Introducing Ourselves

General
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Well, this might as well be my first post there.

ahem So, hello there. I’m a Portuguese 23-year old adventure game afficionado. I’m broad-minded enough to accept any form and/of hybrid of the adventure game genre, but my heart is still set in the traditional adventure game and IF. The reason I prefer IF is because of the unlimited possibilites it gives to the player; the reason I keep going back to the graphical games is because the strength of multimedia is unarguable, and a powerful way to create atmosphere and an emotional connection with the player when done right. Such as there are things IF can do that graphical games never will, so there are things in multimedia that plain text can’t achieve.

But I rant - apologies. I’ve dabbled in AGS, and I’ve dabbled in Inform 7. Currently I’ve stopped dabbling, because I realized I’m more of a player than an author.

I like to understand what makes games good, or what makes some games fall short of their potential. I do this with simply my experience of adventuring - I have played pretty much every major adventure game released, with the exception of some more recent titles which don’t interest me much anyway, and am alphabetically going through my archive of downloaded IF - all the IF I could find everywhere. I’m a bit of a packrat, and I may be a bit obsessive. But ah well, no one’s completely normal. I put down my opinions in my reviews, although I only review a game when I have something to add, something that hasn’t been said already.

I’ve very high standards for a playing experience, because I believe that adventure games and IF not only have the potential to be great and grand entertainment, they also can be true art forms. I’ve grown rather picky as a result, but I can still appreciate the good qualities in an overall lesser game. I also can’t be bothered to play a game that disappoints me in the first couple of turns, not with so many great games out there.

Every day I check RAIF, RGIF, IFDB and the ADRIFT page for more posts and any mentions of new games. Now I’ll start checking INTFICTION as well. :slight_smile:

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Welcome, Peter Pears! :smiley: It’s nice to see you on this forum.

Wow! That looks like a big project. I’m curious: did you already manage to reach the “B” letter :wink: ?

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I’m currently on “D” - “DayInTheLifeOfATupperwareSalesmanA.tzx”. :wink: I also played the new game “Backup” because, well, it’s B, and I already did B, so it superceded the Ds. I’m going for filename, BTW, not game name.

Note I didn’t saying I’m “completing them all”. Some games are just too bad, or annoyed me too much. I try them all. I play further on the ones I like best. I may be obsessive, but I’m not a masochist. And before you ask, yes, I get to complete a fair share of them. :slight_smile: But curiously, I tend to leave most AGT, DOS, ADRIFT and Spectrum games unfinished. Draw your own conclusions.

Also, I’m looking forward to playing Trinity, but as you can guess, I’ve a lot to cover until then. :slight_smile: I’m closer to Dungeon and Deadline.

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Hello everyone!

I’ve been semi-active on the forum recently, but been hesitant to take the plunge as it were and introduce myself formally. The solution, I guess, is to cut back on the formality. So, hi. My name is Björn, I’m 29 years old, and I’m from Sweden, just as my location text subtly infers. Until quite recently I managed to remain largely unfamiliar with IF games; I was twelve or so when I tried Hitchhiker’s Guide, Planetfall and Zork II, and the Infocom parser didn’t quite work for me back then (and still doesn’t, but that’s a different kettle of fish entire). But, being an avid RPG aficionado, I’ve always regarded story as being more important than visuals.

I’m a jack of many trades and have mastered few; I love the English language; I’m decently familiar with the most common forms programming - C++, PhP, JavaScript, Pascal, various Basic dialects, and HTML, which apparently does count if you’re writing a job application. While I already know a few novice tricks in I7 and I6, I’m in the process of broadening my knowledge, and will also be checking out TADS 3 as well (it’s only fair, after all).

As a poster, I try to do my best to contribute usefully and maintain a decent content-to-noise ratio. I also believe it’s necessary to express the occasional bit of humour - unfortunately, mine is of the freeze-dried variety (I bought British quips on discount and had them shipped over to Sweden). Therefore, if something I said makes no apparent sense, the reason is probably my staunch belief in my own funniness.

I do sometimes tend to harp on about a few subjects. One of these (when discussing IF writing) is general solutions contra specific ones; while coding I tend to jump through an amazing array of contortions just to avoid writing the “instead of taking the cookie, […]instead of taking the chocolate cookie, […] instead of taking the ham, [… et cetera ad nauseam]” sort of code. This is deliberate, and comes from seeing far too many (large and time-consuming) projects grow completely incomprehensible due to that tiny bug you missed in one snippet of otherwise redundant code.

Um. So… yeah. That’s me. Hi.
shuffles off

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hey Björn, welcome to the forum. I admit all those ‘insteads’ bug me too a lot of the time. Sometimes it’s good to do what’s fast though, especially when writing IF – otherwise you may never finish it! :slight_smile:

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Oliver here: I’ve technically been playing interactive fiction since 2001 or thereabouts, but have started playing–and harboring thoughts of authoring–only recently. Glad to be here! :smiley:

I’m a 25 year old NYC exile living in Central NJ. My favorite fiction authors include Jorge Luis Borges, Orhan Pamuk, Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Vernor Vinge, and Umberto Eco.

