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(… being the newsletter of the ADRIFT community…)

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Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 2]

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Editorial .....................................................................................................4

Hot Off The Press

[ADRIFT On Vista; One Room Competition; A Place In The Interactive

History Books; Reviews Exchange Issue 9; Summer Comp Results; The Hourglass Comp;

Drifter Birthdays; Recent ADRIFT Releases]

..........................................................5

ADRIFT Forum Digest..............................................................................11

Musings On The IFComp by David Whyld .................................................13

101 Things You Love & Hate About IF ...................................................16

And Then There Were (100)0 by David Whyld..........................................21

View From A(n Almost) Newbie by AndrewF ...........................................25

Drifters’ Think About ...............................................................................27

In The Hot Seat

[Interview with Robert Street]

....................................................28

In Progress:

“Divine Harbour” by C. Henshaw .........................................................35

“Scarlet” by David Whyld ....................................................................37

Dead But Not Lovin’ It by David Whyld .....................................................39

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 3]

Reference.................................................................................................42

Word Search

[answers to issue 29]

...................................................................44

Contributions...........................................................................................46

Looking Ahead .........................................................................................47

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 4]

Editorial

Editorial

Editorial

Editorial

W

elcome to the Big 30!

Yes, issue thirty of the newsletter and the second with yours truly at the helm.

(“Yay, ma, made it! Second issue! Top of the world!”)

The last issue seemed to be a reasonable success and hoping this one will be the same. It’s a

little slimmer than the last issue (though the novelty hasn’t begun to wear off quite yet

.

)

but I’m sure there a few things in here that might catch your fancy. Ever wondered what the

most popular and unpopular things in IF games are. Well, this issue we have 101 of them so

there ought to be a few things in there to include, or not as the case may be, in your first

game.

David Whyld

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 5]

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(… being the latest news from the big wide world of interactive fiction…)

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As an experiment, I recently downloaded a beta of the new Microsoft version of

Windows, and installed ADRIFT on it. Aside from a few slowdown issues*, it ran

fine so any qualms about whether or not ADRIFT would work properly on Vista

have been put to rest. Although with Microsoft’s ever-sliding release schedule for

Vista, we might well be on ADRIFT 10 before it materialises…

* Of course, pretty much everything I did on Vista suffered slowdown issues to

some degree, so whether there are any actual slowdown issues with ADRIFT on

Vista or just

everything

on Vista is difficult to tell at this stage.

The ADRIFT Generator under

Vista…

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 6]

…and the Runner.

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The results of the One Room Competition have been announced at

http://www.avventuretestuali.com/orgc/orgc-2006-eng

There was a single ADRIFT entry out of the nine games, although as seven were in

Italian the competition was of limited interest to those of us (myself included) who

don’t speak the language.

The results in full:

1) Final Selection by Sam Gordon

2) Lo sforacchiato giallo by Veronica Auretta

3) Il diavolo a Venezia by Lorenzo Carnevale

4) Forma Mentis by Paolo Maroncelli

5) Galeotto fu il canotto (tre modi per buttare l'ancora) by Andrea

Rezzonico

6) It's Easter, Peeps! by Sara Brookside

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 7]

7) Lazy Jones e l'ultima crostata by Gabriele Lazzara and Carmelo Paterniti

8) De Reditu by Massimo Corso

9) Frankenstein III by Corvo di Odino

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“Let’s Tell A Story Together: A History Of Interactive Fiction” by SPAG editor Jimmy

Maher is available from

http://home.grandecom.net/~maher/if-book/index.html

While certainly an interesting read, its coverage given to ADRIFT (the easiest to

use IF system, and the one that produces the most games per year) is sparse to

say the least. Unfortunately it seems that while ADRIFT might not have the terrible

reputation it once had in its early years, it’s still a long way from being considered a

viable alternative to TADS or Inform for most of the IF community.

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Issue 9 of the Reviews Exchange is available from

http://adrift.sitesled.com/

A little slimmer than previous issues due to the recent sparseness of new ADRIFT

games, it still managed a total of twelve reviews.

