First Post - Intro

Hi all, first post! (I was going to post this in the Introductions sticky thread, but someone here said that thread was dying…)

My name is Robert (or Shoal, whichever you prefer), I’m 29, from the United States south of Boston, MA, and grew up playing all those great graphical adventure games by Sierra On-Line and LucasArts, plus a few others.

I must confess to you that I’ve never really been into text adventures, mostly because I’ve never really been into reading. But in the last few years–lo and behold–I have become a reader and actually (gasp!) enjoy the activity. In the old days I used to want to claw my eyes out rather than read, but nevertheless libraries were always my favorite places in the world. They were so quiet, peaceful and… full of books. I used to sit down in them and just bask in the words all around me. But would I read? Oh no, never. I hated reading.

Now look at me! I enjoy it! Old me would hate new me if old me were still around. But he’s not (I think he’s dead).

So recently I got it into my head to take a shot at writing some interactive fiction. I’ve played through a couple over the years and actually enjoyed them despite the general hatred of reading I had during that time. Then why did I bother even playing them, you ask? Because both featured graphical backdrops and music, and one was a sequel to Chrono Trigger (an old favorite game of mine). The name of that one was “Radical Dreamers”, and I thought it was thoroughly fantastic because it was unlike anything I had ever played and fun at the same time. I don’t remember the name of the other one but it was an oldie for the PC. It was science fiction and based on a novel.

I studied Inform for a while, got the gist of it, downloaded the Zoom interpreter for my Mac and did some basic research on other languages and interpreters available. But what I didn’t check out–until just today–was the community, and I stand surprised! Why? Because… there’s actually a community.

Seriously, that surprised me… and then rather intimidated me. I didn’t realize so many people were making interactive fiction and that so many titles were available! All I wanted was to find a place where I could upload a text adventure so maybe three or four people other than myself might actually play it…

So here you all are. It’s good to be among you, and I hope I can produce something you all find enjoyable. :slight_smile:

(I should add that I’m in the planning stages for the IF I’m writing. It’s very slow going, and probably a far larger project than a beginner like me should have set out to accomplish, but oh well. It’s just for fun anyway. If I have to put that aside and try something smaller, I will.)

Welcome to the community :slight_smile: And if you’re hankering for some local community, check out http://pr-if.org/ (next meeting is on Tuesday).

-Kevin

Yeah, I wish I could go to the next Boston group meeting, but it’s just not possible for many reasons. It would really have to be on Saturday for me to be able to go. :frowning:

Awe… now I feel bad. I’d hate to be responsible for killing a tradition. I kind of liked that sticky. Oops. :blush:

But hello, Robert! :slight_smile: