Interactive Text Adventures Come To the Kindle 84
dotarray writes with news that Amazon's Kindle will now play text-based adventure games, such as Zork. From the article:
"... And it makes a ridiculous amount of sense: text is gorgeous and easily-readable on the e-ink screens, the lack of color isn’t a problem, and – let’s face it – the sort of people who are likely to buy an e-reader are exactly the sort of people who are likely to love vintage games. ... The developers have also integrated a save-game feature so you can pick up where you left off, using Amazon’s Whispernet feature – and promise that they are looking to put more modern Z-machine games into the system, too. (Squee!) Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. The Zork family of games are notoriously frustrating (even when you’re not eaten by a Grue), and the Kindle’s text entry system doesn’t help with that, especially when entering numbers. A full keyboard would make things more fluid, but – really – if you want that, why not just play on your PC?"
Inventory (Score:5, Funny)
You have:
First Post
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And I can smell a wumpus.
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Well, you wouldn't if you had cleaned up the basement like your mom told you to!
Re:Inventory (Score:5, Funny)
You have:
First Post
>give First Post to Troll
The troll accepts your gift, and not having the most discriminating tastes, eats it.
The troll, disarmed, is cowering and begging for forgiveness in the gutteral tongue of the trolls.
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entered a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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Have more fun in my archive here: http://kriston.net/games/ [kriston.net]
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Cool! Glad you posted it!
But... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish it were nethack.
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Hmm...
It's time to come back (Score:3, Insightful)
For some reason I read that as (Score:3, Funny)
Re:For some reason I read that as (Score:5, Funny)
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The closest you'll get to that is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy_(video_game) [wikipedia.org]
(Yes, I know it's not tax related at all.)
From TFS (Score:5, Funny)
And it makes a ridiculous amount of sense
No, ridiculous sense is not sensible enough! We need to be more sensible! Prepare brains for.... LUDICROUS SENSE.
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GYAAAAAAAH!
*downs half a bottle of high-strung jack's cheap bugbear whiskey*
AAAAaaahhhhh...
oh boy zork (Score:1)
didn't get bored of that in the 80's
Re:oh boy zork (Score:4, Insightful)
Which obvious response do you want? The one about there still being an active group of IF fans who'll want this, or the one about an entire generation of people who were never exposed to it to begin with?
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the only ones worried about this generation being exposed to it are IF fans with a touch of nostalgia
in response to your question neither, I want the response of "zork was great but yea its time to get some fresh material if anyone wants to see this come alive again"
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I requested access to the Kindle software development program, saying I was interested in doing an IF interpreter, and months later I still don't have access.
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Please request again. I, for one, would be happy to pay for a zmachine client for my Kindle.
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Open is good. These days though, the only thing I like about my n900 is that it's running nitdroid almost perfectly, and I won't have to wait much longer to have a decent, supported OS on it.
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I expect people to whore the n900 on iPhone articles. I even accept that people will whore the n900 on Android articles. This isn't even about mobile phones. This is an entirely different class of device. Post that again when the n900 has a decent e-ink screen.
MUDs? (Score:2)
They mention Whispernet as a way of saving the games. That's 24/7 internet access that runs over the Sprint network. Why is that needed to save games?
Instead, it should be used to enable telnet access for MUDs and SSH for system admins. Or is there no ability for Amazon to monetize what would be made free by a telnet/ssh client?
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And to complete the MUD experience, the Kindle has a refresh rate equivalent to a 1200 baud modem. You know, where you can read faster than text can appear on the screen.
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I also wondered why they need Whispernet. Really, Frotz would be perfect on something like a Kindle or Nook (I requested that they add it in a future version of Nook firmware, but I am not holding my breath).
Really, the Z-machine should not be that hard to implement, and storing Z-code and save games locally makes a LOT more sense that having to shuttle data over the cell network.
It's not really on the Kindle (Score:1)
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Where "Whispernet" = "Wifi or 3G"
It'll probably work better via Wifi.
choose your own adventure? (Score:3, Funny)
If you want to go to the dungeon, put in SD card 3.
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Whoa! That's the same combination I have on my BDSM stash!
distinguishing from the Nook... (Score:2)
I am still deciding on getting either one for thanksgiving. This put another in the Kindle's column. Then again, I do like Nook's support for epub.
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Inform 7 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Inform 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
If nothing else, try the IDE. It's really quite well done. When you click 'Go' it turns the source code into a game, starts the game in one pane of the IDE, generates a map of locations you've defined, etc. There is extensive documentation and examples, including a recipe book of code snippets.
