InsideADRIFT ISSN 1743-0577

1

Issue 16 May/June 2004

Contents

News and announcements.

1. Main news (Open source

generator proposed; SCARE

1.3.1; Return of OARS)

2. Competition news

(Spring Comp; Summer

Minicomp; IF Art Comp; Intro

Comp)

2. Forum news

().

Regular features

2. Editorial

2. Drifters birthdays

3. Events diary

4. Drifters toolbox: Automated

Composing Software

5. ADRIFT recent releases

7. Interview: Paul O’Brian (editor

of the SPAG newsletter)

Articles

4.

The (big) idea by KF

: Mazes

can be fun.

5. At Home with the Underdogs:

part 2 by J. J. Guest

11. Competitions – who needs

‘em. Part 2 by DavidW

8.

Failed game intro: Death Row

Ending

Reviews

14. Spring C omp games

reviewed.

Reference

18. Manual: Room Groups

Issue Details: May/June 2004

Issue 16 (Vol 2 no 7) Editor KF

Issue 17 due out June 2004

News and announcements

Open source generator proposed

The author of SCARE, the ADRIFT Runner clone written in C

(see below), has asked on the Forum what our views would be if

an open-source generator were created. Simon Baldwin

(Tedswippet on the Forum) has gained a pretty detailed

understanding of the inner workings of the TAF format and is

therefore in a better position than most to put forward such a

project.

The idea would be to make a compiler that would take a text file,

in the format of a slightly expanded module (AMF) file and

compile it into a TAF file. An obvious advantage here is that such

a compiler would be portable making it a relatively straightforward

process to produce versions for other systems like Mac and

Linux.

This could be a hugely significant proposal in the development of

ADRIFT, but I am slightly uncomfortable welcoming it

unreservedly without hearing Campbell Wild’s take on the idea.

The response on the Forum was rather mixed, with Mystery the

most vocal of the sceptics defending the position that this was

basically taking money from Campbell’s pocket. Mark TIlford

(ralphmerridew, developer of jAsea) commented that he was

against this at the current level of ADRIFT, but would like to

cooperate with Campbell Wild on development in the future.

SCARE 1.3.1 for Windows is announced

David Kinder has released a new Windows version of Simon

Baldwin’s SCARE ADRIFT runner clone and Uli Kusterer a

Macintosh version. This was until recently based on the jAsea

JAVA runner, but has moved on a bit.

SCARE is created in ANSI/ISO C, and the source code is made

available for porting to different systems. There are currently

versions of SCARE at the IF Archive for Linux, Windows and

Amiga. With a Mac version around as well, but not in the Archive,

this could soon be the opportunity to rebut the old complaints of

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

2

Editorial

OK, I know I wrote last month

that the new release would be

out soon – as far as I can see

it will, but Mystery is still

involved in the testing process.

We all just have to be patient

as it will in the end hopefully

give us a more stable product

to use.

We have also had the Spring

Competition, congratulations

to DavidW on his win. I was

very satisfied that we had four

worthy entries and would like

to thank the authors and those

who judged for their efforts.

Contact

Send any suggestions,

requests or comments

concerning InsideADRIFT to

editor@insideadrift.org.uk

Find the newsletter at:

http://www.insideadrift.org.u

k/

InsideADRIFT merchandise

You can now purchase an

exciting InsideADRIFT mug, if you

so desire.

The store is really not fully

operational, if you are interested

look at

www.cafepress.com/insideadrift

ADRIFT being only on Windows (at least for playing).

Graphics are now available and a really nice touch is that it will

seamlessly run ADRIFT 3.9 and later (those files with a .TAF

extension, something the original doesn’t do.

Those of us owe a debt of gratitude to those who are putting such

effort into creating resources that broaden the playing market for

anything we create.

STOP PRESS:

Simon Baldwin has released version 1.3.2 of SCARE in May.

Among the new and fixed features in SCARE release 1.3.2 are:

•

The ability to run Adrift version 3.80 games, as well as version

4.00 and version 3.90 ones.

•

Fixes for loading problems that prevented 'Doomed Xycanthus'

and 'The Caves of Morpheus' from running in previous versions.

•

Updated task handling to solve problems found by Emily Short

when reviewing 'The Woods are Dark'.

•

Assorted performance enhancements, and reduced memory

consumption.

The return of O.A.R.S.

Mystery has been handed the baton as webmaster of the Online

ADRIFT Reference Site (OARS) . That excellent source of

ADRIFT information originally created by NickyDude.

Although with her other commitments, both on and offline,

Mystery cannot set a deadline for the site to be up and running, I

have seen some of her early work and believe she will be

carrying on in the same helpful manner that the site had before.

