___. .___ _ ___. / _| | \ / \ / ._| \ \ | o_/ | | | |_. .\ \ | | | o | | | | The |___/ociety for the |_|romotion of |_|_|dventure \___|ames. ISSUE #29 Edited by Paul O'Brian (obrian SP@G colorado.edu) June 20, 2002 SPAG Website: http://www.sparkynet.com/spag SPAG #29 is copyright (c) 2002 by Paul O'Brian. Authors of reviews and articles retain the rights to their contributions. All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine with the traditional 'at' sign. ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ---------------------------------------------------- The SPAG Interview with Emily Short REVIEWS IN THIS ISSUE ----------------------------------------------------- Depravity Bites First Things First The Tale of the Kissing Bandit Voices EDITORIAL------------------------------------------------------------------ When I first became the SPAG editor, I quickly realized that there were two things I didn't like about it. The first is the name. "Society for the Promotion [or Preservation, if you like] of Adventure Games" sounds like the name of a club. What it does not sound like is the name of a webzine. Plus, for me it's a reminder of these amazingly cheesy commercials that used to be on television, with members of a made-up "Seventies Preservation Society" hawking copies of K-Tel's latest compilation of disco hits. Not exactly the image one yearns for. So okay, maybe nobody ever thinks about what the letters stand for -- they just use the abbreviation. SPAG. Really, "SPAG"? It's flat-sounding, unpleasant, and just one letter away from "SPAM." But it's been around for eight years now, is linked to all over the web, and is even mentioned on the Masterpieces of Infocom cd. Plus, we've got that nifty logo. So the name isn't changing, at least not anytime soon. The other thing I didn't like was the scoreboard. Back when I was just a SPAG reader rather than its editor, I would never, ever read the scoreboard. Few things, it seemed to me at the time, could be less interesting than trying to quantify the appeal of IF into little categories, then compare wildly disparate games to each other based on how three or four people rank those categories. In time, though, I gained a little more appreciation for SPAG scores. I'm a music fan, and I grew up listening to Casey Kasem's radio show "American Top 40", which counted down the top singles on Billboard's Pop chart each week. Through this practice, I acquired a bit of a fascination with the charts: why some songs rose quickly and others not at all, the heights they attained, the length of time they held on, the special cachet of attaining the top spot, and all the fortunes of the other songs as they arrived, rose, plateaued, perhaps fluctuated a bit, and finally fell. After a while, it began to seem to me that the SPAG scoreboard had the appeal of a Billboard chart, but applied to IF. It was rather fun to watch new games like Varicella and Worlds Apart make their way onto and off of the top ten, not to mention the (admittedly bogus) ego building it let me do with my own games. ("Hey, according to this, Wearing The Claw was better than Zork II!") And not only did the Top 10 listing make me feel like Casey Kasem, it provided a handy reference point in those "What are some good games?" discussions that come up all the time on the newsgroups. Of course, there were still problems. Probably the biggest of these was that there just isn't that much real data in those listings. Unlike the Billboard charts, which are compiled from tons of different sources, the SPAG scoreboard tended to average just under four votes per game, with many scores set by just one or two voters, and lots of games having no score at all for lack of any votes. The statistics lack much real meaning, because the sample size surveyed is just far too small. Moreover, the fact that voters are a self-selecting sample introduces other problems, such as the guy who sent in scores of 0.0 for every Adam Cadre game while rating his own "adult" IF game a 10.0. (Yes, I discarded those scores.) There have been a few people who sent in lots and lots of votes, trying to proffer a really representative portrait of their views on IF, but there are many more who just send in a score when they are moved by a particularly positive or negative reaction to a game, thus preventing the scores on those games from truly reflecting a community consensus. Not that I can blame anyone for this. Like I said, before I was the editor, I had zero interest in the scoreboard, and certainly never sent in a score myself. Another of the scoreboard's problems was well-stated by Adam Cadre early last year: SPAG's readers' scoreboard selects for games which attract some positive response and, more importantly, little negative response. It only takes a few low votes to drag a game off the leaderboard. In point of fact, it only takes *one* low vote. Scores are calculated according to this formula: (Old score * old # of votes + new score) / new # of votes Because of that ongoing averaging, an especially low new score can take a game down several whole numbers, while a high new score doesn't lift it all that much. Several excellent games have fallen prey to this math, sunk by just one or two strong dissenters. Yet another hitch to the scoreboard is its categories: atmosphere, gameplay, writing, plot, and "wild card". SPAG founder Kevin Wilson was wise enough to make "puzzles" and "characters" optional categories from the get-go, not affecting the final tally, but even the remaining "mandatory" categories are enough to strangely bias the scoreboard's results. For me, the textbook example of this is Ad Verbum, by Nick Montfort. Ad Verbum is a tremendously clever game in the Nord And Bert vein, but does it have much atmosphere? No. Does it have *any* plot? No. Because it suffers in those categories, its scores are lower than it deserves. "Gameplay" is another area in which some great IF suffers, particularly if it's designed to be more literature than game. Then there's the most telling evidence of all: SPAG's readers are gradually losing interest in the scoreboard. Every issue I get fewer and fewer votes; it's been down to a trickle for many months now. Between that and the shortcomings I mention above, I've just about returned to the disinterest level I had as a reader, but now I'm the editor, which means I get