ADRIFT Games Reviewed

For Love of Digby - reviewed by Robert Street

The Potter and the Mould - reviewed by D.L Sun, David Whyld and TDS

It's Easter Peeps! - reviewed by David Whyld and TDS

SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape) - reviewed by David Whyld and TDS

The Warlord, the Princess and the Bulldog - reviewed by Lumin

Non-ADRIFT Games Reviewed

The Reliques of Tolti-Aph - reviewed by David Whyld

Damnatio Memoriae - reviewed by David Whyld

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 8]

Pantomime - reviewed by David Whyld

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 9]

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The ADRIFT Summer Competition 2006 is over. Although the rules originally

specified a minimum of four entries, the organiser (KFAdrift) graciously decided to

go ahead with the comp even though only three entries were received. The results

in full:

1. The Reluctant Vampire by David Whyld

2. Pestilence by Richard Otter

3. Spooked by TDS

The voting was as follows:

Pestilence by Rotter 4 2 4 4 - 5 4 Av=3.83

Spooked by TDS 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 Av=2.71

The Reluctant Vampire by David Whyld 5 - 3 5 5 4 5 Av=4.50

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No sooner has the last ADRIFT Comp finished than a new one is underway. This is

slightly different in that competitors have to write an entire game within a three

hour time limit (the 3x hourglass comp.)

Full details:

http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=1;t=5450

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The following drifters are celebrating a birthday over the next couple of months:

July

29 jonrock (53)

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 10]

August

2 Schoolsinger (22)

4 outsider (19)

5 gigabyteman/Corey Arnett (37), Floyd (37), The Angel Gibreel (28)

7 Splink07 (26), loki88 (40)

8 Lena1975 (31)

10 djchallis (17)

11 mjbstein (37)

15 Coolkid (18)

17 jujoensu (24)

18 rocksockm (29)

20 Chenshaw (30)

21 Bacchus (38), malleus maleficarum (33), Scarlettechi (20)

22 Teno (21)

23 Woodfish (18), Damien/damien8000uk (20), White Divine/Mickey Crocker

(22), red assassin (16)

26 Starstream (61)

27 re_volvo (33), Filthy Bill (35)

30 bdenson (35), Scarecrow (35)

September

1 Astridian (23)

4 RansomDchs (49), cewilson (47), Lailokken (50), Generic User Again (19)

5 Campbell (30), Keeling (31)

10 Lycaon (23), brucehum (35)

11 Rabbinical College of Cordova (63)

13 Chaos (21)

16 M3K0 (21)

17 Mystery (34), lyonstomb (27)

18 Psyleid (19), ifjames (18)

20 ondre (28)

24 Jacqueline/Lumin (23), V.A. Spatski (36)

27 MadTom (20)

28 kolya (29), highways (63)

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21 07 06 The Haunted Horror House by TDS

02 07 06 Pestilence by Richard Otter

02 07 06 The Reluctant Vampire by David Whyld

02 07 06 The Wonders Of Science by TDS

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 11]

16 06 06 The New Superstud by Richard Deckmaster

11 06 06 S.E.R.E. (Search, Evade, Resist, Escape) by Skypig

15 05 06 It’s Easter, Peeps! by Sara Brookside

24 04 06 Resident Lust by Night_Owl

07 04 06 The Clairvoyant by Priapus Rex

07 04 06 A Dream Come True by Purple Dragon

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 12]

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by Shuarian

The last month was characterised by a rather low activity on the forum; it seems

the heat and the World Cup have taken their tolls. Yet still a few interesting threads

appeared on the forum:

Programming Help

- Comparing Variables

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=4;t=541

Shows a simple way of comparing two numeric variables.

- Conversation, stopping and starting

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=4;t=5381)

Details how to set up a conversation system so as to reflect different conditions

and situations within an ongoing conversation.

Game Design

- Serial IF

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=1;t=5343)

The idea behind serial IF is to separate a bigger story arch into smaller episodes.

All in all, people seemed to like the idea, although it was pointed out that each

episode preferably should be self-contained in some way.

- Do you like writing descriptions.

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=1;t=5352)

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 13]

How complete should the descriptions of rooms and objects be. What can a writer

do in order to avoid boring or useless descriptions.

Player Preferences

- Font Sizes

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=1;t=5325)

What font sizes and styles do people use for the Adrift runner.

- Get if off your chest

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=1;t=5321)

MrToad asks what the other forum members dislike about IF games, and gets

many interesting and helpful responses.

