I am an IF oddity
Matthew Twomey
I believe this is my first post to this group. It's strange though
because I've been reading this group for almost two years now...
I find myself curious about something though - so I though I would ask
if anyone else has feelings similar to my own. I like to *watch* IF, but
I don't really like to play. I find it extremely facinating, however, I
just can't seem to play the games. As a matter of fact I like it so much
I have every Infocom game ever produced and the Masterpiece CD, the 2
lost treasures CDs and the four category type CDs (Mystery,
Adventure...). I also mirror the IF-archive, have a not yet advertised
web page which allows you to play all the freely available Inform games
via Java. I follow the competition every year, read every IF magazine
and read this newsgroup every day. I've even turned dozens of people on
to IF who now play IF games all the time. It almost sounds like I have a
scary addiction to IF....
_But_ do I play the games? No! I have some old games still from when I
was a kid (AMFV, HHGTTG, Wishbringer) - did I play they when I was a
kid? Still no... Weird. I love the idea so much - I just get bored for
some reason when I play....
Oh well, just curious if there are any other IF "watchers" out there...
Fred M. Sloniker
>I believe this is my first post to this group. It's strange though
>because I've been reading this group for almost two years now...
>
>I find myself curious about something though - so I though I would ask
>if anyone else has feelings similar to my own. I like to *watch* IF, but
>I don't really like to play.
(waves hand)
Hi. I just wanted to say that your post reminded me most eerily of
me. (Except that I'm not as active as you've been about it with the
Web Site and the files and the word-spreading.) You are not alone.
(:3
I guess between Usenet, email, and MUCKs, I don't have time for
anything else...
Allen Garvin
In article <6h4917$bqf$1...@neko.syix.com>,
Patrick Kellum <pat...@syix.com> wrote:
Matthew Twomey was talking about:
Oh well, just curious if there are any other IF "watchers"
out there...
<raises hand> Me, me, me. It is rare that I finish IF games, I just get
too board for some reason.
Wow, there seems to be a number of people who feel this way... perhaps
the future of IF is: The Interactive Fiction TV Channel! You could
watch transcripts of famous IF people playing the games, all from the
comfort of your reclining chair while eating Cheetohs and drinking beer
without any fear of staining your keyboard. Imagine, for an instance,
watching Zarf play Curses, his hands typing out commands in staccato
bursts as Stravinsky plays in the background... it would be... inspiring
entertainment.
--
Allen Garvin kisses are a better fate
--------------------------------------------- than wisdom
eare...@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu
http://faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu/~earendil e e cummings
Jon Petersen
Allen Garvin wrote:
>
> You could
> watch transcripts of famous IF people playing the games, all from the
> comfort of your reclining chair while eating Cheetohs and drinking beer
> without any fear of staining your keyboard.
Good God, man, CHEETOS and BEER? That sounds like the worst combo since
beer and Cheerios. I feel ill.
Jon
Edan Harel
eare...@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu (Allen Garvin) writes:
>Wow, there seems to be a number of people who feel this way... perhaps
>the future of IF is: The Interactive Fiction TV Channel! You could
>watch transcripts of famous IF people playing the games, all from the
>comfort of your reclining chair while eating Cheetohs and drinking beer
>without any fear of staining your keyboard. Imagine, for an instance,
>watching Zarf play Curses, his hands typing out commands in staccato
>bursts as Stravinsky plays in the background... it would be... inspiring
>entertainment.
OOoh! Non-Interactive Interactive Fiction.
Edan Harel
--
Edan Harel edh...@remus.rutgers.edu McCormick 6201
Research Assistant edh...@eden.rutgers.edu Math and Comp Sci Major
USACS Member Office: Core 423 Math Club Secretary
HarryH
In article <353648...@ucla.edu>, en...@ucla.edu says...
>Allen Garvin wrote:
>> You could
>> watch transcripts of famous IF people playing the games, all from the
>> comfort of your reclining chair while eating Cheetohs and drinking beer
>> without any fear of staining your keyboard.
>beer and Cheerios. I feel ill.
You don't understand.
There are two kinds of food we (by "we" I mean "we who know who we are")
consume in front of the computer:
1. Orange colored food (probably some snack, although cheese coated spaghetti
do just fine)
2. Some kind of non-watery drink. This means beer, unless you're under age,
which means Coke. Civilized drinks such as fruit punch or tea is simply
verboten.