Coupling this to her continued efforts to create an ADRIFT game

that is also a workbench for testing all aspects of ADRIFT, which

is coming on but can never be a speedy process, we all have to

be grateful for what Mystery if managing to do. We will have to be

patient this Summer when she spends much of her time teaching

her sons to play the guitar and drums. Good luck with that!

Competition news roundup

InsideADRIFT Spring Competition 2004

Many congratulations to DavidW for his victory in this

competition. His entry “Shards of Memory” won just ahead of

Mystery’s “Curse of the DragonShine”. My thanks also to Eric

Meyer for “Wax Worx” and Lee Paten (sfzapgun) for “Someril”,

the other entries that completed the line up.

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

3

Drifters birthdays

May 2004

1 Incoming (23); bluemoon (34)

6 gamerfreak 1020 (16)

8 ShogunNZ (31); Kojiro (22)

10 gscbw (21)

11 fairyale (21); azurestone (20)

16 Ray (58)

31 Heal Butcher (30);

CowInParachute (15)

June 2004

6 En Kerklaar (18); Mattaius (18);

Seciden Mencarde (15)

13 The Amazing Poodle Boy (34)

15 Matt (Dark Baron) (15)

16 Blakk Matt (18)

19 NickyDude (35)

21 Kinvadren (21)

25 Cannibal (34)

Events Diary

May 15, 2004

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 out

today

The May/June Issue of

InsideADRIFT should be out

today.

22-29 August 2004

InsideADRIFT Summer

Minicomp 2004

There will be a Summer Minicomp

in August. Entries in 22 Aug,

judging ending 29 Aug.

InsideADRIFT Summer Minicomp 2004

I have been conducting a consultation process to fine tune the

rules for my next competition which takes place in the August. My

idea is that it will be a different type of Minicomp, with the writers

able to choose the type of game they want to enter.

You can enter a small game written in the week before the

judging takes place, a game limited to a small number of rooms

and, most controversially of all, my build a better maze Minicomp.

The idea behind adding the maze comp was simply to give

people a chance to think what is it that people don’t like about

mazes, and what can be done to make them more stimulating. I

am discussing this later in my big idea piece.

Wider IF community events

IF Art Show 2004

This is an annual event where the entrants basically create a piece (of

fragment) of IF as an exhibit in an art gallery. This event has been going

for a few years and the shows from previous competitions can be seen

at http://members.aol.com/iffyart/

As far as I know there haven’t been any ADRIFT entries, but that

doesn’t mean there won’t be.

Third IntroComp

The IntroComp is an IF competition where the aim is to write the start of

a new work of interactive fiction. The entries, which can range from a

title up to a full game, must be in by the 18

th

of July this year, the catch

being that to claim your prize a complete version must be release within

one year.

For complete details of the competition you should go to

http://www.xyzzynews.com/introcomp/

Forum news

The forum was a much more stable entity in the early weeks after the

last newsletter was issued.

There were some quite interesting discussions, apart from the one on a

possible open-source generator. One that got a fair bit of attention was

one on possible formats for the next ADRIFT Minicomp.

There was also a lively discussion on how best to deal with some fairly

scrappy games, barely deserving that title, that have appeared on the

ADRIFT adventure downloads page. Opinion was something had to be

done, but what was very problematical as it really would have to come

from Campbell Wild.

Also getting plenty of responses was that regular favourite, the

forthcoming games thread.

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

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The (big) idea by KF

Mazes can be fun!

Maybe this is just being

cynical, as I am not

normally a great advocate

of mazes, but I wonder if

part of the problem is that

we have too rigid a view of

what a maze is.

I take the view that a maze

is a series of locations

where the player has to

navigate their way through

to an end point. That can

cover a very ordinary

garden maze, but could

equally apply to a blazing

tower block, with smoke and

flames causing many

obstacles to the players

escape. This illustrates an

important point that mazes

can be in three dimensions

as well as two.

One of the problems seems

to be that players have now

adopted standard

techniques, such as object

dropping, to map the maze

and make it much easier to

navigate.

In the Summer Minicomp I

have made this an option,

and, as you can make up to

three games to enter, why

not give it a go and see if

you can make a better

maze.

Drifters toolbox

Automated C omposing System (ACS) reviewed by KF

Hands up those of us who want to include music in our games

but haven’t a clue how to write it!

OK, well I have my hand up, but for quite a while now I have been

using this piece of Japanese software. It was actually linked to

from Ambrosine’s Game Creation Resources web page

(http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html).

