Interactive Fiction is a computer game form characterized by the use of text both as input from the player as well as output. Its popularity peaked during the 1980s with works by Infocom like Zork and an adaptation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Later, as personal computers became capable of displaying better graphics, Interactive Fiction died out as a commercial form, but it was kept alive by hobbyists who continue to produce IF games, the best of which measure up quite well against the old commercial games. I've found writing IF to be very rewarding. It is an excellent way for a single author with a little writing and programming ability to create an immersive experience of taking part in a story and exploring a world of the author's creation.
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This is either a really great game I just didn't fully understand, or a pretty average game that does a great job of seeming to be a really great game I didn't fully understand.A New Life was my first full length interactive fiction game. It is a fantasy game that borrows liberally from the tropes of the genre, but gives them (hopefully) fresh twists. The reviewers generally praised the depth of implementation and worldbuilding, but had trouble with finding a strand of the plot and with the PC's (lack of) motivation.
--Mike Snyder
Download the original competition release.
I will be releasing a new version shortly which fixes some of the problems present in the original release.
You need a zcode interpreter to play this game.
PrologueComp was a mini-competition for prologues of unwritten IF games, that is, just the text that comes before the first prompt. I wrote the whole thing in the two hours immediately preceding the competition deadline.
I'd like to write the rest of this game someday, but coming up with a playable game from this scenario could be very tricky.