Who to be on a Thursday? (Revised)

Thursday, the demon day of the week. A time so bizarre that the world seems to squeeze into nothing and then get expelled like toothpaste from a tube. Oh, Thursday, must you be so vexing, so wild, so unforgiving? Thursday is normally the day that we wind up the Film Bin springs for the weekend recordings, allowing a respite from the other more ghastly endeavours. This week, since three Binners are down with sickness, instead there is time for reflection.

It's amazing how you can forget the things you like and enjoy in the midst of the pressures of doing what you do to get by in the world. As an example, I had completely forgotten how lovely interactive fiction is, although I much prefer the term 'text adventure' to 'interactive fiction'. Bizarrely in recent times, illustrations have begun to be woven in but it somehow seems unnecessary. Words are the wonders of the things. Words! A long time ago, before Sky, before the Internet, text adventures were a fairly common type of computer game entertainment, with probably the leading purveyor being Infocom (now defunct). A stack of dusty Infocom magnetic disks rested in a giant box on my shelves for years before being backed up onto DVD and those games are treasured still. They're innovative, creative, and most of all based entirely on words. I've been replaying 'The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy', but they're many others with evocative names like 'Planetfall', 'Starcross', 'Enchanter', 'Deadline' and 'Plundered Hearts'. Strangely, even though commercial purveyors have been gone for decades, this medium lives on.

The medium of the text adventure lives on via the people at large, and lives on in a large way, thanks to numerous and utterly free designing languages and softwares (Inform 6 and 7  , TADS, and others) . They're not even difficult to use, although having a mind capable of either tantalising prose-fests or elaborate puzzle sagas is the more demanding skill in any case. In principle, anyone can pick up a piece of paper, write some prose, doodle a map and create their own adventure. Then you could enter your game in one of the competitions (IFComp , XYZZY) , stick it in the IF Archive (IFArchive), watch it be listed on online databases  (IFDB , Baf) and get feedback from the world at large. This doesn't just happen in English as the community is strong in Spain and Germany and prevalant in many other countries besides. Thinking about it, it was obvious that it wouldn't go away, as writing never has, in all its simplicity. Please, go out and try out such games, there are wonderful examples out there such as 'Galatea' and 'Savoir-Faire' and 'Spider And Web', all different and all the same. 'Spider And Web' is one of the most non-linear games you could ever play, and 'Galatea' is more of an interactive interview than anything else and bizarrely enjoyable to boot.

It's a fascinating medium. By typing 'east', 'take book', 'read it', 'ask Hannibal about jazz' and many other similar commands a marvelous story can be paced through, or puzzles unravelled. You can also go out of your mind with frustration at the parser not knowing the verb 'corral' or your own favourite pseudonym for the word beret. It's all part of the fun. I'm hoping that one my own magnum opus known as 'Egbert's Surgery' will make it to fruition, if I can somehow more fully integrate the obelisk without undermining the underlying existential angst of red cabbage.

Obviously when there are so many ways to play these games out there, where you can be cooks, wastrels, adventurers, detectives, monsters, superheroes or even a troll, the question that began the post is wrong. In many ways it should be 'Who not to be on a Thursday?'.

O.

PS I've just discovered 'The Baker Street Babes' and their Sherlock Holmes podcast. I think it might be very good indeed. Go Team Sherlock!

PPS So many links this time. Happy one hundredth!

PPPS If you believe in such things, I hope Valentines Day went well for you all.