Catching up on the Net

                        By N.McCombe

I.F. Competition 1998
The 1998 IF competition is now in full swing. Most of the bug
fixes etc are in place. This can be downloaded as a single file or
as individual bits.

The games list
Inform Games:
Research Dig, Mother Loose, Cattax Atrox, Enlightenment, Purple,
Spacestation, Human Resources Stories, The City, Muse, Photopia,
Informatory, Fifteen, Where Evil Dwells, Little Blue Men, The
Ritual of Purification, Acid Whiplash, Downtown Tokyo - Present
Day, In The Spotlight, Trapped In A One Roomed Dilly.
TADS Games:
Arrival, Lightiania, The Plant, Four In One.
Alan Game:
CC
Hugo Game:
Persistence Of Memory
Dos Games:
I Didn't Know You Could Yodel, The Commute

Utilities

1. ALAN281 - Update of the Alan Adventure Engine, including the
Make and Runtime Files. Alan.doc is included as an addition to
the Alan Manual.

2. WSPECEM - Windows Spectrum Emulator - Seems to be only 48k
version but handles all the normal file types, z80, sna, slt and
tap (if you remember to do a LOAD"" after loading the tap file.)

3. INFOCOM PATCHES KIT - Consists of two programs and a series of
patches to convert one version of the Infocom data file to
another. Release 2.1 by Paul Francis Gilbert, it contains C
source code, DOS Executables, plus Description.

4. INFORICON - A new set of icon for 36 Infocom Originals by
Christopher Drum, converted to windows format by Volker Blasius.
Mac version in Mac folder.

New and Up-dated Adventures.

1. ALPHA (Journey to Alpha Centauri (in real time)), An
Interactive Waste of Time, By Julian Fleetwood. Release 2 /
Serial Number 980929.

2. BAROMETER (Tads) - Spyder and Jeb, version 1.0, an interactive
puzzle by Neil deMause. A parody of Andrew Plotkin's game "Spider
and Web".

3. BLOWJOB - XXXX This is a blatantly sexual adventure XXXX. The
opening screen reads LEST WE OFFEND and goes on to advise you quit
if various forms of sex offend you. Okay if this is your sort of
thing otherwise BE WARNED.


4. CLOSET - Update. Closet release 3, a short one location
adventure written by Mikko Vuorinen. An Alan 2.8 game.

5. DETECTIV - Release 1 / Serial Number 981016. This is a straight
port to Inform, by Stuart Moore, of Detective by Matt Barringer.

6. DOGSLIFE - It's a Dogs Life, an interactive Heeling, by "Mr.
Wigglebutt" Release 1 / Serial Number 981015

7. DUNGEON_DOSGLK - Dungeon, the more or less public domain
version of the original MIT Zork, version 3.2b. Andrew Plotkin
ported this version to C and added the Glk interface, and Matt
Kimball compiled this version using his DOS implementation of
Glk. Mac version in Mac folder.

8. GUILTY - An update to full Hugo Windows, with full sound and
colour of Guilty Bastards by Kent Tessman Release 2 (18th August
1998)


9. HELL - Welcome to Hell, Inform Release 1 / Serial Number,
Written by Kevin Norton and Brandon Myers

10. LANDING - The Landing, Version 1.2, October 13, 1998. This is
an update (with sound) of Neil K. Guy's Chicken Comp Game.

11. LOST - Lost in Space by Graeme Cree. An AGT adventure with
sound, colour, map and solution if required. What more could you
want?

12. MANSION - The Mansion or The Tale of the Adventurous Thief by
the Wildman.  Note this is an update with bugfixes. There are no
version numbers but the two can be distinguished by looking at the
lengths.  The Original = 106,237 bytes ; New Version = 93,196
bytes

13. MINCHIC - Update mini-comp and chicken. Learning to
Cross(TADS); Foggywood Hijinks(WinTADS); Bloodline, Inherit,
Something about Bunny, The Chicken under the Window (Inform).

14. MOIST 1.04 - An update of the X-rated adventure from Scarlet
Herring Erotic Adventure Games. Be warned it is sexually explicit.

15. MST3K1COL and MST3K2col - These are updates of the Mystery
Science Theatre's MISTING of Detective and A Fable. You like 'em
or you don't.

16. PADDLING - Total Paddling Mania, An interactive Punishment Jag
by Dr. Aloysius Beltaway. You are on your own with this one. I
won't comment other than say "I didn't find time to try it, as I
was involved with more rational Interactive fiction".

17. POLARWARE - This is a folder of some of the Polarware
Adventures. The only problem is that they only operate from Disc
A.  This means they must be played from floppy. The games are
Crimson Crown, Ootopos, Talisman, Transylvania, Transylvania III
(parts 1-4)

18. SAVANNAH - Sunset over Savannah, an existential vacation by
Ian Cockrum. Winner of the 1997 Xyzzy Award for Best Writing. Mac
version in Mac folder.  The liberty of a holiday has coloured your
outlook to work etc.  Now it's Make-Your-Mind-Up-Time.

19. ZEROTADS.UPD - Update of Zero Sum Game, an exercise in
Fantastic Futility.  Release 2 by Cody Sandifer. Standard TADS,
WinTADS and DOS version included with Solution.

A BIG LITTLE XTRA
OHBOY and PCSPEC folders
Surfing one night I came across a site with games from the
Spectrum, Commodore, etc which had been converted to PC Games.
Free standing games with no need for emulators. Hence the title
'OH BOY' for the zipfiles folder. It contains 20 game zips and 3
screensaver zips. PCSPEC folder contains the unzipped games and
screensavers and includes such little beauties as Bomber,
Boulderoid (boulderdash), Boulderrush, The Burps, Cashflow,
Chuckie Egg V1 & V2, Dangerous Orbit, Defender, JSW, JSWPC (lets
you play 9 oldies), Lords of Midnight & Doomdark's Revenge, Manic
Miner, Giana Sisters, Pulsoid, Splat, Loderunner, Repton and
Repton3 to mention them all!
The only problem is that the expanded games can be quite big and
while almost all of the zips are under a meg - one or two are
larger and would need to be unzipped and split over the required
discs.

Last but not least
Playgame.faq - an update of the guide to playing IF.
Solution to Farmer's Daughter.

All the programs mentioned above are available from the SynTax
Library in ZIP and Ready to Play format as required.
@~If you can't find them in the lists, please ask! ... Sue

Till the next time
Nettie McCombe
October/November 1998



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