Letters

To XYZZYnews:

I am really impressed by your fine publication. I have downloaded all of the back issues and have been slowly devouring them as I find time.

My first exposure to IF was with Zork when I was about 14, back in the early '80s. I owned an AppleII clone, no hard drive. I used to write quite a few of my own programs, but I was really into adventure games. I remember saving up all of my nickels from my paper route to by Zork I! I was never able to finish the game because my computer went on the blink soon afterwards.

I am now in the planning (paper) stages of writing my own game. I want to eventually enter it into a contest, not this year though.

I guess I have rambled on enough...Keep on 'venturing.

Chris Seguin
seguin@telusplanet.net

Eileen,

Having been a fan of text adventures and interactive fiction since 1983, I was extremely dismayed by the damage the Graphics Revolution caused to my favorite computer gaming genre. Nowadays, it seems a lot of computer games are not very interactive, and are little more than 'vehicles' to show off the latest in graphics technology. A way of helping designers sell more SVGA monitors.

Since much of today's commercial computer gaming (including Activision's poor 'Zork' games) leaves such a sour taste in my mouth, I was very pleased to discover that interactive fiction is being kept alive via shareware. And I was very pleased to find a publication devoted to it.

XYZZYnews is, in my opinion, THE best magazine devoted to IF since The New Zork Times/Status Line. The articles (such as 'Tales from the Code Front', 'Gender in Interactive Fiction', etc) are compelling reading, and the reviews are perfect for anyone who wants to know more about the various shareware IF available.

And of course, I also greatly enjoy the occasional interviews with the 'Implementors' of the classic Infocom games. And the puzzles and humor articles are in the best tradition of NZT/TSL.

In short, I give this publication four stars. Keep up the good work!

Chris Lang
MKST21C@prodigy.com

Eileen,

Thanks so much for running that interview with me in the latest XYZZYnews [September/ October 1996]! The only appropriate way I could think of to thank you for so much good press was to release an update of CosmoServe with an XYZZY command response plugging your wonderful 'zine. (okay well, I also fixed some bugs and relieved the frustrating time pressures).

Since I was being so industrious between semesters I also updated the Shades of Gray game files (yes, XYZZY plugs you there now too!), and both games have just been uploaded to CompuServe Gamer's forum and gmd.de-if (and soon to an appropriate AOL folder when the person who offered to do it for me gets back to me).

Thanks again, and good luck with all your professional ventures!

Cheers,
Judith Pintar

Hi Eileen,

Great Web site and 'zine! I was amazed that anyone still treats "interactive fiction" as a serious pastime. The interviews with Lebling et al. were really enlightening. I've wondered for years what became of those guys, so it was fascinating to run across the rec.arts and rec.games. IF subgroups (and XYZZYnews, and your web site...) while surfing DejaNews.

I must apologize after the fact for depositing 100K of unsolicited 'stuff' in your email, but this attachment might make an amusing stocking-stuffer for your new XYZZYnews web site. :-) I honestly don't know what else to do with it... feel free to move it to the appropriate binaries group or FTP site for IF stuff, or let me know where to leave it.

Again, thanks, and keep up the good work!

John Miles
jmiles@pop.net

Thanks for the kind words, and for the game files. Readers, these files are for an Apple II test gamedemo scenario called Mindtrap: "Escape from Belsaena". They include a .TXT file and two Apple ][ .NIB images attached as a .ZIP. Since .NIB files are Apple IIe disk images, you'll need to run an Apple II emulator program; see the READ.ME file for suggestions on where to download one. I've served up these files on my Web site as a zipped file at http://www.xyzzynews.com/downloads/mindrap.zip. -- EM

IF's literary leanings
In XYZZYnews #12 you mentioned finding an reference to Zork in a novel, well I got another IF reference for you, and I'm sure it's intentional... In the book Taltos by Steven Brust (Ace Fantasy) there is a section where the main character, Vlad Taltos, is with a couple of friends, past DeathGate and in the Hall of Judgment -- how they got there is most of the novel. :)

There is a section, when they decide to find their own way out of the Hall of Judgment where it turns into, as described by Vlad, and I quote "A maze of twisty little passages, all the same."

I broke out in hysterical laughter when I saw this line. :) That is, to me, a very direct tip of the hat to Adventure. :)

Fox Cutter
lmb@comtch.iea.com

Piers Anthony has a book out that actually has the player sucked into the game. The whole book is about the player coming to terms. I believe it was the 1996 book in the Xanth series. I can't remember the title.

Bill B.
bblohm@hpbs1686.boi.hp.com

Infocom bug update
Nifty Zork bug I just discovered: Start the game, go into the Living room, move rug, get all, light lamp go e and up into Attic, get knife, go d, w, open trap door (now the trapdoor is apparently the last noun you've referred to),d (trapdoor slams shut) and north. Then do:

>kill troll
What do you want to kill the troll with?
>again
The trap door opens.

I had wanted to go kill the troll and then kill it again, not realizing I had two weapons. The really neat thing is that the door stays open, and you can go back up and then down and it won't slam shut again!

This works on 75/830929, 88/840726, but not 15/UG3AU5. In the latter it does:

>kill troll
What do you want to kill the troll with?
>again
You can't go that way.

Go to the Bat Room while carrying garlic, type "get all" (a common thing to type) or "get bat" And you get:

  Fweep!
  Fweep!
  Fweep!
A deranged giant vampire bat (a reject from WUMPUS) swoops down from his belfry
and lifts you away....

This does not work at least with 75/830929 nor 88/840726

Allen Garvin
earendil@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu

I have a version of Enchanter, release 10 with serial number 840820, where every occurrence of the string "is" has been replaced by "adventurer". Using Z-tools shows that "adventurer" occurs twice in the abbreviation table. I then thought that the game had been corrupted on the way somehow, but everything else looks fine, and Z-tools says that the checksum is correct and the file intact. Odd, it is. And hard it is, to concentrate on solving a game that says "There adventurer a road to the west."

Fredrik Ramsberg
d91frera@und.ida.liu.se

I believe I found a bug not mentioned in the bug list found on XYZZYnews in:

The Lurking Horror
Release 203 / Serial number 870506
(Distributed via the Masterpieces Collection.
Running the data file off of Frotz.)

Whether or not you have actually seen the hidden suicide note on top of the Great Dome, the description of the sign-up sheet in the Department of Alchemy will always tell you who wrote the suicide note after you remember that the guy signed-up took a plunge off a building.

To check it out, do the thing to get the floor waxer out of the way. Go into the Department (knock), and then look at the sheet. Wait to remember the student's name. Look at the sheet again. It says the suicide note was written by the guy. We have not yet seen the suicide note. Since it is hidden in the top of the Great Dome, the suicide note probably hasn't been publicly displayed or anything.

Cable Hicks
hicks@ goldrush.com

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