Find the opening location

Playing Forum Games, Wordplay, and Challenges
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Since we now have a subforum for “games and challenges” …

I started up thirty parser games and wrote down the name displayed for the player’s starting location. All you have to do is name the game for each one. I’ve organised them into what I think is roughly increasing difficulty; your mileage may vary. Some of the more generic location names may have multiple games that match; you only have to find one, whether or not it’s the one I was thinking of. All of the games are ones that set off the location name on its own line at the start of a room description, so it should be totally clear whether the location name matches the one in my list or not.

  1. West of House
  2. Outside the Real Estate Office
  3. Railway Platform (Naomi Hinchen)
  4. Delcot
  5. Orchestra Pit, in Midair
  6. The Gallery’s End
  7. Broken Top Boulevard, Outside No. 15 (in the black chevy)
  8. Under the High Wall (on the resting)
  9. Dungeon (south cell)
  10. End of Alley
  11. Back Alley
  12. [DE] ALLEY
  13. << Chief’s office >>
  14. Civilian Transport Shuttle
  15. Fore Hold
  16. Storage Room
  17. A Brightly Lit Room
  18. Throne Room
  19. Endless Stair
  20. Home-like Showroom
  21. Your House
  22. In Your Tent
  23. Bare Room
  24. Cell
  25. Studio
  26. Salon
  27. Car
  28. Outside
  29. Hilltop
  30. No Man’s Land
14 Likes
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1 is Zork, 2 is Anchorhead, 3 Cragne Manor. Either 10 is Counterfeit Monkey and 11 is Spider and Web, or vice versa :). 14 I think is Inside Woman, based on your Let’s Play! 16 might be Suveh Nux?

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Just a few guesses for me... 
1. Zork
2. Anchorhead
4. The Gostak
8. For a Change
11. Counterfeit Monkey?
17. Portrait With Wolf?
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Here are my best guesses without looking (I’m sure at least half of these are wrong. Some of them I reverse engineered by thinking 'he’ll probably put in a famous game. So where does such and such famous game start?):

  1. Zork
  2. Anchorhead
  3. Cragne Manor
  4. For a Change (nevermind, I see that was later down.)
  5. Linus Akesson’s orchestra game
  6. Exhibition by Ian Finley (possibly Charm Cochran’s museum game?)
  7. Lucky Spinelli Must die (okay, probably not)
  8. For a Change
  9. Eat Me
  10. Spider and Web
  11. Counterfeit Monkey
  12. No idea!
  13. Gotta be a mystery game. I thought maybe Color the Truth but that starts in a phone booth. Can’t be Make It Good because that starts in a car. Oh wait, is that what number 7 is? So maybe this is Detectiveland?
  14. Planetfall? IDK
  15. Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder
  16. No clue
  17. Suveh Nux?
  18. Maybe Augmented Fourth?
  19. Zork III
  20. Uhh…hmm, I thought maybe The Mary Jane of Tomorrow. But I don’t think it’s that.
  21. Lol, this could be a lot. Maybe First Things First?
  22. Infidel, maybe
  23. Sounds like The Dreamhold
    24-30. No clue on the rest. Only game I can remember with a hair Salon is Brain Guzzlers from Beyond, so for a high society salon I’d expect Emily Short. Glass? And Studio could be from the hit Charm Cochran game, Studio.
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I was going to say that the ones you missed or got wrong you actually reviewed. But I guess, in your case, that’s not much of a hint.

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I looked at other people’s guesses already (which maybe I wasn’t supposed to?), and some of them I agree with.

So I’ll limit this to a few guesses that other people did not already make:

5: Augmented Fourth
6: Galatea?
23 or 24: Metamorphoses?

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#5 is, IIRC.

Also, isn’t #7 Make It Good? I recall the number of houses being a main thing and him starting in a car.

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That’s good! Later on in my list I corrected my #7 guess but I was way off for #5.

Do you have any guesses for the last 5? They’re really hard!

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30 sounds like JJMcC’s game, I forgot the name lol…

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Wait, is 12 that game in the Inform 6 comp at New Year’s, the one by Marco Innocenti?? I tested that one, and it sounds right…

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No spoiler needed here as I only offer a confirmed incorrect guess.

My guess for 30 was Dead Man’s Hill, but I checked the game and it starts in ‘Large shell hole’.

-Wade

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Methinks 26 might be Varicella, and 29 has got to be Beyond Zork.

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Ah! You’re right! That game was really memorable but I didn’t remember the way the letters of the location name worked.

That would make a lot of sense. For 29, that’s one game I still haven’t played! I should try it

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29 is surely incorrect, it starts inside in a room in the castle serving food at a banquet…

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Yeah, that was my thought too - Trenchline, IIRC?

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That’s Zork Zero, no?

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Oh! You’re right. Yeah, you’re right, I’m pretty sure it is BZ.

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Suveh Nux isn’t on the list because the first location name in that one is “Darkness” and I couldn’t decide if that counted. The rest of @DeusIrae 's guesses are right. @alyshkalia 's guesses are all right.

@mathbrush - your big initial list has I think 10 correct answers, including the one where you named a game and then immediately said “but I don’t think it’s that”. The starting location of Infidel is “Your Tent”, not “In Your Tent”.

@bg has three right, including Metamorphoses for #23.

I’m still trying to keep up with more posts coming in but so far I don’t think I’ve seen any correct answers for 13, 16, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25 or 27-30.

(Edit: I’d missed that @SomeOne2 gave a correct answer for 12 already.)

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Ah, my intended answer for 29 was Wishbringer but turns out that Beyond Zork is also a correct answer!

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18. One King to Loot Them All?

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