|
First, let me apologize for the very, uh, SEO-ish title. I wanted to make it searchable. Anyways! What's Interactive Fiction? Interactive fiction, usually abbreviated as IF is a malleable term which mostly means "electronic games mostly based around text." This includes anything from old-fashioned text adventures where you interact with the game via typing in your commands (like Zork) to CYOA-style games with stat-tracking (all the Choice of Games stuff) to hypertext games (Twine games, mostly, but there's others here too) to sometimes even visual novels or visual-novel-like things. Basically, if it's primarily or wholly text-based and also a game, it's probably okay to call it interactive fiction. Lumping all this stuff together under the term "interactive fiction" kinda doesn't do justice to all the different types of stuff that's out there, so here's a quick run-down of the landscape, in no particular order (though I'm not an authority and if you think something's close enough, definitely just post!) (also; if you feel anything should be added to/updated in the OP tell me and I can do the thing) Parser-based IF: Zork and other things   These are games where you interact primarily through the medium of typing commands at the computer and reading the responses that come out. They used to be huge money - Infocom (famous for many old text adventure games) was probably the biggest computer game company in the 80s, moving an incredible number of units. Unfortunately for them, once computers were able to render graphics, the market for text adventures fell off and never recovered. Nowadays this is probably the least popular type of IF, but there's a still a lively community of active players and creators. If anything, the quality of new parser games has gone up! The parser form generally does a great job of conveying a sense of place and exploration, as well as allowing some really good puzzles. It does a less great job of being friendly and discoverable, especially to new users, and its relative openness can also make some really bad puzzles possible. Possibly famous parser-based games: Zork, Adventure, The Oregon Trail (yes the first version of The Oregon Trail was a parser game!), The Hobbit (big in Britain), The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Galatea, Counterfeit Monkey, Anchorhead, Trinity. Hypertext-based IF: Twine & Inkle & others   These are games where you interact primarily through the medium of hypertext - this is, clicking text links. Sometimes these links are embedded in the text, and sometimes they're presented as options at the bottom of the page. Twine, which is the authoring system most of these use, is extraordinarily flexible (you can use javascript if you want, which is basically unlimited power) and so there's a huge variety in gameplay and presentation. For example, both those pictures above are Twine games! These tend to be shorter and more experimental, but given the wide variety you can find some of everything. Some have a lot of pictures, some none at all; some have entire embedded minigames, some are just linear stories; some are only five minutes and some are hours. Also, you can play a lot of these on your phone. Possibly famous Twine games? I don't really keep up with this scene as much: howling dogs (and most of Porpentine's stuff), Open Sorcery, Depression Quest CYOA-likes/ChoiceScript Games (mostly by Choice of Games)  These are basically CYOA texts, but on computers/phones. The biggest player in this area is Choice of Games, which publishes a variety of high-quality games that have a very distinct "house style" where you gradually build up your character's stats over repeated decisions, and where major plot branches are gated by stat checks. They tend to be reasonably long, with a lot of reactivity. They've actually published a Vampire: The Masquerade tie-in game called Night Road, which was really cool to see! You can find them on Steam or on their website. All their games are written with their in-house engine, ChoiceScript, but ChoiceScript is also open to hobbyists, and there are a fair number of non-Choice of Games ChoiceScript games. Some of these hobbyist games play completely differently than the Choice of Games house style. For whatever reason these seem to be really popular for Goon LPs; if you Google "Choice of Games Something Awful" you can find a fair number of CoG LPs over the years. I actually don't know of any other engines that do this; if are other companies/engines in this space you know of do tell! I have no idea how popular any of these are, somebody who knows these help: Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road, Turandot, Choice of Magics, Creme de la Creme. Are Visual Novels IF? Well, maybe? Certainly some people will submit Ren'py games to the various IF competitions, and you could reasonably argue that VNs are mostly text-based and are also games. On the other hand, as far as I'm aware the whole visual novel scene is mostly disconnected with the IF scene. So really, it probably comes down to what the author of the work says. So where can you find fun games? Well, ask here, probably, but there's also the IFDB. The ratings there tend to be pretty good, but you should read the reviews too, because sometimes the game is very highly rated because it has fiendishly difficult puzzles, which might not be great if you don't like puzzles. (I hate puzzles. Puzzles are the worst.) Choice of Games has all their games available on their website, though be aware they're all commercial. They let you demo the first few chapters though! You can also get them on Steam. Hosted Games is, I think, run by the same folks that run Choice of Games, the difference being that Hosted Games are self-published instead of under the CoG label. There are also a number of competitions/festivals that tend to spit out a lot of cool stuff. In fact, this is where the lion's share of new games show up. You have the big one, IFComp, a yearly competition that generally has a bunch of super high quality stuff in it. Just going to a year and picking anything from the top 5 is almost certainly going to give you a good time. There's also Spring Thing and EctoComp, and probably a couple more I'm forgetting. Oh! And the XYZZY awards, which are yearly, are also great for finding good stuff.
