Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

Apologies for the radio silence — I had some major work things to get to pushing up to the end of the year, and my brain just hasn’t gotten back in gear yet. The Project will continue next year, but a few snapshots of moments from 2023:

We finally finished the murderously hard Ferret, a bit behind schedule — regular posts through January, then with action continued in the comments through February, before we finally pushed through at the end of the month, with a brilliant moment at the end by commentor Sha1tan who realized the last step.

I don’t know if we’ll ever experience anything again quite the same, but how many games take 40 years to write?

I still think the train puzzle near the end is one of the best I’ve ever experienced.

I never did quite figure out how to push Breckenridge Caper to the end. It was fun to see an adventure game written from the angle of a classroom historical simulation, which gathered a much different flavor than anything else from this blog.

I had far more enjoyment of Zork III than I thought I would. I think I had to use hints too many times back when I first played it so it didn’t make as good an impression.

Asylum II also surprised me; the author experimented with the format and came up with something tighter and more playable than the previous iterations, with the jaw-dropping plastic surgery puzzle (which felt creepy every. single. time.)

Secret Kingdom gnaws at me. Lots of games where the final hurdle is missed I feel apathetic about, but I really want to know how to take this one to the end. I’m not sure why. I guess because the somewhat novel handling of “error messages” (which hint as to the correct action) makes it seem “fair” despite the presence of 1982-era softlocks.

On the other end of the spectrum, I am incredibly happy I finished Doomsday Mission, which tried hard to push back and where zero hints or maps existed on the Internet.

The weirdest moment of the whole year (ERASE BRIDGE) courtesy of Kabul Spy.

Just in terms of sheer puzzle joy I think Murdac was my favorite of 2023. You have to take the old-school aspects on their own terms (like the very early softlock with the wall, and the maze) but if you’re willing to cope with those this feels like the work of someone who has actually learned how to design a puzzle, rather than still building an apprenticeship.

I appreciate the raw uniqueness of Apventure to Atlantis. Much more fun to read about than play.

Adventure 200 was the biggest surprise of the year; I expected a generic Adventure clone, but because of one clearly executed idea spread throughout the game it became something much better.

Rick Incrocci, who did the art for Masquerade, was operating on a different plane from everyone else.

Let’s finish with the sheer strangeness of Africa Diamond, which had a “shadow room” map under the regular map which took a wild approach to solve a technical problem.

That’s not everything, or even everything good, but that will do.

Still lots more to come in 2024 past finishing Crime Stopper, like:

• an adventure game for the Bally Astrocade
• two 1982 games written by people who comment on this blog
• Brøderbund’s entry into the adventure market
• more graphics for TRS-80, somehow
• a strange combination adventure/shooter game
• a rare Sierra On-Line oddity most people don’t remember
• at least one game in French and one in Japanese

Happy New Year!