Z-Machine Matter

Lost Treasures of Infocom on iOS

 

I'm not sure how it hapened, but someone working below the radar of senior management must have figured out a way to release the Lost Treasures of Infocom for iPhone and iPad.  Why else would such a great collection of games be made available at such a great price?  Twenty-six of the original Infocom classic Interactive Fiction (IF) games including the original Zork series, Deadline, Enchanter, Witness, PlanetFall and much more for a measley $10. Or if you're not interested in the full collection, you can buy 5-packs of games for just $2.99.  

If somehow you missed out on '80s Interactive Fiction and don't already have these games on 5.25" floppies or the reissued CD-ROM collections, this is a great way to get them on your iPhone or iPad along with a spiffy new UI, built-in documentation and reproductions of the classic Infocom "feelies".  I was a bit disappointed that maps and Invisiclues cost $1 extra each if you buy one of the $2.99 collections, but you'll gets all of the maps and all of the feelies for the entire series.  And if you spring for the full $10 bundle, you get the maps and Invisiclues for free as well as a bonus game, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground.  

Completists will note that there were in fact 31 games in the Infocom canon.  So take note that this does not include Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur, Sherlock, Shogun or Nord & Burt Couldn't Make Head or Tail of it, most likely due to licensing restrictions.  But if you're aware of those titles, you probably already have them running on iFrotz anyways. 

Here's the full list of games available:
• A Mind Forever Voyaging
• Ballyhoo
• Border Zone
• Cutthroats
• Deadline
• Enchanter
• Hollywood Hijinx
• Infidel
• Leather Goddess of Phobos
• The Lurking Horror
• Moonmist
• Planetfall
• Plundered Hearts
• Seastalker
• Sorcerer
• Spellbreaker
• Starcross
• Stationfall
• Suspect
• Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare
• The Witness
• Trinity
• Wishbringer
• Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire (FREE)
• Zork 2 : The Wizard of Frobozz
• Zork 3 : The Dungeon Master
• Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (bonus game)

• iTunes: Lost Treasures of Infocom, Frotz
• Infocom Gallery: Main Site, Grey Box Releases
• Wikipedia: Infocom, Zork, Lost Treasures, Classic Masterpieces

Parser Say "Happy New Year!"

It was a quiet New Year's eve, just before dinner and I managed to get a few hours of programming time on my long neglected IF murder mystery game. As I was working away, I noticed a couple of email notifications on Inform7 suggestions I had voted on.  Just as I was busily working away on my game, there were others, perhaps many others, around the world working on their own IF projects.  

No doubt there are people working on new games, writing code, creating extensions, writing hints and walkthroughs and feelies.  Others, like the Inform7 team, appear to be toiling away on bug fixes and new features for an upcoming release.  And hopefully there are newcomers, perhaps intrigued by the iOS Lost Treasures of Infocom or otherwise have stumbled upon IFComp and are taking a look at Inform7, TADS, Quest or other IF tools with the thoughts of creating their own games.  To all of you, I say "Happy New Year!"

I don't have many personal connections to the IF community, but if I did, I'd buy everyone a drink as a thank you for all that the IF community does.  There are so many people who have put in countless hours in projects that we all benefit from whether it's the Inform7 compiler, the IDEs, library extensions, documentation, historical essays, interpreters, Kindle & iOS ports, classic retro games, fantastic modern games, lively forums, competitions... You could not hope for a better, warmer and more inviting community. (Ok, with the possible exception of mean reviews, but even that seems to be getting better.)

Thank you!  I wish everyone a wonderful year and the best of success with your IF projects in 2013.

If there's something you're grateful for in 2012, please feel free to add a comment.

San Francisco IF Meetup

Dan Fabulich (above right) does a great, or dare I say, fabulous job organizing the local San Francisco Interactive Fiction meetup.  Meetings occur the first Saturday of every month and are generally in or around Berkeley or Oakland area.  Last week we met at the Musueam of Art & Digital Entertainment (MADE) offices in Oakland.  There was a lot of catching up on what everyone is up to, speculation on recent rumors about Steam's console PC, discussion of Double Fine's forthcoming Adventure game.  

Then we dove into a group session trying to solve Infocom's notoriously difficult Deadline interactive mystery game.  We had to dive into some online clues, but a good time was had by all.  Heck, Dan even brought pizza.  What a mensch!

Next meeting is April 7.  Hope to see you there.

• Meetup: San Francisco IF Meetup, MADE
• Deadline: Wikipedia, Infocom Gallery, Invisiclues

Kindle IF Screensaver

I picked up a Kindle 3 (aka Kindle Keyboard) a while back and have been thoroughly impressed with it.  I love the fact that I can take half a dozen or more books with me when I travel without taking up a lot of weight or space in my luggage.  And although the keyboard is not great, it's good enough to play Jimmy Maher's Kindle version of "The King of Shreds and Patches".  