Now do you understand? ;)
-------------------------------------------------------
Of course I'll work on weekends without pay!
- successful applicant
Papanele
I am an another IF oddity, she says standing up and sobbing. I've been playing
since my friend's mom had Adventure back in 1978 or so, and I've never actually
managed to get through a game because I can't get any of the puzzles. You'd
think by now I'd have cottoned on, just a bit, to the general themes of how
they work. But No! I usually get stuck at the beginning and then rely on help
files for the rest. Yet I still enjoy playing them...
Darrell Rudmann
> _But_ do I play the games? No! I have some old games still from when I
> was a kid (AMFV, HHGTTG, Wishbringer) - did I play they when I was a
> kid? Still no... Weird. I love the idea so much - I just get bored for
> some reason when I play....
Wow, this is quite odd. I respect and admire IF much more than I play
it. I always thought this was just me. I feel like someone who just
found out that there is some support group for just my particular
affliction. I read the IF newsgroups religiously but have fully
completed only 2 games that I can think of, starting from playing Zork I
on my Apple IIe in 8th grade.
To what shall we attribute the cause of this: us, or the games?
Have you tried learning Inform or TADS to create your own game/story?
I've had some luck with that--creating a small story is quite fun, and
can be more engaging than playing some games.
Darrell
Matt Kimball
Darrell Rudmann <drud...@nyx.net> wrote:
: Wow, this is quite odd. I respect and admire IF much more than I play
: it. I always thought this was just me. I feel like someone who just
: found out that there is some support group for just my particular
: affliction. I read the IF newsgroups religiously but have fully
: completed only 2 games that I can think of, starting from playing Zork I
: on my Apple IIe in 8th grade.
I think I have a bit of this too. I spend much more time reading
r.?.i-f and writing IF tools (zasm, and a currently-unreleased
compiler to zasm, and several half-completed projects in the past)
than I do actually playing or writing IF. And I have been reading the
r.?.i-f groups, mostly lurking, since some time in '94.
: To what shall we attribute the cause of this: us, or the games?
I'm not sure.
--
Matt Kimball
mkim...@xmission.com
Brock Kevin Nambo
Matthew Twomey wrote in message <35359741...@megsinet.net>...
>Oh well, just curious if there are any other IF "watchers" out there...
Oo! Oo! Me ! mE!
I don't mirror /if-archive, but I do hawk over /incoming/if-archive and have
/games/infocom on my computer... and I have never played half the games.
I remember.. playing them once.. when my net connection was down. I played
Inhumane, Ralph, A Week in the Life, In the End, Mercy, Jigsaw (didn't
finish), and others.
A lot of it's HARD though! I wouldn't mind seeing more 'puzzless' IF. (I
liked those TextFire demos. LOL.)
>>BKNambo
--
and that's just the way it is...
Ola Sverre Bauge
HarryH wrote in message ...
>2. Some kind of non-watery drink. This means beer, unless you're
>under age, which means Coke. Civilized drinks such as fruit punch
>or tea is simply verboten.
You obviously don't know what kind of caffeine rush you can get from
tea, if it's consumed by the pint, with a cascade of saccharines thrown
in. Civilness has nothing to do with tea when it's consumed in this
manner. Of course, drinking the stuff from thimble-sized cups and with
real sugar is another matter entirely.
Ola Sverre Bauge
o...@bu.telia.no
http://w1.2327.telia.com/~u232700165
Paul Francis Gilbert
Darrell Rudmann <drud...@nyx.net> writes:
>> _But_ do I play the games? No! I have some old games still from when I
>> was a kid (AMFV, HHGTTG, Wishbringer) - did I play they when I was a
>> kid? Still no... Weird. I love the idea so much - I just get bored for
>> some reason when I play....
>Wow, this is quite odd. I respect and admire IF much more than I play
>it. I always thought this was just me. I feel like someone who just
>found out that there is some support group for just my particular
>affliction. I read the IF newsgroups religiously but have fully
>completed only 2 games that I can think of, starting from playing Zork I
>on my Apple IIe in 8th grade.
>To what shall we attribute the cause of this: us, or the games?