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2021 07:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:26 |
|
|
So, I just finished The Road to Canterbury, which is a Choice of Games title. They used to all have "Choice" in them (like, Choice of the Ninja, Choice of Robots, Choice of Magics) but they've stopped doing that for the newer stuff, which is a good decision I think. It was fine. It was of reasonable length, and the characters were distinct and memorable. There are a couple of big decisions you can make, like whether you want to support England or France and picking one of your feuding party members to support. There was the standard CoG romance options too. I played through it once but didn't feel like it was necessary to go back and play through other routes. I picked it because I was interested to see how the author would work with the setting, which is Literally 1375 England, featuring real historical figures Philippa de Roet and Geoffrey Chaucer. The author clearly did a lot of research, or maybe just really likes the period. There's a bunch of cool little stuff, like how the religious options follow the weekly dietary restrictions of the period, or how all your default horse name options are famous horses from legend or literature. There's a lot of emphasis on using historical frames of reference and having the characters act at least reasonably period-accurate, which makes the times that it breaks out of that particularly jarring, but that's more a result of the CoG style than anything else. Not sure what I'll play next. I took a look at the Hosted Games section but there are a lot of those, and at least one of the ones I checked out had formatting errors in the intro screen. I hear some of them are really good but I've no idea how to pick them out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2021 19:20
|
|
|
Great idea for a thread! I'll probably post about Twine stuff later, but re: Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road: I think what's impressive about it is how much it actually uses the Vampire tabletop system mechanically in terms of attributes, skills, merits, etc. There are a couple of Vampire visual novels but they only vaguely reference in-game abilities in a very abstracted way, here you get actual XP to spend and stuff which is really neat. In Night Road you play a vampire courier in the Southwest US who gets embroiled in some bad situations (of course) and you have to make a living while dodging conspiracies and power plays (of course). You get a breadth of choices in terms of background that ends up being reflected in the story pretty well (if you want to play Tremere blood mages, which of course I did, that's DLC lol). Some of the writing can get hokey and there's a whole chapter set in a migrant detention camp that seemed unwise (not handled nearly as bad as some of the actual White Wolf published stuff and it wasn't a dealbreaker for me, but it definitely took me out a bit), but if you imagine it as the kind of plot and characterization you'd get in a real Vampire tabletop group, it works -- and the fact that it basically is a whole tabletop campaign in game form is pretty neat. It's the first of three planned games, there's another one about Hunters called Out For Blood which should be published soon, and the one I'm looking forward to is Parliament of Knives, which if it's all about petty vampire politics will totally be my jam. If you are down because of how Bloodlines 2 is going, this might actually be a decent stopgap
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2021 19:58
|
|
|
Does Sunless Sea / Sky count as IF? It gets pretty blurry since its largely IF but there is some gameplay elements. Fallen London definitely counts but is less fun.  I played a ton of Zork and other text-based games and MUDs back in the day. I don't play a ton of IF games these days but I have a bunch of old CYOA gamebooks and generally like the concepts, I should check out some more of the modern IF games. Disco Elysium is another game that's like just a couple steps beyond being an IF, the writing is so good and most of the game is just making choices but there is the walking around. I'm big into the Vampire: The Masquerade fiction from the tabletop so that's probably what I'll check out next. Coteries of New York got pretty so-so reviews but Night Road sounds pretty cool.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2021 20:15
