Letters

Greetings XYZZYnews!,

I have just read your newsletter for the first time, and I found it very interesting. Keep up the good work!

I have always wanted to be either a writer or a game designer, and now with my finding of IF, I can now be both. I have AGT Master edition, and so far I have written three games on it, MY1STGAME, MYGAME, and MYWORLD, all of which were more or less getting to known AGT. I am now working on my 1st public release (no title yet) and so far AGT has done everything I could dream up to put into my games. I believe that if you have a good idea to start with, and take the time to do it right AGT can make wonderful games, but I have only played 2 TADS games before and 1 .z5 game, so I might be missing something. Could you clear me up on the difference in AGT and other IF languages?

Steve
Butch2r@wilmington.net

Let me steer you towards the "Which System is Better?" FAQ maintained by Bob Newell and posted on GMD at ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/ whichsys.zip, which does a much better job of succinctly outlining the pros and cons of the various text adventure systems than I could. -- EM

Eileen,

Just wanted to say excellent work! Love XYZZYnews -- I look forward to each issue and have been since issue #4 (I did go back and get 1-3 but just "discovered" XYZZYnews at issue #4). Thanx for all the hard work you put in to getting us each issue.

Dave
David_Hall@ml.com

Dear Eileen:

A weeks ago, I read first time XYZZYnews, and find it very interesting.

Maybe I must introduce myself...my name is Juan J. Munoz, and I'm the director of the most important (besides the older) adventurers club in Spain, the CAAD.

CAAD stands for "Club de Aventuras AD" (AD Adventures Club). Aventuras AD were the principal programming group of adventures in Spain, and we start as an extension of them, but now we're at our own.

We have a publication too (or a fanzine), and I'm very interested in the process you follow for make the .PDF version, because we need a PC reader based version of CAAD, and this seems a good way to do it.

Well, this is all by now. Is good see that the spirit of the adventure is still alive!

See you!

Juan
falco@arrakis.es

P.S. Excuse my poor English...I learned it playing adventures! 8-D
Here's how I go about creating the .PDF file for each issue: I first lay out the 'zine using the QuarkXpress page layout program, then print it to a PostScript file. I try to keep the file size low by limiting the number of fonts and graphics I use in the Quark file. I use Adobe's Acrobat Distiller to convert the PostScript file to a .PDF file. -- EM

Hi, Eileen.

I've been playing Infocom games for years. I am stuck in two different games though. Is there an online hints site somewhere, other than the great "Spoiler Column" in your newsletter??? Thanks for your help!

Kelly Martin
kellybob@dibbs.net

Let me point you towards the solutions subdirectory of the IF archives on GMD; there you'll find a number of walkthroughs for all the Infocom games and a bunch of other text adventures. I bet you'd also get a fast response by posting a specific question about the game you're stuck in to the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction. -- EM

To XYZZYnews:

I finally fixed the Panic!! bug! [Sneak Previews, XYZZYnews #9] ]Rejoice, rejoice, and all other rejoice-related activities! The reason for that bug, however, is because I didn't define something that I never used. Sounds strange? (Sounds like a holdover from Turbo Pascal, if you ask me!) Anyway, I expect Panic!! to be finished by the second week of August, and Panic!! 2 to be finished near the end. As you said in the preview, it's still FunWare and it's still a US10$ registration cost for Panic!! 2.

Colin Marshall
Marshall@helen.bush.edu

Hi Eileen,

Do know where I can get a map of the Colossal Cave in the original Stanford version of the adventure game? Thanks,

John
johore@sleeper.apana.org.au

I really don't know; can anyone else suggest where to look? -- EM

To XYZZYnews:

I'm looking to get into downloading some files to help me be able to write my own interactive fiction on my powermac. Do you know where I can get TADS or Inform?

The ftp.gmd site never lets me in without authorization and I don't know where else to go. Help! I think I can make a real contribution to IF. Thanks.

Chris Kubica miraklemax@aol.com

You can access the IF archives on GMF via anonymous FTP, which means you don't need to enter a password. When you connect to an FTP site via AOL, just uncheck the checkbox that asks for an authorized name and password. -- EM

Hi there!

My name's Megan Peard, and I've been enjoying looking through XYZZYnews plus other interactive game stuff, and hope you can help. I'm looking for an ancient interactive fiction game called "Mystery House" which I used to play on an Apple IIE back in 1984. If anyone can help, please reply!!

Megan Peard
morgause@ozemail.com.au

Phil Darnowsky offered the following solution to this question: The easiest way is to get an Apple II emulator from ftp.asimov.net, and from the same site get a file called mystery.dsk. Hope this helps-- EM

Hello Eileen,

I think this adventure, "Planetfall: The Search For Floyd" escaped me somehow. Have you heard of it? Steve Meretzky wrote it and it looks like "Infocom" released it sometime in 1995, or perhaps it never came out. Sigh!

Thank you.

Susan
SusanD@ix.netcom.com

This game is still vaporware from Activision so far. If and when it's finally released, you'll certainly hear about it on the r.a.i-f and r.g.i-f newsgroups... and in XYZZYnews! -- EM

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