Competitions

- Competitions good or bad.

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=1;t=5372)

KFAdrift is wondering what influences competitions have on the release of new

games. Do people specifically write games for comps, and which amount and what

kind of competitions are reasonable.

Miscellaneous

- Hey, who wants to hear a really dumb idea., ... A collaborative game.

(http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/iB/ikonboard.cgi.act=ST;f=6;t=5327)

The idea Sprite had is to create some kind of game lobby from which on players

can enter other short games, all written by different authors. The idea was

welcomed very positively, although the project is currently on hold until Adrift 5 is

out.

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 14]

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by David Whyld

I

t’s that time of year again: the IFComp – the

big

comp of the interactive fiction

world – is looming. Although a while off yet (it should start around the time the

next issue of the newsletter is out), for anyone planning to enter the comp, it’s

probably approaching way too quickly for their liking.

As far as competitions go in the IF world, the IFComp is THE comp. The IF

equivalent, if you will, of the Oscars. It even carries a decent cash prize for the first

place and an abundance of prizes for those who don’t fare as well (I came 23

rd

in

2004 and got a nice prize). IF itself might not be a commercial prospect any more,

but the IFComp is the one guaranteed way of ensuring you get

something

for your

trouble. (Of course, it’s worth mentioning that if you're writing a game purely for

the prizes, you're missing the point. Aside from anything else, the sheer amount of

time and effort that would be required to write a game capable of winning a decent

cash prize wouldn’t be worth it on a cash-per-hour-of-game-writing basis. You'd be

better off getting a part time job where you

definitely

get paid at the end of it,

instead of writing a game where you only get paid

if

you do really well.) There are

other comps out there – the numerous ADRIFT Comps, the Spring Thing, the One

Room Comp, the Intro Comp, the Art Comp and so on and so forth – but none of

them carry anything like the same kind of impact as the IFComp, both from the

way the comp is perceived and the amount of feedback you tend to receive for

games entered in it.* Which isn't to say that the comp doesn’t have its own

problems.

* The ADRIFT entries in the IFComp 2005 gained around ten or eleven reviews

each; the ones in the Spring Thing 2006 only three.

For one, while there are undoubtedly a few genuinely brilliant games entered every

year, and quite a few others that are way above average, there are also a good

deal of entries that no one, probably not even their own authors, would try to claim

were genuinely brilliant. Or even above average. Some games are just plain bad:

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 15]

not been tested, written by people who don’t seem to know what they're doing,

some even by people who don’t speak the English language well enough to make

themselves understood let alone write a game in it. You can often tell a true stinker

straight off from the poorly written introduction (generally littered with more

spelling mistakes and/or grammatical errors than you could shake a stick at) which,

being the first thing potential players see, should be as close to perfect as it’s

possible to make an introduction.

Then there are the joke entries. And the IFComp, being the biggest comp around,

tends to attract more than its fair share of joke entries. Why is something of a

mystery, but then I guess every community attracts its fair share of idiots along the

way.

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell a genuinely bad game written by someone who

doesn’t have a clue from a deliberate joke game. Take the notorious Paul Panks, he

of

Westfront PC

fame, who holds the unique, though hardly sought after, record of

coming last in the IFComp for two years running. His entry in 2004 was called

Ninja

and it finished at the lowest placed position in the comp. He re-entered the game

(a breach of the comp rules surely.) with a very minor change the following year,

now calling it

Ninja 2,

where it again came last place. Were they joke entries. Or

just remarkably bad games. Judging from the usual kind of games Panks writes,

and self-promotes to a painful degree on the RAIF/RGIF newsgroups, it’s hard to

say for sure.

Some games are obvious joke entries and don’t pretend to be anything else. One of

the ADRIFT games last year was called

PTbadsixandoneeighth or Have You Seen

The Muffin Man. He Is Quite Large

. Thankfully everyone realised it was a

deliberately bad game (a goal it achieved very well, I might add) and didn’t knock

ADRIFT for the quality of this game it had produced.

This year will hopefully see a stronger ADRIFT showing than ever in the comp.

While I doubt very much we’ll see an ADRIFT game finishing in first place, or even

in the top five, it’s possible one might crack the top ten for the first time since

The

PK Girl

in 2002. Last year we came close – games at 11, 12 and 14 – so hopefully

this year we’ll do even better.

