"Poor Zefron's Almanac: An interactive cross-genre romp" is a short and silly work of interactive fiction, which I entered in the Third Annual IF Competition. It placed seventh out of 35 entries, and the reviews have been generally favorable (though it is pretty hard). So, if you're a fan of any of the following:
then there's something for you to love in "Poor Zefron's Almanac"!
"Poor Zefron's Almanac" is written in TADS, the Text Adventure Development System (developed by Michael J. Roberts). To play the game, you need:
or
or
If you're interested in learning TADS, feel free to look at or borrow from the source code to "Poor Zefron's Almanac". The source code is rather dated: I'm pleased to say that development on TADS has continued, and it has sort of left my old code in the dust.
Interactive fiction, aka text adventures, are stories in which the reader chooses the actions of one or more characters. It is an artform that combines linear fiction with computer games. Interactive fiction began with Crowther and Woods' Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the first computer games ever, and reached its peak in the 1980's during the golden age of Infocom, when people actually paid good money for such things. Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in interactive fiction, largely as a result of the effort of certain contributors to rec.arts.int-fiction on USENET. Other web sites devoted to interactive fiction can be found here on my links page.