Adventure Game News for 05 Jul 06

I go away for a week and a half and the news just stacks up. Let's dive in with the new update to Inform 7. Version 3R85 fixes a number of bugs. For OS X, there's now a way to install extensions directly from the file menu. For Windows, you can now skip the splash screen and keep your indexes from being cleaned up through two registry hacks. These changes and more are listed in the change log.

As the I7 beta has continued, authors have written a number of extensions, most of which are available from the I7 webpage. Among the new and updated extensions are:

• Atmospheric Effects, Mikael Segercrantz's extension which adds support for messages like "The wind whistles past you", is at version 4.
• Instead of Going, also by Mikael Segercrantz, is "intended for replacing the standard, and somewhat error-prone, Instead of going north and Instead of going nowhere methodology" for blocking exits.
• Custom Library Messages and Default Messages, David Fisher's extension for replacing the library's built-in messages, are at version 5 and 2, respectively.
• Reactable Quips, by Michael Martin, is now at version 2. The extension provides a table-based approach to NPC conversation.
• Changed Implicit Action, by Emily Short, fiddles with implicit take actions and the like. It's at version 1.
• Empty Transfer, also by Emily Short, provides an EMPTY action.

Tor Andersson has updated Spatterlight, his OS X application that plays most all modern interactive fiction formats. The big change is that Spatterlight now uses the Git 1.1.0 interpreter for Glulx games, which gives much improved performance. Spatterlight also now meets the Glk 0.7.0 draft specification.

Congratulations to Sam Gordon, whose game Final Selection won the 2006 One Room Game Competition. The full results are:

1. Final Selection by Sam Gordon
2. Lo sforacchiato giallo by Veronica Auretta
3. Il diavolo a Venezia by Lorenzo Carnevale
4. Forma Mentis by Paolo Maroncelli
5. Galeotto fu il canotto (tre modi per buttare l'ancora) by Andrea Rezzonico
6. It's Easter, Peeps by Sara Brookside
7. Lazy Jones e l'ultima crostata by Gabriele Lazzara and Carmelo Paterniti
8. De Reditu by Massimo Corso
9. Frankenstein III by Corvo di Odino

Despite his announcement that he was abandoning work on Gargoyle, the multi-interpreter application that plays most all types of interactive fiction, Tor Andersson has gone ahead and updated it again. The new version performs sub-pixel antialiasing.

SPAC, the Spanish e-zine for interactive fiction has a new issue out, covering Inform 7, ADOM, game reviews, and more.

Issue 9 of the Reviews Exchange, the ADRIFT community newsletter, reviews For Love of Digby, The Potter and the Mould, The Reliques of Tolti-Aph, Damnatio Memoriae, and more.

Issue 9 of Terra d'If, the Italian interactive fiction e-zine, covers the 2006 One Room Game Competition and an overview of IF languages, and has two articles in English: IF Game Design Fundamentals, and an interview with Jason Devlin.

Ben Croshaw, who has written a number of graphic adventure games using the Adventure Game Studio, has released Trilby's Notes. The game is a sequel to 5 Days a Stranger and a prequel to 7 Days a Skeptic, and breaks with Ben's prior number-based naming scheme. The game also uses a text parser. Telling you what the game is about would spoil some of 5 Days a Stranger, so I'll let you click through if you want more information.