to say this: the sun has set on the SPAG scoreboard. This will be its last issue. It's been around for eight years, has been useful or fun to some number of people for at least some of that time, and I'm happy to have been a part of that, but it's time to move on. The scoreboard will no longer appear in SPAG, though I will leave it on the web page, minus the voting mechanism, along with a note explaining that it now serves a historical purpose only. Please note, reviewers: you should no longer include scores with your submitted reviews. As Homer Simpson says, when told he's about to eat a poison eclair: "Eh, I've had a good run." NEWS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW GAMES It's been an amazingly fertile period for new game releases. In fact, during one glorious week in April, we were seeing a new game *every two days*. Among these fresh arrivals is Savoir-Faire, a feature-length game by Emily Short, the subject of this issue's SPAG Interview. Another new epic is Chip Hayes' Tinseltown Blues, a Hollywood-themed game several years in the making. We've also got works by other promising newcomers like Matt Rohde and Brandon Allen, as well as an international sprinkle of non-English games. Behold: * Amissville by "Santoonie" * Katana by Matt Rohde * The Oracle by Brandon Allen * Unease by Brendan O'Brien * Savoir-Faire by Emily Short * Taipan (Z-abuse) ported to Z-machine by D. Jacob Wildstrom * The Land Of The Cyclops by Francesco Cordella * Der Angstbaum (in German) by Jens Bojaryn * Pecos Town (in Italian) by Tommaso Caldarola * Tinseltown Blues by Chip Hayes * Amishville by Jacob Amman MOST COMP-LICATED Along with our slew of new games (in fact, sometimes hand in hand with it), we've had a slew of mini-comps. We had the IntroComp, which challenged authors to come up with a compelling *beginning* to an IF game, in playable form. (As opposed to last year's PrologueComp, whose entries could simply be text.) First place was taken by Caleb Wilson's "Hey, Jingo!". Then there were the IFLibraryComp and the Spring Thing, both of which were experiments in altering the rules of the big Fall comp, to see what would happen. The IFLibraryComp garnered three entries, the highest-ranking of which was a game called Familiar, by Papillon, author of Desert Heat and Triune. (To see the others, check out http://www.iflibrary.com/default.aspx?pageid=Home&contentid=4.) There was one entrant to the Spring Thing: the aforementioned Tinseltown Blues. A DIFFERENT KIND OF WEB PORTAL Some of the people who remember actually going to a computer game store and *buying* text adventures may have fond memories of "Portal", a C64 game by Rob Swigart about a deserted future world. Now those memories can be relived for free, as Salim Fadhley has reconstructed the entire thing on the web at http://portal.stodge.org. NELSON AHOY! One of the USA's goofiest holidays is Grouhdhog Day, whereupon the country's attention centers on the burrow of one famous rodent, whose shadow (or lack thereof) supposedly forecasts the next six weeks' weather. We have a local equivalent on the IF newsgroups, on or around April 30, the anniversary of the first release of Inform. Roundabout this time, Graham Nelson will often make his annual newsgroup appearance, heralding some exciting new development in the world of Inform. This year, it was the unveiling of the fully-revamped, super- helpful new Inform home page, at http://www.inform-fiction.org. This page has tons of resources for the aspiring or experienced Inform author, all presented in elegant Nelsonian style. BEGINNER'S LUCK Speaking of nifty new web pages, Frederik Ramsberg has just debuted IFGuide, a page specifically aimed at newcomers to IF. The page goes through all the basics, from what IF is, to how to play, what to play, and where to get it, and it's available at http://IFGuide.ramsberg.net. STARVATION DIET You may have noticed that SPAG has lost quite a bit of weight lately. Don't offer it your compliments, though, because this loss is not a good thing. Indeed, the event I always prophesied has come to pass: Duncan Stevens' real life has finally prevented him from submitting SPAG reviews, at least for this issue anyway. This is his first absence from the zine since his debut in December of 1997, and as you can can see, SPAG is a pale shadow of itself without him. This is your chance: step up to the plate and rescue our beloved SPAG from Kate Moss hell. There's certainly no dearth of games that need reviewing. Try, for example, one of these: SPAG 10 MOST WANTED LIST ======================== 1. Acheton 2. Bad Machine 3. Dr. Dumont's Wild P.A.R.T.I. 4. Familiar 5. Heroine's Mantle 6. Katana 7. The Oracle 8. Savoir-Faire 9. Tinseltown Blues 10. Unease THE SPAG INTERVIEW--------------------------------------------------------- Emily Short has accomplished a prodigious amount in a short time and shows no sign of stopping. Already a major figure in IF for such works as Galatea and Metamorphoses, she has since cemented her reputation with thoughtful articles, technical innovations, and the co-editorship of an upcoming book on IF Theory, not to mention several other rockin' games. Somehow, in the midst of all this, she managed to find time to answer a few questions from us, too. ---===--- SPAG: When we last checked in with you, you were working on a Ph.D. in Classics and annoying your advisors with your passionate interests in other areas. How goes the degree, the travel, the cooking, the writing, the teaching, and the rest? ES: I'm almost through my last set of exams; once that's done, I'll be on dissertation status, which I've been looking forward to for a long time. It'll still be another two or more years before I can leave with degree in hand, but from now on I'll have a bit more freedom to pursue my own set of interests. So that should be fun. Otherwise, I've been a little too busy, and a little too broke (in the way of all grad students), to do very much traveling, unfortunately. But soon. I wound up with a free Alaska Airlines ticket at one point, so I've been looking up exotic northern places on the web trying to decide where to go with it. SPAG: A corollary question: how in the world do you manage to create so much IF work while still maintaining all those other activities? Do you have a $70 time machine, or is it just supreme time-management prowess? ES: Ha. No, none of the above. It's more that I tend to neglect stuff that I should be doing while I work on IF, and then I work rabidly on academics for a while to make up for it. This is not a recommended lifestyle for sane people. SPAG: Let's talk about your big new release, Savoir-Faire. The game is quite traditional in some ways, but it's set in a milieu we haven't seen before -- similar to 18th century France, but with the addition of magical elements. What inspired this choice of setting? ES: It was chance more than deliberate thought. Sometimes out of boredom I sit down and write the opening of a piece of static fiction or the first room of an IF game with no planning or preparation; this is just an exercise. 