Interactive Fiction Adventure Games

[Red Russian]

Does anyone know any good Interactive Fiction games (Text Adventures)? There's alot out there, but which is good? Seperating crap from fiction is a mission in itself.

PS: I'm looking for good horror IFs. :D

 

[mirrorshades]

Anchorhead. There is no other. Go play it now. (Lovecraft-inspired horror at its finest.)

Well, okay... there are actually some others out there. Shade is another good one, not so much "horror" as "creepy as hell".

Are you looking for modern titles, or classics? Anything from Infocom is a part of the gold standard and, thus, worthy of playing. (And they'll all run on a modern Z-code interpreter, so you can use something nice like WinFrotz.)

Otherwise, there are still a lot of others out there. Here are links and reviews for some of the highest-rated IF games on the IF Archive:

http://www.wurb.com/if/rating/5 (5-star, incredibly top-notch literary masterpieces)
http://www.wurb.com/if/rating/4 (4-star, on par with Infocom's usual fare)

Some good authors: Graham Nelson, Adam Cadre, Andrew Plotkin, Emily Short to name a few.

 

[Psycroptic]

I like "The Lurking Horror" by Infocom. Very Lovecraftian... obviously.

Just make sure you manage to download the extras for the game as PDF too. There is an early puzzle that refers to them and you simply will not progress in the game if you don't have the item in question to look at. Hope that's vague enough to avoid spoilers.

 

[Jasede]

The Lurking Horror is one of the weaker Infocom games.

That said, it's still one of the best you can play, Infocom was that good.

--

Zork 1, so you get half of the nerd/hacker jokes.
Adventure/Colossal Cave so you get the other half.

A Mind Forever Voyaging for excellent writing and a grand story, without puzzles to bother you.

Trinity for just as great writing, a wonderful story and difficult puzzles.

Bureaucracy if you liked Douglas Adams - he wrote half of it, and it shows, in a good way.

Anchorhead for good writing and atmosphere.

Shade(s) for an easy and short & sweet, but very, very creepy game.

Planetfall for Floyd.


ALWAYS get the .pdfs. The manual AND the bonus material. Also, find out what was in the box. You'll be blown away.

Those should last you... half a year. Ask for more when you're done.

 

[mirrorshades]

Trinity is hard as crap.

Er, maybe that's not such a good simile.

Trinity is immensely hard. Come to think of it, I never finished it. I recall getting to a point where I could explore different areas, but there wasn't much in the way of clues as to what I should be doing or what happened next.

Curses by Graham Nelson is another good one, on par with the best of the Infocom titles. (With one puzzle that is horribly poorly designed. But other than that, I mean.)

Beyond Zork and Zork Zero are lots of fun, if you find you like the GUE-niverse. Play at least Zork 1 and 2 first, though.

The non-Infocom title Zork: The Undiscovered Underground is also quite good. Again, one terribly wretched puzzle. Again, play Zork 1 and 2 first.

If you like the Zork setting (light fantasy), you may also like the various "Unnkulia" titles, as well as The Meteor, The Stone and a Long Glass of Sherbet. I've only dabbled with those, but they are highly regarded.

Conan Kill Everything is pretty funny.

Agree with the others, too... to play the Infocom games, you really need the inclusions in order to get through some of the game. Slick way of immersively doing copy protection.

 

[mirrorshades]

Damn you all... now I've got to go find WinFrotz and fire some of these up again.

As if I have nothing better to do with my time!

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

 

[Red Russian]

Fuck, slow down guys. Love-what?

So it looks like I'll fire up the first one then. Anchorhead. Here's to a few sleepless nights.

Thanks, guys/gals/homos/kingcomrade.

 

[mirrorshades]

Fuck, slow down guys. Love-what?

Lovecraft.

Also play Shade if you need a breather while playing Anchorhead. It's pretty quick.

 

[Cthulhugoat]

This one is quite short, but I enjoyed it too. http://www.shadowvault.net/r%20thebaron.htm

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I can wholeheartedly recommend Shade. It's of a reasonable length for one of these evenings. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that you'll never know where this one goes next. That might seem odd what with the entire thing taking place in but a single room. Enjoy!

