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Comment by tdicola | Hacker News Reader

Folks interested in interactive fiction (aka text adventures, but that name implies something a little different these days) should definitely check out the annual interactive fiction contest: http://www.ifcomp.org/ The winners are always top notch games, and the format is perfect as most games are built to be completed in an hour or two and have a full hint/walkthrough to help you if you get stuck. Modern IF games rely much less on tricks and traps like the classic Infocom games of days past, so they're much more friendly and entertaining to play.

One of my favorite authors is Ryan Veeder, his games remind me of Infocom's classics but aren't nearly as frustrating to play: http://www.rcveeder.net/blog/interactive-fiction/ Check out Taco Fiction for a great example (and IF comp winner!).

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As somebody who isn't much into gaming, let alone IF, the game that really drove home the point that IF can be awesome is Violet. You can play it online here: http://pr-if.org/play/violet/

(Of course, as is usual with fiction and culture in general, what we enjoy always reflects on ourselves. There is delicious irony in my having played Violet as a distraction during my own PhD...)

For those new to IF, I like to recommend Photopia [1] as a second game. It's less traditional in format, but it's a great example of the kind of storytelling that the medium can support. Shrapnel [2] is another game somewhat along these lines, but it takes things in a different direction.

Once you know your way around the command parser, I suggest Anchorhead [3]--especially if you're a Lovecraft fan--for the richness of the atmosphere it creates. Slouching Towards Bedlam [4] is another good entry in the mystery/horror genre, featuring steampunk themes.

More games, plus ratings, collections, and reviews, can be found on IFDB [5].

EDIT: The Act of Misdirection [6] deserves a mention, too. Another horror(-ish?) game, and the one that got me hooked on IF after Zork and Adventure.

[1] http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html

[2] http://iplayif.com/?story=http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-arc...

[3] http://pr-if.org/play/anchorhead/

[4] http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=032krqe6bjn5au78

[5] http://ifdb.tads.org/

[6] http://iplayif.com/?story=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ifarchive.org%2Fi...

A wholehearted +1 for both Phototopia and Anchorhead - these are both excellent examples of IF. It should be noted that Photopia is much easier and shorter, being more of a slightly interactive short story (but what a story!) Anchorhead is much tougher to play through, though very rewarding.

Aaron Reed and Emily Short are also both worth checking out also, two of my favorites. Blue Lacuna and Sand-dancer are my favorites from Reed (http://aaronareed.net/), and honestly everything from Short (https://emshort.wordpress.com/my-work/) is good, but Alabaster and Galatea are both particularly striking.

Anyone interested in this topic should definitely be following Emily Short's blog. She gives good coverage to the field as a whole, not just her own games.

I love Galatea, it's such a classic. They say the author's first work includes seeds for all later works, and I think it is true in this case.

Michael Gentry's "Anchorhead" is my favourite game of all time, of all genres (and I used to devote a lot of time to gaming back in high school).

Never met anyone else who played this game. It's amazing.

To sell it a little for the uninitiated: You inherit a distant, eccentric relative's old property in a sleepy, foggy seaside Maine town, and are thrust into a Lovecraftian murder mystery. Awesome.

And whatever happens always keep your umbrella.

Until I can find my old Infocom Masterpieces CD, which free-to-play IF should I use to introduce my 10-yr-old son to the genre?

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