ARTIFICE
An Interactive Diversion
by Paul J. Furio.
Artifice by Paul J. Furio is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. 

This game was originally intended as a diversion for some friends, and an opportunity to display an Interactive Fiction work as a hobby.  Fortunately, it coincided with the IF Month timeline and goals.  Thus, I am releasing it here for your enjoyment.

As it was rather hastily put together, it is not as polished, in gameplay or source code, as I would like.  For example, there are
many references to object names as text in the source code, a habit I am attempting to break and replace with '(the)Object' where applicable. It's also a jumble in two source files, with one for the game and one for hints.  I tend to break up games by discrete area, so that my most recent serious work has nearly a dozen source files.

The game itself is rather simple.  There's not much to do other than explore and win, with only one losing situation.  Of course, it's also a gimmick game, relying on a Z-Machine assembly code to do the heavy lifting.  The original intended audience is somewhat enamored with the steampunk art community, and they have short attention spans.  These were the primary goals in designing the overarching puzzle and situation.

Still, Watson was a joy to implement, and thinking up his dialog brought a smile to my face.  This was also a pleasant evening diversion from other daytime tasks, and got me in the habit of working on Interactive Fiction nearly every day.  What a joy!

-Paul J. Furio
paul@staticengine.com