 

[zer]

Anchorhead - yes, again
Slouching Towards Bedlam
Spider& Web - thought one, but brilliant
Mulldoon Legacy
All Roads
Vespers
Babel


PS Hmm if you realy russian you may read some reviews here

 

[Dmitron]

Love-what?

Disturbing.

 

[Starwars]

How bad are the Anchorhead time limits? For some reason I find time limits ok in RPGs, but I generally hate them in text-adventures.

 

[ecliptic]

ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/game ... ion96/fear

Unlike "House of the Stalker" and "Rippled Flesh," presents a
more psychological, self-confrontational horror, also seen in "Shades
of Gray" and this year's entries "Tapestry" and "Delusions." "Fear"
isn't quite as gripping as any of these, but it's a creepy, paranoid
game with an ending that leaves just enough to the imagination to keep
the player slightly ill at ease.

 

[mirrorshades]

How bad are the Anchorhead time limits? For some reason I find time limits ok in RPGs, but I generally hate them in text-adventures.

Most of the game is static, time only progresses once you've accomplished what you need to for each day. There is, though, a stretch towards the end where you get about a half-dozen timed puzzles in rapid-fire succession. It more or less flows with the game, as the plot has begun to speed up... but I still found it pretty annoying and had to go find a walkthrough for a couple of them.

Most are not too difficult, two or three tries should give you enough information. One in particular frustrated me, though, because to solve it you have to do something that I had tried earlier in the game that didn't work (and there was nothing to indicate that anything else had changed and that it *would* work at this point).

Doesn't really take away from the game much at all, though. Still a fantastic, atmospheric game that is definitely worth playing. (And at the time I had never been exposed to the Lovecraft style of fiction, other than through the odd tangential references of the User Friendly comic which I never understood anyway.)

 

[mirrorshades]

"Fear" isn't quite as gripping as any of these, but it's a creepy, paranoid
game with an ending that leaves just enough to the imagination to keep
the player slightly ill at ease.

Ok... giving this one a go. Interesting enough to keep me going through it, though a couple puzzles I've run across so far are a little goofy. Neat overall idea for the game, though.

 

[mirrorshades]

"Fear" isn't quite as gripping as any of these, but it's a creepy, paranoid
game with an ending that leaves just enough to the imagination to keep
the player slightly ill at ease.

Ok... giving this one a go. Interesting enough to keep me going through it, though a couple puzzles I've run across so far are a little goofy. Neat overall idea for the game, though.

Ok... scratch that. The duck puzzle was okay, the Egypt one needed to give me more details, but the crystal puzzle was just somewhere between unfair and obscene.

I see where stuff that's done for a comp can usually use some polish, and this isn't an exception. Still like the overall idea, but maybe take a pass on it unless you like getting your brain stomped on.

 

[Jasede]

ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition96/fear

Unlike "House of the Stalker" and "Rippled Flesh," presents a
more psychological, self-confrontational horror, also seen in "Shades
of Gray" and this year's entries "Tapestry" and "Delusions." "Fear"
isn't quite as gripping as any of these, but it's a creepy, paranoid
game with an ending that leaves just enough to the imagination to keep
the player slightly ill at ease.

I never heard of any of those. Links, mini-reviews please!

 

[mirrorshades]

Fear (****): http://www.wurb.com/if/game/85

House of the Stalker (***): http://www.wurb.com/if/game/202

Rippled Flesh (**): http://www.wurb.com/if/game/184

Shades of Gray (****): http://www.wurb.com/if/game/195

Tapestry (****): http://www.wurb.com/if/game/208

Delusions (*****): http://www.wurb.com/if/game/61

 

[ecliptic]

"Fear" isn't quite as gripping as any of these, but it's a creepy, paranoid
game with an ending that leaves just enough to the imagination to keep
the player slightly ill at ease.

Ok... giving this one a go. Interesting enough to keep me going through it, though a couple puzzles I've run across so far are a little goofy. Neat overall idea for the game, though.

Ok... scratch that. The duck puzzle was okay, the Egypt one needed to give me more details, but the crystal puzzle was just somewhere between unfair and obscene.

I see where stuff that's done for a comp can usually use some polish, and this isn't an exception. Still like the overall idea, but maybe take a pass on it unless you like getting your brain stomped on.

Hmm, I can't remember if I had to walk-through that, most likely, as I don't remember getting frustrated with the game.