I Made an Interactive Fiction game!

Yes, it's true! Though it is a preview of a game, there's quite a lot of playtime to be had. I actually entered this game in a competition in 2009 (called The Spring Thing), and won third place (though there were only four games competing, d'oh!). I programmed this game using a relatively new interactive fiction making system called TAB.

This has been what's taking up a lot of my time lately. I recently re-released this game with a bunch of enhancements and bug fixes.

Some of you may not know what Interactive Fiction is. Well, the old-fashioned name for a game like this would be a text adventure. The most famous Interactive Fiction games released are the classics released by Infocom, such as Zork, Planetfall, and A Mind Forever Voyaging.

Here's an excerpt from the manual I made for my game:

Interactive fiction can be considered a game, as well as a story. The best ones are like a well-written book, only you get to interact with the plot and influence the path that the main character takes. An interactive fiction game will describe something, like a location or some kind of activity going on, and then it will wait for the player to type in some kind of action, in the form of a command. Think of the locations in the game as scenes, the items as props, and the characters as, well...the characters.

Like many works of interactive fiction, this is a turn-based game. This means that the game will wait indefinitely for you to tell it what to do. If you're in the middle of being attacked by some monster, and you have to stop playing to use the bathroom or something, you will still be alive and at the same point in the game as when you left. There is no need to "pause" the game when you have to stop for a little while.

However, keep in mind that whenever you enter a recognized command into the game, things will always change. For one, the game keeps track of how many turns you have made so far. Secondly, characters may come and go as they please, making their own moves during the turn. Some will probably continue to attack you if they're already doing so, and some may perform other miscellaneous actions of their own, which may or may not have anything to do with you.

Most IF games have the following actions that can be taken: Getting items, dropping items, taking an inventory of items that you have, looking at things, saving and restoring game files, fighting or talking to characters in the game, reading signs, notes, books, etc., moving from place to place (usually by entering a compass direction, such as north, south, east or west), and opening or unlocking doors.

This is a screenshot from my game. Click to enlarge!

Interactive Fiction games usually have no graphics or sound, just text. The difference between my game and others like it, is the fact that it has sounds and music.

Some of you may have played games such as the one I made. Some not. I think the more geeky of you will appreciate it. Just a fair warning: This game is pretty gory and nasty with some of the descriptions, and you'll die often, so save the game whenever it seems like a good time to do so.
 
The game is for Windows (98 and beyond), but you can play it on the Mac, with Parallels Desktop (if you have an Intel-based processor), and you can play it on Linux, with Wine.
 
This is a video narrated by my friend, Omar, illustrating how the game runs on a Mac using Parallels Desktop. Once you get it running, it's identical to running it in Windows:  



Creating this game has been an amazing outlet for me. The creative aspect of my brain enjoys plotting the game. What do I want to happen? What do I want this character to say? Where is the game going? The puzzle-solving aspect of my mind enjoys figuring out how to make my plots and plans a reality.

If you feel like trying out this game, go to my other blog (yes, I have another blog!) here: http://amethystgames.wordpress.com/

You can jump right to the page with the download links here: http://amethystgames.wordpress.com/92/

If you try it out, let me know how you liked it (or disliked it)!