The Last Two Months on the Net [March, April] By N.McCombe First two items, which caught my attention on the Net this time, were both related to Scott Adams adventures. 1. The whole bunch [19] of the Scott Adams adventures and all [11] of Brian Howarth's Mysterious Adventures have been converted to Inform format and can be run with any of the Inform engines (Frotz or Inform etc.) depending on your taste. I recommend the shareware Infocom engine as, in addition to allowing save game, load saved position and Exit from the file menu, the start up screen gives choice of Start the game, Restore saved game, Show credits, Info about playing and Quit. Available from SynTax Library (complete with Frotz and Infocom engines). 2. A new engine called Adventure Interpreter (advint) Advint is an adventure game driver, designed to run Scott Adams type data files. Written in Visual 'C' by Hein Pragt in 1997, it is free of copyright. Also supplied with the advint is a complete set of Scott Adams adventure data files and Brian Howarth's Mysterious Adventure data files. This utility allows Save Current Game/Load Saved Game/Load New Game/Exit Program - from the File Menu. Available from SynTax Library Both very worthwhile to have in your collection. On the Utility side, while there is no major development, many of the various adventure systems have had additions and improvements, too many to detail. However one or two 'little uns' are worthy of mention. 1. The Hint Library THL is a neat little database in which you can have question/answer hints, pictures, sounds etc. A number of specific adventure hints are available on the net but if you are the independent type, you can construct your own - if you know the solution before you play the adventure. Available from SynTax Library. 2. LView Pro 1.9 This is a shareware program which allow you to manipulate the various forms of PC images. You can load, exchange and resave in jpeg, jfif, gif, 87a/89a, tiff, truevision, targa, windows and os/2 bmp, pcx, pbmplus, pbm, pgm and ppm formats. While the shareware version is aimed at Windows 3.1, Registration brings the tailored version you need from 386 to Pentium. Available from SynTax Library. 3. Zork Tools 1.6 This is a collection of utility programs, which, it is claimed, will greatly enhance games play for Infocom games. The various tools, on offer, would require some time to be spend reading up on what is exactly on offer, in order to decide if this one is for your collection. "Softbeard the Pirate" gives this utility to you free and offers no implied warranty with it - it's all in the Read-me file. Available from SynTax Library. 4. L9cut Version 2.09 This utility by Paul David Doherty [(C) 1996/97] extracts Level 9 data files (v2-4). It can detect 192 data file versions. Available from SynTax Library. On the Interactive Fiction Games Side, there has been a continuous trickle of new issues and updates etc. More than enough to keep you busy! 1. The Hollywood Murders Version 1.1 (Update) - An interactive Mystery by Michael Zerbo. This is the machine independent ALAN version and includes a Read-me file. The same version is available in Dos format as a zip file. 2. Tangle - Spider and Web Release 4 Serial Number 980226 (Update) by Andrew Plotkin. An Inform format(z5)Interactive Fiction adventure. According to Andrew - "A vacation in our lovely country! See the ethnic charms of the countryside;the historic grandeur of the capital city. Taste our traditional cuisine; smell the flowers of the Old Tree. And all without leaving your own armchair! (Again, not a time travel game.)" 3. Firebird - TADS Version 1.0 (9th March 1998) by Bonnie Montgomery. "Firebird is an interactive retelling of a Russian folk tale." 4. Sunset Over Savannah - TADS New Version 1.0.3(3rd April 1998)of Ian Cockrum's competition game "Sunset over Savannah, an Existential Vacation" 5. Voyage to Atlantis - Originally written for the TRS-80 by Greg Hasset. Transferred to Qbasic by Nele Abels. A good Qbasic adventure where you start in a submarine docked in Atlantis. Your underwater search for treasure will bring you face to face with many monsters and puzzles before you gain all the treasures. Good Luck 6. A New Day - Inform Update Release 2(30th March 1998, Post Competition Release. Rather a novel opening that requires a series of 'wait' commands. I would suggest that you type 'help' to get information about the adventure before you start. You can return to the same menu for hints. 7. Slacker X - a scatological breakthrough in adventure gaming - Inform (Update Release 1 Serial Number 971009 A Satin Shiva Production. The X in the name is the rating - after that you are on your own. 8. The Incredible Adventures of Stiffy Makaneby Mark Ryan came out some time ago and was X-Rated. This is an Interactive MISTing to Inform Format by MST3k. with all the pointless comments of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew. If you like their type of humour in an adventure then play it. If you don't then play the original AGT adventure. If you don't like silly sexual innuendo etc. in an adventure then don't play any of the two of them. 9. Haunting the Ghosts, by Jason Peter Brown, is an interactive essay on Paul Austen's "The New York Trilogy". This is a new issue 0.9d in either text or graphic format. The text only version requires Hugo 2.4 or higher runtime engine. The Graphic version requires HEGR.EXE graphic runtime engine. 10. Lack of Vision Release 1 S.N. 980412 - An Eyeopening Demo from Rybread Celsius. This Inform demo requires some thought to start playing, as you start out the game with 'no eyes' and the plot develops from there !!! All the above games are available from the SynTax Library. A new name in Interactive Fiction 'Textfire Inc.' is a group of writers in America who have got together to produce and sell Interactive fiction. They are at present negotiating the software sales side but, meantime, they have produced a crippleware set of some of their adventures (in Hugo, Tads and Z5 format) to give you a look at what they intend to offer you. They will have full details of source and availability on the Net by June 1998. Till then you can enjoy what is on offer now. Available from SynTax Library on two discs with the appropriate P.C. run-time engines ready to use One special that is worth a real 'look at' is "The Golden Skull" By N.Guy. This is in the new HTML format of TADS, complete with images and sound effects. It needs the new HTML TADS interpreter to run (Available from SynTax library). While it is only a demo it does show the potential of this modified system. While there were many more items that were available I would close by crossing my fingers and sending SynTax the following MAC archive that I downloaded. I don't know if it can be used on a MAC after being downloaded to a PC but I hope so. Why so interesting - - - Well there are 5 adventures written on the C64 using The Quill which have been extracted from the C64 disc images by Pierre Tremblay. These adventure can be played on the MAC using 'Multiadventures' - also supplied by Pierre. I hope they can be used. If not, they are available to MAC users, on the Net. Till the next time Nettie McCombe 30th. April 1998 - o -