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:I'm big into the Vampire: The Masquerade fiction from the tabletop so that's probably what I'll check out next. Coteries of New York got pretty so-so reviews but Night Road sounds pretty cool. I thought Coteries + Shadows as a whole was a satisfying pair of VNs. Coteries felt like the tutorial to Bloodlines and then just abruptly ended. Shadows of New York was really good though, they leaned into a VN setup with a well-defined protagonist you're just along for the ride with instead of having the illusion of customization that doesn't go anywhere. And Shadows is in the same setting (they work with a lot of the New York by Night sourcebook) it almost made Coteries better retroactively as like "the worldbuilding session"
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2021 22:35
|
|
|
CharlieFoxtrot posted:[...](if you want to play Tremere blood mages, which of course I did, that's DLC lol).[...] What a world we live in, where our digital CYOAs have DLC now. I don't actually see it listed on their website, do you need to buy it in-game somehow? I'm not super into the setting, but I did play Bloodlines years ago. Does it play well even if you aren't a fan of the setting? Zaphod42 posted:Does Sunless Sea / Sky count as IF? It gets pretty blurry since its largely IF but there is some gameplay elements. I feel like no, because my primary experience of Sunless Sea was mostly being frustrated that the boat went so slow. There was a ton of cool writing in it but honestly, thinking back on it, the main thing I remember is "aaaaaah why is this gameplay so slow" and also making trips to the Salt Lions to sell some bleeding rocks, or something. They've definitely got a lot of gameplay in them. Failbetter's frustrating because I think their setting is cool, but also don't really want to play their games. Fallen London is, well, 90% grinding, and Sunless Sea is slow. Skies I remember being cool, but I also thought it was too slow and gave up before I got to the...third area? I'm excited for their VN though!
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2021 22:39
|
|
|
Anchorhead seemed interesting the last I heard about it. This thread's a good chance to hear some first hand impressions, if anyone's played it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 00:12
|
|
|
MuffiTuffiWuffi posted:What a world we live in, where our digital CYOAs have DLC now. I don't actually see it listed on their website, do you need to buy it in-game somehow? There are two DLC bundles on the store page (though I think you can also do it "in-app"?). "Usurpers and Outcasts" is $2 and adds the Tremere and Caitiff backgrounds -- from my experience, the backgrounds have significant hooks into the story, usually it majorly changes your interactions with one character who's part of your background story, then there are lots of little choices peppered throughout that reflect your background and powers. I hadn't seen that they released a second one called "Secrets and Shadows" -- 5 bucks which is half the price of the game itself! -- which adds five more backgrounds as well as another chapter to the story? It's about 3-4 hours for a playthrough, maybe I should give it another whirl... I was definitely more into it because I dig the lore, but I would say it's a comparable experience to other Choice games if you like those
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 01:40
|
|
|
For World of Darkness stuff, I can also recommend Mage the Ascension: Refuge, which is currently available for iOS and Android. Unfortunately, the game was dragged down by the whole Zak S abuse scandal, as the two games were originally published as a bundle, but it's by a different author and worth playing. The PC version is no longer available at all since it was bundled with the Zak S game.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 09:04
|
|
|
Great OP! I suspect there's not enough people here playing this kind of stuff to keep this thread from floating downriver into Archives, but thumbs up to you for trying. We should probably come up with a few actual recommendations for each game type instead of just "hey, Zork is pretty famous". I'll think about it. MuffiTuffiWuffi posted:Not sure what I'll play next. I took a look at the Hosted Games section but there are a lot of those, and at least one of the ones I checked out had formatting errors in the intro screen. I hear some of them are really good but I've no idea how to pick them out. Bryan Rushton/mathbrush has recently played through every Choicescript game, the madlad, and according to him the aggregated ratings in the omnibus apps on mobile for both official Choice Of releases and Hosted Games correspond quite well to his own assessment of the games in question. So, like, just start playing the ones with the most stars. CharlieFoxtrot posted:Great idea for a thread! I'll probably post about Twine stuff later, but re: Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road: Kyle Marquis, the author, is pretty great and his other stuff is also worth checking out. MuffiTuffiWuffi posted:Failbetter's frustrating because I think their setting is cool, but also don't really want to play their games. Fallen London is, well, 90% grinding, and Sunless Sea is slow. Skies I remember being cool, but I also thought it was too slow and gave up before I got to the...third area? I'm excited for their VN though! I only made it through Skies with the help of CheatEngine. You can actually use CE to speed up the game at will by assigning different processing speeds to F1-F4. So, cruise at x8 with F4, then slow down to x1 when combat starts, etc. That's the only pleasant way to play that game, IMO.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 10:43
