Getting Started

Author:  Jess Knoch

Introduction

Hi all, and welcome!  Okay, so there are plenty of other "getting started with IF" guides out there on the web, but you're looking at mine on my website and I thought I ought to provide a little guidance.  So, here's the scoop: if you're not sure, IF stands for Interactive Fiction, which is a genre of computer games consisting of only text.  The game tells you where you are and what you can see, and you tell it what you want to do by typing a "command" like GO NORTH.  You may or may not remember games like this from the mid-1980s, such as Zork, Bureaucracy, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos, to name a few from one of the main IF companies of the day, Infocom (click for a site dedicated to Infocom and its games).  These games were also called "text adventures" for a while, and still are today at times.

Anywho, back to today.  There is a small community of people, connected by the Internet, who play and write (!) these games today.  The companies that made the games went out of business, or were bought and turned into something else, so today, people interested in IF play and write it as a hobby.  A lot has changed in the past decade or two, as players come to expect more sophisticated parsers (that's the part of the game program that figures out what you typed in), NPCs (non-player characters; the folks you meet in the game world), puzzles (usually there are obstacles to overcome, known as "puzzles" in the IF world), and game environments. 

More Background Info

There's quite a bit of information out there on the web; some of it is hard to find and some of it is out of date, but a lot of it is good stuff.  You may want to take a look through some of these sites for more information: first off, a page with basic questions and answers, with links to a bunch of other pages.  It's known as the IFAQ.  Some nice general instructions for playing IF can be found here, at Adam Cadre's site.  Stephen Granade introduces IF and even walks you through part of the game Glowgrass in this article on BrassLantern.org.  And if you really feel like delving deep into websites, there's a great index of everyone's IF sites called the Parsifal: pick one at random if you're feeling adventurous.

Playing IF Online

Now, let's get started.  You want to try this out and play some of these games, but how?  One of the easiest ways to try it out is to play a game online, although there aren't a lot of "beginner" games available.  One website, ifiction.org, has lots of games available to play online, including a section of XYZZY Award winners.  (What are XYZZY Awards you ask?  Every year the community votes in categories like "Best Story," "Best Puzzles," "Best Setting," "Best Use of Medium," etc, and these are known as the XYZZY awards -- the winners are often the best games of the year!)  So: if you'd like to just browse www.ifiction.org, feel free, but if you'd like a little more guidance here's what I'd recommend.

• 9:05: on the author Adam Cadre's site, not ifiction.org (he says it's buggy -- also, it requires Java).  9:05 is very different from most other works of IF, but it's really easy to tell what you're supposed to do next.  This way, the only thing you have to worry about (as a newcomer to IF) is figuring out how to tell the game what you want to do.  Try whatever comes to mind: stand, sit, take <item>, and remember to move around with directions like east (or "e").  Read the author's general instructions for playing IF.

• For A Change: click the title to go straight to the game-playing page.  This is a great game, designed to be playable in two hours, with a weird, beautiful feel.  It's not the easiest as far as puzzles, but there are some hints available in the game (type HINT).  It'll give you a feel for how to play IF, anyway.

• Anchorhead: click to play.  This is a fantastic, moody game, set in a dark, rainy, and isolated town.  It's got a good "classic" adventure game feel to it, but with a great sense of character and setting mixed in.  Kinda spooky at times.  I recommend playing it late at night, preferably with the lights out.  Difficult, but good, and longer than most.  You might like this nice walkthrough, which explains what you need to accomplish, or this step-by-step solution.

• XYZZY Award Winners: click to see the index.  Browse through and pick something that sounds interesting: Best Game, Best Use of Medium, whatever floats your boat.

The next thing to do is download some games to play on your own computer.

Setting Up to Play IF on Your Computer

Most games are in a "platform-independent" format, meaning that the author of the game doesn't have to take his audience's computer into account when writing a game (i.e., will they play this on a Mac, or with Windows, or on a Palm Pilot).  Instead, there exist programs called "interpreters," which *are* platform- specific, which display the game for you to play.  Think of this like VCRs and tapes.  The videocassette doesn't care what kind of TV you'll watch it on; it relies on the VCR to do the work of interpreting the tape for display on the TV.

