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ISSUE #24 - March 24, 2001

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

                             ISSUE # 24

               Edited by Paul O'Brian (obrian SP@G colorado.edu)
                           March 24, 2001

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

    SPAG #24 is copyright (c) 2001 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 -----------------------------------------------------

    The Abbey
    Above and Beyond!
    Dangerous Curves
    FailSafe
    Fear
    Gateway 2: Homeworld
    Humbug
    Inform School
    Jacaranda Jim
    The Mulldoon Legacy
    The Pyramids of Mars
    Small World
    T-Zero

    SPECIFICS
    =========
    Heroine's Mantle
    The Tempest

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

    I'm a movie fan, even though I never seem to see as many films as I mean
    to. (Come to think of it, I never play as many IF games as I want to
    either. Clearly, I need to acquire more leisure time, preferably by
    becoming independently wealthy. But I digress.) One movie event I always
    try *not* to miss is the Academy Awards -- even though the show is
    always long, and sometimes marred by painfully awful production numbers,
    I'm a sucker for the suspense and drama of the award presentations, and
    I love seeing dedicated artists honored by their peers. So I'll be
    tuning in this Sunday, and this time I'll identify with the nervous
    honorees just a little bit more, because I recently took part in IF's
    own version of the Oscars: the XYZZY awards. My 2000 game LASH was
    nominated in four categories, and although it won none, the experience
    was a fantastic one nonetheless. In fact, even though there is a
    competitive part of me that is disappointed at the losses (and
    determined to do better next time!), I treasure the experience of *not*
    winning, because it set me thinking about a few important points.

    First of all, cliche though it may be, it really *is* an honor just to
    be nominated. The company LASH kept in each of its categories was both
    awesome and humbling. For the XYZZY voters to assert that it deserved a
    place with those games was terrifically gratifying. What's more, some of
    my favorite games of 2000, games like Kaged and Dangerous Curves,
    somehow received no XYZZY nominations at all. In light of that, I'm
    thankful that LASH was recognized as much as it was.

    Secondly, there's the fact that each winner was absolutely deserving.
    It'd be one thing if LASH lost to something on the level of Detective,
    or Space Aliens Laughed At My Cardigan. But it's hard to complain about
    the winners when among those winners were such amazing pieces of work as
    Shade, Rameses, My Angel, and Being Andrew Plotkin. In fact, it was such
    a strong year for IF that with just one exception, each category was won
    by a different game. What a great time to be an IF fan.

    And that brings me to the third, and most important point: I don't write
    IF to win prizes. I write IF because I love it, and I feel pretty safe
    in saying that's true for most other authors as well. It's easy to get
    caught up in competitiveness, especially when our community gives so
    much focus to competitions and awards, but in the end, IF is a labor
    of love for all of us. It's as true for me in my role of game author as
    it is for my role of SPAG editor, and it's certainly true for all the
    SPAG contributors, who won't see any money *or* prizes for their
    efforts. After all, there's no XYZZY award for Best Reviewer. But maybe
    there should be... nah.

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

    AND THE XYZZY GOES TO...
    Last year I mentioned that there was a bit of a ping-pong match going
    between Adam Cadre and Andrew Plotkin for the Best Game XYZZY, Cadre
    having won in 1999 and 1997 while Plotkin won in 1996 and 1998. This
    year, the alternation was finally broken... sort of. J. Robinson Wheeler
    took home the Best Game award, but with a game whose title just happens
    to mention a very familiar name. Clearly, it's time for someone to start
    work on "I Shot Adam Cadre" -- just be sure to release it in 2001! Full
    results of the 2000 XYZZY awards follow:
       * Best game: Being Andrew Plotkin, by J. Robinson Wheeler
       * Best writing: Metamorphoses, by Emily Short
       * Best story: My Angel, Jon Ingold
       * Best setting: Shade, by Andrew Plotkin
       * Best puzzles: Ad Verbum, by Nick Montfort
       * Best NPCs: Being Andrew Plotkin, by J. Robinson Wheeler
       * Best individual puzzle: Rematch (the whole game), by Andrew Pontious
       * Best individual NPC: Galatea, in Galatea, by Emily Short
       * Best individual PC: Rameses, by Stephen Bond
       * Best use of medium: Shrapnel, by Adam Cadre

