@~Alex sent me this file which he had downloaded. It's nice to see @~such enthusiasm still alive for text adventures! S.P.A.G. (Part 1) Taken from CompuServe by Alex McEwan From: whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction Subject: SPAG issue #1 Date: 16 May 1994 08:02:18 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 674 Message-ID: <2r79aaś1i6@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: uclink.berkeley.edu Just as a teaser, so that you unsubscribed folks can see what you're missing, I'm posting issue #1 of SPAG to a few newsgroups. Enjoy! If you want to subscribe, and haven't already, or haven't received this issue through e-mail if you DID subscribe, let me know. ------ /**\ /***\ /\ /***\ \ \/ | |> | //\\ | /\ \ | _/ ||__|| | **\ The \__/ociety for the |_|reservation of || ||dventure \___/ames ISSUE # 1 Edited by G. Kevin Wilson (whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu) May 15, 1994 EDITORIAL-------------------------------------------------------- Greetings and welcome to the first issue of SPAG. Things will, in all likelihood, be a little sparse this month. After all, I'm still straightening things out, studying for finals, etc. Plus, we still have new subscribers trickling in. I will probably post this first issue to several newsgroups in an effort to drum up more readers. After that, though, it's strictly e-mail. I hope to receive lots of comments on this issue, suggestions on improvements, likes, dislikes, letters to the Editor, more reviews, lots of ratings for various games, corrections to this issue, etc. Remember, SPAG cannot succeed without its readers. I might as well get my soapbox speech over with, so here goes. The purpose of SPAG is the advancement of the modern text adventure. Today's gamers tend to get absorbed in the flash of graphics and sound and miss out on some really good stories and plots. Well, it is my hope to call attention to some of these games and let my readers know where they can get ahold of them. Text adventures are still as valid an entertainment form as books, but they've been nudged out by the onset of the console game machines and the increasing trends towards graphical interfaces. Be that as it may, text adventures are an accessible form that many would-be game writers can try their hands at, since there are several game design kits available on ftp.gmd.de to make matters simple. Lastly, the games created with these toolkits are often highly portable, easily transferring from machine to machine, since they use very little machine-specific code. As I said, there's still a place for text adventures, and I hope to keep it that way. G. Kevin Wilson "Whizzard" KEY TO SCORES AND REVIEWS---------------------------------------- Consider the following review header: Cutthroats IBM Commercial 7.4 -PA: 1.7 WR: 1.1 PL: 1.3 CH: 1.6 +1.7- First is the name of the game, then the computer type that the reviewer played the game on. Next, the reviewer mentions how the game is being sold, whether as shareware, commercially, or being given away as freeware. If the game has a fixed price, that is mentioned as well. Lastly, the review heading has the reviewer's total score for the game, followed by a breakdown of the score into: PA -Parser-, WR -Writing-, PL -Plot-, CH -Characters-, and + -Wild Card-, which is a 'blank check' category, usually commented on in the review. When submitting reviews: Ensure that the review at least has the above information in its header. Also note what computers you know of that it can be played upon, this will appear in the reader scoreboard section of SPAG. Authors may not rate or review their own games. SPAG accepts reviews of any length, letters to the editor, the occasional interesting article on text adventures (no reprints please), and even just plain scores for your favorite game, if you don't have the time to do a full review. Please though, at least send me a line of text for each game you have rated equivalent to the review header for Cutthroats, above. All accepted materials will be headed by the submitter's name and e-mail address, unless you request that they be withheld, in which case the header will read as "Anonymous." NEW GAMES-------------------------------------------------------- There are no games being released this month, but we can expect a bunch around August or so, if things go well for the authors I've been talking to, and for myself, of course. The upcoming games I know of include The Legend Lives!, from Adventions, The Czar's Challenge Trilogy, and of course, Avalon, my own game. Bear in mind that I'm not claiming to speak for the authors of the games other than Avalon, I'm just mentioning that, from what I've heard, they are approaching completion, and should show up this year sometime. No promises. REVIEWS---------------------------------------------------------- Thanks go to our reviewers for this issue, give 'em a big hand: Matthew Amster Audrey A. DeLisle Derek S. Felton Stephen Granade From: "Audrey A. DeLisle" Horror of Rylvania IBM C20 7.7 -PA 2 WR 2 PL 1.7 CH 1 * 1- * = length Horror of Rylvania (Adventions by D.A.Leary) tells of the horror you find on your trip to Rylvania with your friend, Carolyn. You become a vampire and must search for the 'cure'. There are two sections that are maze-like, but small and not hard. In general, this