No doubt there was a lot of heavy duty hacking of the Glulx interpreter to get the game to run on Kindle. I don't know how much effort would be required to make this into a general-purpose interpreter capable of running any Glulx or Z-Machine game, but I sure hope that happens.  The game is well worth the $4 to support IF on a new platform.  Heck, if Maher puts this project on Kickstarter, I'd be happy to kick in more.

At any rate, I've created a ZIP file of IF-inspired screensaver wallpapers for Kindle users.  These are scaled down black & white images of various Infocom games.  If you have a Kindle and are tired of the standard images of authors, you can install a Kindle hack easily enough with a couple of downloads.  Just make sure you install the right version for your particular Kindle device.

I've also posted these on PicasaWeb along with some other covers from various novels, some Mad Magazine covers and some fake O'Reilly covers.  And there are plenty of other Kindle screensaver wallpapers out there to chose from. 

Happy thanksgiving!

(Update: Fixed a broken link)

• Kindle hacks: Installing a Kindle Screensaver, Kindle Screensaver Hack
• King of Shreds & Patches: Game, Kindle version 
• Kindle Screensavers: Infocom covers ZIP file, Tumblr
• PicasaWeb: Infocom Covers, Mad covers, Fake covers, Book covers

 

 

My Top 10 in IF

There's a thread on the intfiction forum regarding the creation of a top 50 list for Interactive Fiction.  Ok, fair 'nuff...  I'm in.  I've probably played fewer IF games than many hardcore fans, so I've limited myself to a top 10 list.  It's not the most varied list around, reflecting my own personal bias towards old school Infocom games and mystery stories.  Still, maybe you'll find a few reasons to try out these games on IFDB.

• The Witness 
  This is my all-time favorite interactive fiction story and really one of the first that I was able to solve without too many hints.  It's definitely old-school with all the good and bad of what was state of the art Infocom in the 1980s. It also included great "feelies" in the package.  My own work-in-progress game "The Z-Machine Matter" has a modest tip of the hat to The Witness and other IF mystery games.    

• Border Zone
  Another great Infocom title, Border Zone was an espionage story that took place in 3 acts with a real-time clock.  It's tricky, but a fun story where you have to move quickly.  Definitely gets your heart racing!  I was finally able to pick up a copy on eBay many years after having lost my earlier version in misguided spring cleaning years ago.  What memories this game had for me!

• Trinity
  While I never finished Trinity, I still think it is one of the coolest concepts for a game.  Great historical story telling that goes into a while other level of mythology working on multiple levels.  Also included a very cool comic book and great props.

• An Act of Murder
  This is a great short "who done it" mystery by Chris Huang.  This was one of the games that got me back into Interactive Fiction after a long absence.  It's very approachable and does a great job of creating a randomized mystery story.  Huang's story is also an inspiration to my own game.

• Photopia
  While Photopia is more story than game, it's an excellent example of a more experimental style of IF that is actually interesting and moving.  Definitely worth trying out.  Extremely compelling writing.

• Lord Bellwater's Secret
  This is a short one-room mystery.  While it has some quirks and some puzzles that are not completely logical, it's still a pretty darned good piece of entertainment.  The writing is strong and there's some good surprises for such a tight-knit game.  

• Spider & Web
  An intriguing piece of IF with some interesting narrative techniques and solid writing by Andrew Plotkin. It might take you a few attempts for the game to pull you in, but once it does, it's a compelling story.

• The King of Shreds and Patches
  Admittedly, I'm late to this game, trying it for the first time with the recently released Kindle version.  I could use Zoom on my Mac, but I really wanted to see whether IF could work well on the Kindle.  I'm just blown away at what a great job Jimmy Maher has done exploiting the Kindle UI.  This truly captures what an interactive novel should feel like.  Elizabethan stories are not usually my cup of tea, but this is so well done I'm willing to stretch a bit.  If you have a Kindle, how can you not try this out?  
  
  
• Make it Good
  This is the most awesome post-Infocom detective mystery story out there.  It's truly an epic piece of work taking Jon Ingold several years to deliver this story.  But it was worth it.

• Lost Pig
  Despite the fact that it's not a mystery story, this is a fun game with a helluva great narrative voice.  It's fun, it's entertaining and it's not crazy hard.

Infocom Gone Wild!

After I saw the "Get Lamp" Interactive Fiction documentary film last summer, I began to have deep regrets about the Infocom games I had collected and somehow let slip through my fingers around 20 years ago. When Infocom released the Lost Treasures series, I decided to consolidate space and get rid of all of my original Grey Box editions in a misguided attempt at Spring cleaning.  (Luckily, I did keep all the feelies!) While my collection was not complete, I had all of the Infocom Mystery titles as well as a good number of Science Fiction and Comedy.  Most of them I had picked up in the 1990s at bargain prices.  So it was quite a depressing realization that in recent years, Infocom games had become even more rare. 