99% of the time the result is dreadful, and the opening room I wrote for SF isn't an exception to that rule. It had a lot of randomly chosen objects in it, and was kind of silly. (It was removed from the game long before the final version.) But it did have some references to a "Countess," along with Rococo furnishings, because those were the first things that came into my mind. In that first writing the furniture was extremely old and falling apart; I intended it to be antique, and the game to be set in the late 19th or even 20th century. Once I got serious about the game design, though, I decided that I preferred to set it in the 1770s or 1780s. This wasn't a conscious attempt to pick a setting we haven't encountered before; it was more that the flavor of the game required this decadent yet (from our point of view) technologically primitive setting. SPAG: Why did you choose to write a game with so many "old-school" elements, a treasure hunt with a hunger timer, look-under puzzles, and other such contrivances? ES: Two reasons. One, I got into writing IF because of how much I liked old-school games. I originally learned Inform because I wanted to emulate something like Curses. And there's a certain effect of being really wrapped up in a puzzle game for hours and hours that is just not captured by a narrative 30-minute art piece. No matter how good the latter is, it's just not the same experience. The other reason is that people kept posting about how IF has gotten all pretentious these days and no one can be bothered to write good old-school IF the way it Used to Be. So I thought, well, ok, I'll try that, then. SPAG: What is your process for creating these large games? Can you give us an idea of how such a project starts, and how it develops to fruition? ES: As mentioned, SF began pretty haphazardly. Once I'd made the opening room, I decided that the game needed as its central feature a magic system we haven't encountered previously. I thought about something that would involve composing spells from component pieces. I tossed this around a bit with Dan Shiovitz, and he suggested that a) this has been done before and that b) magic-as-programming is not sufficiently cool. So the linking idea was my second concept. I worked out the basics of how it would function -- I'd use a simulation that accounted for size, shape, and material, lifted from Metamorphoses, and then allow the game to determine linkability from there. A while went into developing this system, which turned out to be a bit of a pain to code and require a lot of special cases. I find that this is typical for my game design in general: I get a bit of a feel for what the game will require, then design the system or systems that are going to be the backbone of interaction (conversation systems, simulation, whatever). Then I come up with particular things to do with the system and build the rest of the game. The next stage for Savoir was brain-storming up a bunch of puzzles and solutions, and then making a puzzle chart to show where they would occur and which things would lead to which others. The brainstorming was fun: I paged through the DM4 for different categories of puzzle. My basic plan was: take the most cliche'd, bog-standard puzzles in existence, and then force the player to solve them in a different way with the new system. Implementation ensued. This was the stage at which I developed the backstory of the game. I'd stick in a reference to a character early in the implementation process, and then I'd have to come up with a bunch of supporting material -- who is this person? where did they live? what were their interests? why did their relationship to the protagonist form up the way it did? I also did (a tiny amount of) research on the setting of the game -- a couple afternoons' worth of looking at antiques websites and reading up on the social situation just before the French Revolution. Of what I came up with, I used very little: it seemed too artificial and ludicrous for someone, even an aesthete like Pierre, to go around describing all the furniture he encountered with an antique dealer's vocabulary. "Now here is a nice rocaille console with a black-and-red marble top..." Period paintings turned out to be a lot more useful -- they gave a sense of how a whole room might have felt, as opposed to an image of a single table isolated in a studio. Then there was a lot of beta-testing. The main messages of the testing were that I'd provided too little help early in the game (which led to the addition of some simple early puzzles and extra ways to earn points) and that it took a bit more than my estimated 2-3 hours to play. I rounded this up to an estimate of 4 hours for the first release, and was soundly mocked. Oops. (It took me about 300 turns to play through to completion, so I figured: multiply that by 4, granting that someone who hasn't played it before will look around more, and you get a game of, say, 1200 turns. That doesn't really seem so big, right? Averaging several turns a minute, one should make nice steady progress...) SPAG: You're also serving as editor for an upcoming collection of "IF Theory" essays. Would you give us a little preview of what this project will include and when we can expect to see it? ES: Second question first: I expect that we won't get through with all of the proofreading, revising, layout, and printing arrangements until spring of next year. (I won't pin myself down to a month here; too many variables.) The book covers a bit of history, a bit of craft, and a bit of theory. (The list of specific articles is here: http://www.iftheory.com/topics2.html.) As far as history