As to whether an ADRIFT game is ever going to win the IFComp, I really couldn’t

say. As it’s my chosen system (and this

is

the ADRIFT newsletter after all), I’d like

to say yes… but at the same time, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, my actual

response would more likely be no. The stigma of ADRIFT’s early years, when it

produced countless terrible games and gained for itself a terrible reputation as a

result, might finally be dying down, but there's still a long, long way to go before it

achieves the same kind of recognition as Tads and Inform have*. Maybe ADRIFT 5

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 16]

will change all that, although only having a few glimpses of what it will be like, and

no experience of using it, it’s difficult to say. Hopefully in a few months, and

certainly by the IFComp 2007, we’ll see just what ADRIFT 5 can do, and then we’ll

be able to tell whether it can hold its own against the big boys.

* Although it’s worth mentioning that the worst games in the IFComp for the past

two years haven't been ADRIFT games.

So will an ADRIFT game win the IFComp this year. No. Not a chance. Next year.

No. In five years time. Ten years.

Who can say…. But it'll certainly be interesting seeing how things stand in another

five years.

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

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A couple of recent threads on the ADRIFT forum attempted to list a 101 things that

people love and hate about interactive fiction. It didn’t get to

quite

a 101 in either

category but a fair total was reached. Thinking on writing a game. It might be an

idea to check out the following lists:

Things People Love…

Things People Love…

Things People Love…

Things People Love…

I like humour where it is appropriate, so if I was playing a game based on Red

Dwarf.... I'd expect to see a lot of humour.

I like to see good english composition.

I like puzzles or problems, appropriate to the situation in the game, with logical

solutions - preferably with more than one way to solve it.

Games with interesting storylines.

Twists in the plot that make me think "wow! I wish I'd written that!"

Puzzles that make sense (i.e. you solve them and you understand them

afterwards).

Games that make sense (i.e. you don't finish them and sit there wondering just

what they were all about).

Games that have been spellchecked and grammar checked.

Games that aren't buggy.

Fully implemented scenery. If there's a great big tree in front of me, I want to be

able to examine it and get more than YOU SEE NO SUCH THING.

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 18]

Horror games that are actually creepy as opposed to "oh,

more

blood and

more

guts and

more

dead bodies. Ho hum."

Fantasy games that don't fall into the cliche of sticking a goblin, orc and zombie in

every other location.

Games that don't have mazes in them.

Puzzles that make sense. If there's a puzzle in the game, make sure it makes sense

or don't include it.

A proper introduction. None of this "let's just dump him in the first location and he

can figure out the storyline for himself".

NPCs who haven't been cut from cardboard.

Lots of location, but only if those locations have something worthwhile to do in

them. If there are 1,700+ locations in your game and 1,500 of them are empty,

why not chop out the empty ones and just leave me with the ones that make a

difference.

I like Noir, so I like the idea of Noir endings - a victory, but always a slightly hollow

one. I have an epic game that, if I ever finish it, will be something like that (as it's

Noir).

…and hate

Games that are set in an ordinary suburban house / school / college / office (with

one or two exceptions) ie games that are set wherever the unimaginative author is

most familiar with, usually with badly implemented bathroom / kitchen furniture

that doesn't really do anything but which he/she put it in anyway because every

house has a bathroom, right.

Games of the above type that start off in a bedroom. Just because you're writing

the game in your bedroom doesn't mean the game has to take place there.

Games with dozens of non-interactive cut-scenes. Just write a short story, for

crying out loud!

Games that look like games but which turn out to be completely on rails from start

to finish.

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 19]

Generic fantasy settings. Even humorous generic fantasy has been done to death

now.

Locks and keys. Yes, I admit, I have them in my games, but I'm intending to avoid

them in future.

Generic sci-fi settings with lots of corridors and doors that open with passes etc.

And robot guards with lasers. And computer terminals.

Games which exist solely to put across some kind of moral or message, and do so

in a very heavy-handed way.

Any game with a bland, generic hero as PC. The PC is a character; even James

Bond has likes, dislikes, quirks and a sense of humour. Too often you get the

feeling this hasn't been thought about.