In compose mode you can select from a large range of music

styles, the program creates a piece of music in that style. You can

select more than one style at once, in which case the program

cycles through them. If you select that option it will play the piece

straight after creating it, otherwise you can have it silently

produce a number of pieces.

Once the program has produced something that you like, switch

to edit mode and you can fiddle with the instruments used or use

a wizard to make general changes to the style of your piece.

The output MIDI files can be included directly in your games and

tend to be something around 10 or 12Kb in length for 2 or 3

minutes of tune.

You can also use Convert mode which brings in a piece of music

that you already have loads it and converts it to the style you

have selected. This morning I converted a bit of Beethoven to

Ska for an interesting effect.

While the music produced isn’t going to win any prizes, it is quite

effective. The program is shareware and the trial version will

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

5

ADRIFT recent

releases

This will hopefully be a new

regular feature, bringing you

the details of recently

released games, as

described by their authors

on release. The details listed

here are as posted on the

ADRIFT adventures page on

Campbell’s site

Sparks' Adventure

(sparksadventure.taf 1 Kb) By

Iain Campbell, released 08-05-

04

You play as Sparks, an

adventurous young boy in search

of treasure. This is my first game,

expect a sequel.

Shards Of Memory

(shardsofmemory.taf 116 Kb)

By Davidw, released 02-05-04

You awak en with no memory of

who you are or where you are yet

slowly but surely your story will

unfold. An ancient evil has

returned to the world and only

YOU have the power to stand in

its way... [winner of the ADRIFT

Spring C omp 2004] [genre: dark

fantas y]

The Woodfish Compendium

(compendium.zip 47 Kb) By

Woodfish, released 02-05-04

The definitive collection of all

Woodfish's releases, updated,

with bugs fixed - plus a brand new

short adventure. Contains

"Topaz", "Saffire", "Forum" and its

sequel "Forum 2", "The Game To

End All Games" and a *brand

new* release, "ImagiDroids".Also

contains walkthroughs for each.

Comments to

driftersmonthly@hotmail.com -

thank s!

allow you to produce 30 pieces before registration is required.

The charge to register is $35, and I would have to say that it isn’t

the most wonderful system for support, much of which is

Japanese, but it is great fun.

To take a look at this software go to:

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014815/music/English/autocomp.html

You can check out some examples of what is produced at:

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~HB9T-

KTD/music/English/Studio/Midi/Sample/index.html

"At Home with the Underdogs" by J. J. Guest

Part 2: The Underdog's U nderdogs

Nick Montfort, in his book "Twisty Little Passages" cites

Graham Nelson as estimating that "more than sixty commercial

works of interactive fiction developed with The Quill were

released during the mid-1980s". I would put that number much

higher. For those too young or too American to remember, The

Quill, and The Graphic Adventure Creator were two programs

developed during the 1980s to allow people to create their own

works of IF in the comfort of their own homes. The spiritual

ancestors of ADRIFT, if you like. Of course, my computer, the

Acorn Electron was considered too flimsy to support The

Graphic Adventure Creator, so they dropped the graphics and

released it as simply The Adventure Creator (or AC) for the

Electron. I jumped on AC the moment it came out, having

previously written several games in BBC Basic, but despite all the

hours I spent working with it, when I should have been out in the

fresh air, I never released anything commercially. But many, many

people did. The release of AC and The Quill revolutionised the 8-

bit text adventure market. The floodgates opened, and suddenly

everyone was making and releasing home-made games with

hand-drawn covers (more than likely duplicated using Dad's

work's photocopier) and available through tiny adverts in the back

of Electron User, BBC Micro User and Crash, the aptly-named

magazine for the ZX Spectrum. Beta-tested, no doubt, by long-

suffering mothers and siblings, chock full of guess-the-verb,

guess-the-noun and guess-the-author's-favourite-TV-show, these

games were, as Nick Montfort rightly points out, the computer

game equivalent of folk-art.

Many 'Drifters might remember my ill-advised attempts to convert

a game called Stranded on Iloofrax to ADRIFT. SOI, by

Matthew O'Donnell, was one of four games by different authors

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

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From the Demos Page

Description Display After

<CLS> (clear.taf 1 Kb) By

Mystery, released 30-04-04

This is an example of how to auto

display room descriptions after

<cls> has been used. It also gives

an example of how to auto

display alternate room

descriptions as well.

