Tricksy Plotkinses

I've been interested in what they call interactive fiction for as long as I can remember. Many of the books I read in my youth were non-linear: Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, Fighting Fantasy, as well as the lesser-known Lone Wolf and Time Machine series. However, it was on my Commodore 64 microcomputer that I discovered the joys of the text-based adventure game.

It seems that the youthful past-time of reading has given way to clicking on pretty 3D pictures with celebrity voice-overs, and interactive fiction has long since ceased to be commercially viable. Thankfully, there are still talented people who work their magic without financial incentive. People who still create wonderful artworks for us to explore -- people like Andrew Plotkin and Andrew Cadre.

I've been using Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive to trawl through the fantastic repository of these games, the IF Archive. If the thought of just reading and typing for over an hour doesn't scare you, then you might have some fun looking through the Guide yourself.

Recently, I've played Photopia, Narcolepsy, and Shrapnel by Adam Cadre, as well as Dreamhold and Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin.

Apparently Andrew Plotkin's game Hunter, in Darkness is a dark adaptation of the old BASIC game, Hunt the Wumpus. I must take a look at that one.