goes, we tried to cover things that haven't been presented extensively yet: discussion of the history of IF in languages other than English, the history of the Level 9 games, and so on. There's a broad coverage of specific issues that come up in writing IF, from planning your map to dealing with specific genres to beta-testing and finishing up. There's a new Graham Nelson article, which is quite cool. The idea here is both to provide practical advice for people doing game design and to serve as a talking point. I'm quite excited about the material that has been turned in so far, and I think we'll accomplish both of those things. SPAG: How has IF influenced your graduate studies? ES: In graduate seminars I've repeatedly found myself trying to extrapolate things about the development of ancient literary genres on the evidence of the development of IF. This doesn't necessarily get me very far, though. Also, don't try starting a sentence in a humanities grad seminar with, "Well, I'm in this internet community and I've noticed that people on usenet generally..." SPAG: How about the other way around? ES: Galatea, Metamorphoses, and to an extent Best of Three rely fairly extensively on classical references. Francesco Cordella referred to me once in a review as being unable to sleep unless I stuck Castor and Pollux into all my games. I've since tried to reduce that effect as much as possible. SPAG: Of the technical innovations you've introduced over the last couple of years, which ones are you the most excited about and why? ES: Hmm. From my point of view I've managed to raise more problems than I've solved. I once hoped to develop a comprehensive set of library extensions that would handle liquids, fire, frangible objects, ropes, and recording devices. This was more ignorance than hubris. As far as I can tell the real progress in terms of systematic simulationism is going on over in the camp of TADS 3 -- nifty sense-passing stuff, more complex ways to disallow actions, and so on. I'm eager to see what that develops into. I still want to do goal-seeking, conversational NPCs, too, but the task seems much more daunting to me than it did two years ago. I'd say that's what I care about most, at this point, though. SPAG: What are you planning to work on next? ES: I have assorted projects lying around at the moment, most of which in some way focus on expanded/more interactive NPCs. Preferably in a context where there's more to do than *just* talk to the NPC. We'll see. KEY TO SCORES AND REVIEWS-------------------------------------------------- Consider the following review header: NAME: Cutthroats AUTHOR: Infocom EMAIL: ??? DATE: September 1984 PARSER: Infocom Standard SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2 URL: Not available. When submitting reviews: Try to fill in as much of this info as you can. If you choose, you may also provide scores for the games you review, as explained in the SPAG FAQ. The scores will be used in the ratings section. Authors may not rate or review their own games. More elaborate descriptions of the rating and scoring systems may be found in the FAQ and in issue #9 of SPAG, which should be available at: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/magazines/SPAG/ and at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag REVIEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Cooper NAME: Depravity Bites AUTHOR: samjones EMAIL: samanthamisunderstood SP@G hotmail.com DATE: 2002 PARSER: TADS standard SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters AVAILABILITY: Freeware URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/depravityBITES.zip VERSION: 1.4 I read Stas Starkov's review of this game in SPAG 28 and wondered how much of his obvious dislike for it stemmed from the game's subject matter. Being quite broad-minded myself, I thought I'd download the game and see what it was all about. I really shouldn't have bothered. The game starts off with you waking up a prisoner in a cellar. Your naked girlfriend is chained up, and your first task is to try to free her. The game then proceeds through a series of tasks masterminded by the owner of the house you're in before culminating in a sex scene in the back of a van. Unfortunately, the game falls down not only on the content, which goes out of its way to be offensive rather than erotic, but is filled with numerous technical flaws, some of which make the some of the puzzles unnecessarily difficult -- you play "guess the verb" a few times, for example. Certain other flaws also make the big sex scene at the end laughable rather than arousing. To give a more specific example, at one point you are given an object to perform a task with. Later on, the game assumes you still have the object, whether you have dropped it since or not. These obvious flaws disrupt the flow of the game, destroying any sense of atmosphere that might otherwise build up. The puzzles themselves aren't actually too bad, although they were fairly easy -- I managed to complete it in about 4 hours without reference to the provided hint sheet. The game also comes with the source code, if the hint sheet isn't enough for you. One or two puzzles are quite difficult, the initial one for instance, which the game itself gives you hints about. All in all, this game isn't worth playing even if you are into this kind of thing. It deliberately sets out to shock rather than excite or interest and, for me, it failed to even do that. Sorry, samjones, but you can see far worse than this with just ten minutes on a decent internet search engine. If you are easily shocked, avoid this game. If you're not, this game will bore you. Even a dedicated sado-masochist will find nothing of interest here, unless putting up with all the errors counts as masochism. ATMOSPHERE: Technical errors interfere too much (0.3) GAMEPLAY: Bad parser, plagued by errors (0.5) WRITING: Tries quite hard but, well, fails (0.6) PLOT: Well, there is one, and it's reasonable (1.2) WILDCARD: This really isn't a good game, so I'm not going to give it any Wildcard points. (0.0) TOTAL: Just don't bother. (2.6) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From: Adam Myrow TITLE: First Things First AUTHOR: J. Robinson Wheeler EMAIL: rob.wheeler SP@G stanfordalumni.org DATE: February 2002 PARSER: Tads 2.5. SUPPORTS: Standard Tads interpreters AVAILABILITY: If-archive, freeware URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/ftf.gam Also available: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/ftf_manual.pdf VERSION: 2.0 (02/20/2002) Have you ever wished you could go back in time and prevent a mistake? Have you ever wished all those time travel games would let you change things for the better rather than preserve history the way it is? Well, wish no more! First Things First is a recent game that lets you do just that. You start out in the present, as an eccentric person who dreams of building a time machine. You just came back from the library, where as usual, you were reading on the subject. It is late, so you were thinking of just going to sleep. However, you've done what we've all done in the past. You've locked yourself out of your house! The spare key is nowhere around. As you begin to hunt for your spare key, something else begins to get your attention. Why is the roof in such lousy shape after only 10 years? What's this squirrel doing on my roof? Why didn't I ever plant a tree on the south side of my house? In the midst of all your wondering, a time machine appears, and the real game begins. This game reminds me of Curses in a lot of ways. Like Curses, you are doing something ordinary, and gradually get yourself into something else. Like Curses, this is a puzzle fest. It got the XYZZY award for best puzzles for a good reason. Most of the puzzles are very logical, and some have multiple solutions. For example, there are at least 2, maybe 3 ways to get rid of the dog, and 2 ways to repair the wheel barrow. Be warned, the game can be made unwinnable, so save early, and keep multiple saves especially before doing something that will put an item out of play. Be extremely careful with money! Some items serve no purpose, while others have multiple uses. Still others are optional depending on how you go about solving puzzles. There is a contraption called a herring detector which will tell you if something is a red herring or not. It really breaks the mimisis of the game, so I would advise not using it unless you are truly desperate. This game has a maze, but it has a solution that doesn't involve dropping things. The best part is that once you get through it, you never need to go through it again. Overall, I liked this game. It has a few bugs here and there, but no real show stoppers. It is refreshing to actually be able to do something about the past instead of being told to accept it for what it is. My only real complaint is that the ending leaves a few loose ends, and I think the environmental tone is a bit too obvious. Also, some descriptions are a bit awkward. There is one place where the word "prettily" appears twice in the same sentence. Other than that, it's not a bad game, and there is even an Easter Egg room with a unique surprise. I found it to be difficult, but not insanely so. Anybody who wants a good old-fashioned puzzle-filled IF experience, and has some time on their hands should give this one a try. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From: Adrian J. Chung NAME: The Tale of the Kissing Bandit AUTHOR: J. Robinson Wheeler EMAIL: rob.wheeler SP@G stanfordalumni.org DATE: February 2001 PARSER: Infocom Standard SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters AVAILABILITY: Freeware URL: http://www.plover.net/~emily/smoochie/bandit.zip VERSION: Release 1 (SmoochieComp original) Oh this is sweet -- a delightful little story of a night of adventure. You play a mysterious secretive character who steals kisses from women caught unaware. The whole game is like this. Well, most of it. Really. Go play it if you have 5 minutes to spare. The game is as compact as it is amusing. The light-hearted mood is sustained by excellently conceived prose heavily peppered with overt prompting to move the player along. I found myself using verbs I would never think to use in any other game. There are no puzzles to speak of and the story is very much on rails after the first few rooms. It never ceases to amaze me what can be accomplished with such sparse geometry, objects, and NPC interaction -- a sign of very effective writing. And lastly, if you haven't done so already, play through "Shade" (Zarf's Comp 2000 entry) prior to this one for maximum effect. That should quiet any feelings of missing out that those who're not ifmud regulars may have. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From: Adrian J. Chung NAME: Voices AUTHOR: Aris Katsaris EMAIL: katsaris SP@G otenet.gr DATE: February 2001 PARSER: Infocom Standard SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters AVAILABILITY: Freeware URL: http://www.plover.net/~emily/smoochie/voices.z5 VERSION: Release 1 (SmoochieComp original) I debated with myself whether or not I should submit a review for this one. The recent jump in the adventure gaming audience swayed me in the affirmative. Stating that newcomers who were expecting a game are in for a surprise would be a bit of an understatement. The opening text: Voices An Interactive Romance (...) Ladies' Tree We like to play and dance in this place around the tall beech, (...) but I've never seen them myself. Nor have I ventured alone much to the south of here - the town of Domremy is in the north. suggests a romance told in the first person -- features of the Comp98 2nd place game, "Muse". As it turns out, this work really orbits in the same system as the Comp98 1st placer, "Photopia". The tightly scripted (almost on rails) story and heavy reliance on "talk to" are the features to which I refer. Not to mention the interface manipulation gimmicks pioneered by "Shrapnel" -- one gimmick is also to be found in another SmoochieComp game, "Pytho's Mask". Enough references for you? There's not much more I can say without contributing to the spoilery for a work as short as this -- it takes no more than ten minutes to experience. The prose conveys some rather strong emotions via a story design that can be debated for days, which is exactly what happened on r*if. If emotional impact per line of non-library source code were a valid measure, this would probably rank as high as Photopia or Shade; perhaps even higher due to the sparse implementation. It takes courage to use the minicomp format (and SmoochieComp, no less!) to tackle much debated philosophy and religious theology. Admittedly my Catholic upbringing