.4     1.3     0.9    3      8 F_TAD_GMD
    Undo                      2.9     0.5     0.7    4      7 F_TAD_GMD
    Unholy Grail              6.0     1.2     1.2    1     13 F_I_GMD
    Unnkulian One-Half        6.7     1.2     1.5    9      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian Unventure 1     6.9     1.2     1.5    8    1,2 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian Unventure 2     7.2     1.2     1.5    5      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian Zero            8.4     0.7     0.8    21,12,14 F_TAD_GMD
    Varicella                 8.2     1.6     1.5    9     18 F_INF_GMD
    Veritas                   6.6     1.3     1.4    4        S10_TAD_GMD
    Vindaloo                  2.9     0.0     0.4    1        F_INF_GMD
    VirtuaTech                6.1     0.0     1.2    1        F_INF_GMD
    Water Bird                5.0     1.1     0.8    1        F_TAD_GMD
    Waystation                5.5     0.7     1.0    4      9 F_TAD_GMD
    Wearing the Claw          6.6     1.2     1.2    5 10, 18 F_INF_GMD
    Wedding                   7.4     1.6     1.3    3     12 F_INF_GMD
    Where Evil Dwells         5.1     0.8     1.1    1        F_INF_GMD
    Winchester's Nightmar     6.9     1.5     0.5    1     22 F_INF_GMD
    Winter Wonderland         7.6     1.3     1.2    7     19 F_INF_GMD
    Wishbringer               7.4     1.3     1.3   13    5,6 C_INF
    Witness                   6.5     1.5     1.1    9  1,3,9 C_INF
    Wonderland                5.4     1.3     0.9    2        C_MAG
    World                     6.5     0.6     1.3    2      4 F_I_ETC_GMD
    Worlds Apart              7.6     1.7     1.4    8     21 F_TAD_GMD
    Your Choice               5.5     0.0     1.1    1        F_TAD_GMD
    Zanfar                    2.6     0.2     0.4    1      8 F_AGT_GMD
    Zero Sum Game             7.2     1.5     1.5    3     13 F_INF_GMD
    Zombie!                   5.2     1.2     1.1    2     13 F_TAD_GMD
    Zork 0                    6.3     1.0     1.5   10      14C_INF
    Zork 1                    6.1     0.8     1.4   21  1, 12 C_INF
    Zork 2                    6.5     1.0     1.5   12  1, 12 C_INF
    Zork 3                    6.5     0.9     1.4    8  1, 12 C_INF
    Zork Undisc. Undergr.     6.0     0.9     1.1    2      14F_INF_GMD
    Zork: A Troll's Eye V     4.4     0.6     0.1    3     14 F_INF_GMD
    Zuni Doll                 4.0     0.6     0.9    2     14 F_INF_GMD

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

    The Top Ten:

    A game is not eligible for the Top Ten unless it has received at least
    three ratings from different readers. This is to ensure a more
    democratic and accurate depiction of the best games.

    We've had a paltry 33 contributions to the SPAG scoreboard since the
    last issue. I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt -- maybe
    all of you were dedicating your time to the competition. Well the
    competition's over now, folks. Submit those scores! I encourage any and
    all SPAG readers to learn the scoring system from the FAQ and then
    submit scores for any piece of IF they play. The more contributions
    there are, the more useful the scoreboard is for everybody. This time
    around, as you might expect, the top ten list has remained almost
    unchanged from last issue. The only small differences are a narrowing of
    the gap between first and second place, and Babel's drop from 5th place
    to 9th.

