Sextrap Dungeon

So, this came across tumblr recently:

Sextrap Dungeon

It's a gamebook. It was described as "Leisure Suit Larry meets Saw".

I am so torn about whether this is a thing I must experience for myself.

I love gamebooks, even old and terrible ones. I enjoy perverse nonsense. Not so keen on gore, though.

Also, I'm afraid it's only going to be a choose-your-own-adventure style gamebook and not one full of stats. And really, if you're exploring a SEXY DUNGEON, don't you want it to be an RPG?

No? Just me?

Choose Your Own Space Marine

There's an LP going on the something awful forums of a recentish gamebook, for those who like their adventures to have grizzled space marines, ridiculous humor, and a lot of blood. SHOOT ALL THE THINGS. TRY NOT TO DIE. That may not sound like the best endorsement but it is actually an entertaining read!

To buy the thing and play it yourself -

Kindle version:

Heavy Metal Thunder

App Store / Google Play version:

Cubus Games

scenic anchorhead, guided tour

So, shuffling Spiky through the game, so far things we had to consult Help for:

obtaining the key to the attic door, because the puzzle is SO old and SO hoary that it's fallen completely out of favor by now and I'd forgotten that used to be a thing

obtaining the small copper key, because the particular mode of pushing someone into telling us things didn't quite occur to us, even though we had the relevant information and had puzzled at it

My memory of the game as a whole is shaky enough that I'm not capable of providing too many spoilers and can mostly help with puzzles honestly. I remember the ending (too well) and bits and pieces of the upcoming dangers but not enough to matter.

oops

So I realised that Spiky had never played Anchorhead. And as I love story-based games and he digs Lovecraft, I had to bully him into playing RIGHT NOW.

Admittedly we did not download the new fancy deluxe version of the game. And maybe the linux interpreter he's using is fiddlier than some. But we seem to be having a lot more parser trouble than I expected, with a lot of need to frustratingly rephrase things in order to get commands to be accepted (I don't mean wrong verb, I mean disambiguation problems.)

And while it was partly his fault for wrestling with an object that clearly wasn't meant to be used that way, he seems to have managed to make a useful object actually disappear from the game. He took a box containing Stuff and tried to put it inside another box, which failed, but the Stuff went silently poof at this point. No indication given, so it took a very long time to realise that the Stuff was gone...

But don't let this dissuade you. If you haven't played it, you still ought to. Just don't try to cram boxes inside smaller boxes!

Unspeakably Epic

While I have somewhat fallen out of the old IF scene, I do occasionally manage to read a game or two, and I have very fond memories of games experienced only through reading reviews.

This review is worth whole new kinds of gold stars. Warning, though, the game in question involves adult content, and the review itself contains some language that will set off a few Safe For Work filters.

If I were the sort of person who organises game conference experiences

There's an article on the BBC about a guy who's 'invented' a camera that, instead of printing a picture, prints a little description of whatever you just took a picture of.

Of course, we don't actually have that technology yet - it's really sending the photo to amazon's Mechanical Turk, where a human is describing the picture and sending that information back. (A spot-on perfect use for mechanical turk really!)

What interested me, though, was how much the sample description sounded like something you would encounter in an old text adventure. The 'inventor' seems to see this as a downside, wanting to coach people to put a little more humanity into their descriptions. I don't - think of the opportunities! You could set up *real world* text adventures, with players in helmet cameras able to see only a text description of what they were 'looking' at, but the freedom to look and move in all directions... well, carefully.

go north. get hat. wear hat.

New interactive fiction website of some stripe

heaving bosoms ahoy!

Someone is Let's Playing Plundered Hearts, an old text adventure I am slightly ashamed to admit I have never played.

Only slightly, since I can say with reasonable certainty that I was never aware of it during the time that it was available for sale. It was slightly too early for me to have been really well-versed in shopping for computer games. (I definitely did see a Zork game in a store once, but I didn't realise at the time that it was a text adventure!) I did purchase the Magnetic Scrolls Collection but that was many years later (and I don't think it was full-price-new when I bought it either).