It's available free (as in beer) for Mac, Windows, and (I think) Gnome.
Also, there's a recently-published book about writing games with Inform 7, "Creating Interactive Fiction With Inform 7" [amazon.com]
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Thank you both for this. Inform 7 actually looks like it could be a really fun way for kids to get the basic ideas behind programming and get an immediate buzz from creating something that their friends could have fun with. I'm going to investigate, but I suspect my 8 year old daughter could have a lot of fun with this. (Once I've learned how to use it :-) )
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I keep thinking I'd like something that combined text adventures with SVG, For something like the "Knight Orc" or "Amber" experience.
Heck I'd still like to finish a few games from my Atari ST - {G};
Pug
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Inform implements a lot of rules for the behavior of things in the world that you'd have to implement and debug from scratch. That's not trivial, especially since many of these things are expected by players.
Inform lets you focus on the story, and making sure that players can interact with the world in ways they expect. For instance, it makes it quick and easy to specify multiple ways of referring to an item. When it comes to game play, not having to play 'guess the noun/verb/adjective' is worth a lot more
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Psst! (Score:2)
Slashdot on the Kindle (Score:3, Informative)
For those of you who want to read Slashdot on your Kindle, I've been told by a couple of people that AvantSlash [fourteenminutes.com] renders it reasonably well. One day the flaws in the mobile version of Slashcode will be addressed and we won't need to use something like this to read Slashdot on the go.
As soon as I get my hands on a Kindle, then I'll make any updates to get it to look better but that won't be probably until after Christmas. Patches always welcome though.
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Was banned for a bit, seems it's ok for now.
http://www.derekville.net/2005/slashdot-bans-avantslash/ [derekville.net]
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Umm, slashdot works fine on my iPhone. I'm not trying to troll, but your sig says "Read Slashdot formatted correctly for your PDA or smartphone", and my smartphone already works fine with the regular slashdot. (I use "classic" layout, however.)
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No offence taken. When AvantSlash was written the PDA version of the website was dire and rendered very poorly on mobile phones, hence why it was developed.
Can you do me a favour? Try using this [statisticallyaverage.com] public version of AvantSlash on your iPhone for a week and afterwards let me know whether you think that it is a better experience to that of using the classic version.
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But again, I'm not using "the PDA version of the web site". I'm reading the FULL version of the web site on my phone. I just checked again, I'm not using the mobile version.
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I understood exactly what configuration you were using the first time, I was just telling you the history of how the project started.
I'd still be interested to see if you prefer browsing using the classic lite version of the site over the link I gave you. It may be that the experience is "good enough" not to need AvantSlash any more.
Clearly sends a message to Apple (Score:3, Informative)
"Now we go ZORK man!! Z O R K!! Wuddayagonnado?? Wudyagunndoooo???"
Zork [apple.com]
"Damn".
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There's also a Commodore emulator that has a BASIC interpreter.
As I understand it, interpreters are allowed if the code is wholly contained in the app and it doesn't download code from elsewhere. This also allows game engines such as Unreal and Unity.
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As I understand it, interpreters are allowed if the code is wholly contained in the app and it doesn't download code from elsewhere. This also allows game engines such as Unreal and Unity.
Correct. That's why Frotz for the iPhone at a certain moment removed the download option, but instead came with a raft-load of adventures pre-installed.
As far as I know, the new rules that were introduced a few weeks ago would allow the download option again.
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Frotz is available for iphone? I thought interpreters were a no-no. Apparently z-code is limited enough that it's okay?
Believe it!
I'd never played Text adventures before as I'm afraid they were a bit before my time, but Frotz sounded interesting enough for me to give it a try (http://goo.gl/I3ja) so I started up and unlike a lot of the other applications I've purchased it has remained loaded on my iPhone for several years now as my game of choice when on the go!
While I understand Amazon's reasoning for wanting to add to the amount of available content unless they offer the ability to load adventures from other sources
I can has good textadventure? (Score:3, Interesting)
I still have hope that one day, one of the star authors (Stephen King, Ken Follett etc.) will write a "Choose your own Adventure" book, or a text adventure. I mean, the concept is so great, but all we get are "You are the hero fighting the evil wizard" style books.
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I still have hope that one day, one of the star authors (Stephen King, Ken Follett etc.) will write a "Choose your own Adventure" book, or a text adventure. I mean, the concept is so great, but all we get are "You are the hero fighting the evil wizard" style books.
