rec.games.int-fiction FAQ 1/3
Archive-name: games/interactive-fiction/part1
URL: http://bang.ml.org/faq/
Maintainer: Stephen van Egmond <svanegmond@home.com>
Version: 1.1
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>OPEN MAILBOX. READ LEAFLET
Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet.
(Taken)
Welcome to rec.games.int-fiction! (1.0)
This is the Frequently Asked Questions list for the group
rec.games.int-fiction, a Usenet newsgroup for the discussion of
Interactive Fiction games and related topics. To read a specific
question, use your newsreader's search function on the string
"(n)", where n is the question number.
It is posted periodically to the following newsgroups:
* rec.games.int-fiction
* rec.arts.int-fiction
* comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure
* comp.sys.mac.games.adventure
* comp.sys.amiga.games
* comp.sys.acorn.games
* comp.os.os2.games
* rec.answers
* comp.answers
* news.answers
Contents:
Games and source:
Walkthroughs and hints:
Relevant mini-FAQs and information compilations:
Part 2 covers Infocom, and part 3 covers just about everything
else.
The current maintainer is Stephen van Egmond. Questions and
information should be mailed to mailto:svanegmond@home.com. The
most recent version is at http://bang.ml.org/faq/
Throughout this file, there will be URL references to relevant
files and web pages. Many files reside at ftp.gmd.de (See section
1.5).
Special thanks to Paul Smith, Magnus Olsson, Jacob Butcher, Paul
David Doherty, Volker Blasius, Keith Lim, Luis Torres, Jacob
Weinstein, Mark Howell, Adrian Booth, Eric Shepherd, Sascha
Wildner, Jim Butterfield, Mark Stacey, Stu Galley, Dorinda
Hartmann, Tomas Schafer, Hans Persson, Gareth Rees, Robert Pelak,
Juergen Christoffel, James Montanus, Russell Bryan, Werner Punz,
David Kinder, Matt Ackeret, Christi Alice Scarborough and Graham
Nelson for ideas, suggestions and contributions. Scott Forbes
created and maintained the original FAQ.
No newsgroup should be without one!"
>PRAY
Altar
This is the south end of a large temple. In front of you is what
appears to be an altar. In one corner is a small hole in the floor
which leads into darkness. You probably could not get back up it. On
the two ends of the altar are burning candles. On the altar is a large
black book, open to page 570.
>READ BOOK
Commandment #12593
The purpose of this group and some history of Interactive Fiction
(1.1)
Here in the newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction we discuss games of the
interactive fiction genre, ranging from classic games by companies
such as Infocom and Scott Adams to 'modern' and non-text IF games.
Simply put, the IF genre includes any game that tells a story as
part of the game, usually with the player as the protagonist. The
actions of the player affect the progress of the story, which often
centers around solving puzzles or finding treasure, and leads to an
endgame in which the player 'wins' and completes the adventure.
One of the earliest games that could at least be termed interactive
is Hunt The Wumpus, from the early 1970s. In this game, you have
three arrows, and are trapped in a maze that is a dodecahedron,
with the nodes being rooms and the edges being the room
connections. In any room, you are given hints as to phenomena that
are going on in adjacent rooms (you can't tell from which one
though) - breezes from bottomless pits, grunts from the (very
hungry) wumpus, and so on. The wumpus can move, and the bottomless
pits are frequently rearranged by earthquakes. Your goal is to hit
the wumpus with one of your arrows by firing it down a passageway
into an adjacent room.
Interactive fiction traces its electronic roots to a 1977 program
named ADVENT, better known as the Colossal Cave Adventure. It was
this program, written by Willie Crowther and Don Woods, that
established many of the features now common to the genre, including
noun/verb parsing (e.g. "TAKE BOOK"), mazes ("You are in a maze of
twisty little passages, all alike") and the basis of most later IF
in fantasy/adventure settings. Soon after this the game Dungeon, or
Zork, was written by MIT grad students; these students were the
nucleus of a 1980 startup company called Infocom, which produced a
version of Zork for the TRS-80 Model I and other machines. This led
to widespread popularity of interactive fiction games, and was
later referred to as the Golden Age of the genre; for several
years, Infocom's products were the top-selling games on the market.
Later events, however, led to the decline of the IF genre. As the
educational level of the average computer user decreased and the
features and capabilities of the average computer increased, the
trend in computer games went to 'arcade' games instead of text.
By 1989 Infocom had been absorbed by another company and destroyed,
leaving a legacy of high-quality, well-written interactive fiction
and a large audience with few sources for good new material. This
newsgroup discusses 'classic' interactive fiction games, new games
keeping the genre alive, and non-text (even non-computer) IF.