The Legend of Zelda:Link's

Arrival DEMO 2 (extended)

(linksarrivaldemo2extended.taf

2 Kb) By Adam Dundas,

released 29-04-04

An extended version of the

original

INVASION (invasion.taf 0 Kb)

By Adam Dundas, released 26-

04-04

You are a colonel marine

exploring a lost alien hive, you

have found the hive and are face

to face with the alien queen

genre:horror

chairtest (chairtest.taf 0 Kb) By

NObodyNOWH ERE, released

16-04-04

This is a very small code demo of

a chair that breaks when used,

then is repaired when you ask a

repairman to fix it. This is done

using three tasks. No ALR or

variables. As per the request of a

message board user.

Imagings Demo (imagings.zip 4

Kb) B y suture, released 11-04-

04

A technical demo of the project

I'm currently working on. If you've

read my post in the forum, then

you know about my troubles with

the weather cycle. You can use

the debugger to move to the room

'Church Road' and view it for

yourself, or you can just play it

through. I am looking for

constructive criticism, so I'd

request the latter. Thanks,

everyone, and enjoy! By the way,

the game seems fairly abstract

and plotless; this is all part of the

released on a single cassette by Potter Programs, a company

based in a cul-de-sac in Surrey. It was written with The Quill, and

is a veritable grab-bag of wacky ideas. You play a scientist who,

whilst testing a newly-invented teleport, winds up not at the other

end of his laboratory but on the small planet of Iloofrax. There

you will encounter such wonders as Gangron, the one-eyed

witch, a giant mechanical cat, a machine that changes the

weather, and a system of tunnels inhabited by a "rather thin

gnome" who will follow you around as long as you are carrying

the gibbleberry jam sponge-cake. Useful items are to be found

scattered about everywhere without rhyme or reason, the

aforementioned cake, for instance, is just lying around in the

forest. Stranger still was Inner Space, an anonymous l written

game in which you take on the role of a coma-stricken car crash

victim trying desperately to regain consciousness. The game

takes place in a derelict and largely deserted small town, an

atmospheric place of dark alleys and rubbish heaps, that is

actually the PC's own psyche. This sparsely populated landscape

is peppered with bizarre incongruities; glass tunnels hovering in

mid-air, an Indian Fakir with six arms, and a marble statue of Tom

and Jerry in mid-chase.

Many of these home-grown games were clearly influenced by

popular TV shows of the time. SUDS, by David Edwards and

released by Riverdale in 1986 was a text adventure in four parts

that spoofed the four major British soaps, Emmerdale Farm

(renamed Emeroyd Farm), Coronation Street (Abdication Street)

Crossroads (Cross-Eyes) and Eastenders (Dead Enders). These

games were full of woeful puns, some of which were crucial to

solving puzzles. According to Merlin's successor Pendragon: "For

instance, upon climbing a tree I discovered a herring which I duly

smoked over a war women's campfire. Hey presto, I had a red

herring. However, this has a particular use which I will leave for

you to discover. Later in the adventure I had to pour a bucket of

cement over some relatives who were blocking my path to the

next section. Of course, the result was to cement relations."

SUDS was swiftly followed by American SUDS which spoofed,

among others, Dallas. This masterpiece of interactive fiction

began: "Welcome to Dullas! Here you are at South Pork Ranch,

home of the zaniest bunch of soap weirdoes you are ever likely to

meet. The place is in a bit of turmoil with rumours that old Joke

Spewing is still alive. Your task, Just Revolting, is to find your

pappy. That's if you can overcome the devious script and the

machinations of your brother, Booby, his wife, Spam, and your

dipsomaniac wife, Pseudo Helen. Have a nice day!" So much for

the introduction. Let's skip forward to the game: "You are standing

on the helipad" begins the first description, "To the north, south,

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

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story much, much further in. For

now, it won't make much sense.

Amnesia Kid (amnesiakid.taf 10

Kb) B y MadMax, released 09-

04-04

All you were going to do was go

shopping with your mom. But no,

you had one of your amnesia

attacks and forgot where your

house is. All you want to do is go

home, but along the way you end

up being a model citizen,

experiencing magic stuff, running

errands for a crazy scientist, and

much much more. Fun for the

whole family (except there is this

one part where you get a porno

magazine, thats the worst part)

east and west is a neatly manicured paddock. Miss Smelly

wanders by, her spare head tucked under her arm. 'Have a nice

day,' she twitters as she disappears down the drive."

The Acorn Electron was by no means the only computer to be

blessed with such home-grown masterpieces. I can remember

reading with deep feelings of envy the review in Crash magazine

for The Bimbles, a ZX Spectrum game spoofing the British

childrens TV show The Wombles. Priced at £3, The Bimbles

heralded its arrival as "The game no-one's been waiting for." The

reviewer went on to describe some of the more interesting NPCs

one can expect to meet playing the game: "The first of the loony

characters you meet is Great Uncle Buggeria who strains through

his 36 pairs of spectacles to utter, 'Puss will get greasy if she is

not sheltered from the rain' to which Fungo quite rightly retorts,

'Oh, shut up you doddering old fool', whereupon the Great Uncle

drops dead." I have now played this game via an emulator and I

can assure you that the same standard of humour is sustained

throughout.

