The Liberation is a short hyperlink fiction game done with the Twine-Engine.
The story is about a revolutionary who is sitting in an embassy, isolated from the outside and cut from his comrades since many years. He is pining to walk, and if it is for the last time, on the nearby street, knowing that this would be his certain death...
'You Are Standing' by Aaron A. Reed, the text game created specifically for the Ultimate Collector's Edition of 50 Years of Text Games, is now available for all.
Hey, interactive fiction peeps, @aaronareed has just released his Inform 6 adventure, "You Are Standing", originally released as part of the collector's edition of 50 Years of Text games.
We were delighted to be able to speak with Giichi Totsuka of the doujin circle qbert! We discussed their coverage of PC and video games from the 1990s up to now, the research and interviews that went into their Adventures in Video Game History zine series, and all the care and love that went into the development of Retro Game Aliens!
Daikon reflects on the importance of preserving the culture of #RetroGames along with the titles themselves while playing Retro Game Aliens by qbert. It's a set of '80s-style Japanese adventure games, and comes with accompanying zines that go in-depth on the real-life games that inspired this collection!
Inform 7
Still December, still in low-impact posting mode. I figured I'd tell you all about interactive fiction authoring system Inform 7, which still feels new in my mind despite coming out 17 years ago.
"The Short Games Showcase is an opportunity to show off shorter IF works made in the past year (Jan 1, 2023 to Dec 31, 2023), regardless of whether they've been submitted to any previous jam or competition or not, and regardless of whether there have been any major updates since their initial release."
Bit Shifter was so kind to provide me with a patched Z3 interpreter, so I can now play @8bitgames Hibernated 1 on my PET! Yes, it is slow as molasses, as it has to CONTINUALLY load from floppy, but it WORKS! It requires BASIC V4, and would profit from some extra RAM, but still! This would have been a hit back in 1977. Or even 1980 for that matter. ;) #InteractiveFiction#commodorePET#commodore#retrogaming
Let's Make IF #6
Only a short update today, since I had a Gold Machine post to get out. Thoughts on clutter and.... the smell action from the standard rules.
cover art for Parsely, showing a variety of icons in pixel artIt’s not surprising that there’s a lot of tabletop rpgs based on video games. They often have an interesting universe to base a tabletop game on and many already have rpg mechanics, where while it’s not a 1:1 conversion to a tabletop game it does give designers a place to start. What I was surprised by was the number of tabletop rpgs that are based on or directly inspired by adventure games. I knew a lot of ttrpg creators grew up playing them but there’s quite a few that mention specific games or license the IP. Here are the ones I could think of but please let me know if the comments if I left anything out.
Myst
With Myst being one of the best-selling games ever, it’s not surprising that it has inspired a few tabletop rpgs. Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of MYST and Beyond is a game that uses the Myst license and uses the FATE core system for the foundation of its rules. The game is strongly influenced by Uru/Myst Online and has players exploring modern or historical D’ni and the ages connected to it. The game has received a few smaller supplements as well as a larger sourcebook that was recently Kickstarted and focused on the reconstruction of D’ni
There’s lots of fan games too. Bring the Page With You is a free one-page ttrpg where there is no GM/DM and is focused on players collaborating together to create Myst ages.
Text Adventures
There’s also a few games inspired by the Infocom-era of text adventures. Parsely is a collection of games where a group of players control one character by telling one player, known as the Parser, what they would like to do in the form of text adventure commands and the Parser describes what happens next. The collection even features a trilogy of Zork-like games known as Action Castle. The creator of Parsely has a few games in the series on their Itch page.
Uresia: Grave of Heaven is a system-neutral setting book by S. John Ross that is strongly inspired by the Zork series, with there even being a section explaining how it influenced the book and why they love the series so much. The book is now available for free here. Check it out and then consider hiring him for book or map design if you’re a ttrpg designer. The author also wrote a Z-Machine text adventure game that ranks as Polite on Andrew Plotkin’s cruelty scale. This game is also available for free.
Point-And-Click Adventures
I found a few games on Itch.io inspired by point-and-click adventure games. Pocket Full of Stars is a cozy two-player ttrpg inspired by Samarost where the players have the roles of an Astronomer and the Storyteller and work together to tell a story about a giant jumping from planet to planet and meeting people.
Loom is a fan fiction game based off the classic Lucasarts adventure game of the same name. It’s a solo journaling game where you explore the game’s world using the mechanics described in the book and write about what happens. Both games are available as Pay-What-You-Want.
Citizen Sleeper
With it being so strongly inspired by indie tabletop rpgs like Blades in the Dark, it would make sense that Citizen Sleeper has its own tabletop rpg. It’s not actually out yet so I can’t say much about it but it is available for pre-order here.
TTRPG Supplements
Instead of developing their own systems, many designers have created supplements for existed games. Blood Mountain Resort & Spa is a free download for fantasy ttrpgs. Inspired by the Monkey Island series, players explore a pirate themed resort. The NPCs are statted for DURF but the rest of the supplement is built to be system neutral.
In Other Waters: Tidebreak is a supplement for the horror ttrpg Mothership that is set in the In Other Waters universe. The supplement is playable in either as a group or solo and designed to be less stressful than the typical Mothership adventure.
Let me know if I’ve left anything out. I would love to know what else exists out there. If you enjoyed this article you can play any of my tabletop rpgs inspired by adventure games like Accomplice, my Gabriel Knight inspired solo game, Alone in Cyberspace, inspired by Hypnospace Outlaw, Friendship Quest, my two-player map drawing game, and ERROR, a play out loud text adventure. The first two games are paid but just take a free community copy if you’re interested.
In Stars and Time looks like a very nice time loop rpg that’s now available on Steam.
There’s a new Indie Tsushin, highlighting indie games from Japan.
Tristam Island is now open source and released under a Creative Commons license. It seems like a great reference if you’re looking to build a text adventure game in PunyInform for retro platforms.
Portal is a 1986 game by Activision. It's a cyberpunk thriller / playable novel. You return from a 100 year exploration trip through the galaxy to find the Earth deserted and desolate. You log onto Worldnet to connect to Homer, the AI, to figure out what happened to humanity. #commodore#c64#InteractiveFiction#retrogaming
Let's continue with Portal (1986) by Activision. An interactive novel set in about 2100 where a returning astronaut tries to figure out with the AI Homer where all of humanity went, as Earth is desolate.
We join Homer in his story about Peter Devore, who discovered the so called "Portal". #commodore#commodore64#InteractiveFiction#retrogaming
And we are back with Portal (1986) by Activision, an interactive SciFi novel.
Our AI Homer is slightly gloomy at the moment... #commodore#commodore64#InteractiveFiction