TADS IF COMPETITION ENTRIES: 1995 Taken from the Internet Provided by the Grue! A Night at the Museum Forever (MUSEUM.GAM) ----------------------------- Retrieve the diamond ring from the time museum. "The writing is not quite up to Infocom's standards, but quite adequate; the puzzles may not be very original but are clever and logical; the plot is simple but quite clever and the time travel is handled nicely. My only big complaint about the game is its almost total lack of atmosphere. ... Despite these complaints, the game is quite clever and enjoyable." (Magnus Olsson, in SPAG #7) "Ninety percent of the game seemed to consist of tramping back and forth along the corridor in the different time zones, and the remaining ten percent was somewhat dull. No people, no interesting puzzles, no colourful background, no awe-inspiring future technology, nothing. The game seems to have not been playtested, and it raises rather more questions than it answers." (Gareth Rees, in SPAG #8) Author: Chris Angelini (c) 1995 Freeware (Mailware) Released: August 1995 Latest Version: 1.0 (TADS 2.0.1, 25 Aug 1995) The One That Got Away (THE_ONE.GAM) --------------------- Go fishing for 'The Old One'. Won 3rd place. "...the trigger that started my game was an episode of 'The Simpsons' that I saw one night, about Homer going out fishing and struggling against one of those 'mighty fish of the past.' That must have made some kind of an impression on me, because, some morning afterwards, I was lying in bed when I thought, you know, no one has ever written an IF game about fishing. Before long, I was up and at my computer." (Leon Lin, in SPAG #7) "The writing is perhaps the best I've ever seen in an adventure game; not as poetic or beautiful as in 'The Sound Of One Hand Clapping,' but perfect for telling this kind of story. ... After the monumental introduction and a lot of build-up during your conversations with Bob and your attempts to get the right bait, you're ready for a monumental struggle, but instead you're presented with quite an anticlimax. ... Still, despite the anticlimax, its literary quality makes this game a truly memorable one, one worth playing and replaying several times, just as one returns to a favourite novel." (Magnus Olsson, in SPAG #7) "My favourite entry in the competition. The puzzles aren't up to much, but who cares? The writing is superb, atmospheric, and very funny. ... I hope that Lin writes more interactive fiction, and that he continues to orient his work towards strong characters." (Gareth Rees, in SPAG #8) Author: Leon Wei Lin (c) 1995 Freeware Released: August 1995 Latest Version: 1.1 (TADS 2.2.0, 5 Dec 1995) Toonesia (TOONESIA.GAM) -------- Try to gun down that rascally rabbit. Won 2nd place. "I'm a big fan of animation--I'd rank it as one of America's most significant cultural contributions to the world. I've wanted to do a complete game based on my favorite cartoons for a long time." (Jacob Weinstein, in SPAG #7) "The writing could use a bit more polish, but still manages to capture the spirit of Saturday morning. The NPCs don't, however -- if you encounter Daffy Duck or the Tasmanian Devil in a 'real' cartoon, he'll be in your face until Porky Pig shows up for the fadeout, rather than just standing around like they do here." (Palmer Davis, in the rec.arts.int-fiction group) "This game may not be very profound, but it's clearly one of the most entertaining adventure games I've ever played." (Magnus Olsson, in SPAG #7) "I enjoyed playing 'Toonesia'. It captures a good deal of the flavour of the cartoons it pastiches, and makes excellent use of the logic of the cartoon world it takes place in: I found all of the puzzles were solvable on the first attempt, and the majority were very good." (Gareth Rees, in SPAG #8) Author: Jacob Solomon Weinstein (c) 1995 Freeware Released: August 1995 Latest Version: 1.1 (TADS 2.0.0, 6 Dec 1995) Uncle Zebulon's Will (ZEBULON.GAM) -------------------- See if you can claim the inheritance that your old uncle Zebulon (a wizard of some skill) left you in his will. Won 1st place. "...a complacently traditional, highly effective narrative. It combines the quirky unreality of Trinity with the gizmo-filled atmosphere of Spellbreaker or Starcross. ... The puzzles were all logical enough and simple enough that I beat the game without hints, and still had a great time doing it. What greater praise could there be?" (Gerry Kevin Wilson, in SPAG #7) "...a very solid piece of work. There were no bugs, all the pieces of the plot fitted together smoothly, the hook at the start was intriguing, and the ending was good, though not as much of a surprise as it should perhaps have been. ... The writing was very flat and lifeless, managing to be lengthy without being either vivid or humourous." (Gareth Rees, in SPAG #8) Author: Magnus Olsson (c) 1995 Freeware (Source will be made available) Released: August 1995 Latest Version: 1.0 (TADS 2.0.1, 31 Aug 1995) Undertow (TOW.GAM) -------- Go sailing on a yacht with three friends, and a corpse. "I had the setting for my game before I had a plot. I thought about what kind of game could take place on a yacht, and decided that a mystery would be perfect. I had never written a mystery before, and my earlier IF games have had a remarkable lack of NPCs in them. This was a perfect chance for me to take on the challenge of setting a game in a tiny environment, mastering NPCs, and writing a mystery all at once." (Stephen Granade, in SPAG #7) "...a very ambitious work unfortunately let down by its implementation. ... 'Undertow' seems not to have been play-tested much (if at all), when in fact the mystery genre demands extremely rigorous testing. ... I'd be intrigued to see what Stephen Granade could produce if he went back to the code without any deadlines or time constraints and tried to finish writing the game." (Gareth Rees, in SPAG #8) Author: Stephen Granade (c) 1995 Freeware Released: August 1995 Latest Version: 1.1 (TADS 2.2.0, 5 Sep 1995) UNDO (UNDO.GAM) ---- You're almost at the end of that adventure game you've struggled so hard to beat, when things get a little crazy. "The author of this game has obviously tried very hard to come up with something original, and he [...] has certainly succeeded, in the sense that this game is totally unlike any other piece of IF I've ever seen. ... Had this been made into a 'real' game (where there actually is a point to it all) it could have been a great success. As it is, perhaps the most appropriate characterization would be to call it an anti-game." (Magnus Olsson, in SPAG #7) "The only purpose of Undo, really, aside from being vaguely weird and entertaining, is to challenge some of the I-F conventions -- like having everything be a puzzle (most of the rooms are mere clues at best, and at worst just diversions), having a score (the 'score' of 86 you're shooting for is another negation joke -- as in, 'eighty-six that'), winning at the end, and so on. It's sort of an 'anti-game' in that sense." (Neil deMause, in SPAG #7) Author: Neil deMause (c) 1995 Freeware Released: August 1995 Latest Version: 1.0.1 (TADS 2.2.0, 31 Aug 1995) - o -