could be a factor in my slight disagreement in the portrayal of some of the major characters. It was also disconcerting to have to make decisions for them at critical points in the story. The rapid switching of person perspectives -- between 1st and 2nd, interspersed with 3rd -- only added to this discomfort. Maybe this was intentional. At least it avoids the risks of trivialising the belief systems of a major religion as can often happen in this medium. This is testimony to the author's writing skill and well-planned design. Did I mention the historical setting? There is almost too much packed into something of this size. Does it work? I'd venture a conditional yes. But like I said, it depends greatly on what expectations you bring to the table. Perhaps that's why it was released in a minicomp. READERS' SCOREBOARD: THE FINAL CHAPTER ------------------------------------ As I mentioned in the editorial section, this issue's SPAG scoreboard will be the last, so what you see here is what will remain. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of this scoreboard, it was an ongoing feature of SPAG, charting the scores that SPAG readers and reviewers gave to various IF games from the time SPAG began. The codes in the Notes column give information as to a game's availability and the platforms on which it runs. For a translation of these codes and for more detailed information on the scoreboard's format, see the first issue of SPAG, available at ftp.ifarchive.org or on the SPAG web page at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag. Name Avg Sc Chr Puz # Sc Issue Notes: ==== ====== === === ==== ===== ====== 1-2-3... 4.1 0.9 0.5 3 23 F_INF_ARC 9:05 6.6 0.7 0.5 11 20 F_INF_ARC Aayela 7.0 1.0 1.3 6 10 F_TAD_ARC Abbey 6.8 0.6 1.4 1 24 S10_I_ARC Above and Beyond 7.3 1.5 1.6 5 24 F_TAD_ARC Acid Whiplash 5.2 0.7 0.2 5 17 F_INF_ARC Acorn Court 6.1 0.5 1.5 2 12 F_INF_ARC Ad Verbum 7.4 0.9 1.7 3 23 F_INF_ARC Adv. of Elizabeth Hig 3.1 0.5 0.3 2 5 F_AGT_ARC Adventure (all varian 6.6 0.7 1.2 16 8,22 F_INF_TAD_ETC_ARC Adventureland 4.4 0.5 1.1 6 F_INF_ARC Adventures of Helpful 7.0 1.3 0.9 2 F_TAD_ARC Aftermath 4.0 0.7 0.7 1 F_TAD_ARC Afternoon Visit 4.1 1.0 0.8 1 F_AGT Aisle 6.8 1.4 0.2 11 18 F_INF_ARC Alien Abduction? 7.5 1.3 1.4 5 10, 26 F_TAD_ARC All Alone 8.2 1.3 0.7 2 22 F_TAD_ARC All Quiet...Library 5.0 0.9 0.9 6 7 F_INF_ARC All Roads 8.1 1.4 1.2 2 F_INF_ARC Amnesia 6.9 1.5 1.3 4 9 C_AP_I_64 Anchorhead 8.7 1.7 1.5 29 18 F_INF_ARC And The Waves... 7.9 1.5 1.1 2 23 F_INF_ARC Another...No Beer 2.4 0.2 0.8 2 4 S10_I_ARC Arrival 7.9 1.3 1.4 5 17 F_TAD_ARC Arthur: Excalibur 8.0 1.3 1.6 44,14,22 C_INF Asendent 1.7 0.0 0.3 1 F_INF_ARC At Wit's End 7.1 1.2 1.3 1 23 F_TAD_ARC Augmented Fourth 7.9 1.2 1.6 7 22 F_INF_ARC Aunt Nancy's House 1.3 0.1 0.0 2 F_INF_ARC Awakened 7.7 1.7 1.6 1 Awakening 5.9 1.1 1.1 3 15,18 F_INF_ARC Awe-Chasm 3.0 0.7 0.7 2 8 S_I_ST_ARC Babel 8.5 1.7 1.3 11 13 F_INF_ARC Balances 6.6 0.7 1.2 9 6 F_INF_ARC Ballyhoo 7.3 1.5 1.5 6 4 C_INF Bear's Night Out 7.3 1.1 1.3 7 13 F_INF_ARC Beat The Devil 5.5 1.2 1.1 4 19 F_INF_ARC Begegnung am Fluss 5.6 0.8 1.4 1 F_I_ARC Being Andrew Plotkin 7.5 1.5 1.1 2 23 F_INF_ARC Best Man 5.2 0.8 1.2 2 F_INF_ARC Beyond the Tesseract 5.0 0.8 0.9 2 6 F_I_ARC Beyond Zork 7.6 1.5 1.7 11 5, 14 C_INF Big Mama 5.4 1.2 0.6 3 23 F_INF_ARC BJ Drifter 6.5 1.2 1.2 5 15 F_INF_ARC Bliss 6.3 1.1 0.8 4 20 F_TAD_ARC Bloodline 7.7 1.4 1.1 2 15 F_INF_ARC Border Zone 7.2 1.4 1.4 7 4 C_INF Breakers 7.5 1.5 1.1 1 C_I_AP_M_64_S Break-In 6.1 1.1 1.4 3 21 F_INF_ARC Breaking The Code 0.4 0.0 0.0 2 F_INF_ARC Brimstone: The Dream. 6.5 1.4 1.1 1 C_I_AP_M_64_S Broken String 3.9 0.7 0.4 4 F_TADS_ARC BSE 5.7 0.9 1.0 3 F_INF_ARC Bureaucracy 7.1 1.5 1.4 13 5 C_INF Busted 5.1 1.1 0.9 2 25 F_INF_ARC Calliope 4.7 0.9 0.8 3 F_INF_ARC Carma 8.0 1.9 1.2 1 F_GLU_ARC Cask 1.5 0.0 0.5 2 F_INF_ARC Castaway 1.1 0.0 0.4 1 5 F_I_ARC Castle Amnos 4.6 1.0 0.8 2 F_INF_ARC Castle Elsinore 4.3 0.7 1.0 2 I_ARC Cattus Atrox 4.9 1.2 0.8 1 17 F_INF_ARC Cave of Morpheus 5.4 1.3 1.0 1 F_ADR_ARC CC 4.2 0.4 1.0 1 F_ALAN_ARC Change in the Weather 7.5 1.0 1.3 14 7,8,14 F_INF_ARC Chaos 5.6 1.3 1.1 2 F_TAD_ARC Chicken under Window 6.6 0.8 0.3 4 F_INF_ARC Chicks Dig Jerks 5.2 1.1 0.7 9 19 F_INF_ARC Chico and I Ran 7.2 1.7 1.1 1 F_INF_ARC Christminster 8.3 1.6 1.6 21 20 F_INF_ARC Circus 3.4 0.5 0.8 1 City 6.1 0.6 1.3 2 17 F_INF_ARC Clock 3.7 0.8 0.6 1 F_TAD_ARC Coke Is It! 5.6 1.0 0.9 3 F_INF_ARC Coming Home 0.6 0.1 0.1 1 F_INF_ARC Common Ground 7.1 1.6 0.3 3 20 F_TAD_ARC Commute 1.3 0.2 0.1 1 F_I_ARC Comp00ter Game 0.9 0.1 0.1 1 F_INF_ARC Congratulations! 2.6 0.7 0.3 1 F_INF_ARC Corruption 7.2 1.6 1.0 4 14, 21 C_MAG Cosmoserve 7.8 1.4 1.4 5 5 F_AGT_ARC Cove 6.5 0.8 0.7 4 22 F_INF_ARC Crimson Spring 6.9 1.5 1.2 1 F_HUG_ARC Crypt v2.0 5.0 1.0 1.5 1 3 S12_IBM_ARC Curses 8.0 1.2 1.7 20 2, 22 F_INF_ARC Cutthroats 5.7 1.3 1.1 9 1 C_INF Dampcamp 5.0 0.8 1.1 3 F_TAD_ARC Danger! Adventurer... 3.2 0.3 0.7 1 F_INF_ARC Dangerous Curves 8.6 1.5 1.6 1 24 F_INF_ARC Day For Soft Food 6.8 1.0 1.3 5 19 F_INF_ARC Deadline 6.9 1.3 1.3 9 20 C_INF Death To My Enemies 4.4 0.9 0.7 4 F_INF_ARC Deep Space Drifter 5.6 0.4 1.1 3 3 S15_TAD_ARC Deephome 4.0 0.5 0.9 2 21 F_INF_ARC Degeneracy 8.7 1.5 1.3 1 25 F_INF_ARC Delusions 7.9 1.5 1.5 5 14F_INF_ARC Demon's Tomb 7.4 1.2 1.1 2 9 C_I Depravity Bites 2.6 0.5 0.5 1 28,29 F_TAD_ARC Desert Heat 6.0 1.3 0.7 1 23 F_TAD_ARC Detective 1.0 0.0 0.0 9 4,5,18 F_AGT_INF_ARC Detective-MST3K 6.0 1.2 0.2 10 7,8,18 F_INF_ARC Dinner With Andre 7.2 1.6 1.4 1 23 F_INF_ARC Ditch Day Drifter 6.3 0.9 1.6 5 2 F_TAD_ARC Djinni Chronicles 7.1 1.1 1.1 3 23 F_INF_ARC Down 6.0 1.0 1.2 1 14 F_HUG_ARC Downtown Tokyo 6.1 0.9 1.0 6 17 F_INF_ARC Dragon Hunt 5.4 0.5 0.5 1 F_HUG_ARC Dungeon 6.2 1.0 1.6 3 F_ARC Dungeon Adventure 6.8 1.3 1.6 1 4 F_ETC Dungeon of Dunjin 6.0 0.7 1.5 5 3, 14 S20_IBM_MAC_ARC Edifice 8.0 1.4 1.8 10 13 F_INF_ARC Eins Swei Spiegelei 5.0 1.1 1.0 1 F_ARC Electrabot 0.7 0.0 0.0 1 5 F_AGT_ARC E-Mailbox 3.1 0.1 0.2 2 F_AGT_ARC Emy Discovers Life 5.0 1.1 0.8 3 F_AGT Enchanter 7.3 1.1 1.5 10 2,15 C_INF End Means Escape 6.1 1.4 1.1 1 23 F_TAD_ARC Enhanced 5.0 1.0 1.3 2 2 S10_TAD_ARC Enlightenment 6.5 1.1 1.5 3 17 F_INF_ARC Erehwon 6.2 1.2 1.5 4 19 F_TAD_ARC Eric the Unready 7.4 1.4 1.4 6 C_I Essex 5.7 1.2 0.9 1 C_I_AP_M_64_ST Everybody Loves a Par 7.0 1.2 1.2 3 12 F_TAD_ARC Exhibition 6.2 1.4 0.3 6 