Ever played a text-based adventure (interactive fiction) before? If so, this is a must-see. If not, now’s the time to start. I’ve just finished playing a short IF called Photopia, which won two prestigious (in IF circles) XYZZYnews awards back in 1998.
It’s not… great as an adventure game, but it’s amazing as a story. It’s… so amazingly clever and well thought-out. If you’re an experienced text-adventurer, you’ll be able to
see it all in under an hour (and there is, of course, a SAVE and LOAD function). Wow. Just… just go play it. Go on.
Two good ways to get it:
- Option 1: Download photo201.zip, packaged for Windows – download, extract to a folder, run the batch file (“play_the_game”, or something) – do this if you’re not experienced with setting up your IF enviroment.
- Option 2: Get Photopia 2.01 (Glulx Edition) and a Glulx interpreter for your favourite operating system. You’ll work out the rest.
Am I allowed to be on your ‘friends’ list please??
Hey how are you and Claire?
Oh, Linda Rolleson knows who you are.
Yes, now you are.
Yup, she will – I have been backstage tech. support for the Student Skills Competition for three years running, and part of the CPW scheme – which she used to run – and she helped me find my current job, and… yeh; basically, I know Lynda Rollason.
That game rocks. Really quite stunningly!