it annoys me that it won't do the things that i want it to. i tried to play a couple of the other games on the site, too...same problem.

"Shade" seemed much more linear than "Adventure". In Adventure, you can move much more freely in space and the action was much more puzzle-oriented. In Shade, the story didn't seem to do anything unless you did exactly what it was waiting for you to do (unless you were listening to the radio, then the songs would change every couple commands).

Weird, I just finished shade and I certainly don't want to go to the desert any time soon. When I got used to the pattern the game moved along much more quickly.

um... my room is full of sand, the faucets all have sand, the crackers and PB are sand...
what now?

WHAT?!
i dont get it...
i didnt want to kill the little figure :(

Shade, like some other works by the same author, tries to play with that border between game and literature we discussed in class, I think. It's further from 'game' and more on the 'story' side.

It also plays with some of the ideas of what interactive fiction is- he does a number of works that go into it even more, really messing with your expectations. There's a game where your goals are never given to you, and nothing of any interest seems to happen - until the point that you win or lose. /Only/ if you lose do you find out the real plot of the game, and discover you're not the character you thought you were. With this new knowledge it's now possible to go back and replay it, finding all the very deeply hidden clues to your true nature throughout the game.

Blanking on the name. It may be on the linked site with Shade, but I haven't been able to get through to it today. It's a time- '12:15', or something similar.

James, I think you're thinking of 9:05 by Adam Cadre.

I really really am interested in making an Interactive fiction... I remember Dr. K saying how they did it in the original language. Does anyone know of any way to go about making one by other means?? I thinking like crazy to figure out some kinda side/creative/unlikely way to go about it. Ideas welcomed on how i can do it the way they do it (or a place wher ei could learn) or a creative alternative

thanks
-Vox

Therer are probably as many ways to go about this as there are ways to write for a computer. If you have a programming background, you should be able to make one in almost any language, but I would recommend learning Java (especially if you are coming from C++; the syntax is nearly the same).

Googling "writing interactive fiction" brings up some good links:
http://www.duke.edu/~srg3/IFAuthorship.html
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/index.html#Writing
(and many more)

IF you're not familiar with computer programming, get yourself a book on it. You'll need to learn about things like memory allocation and compilers.

wow that game was weird
did i win where the figure says, "You win, Ok, my turn agaiN?
does that mean i won SHADE?

John - yeah it does... if you call it winning. i didn't even realize that i had gotten to the end until mkg explained that THAT WAS the ending. *shrug*

This is a little late but I thought I'd post it anyway. Penny Arcade is a comic strip online that is updated three days a week ... it's aimed at primarily gaming/"geek" audiences. Anyway, the writer recently posted an e-mail from a reader about Interactive Fiction, which links to the site someone mentioned in class. A good quote from that: "If nothing else, it's interesting to see what games can be like when all the financial pressure is off and the developer approaches it completely as an art."

Again, this is way late, but I just thought I'd share.

and the website for Penny Arcade is http://www.penny-arcade.com/