The VCR analogy is good for another reason, if, that is, you remember back when there was more than one format for videocassettes.  Today, people mostly use the VHS format, but once there was another format called Beta (the tapes were smaller).  There were, therefore, two different kinds of VCRs, and only Beta VCRs could play Beta tapes, and the same with VHS. 

Where am I going with this?  Hang on.  There are two main formats for IF games, and two main types of interpreters: Inform and TADS.  (Links go to the websites for the two formats, or "languages.")  There are other formats, with their own interpreters, but these two are the main ones.  So, to play these games on your computer, you'll need an Inform interpreter and a TADS interpreter.  These can be found on the IF Archive.  I'll link to a mirror site since downloading from the original can be quite time-consuming. 

Anyway, which version of the interpreter to get will depend on your system, but here's a quick guide for Windows users (I've used the following on Windows ME, 2000, and XP, but they are supposed to work on 95/98 as well):

• Inform interpreters: Frotz2002 is the newest (zipped file).  I had a bit of trouble saving and restoring with this interpreter ("terp"), but since then there has been an upgrade, so who knows.  If you have trouble, you can always get WinFrotz.

• TADS interpreters: Get this one.  TADS comes in many flavors (TADS2, TADS3, and HTMLTADS, which lets authors add working HTML to their games), but this interpreter will take care of them all.  I recommend unzipping to a specific TADS folder, as there are a number of files involved.

So, download the files and install (unzip, run the exe, whatever).  I use a separate folder called "Terps" under my "IF" folder for these; your mileage may vary (YMMV).  It will be handy to know where the .exe files are, in case you have trouble setting up file assocations (like I did with Frotz2002).  At the top of the guide, I mentioned that this is for the "computer-literate," that includes knowing how to download and install programs.  There is actually a very detailed, step-by-step guide for getting these terps working on your system, should you be interested. 

Now you've got the interpreters.  You're ready to get some games and have at them!  (I have a separate folder called "Games," and on some of my systems I have it further divided into "TADS Games" and "Inform Games.")  It is a fact that IF has a learning curve: the more you play, the better you will become at solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles.  Therefore, at the very outset you will want to play some easier and more forgiving games.

IF Games for Beginners

First, some good TADS games for beginners (you can right-click and select "Save Target As" to download):

• Not Much Time -- Easy puzzles, fun story, funny objects, a good one to start with.  Designed to be played in two hours or less.  A walkthrough is available, in case you need it.

• Glowgrass -- Slightly more difficult puzzles, also short (two hours or less).  Very nice setting.  I think a walkthrough is available, but I don't know where I found one when I was playing it.  But Stephen Granade uses it as his example in the How to Play a Text Adventure series, which begins here.

• Firebird -- Although some reviewers say this has "easy puzzles," it definitely has some tricky spots.  There are some fun things to figure out on your own, but feel free to get the walkthrough from the archive.

• The One That Got Away -- A real fish story.  Fun, not too long, medium-easy puzzles.  There's a walkthrough.

• Babel -- More difficult puzzles, and a longer game, but well worth it.  This one won for Best Story the year it came out.  There are hints if you just need a nudge, or a walkthrough if you're desparate.  Take your time with it, though.

And some good Inform games to start with (right-click, etc):

• A Bear's Night Out -- Good hint system, easy to medium puzzles.  I'd feel free to use the walkthrough when needed (after checking the hints provided in the game).

• Photopia -- Puzzle-lite, story-heavy; this is a great example of what can be done with IF.  Highly recommended.  There's also a walkthrough.

• The Wedding -- Mostly medium puzzles, lots of characters.  This is a fun one, but I'd have a walkthrough handy in case you get stuck.  There are also ways of getting hints from within the game.

• Tookie's Song -- (Disclaimer: I wrote this one.)  Mostly easy to medium puzzles, great and very thorough hint system for the trickier ones.  Fun to play.  There's also a walkthrough if you need it.

How to find good games to play after this?  I highly recommend looking through Baf's Guide to the IF Archive.  You can easily search by author, genre, rating, or any number of other things and find games that you like.  A few "modern classics" you might want to try are:

• Worlds Apart, by Suzanne Britton (TADS) -- A terrific, wonderful story and game of discovery and understanding.  This has a great sci-fi/ fantasy feel to it, and even though the game has hints built in, I'd recommend a walkthrough for some of the optional puzzles.