Sometimes when I read threads on R*IF devoted to Zork or A

Mind Forever Voyaging I feel a little left out, having grown up

without these masterpieces. On the other hand, I now have

everything Infocom released on my hard drive, along with the

complete works of Level 9 and Magnetic Scrolls. And I have to

admit they're good games. Some of them are great games. But

would I have exchanged my mis-spent youth among the

underdogs of IF for one spent in the great underground empire.

Not on your nelly!

J.J.Guest Feb 29th 2004

Interview: Paul O’Brian questioned by KF

This issues interviewee is the editor of that vital organ of the IF

community SPAG, a newsletter that packs in loads of news and

game reviews. Having started on 15 May 1994 today represents

the tenth anniversary of that first issue.

That first issue was mostly packed with reviews of some of the

games included in the

Lost treasures of Infocom

package, with

many of the reviews from Stephen Granade. Paul O’Brian has

been editor since issue 18.

Paul, thank you very much for agreeing to answer a few

questions for InsideADRIFT.

My pleasure -- thanks for inviting me!

Q1. I always tend to start with this one. What brought you into the

InsideADRIFT Issue 16 May/June 2004

8

Failed game intros

Lab of Horrors

This was a game I worked

on for the End of Year

Comp, surprisingly I didn’t

finish it.

Well, it is finally here, the day you

are going to die. You have been

on death row for eleven years

while the lawyers played out their

parts in the appeals process,

even though you have been

resigned to your fate for most of

that time.

It is strange how, as your fate has

been set, you have managed to

be able to sleep well. Perhaps it is

the fact that you believe that your

sentence was just, even though it

was an accident that Sally-Anne

was killed. You had been out in

the backyard, playing around

shooting beer cans off the fence

with your handgun.

The bitter irony was that Sally-

Anne was walking past, just three

days after she had dumped you

for Jerry MacArtney, one of the

local cops, and was felled by a

stray shot. Noone believed that

you hadn't meant to do it, after all

the motive was clear and Jerry,

with the support of his colleagues,

was pretty determined to make it

stick .

It is six in the morning and you

have just eighteen hours until the

unltimate punishment is due to be

carried out. the only way you will

see tomorrow is to have the plea

for clemenc y, being made on your

behalf, granted by Governor

Henry Shrubb. Given Shrubb's

record of granting only one plea

for mercy, out of the 87 who have

faced death, you are not going to

expect anything from him.

Do you have a game that has hit

the rails, but you would like to

share with the community. If so,

send it in to me.

world of interactive fiction (and keeps you here).

Probably the best and most complete answer to this question is

the first editorial I wrote for SPAG, in issue #18. The short version

is that after my dad introduced me to Zork in the early Eighties,

Infocom became one of my teenage obsessions. Then, in the

early Nineties, my interest in IF was reawakened by Activision's

release of the Lost Treasures of Infocom collections. I was

discovering the Internet right about the same time, so one of the

first searches I did was on "interactive fiction"; that led me to the

newsgroups and to the discovery that IF is still alive and thriving,

with a whole range of tools allowing people to write works just as

good as or better than anything Infocom ever produced. Playing

and writing new IF games was a dream come true for me.

As for what keeps me around, I think it's a combination of things.

Certainly, I'm still fascinated with the medium of IF, and I love

seeing it continue to grow and evolve. In addition, editing SPAG

and writing the Earth And Sky series have proved to be rather

tangible commitments to participation in the IF community -- even

at times when I've felt like drifting away, I've found myself

unwilling to leave SPAG rudderless and my game series

incomplete. Finally, the IF community contains some of the most

interesting people I've encountered in any social sphere. Being

around such bright and creative people can feel a little

intimidating at times, but it's so rewarding.

Q2. The SPAG newsletter is a valuable resource for finding a

wide range of reviews for the whole community. Does it currently

meet the targets that you have for it and do you have more aims

for the future.

Heh. "Targets." I've never been inclined to set goals for SPAG,

because it would drive me crazy to have specific aims for

something that is largely out of my control. My only real goal is to

hustle up enough reviews every three months to produce a viable

issue of the zine.

Thanks to SPAG's legions of volunteer contributors, I've always

been able to reach that goal, though sometimes it's meant