~4 minute read'Prose' Games Let Players Call the Shots
Time was, when you wanted to play a game, you went outside. Sometimes the best games involved things like cardboard boxes or pieces of string. Ah, those were the days. Now it seems you need $2,000 in hardware, and games cost $50 per. Well, I guess that's the price of progress. But as long as kids demand high-tech games, why don`t parents do the same?
If you already have a computer and are wondering what kind of game you can play, other than one involving fuzzy graphic gorillas and multicolored Italians, I`ve found some games that might just become the future of literature (big "might").
InfoCom offers a line of what it calls "interactive fiction." Indeed, it seems to be the first new form of literature in the last 20 years. Unlike the old days, where you had to be content to follow the story the way the author wrote it, you can now be an active part of whatever you're reading.
You are the lead character. You ask the questions, you decide your actions, but mostly you get killed a lot. As literature, it's sparse, but as games go, it's fun.
It all started with Adventure, the first "prose" computer game. Someone with access to a huge multimillion-dollar computer created a game involving a cave full of treasure and an uncommon number of dwarfs, and you had to get the treasure while avoiding the dwarfs. You would say things like "kill dwarf," and the game would reply, "You missed. He grabbed your ax and you`re dog food, buster."
As computers got smaller and cheaper, it no longer required an extra room and $4 million to play the game. Anyone with a Kaypro, Apple or IBM could now become dog food.
The popularity of Adventure spawned a whole series of these prose games. InfoCom has the best line of prose games around. They're clever, often funny, difficult but not impossible, and each game has a writing style suited to the subject.
InfoCom's games are best for several reasons. First, they are well written. Second, they always work the way they are supposed to. They may just be games, but you won't find bugs in them. Third, they understand English better than most other games.
The older games had quite limited vocabularies and would only let you do one thing at a time. InfoCom's games have fairly large vocabularies, so you can say, "Get the gun, shoe horn, banana peel and stuffed armadillo, and kill the butler with them." The game may respond with something like, "Don`t kill the butler; it's not worth it," but it will know what you're talking about.
Fourth, they are not copy protected. InfoCom has come up with a brilliant way to defer copying: The packages are half the fun. The package for Witness looks like a police file, complete with a period newspaper (full of clues), suicide notes, letters and a matchbook with phone numbers in it. Infidel has letters and maps. Planetfall has your official crew member ID card, hilarious postcards from other planets and pages of intergalactic information. All these props are complete in every detail, down to the right paper for each item. The "handwritten" things even look handwritten.
I doubt you could play any of the games successfully without the clues provided in the accompanying materials. The props help put you in the mood, give you background and are entertaining.
If dwarfs aren't your cup of tea, there`s Infidel. You find yourself (ace archeologist) abandoned by your crew and lost in the middle of the desert, trying to unearth a king's treasure while avoiding sunstroke, crocodiles and other everyday Middle Eastern perils. Fun, no?
How about Planetfall? You, a lowly crew member, must escape an exploding space station and stay alive on an alien planet with its own version of dwarfs. Beam me down, Scotty.
Something closer to home? How about Witness? It`s a good old-fashioned case of murder. You're the detective one stormy Hollywood night in the 1930s. You ask the questions, you analyze the evidence and you just might be the next corpse.
As far as computer games go, these will last longer than graphics-based games like Donkey Kong, Attack of the Endive Salads or High Fiber Madness simply because there are so many directions each game can take.
The games are easy enough for kids, but that doesn`t necessarily mean they're too hard for adults. The prices depend on the level of difficulty. Standard (such as Zork, Witness and Planetfall) is $39.95. Advanced and expert (such as Infidel) are $49.95. (Commodore and Atari are slightly less expensive.) While the games will never take the place of marbles, be honest â- how many adults out there would be caught in the dirt, bent over a "cat's eye" or "aggie"?
(InfoCom Inc., 55 Wheeler St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138.)
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