>NORTH
Temple
This is the north end of a large temple. On the east wall is an
ancient inscription, probably a prayer in a long-forgotten language.
Below the prayer is a staircase leading down. The west wall is solid
granite. The exit to the north end of the room is through huge marble
pillars. There is a brass bell here.
>READ INSCRIPTION
Other Usenet newsgroups discussing interactive fiction (1.2)
Many people make the mistake of assuming that rec.arts.int-fiction
and rec.games.int-fiction are the same group. Nobody in rgif can
answer programming questions, and few people in raif want to see
hint requests. Be very careful when crossposting to both
newsgroups: do both audiences care? Even if you do crosspost,
direct followups to the appropriate forum with a Followup-To:
header line.
news:rec.arts.int-fiction is a newsgroup for authors of interactive
fiction, and discusses adventure development systems such as Inform
and TADS, features of a 'good' IF game and how to implement them,
techniques, hazards, tradeoffs, etc. If you're thinking about
writing a game (as opposed to playing one), rec.arts.int-fiction is
your group. ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/rec.arts.int-fiction/FAQ is
the FAQ. Collected knowledge and archives are at
http://bang.ml.org/library/.
news:comp.sys.amiga.games discusses all types of computer games for
the Commodore Amiga computer, including IF games for that machine.
news:comp.sys.mac.games has a similar charter, discussing games for
the Apple Macintosh line of computers.
news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure discusses a subset of the
topics covered in rec.games.int-ficton: Those interactive fiction
games available for the IBM PC. If you're looking for IBM-specific
info about a game, or for info about a game available only on IBM
PCs, you may find help in c.s.i.p.g.adventure.
The rec.games.mud hierarchy discusses MUD (multi-user dungeon)
games.
The rec.games.frp groups discuss fantasy role-playing games (not
necessarily computer-based) such as Dungeons & Dragons.
news:rec.games.roguelike.misc is for general discussion of games in
the "Rogue" family (games that display an ASCII representation of a
dungeon and its contents).
news:rec.games.roguelike.announce is a moderated newsgroup for
announcements about Rogue-like games. The other groups in the
roguelike hierarchy each discuss a specific game in the "Rogue"
genre.
>BLORPLE WEST WALL
Abruptly, your surroundings shift.
Nondescript Room
This is a drab, nondescript room. The only exit leads south.
>SOUTH
Enchanters' Retreat
Belboz is meditating here.
>BELBOZ, HELLO
"Hello." Belboz doesn't seem pleased to see you.
>ASK BELBOZ FOR A HINT
Belboz looks at you suspiciously. "Only the rawest apprentice would
ask for a hint (or post one) without observing proper netiquette."
Netiquette, hints, and bug reports (1.3)
Before asking for a hint, consider that many people before you have
asked for hints. At ftp.gmd.de there are numerous hint files and
walkthroughs available. See question 1.6 for more information. If
the game is old, Deja News, a Usenet archiving service, may be
useful.
1. Above all else, don't spoil the puzzle or game for other people
who are reading the newsgroup but didn't ask for a hint. One
common way of doing this, if you're asking for a hint, is to put
the number of points you have earned so far, or the area of the
game you're dealing with, in the subject line, so that people who
are not yet that far into the game can skip your post.
When asking for or giving hints, try to put spoiler warnings in
the subject line and text, and if possible, a form feed character
in the main text before the spoiling content.
Good example:
>Subject: Re: ZORK I at 10 points (SPOILERS)
>
>J. Random writes:
>>How do I get into the white house?
>
>SPOILERS
>Have you tried running for President?
Most machines can generate a form feed character if you type a
CTRL-L or (in "vi") CTRL-V CTRL-L. If you can't generate a form
feed character, use at least 24 blank lines. The form feed
character causes most newsreaders to pause and require the user to
hit a key before continuing.
This feature is useful when protecting part of a message from
people who don't want to see it, as it gives them the option of
hitting "n" instead and skipping the SPOILER section.
2. If you're asking for a hint, please try to ask in a way that
doesn't spoil the puzzle, or spoil other puzzles in the game.
Describe whatever details are relevant, but don't post the answer
to every other puzzle you've solved up to this point.
Good example:
>I've figured out what the gold machine is for, but I keep
>getting killed whenever I try to use it.
Bad example:
>I used the gold machine to send a message to Orkan, but the
>Warlock noticed my presence and turned me into bat guano.
If you can't ask the question without revealing part of the
puzzle, protect the question with spoiler warnings as above.
3. When giving a hint, please try to give just enough info to send
the adventurer on her way. Please don't post the exact sequence of
moves required to win the game from this point, or solve the next
two puzzles in order to get the ball rolling.
Good example:
>Have you explored the area outside the house?