|
|
|
Thanks for making this thread! I really should get into playing more IF (and just reading in general) so hopefully I can get some more motivation with some suggestions in this thread 
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 11:04
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:Anchorhead seemed interesting the last I heard about it. This thread's a good chance to hear some first hand impressions, if anyone's played it. It was the first IF game I ever sat down and played seriously. That was like 15 years ago but I'd still call it one of my favorites. The puzzles are satisfying & challenging, a very good start for someone experienced with adventure games but new to IF since some puzzles are tropey as gently caress. The writing is extremely descriptive, it paints the town and the oppressive nature of the inhabitants well. It starts off slowly with some relaxed town exploration undercut by a constant sense of dread, but when things start kicking off later in the game there are some genuinely shocking moments and the excitement and tension really ratchets up. It's better written than most of Lovecraft's work even if it's extremely derivative of it. Zaphod42 posted:Does Sunless Sea / Sky count as IF? It gets pretty blurry since its largely IF but there is some gameplay elements. Fallen London definitely counts but is less fun. They both sit in my IF category on Steam. I tend to like IF for a variety of different reasons but I like Failbetter's games based on the strength of the writing rather than the survival stuff, so my personal inclination is to treat them like IF. Same with Disco Elysium or even Cultist Simulator. The Sea Will Claim Everything is ostensibly an adventure game but the writing is so adorable and enjoyable and there's so much of it that I put it under "IF" as well, because if I'm in the mood to play IF I'm probably in the mood to play it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 14:23
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:Anchorhead seemed interesting the last I heard about it. This thread's a good chance to hear some first hand impressions, if anyone's played it. Anchorhead is indeed very, very good. It's the only interactive fiction game I've ever played that truly drew me in and filled me with a sense of dread. It does Lovecraftian fiction right, in that you perpetually feel as if you're powerless and caught up in something much bigger and more terrible than you can ever possibly understand.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 14:40
|
|
|
Oh! Re: Sunless Sea/Sky and Fallen London, did you know that there's a fangame about a crossover between Flatland and Fallen London? It has significant spoilers for the Fallen London setting because obviously anybody who's mad enough to make an hours-long parser game about a crossover between Flatland and Fallen London is probably a super-fan, but I've played it and it's pretty fun.Megazver posted:Great OP! I suspect there's not enough people here playing this kind of stuff to keep this thread from floating downriver into Archives, but thumbs up to you for trying. Man I hope there's enough interest. I'll put any good recommendations up in the OP if you got'm. Megazver posted:Bryan Rushton/mathbrush has recently played through every Choicescript game, the madlad, and according to him the aggregated ratings in the omnibus apps on mobile for both official Choice Of releases and Hosted Games correspond quite well to his own assessment of the games in question. Every game!? That - huh. Wow, that's pretty insane. His summation is pretty great, too, though I think that I self-insert a lot less than most CoG readers do.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 20:55
|
|
|