Nonetheless, after many months and at some considerable effort, I managed to rebuild the collection from eBay and Amazon.  I also added quite a few additional titles in the process including original "folio" editions of Deadline, The Witness and Infidel.  These were the original packages and were influenced by the famous Dennis Wheatley crime dossier reprints of the 1970s. I'm especially proud of those and they weren't outrageously expensive either.  If there's interest I'll write up a separate post on those later in the summer.

The price I paid for my Infocom titles varied from $5 to $49, most under $25.  Though I was tempted, I drew the line at not paying more than the original list price for games.  Some titles, such as Sherlock, Stationfall and Border Zone seem to be quite rare, so these all came right up to my limit and I was often outbid in the process.  Still, Border Zone was one of the games I was very fond of, so I learned to be patient.  Also, since I already had all the game files, I didn't really need the disks.  That said, I still bought most of the Activision collections: Adventure, Sci-Fi, Mystery and Comedy just out of compulsion.

Anyways, I'm very proud to now have so many of these Infocom titles taking up space in my cluttered home office.  And when I think about all the Dennis Wheatly crimefiles I've bought in addition to the Infocom games and time spent on programming my game The Z-Machine Matter, I realize what an expensive movie "Get Lamp" turned out to be.  

Still, it's cheaper than collecting cars or guitars.

• Wikipedia: Infocom, Deadline, Zork, Lost Treasures, Classic Masterpieces
• Infocom Documentation Project: Manuals, Hints, Maps
• Infocom Gallery: Main Site, Grey Box Releases

Mock Z-Machine Ad

I created a mock print ad for The Z-Machine Matter some months back.  I tried to capture the style of Infocom's old magazine ads. Yes, yes, I really should be finishing up the Alpha.  Or at least working on a better map.  But it was kind of fun.

Also for any testers who requested Alpha access but have not yet sent feedback.  Please, please, please do me a favor and send me your SCRIPT transcript.  I will be eternally grateful.  

The Z-Machine Matter Back Cover

What Infocom game would be complete without wonderful packaging, enticing back cover copy and photo of the in-game feelies?  So after I developed The Z-Machine Matter front cover, I spent some time mocking up the rest of the box.  This is a draft version using a photo by Mark Williams with some of Propnomicon's HP Lovecraft props. The final version will have a different photo, and I hope to include some Arkham Asylum props. Click on the graphic above to view it full size.  

Since no Infocom box is ever in mint condition, I tried to give the front and back a bit of the aged look that classic '80s games usually have.  Meanwhile, still plenty of programming required to get to a beta stage and not enough time to do it all.  

Thanks to Propnomicon for the inspiration and props.

• Propnomicon: Blog, Physical Props, Arkham Asylum
• Infocom Gallery: Grey Box Editions, Deadline, Witness, Suspect

Game Theory Video on Story Telling

Wired recently published an article that highlights Scott Steinberg's video series Game Theory and their recent focus on storytelling in video games and interactive fiction.  It's a great video and includes interviews with Richard Garriott (Ultima), Bob Bates (Sherlock, Arthur, TimeQuest), Steve Meretzky (Planetfall, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Jane Jensen (Gabriel Knight) and others.  

As the Wired article notes:

The short documentary covers the plots behind a wide range of games, from Zork to BioShock, and also features interviews with writers behind titles like Assassin’s Creed II and Mirror’s Edge. The video explores topics like the conflict between character motives and player desires, the influence of cinema on gaming, and the obstacles that today’s writers must leap while crafting game stories.

“I don’t think we’ve yet mastered the techniques of true interactive storytelling,” Garriott says in the video, pointing to his own Ultima IV as one of the first narrative-focused games. “I mean that not just in dialog [or] cut-scenes, but [really] in how you emotionally become engaged with what’s going on.”

The GameTheory videos and web site are definitely worth checking out!

• Wired: Game Theory Series Probes Videogames' Big Questions
• GameTheory: Main site, Blog, Storytelling
• Wikipedia: Richard Garriott, Bob Bates, Steve Meretzky

Z-Machine Matter Box Art

I haven't had much time for programming lately, but a while back, I put together some Infocom-inspired box art for the Z-Machine Matter.  I thought it came out pretty good and could sit nicely alongside Deadline, The Witness or Suspect.  You can click on the image above to see it full size.  I tried to use an image and fonts that were reminiscent of classic Infocom packaging.  I've also updated the aged and peeling system requirements sticker.

I'll have to figure out what kind of props I can make that would work well in PDF format, but I've got some ideas...

• Propnomicon: Blog, Physical Props, Arkham Asylum
• Infocom Gallery: Grey Box Editions, Deadline, The Witness, Suspect