    NEW GAMES
    We seem to be in a bit of a drought at the moment, though it gives me
    pause to think that I now consider a period in which over 20 games are
    released (tiny though some may be) a drought. Still, aside from the
    entries in the IF Arcade and SmoochieComp, the only major new release
    has been Textfire Golf, by one "J.T. Adams." The real author has never
    made any official announcement (that I've seen) stepping out from behind
    this pseudonym, but he's been loose enough about the secret, unlike
    some of the Arcade and SmoochieComp authors, that I feel comfortable
    naming him here.
       * IF Arcade by various authors
       * Textfire Golf by J.T. Adams, aka Adam Cadre
       * SmoochieComp games by various authors
       * Late SmoochieComp games, including:
          -- Nothing More, Nothing Less by Giles Duchesne
          -- Tale of the Kissing Bandit by Cary Valentino, aka J. Robinson
          Wheeler
          -- Voices by Aris Katsaris

    TELNET TO MY HEART
    Some mad fiend in New Mexico has been slowly working toward the goal of
    making all the IF the world has ever known available on his BBS via
    telnet. The address is chungkuo.org, and going there can give you a
    taste of Level 9, Magnetic Scrolls, or Infocom games you might otherwise
    never be able to try, not to mention the copious amounts of freeware IF
    available in its archives. One word of warning: ChungKuo uses a lot of
    fancy-schmancy colors and stuff in its communications, so you'll
    probably need to find a good Telnet client, or try using their Java
    client at http://chungkuo.org. If you're using a client, try a black
    background for everything -- otherwise, you may be surprised at what
    you're not seeing!

    SMALL TIME TERPS
    If you own a PsionS5, Revo, Mako, or some other palmtop computer using
    the EPOC operating system, prepare to enter palmtop IF heaven. In
    addition to the Frotz interpreter that's been available for that
    platform for some time, there have just emerged Hugo, Level 9, TADS, and
    Magnetic Scrolls interpreters for EPOC. To find them, surf on over to
    http://www.shoresystems.net/palmtime.

    LAST TRAIN TO ZORKSVILLE
    For those of you who haven't yet obtained a Masterpieces of Infocom CD,
    currently the only legal way to own most Infocom games, you have one
    more chance. The folks at http://www.lacegem.com/ have stockpiled a
    bunch of them, and are selling them off for between 25 and 28 English
    pounds apiece. Sure, it's more than Masterpieces originally sold for,
    but considering how many games you get and how much *they* each
    originally sold for, it's still a bargain. According to the emails the
    lacegem.com folks have sent me, they still have "several hundred in
    stock." Then again, I just checked the Activision website, and they
    appear to be selling physical versions of Masterpieces again for 15
    dollars American. So take your pick, but don't miss these classic games.
    (Man, I sound like a used car salesman. They really are good games,
    though.)

    O REVIEWERS, WHERE ART THOU?
    Several of you are in this issue, but many more are not! A healthy SPAG
    means a SPAG with reviews from a broad range of people. Why not write
    just one and see how you like it? If you're wondering just what games
    need reviewing, consult the handy list below, which as always is listed
    alphabetically, not in terms of preference:

    SPAG 10 MOST WANTED LIST
    ========================
    1.  Acheton
    2.  Busted!
    3.  Dr. Dumont's Wild P.A.R.T.I.
    4.  Heroine's Mantle (a non-spoilery review, that is, unlike the SPAG
        Specifics review that appears in this issue.)
    5.  Hollywood Hijinx
    6.  IF Arcade games (any, some, or all!)
    7.  Letters From Home
    8.  SmoochieComp games (any, some, or all!)
    9.  Textfire Golf
    10. Westfront PC

    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: Cedric Knight

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