Porpentine's games are wonderful and the Eczema Angel Orifice collection on Steam is a great way to get them. Cyberqueen is a game I will not forget, even though it is extremely unpleasant and even being told how unpleasant it was, I still wasn't really prepared. Although I loved classic Infocom/Magnetic Scrolls adventures, I do not keep up with IF these days to be honest other than trying things here and there, but it very much seems like a genre where every few years, trends kind of change and there is a New Hotness sweeping through what people are doing or experimenting with. Edit: not that this is bad, I just follow a few IF people online and my brother is quite into it - and it def seems like sometimes interesting new things become possible or popular very rapidly and if you don't keep up with it, games suddenly feel v different. Danger - Octopus! fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Apr 28, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 21:26
|
|
|
Danger - Octopus! posted:Cyberqueen is a game I will not forget, even though it is extremely unpleasant and even being told how unpleasant it was, I still wasn't really prepared. What kind of unpleasantness are we talking about exactly? Graphic violence? Sexual abuse? ...Worse?
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 22:00
|
|
|
Oh man, thanks for making this thread. I still reference the old one every now and again. IF is one of those things that I love in concept but I always fall off of. I need to revisit Thaumistry, which I enjoyed quite a bit when I started it a bit back.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 22:58
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:What kind of unpleasantness are we talking about exactly? Graphic violence? Sexual abuse? ...Worse? Mutilation/body horror with a particularly horrifying visceral futility and inescability to it. It's deliberately derived from System Shock but by way of early David Cronenberg. Fair warning - it has a very distinctive style, and it's more about using hypertext to tell a story. It's not puzzles and wide branching adventure. http://slimedaughter.com/games/twine/cyberqueen/ As well as being on Steam, a lot of Porpentine's games are free on her site anyhow. They're not all about that kind of unpleasantness tho
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 23:43
|
|
|
The following are my favorite text games.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2021 23:54
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:What kind of unpleasantness are we talking about exactly? Graphic violence? Sexual abuse? ...Worse? porpentine's stuff flat out sucks, don't fall for it
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2021 00:58
|
|
|
cant cook creole bream posted:The following are my favorite text games. Dang, that is a lot of super interesting looking games. And I want to try Anchorhead too! How am I gonna make enough time to play all of these? Why would I even come to this thread? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2021 01:13
|
|
|
 Known Unknowns by Brendan Patrick Hennessy is probably one of my favorite Twine games. It's a novella-length work that's in the same setting with some of his other works, including the novella Birdland, and the short stories Bell Park, Youth Detective and Boat Prom. Described as a "bisexual high school ghost hunting text adventure romance," it really completely nails the style and tone of good YA fiction. It has great characterization and dialogue, but what really amazed me about the game -- there's a chapter that takes place in a house party, and it was truly impressive how much it felt like you had the freedom to actually explore a space like in parser text adventures (a lot of hyperlink Twine stuff doesn't construct robust models like that), and not only that, how it manages to feel like you're moving through an event where a bunch of people are off doing things around you. Capturing that with just text and links was wild.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2021 01:58
|
|
|
Anchorhead and Open Sourcery both sound super cool, thanks for the heads' up
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2021 04:42
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:Dang, that is a lot of super interesting looking games. And I want to try Anchorhead too! How am I gonna make enough time to play all of these? Why would I even come to this thread? Yes, all of those are quite good. I actually played a bunch of IF, but those are the best. If anyone tries one of those for the first time, please make a post about it. Always cool to hear other's impresions.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2021 20:15
|
|
|
