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xyzzysqrlEmily Short is a great treasure in games-writing and in writing games, and if interactive fiction was still something Average People did, she would be mentioned in the same breath as Infocom for her achievements in parser-based fiction and puzzlework.
Counterfeit Monkey is the story of a international spy investigating a new advance in linguistic technology. There are a few Big Interesting Things about this game, and one of them is a spoiler you learn moments after the title screen. The first, however, is your starting toolkit: You come equipped with a letter removing device. It is all the tool you need, since you're very good at using it.
When I say letter-removing device, I mean a device that actively modifies a word. Take a card, for example. Remove the d, you have a car. Take an x from 'box' and you have a handy combat staff. And so on. Depending on the quality of the starting material you'll get better results.
That's your STARTING tool. By the end of the game you have an array of them accessible and a world of interesting new possibilities is open to you.
It is here I will pause and offer a link to the game: here. You'll want to download glulxe to run it with. Don't be scared of the name, it's programmerese.
Now, the second thing:
When I say you're an international spy, I mean half of you is. As part of your disguise and as part of a gambit to help get him out of the country, you have an assistant who's been fused with you. The two of you, Alex and Andra, are one person: Alexandra. Alex is the fore-voice, he narrates your surroundings and gives you his "I've lived in this area for years" insight into the countryside. You, Andra, are the parser-voice, the body-driving motivating force. Your typed commands are what happens.
I found this fascinating. There is of course some conflict, but it's handled better than I'd imagined.
I don't play many games like this anymore, not out of disinterest but because I have so many bought, paid-for games that I feel awkward detouring into free stuff. Like, if I start counting "games people have released onto the internet" as part of my backlog, I am going to think for a minute about what I have left to play and then I am going to die screaming and my head will explode.
This was worth the detour, though.
Counterfeit Monkey is the story of a international spy investigating a new advance in linguistic technology. There are a few Big Interesting Things about this game, and one of them is a spoiler you learn moments after the title screen. The first, however, is your starting toolkit: You come equipped with a letter removing device. It is all the tool you need, since you're very good at using it.
When I say letter-removing device, I mean a device that actively modifies a word. Take a card, for example. Remove the d, you have a car. Take an x from 'box' and you have a handy combat staff. And so on. Depending on the quality of the starting material you'll get better results.
That's your STARTING tool. By the end of the game you have an array of them accessible and a world of interesting new possibilities is open to you.
It is here I will pause and offer a link to the game: here. You'll want to download glulxe to run it with. Don't be scared of the name, it's programmerese.
Now, the second thing:
When I say you're an international spy, I mean half of you is. As part of your disguise and as part of a gambit to help get him out of the country, you have an assistant who's been fused with you. The two of you, Alex and Andra, are one person: Alexandra. Alex is the fore-voice, he narrates your surroundings and gives you his "I've lived in this area for years" insight into the countryside. You, Andra, are the parser-voice, the body-driving motivating force. Your typed commands are what happens.
I found this fascinating. There is of course some conflict, but it's handled better than I'd imagined.
I don't play many games like this anymore, not out of disinterest but because I have so many bought, paid-for games that I feel awkward detouring into free stuff. Like, if I start counting "games people have released onto the internet" as part of my backlog, I am going to think for a minute about what I have left to play and then I am going to die screaming and my head will explode.
This was worth the detour, though.
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no subject
Date: 2015-08-20 05:56 pm (UTC)That actually does sound rather nifty. I've duly downloaded its BLORB and the Zoom interpreter.
I hesitate to think of the size of your Steam/Humble Bundle cache..
no subject
Date: 2015-08-22 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-25 06:56 pm (UTC)She gave a keynote talk at a conference Ada went to. She is pretty very cool.
She didn't talk about this game, but it sounds cool too!
no subject
Date: 2015-08-25 08:05 pm (UTC)Yeah she does a lot of stuff involving interactive storytelling and whatnot. I'm not surprised she gave a keynote and now I'm curious about what it WAS about.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-26 01:05 am (UTC)