Videogame Generations:
I recently started a podcast with my daughter, where we discuss all manner of
videogames. Our focus is on console games (Nintendo, PlayStation, XBox), but
we sometimes talk about interactive fiction, BBS games, old shareware, mobile
games, and more. It's new, and we need to build up our subscriber base. We
hope to keep it going, every week, for many years to come.
You can find the podcast on
iTunes
and Stitcher,
among other places. Some browsers let you subscribe directly to a podcast by using our
feed.
Or just head over to
Videogame Generations
for the latest episodes and show notes.
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Tales of the Traveling Swordsman:
Something from two and a half years ago is hardly news, but I hadn't
posted it here yet. My text adventure game --
TTS
for short -- took 4th place (out of 43 entries) in the 2006 Interactive Fiction
Competition.
This is a free game (requiring the
Hugo
interepreter -- available for many operating systems, including Linux and
Macintosh). Although of a different tone than
Distress,
TTS was even more well-received and has received higher marks at
the IFDB.
If you're interested in Interactive Fiction, both past and present, you
have to check out the Interactive Fiction Communtiy
Forum. You'll find chatter
about new and older games, competitions, and even assistance if you're
trying to write your own in an IF language like Hugo, TADS, or Inform.
Prowler Productions - The Future:
We've been... well... idle for a long time. No projects are in the works,
although a couple were started. I took our CGI scripts (ProwlerPoll
and JabberChat) offline, since we were seeing more piracy (i.e., people
stripping off our copyright notice without paying for a license) than
registrations. I wrote these text adventures as personal projects, and
that's about all.
Lunatix Online
is still online, but the player base has shrunk to a very close-knit
community of mostly long-time players.
StarLock is still up (and
as unfinished as before), although it may be phased out and taken offline
when it becomes clear nobody at all is playing.
We always were a very small company -- more hobby than business -- and
I guess real life has caught up. Anna moved years ago (making project
coordination difficult), and I'm now married with three kids. Inspiration
and motivation just aren't forthcoming these days.
Then there's the game market, and the current economy. With AJAX and
technologies not widely in use when Lunatix Online and StarLock were
created, another browser-based effort could be pretty slick now.
Browser-based games are now a dime-a-dozen, though, and most are free
with a certain kind of "strategy" gameplay that really appeals to folks.
For all the effort put into a new BBG, it still might be no more than
a blip on the gaming radar.
And then there's the general twisting of the term "browser-based game,"
where Flash and Java and Silverlight are called "BBG" even though they're
nothing of the sort (i.e., they are web-based, but they are
NOT html, which is the definition of browser-based). My
day job has me programming in C# and ASP.Net. I have 22 years of programming
experience in general. I could probably move on to the next thing --
maybe single-player real-time 3D games for Windows (i.e., games people
may actually play) -- but time and motivation continue to be lacking.
So the future is... what? I don't know. Maybe more hobby projects, such
as these Hugo-based
text adventures. Maybe
something else. Maybe nothing at all for a long time.
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Distress:
The text adventure
Distress
took 4th place (out of 36 entries) in the 2005 Interactive Fiction
Competition.
This is a free game (requiring the
Hugo
interepreter -- available for many operating systems, including Linux and
Macintosh), and it's pretty short (about two hours -- maybe a little less).
If you like interactive fiction, check it out! Like
Trading Punches,
it's more a personal project than a Prowler Productions project.
The Wall Street Journal Online ran
this
article about IF and the competition. My interview was a lot longer
than the single comment used in the article (and yeah, I play console games,
and I know what a pause button is), but it's a good read nonetheless.
Prowler Home Page:
On a different note, this page layout has become very outdated. I'm
thinking of something with a flatter white background, and dark text.
May be easier on the eyes. Well, I'll see about that eventually.
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Trading Punches:
Although it's a personal project of mine (not really a Prowler Productions game),
Trading Punches
is an Interactive Fiction game (you might call it a “text adventure”) written
in the Hugo
authoring system. It ranked 10th out of 36 entries in the 2004 Interactive
Fiction Competition (full
results can be seen here).
In my not-so-humble opinion, it's really underrated, with a great story,
vivid and verbose writing, and a really cool setting. Try it out. It's
free, and the Hugo interpreter
is available for a wide range of platforms (including Linux and Macintosh). You
can read more about my IF (Interactive Fiction) projects at the
Sidney Merk home page. If the
pseuodonym seems a bit weird, try it as an anagram.
Although I'm unaware of any new reviews based on the updated version (1.8),
these are a few of the more favorable reviews for the 1.6 competition
version:
#1 |
#2 |
#3 |
#4
StarLock Has Opened:
Although the game isn't finished -- and likely won't be -- StarLock is
now open for play at starlock.com.
You can read more about the game, and about the decision to open it for free
play at the StarLock Home Page.
Because we are not charging for play (after all, it isn't complete), I can
make no guarantees as to how long it will remain online. If it becomes
burdened with too many disruptive players, too many problems, too much of a
load to be supported by Lunatix Online,
it might be removed. For now, enjoy!
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