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November/ December 1995 Issue #6 The Magazine for Interactive Fiction Enthusiasts This issue marks the end of a full year’s worth of XYZZYnews and is also the largest one to date, with 32 pages in the print version. My New Year’s resolutions for improving the ’zine include even larger issues, more timely mailing, and (perhaps) some full-color print pages. We’ll see. On other fronts, the XYZZYnews Web site is getting beefed up—and just in time too, because at my day job I’m switching hats to become managing editor of a techie-oriented magazine (same compa- ny, different publication) about the Web, called Web Developer. Some of the ideas I’m toying with for additional content for the XYZZYnews Web site include having audio or video clips of interviewees, opening screens for “Sneak Preview” games, and options for online gaming. Suggestions for additional online content are most definitely welcome. But I mention my job mainly to correct the mistaken impression that one Web site devoted to reviews of other sites has about XYZZYnews. The McKinley Internet Directory (http://www.mckinley.com/) describes XYZZYnews as a magazine “about computer and video games, as the publisher/main writer does this for a living.” (Where’d they get the bit about video games, BTW?) Well, it would be great to write about, tinker with, and review IF games all day, wouldn’t it? In the meantime, Contents: though, this will remain my after-hours labor of love, and I’d like to just Sneak Previews ..........2 give you the briefest of introductions to what you’ll find in this latest Top 10 IF Web Sites ....2 issue: there are several thought-provoking essays, including Graham Nelson’s ruminations on Jigsaw and how readers identify (or fail to) Letters .......................3 with a game’s central character, Doug Atkinson’s long-awaited second On Jigsaw and ‘I’.........5 part of his “Character Gender in Interactive Fiction” article, and Gareth Rees’s views on approaching game design and analysis. I hope you find it Character Gender in all as compelling as I do. Interactive Fiction, Part II ......................11 Until next issue, happy gaming! Distinguishing Between Eileen Mullin Game Design and Analysis: One View....22 [email protected] Tales From the Code Front: The Hazards of Invisibility .............27 You Know You’ve Been Playing Too Much Infocom When… ......29 Game Review: Jigsaw...................31 What’s on the Disk....32 Sneak Previews XYZZYnews is published bimonthly by Bran Muffin Communications, 160 West 24th Street, # 7C, New York, NY 10011, USA. Email: [email protected]. Send Stuck Mid-Game: A Weekend of Prolonged Frustration by Marnie all inquiries, letters, and submissions to Parker ([email protected]) is an Inform game-in- the address above. progress that she bills as “an interactive science fiction mystery novelette.” The year is 2049, and you’ve set aside a whole week- Contents © 1995 XYZZYnews. All rights end to play a classic IF game. You must first contact an online reserved. Published in the United States friend to get a hint for playing the game, but your conversation is of America. abruptly interrupted. When you reestablish contact, you discover that your friend has suddenly disappeared. Although you’ve had a Electronic versions: There are long online relationship with your friend, you must now delve currently two versions of XYZZYnews into his real life to discover who had a motive to either kidnap made available online. One is in ASCII him or kill him. And your personal agenda for tracking him down, and can be viewed with any text reader. of course, also includes being able to get the hint you need to fin- You can also download a .PDF file that mirrors the layout of the print version. ish the classic IF game you’re playing! Gameplay is set over the Use the Adobe Acrobat Reader (available course of a single weekend, with a small number of rooms and for Windows, Mac, DOS and UNIX) to view reportedly difficult puzzles. “Stuck Mid-Game” will be freeware the .PDF file; no special fonts or linked and has an anticipated release date of early 1996. graphics are needed. You can obtain Acrobat Reader from ftp.adobe.com in the pub/adobe/applications/Acrobat November/December Top 10 Picks folder, or http://www.adobe.com/ Software.html. You can also read this for IF on the World Wide Web issue of XYZZYnews on the World Wide Web at http://www.interport.net/~eileen/ .alt.fan.douglas-adams FAQ xyzzy.6.html http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/douglas-adams faq.html Subscriptions: Both electronic versions are available at no cost. You