    1.  Gateway 2: Homeworld  9.0   5 votes
    2.  Sunset over Savannah  8.7   6 votes
    3.  Trinity               8.7   16 votes
    4.  Anchorhead            8.7   23 votes
    5.  Gateway               8.6   6 votes
    6.  Losing Your Grip      8.5   6 votes
    7.  Spellbreaker          8.5   8 votes
    8.  Spider and Web        8.4   15 votes
    9.  Babel                 8.7   9 votes
    10. Christminster         8.2   16 votes

    As always, please remember that the scoreboard is only as good as the
    contributions it receives. To make your mark on this vast morass of
    statistics, rate some games on our website
    (http://www.sparkynet.com/spag). You can also, if you like, send ratings
    directly to me at obrian SP@G colorado.edu. Instructions for how the rating
    system works are in the SPAG FAQ, available from GMD and our website.
    Please read the FAQ before submitting scores, so that you understand how
    the scoring system works. After that, submit away!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     ___. .___    _    ___.     ___.
    /  _| |   \  / \  / ._|    /  _|
    \  \  | o_/ |   | | |_.    \  \
    .\  \ | |   | o | | | |    .\  \
    |___/ |_|   |_|_| \___|    |___/ PECIFICS

    SPAG Specifics is a small section of SPAG dedicated to providing in-
    depth critical analysis of IF games, spoilers most emphatically
    included.

    WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE FOLLOWING GAME:

    Shade

    PROCEED NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU HAVE PLAYED THIS GAME!

    THIS IS NOT A TEST! GENUINE SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!

    LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SPOILAGE!

    From: Duncan Stevens

    TITLE: Shade
    AUTHOR: Andrew Plotkin
    E-MAIL: erkyrath SP@G eblong.com
    DATE: 2000
    PARSER: Inform standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/shade.z5
    VERSION: Release 3

    Andrew Plotkin's Shade is a thoroughly creepy game, as you no doubt
    already know if you're reading this, but it's also an unusual one--and
    part of the reason it's so creepy is that it does things decidedly
    contrary to IF players' expectations.

    For one thing, there's the
    changing-details-without-drawing-attention-to-the-change factor, namely
    the hyacinth/spider/cactus. It's a particularly interesting choice
    because the plant changes come amid a whole lot of other changes that
    you are aware of--so it adds an air of uncertainty to the confusion, to
    the extent that that makes sense. My initial impression, in fact, was
    that there were more changes going on below my sight line; as it
    happens, I was wrong, but the detail of the changing plant is enough to
    give the player that feeling (i.e., that not only are things acting
    funny, they're doing so behind your back as well as in front of your
    nose). The book also gives you slightly different readings at different
    times.

    There's also that favorite of IF theorists (this one, anyway), the
    player-PC relationship, which takes a few odd turns here. For the first
    few items that crumble into sand, the player and the PC appear to be in
    the same position--something like "huh?" As the apartment disintegrates,
    there's an inevitable shift for the player--he/she sees the trend and
    says, okay, to get the story's conclusion I'm going to have to seek out
    more things to turn into sand, so bring it on. (I actually didn't
    realize that the list adapted when I first played the game, so I was
    reduced to wandering around the apartment poking and prodding things in
    hopes that they'd turn into sand, which obviously heightened the effect
    a bit.) What's interesting is that the PC's approach also changes to
    follow suit--the PC appears to welcome the disintegration after a while,
    find a certain perverse pleasure in watching everything crumble. To wit:

       The toilet? Yes, it's the toilet's turn! You press the handle,
       grinning maniacally. And indeed, the sand rushes down the sides of
       the bowl.

       Carefully? You shove a paper-stack off the desk; it's a shower of
       sand before it hits the ground. Ha! You push another, and another,
       and then sweep the whole mass over the edge. White sand cascades
       everywhere. Laughing, you feel the desk itself give way.

       The cabinet and counter start to groan as soon as you touch them. You
       slam the cabinet for good measure; and the stained pressboard
       crackles white, shivers, and explodes into sand. All right!