I agree, we totally need more "Evil Wizard kicks everyones ass and takes over the world" books/games ;-)
(Love the idea of a King et. al. text adventure)
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So you're ignorant of the great literary IF works, such as those by Emily Short. You really should check out the modern IF scene.
The annual competition [ifcomp.org] is going on right now, and although there's a lot of crap, there's some gold in there too.
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I still have hope that one day, one of the star authors (Stephen King, Ken Follett etc.) will write a "Choose your own Adventure" book, or a text adventure. I mean, the concept is so great, but all we get are "You are the hero fighting the evil wizard" style books.
Just take a look at the Interactive Fiction Archive. It's full of well written games. http://www.ifarchive.org
Btw, Stephen King is really funny to read but not an extradinary writer by any means.
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Although it's not quite the same, you might enjoy MS Paint Adventures [mspaintadventures.com], along with the fan adventures in the forum, and other similar things around the net. They've mostly given up on actual branching stories, but they're essentially CYOA stories drawn a panel at a time based on user input.
If you have the time to read through it all, Problem Sleuth [mspaintadventures.com] is an excellent example, if not one of the best.
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I'm not sure that'd turn out well. Stephen King or Follet would probably have a hard time adjusting to the very different medium, and would probably turn out something that is insufficiently game-like and too much of a railroad.
It's a different medium, and a different approach is needed.
The science fiction author Thomas Disch created a game for EA in 1986, "Amnesia [vintagegaming.org]". It suffered shortcomings as noted above.
I do wonder what a younger, early-career writer might do. One who grew up with computers and games. A
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"I mean, the concept is so great, but all we get are "You are the hero fighting the evil wizard" style books."
Try 'Violet' by Jeremy Freese. [jayisgames.com]
You're a grad student working on your dissertation, but have been stuck for months. You have only 1000 words left to write. Your Ausralian girlfriend Violet, who provide the narrative voice, has threatened to leave you if you don't finish today.
It's a one-room game. The only 'evil wizard' you need to defeat is your own tendency to procrastinate.
I'd love to see some good interactive fiction (Score:5, Informative)
Zork is somewhat overrated; it's from a time when adventure games were a grab-bag of fantasy cliches and "zany" objects. The past two decades have been spent retconning it into something grander than it actually was.
However, there's some amazing interactive fiction out there; atmospheric, tight writing. Totally immersive story. Brain-wrenching puzzles. It'd be great to read / play these on a Kindle. Some of my favourites:
Other couple I like are A Day for Soft Food [tads.org] (have you ever wanted to roleplay as a cat?) and Trinity [wikipedia.org] (a mix of high fantasy and nuclear history)
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Andrew Plotkin's stuff is great. Never played Spider and Web though, thanks for the recommendation.
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"The past two decades have been spent retconning it into something grander than it actually was."
I suppose so, but IMHO there's just something about the authorial voice and tone of Infocom's games.
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Zork is somewhat overrated; it's from a time when adventure games were a grab-bag of fantasy cliches and "zany" objects. The past two decades have been spent retconning it into something grander than it actually was.
I dunno about that...the Zork series was the first set of computer games I ever played (back on an old IBM PCJr, no less), and I had hours and hours (and hours more) of fun playing through them. For the time, they truly were excellent. I really don't think that they've been retconned into something grander than they were; they simply WERE grand, for their time.
Trinity [wikipedia.org] (a mix of high fantasy and nuclear history)
I loved Trinity, too, and one could make the argument that Trinity wouldn't have been possible without Zork.
"Notoriously frustrating"?? (Score:2)
Infocom's z-machine games, of which Zork is three, were so easily pirated and passed ar
off the deep end (Score:2)
Dead end
You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east.
In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The
trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant
from each other.
There is a shovel here.
>
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"resorted to extras"? Why do you claim that those were only done for piracy reasons?
Text adventures... back in commercial format? (Score:1)
Awww, just a portable Z-machine interpreter. I was hoping this was a new commercial publication channel for text adventures. You know, TextFire [archive.org] all over again?
That said, text adventures are pretty fun on portable platforms. I used to play some text adventures on Frobnitz [sourceforge.net] (for PalmOS) back in the day, and it was awesome even without keyboard. Didn't really play it that much though...
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Actually, there is an outfit trying to do this. They're calling themselves TextFyre, probably in a knowing reference to what you describe.
http://www.textfyre.com/ [textfyre.com]
I think they use their own system for IF, not a Z-Machine-compatible format, or TADS.
LORD (Score:1)