Mechanical Worlds

It’s a bit hard to explain exactly what I’m looking for (most IF have detailed worlds after all!), I’d like to see some parser games that have worlds that just feel alive, simulationist could be the term, you know as you walk around you just see things happen that you aren’t necessarily causing, weather systems, NPCs going about, that sort of thing.

Basically just a game where you can see mechanics just as much as you can see story, that stuff really interests me.

Sorry if this is a bit vague, best way I know to word it! Do give suggestions if you think it matches!

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Perhaps my ‘Breakfast in the Dolomites’ might be of interest to you.
The girl who accompanies you performs several actions to guide you in what you have to do, if you go into the bathroom another girl enters and acts autonomously…

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One great example of this is the main area of Blue Lacuna. Well known for its high environmental feel, with weather going on, and the main NPC doing his own thing, and the creatures passing through. You won’t immediately find it but it’s pretty soon in.

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I think Ryan Veeder’s Authentic Fly Fishing is very simulation like. It has online auto-save and some things depend on which day you play. So if you play today, you might meet something very different if you play tomorrow.

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It’s a long time since I played it, but I remember Dan Shiovitz’s Bad Machine being like this.

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I think J Robinson Wheeler’s Four In One might count here. The NPCs are really independent.

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While most players tend to find it inaccessible these days, Deadline is almost certainly the first of this kind… at least at its level of complexity and clockwork.

One of my favorite games, for all its unfriendliness. I’ve written a lot about it.

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Didn’t some 80’s games try (try being the keyword here) to achieve this in terms of independent NPCs, such as The Hobbit and Knight Orc?

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Deadline (1982) precedes them both! & is probably more sophisticated than The Hobbit. But I haven’t studied it to the degree I have Deadline. There are lots of NPCs moving around in The Hobbit for sure.

I haven’t tried Knight Orc.

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