can obtain either one by FTPing to the ftp.gmd.de/if- GINAS Home Page archive/magazines/XYZZYnews directory. http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/jestandi/ginas.html To be added to the mailing list, please write to [email protected] and specify I Have No Words and I Must Design text-only or .PDF version. The print ver- http://www.crossover.com/~costik/nowords.html sion includes a 3.5" Mac or PC disk and is $21 (U.S.) for one year (6 issues) or INRETE Games Page $3.50 for a sample issue. For print sub- http://www.inrete.it/games/gms_e.html scriptions outside the U.S. or Canada, please email or write for rates. John Chang’s Home Page (click on the opening graphic) http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jrc/ All products, names, and services are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. LIMA web page: http://lima.imaginary.com/ Editorial deadline for Issue #7 is December 31, 1995. Play Colossal Cave! http://sundae.triumf.ca/pub2/cave/node001.html (0k) Editor: Snacky Pete’s Text Adventure Archive Eileen Mullin http://www.helikon.com/Personal/Pete/Advents/iflib.htm Contributors to this issue: Doug Atkinson Totally Unofficial List of Internet MUDs C.E. Forman http://tecfa.unige.ch/pub/documentation/MUD/Big-Mud-list.html Laurel Halbany Graham Nelson The XYZZY Page Gareth Rees http://www.winternet.com/~radams/adventure/xyzzy.html 2 Issue #6 November/December 1995 LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS… the genders of the other NPCs bashing my head against Dear Eileen, without the game even needing Christminster and slowly to know your own. getting back into things. Yes, I was intending to write this (Similarly, games that as the review states, it’s good! little note after part 2 of Doug require seducing a NPC in But I really don’t have the Atkinson’s article on character order to solve a puzzle could time for these games… gender in interactive fiction get around the problem of Anyhow, the survey pub- appeared, but the recent dis- determining the player’s gen- lished in the last issue of cussion about gender in r.g.i-f der by allowing for two equally XYZZYnews was intriguing. (about the gender of characters acceptable “solutions” to the I am left wondering about in Graham Nelson’s Jigsaw) puzzle— one of each gender.) other aspects of XYZZYnews spurred me on. As a gay man, I readers. think I may have a slightly dif- —David Wagner 1. The top two occupa- ferent perspective on gender in [email protected] tions of the readers were interactive fiction. either students or technical- I am occasionally annoyed based. Of the students, what with games that come with a To XYZZYnews: majors are they pursuing? heterosexual assumption; you 2. An interest in text- choose your gender at the start I enjoyed Graeme’s trivia quiz based adventure games (inter- of the game, but then the (though it was rather tough), active fiction) would also sug- game requires intimate rela- but I did find a couple of gest an interest in reading. Is tions with members of the errors in the answers: this the case? other sex. For example, in #72: “Grueslayer” is actu- 3. If so, what types of Leather Goddesses of Phobos, ally found in Beyond Zork, not books do people prefer? sci- you choose your gender in the Zork Zero. ence fiction, cyberpunk, mys- opening scene by using either #95: Trinity also has a tery, fantasy, romance, west- the Ladies’ or the Gents’ scene set in Japan. erns, nonfiction? room. From then on, a variety I also have another addi- 4. What are their favorite of sexual encounters occur tion to the bug list; I got this books and authors? with members of the other from New Zork Times, actual- 5. How many of the read- sex. When I played the game, I ly. When you put objects in ers have written an IF? finally had to grit my teeth the raft and then deflate it, 6. How many are writing and choose the Ladies’ Room they effectively cease to exist, or thinking about writing an (and then play as a male char- allowing you to carry as much IF? acter) just to get the genders of weight and as many objects as 7. Do the readers like the NPCs correct. the raft will hold (it won’t other forms of puzzles? puzzle But in my opinion, games hold the gold coffin, unfortu- books, Rubik’s cube, math- that ask you to choose a gender nately, and of course sharp ematics…? are usually asking the wrong objects are out). This is 8. What number of IF question. Often what is more because the game handles the games has the average reader important is the gender that pile and the raft as two sepa- finished? the player is attracted to.
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