Walker & Silhouette is now available from the IF Archive. This is probably the most stable of all the download links available, so if you have (or are thinking of) linking to the zip directly, please use:

http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/WalkerSilhouette.zip

Or for a random mirror:

http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/WalkerSilhouette.zip

Update-me-do

I've slipped version 9 of Walker & Silhouette into the existing download links. This fixes a couple of small glitches you may have seen if you tried certain standard IF actions, and also leaves out the superfluous Picasa.ini files that got swept up in the last zip.

Unless I seriously botched something up with this update, this'll be the last version of the game. I'll upload it to the IF Archive over the weekend (although it may be some time before they process it, I'd imagine, especially over Christmas).

What's next?

Right, I'm going to wait until next weekend, then upload a version of Walker & Silhouette that fixes any problems that have cropped up. I'll upload it to the IF Archive too, which should provide a more stable download link than the present Googlepages one...

Walker & Silhouette - Download

Misfits in a strange city; crime fighters grappling with the weirdest mysteries; rivals who become partners until the last:


Walker & Silhouette
A keyword only adventure.

Team up with a dashing detective and an iconoclastic flapper to solve absurd and unfathomable crimes in this interactive story - where you control the action just by typing or clicking highlighted words in the text.

Walker & Silhouette uses a similar keyword system to Blue Lacuna, and experiments with applying it to various forms of interaction: talk, investigate, solve puzzles and fight villains... using only single word commands.

--DOWNLOAD--

-Zipped Deluxe Package [Mirror ] [Mirror 2] [Randomised mirror]
-Contains: Windows version; story file for Linux and Mac interpreters; quick-start instructions.


--Release History--

Version 8: first release (update: amended the HTML docs for Linux).
Version 9: update that fixes two non-serious glitches.

Stick a fork in it...

Okay, just gonna wait for any last minute bug reports and then I'm finally calling it quits on this thing. Barring any serious calamities, release day is Wednesday.

Squeezing the last few bugs out this thing.  Check back next Sunday for another update...

Almost there...

I've finished the 'meta' aspects of the game that I still had to add - the hints, the manual, fleshing out the scoring system a little. I just want to get in a final round of testing and proof-reading to check I haven't broken anything, and then it's release time...

Ça va bien.

I must say, it's been nice to be able to step away from the project for a while - just working on bug fixes, spelling errors etc. Hearteningly, the scene I thought was the game's weakest has passed pretty much unremarked, and it's the scene that I had the most trouble working on that's (perhaps unsurprisingly) now become Public Enemy #1.

The biggest thing left on my list is adding the hint system. As far as I'm concerned hints are a non-negotiable necessity in a game of this type, but that doesn't mean I don't hate implementing them. It's all the pain of checking flags and states - and none of the fulfilment of world building and characterisation.

Learn it up, player.

Here's a peek at the HTML manual I'm planning on including with the thing.

Walker & Silhouette

Testing phase... begin!

First tester... selected!

Tester name: Pacian!

Get to it, you lazy dog! Oh, wait...

Coming Soon

My next game is nominally complete. Don't get too excited: there's still a lot of work I want to do before I release it - ranging from embellishments to bug fixes, possibly making significant changes to one whole section - and ultimately beta testing the thing.

(I also need to settle on a title.)

IFComp... Away!

The IFComp games are available for download. I'm not going to cover them here, at least not until the competition is over.

Getting There

Making stuff is hard. But it's still gonna get made.

Extra! Extra!

Read all about it! Absolutely nothing to read about! Extra! Extra!

The Interactive Fiction scene has gone quiet in the run-up to IFComp, and there's a dearth of new text and text-ish games, although three demos are being released for Introcomp.

I've also taken a bit of a holiday from my work in progress / intensive planathon of the remaining sections, and my hopes of releasing it before IFComp have breathed a raspy death rattle. The IFComp results typically seem to come out in mid November, so I might try and release the game on my birthday (the 21st), or just before Christmas.

Silent Conversation

Silent Convseration
By: Gregory Weir
Format: Browser
Play it|Blog Post

Gregory Weir's latest of his monthly games is a platformer that takes place within the texts of various public domain works. It's arguably not as fun as just sitting down with the books themselves, but Weir conjures some truly striking landscapes and effects out of their words.

Cacophony

Cacophony
By: Owen Parish
Format: Z-Code
@IFDB|@IFWiki

Cacophony is a surreal, well written adventure that seems to empasise the puzzley more than the literary.

Work In Progress: Yuck

I'm working through the parts of the game in the order players will see them. I've completed most of the fourth one (of seven in total).

Town; Afternoon in the House of Secrets

Town and Afternoon in the House of Secrets
By: Anna Anthropy
Format: Browser

These two games are simple, succinct, and controlled entirely by clicking hyperlinks in the text. They're notable to me in particular because of how similar they are to what I'm attempting to do with my current work in progress, and they also happen to be fun, well written adventures to boot.

Of the two games, Town presents less of a challenge, but also, I think, makes better use of the format.

The King of Shreds and Patches

The King of Shreds and Patches
By: Jimmy Maher
Format: Glulx
Homepage|@IFDB|@IFWiki

The result of over two years development, The King of Shreds and Patches is a Lovecraftian mystery set in a carefully researched depiction of Elizabethan London.

The game includes a graphical map, a hint system, and a (perhaps incongruously chatty) tutorial mode for those new to Interactive Fiction.

Work In Progress

So I'm working on a short, keyword-driven IF game following the adventures of a pair of crime fighters in a retro-futuristic, 1910s/20s styled city. I've planned seven separate locations, each with their own little puzzle, conversation or event, and so far the first two are pretty much done.

This has been a good two or three months in the planning, but hopefully implementation will be finished in a month or two.

My Uncle George

My Uncle George
By: Filipe Salgado
Format: Z-Code
Homepage|@IFDB

My Uncle George is a short, deeply implemented game with a strong narrative voice. It's not perfect - there are a few typos and the player seems to take more of a reactive than active role in events - but it's short and to the point, and it's relatively rare to see an IF game with such a strongly characterised PC.

IF Progressive One

IF Progressive One
By: The IF Progressive Team
Format: Z-Code
Homepage|@IFDB|@IFWiki

This is a rather strange little thing. I'm all in favour of unusual titles, but such a dry moniker seems like a short, unfair route to obscurity. IF Progressive One is the result of 'an experimental IF game project in collaborative authorship' - possibly inspired by Alabaster. Eight different authors worked on the game, each subsequent author being allowed full access to all the preceding segments.

Where Alabaster pulled off the impossible feat of having a very strong, unified voice, despite its collaborative authorship, this game goes quite in the opposite direction. The first segment is a richly described, puzzle-free and wonderfully characterful piece of IF. The second... Well, it begins like this:


Suddenly there are almost no descriptions, and the player is still expected to... well, there's no obvious direction or motivation for this segment either, or hints (so this is where my time with the game came to an end). Still, a game that can change from completely fiction focused to a completely old-school puzzler at the drop of a hat suggests that those interested in collaborative IF might find this to be an experiment with very interesting results.

SPAG #55

SPAG - the Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games - is a quarterly e-zine featuring reviews and articles on Interactive Fiction. Issue 55 has just been released here.

I'm not just plugging it because it features a glowing review of Dead Like Ants.

Welcome

Coming soon to an Internet near you.