is not a hard game, but every game has its tricky places. It is somewhat linear, but not limited like some games. I enjoyed playing it. The atmosphere was well created to be eerie, but not disgusting. - Editor's Note: As you can see, not every review has to be a long one. I am quite content with printing one paragraph reviews as long as the author's opinion of the game carries through well. - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: "Stephen Granade" Infidel IBM Commercial 6.5 -Pa: 1.7 Wr: 1.7 Pl: 1.5 Ch: 0.0 +1.6- On your first big archaeological dig, you manage to waste most of your money and alienate your workers. To top it off, you can't find the pyramid you're after. And then your crew drugs you and abandons you... The game's parser is up to Infocom's usual level. Michael Berlyn's writing helps bring the pyramid to life, although I found some sections of the pyramid to be a bit weakly written. The plot moves along fairly briskly at first, then widens to allow more exploration once you find the pyramid. There are no true NPCs in the game; how many characters are you likely to meet while exploring a long-dead pyramid? My wildcard points went to the game's hieroglyphics. I had a lot of fun trying to decode them, and they made many of the puzzles solvable on the first try. Infidel can be found in Activision's Lost Treasures of Infocom, a re-packaging of Infocom's games. LTOI lacks much of the flair of Infocom's old packages, but at least the games are still available. Infidel is of medium difficulty, an entertaining game but not a true classic. - Editor's Note: Stephen felt that Infidel should have had a higher score, but my system gives a 2 point disadvantage to games with no NPCs. See the note after his Starcross review for more on this. - ALSO ON INFIDEL: From: "Derek S Felton" 7.0 -Pa: 1.8 Wr: 1.9 Pl: 1.5 Ch: 0.0 +1.8- The story is straightforward and the puzzles aren't _that_ complicated. I enjoyed the game's descriptions of rooms and objects because they give the player the feel of being inside an adventure movie. I was disappointed with the other living characters, though: there aren't any! What's a good desert adventure story without a few scorpions, asps, and mummies? Nonetheless, INFIDEL is a good adventure for players with little or no experience with interactive fiction. Get ready to map and translate hieroglyphics. - Editor's Note: I don't fret about having more than one review on the same game. I just delete the game description, leaving the reviewer's opinion of the game. That's how follow-up reviews work. Also, I note that the lack of NPCs is a concern to some readers. Be sure to note that anytime you review a game that lacks them. - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: "Audrey A. DeLisle" Klaustrophobia IBM S15 9.5 -PA 1.5 WR 2 PL 2 CH 2 * 2- *=humor Klaustrophobia, an AGT text adventure, just won the 1994 AGT contest (with a co-winner, The Jeweled Arena, by David Raley. -The Jeweled Arena has not yet been uploaded to ftp.gmd.de, for those who are interested. Hopefully someone will do us a big favor and put it up there. - GKW-). I had the pleasure (?) of testing it. It is an hilarious account of your vacation. You start preparing for your trip at home and at the office, then head for the airport(s). Somehow your flights keep getting diverted. Part 2, you arrive in Hollywood and appear on several game shows. Your big prize is a vacation in Mexico which takes you to Part 3. This is not easy, but is very funny. Those who have played Jacaranda Jim will find it especially amusing in Mexico. Look for KLAUS.ZIP. A sequel is planned, but this took about 18 months to complete, so not soon. Hilarious and hard. Funniest yet, but subject to the limitations of AGT-BIG. Also, the registered version comes with pophints! The author, Carol Hovick, is a big fan of BUREAUCRACY. Her game was somewhat inspired by it, but it is not the same. - Editor's note: An excellent review. Since it is the first I've printed, let me just make a few comments. Remember that a rating of 10 is an absolutely perfect game, just like in the Olympics. These games should be VERY few and far between. I gave Trinity a 9.7, and it's my favorite game of all time. I've just never played a 10 game. I think that most games will probably deserve a 6 to 7 score tops. An 8 or 9 is a game you really liked, and higher than that is reserved for a game that just blows your mind completely. Also, remember that you are free to rate the categories with a 1.1 or 0.8, or any other number between 0 and 2 with a maximum of 1 decimal place. The scores mentioned in the original SPAG guidelines are just cut-off points, meant only as examples. I just mentioned this because, while Klaustrophobia is a really fun game, the AGT parser is fairly frustrating to use at best, and probably should hover around a .9 depending on what the individual author does with it. I also encountered other implementation problems that really hurt the game, in my opinion. Still, a very funny game, even for dog lovers. One other point, please try to include an estimate of the game's difficulty. These things don't reflect poorly on Audrey at all, they are simply things that I didn't clarify very well before. Great job, Audrey! I hope to get more reviews from you in the future! - @~To be continued next issue. - o -