Mazes. Yes, I hate mazes. I don’t care if the author likes them because I don’t and

it’s a fair bet the only person who doesn’t hate them is the guy who puts them in

his game.

Mazes. So bad they deserve two whole points to themselves.

Lack of hints. I always get stuck and my initial reaction when getting stuck is to

type HELP. If HELP doesn’t produce a decent response, you can bet your bottom

dollar the next thing I'm typing will be QUIT.

Pointless puzzles. Like the player is wandering through a featureless landscape and

comes across a set of building blocks that he has to arrange into a set order to

progress to the next stage of the game. Why does he have to do this. Er… because

the writer felt like putting this puzzle in a game.

Games that don’t implement descriptions for things you can see.

QUOTE

You are in a field. You can see a tree and a bench here.

> x field

You see no such thing.

> x tree

You see no such thing.

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 20]

> x bench

You see no such thing.

> quit

If they're there, they need a description.

Serious games that have jokey bits in them. Don’t put jokes in a serious game. It

just spoils the mood. Particularly if you're writing a horror game.

Item carrying restrictions. If there are fifteen items in the game, then I want to be

able to carry fifteen. Is this realistic. No. But I don’t care.

Games littered with speling mistkes bad and grammar and punc!tuat,ion in. the!

wro-ng place’. And Lots Of Words Starting With Capitals That Don’t Need Capitals.

These are text adventures, so if you don’t have a good grasp of the English

language, don’t write a game.

Adrift games that haven't had the default “talk to” response overridden. It never

fails to annoy me whenever I talk to an NPC and get told to “use ask Alice about

subject instead”. C’mon, people. It breaks mimesis*, for crying out loud!

Bugs. The worst offender. Every bug lowers my opinion of a game and the more I

come across, the more I wonder why I don’t just give up and find some other less

buggy game to play. Yes, bugs are difficult to get rid of completely but with careful

testing you can eliminate the worse offenders.

Bugs - so many things too numerous to go into that can go wrong and get you

stuck

Mazes (most of them) - for obvious reasons

Bad room descriptions/map layouts - where you have to go through so many

identical corridors, rooms in a building, paths through a forest, etc.

Bad NPC implementation - everytime you encounter an NPC they say/look like/do

the same thing all the time

Not describing things - reading 'You see no such thing.' over and over and over (I

mean substantial objects in a room description, not every tiny thing). At least have

a new stock phrase, like, 'I don't have time to inspect every last thing.'!)

Really difficult puzzles, GTV issues, etc. - I don't like to spend too much time in a

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 21]

location or having to go back and forth through the same rooms to try to solve

something, at least not unless there are interesting things happening the whole

time and/or I seem to be making lots of progress whilst doing it.

My pet peeve is puzzles which don't give a good connection between obstacle and

solution beforehand, doubly so if the connection is not clear after the fact.

For an example of the first, if an npc is blocking my way, and to get past, I have to

"GIVE MACGUFFIN TO NPC", then I should have a good reason to expect that the

npc would react to the macguffin.

For an example of the second, in _Temple of the Orc Mage_, there are a number of

objects where: If you try to pick it up while holding a particular second object, you

will succeed with no hint anything was unusual. If you try to pick it up any other

time, the attempt will simply fail. Worse, the walkthrough gives no clue why this

sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

I can't stand overly long mazes, or adventures with a million locations and a grand

total of three objects. And games where I have to open it in the generator to see

what the heck I was meant to do irritate me.

Also, for some reason I can't get through any game that starts on a spaceship. I

don't know what it is, I like sci-fi, but for some reason it's a real turn-off.

One thing I CAN'T STAND in IF is the verb USE.

Personally I find particularly young player characters in games not as engaging as

an older character simply due to the fact that it makes things more difficult to

relate to. For me, if an author really wanted to use the perspective of a child to

play the game with, it would be preferable if it was only for a small section.

1. Mazes - I rarely play a game with a maze through to its conclusion.

2. Bugs

3. Bad story

4. Boring Puzzles

5. Bad writing and description - This is a killer. So many games had really bad room

descriptions it almost makes no sense.

I also dislike when the fourth wall is broken to be used as a crutch for poor game

design.

Inside ADRIFT Issue 30 July/August 2006

[Page 22]

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