Interactive Fiction games

Anyone here play 'em? I've got enough down time at work that such games look very appealing, but I don't know what actually makes a good one.

Only thing I know is that I DON'T want any of that impossible knowledge bullshit, and unfortunately that seems to automatically disqualify anything made before 2000.

Help a neckbeard out, Veeky Forums

Other urls found in this thread:

ifwiki.org/index.php/Cruelty_scale
douglasadams.com/creations/infocom.php
projectaon.org/staff/eric/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

And dumping whatever I have on my phone, because what the fuck else am I going to do

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I also would like to know. I only played those cyoa books. Here's a new ip for your thread.

I used to be huge on IntFic, both in the 80s, and around 2000. A good one doesn't require you to die and start over, using knowledge from previous games; it doesn't let you accidentally put the game in an unwinnable state; has plenty of synonyms so you don't have to play guess-the-word.
Most of those are covered under the Zarfian cruelty scale, which most games are rated under on various IF sites.

ifwiki.org/index.php/Cruelty_scale

Favorites of mine:
Aisle, an artsy thing where you have only one move before the game's over, but there's a dizzying array of possible outcomes to explore.
All Roads, a winner of the IF Comp and XYZZY awards back in '01. It's pretty straightforward, the real puzzle is what it all means.
For a Change: A game which messes with your perception of language in odd ways. It's baffling at first, but then you kind of get the feel for the weird not-quite-English the world's using, and it makes for a unique experience.
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head Nor Tail of It: An old infocom game, all about puns and wordplay.
Shade, a one room puzzle about a man's world coming apart.
She's Got a Thing For A Spring, mostly because of how well this one NPC is written. I remember just hanging out watching him work, and finding the old guy charming.
Spider and Web: This one's a bit on the hard side, in the mindbending sense. All I can say is: remember the opening scenes, think about them carefully, and keep them in mind, and you should be able to figure out the twist.
Varicella, a tale where you play an odious little man preparing to seize power in a weird modern version of the old Italian city-states

I appreciate the hell out of you, user. I'll definitely give each of these a look later.

> Planetfall
All I remember is dying of thirst while the robot made obvious comments of the rooms.

Three more I just remembered:

Hunter, In Darkness is a game based on the old video game Hunt the Wumpus. It's a bit railroady, but I loved the atmosphere. Slight hint: you don't need to map anything, that's not how you track the beast.

Enlightenment is a bit of a mini-game, another one-room puzzle. In this one you're a Zork-style adventurer about to exit with your haul, when you find the bridge out is blocked by a chained troll, and you've got nothing left to deal with it. You do have some grue repellent, so if you can just put out all the various lights, the problem will take care of itself. Short but very memorable.

If you want to play something bad, I got a kick out of Symetry by Rybread Celsuis (who may or may not have been a fictional character himself, there was speculation on who it might be) It's a crummy world of spelling errors and lurid writing and game bugs, that might be brilliant or just bad. Maybe both The misspelled title may actually be a sly reference to the ending, which relies on a broken symmetry

Beyond that, check out games that did well in the annual IF comp. Pretty much anything that got into the top 5 or 10 is going to be solid, so pick what sounds cool to you.

>Beyond that, check out games that did well in the annual IF comp. Pretty much anything that got into the top 5 or 10 is going to be solid, so pick what sounds cool to you.
Yeah, I did just that and a game called Cape from last year immediately jumped out to me. Thanks!

>ctrl-f
>no pic related
>this must be one of those dystopian future hellholes in the simulation

OP explicity excludes games like that in his post

AMFV is really good, but pretty hard. The later Infocom stuff ('85 to '88 or so) is pretty solid gaming. The earlier ones were often unfair and clunky, but they moved away from that.
I still have a soft spot for Infidel, though. It's an amazing beginning and an utterly fantastic ending, it just has some mediocre puzzling sandwiched in the middle.

>Planetfall

Wow, haven't played that game since the 80's. Infocom games were popular enough that a few were made into novels. Wound up reading Planetfall and Stationfall. Probably one of the most erotic things I've read as a teen. Dude's balls get blown off in an explosion. While recovering, he's fitted with a prosthetic that glowed white when stroked, which he found insulting because he's black. Later on, sexy girl rips off his pants for sexy time and exclaims, "Nice workmanship!"

I have no idea if the game is like this.

I don't know what OP means by "impossible knowledge", but all of those Infocom text adventures came with tons of goodies included with the game. HGttG came with the items shown here, but none of them were vital to the game itself. But some games included maps and the like. Some archives include these things so you can properly play the game.

Sorry if it sounds like a stuppid question, but what exaxtly is interactive fiction, and what differenciate it form other text based games like VNs or CYOAs ?

Alright, Planetfall sounds like good shit

That wasn't Planetfall

The lines are kinda blurry, but let's see:

>Interactive Fiction is /just/ the words, whereas Virtual Novels at least have pictures
>Interactive Fiction (especially from the 70s and 80s) usually let you just type in what you want to do, as opposed to just being able to choose from a list in CYOA

You typed what you wanted to do in normal English, and the game does a decent job understanding you, which was pretty good for almost 40 years ago. If you wanted to wear a jacket, you'd type "Wear that jacket" or "wear jacket" or "put on my jacket" etc...

You can try Hitchhiker's online here:
douglasadams.com/creations/infocom.php

Jesus christ user, why would you start someone off with one of the more cruel text adventures?

Because it' funny as shit.
And if he can get the babel fish, he will know what it's like to walk amongst the gods.

The babel fish is complicated, but figuring out that you needed to feed the cheese sandwich to the dog because the game abruptly ends like 20 hours later is unfair horseshit.
(The game is funny as hell, though.)

I wouldn't know. I've never gotten past Marvin.
Yes, I know it's 2016 now and I have the interweb.
But I'm trying to play like it's 1986.
Also, Optimus Prime dying was bullshit.
Fucking Hot Rod.

Here is most of Lone Wolf, free and playable from a browser:
projectaon.org/staff/eric/
It is the good stuff