FWIW for anyone looking into Choice of Games, their open publishing branch called Hosted Games breaks away from the house style a lot more, and has some of their most popular games. As with any open publishing model, there are some real clunkers, but most of the ones on Steam have a decent level of quality, and a lot of people would argue that some of the most popular ones are as good or better than the best from the actual Choice of Games brand. Mathbrush actually "only" reviewed every CoG so far, but I'm looking forward to seeing what he thinks when he gets to Hosted Games. Some of the older classics were games like Tin Star (over a million words including coding) and Zombie Exodus, but series are the big thing these days, with Wayhaven Chronicles being absurdly popular/successful, to the point where the author has a patreon making over $100,000 a year. Hosted Games has its own app, so sorting by rating and seeing if any of the top ones pique your interest is probably the best bet there. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Apr 29, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2021 20:26
|
|
|
For anyone just getting into IF, the IFDB Top 100 list is a great place to start if you want to see how amazing IF can be (am I crazy or did IFDB just update the site visuals in the last 24 hours?) Pick a few things from the list and be witness to glory. The lists and polls on IFDB are also a really great way to find something with a specific theme or tone or style if you're in the mood for something particular. There's a reason the previously mentioned Counterfeit Monkey is at the top of the list, and it's because it's clever as gently caress. Everything Emily Short writes is clever as gently caress and she really plays with the English language in the way English literature graduates like to do, but with a masterfulness only someone with incredible talent is able to. She's probably the most lauded and important contemporary IF author of the last two decades and she's now the creative director at Failbetter Games. I loved Alexis Kennedy's writing despite him turning out to be a terrible poo poo, and Emily Short is the absolute best case scenario replacement for him. Metamorphoses and Galatea are other easy recommendation from her catalog, the former is a metaphysical & metaphorical puzzle box where just about every puzzle has multiple solutions and the latter portrays what it's like to get owned by a chatbot. Some things I'd recommend for anyone new to IF: Photopia is an interesting multi-perspective narrative entirely without puzzles. Shrapnel and Fish Bowl are very short, surreal games with a tinge of horror. Also light on/without puzzles. Glowgrass is another short and solid game with relatively simple puzzles and nice exploration. Perfect for newbies to get a feel for how IF works.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2021 02:32
|
|
|
Emily Short owns and it is tragic that Bee is on a defunct platform (lots of her work is on defunct platforms) because that one was really good Edit: Oh cool it looks like it's been ported to another platform! http://dendry.github.io/bee/ (Edit 2: lol it looks like you might have to manually retype it as [url]http://[/url] because if your browser automatically attempts to read it as [url]https://[/url] like mine, it will error out) First Draft of the Revolution is another good one, the storytelling comes from editing letters that are being sent in an alternate-universe magical Ancien Regime France https://lizadaly.com/first-draft/content/index.html CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Apr 30, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2021 03:57
|
|
|
augh what happened to the dark mode somebody quoted you color, was it always that and I was blind or did it change just, like, yesterday?Sinteres posted:[...]Wayhaven Chronicles being absurdly popular/successful, to the point where the author has a patreon making over $100,000 a year.[...] What the fuuuu- Steam Review of Wayhaven Chronicles: Book One posted:Let's get one thing out of the way, The Wayhaven Chronicles is a YA urban fantasy romance novel. If that sounds like a nice thing to you, go on, if it doesn't, I don't know what to tell you. This might not be the right game for you. [...] Ah, I see. Carry on. Serials actually seem like the kind of business model that would be incredibly well-suited to IF, given the apparent success of the webnovel format. Also, echoing all the praise folks have for Counterfeit Monkey. Not that you need another person to shill the highest-rated game on IFDB, but, you know. e: The Heroes Rise series was kinda like that? I never played them, but I heard they were big. MuffiTuffiWuffi fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Apr 30, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2021 06:34
|
|
|
I've been trying to get into Choice of/Hosted Games, but it's hard for me to tell which are the better ones. Any goon recommendations? Also, I've been trying to pick up Twine in my spare time, don't know if I'll ever make anything worth mentioning here but it's nice to mess around with and easier to pick up than the purely parser-based ones.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2021 07:02
|
|
|