Maybe it's just us. I'm of the same category... I quite like IF games, and
play them when I have the time, but as of yet I haven't even finished playing
all the Infocom games, let alone all the post-Infocom games [I started
Curses, for example, got stumped, started using a walkthrough, then realised
I'd probably enjoy it more if I puzzled through it myself, so put into
storage until I ever have enough free time to play through it all].
>Have you tried learning Inform or TADS to create your own game/story?
>I've had some luck with that--creating a small story is quite fun, and
>can be more engaging than playing some games.
>Darrell
Yeh... neat fun. I've never released a quality finished game, but I have
made a couple of smaller ones. One I made was based around a computer
club gathering. At one stage I planned to expand it into a fractured-reality
type game taking place in different reality fragments (ala Jigsaw), but never
found the time.
--
Paul Gilbert | p...@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au (The DreamMaster)
Bach App Sci, Bach Eng | The opinions expressed are my own, all my own, and
Year 5, RMIT Melbourne | as such will contain no references to small furry
Australia | creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Giles Boutel
Neil K. <fake...@anti-spam.address> wrote in article
<fake-mail-180...@van-as-03a09.direct.ca>...
>
> But seriously, I suspect lots of people are in your position. I know
I've
> heard other people on the MUD talking like that. Maybe it's the same sort
> of psychology that leads people to collect cars but not actually drive
> them. Perhaps IF Collector sounds better than IF Watcher - the latter
> sounds like some sort of voyeuristic fetish.
>
"Hehhehhhhhehhh. Vant to come back to my place and vatch me fineesh
collossal cave? I can do it in 167 moves, but, for you my leetle
aubourgine, my testosterone pyjama party, I'll take 200. Ooh, I cannot wait
until my vand, vhich is only a leetle rusty, blasts through those walls and
I am carried away."
Nah - it'd never work (Contrary opinions are welcome to contact me).
-Giles
J. Holder
Thus spake Matt Kimball <mkim...@xmission.com>:
: I think I have a bit of this too. I spend much more time reading
: r.?.i-f and writing IF tools (zasm, and a currently-unreleased
: compiler to zasm, and several half-completed projects in the past)
: than I do actually playing or writing IF. And I have been reading the
: r.?.i-f groups, mostly lurking, since some time in '94.
(Shyly raises hand...) I certainly fall into this category. While I have
completed a numbers of games (1.5 YEARS to complete curses (heh)) and a few
of the infocoms, competition entries, and others (firewitch, theatre),
I collect interpreters (mostly source) and compilers
(not just IF: Lisp, Scheme, ML, Prolog, C, C++, Ada, Fortran, Pascal, Haskell,
Miranda, etc, etc, etc) simply because they are cool. And I love the idea
of IF. Love it. Period. I have written a little (no releases) played a
little, and have hung out around here since about . . . since about 90-91.
I lurked until 93. What can i say, RAIF and RGIF are a nice community.
But, when I do played the games, i have a blast. I just don;t make time
for them very often.
--
John Holder (jho...@frii.com) http://www.frii.com/~jholder/
Sr. Programmer Analyst, J.D.Edwards World Source Company, Denver, CO
http://www.jdedwards.com/
Matthew Twomey
Wow!
Seems like I struck some kind of strange chord with that "confessional" post.
It's interresting to see that I'm definatly _not_ alone in
these feelings...
Yes, I have tried writing a game or two with Inform and I did find it quit
enjoyable. I plan to return to writing when I can think of a
respectable idea. I do have a kind of strange guilty feeling about writing a
game though - since I don't ever play them.
We'll here's to all us IF watchers!
David J Wildstrom
In article <6h63lh$j76$1...@romulus.rutgers.edu>,
Edan Harel <edh...@romulus.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>eare...@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu (Allen Garvin) writes:
>
>>Wow, there seems to be a number of people who feel this way... perhaps
>>watch transcripts of famous IF people playing the games, all from the
>>comfort of your reclining chair while eating Cheetohs and drinking beer
>>watching Zarf play Curses, his hands typing out commands in staccato
>>bursts as Stravinsky plays in the background... it would be... inspiring
>>entertainment.
>
>OOoh! Non-Interactive Interactive Fiction.
Actually, 'tis been thought of already. Read
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/sasha.html,
the NZT article titled "Sasha Blunderbraas: Prima Virtuosa".
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
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