• Curses!, by Graham Nelson (Inform) -- A very long and difficult adventure by the author of the Inform language himself.  Get yourself a walkthrough, use it sparingly when necessary, and this game will last you a long time.  "Classic" feel, good setting.

What Next?  Newsgroups

To become more involved in the IF community, you may wish to follow (i.e., read up or "subscribe to") one or both of the IF newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction, for writers of games (lots of discussions about theory goes on here too), and rec.games.int-fiction, for players of games (good place to get hints, hear about new stuff, or just hear opinions about the games).  What follows is a quick guide for using Outlook Express to read newsgroups, mostly for the benefit of Jen, who still hasn't started reading the newsgroups.

Open up Outlook Express (I'm looking at version 5.5, but I believe 6 is almost identical).  If you are using the default layout, you'll have a "Folders" section in the upper left hand part of the main window.  If you don't have this, you can put it back by going to View -> Layout... and make sure "Folder List" is checked.  Anyway, that's just for viewing purposes.

To actually add the newsgroups, you'll need to know your news server thingie (this is a technical term).  It's often related to the mail thingies: for instance, when I dial up with Mindspring, my incoming mail server is pop.mindspring.com, and the outgoing is smtp.mindspring.com.  My news server thingie is nntp.mindspring.com.  So, you might assume the beginning is nntp and see if that works.  If you can find out this piece of info for sure, you'll be all set.

Anyway, to actually add it, go to Tools -> Accounts... and click on the News tab.  I'm assuming that you have no news servers configured already; if the main box is blank, that is the case.  So, click on "Add" on the right hand side of the window, and choose "News."  Now you should have a nice Wizard open!  Isn't this fun?

Enter the name you want to appear on the newsgroup when you post.  I recommend using your real name.  Next, enter the e-mail address you want to appear.  I recommend NOT using your real e-mail address, as the newsgroups can be scanned by certain spamming software.  A good tip is to put "INVALID" or "SPAMBLOCK" in part of your email address, and then as part of every message you post, type "remove SPAMBLOCK from my address to e-mail me" or something like that. 

Next is where you put your news server thingie.  Like I said, mine is nntp.mindspring.com.  Try something like that.  If you would like to find out your mail server thingies, you can open up Tools -> Accounts... and click the Mail tab, select either your incoming or outgoing mail, click Properties, and go to the Server tab to see what the servers are.  Then remove the front part and make it nntp. instead, and see if that works.

Finish it up, close the box, and you should be prompted to look for newsgroups to subscribe to.  Heh, I just went through my own instructions and got an error: Outlook Express was unable to find a list of newsgroups available on that server.  I broke it.  Oh, I didn't check the box that says "My connection requires me to log on."  If yours is broken, you may need to check that box.  It's probably the same ID/password as logging on to your ISP.

Trouble-shooting: you can go back to the properties by choosing Tool -> Accounts..., then the News tab, selecting your new server, and clicking Properties.  You should also have the little news icon in your folder hierarchy under the Folder List window I was talking about earlier.  You can right-click on that and click Properties as a shortcut.  Also, left-clicking on it will take you to a management screen where you can click the Newsgroups button (near the top) to search for newsgroups to add. 

The first time you do this, you'll download the names of all the different newsgroups.  It takes a minute but it's no sweat.  Then, I recommend typing int-fiction, using that, and adding the two newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction (to add, select the group, then click "Subscribe").  Then click "Okay."  The groups should appear in the Folder List.  You can then click on one to get the current set of messages, browse, read, post, and reply to your heart's content.  I highly recommend reading the following (slightly outdated, but still applicable) Netiquette guide, including a very good section on posting to newsgroups: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html.

Searching for old posts can be fruitful, too.  I recommend going to groups.google.com and typing in whatever text you're looking for, along with "int-fiction" to be sure you get the right group.  For instance, if you'd like to see all the reviews from this year's comp, you might type "int-fiction comp reviews 02" or variations on that.

Anything Else I Should Know?

Yes, lots.  But we're out of time!  There is a ton of other stuff on the web: reviews of games (like on Strange Breezes!), help for game authors, lots of other games and walkthroughs, and the whole IF MUD thing.  Once I get that figured out I may add a cheat sheet for how to get started with that, much like I have done with the newsgroup thing, but only time will tell!

Last updated: 22 Dec, 2002.

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