Inadequately posted:I've been trying to get into Choice of/Hosted Games, but it's hard for me to tell which are the better ones. Any goon recommendations? Install their omnibus app on mobile and start with the highly rated ones. quote:Also, I've been trying to pick up Twine in my spare time, don't know if I'll ever make anything worth mentioning here but it's nice to mess around with and easier to pick up than the purely parser-based ones. If you want a book to help you learn, Writing Interactive Fiction with Twine is decent.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2021 07:23
|
|
|
Inadequately posted:I've been trying to get into Choice of/Hosted Games, but it's hard for me to tell which are the better ones. Any goon recommendations? I play a lot of Choice of/Hosted Games. These are the ones I enjoyed the most: * Choice of Robots - tons of branching paths, interesting story, highly regarded * Choice of Rebels - Management heavy (you play as a leader of a group of rebels and you have to manage numbers and morale) but I think it's very well done, and it feels as though you're making convincingly meaningful choices throughout. First book in a planned series. * Sabres of Infinity - You are stuck as playing a male soldier, but I found the story engaging and the amount of branching paths impressive. First book of a series, the sequel is out but the final book is not yet complete. * Tally Ho - pastiche of Wodehouse's Jeeves series. Thought it managed to hit the tone while maintaining player freedom. * Fallen Hero: Rebirth - sort of a darker take on all the superhero games populating the 'Choice of' catalogue. Essentially you play as a villain. The character is a little more defined here, with less customization, but I thought the character development in this game is fairly strong. First book of a planned series. * A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight - You play as a male doctor (Watson, basically). A steampunk pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, solid story, writing, and branching. * Crème de la Crème - This was really popular when it came out. It manages to hit the whole YA 'you're at a boarding school with attractive people' note really well, and I think it also hit it the best out of other stories of its type. Lots of customability and 'routes' with the option to pursue friendship or romance. * Vampire: The Masquerade — Night Road - I was somehow very pleasantly surprised with how good this ended up being in terms of writing and branching. Choices felt consequential, and the writing was very good in evoking mood and atmosphere. * Tin Star - Wild West setting that, IIRC, spans many years. One of the earliest Hosted Games and still one of the best in my opinion. These are all the ones I can think of right now, but if I think of more I'll add. Akarshi fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Apr 30, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2021 13:58
|
|
|
My local IF meetup played through Lady Thalia and the Seraskier Sapphires today, an ~hour-long Twine game from this year's Spring Thing. It's mostly a heist game, with some puzzles and a bunch of conversation options. It's fun, but not super remarkable. I feel like a lot of the shorter comp games are at about that level - fun, but not memorable - but it's good that there's usually at least one game in every comp that's either really good, or does something crazy interesting with the format. This year I think that's probably Excalibur, which is a fake wiki for, uh, well: The (fake) Excalibur Fan Wiki posted:Excalibur is a British science fiction television series that ran on the BBC television network from 1974 to 1975. The program had two seasons, spanning twenty-six episodes.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 03:38
|
|
|
Oh wow, just saw this thread and I'm excited for discussions! As I've grown increasingly bad at finishing books these past few years I've also gotten bad at playing through text adventures but they have a spot close to my heart. I wish I could play counterfeit monkey on mobile, I absolutely adored what I played of it years ago but these days sitting and typing at my computer just feels too much like work...
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 05:27
|
|
|
woke kaczynski posted:Oh wow, just saw this thread and I'm excited for discussions! As I've grown increasingly bad at finishing books these past few years I've also gotten bad at playing through text adventures but they have a spot close to my heart. Ask this guy to finish his project: https://www.reddit.com/r/interactivefiction/comments/l98lm1/porting_traditional_interactive_fiction_to_mobile/
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 10:15
|
|
|
If we're running play by post forum games would people be interested in hearing about them or would it clutter up the thread?