19 F_TAD_ARC Fable 2.0 0.1 0.1 3 6 F_AGT_ARC Fable-MST3K 4.0 0.5 0.2 4 F_AGT_INF_ARC FailSafe 7.5 1.0 1.0 1 24,25 F_INF_ARC Fear 6.3 1.2 1.3 3 10, 24 F_INF_ARC Fifteen 1.5 0.5 0.4 1 17 F_INF_ARC Firebird 7.1 1.5 1.3 4 15 F_TAD_ARC Fish 7.5 1.3 1.7 4 12, 14 C_MAG Foggywood Hijinx 6.2 1.2 1.3 3 21 F_TAD_ARC Foom 6.6 1.0 1.0 1 F_TAD_ARC For A Change 8.0 0.9 1.3 6 19, 22 F_INF_ARC Forbidden Castle 4.8 0.6 0.5 1 C_AP Four In One 4.4 1.2 0.5 2 F_TAD_ARC Four Seconds 6.0 1.2 1.1 2 F_TAD_ARC Frenetic Five 5.3 1.4 0.5 3 13 F_TAD_ARC Frenetic Five 2 6.6 1.5 1.0 3 21, 22 F_TAD_ARC Friday Afternoon 6.3 1.4 1.2 1 13 F_INF_ARC Frobozz Magic Support 7.2 1.2 1.5 3 F_TAD_ARC Frozen 5.5 0.7 1.3 1 F_INF_ARC Fusillade 7.1 1.5 0.3 1 F_TAD_ARC Frustration 5.7 1.1 0.9 1 21 F_TAD_ARC Futz Mutz 5.3 1.0 1.1 1 F_TAD_ARC Galatea 7.4 1.8 0.9 5 22 F_INF_ARC Gateway 8.6 1.4 1.8 7 11 C_I Gateway 2: Homeworld 9.0 1.7 1.9 6 24 C_I Gerbil Riot of '67 6.3 0.7 1.1 1 F_TAD_ARC Glowgrass 6.9 1.3 1.3 5 13 F_INF_ARC Gnome Ranger 5.8 1.2 1.6 1 C_I Golden Fleece 6.0 1.0 1.1 1 21 F_TAD_ARC Golden Wombat of Dest 6.3 0.7 1.1 1 18 F_I_ARC Good Breakfast 4.9 0.9 1.2 2 14 F_INF_ARC Got ID? 6.2 1.4 1.0 1 F_INF_ARC Great Archeolog. Race 6.5 1.0 1.5 1 3 S20_TAD_ARC Guardians of Infinity 8.5 1.3 1 9 C_I Guess The Verb! 6.5 1.2 1.4 2 23 F_INF_ARC Guild of Thieves 7.1 1.1 1.5 5 14 C_MAG Guilty Bastards 6.9 1.4 1.2 5 22 F_HUG_ARC Guitar...Immortal Bar 3.0 0.0 0.0 1 F_INF_ARC Gumshoe 6.2 1.0 1.1 7 9 F_INF_ARC Halothane 6.6 1.3 1.2 4 19 F_INF_ARC Happy Ever After 4.6 0.5 1.2 1 F_INF_ARC HeBGB Horror 5.7 0.9 1.1 2 F_ALAN_ARC Heist 6.7 1.4 1.5 2 F_INF_ARC Hero, Inc. 6.8 1.0 1.5 2 F_TAD_ARC Heroes 7.9 1.8 1.6 1 F_INF_ARC Hitchhiker's Guide 7.3 1.3 1.5 16 5 C_INF Hobbit - The True Sto 5.9 1.1 0.8 1 26 S10_I_ARC Hollywood Hijinx 6.3 0.9 1.5 12 C_INF Holy Grail 6.2 0.9 1.2 1 21 F_TAD_ARC Horror of Rylvania 7.2 1.4 1.4 5 1 F_TAD_ARC Horror30.zip 3.7 0.3 0.7 2 3 S20_I_ARC Human Resources Stori 0.9 0.0 0.1 2 17 F_INF_ARC Humbug 7.4 1.6 1.3 4 11, 24 F_I_ARC Hunter, In Darkness 7.3 0.9 1.4 7 19 F_INF_ARC I didn't know...yodel 4.0 0.7 1.0 5 17 F_I_ARC I-0: Jailbait on Inte 7.7 1.5 1.2 22 20 F_INF_ARC Ice Princess 7.5 1.4 1.6 2 A_INF_ARC In The End 4.8 0.6 0.2 3 10 F_INF_ARC In The Spotlight 3.2 0.2 1.0 2 17 F_INF_ARC Infidel 6.9 0.2 1.4 15 1 C_INF Infil-Traitor 2.9 0.1 0.7 1 F_I_ARC Informatory 5.5 0.5 1.3 1 17 F_INF_ARC Ingrid's Back 7.0 1.6 1.6 2 C_I Inheritance 5.0 0.3 1.0 3 20 F_TAD_ARC Inhumane 4.4 0.3 0.9 4 9, 20 F_INF_ARC Intruder 6.7 1.3 1.1 4 20 F_INF_ARC Invasion of... Jupite 1.9 0.3 0.6 1 F_I_ARC Jacaranda Jim 7.5 1.0 0.9 3 24 F_ARC Jacks...Aces To Win 7.1 1.3 1.2 3 19 F_INF_ARC Jarod's Journey 2.5 0.5 0.3 1 F_TAD_ARC Jewel of Knowledge 6.3 1.2 1.1 3 18 F_INF_ARC Jeweled Arena 7.0 1.4 1.3 2 AGT_ARC Jigsaw 8.2 1.6 1.6 19 8,9 F_INF_ARC Jinxter 6.1 0.9 1.3 3 C_MAG John's Fire Witch 6.5 1.0 1.5 9 4, 12 S6_TADS_ARC Jouney Into Xanth 5.0 1.3 1.2 1 8 F_AGT_ARC Journey 7.2 1.5 1.3 5 5 C_INF Jump 3.2 0.5 0.7 1 F_INF_ARC Kaged 7.0 1.1 1.1 4 23, 25 F_INF_ARC King Arthur's Night O 5.9 0.9 1.0 4 19 F_ALAN_ARC Kissing the Buddha's 7.9 1.8 1.5 6 10 F_TAD_ARC Klaustrophobia 6.4 1.1 1.3 6 1 S15_AGT_ARC Knight Orc 7.2 1.4 1.1 2 15 C_I L.U.D.I.T.E. 2.7 0.2 0.1 4 F_INF_ARC Lancelot 6.9 1.4 1.2 1 C_I Land Beyond Picket Fe 4.8 1.2 1.2 1 10 F_I_ARC LASH 7.6 1.3 1.0 5 21 F_INF_ARC Leather Goddesses 7.2 1.3 1.5 12 4 C_INF Leaves 3.4 0.2 0.8 1 14 F_ALAN_ARC Legend Lives! 8.2 1.2 1.4 4 5 F_TAD_ARC Lesson of the Tortois 6.9 1.3 1.4 5 14 F_TAD_ARC Lethe Flow Phoenix 6.9 1.4 1.5 5 9 F_TAD_ARC Letters From Home 7.0 0.6 1.2 2 F_INF_ARC Life on Beal Street 5.4 1.3 0.1 3 F_TAD_ARC Light: Shelby's Adden 7.5 1.5 1.3 6 9 S_TAD_ARC Lightiania 1.9 0.2 0.4 1 F_INF_ARC Lists and Lists 6.3 1.3 1.1 3 10 F_INF_ARC Little Billy 1.1 0.4 0.0 1 F_I_ARC Little Blue Men 8.2 1.4 1.5 11 17 F_INF_ARC Lock And Key 6.6 1.0 1.5 1 20 F_GLU_ARC Lomalow 4.6 1.0 0.6 3 19 F_INF_ARC Losing Your Grip 8.5 1.4 1.4 6 14S20_TAD_ARC Lost New York 7.9 1.4 1.4 4 20, 26 S12_TAD_ARC Lost Spellmaker 6.3 1.3 1.1 5 13 F_INF_ARC Lunatix: Insanity Cir 5.6 1.2 1.0 3 F_I_ARC Lurking Horror 7.2 1.3 1.4 16 1,3 C_INF MacWesleyan / PC Univ 5.1 0.7 1.2 3 F_TAD_ARC Madame L'Estrange... 5.1 1.2 0.7 1 13 F_INF_ARC Magic Toyshop 5.2 1.1 1.1 5 7 F_INF_ARC Magic.zip 4.5 0.5 0.5 1 3 S20_IBM_ARC Maiden of the Moonlig 6.4 1.3 1.5 2 10 F_TAD_ARC Masque of the Last... 4.7 1.1 0.8 1 F_INF_ARC Masquerade 7.3 1.6 1.0 1 23 F_INF_ARC Matter of Time 1.4 0.3 1.4 1 14F_ALAN_ARC Mercy 7.3 1.4 1.2 6 12 F_INF_ARC Metamorphoses 6.8 0.8 1.3 2 23 F_INF_ARC Meteor...Sherbet 8.0 1.5 1.6 9 10, 12 F_INF_ARC Mind Electric 5.2 0.6 0.9 4 7,8 F_INF_ARC Mind Forever Voyaging 8.4 1.4 0.9 15 5,15 C_INF Mindwheel 8.5 1.6 1.5 1 C_I Mission 6.0 1.2 1.4 1 21 F_TAD_ARC Moist 6.4 1.3 1.1 5 F_TAD_ARC Moment of Hope 5.0 1.3 0.3 3 19 F_TAD_ARC Moonmist 6.3 1.3 1.0 17 1 C_INF Mop & Murder 5.0 0.9 1.0 2 5 F_AGT_ARC Mother Loose 7.0 1.5 1.3 2 17 F_INF_ARC Mulldoon Legacy 7.4 1.2 1.8 1 24 F_INF_ARC Multidimen. Thief 5.6 0.5 1.3 6 2,9 S15_AGT_ARC Muse 7.9 1.5 1.2 4 17 F_INF_ARC Music Education 3.7 1.0 0.7 3 F_INF_ARC My Angel 8.2 1.8 1.4 2 23 F_INF_ARC Myopia 6.1 1.3 0.6 2 F_AGT_ARC Mystery House 4.1 0.3 0.7 1 F_AP_ARC Nevermore 7.2 1.5 1.4 1 23 F_INF_ARC New Day 6.6 1.4 1.1 4 13 F_INF_ARC Night At Computer Cen 5.2 1.0 1.0 2 F_INF_ARC Night at Museum Forev 4.2 0.3 1.0 4 7,8 F_TAD_ARC Night of... Bunnies 6.6 1.0 1.4 1 I_INF_ARC No Time To Squeal 8.6 1.6 1.5 1 F_TAD_ARC Nord and Bert 6.1 0.6 1.2 9 4 C_INF Not Just A Game 6.9 1.0 1.3 1 20 F_INF_ARC Not Just... Ballerina 5.3 0.8 0.9 3 20 F_INF_ARC Obscene...Aardvarkbar 3.2 0.6 0.6 1 F_TAD_ARC Odieus...Flingshot 3.3 0.4 0.7 2 5 F_INF_ARC Of Forms Unknown 4.5 0.7 0.5 1 10 F_INF_ARC Offensive Probing 4.2 0.6 0.9 1 F_INF_ARC On The Farm 6.5 1.6 1.2 2 19 F_TAD_ARC On The Other Side 2.2 0.0 0.0 1 F_I_ARC Once and Future 6.9 1.6 1.5 2 16 F_TAD_ARC One That Got Away 6.4 1.4 1.1 7 7,8 F_TAD_ARC Only After Dark 4.6 0.8 0.6 4 F_INF_ARC Oo-Topos 5.7 0.2 1.0 1 9 C_AP_I_64 Outsided 2.5 0.7 0.2 2 F_INF_ARC Pass the Banana 2.9 0.8 0.5 3 19 F_INF_ARC Path to Fortune 6.6 1.5 0.9 3 9 S_INF_ARC Pawn 6.3 1.1 1.3 2 12 C_MAG Perilous Magic 5.7 1.0 1.2 3 21 F_INF_ARC Perseus & Andromeda 3.5 0.4 0.9 2 64_INF_ARC Persistence of Memory 6.2 1.2 1.1 1 17 F_HUG_ARC Phlegm 5.2 1.2 1.0 2 10 F_INF_ARC Photopia 7.4 1.5 0.7 29 17 F_INF_ARC Phred Phontious...Piz 