XYZZYnews #8 now available

[Eileen Mullin]

Whatever happened to the Infocom implementors? How long does it take to
write a text adventure? What's involved in testing these games anyway?

Some partial answers are in XYZZYnews #8, the March/April 1996 issue of my
'zine for text adventure enthusiasts.

First up is a where-is-he-now interview with Dave Lebling, co-author of
the original mainframe Zork and creator of numerous other Infocom titles.
This issue also includes Stephen Granade's blow-by-blow description of how
his game Waystation came to be written over the course of five years.
Next, C.E. Forman offers some good guidelines for aspiring beta-testers,
with a sidebar from Neil deMause about the making of his game Lost New
York.

As in every issue, other fun stuff includes new top 10 picks for
interactive fiction on the Web, letters, and game reviews.

You can find XYZZYnews #8 on the Web at
http://www.interport.net/~eileen/design/xyzzy.8.html.

I've also uploaded the issue to the IF archives at GMD in both ASCII
(XYZZY8.TXT) and in .PDF format (XYZZY8.PDF), which lets you view
on-screen and print the actual layout of the typeset version without
needing the fonts or graphics I used. Use the Adobe Acrobat Reader
(available for Windows, Mac, DOS and Unix) to view the .PDF file. Go to
http://www.adobe.com/Acrobat/readstep.html to find out about the currently
available versions and to download the Reader for free.

These files are currently in the ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive
directory at GMD, but I'm sure when Volker gets a chance they'll be moved
to their usual place at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/magazines/XYZZYnews.

Thanks!

Eileen