Bad example:
>There's a window on the east side of the house that you can
>squeeze through in order to get in. Don't bother with the
>front door; there's no way to open it. Don't eat the food,
>either: You'll need it later to feed the microscopic dog.
Other common messages seen on rec.games.int-fiction involve bugs
that the poster has found (or thinks they have found) in a
particular game. A bug is broadly defined as behaviour that was
not intended by the author. The most common error is one where
characters or objects behave in strange ways; less common is the
existence of ways of getting around a puzzle that the author did
not intend. Lists of known errors in Infocom games are published
in some editions of XYZZYnews and on the Infocom home page. See
below for the locations of these resources.
If you know that you've found a bug or contradiction in a game,
please refrain from posting about it to the entire newsgroup.
There is no point in embarrassing the author. Almost every author
provides an electronic-mail address, which you should use to
inform her about the bugs. Many authors don't see everything on
rgif, or don't read it at all.
On the other hand, if you're not sure whether what you've
encountered is a bug or not, it makes sense to post about it;
don't forget to put spoiler warnings in where appropriate.
Belboz looks at you expectantly.
>ASK BELBOZ ABOUT THE DUSTY SCROLL
Belboz looks at you suspiciously. "Curious little enchanter, aren't
you?"
Are there any publications about IF? (1.4)
There are two magazines archived at ftp.gmd.de which are still
producing new issues. They are named SPAG ("Society for the
Promotion of Adventure Games") and XYZZYnews.
They are both excellent. Issues are made available in PDF
(requiring an Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format reader) or in
plain text. The magazines are free. XYZZYnews encourages
subscription by giving giving subscribers the latest issue before
everyone else. SPAG focuses almost entirely on game reviews.
Someone went through the first 33 issues of a PC-only magazine
called SynTax and made the IF-relevant files and articles available
in a file at ftp.gmd.de. It's a promotion for the subscription-only
magazine.
Everything is available at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/magazines
Belboz looks at you expectantly.
>FROTZ BELBOZ
Belboz stops you with a word of power.
"Ah! Now I have you, charlatan! Fool me twice? Never!" He rises to his
feet, makes a threatening gesture, and you find yourself transported
to....
Maze
This is part of a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
>PLUGH
A hollow voice says:
The ftp.gmd.de IF archive and other Net resources (1.5)
The interactive fiction archive site at ftp.gmd.de is by far the
largest collection of interactive fiction games, development
systems, "walkthrough" solution files and related IF materials
available. It is generously maintained by Volker Blasius, with help
from David M. Baggett and David Kinder. Uploads of new material are
encouraged, and should be placed in
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/.
Other mirror sites:
* USA: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive
* USA: http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/
* Finland: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/misc/if-archive
The other area where considerable information is available is
through WWW. The known offerings:
http://bang.ml.org/if-archive/
A browsable hypertext index of the ftp.gmd.de archive. You can
look through the file listings, click on a file name to
download it, and view game reviews (contributions of reviews
encouraged). Some information for Inform developers is also
available.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pete/Infocom/
The unofficial "Infocom" home page, compiling a lot of widely
distributed Infocom-specific information into a very usable
form. There's articles on Infocom published in the computer
industry and in Infocom's own newsletter, as well as
invisiclues, maps and known bugs on every Infocom text
adventure.
http://www.escape.com/~baf/if/
A huge pile of game-reviews written by Carl Muckenhoupt with
links to the files they're talking about, specific to
ftp.gmd.de, and primarily the games/pc directory.
http://interactfiction.miningco.com/
Stephen Granade, an Interactive Fiction enthusiast, maintains
the content for this site which contains a wide assortment of
topics, including interviews with authors, opinion columns, and
an up to date set of annotated links.
>S.W.SW.W.W.
Flathead Ocean
Passing alongside the shore now is an old boat, reminiscent of an
ancient Viking ship. Standing on the prow of the ship is an old and
crusty sailor, peering out over the misty ocean.
>HELLO SAILOR
The seaman looks up and maneuvers the boat toward shore. He cries out:
"Games, walkthroughs, hints, source and other FAQs" (1.6)
Thanks to Magnus Olsson for much of the info in this section.
Games and source:
* At the IF archive in the directories games/, programming/,
infocom/compilers/inform/, and their subdirectories. Read part 3
of this FAQ for more information on continuing game development.
* Source code for some text adventures (including various versions
of Colossal Cave/ADVENT, Dungeon/Zork and World) have been posted
to comp.sources.games and comp.sources.misc. They're available
from FTP sites archiving these groups, such as ftp.uu.net. Many
versions of Dungeon and Colossal Cave have been unearthed -- even
source code in FORTRAN -- and are in the IF archive
* Some Macintosh IF games are available from sumex-aim.stanford.edu,
including Colossal Cave and Dungeon. [Unnkulian may be there too.]
