Pause and Maybe Make Some Chances

Interactive fiction can be interpreted in many different ways by different people. Many people look for an end in interactive fiction games and the satisfaction they get from completing it. The interactive Pause is different from your typical interactive fiction games. Maybe Make Some Change is along the lines of you're typical IF piece, but doe present differences. This goes to show how interactive fiction has advanced from the early Infocom games.

Pause is less of an interactive piece but more of a graphical one. The movie pictures almost tell a story, but are jumbled up so its hard to make out exactly what is going on. Its more expressed as a visual poem that is like a scrolling drawing. The beginning of the piece starts off with a different kind of image then when the piece is actually over. Since the piece moves pretty fast it is hard to keep up and see what images or words are present. You kinda have to watch the piece a couple time to see what is being portrayed, which to me it seems like it's trying to get the messages of "things don't also seem as they appear"

Maybe Make Some Changes is an interesting piece written by Aaron Reed. You are an American Solider in the Middle East and you must learn new things. This game contains only a couple scenes that repeat with different words learn. You as the player can revisit the same scene over and over again and see the scene in a different way with the 'things' you learn to do. Maybe Make Some Change includes images, sound, and text commands to help advance the story, but you are limited to the text commands you can do. In the beginning it was said all you know how to so is shoot, but by the end of the game you know how to hug which means you character was developed form the different viewpoints you achieve. 

My interacting with Maybe Make Some Change

Alternative Interactive Fiction

Interactive fiction tells you the beginning of a story, then puts you in charge of the rest. You can decide what your character can do or go. This is the typical kind of interactive fiction, but there are other forms where the reader must actually interact with the piece itself. In these types of interactive fiction, the story has already been created and the reader must just click through to see the ending. Some types of this kind of interactive fiction are, Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge, That Sweet Old Etcetera, and The Last Performance.

            Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge was created as a google map essay and is a funny and easy to follow piece. Having the visual of where each new location makes it easier to visualize where you are rather then the regular IF pieces that is all texted based. This one in particular is non interactive piece with a lot of quirky ideas involved. For example, Moore was on too many drugs to have a real conversation and that he didn’t remember his encounter with Mr. Plimpton except when Moore made a fool of himself. What I think makes this piece stand out is the way the user has to interact with the piece and the visuals you get out of it.

            Sweet Old Etcetera is different then any piece I have seen. It involves clicking through text and listening to the calm music. Figures can be made out of the words and then you started to see a landscaped develop as you move along. I was curious to see what Sweet Old Etcetera was that I find out it was actually a poem.

            Lastly, The Last Performance is probably the weirdest piece I have looked at so far in my experience with interactive fiction. This piece is a steady beat that words dance around the screen to. You can watch the words or you can also click on them as the move around. The one thing I can say about this piece is the horse in the beginning intro makes no sense to me at all.

9:05 Overview

9:05, by Adam Cadre, is a very simply and fast piece of interactive fiction. From my experience of playing this piece you catch on pretty quick and can come to multiple different endings depending on what options you choose in the game. The language in the piece is like most other pieces of interactive fiction.

            The game starts in a bedroom at 9:05 AM and gives you a description of your surroundings. Also, the phone is ringing and your first instinct is to answer the phone. When you answer you read on about how you have overslept and missed a presentation and before you can ask any questions the phone is hung up. So you think part of this game is to get ready and find out where you have to be before you get fired.

            Through out the game you find your keys, wallet, and clean clothes. If you try to leave the house without taking a shower the games tell you “going out in this condition and drawing the inevitable bewildered stares would just be making a bad situation worse”. I thought the bad situation was missing the presentation and then showing up covered in mud would make it worse, but I was far more wrong then that. After getting a shower you can now leave the house. My 1^st route I tried was getting on the freeway and then stopping at Loungnet Technologies. Here I found that to enter the building you have to have an ID card, so opened my wallet and found an ID card that I tried on the door. It worked so I thought I have to be in the right place. Exploring the office, I found a cubicle marked ‘HADLEY’, I thought great I found where I’m supposed to be and I am on the right track. In the cubicle there was a note, a pen, and a form. After reading the note you find that you have to sign the form and give it to Mr. Bowman. I had accomplished that task and went to hand the form to Mr. Bowman and the game ended. According to the decisions I made I was trying to do the job of a man I had murdered. Reading this ending I was so confused and was wondering how that happened and how nothing else gave away that someone was murdered.

            My 2^nd time playing I wanted to stay clear of returning to Loungnet Technologies and tried for another ending. I still answered the phone but started to examine the house further then I did in my last experience playing. I was looking around the bedroom when I decided to look under the bed, and there I found the corpse of the man I murdered. I wanted to get out the house, so I showered and left as soon as I could. In my surprise after avoiding the building and getting on the second freeway I got the response “You merge onto the freeway, crank up the radio, and vanish without a trace”.

            Its obvious that you can have many different endings to this piece depending on the actions you choose, after playing it for sometime I tried to figure out why you committed murder or why you burglarized this mans house. This game was probably one of the most interesting games I have encountered even though it was very short. I can say that I wish Adam Cadre would’ve made it a little longer.

9:05 1^st Beginning

9:05 1^st Ending

9:05 2^nd time Begging and End

Moonmist Overview

            Moonmist is about a young detective who is investigating the house of ‘Tamara’ in Tresyllian Castle. Your friend ‘Tamar’ has been engaged to Lord Jack, but weird pheromones have been happening in their home. Reports of a “White Lady” and a ghost that have been haunting the castle has come up. ‘Tamara’ also informs you that someone is trying to kill her, when you first start to play ‘Moonmist’ you become very overwhelmed with all the information that is given to you. Like Deadline, the game is on a timer and you must have this investigation completed before it runs out, or you will lose.

            Commands in ‘Moonmist’ are not like the commands I have normally used in games like Zork and Deadline. ‘Moonmist’ is more involved in the characters and having to interact with them. Asking them questions is a key part in figuring out what the clues are and what they mean. Interacting with the character is a big part of this piece, which I found to be a little challenging at times when trying to figure out what to ask them.

            In my experience of wandering around the castle I found to be ok. All I did was walk around and look at object or try to talk to people by asking the same questions to different people. I did get different responses from everyone which confused me at times, but it was fairly easy. I ended up actually figuring out the the game with only two clues. It was all a stroke of luck of wandering around and looking at object. I was shocked to see when the congratulations screen came up after looking at the object. When I noticed I had won I wanted to see how I was supposed to get to it in the actually process so I looked up a Moonmist walkthrough to figure out what the right approach was. Overall this has probably been my least favorite compared to the other interactive pieces hat I have done this far.

Moonmist Beginning

Moonmist Ending