5.2 0.9 1.3 2 13 F_INF_ARC Pickpocket 4.1 0.6 0.8 1 F_INF_ARC Piece of Mind 6.3 1.3 1.4 1 10 F_INF_ARC Pintown 1.3 0.3 0.2 1 F_INF_ARC Pirate's Cove 4.8 0.6 0.6 1 F_INF_ARC Planet of Infinite Mi 6.8 1.1 1.3 1 23 F_TAD_ARC Planetfall 7.3 1.6 1.4 15 4 C_INF Plant 7.3 1.2 1.5 4 17 F_TAD_ARC Plundered Hearts 7.4 1.4 1.3 11 4 C_INF Poor Zefron's Almanac 5.6 1.0 1.3 3 13 F_TAD_ARC Portal 8.0 1.7 0.2 3 C_I_A_AP_64 Prodly The Puffin 5.8 1.3 1.1 2 23 F_INF_ARC Punk Points 6.4 1.4 1.3 1 F_INF_ARC Purple 5.6 0.9 1.0 1 17 F_INF_ARC Pyramids of Mars 5.8 1.2 1.1 2 24 AGT_ARC Quarterstaff 6.1 1.3 0.6 1 9 C_M Ralph 7.1 1.6 1.2 3 10, 25 F_INF_ARC Rameses 8.0 1.6 0.4 2 23 F_INF_ARC Rematch 7.9 1.5 1.6 1 22 F_TAD_ARC Remembrance 2.7 0.8 0.2 3 F_ARC Reruns 5.2 1.2 1.2 1 AGT_ARC Research Dig 4.8 1.1 0.8 2 17 F_INF_ARC Revenger 4.2 0.8 0.5 1 F_INF_ARC Reverberations 5.6 1.3 1.1 1 10 F_INF_ARC Ritual of Purificatio 7.0 1.6 1.1 4 17 F_ARC Saied 4.6 1.0 0.2 1 15 F_INF_ARC Sanity Claus 7.5 0.3 0.6 2 1 S10_AGT_ARC Save Princeton 5.6 1.0 1.3 5 8 S10_TAD_ARC Scapeghost 8.1 1.7 1.5 1 6 C_I Sea Of Night 5.7 1.3 1.1 2 F_TAD_ARC Seastalker 5.2 1.1 0.8 11 4 C_INF Shade 8.5 0.7 1.0 2 23 F_INF_ARC Shades of Grey 7.8 1.3 1.3 6 2, 8 F_AGT_ARC Sherlock 7.0 1.3 1.4 5 4 C_INF She's Got a Thing...S 7.0 1.7 1.6 3 13 F_INF_ARC Shogun 7.0 1.2 0.6 2 4 C_INF Shrapnel 7.5 1.4 0.5 7 20 F_INF_ARC Simple Theft 5.8 1.3 0.8 1 20 F_TAD_ARC Sins against Mimesis 5.5 1.0 1.2 3 13 F_INF_ARC Sir Ramic... Gorilla 6.0 1.2 1.2 2 6 F_AGT_ARC Six Stories 6.3 1.0 1.2 4 19 F_TAD_ARC Skyranch 2.8 0.5 0.7 1 20 F_I_ARC Small World 6.5 1.3 1.1 4 10, 24 F_TAD_ARC So Far 8.0 1.1 1.4 13 12, 25 F_INF_ARC Sorcerer 7.2 0.6 1.6 7 2,15 C_INF Sound of... Clapping 7.1 1.3 1.3 8 5 F_ADVSYS_ARC South American Trek 0.9 0.2 0.5 1 5 F_IBM_ARC Space Aliens...Cardig 1.5 0.4 0.3 6 3, 4 S60_AGT_ARC Space under Window 7.1 0.9 0.4 6 12 F_INF_ARC Spacestation 5.6 0.7 1.1 1 F_INF_ARC Spellbreaker 8.5 1.2 1.8 8 2,15 C_INF Spellcasting 101 7.4 1.1 1.5 4 C_I Spellcasting 201 7.8 1.6 1.7 2 C_I Spellcasting 301 6.0 1.2 1.2 2 C_I Spider and Web 8.6 1.7 1.7 19 14F_INF_ARC SpiritWrak 6.7 1.2 1.3 6 22 F_INF_ARC Spodgeville...Wossnam 4.3 0.7 1.2 2 F_INF_ARC Spur 7.1 1.3 1.1 2 9 F_HUG_ARC Spyder and Jeb 6.2 1.1 1.4 1 F_TAD_ARC Starcross 6.6 1.0 1.2 7 1 C_INF Stargazer 5.4 1.1 1.1 1 F_INF_ARC Starrider 7.2 1.2 1.4 1 F_INF_ARC Stationfall 7.7 1.6 1.5 7 5 C_INF Statuette 3.7 0.0 0.1 1 F_INF_ARC Stick It To The Man 6.2 1.8 1.0 1 F_GLU_ARC Stiffy 1.2 0.1 0.2 2 F_INF_ARC Stiffy - MiSTing 4.1 0.8 0.3 7 F_INF_ARC Stone Cell 6.0 1.1 1.0 3 19 F_TAD_ARC Stranded 6.4 1.4 1.5 1 F_TAD_ARC Strange Odyssey 4.0 0.0 1.0 1 Strangers In The Nigh 3.2 0.7 0.6 2 F_TAD_ARC Stupid Kittens 2.9 0.6 0.4 2 F_INF_ARC Sunset Over Savannah 8.7 1.7 1.4 6 13 F_TAD_ARC Suspect 6.2 1.3 1.1 8 4 C_INF Suspended 7.7 1.5 1.4 8 8 C_INF Sylenius Mysterium 4.7 1.2 1.1 1 13 F_INF_ARC Symetry 1.1 0.1 0.1 2 F_INF_ARC Tapestry 7.3 1.4 0.9 6 10, 14 F_INF_ARC Tempest 5.3 1.4 0.6 3 13 F_INF_ARC Temple of the Orc Mag 4.5 0.1 0.8 2 F_TAD_ARC Terror of Mecha Godzi 4.6 0.8 0.6 1 26 S10_I_ARC Test 1.9 0.1 0.4 1 F_ADR_ARC Textfire Golf 7.1 1.3 0.4 2 25 F_INF_ARC Theatre 7.0 1.1 1.3 13 6 F_INF_ARC Thorfinn's Realm 3.5 0.5 0.7 2 F_INF_ARC Threading the Labyrin 1.9 0.0 0.0 1 F_TAD_ARC Time: All Things... 3.9 1.2 0.9 2 11, 12 F_INF_ARC TimeQuest 8.0 1.2 1.6 4 C_I TimeSquared 4.3 1.1 1.1 1 F_AGT_ARC Toonesia 5.8 1.1 1.1 6 7, 21 F_TAD_ARC Tossed into Space 3.9 0.2 0.6 1 4 F_AGT_ARC Town Dragon 3.9 0.8 0.3 2 14, 22 F_INF_ARC Transfer 7.6 1.0 1.6 2 23 F_INF_ARC Trapped...Dilly 5.1 0.1 1.1 2 17 F_INF_ARC Travels in Land of Er 6.1 1.2 1.5 2 14 F_INF_ARC Trinity 8.7 1.4 1.7 18 1,2 C_INF Trip 5.4 1.2 1.1 2 F_TAD_ARC Tryst of Fate 7.1 1.4 1.3 1 11 F_INF_ARC Tube Trouble 4.2 0.8 0.7 2 8 F_INF_ARC Tyler's Great Cube Ga 5.8 0.0 1.7 1 S_TAD_ARC Uncle Zebulon's Will 7.3 1.0 1.5 12 8 F_TAD_ARC Underoos That Ate NY 4.5 0.6 0.9 3 F_TAD_INF_ARC Undertow 5.4 1.3 0.9 3 8 F_TAD_ARC Undo 2.9 0.5 0.7 4 7 F_TAD_ARC Unholy Grail 6.0 1.2 1.2 1 13 F_I_ARC Unnkulian One-Half 6.7 1.2 1.5 9 1 F_TAD_ARC Unnkulian Unventure 1 6.9 1.2 1.5 8 1,2 F_TAD_ARC Unnkulian Unventure 2 7.2 1.2 1.5 5 1 F_TAD_ARC Unnkulian Zero 8.4 0.7 0.8 21,12,14 F_TAD_ARC Varicella 8.2 1.6 1.5 9 18 F_INF_ARC Veritas 6.6 1.3 1.4 4 S10_TAD_ARC Vindaloo 2.9 0.0 0.4 1 F_INF_ARC VirtuaTech 6.1 0.0 1.2 1 F_TAD_ARC VOID: Corporation 3.2 0.4 0.8 1 F_AGT_ARC Water Bird 5.0 1.1 0.8 1 F_TAD_ARC Waystation 5.5 0.7 1.0 4 9 F_TAD_ARC Weapon 6.8 1.1 1.4 1 26 F_INF_ARC Wearing the Claw 6.5 1.2 1.2 7 10, 18 F_INF_ARC Wedding 7.4 1.6 1.3 3 12 F_INF_ARC What-IF? 1.6 0.0 0.0 2 F_INF_ARC Where Evil Dwells 5.1 0.8 1.1 1 F_INF_ARC Winchester's Nightmar 6.9 1.5 0.5 1 22 F_INF_ARC Winter Wonderland 7.6 1.3 1.2 7 19 F_INF_ARC Wishbringer 7.6 1.3 1.3 16 5,6 C_INF Withdrawal Symptoms 4.4 0.5 0.7 1 F_INF_ARC Witness 6.7 1.5 1.2 10 1,3,9 C_INF Wizard of Akyrz 3.2 0.3 0.8 1 Wonderland 6.4 1.4 1.1 3 C_MAG World 6.5 0.6 1.3 2 4 F_I_ETC_ARC Worlds Apart 8.0 1.7 1.4 10 21 F_TAD_ARC YAGWAD 6.7 1.1 1.3 2 23 F_INF_ARC You Are Here 6.0 1.0 1.3 1 F_INF_ARC Your Choice 5.5 0.0 1.1 1 F_TAD_ARC Zanfar 2.6 0.2 0.4 1 8 F_AGT_ARC Zero Sum Game 7.5 1.5 1.6 4 13 F_INF_ARC Zombie! 5.2 1.2 1.1 2 13 F_TAD_ARC Zork 0 6.3 1.0 1.5 10 14C_INF Zork 1 6.1 0.8 1.4 24 1, 12 F_INF Zork 2 6.4 1.0 1.5 13 1, 12 F_INF Zork 3 6.5 0.9 1.4 8 1, 12 F_INF Zork Undisc. Undergr. 5.9 0.9 1.1 3 14F_INF_ARC Zork: A Troll's Eye V 4.4 0.6 0.1 3 14 F_INF_ARC Zuni Doll 4.0 0.6 0.9 2 14 F_INF_ARC -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Top Ten: I've gotten twelve, count 'em, *twelve* votes since the last issue. Hey, that's about four votes a month, almost one a week! Unsurprisingly, nothing has changed in the top ten. Not one thing. Oh, wait -- one thing: Mind Forever Voyaging got one more vote. Not that this vote affected its score or placement in any way. Sheesh, no wonder I'm putting this feature to bed. 1. Gateway 2: Homeworld 9.0 6 votes 2. Anchorhead 8.7 29 votes 3. Sunset over Savannah 8.7 6 votes 4. Trinity 8.7 18 votes 5. Spider and Web 8.6 19 votes 6. Gateway 8.6 7 votes 7. Losing Your Grip 8.5 6 votes 8. Babel 8.5 11 votes 9. Spellbreaker 8.5 8 votes 10. Mind Forever Voyaging 8.4 15 votes A game is not eligible for the Top Ten unless it has received at least three ratings from different readers. 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