Recently, I’ve been enthusiastic about trying to author IF. Since I was young, I wanted to be a fiction author, among other things. The concept of story has regained some importance in my life recently, so I hope to find the right spirit soon. I do like puzzles (studied math & computer science when I was in school) but I’m most strongly drawn to the imaginative, storytelling side of IF. I also do some programming (and get paid for it occasionally), so IF seems like a natural meeting place.

Looking forward to learning from all of you!

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Welcome to the forum, Oliver! :smiley:

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Browsing over these testimonials it becomes apparent why IF is a small niche: most want to author IF, not play (or pay for) it. Possibly the only literary/game genre with more avid authors than readers/players. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Nah. Horror fiction is in about the same situation.

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Thanks!

You probably get a strong selection effect if you look to these forums to get an idea about the audience or reach of IF. I didn’t know it existed until I was interested enough to scrounge around for a while–basically until I wanted to do more than just play.

I doubt that the set of authors is larger than the set of players–most authors I’ve seen review and therefore play many more games than they create. And I’m sure there are many more “aspiring” (read: wannabe) authors like me than actual authors. :smiley:

But the community is rather tight isn’t it? The structure reminds me somewhat of certain communities of software developers in the open source world. The nice part is the distance from reader to author is very close. The downside is the rest of the world missing out on a great experience!

My guess is that greatly expanding the audience would require some serious, coordinated effort to reach outside the community. I’m interested to see what panels and screening at PAX East does. And yet I think any piece of IF that succeeds for a larger market will probably be different from IF as it’s put together (and enjoyed by us) at this moment.

Anyhow, don’t want to push this too OT. Thanks for the welcomes!

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guess so. :slight_smile:

olimay, it was a joke with a tiny bit of truth. and yeah, IF for the masses would be pretty different: graphics instead of text, contextual button pressing instead of text input and story involving either zombies or aliens ready to be blasted away. :slight_smile:

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I knew it was a joke, but I bit anyway (bullets are tasty and full of nutritious lead!)

I do see some opportunities in reading devices, particularly if more come out that are based on platforms like Android. Mobile phones are another possibility. I imagine something that includes graphics for illustration but still most closely resembles an interactive storybook. The level of quality and coordination and attention to elegance of design (in all aspects) would just need to be on a different scale. And if successful, it’d probably have to people who aren’t the usual gamer type. I’m thinking of broad audience of games like Myst (when it first game out) and even The Sims.

Vague, aimless dreaming on my part, not a business plan. :slight_smile: Best for another thread.

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Hello, just joined, so I’m introducing myself. Just call me Draco. I’m a female college student, and I love to write. This is really my first time getting involved with interactive fiction in any way. A friend of mine made a game in Inform on a whim, and when I asked her about it, she told me what program she was using, and so now I’m giving it a try. I joined here 'cause while I love writing, I’m not so hot at programming, though I have some experience with it, and I could use some help at figuring stuff out. Well, I have plenty of ideas I’d like to create, so I’ll do my best!

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Hey, Draco, welcome. Best thing is learning by example. If you’re using Inform 7, it does indeed come with plenty of good examples. The natural language subset it uses may also help you shred that fear of programming.

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Hi, I’m Matt Weiner (matt w for short, over on the left), and I just joined because, well, I like to talk about IF. And I’m thinking about writing some, if I ever make the time. Sometimes I post reviews and other stuff about IF at saucersofmud.wordpress.com, as well as other nonsense (but there’s a tag for IF entries, so you should be able to filter that out). I’m a philosophy professor at the University of Vermont, so my interests may tend more toward the theoretical side of things.

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Hi Matt! Welcome to the forum!

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Hey everyone. I sadly just discovered this “introducing ourselves” thread.

My name is Travis, and I’m a writer living in Los Angeles. No, I’m not famous nor am I the guy who created Mad Men (that’s Matt Weiner… is it the same Matt Weiner on this board? Who can say?).

I’ve been following the IF community since 1997. I had just moved to LA and learned that the Infocom Masterpieces disc was on sale for $20. There was only one copy available at an EB Games and I hopped on the highway at night to go get it. Being new to the city I ended up getting totally lost. But - after making it back four hours later - I was able to dive in to some great old text adventures. The competition games on the disk lead me to learn about the IF community, which lead me to failing a writing class because I couldn’t stop playing Graham Nelson’s Jigsaw. I’m a sucker for time travel and that one grabbed me.

I’ve not written a game, but I toy with the idea. I’ve dabbled in TADS and Inform 6 and now Inform 7. But being self-employed and a father, time isn’t abundant. Lately I’ve decided to get a bit more active in the community. Since it’s been going strong for the 13 years I’ve been following it - I figure it’s going to be around a while. And the events surrounding PAX East and Get Lamp have been pretty inspiring.

I’ve always been fascinated by the possibilities of the medium, and there have been moments in IF games that have hit me in a way that almost no other medium ever has. So I look forward to talking about IF, playing IF, maybe even writing a little - and just doing what is we all do.

Anyway - that’s my story.

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So, I guess this is where all the cool kids hang out these days?

–Aaron Reed

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Well, there’s only so many troll-jacked posts on RAIF you can read before running for the hills.

Which at the moment, makes this The IF Hills.

(which incidentally would be the worst rated MTV reality series of all time…)

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I can!

(whistles tunelessly)

(twiddles thumbs)

(looks innocent)

…OK, no I’m not, though I understand that that guy did major in philosophy among other things.