Issue #15 The Magazine for Interactive Fiction Enthusiasts What has push technology done for you lately? Well, today the URL-minder agent that notifies my Web readers when the XYZZYnews home page is updated sent out a message to sub- scribers that the XYZZYnews Home Page was dead. I guess the agent was really dutifully noting that my service provider was temporarily down — but it certainly filled my e-mailbox with inquiries from worried readers. Let me thank everyone who wrote in and reassure all that this news of XYZZYnews’ death was greatly exaggerated. Speaking of Internet gripes, I can’t resist mentioning a let- ter recently I spotted in the Webmaster mail at my day job. In its entirety, it read: “Your Web site has become increasingly difficult to locate what I’m looking for!! If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the people who create your Web site are the same people who create these adventure role playing games!” It was such a flattering thought, even if it was unintentional! :-) Thanks to Ivan Cockrum for pointing out a correction for XYZZYnews #14 — in listing the 1997 IF competition game responses to the XYZZY command, I had an incomplete response for his game Sunset Over Savannah. You can see the full response to typing ‘XYZZY’ once you leave the first room in the game — try it yourself! Most of the preparation for this issue was taken up with try- ing to whittle down the transcript of the XYZZY Awards ceremo- ny, held back in February, down to a manageable size for print. As it is, this issue still wound up running to 56 pages in print and Contents: in PDF. For brevity’s sake I edited out a lot — transcript messages Top 10 Picks for IF on the Web ................2 about who entered or left the room, many simple reactions to comments, and most of the raciest bits — but you can find the Letters.......................3 unabridged transcript online in a couple of places: Infonotes: Serious Infocom Trivia ............5 • http://www.ministryofpeace.com/text/ ceremony_1997.html Works in Progress: • http://www.spatch.net/ifmud/xyzzy-trans.txt Sneak Previews........17 Live from the MUD: Until next issue, happy gaming! The Second Annual XYZZYs...................18 Eileen Mullin [email protected] Bulletin Board ..........56 NEWSBRIEFS…NEWSBRIEFS…NEWSBRIEFS…NEWSBRIEFS… Issue # 15 Top 10 Picks XYZZYnews is published more-or-less for IF on the World Wide Web bimonthly by Eileen Mullin, 160 West 24th Street, # 7C, New York, NY 10011, USA. Email: [email protected]. URL: Blorb: A Z-Machine Resource Collection Format http://www.xyzzynews.com/. Send all Standard inquiries, letters, and submissions to http://www.edoc.com/zarf/blorb/ any of the addresses above. Graham Nelson's Blorb page http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/blorb/ Contents © 1998 XYZZYnews. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. Inform en Espagnol http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/9939/ Electronic versions: There are Interactive Fiction at the Mining Company currently three versions of XYZZYnews http://interactfiction.miningco.com/ made available online. One is in ASCII and can be viewed with any text reader. You Interactive Fiction for the PalmPilot can also download a .PDF file that mirrors http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/9590/ the layout of the print version. Use the interactive.htm Adobe Acrobat Reader (available for Windows, Mac, DOS and Unix) to view the Interactive Fiction Hall of Shame .PDF file; no special fonts or linked graph- http://www.retina.net/~ddyte/ ics are needed. You can obtain Acrobat Reader by following the links from Programmers Vault: How to make a text adventure http://www.adobe.com/. Thirdly, you can http://homepages.thefree.net/achesworth/vault/ also read this issue online at v_text.htm http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.15.html rec.arts.int-fiction Online Archive Subscriptions: All electronic versions are http://www.truespectra.com/~svanegmo/raif/ available at no cost. You can obtain either the ASCII or PDF versions by FTPing to Westfront PC the ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/magazines/ http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/ XYZZYnews directory. To be added to the stephenson/115/westfront.html mailing list, please write to eileen@inter- port.net and specify text-only or .PDF ver- You Be the Hero sion. The print version is $15 (U.S.) for http://t2.technion.ac.il/~site one year (6 issues) or $2.50 for a sample issue. For print subscriptions outside the U.S. or Canada, please email or write for rates. All products, names, and services are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Editor: Eileen Mullin Associate Editor: Neil deMause Contributors to this issue: Graeme Cree Björn Ludwig Ever wonder what the other denizens of r.a.i.f. look like? You can Angus McLaren get a glimpse of some of the newsgroup correspondents at the Interactive Hall of Shame. 2 Issue #15 XYZZYnews LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS… Hi Eileen, War and Peace is narrow? To XYZZYnews: Hamlet, deficient? Hmmm. I have just become interested Shattertown Sky may not in IF again and I agree with Phew! XYZZYnews isn’t dead, be interactive fiction’s answer your editorial [XYZZYnews after all. to War and Peace, but until we #14] completely. I tried to play I have only recently re- storytellers get our hands on the competition games but I entered the world of IF for the technology that lets us inject found them very late first time since my Commodore emotion, character, and theme (November) and just didn’t 64 days and was a little worried into interactive media, there have the time it takes to spend that I may have found you all never will be. Chris Crawford with them ahead of the judging just as things were winding up. has grasped what most soft- deadline. Not only that, but I The new issue came at just the ware developers have persis- have lots of other IF to catch right time. tently and obdurately missed: up with (tons, in fact) since Well done for creating such interactive entertainment that playing Infocom in the ’80s. an excellent magazine, there is doesn’t address the human con- With the amount of this always something of interest dition in fundamental and stuff coming out, it is hard to and the links page is very use- meaningful ways will never get a good grasp of what’s out ful indeed. appeal to a broad audience. there and what’s good, not to Keep up the good work, Because most people do care mention having the hours to —Stuart Houghton about emotion, character inter- play them. Plus, I’ve now [email protected] action, theme, and meaning. developed an interest in writ- Erasmatron products — ing IF as well. Shattertown included — are Anyway, since Whizzard Dear Eileen, not intended for those who, seems to be exhausted by the like deMause, dismiss the contest project, maybe this I agree with some of Neil interplay of characters and dis- would be a good time to go to deMause’s criticisms of my play of human emotion as an every other year format? electronic storyworld, some trivial sideshow. Just a thought. Shattertown Sky. The story- Fortunately, as the long history —Lelah Conrad world is a prototype, and it has in other forms of storytelling [email protected] some quirks — some kludges bears witness to, there are and awkward work-arounds. plenty who disagree with him, These are being addressed in and those are the people we Hi Eileen, the current round of upgrades. hope to reach with this new But what’s going on here technology. I just wanted to pass along my isn’t simply a critique of a par- —Laura J. Mixon compliments on your ticular work. It’s a conflict over [email protected] XYZZY page and ask a few what should lie at the core of questions too. I’ve been interactive storytelling. an on-again, off-again IF fan deMause calls emotions a Dear Eileen, since the ’70s. I even wrote “narrow arena.” He rates the an adventure on the VIC-20 ability to pick up an object (by Just wanted to tell you how with its whopping 3 1/2 K. the way, you can pick up and much I enjoy XYZZYnews. I (Let’s just say superterse (not carry objects in Erasmafiction, just found you and IF in the the Rick James song) was when to do so is dramatically last month. I had several of the always on.) Well, I have the interesting) as more important original Zork games a million “bug” again — and have been than the ability to evoke and years ago (Zork, Mystery, hunting down any resource I display emotion and character Planetfall), but was a lousy can to get me a-programmin’. interaction. player so they were sold with Your XYZZYnews is great — For how many thousands the Apple II+. This Christmas a just publish more, will ya?! :-) of years have emotion and friend asked me to get her Again, keep up the good character have been at the very MYST so I asked if she could work. heart of fiction — be it prose, find any of the older Zork —Jim play, movie, or yes, even games. She found Return to [email protected] Erasmafiction? Zork. XYZZYnews 3 LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS…LETTERS… I found XYZZYnews and Maralee, the IF site. I’ve started to play I can’t say enough good Dear Eileen, some of the easier games to try things about PDF.