    There's more than one way to look at this, of course; you could take it
    as a sign that the PC is beginning to lose it, or simply doesn't care.
    But it's also one of many meta-IF moments--where the game breaks the
    fourth wall, addresses the player directly, rather than observing the
    usual player/PC distinction. The computer is one example--"right now,
    however, there's a game on the screen -- one of the text adventures, or
    interactive fictions, or whatever they are this month"--but there are
    plenty of others. One of the things you hear on the radio is "Sharp
    words between the superpowers," which is the first line of Trinity.
    (Naturally, you comment to yourself "there are still superpowers?" An
    unremarkable line in 1986, somewhat out of place now.) There's also
    this: "The far side of the mirror is just as shadowy as this one. It's
    probably meant as commentary; not more space, just more of the same."
    "Shadowy" sounds like a So Far reference, but the "commentary" line
    yanks the player out of the story altogether by drawing attention to the
    author. There are also odd bits of humor here and there--if you read the
    list during the move when the kitchen ceiling is about to cave in, the
    list will say "stay out of kitchen!" At another point: "Another month of
    this and you'll indistinguishable from this apartment -- beige,
    featureless, and up for cheap rent." And the songs on the radio, of
    course, are mostly comic relief.

    Myself, I didn't guess the game's author (though I didn't think about it
    much either), but I should have--partly because of the random song
    generator (reminiscent of the cave generator in Hunter), but even more
    so because of the taxi scene, in which the player opens the door and is
    suddenly overcome with a fear of what's outside. No explanation for the
    fear, no rationalization of why you'd prefer to stay inside, just--no.
    Try to open the door, once you've already opened it and looked outside,
    and you get "You do not want that." The parallels to Change in the
    Weather seem obvious, in retrospect--nameless horror that the PC won't
    deign to put his finger on, inexplicable dread of something you
    eventually end up confronting anyway. (Well, sort of, in this
    case--there's nothing there to confront other than your own
    consciousness, though that's plenty scary in its own way.) Shade is also
    classically Zarfian in its opacity--what exactly is going on when the
    apartment flashes back to its original state is anyone's guess, and
    while it 's easy to simply chalk it up to the general hallucination
    (which is fading at that point--you can no longer interact with the
    illusory scene), it's also tempting to try to read more into it. Ditto,
    of course, for the last scene with the tiny figure. Certain key points
    in Change in the Weather and Spider and Web were likewise open to
    multiple interpretations, and the author naturally has never resolved
    those ambiguities.

    I don't really have any good guesses about the ambiguities, myself. My
    first guess was that the figure was your subconscious, and the "my turn
    again" meant that your mind is yielding to hallucination again--but why
    "you win", and why is the figure "dead"? Other ideas have been bruited
    about, most of them more plausible than that one. I do suspect, though,
    that Shade was written for effect, written to weird the player out, and
    that dissection and deconstruction on this level--symbolism and
    such--probably weren't the main things Zarf had in mind. It's possible
    that the significance of the figure lies somewhere between nothing (more
    hallucination), and mere weirdness and perversity (a way of injecting a
    memorable/chilling last line). The heart of the game for me, though,
    remains the moment when I opened the jar of peanut butter, since that
    was a turning point of sorts, when I stopped trying to impute rational
    explanations. It was one of the most unsettling IF experiences I can
    remember.

    Had I realized that there was a less cumbersome way to move things along
    than prodding everything in the apartment, I might have considered
    giving Shade a 10, as it was, it got an enthusiastic 9 and a special
    place in my IF library.

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

    SPAG is a non-paying fanzine specializing in reviews of text adventure
    games, a.k.a. Interactive Fiction. This includes the classic Infocom
    games and similar games, but also some graphic adventures where the
    primary player-game communication is text based. Any and all text-based
    games are eligible for review, though if a game has been reviewed three
    times in SPAG, no further reviews of it will be accepted unless they are
    extraordinarily original and/or insightful. SPAG reviews should be free
    of spoilers.

    Authors retain the rights to use their reviews in other contexts. We
    accept submissions that have been previously published elsewhere,
    although original reviews are preferred.

    For a more detailed version of this policy, see the SPAG FAQ at
    http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/spag.faq.

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