* Amiga IF games are available from any Aminet mirror site, such as
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu in the pub/aminet/games/role directory.
Walkthroughs and hints:
A walkthrough is a start-to-finish "most direct route" way to
finish the game, which guarantees that you will miss out on lots of
the pleasant details that make IF worthwhile. Hint files are
usually in the question-and-answer form. Infocom's variation on
this was the Invisiclue booklet: answers were printed in invisible
ink and you used a special marker to make them visible when you
needed a hint. The electronic version of this (receiving
progressively more hints on the screen) is implemented in many
games. Type HINT or HELP to see if they're available. There is also
a shareware-ish program called UHS ("Universal Hint System") which
has many hint files compiled for it; beware of the author's
registration scheme and the lack of attention given to porting the
UHS reader to non-PC platforms.
* ftp.gmd.de in the solutions/ and infocom/hints/ directories.
* Walkthroughs for many popular IF games are available from
ftp://ftp.uu.net/pub/games/solutions/.
* The Invisiclues for all v3 to v5 Infocom games are available
through the Infocom home page at
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pete/Infocom; these are derived from the
Invisiclues stored at
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/hints/invisiclues/
Relevant mini-FAQs and information compilations:
* ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/adventure-game-history A history
of the interactive fiction genre. (Hans Persson)
* ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/tolkien-games.list A list of
computer games related to J.R.R.Tolkien's works. (Fredrik Ekman)
* ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/fact-sheet.txt Games, authors,
history, statistics, interpreters, and tools for Infocom games.
(Paul David Doherty)
* ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/gameinfo.txt Infocom game
information table. (Paul D. Smith)
* ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/infocom/how-to-play-these-games
FAQ by Gareth Rees on what to do if you have an Infocom-format
game file (.z3, .z5, .z7, .z8 or .dat) but don't know how to "make
it go". See also section 2.8 of this FAQ.
* ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/playgame.FAQ FAQ by
stephen.griffiths@moc.govt.nz (Stephen Griffiths) oriented towards
owners of MS-DOS machines who wish to play any of the games at
ftp.gmd.de. Covers all different games systems there are. Very
helpful if you're stuck.
"Please accept this gift. You may find it useful!" He throws something
which falls near you in the sand, then sails off toward the west,
singing a lively, but somewhat uncouth, sailor song. The boat sails
silently through the mist and out of sight.
A seedy-looking individual with a large bag just wandered through the
room. On the way through, he quietly abstracted some valuables from
your possession, mumbling something about:
Disclaimer and copyright/trademark notice (1.7)
This FAQ Copyright 1995-1997 by Stephen van Egmond. Reproduction of
this document and printing it for personal use is OK. Putting it
into an off-Net compilation without permission is not OK. Ask
first.
All trademarks remain the property of their respective companies.
>XYZZY
Nothing happens. In the distance you hear a voice:
XYZZY? (1.8)
People frequently ask about the origins of XYZZY. From the Jargon
file 3.2.0:
:xyzzy: /X-Y-Z-Z-Y/, /X-Y-ziz'ee/, /ziz'ee/, or /ik-ziz'ee/
adj. [from the ADVENT game] The canonical `magic word'. This comes
from ADVENT, in which the idea is to explore an underground cave
with many rooms and to collect the treasures you find there. If you
type `xyzzy' at the appropriate time, you can move instantly
between two otherwise distant points. If, therefore, you encounter
some bit of magic, you might remark on this quite succinctly by
saying simply "Xyzzy!"
"Ordinarily you can't look at someone else's screen if he has
protected it, but if you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will
let you do it anyway."
"Xyzzy!"
Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an undocumented no-op
command on several OSes; in Data General's AOS/VS, for example, it
would typically respond "Nothing happens", just as ADVENT did if
the magic was invoked at the wrong spot or before a player had
performed the action that enabled the word. In more recent 32-bit
versions, by the way, AOS/VS responds "Twice as much happens".
The popular `minesweeper' game under Microsoft Windows has a cheat
mode triggered by the command `xyzzy[enter][right-shift]' that
turns the top-left pixel of the screen different colors depending
on whether or not the cursor is over a bomb.
>SE
Maze
This is part of a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Someone carrying a large bag is casually leaning against one of the
walls here. He does not speak, but it is clear from his aspect that
the bag will be taken only over his dead body.
>KILL THIEF WITH SWORD
A good slash, but it misses the thief by a mile. The thief comes in
from the side, feints, and inserts the blade into your ribs.
It appears that that last blow was too much for you. I'm afraid you
are dead.
**** You have died ****
Press any key to continue