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 10:19
|
|
|
treat posted:Some things I'd recommend for anyone new to IF: I'm not exactly new to IF but vasty prefer shorter games. Shade has been pretty much the best IF experience for me thus far, so these seem worth checking out. The shift to twine and similar parserless formats has been a bit disappointing. I get that you can direct the player experience a lot better and reduce frustration by using key words you can choose from, but I feel the whole genre loses some of its charm by doing so.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 10:23
|
|
|
Boba Pearl posted:If we're running play by post forum games would people be interested in hearing about them or would it clutter up the thread? On one hand, I'd say quests/forum games are an entirely different genre. On the other hand, this thread can probably use the extra discussion so gently caress it.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 10:48
|
|
|
Culka posted:I'm not exactly new to IF but vasty prefer shorter games. Shade has been pretty much the best IF experience for me thus far, so these seem worth checking out. I grew up with that era of parser games, and don't particularly think I'm missing out on a lot by not having to type two dozen variations on 'TAKE BALL' before I figure out the exact wording they require is 'ACQUIRE TAUPE-COLORED ORB'. The only really interesting thing that parser-based formats can do is throw in a neat bonus/lock story advancement behind a particularly clever leap of lateral thinking, and when that happens, I don't feel particularly rewarded, I feel frustrated that I'm being asked to read the author's mind.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 17:06
|
|
|
Boba Pearl posted:If we're running play by post forum games would people be interested in hearing about them or would it clutter up the thread? Hmm. Well if you squint, those are usually like, CYOAs where the author writes it as they go along, right? Seems fine! Also, like Megazver said, anything that gets folks to post that's vaguely on topic is good. Culka posted:I'm not exactly new to IF but vasty prefer shorter games. Shade has been pretty much the best IF experience for me thus far, so these seem worth checking out. I think they're different enough experiences that the markets are slightly disjoint. You definitely don't get the same feel of "embodiment" but one thing that parser games are generally not great at is dealing with personal, internal thoughts, whereas the hypertext format lets you use traditional prose tricks like writing out thoughts in a big run-on sentence to tell you that the narrator is upset. That said I don't think there's less new parser stuff coming out (thought that might become true as time goes on) it's just that there's a lot more parserless stuff. Have you played Coloratura (the parser version)? It's really good! Like, possibly my personal favorite parser game ever, despite it being 1-2 hours. It's also an interesting point for discussion because the author went and rewrote it in Twine, which sort of gives you a direct comparison point.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 17:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:26 |
|
|
Inadequately posted:I grew up with that era of parser games, and don't particularly think I'm missing out on a lot by not having to type two dozen variations on 'TAKE BALL' before I figure out the exact wording they require is 'ACQUIRE TAUPE-COLORED ORB'. The only really interesting thing that parser-based formats can do is throw in a neat bonus/lock story advancement behind a particularly clever leap of lateral thinking, and when that happens, I don't feel particularly rewarded, I feel frustrated that I'm being asked to read the author's mind. You could replace the parser commands with some kind of a clickable interface for 90%+ IF games, sure. In fact, I hope someone figures this out finally, because the actual technical implementation of this has proven surprisingly hard up to this point. Games like Draculaland and The Impossible Bottle and many others have tried, but so far no one has managed to come up with a solution that makes people think "yeah, this is it!" But the remaining 10% are still pretty important. First of all, parser games these days are robust enough that I haven't really had the "oh come on, what exact phrasing do you want from me, you piece of poo poo?" problem in years. Second, those lateral thinking puzzles can be pretty cool and games would be diminished if they were just replaced with a button to press. Finally, there are games like The Gostak, Ad Verbum and the like, that you simply could not do outside of the medium of parser and that's great.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2021 19:30
|
|