I don't think I ever knew this title existed until I stumbled into the free interactive fiction community. They were, reasonably enough, in stated opposition to anyone pirating those old titles (especially since the community enjoyed a fairly good relationship with Activision at the time). And since there were plenty of free games available, I never did.

There doesn't seem much point now, good luck finding anywhere to buy it, but after having NOT done so for so long, I'd rather continue to not do so and read someone else playing it. :)

Also ARGH GOOGLE WHY DO YOU DO THIS? Not only has their stupid country-specific blogspot code broken disqus all over the web (not a problem here), not only has it caused the quick edit button to mysteriously disappear off blogs (a minor problem here), but it seems that also they're redirecting or hiding the solution to the problem. Searching for my missing quick edit pencil, I found lots of google help links in the search results! Every single one redirected to a central blogger site rather than take me through to the question and answer. THANKS GOOGLE.

... yes, I did find an answer somewhere, but SHEESH. this has been a known problem for a long time, why haven't they FIXED it?

King Arthur 2

I know nothing about this game series, but I am intrigued by the RockPaperShotgun screenshots showing hints of a choose-your-own-adventure lurking in the middle of smashing things.

Take Control

So apparently someone is now selling modern CYOA romance novels, featuring Vampires and Fairies and Science Fiction and so on.

They can be found on Kindle at Amazon, and also on iTunes.

I have personally zero experience with the author in either these or her "normal" romance novels, but there's a review here.

Visions of the past

On a trip to see relatives I got my hands on a pile of my old computer game stuff. Boxes, in a rare few cases, but mostly MANUALS. And copy protection. And maps. ALl the stuff that used to be jammed into these things. Not my entire collection ever, but a good bunch of stuff. So what have I got here?

The "manual" for FACEMAKER, which includes how-to-load-game for all the various computer systems it was available on (LOAD"SPIN",8) and how to 'play'. It's not exactly much of a game. Why did I even have this? (I was obviously VERY young.)

The rather thick manual for Wonderland most of which is taken up by "how to use windows", and a similarly thick but weirder shaped one for the Magnetic Scrolls Collection.

The insert map and how-to-load for that blasted Hobbit text adventure that I remember frustrating me as a kid and I've always been confused about it because when I tried to look it up I found things that didn't quite match. However, this proves it was indeed the Hobbit Software Adventure - either I just have NO memory of the graphics or I played in text-only mode because I liked words.

The foldout 'Getting Started' for Super BoulderDash.

An almost-complete box for a game called Rings of Medusa that I obviously owned but have zero memory of. It's got the box, a manual, and the loading instructions sheet, but the original disk is gone, replaced by a 3.5" backup disk.

A probably-complete box for Joan Of Arc: Siege & The Sword which I also have zero memory of. Amusing because 85% of the big box is taken up with nothing but a cardboard spacer.

... I probably bought both of those just because they had women on the covers, and then didn't play them because I don't actually like strategy games.

Sierra stuff (there's lots!):
The big map and twisty city streets guide from Quest For Glory 2. And the official hint book. And the technical manual. And the BOX. Or at least, that's the sleeve that I put on the one original Sierra box I still have. They all looked alike! And ONE original disk, probably dead, and no idea where the others are.
The fingerprint sheet AND the red-plastic-spyglass used for reading it from the Colonel's Bequest. WHich I know I lost at least once while I still had the game. Stupid annoying copy protection. :)
Hint book for Space Quest IV.
A manual from Hoyle Solitaire which I don't think i actually played, it's my mom who liked Solitaire.
The 'manual' (background story, slight tech info, and crucial copy-protection spellbook) from King's Quest III.
A fold-out "hint map" from King's Quest 1, decorated with my confused attempt to solve the Rumplestiltskin puzzle, and the official hint book. Which was one of the ones that you had to use yellow markers to make the invisible ink appear (now rather faded). The later books used the red plastic window approach. Also the game backstory-manual.
Box sleeve for King's Quest V.
The original box sleeve for King's Quest VI (5.25" version) and the included fluff/copy-protection guidebook to the isles. Also the hint book, when they gave up all this 'reveal the hidden text' rigamarole and just printed the answers.
Hero's Quest reference card and Famous Adventurer's Correspondence Manual.
A Sierra tenth anniversary product catalog.
New products catalog listing for 1988.
'A Letter From The President' explaining why gamers should buy sound cards to improve their Sierra experience.

Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom

I have no idea what this is.

In the cruel kingdoms north of the Viraxian Empire, a barbarian seeks treasure - and vengeance! Having escaped the clutches of the Slaver King, he has vowed to pillage the wealth of the kingdom ... then bring it to its knees. YOU are this barbarian.

I have no idea what this Encounter Critical thing is about.

... this is Encounter Critical, which means it's designed to be a very good game while providing a thrill-ride simulation of a very, very bad one. If that sounds like a stupid idea, well, yes. Yes it is. And if that sounds great: welcome, friend, to the world of EC.

... But it sounds like it could be fun, doesn't it?

go zarf!

Little tidbit on RockPaperShotgun about an old favorite interactive fiction author trying to make the jump to fulltime... with a little help from all our friends.

not that I have one

Apparently you can now play Zork on a Kindle.

If they could get all of Inform (or TADS but probably Inform) working, that'd be quite nice.

The Making of Mages - Magical School Sim

No, this is not the one I'm working on, but it is something that Cute Knight fans should find interesting!


Academagia

You're a young student (either male or female) just starting out at a fancy magical school. That much is certain. EVERYTHING ELSE is up in the air. Are you from a poor family or a rich one? Born under a lucky star? Been clumsy all your life? Have a cat for a familiar? Make friends easily? Tend to accidentally get into trouble all the time?



You can set ALL these details for your background before you've even started your first day at school. Then once school starts, you'll have multiple events to schedule for every single day, eighty other students to interact with, and literally HUNDREDS of random events that you might encounter and which might go well or badly.



Skip class? You might find your way to a magical artifact hidden in a cave on the school grounds, or you might just annoy the teachers and end up in detention for the rest of your life. It is astoundingly complicated and no two playthroughs will be alike. (There's a wiki being built by players to share the secrets they've encoutnered so far!)



If you enjoy building different characters in Cute Knight this should keep you busy for a loooong time. :) You can order the game here (Windows Only).

(This is not a 'traditional' visual novel - no anime characters, no standup talking sprites. It is mostly text, but there are some pictures. If you do not like reading this is not a game for you.)

newbie guide to text adventure

starting commands and such - seen on gamesetwatch

trying to organise new apartment

>move desk
you can't, the other desk is in the way
>slide other desk out of the way
you can't, it is too heavy with the 6 monitors and TVs on it
>get monitor
taken
>place monitor on floor
dropped
>get monitor
taken
>place monitor on bed
dropped
>get monitor
taken
>place monitor on bed
dropped
>get monitor
taken
>place monitor on bed
dropped
>move desk
you can't, the floor protector mat is in the way
>move mat
you can't, the leg of the bed is pinning it down
>lift bed
you can't, it's too heavy with the monitors on it
>lift bed slightly
done
>move mat
you can't, it's tangled with the flattened boxes under the bed
>sigh
you sigh
>go to living room
you enter the living room
>get really useful box
taken
>go to bedroom
you enter the bedroom
>use really useful box to prop up bed
done
>lift flat boxes
done
>take mat
taken
>slide other desk
you can't while you're holding the mat
>prop mat up against bed
the mat slides down onto the floor, spikes upward
>slide other desk
done
>place desk
done
>turn mat over
you can't, the monitor on the floor is in the way
>get monitor from floor
you walk over the mat to reach the monitor. the mat is spiky!
you lose 1hp
>turn mat over
done
>remove really useful box
done
>stuff boxes back under bed

The Shadow in the Cathedral

New commercial text adventure available.

This review suggests it's reasonably cool.

I so do not have time to look at it right now.

due to foreseen schedule disruption

... I've pretty much totally missed the IF Comp this year. I have no intention of trying to do any last-minute judging. Although it does remind me of a couple of ideas for text adventures I vaguely wanted to make, a long time ago.

interactive cthulhu

adapted from a CoC module, and noted so that hopefully I will remember to go and poke at it when I'm more awake